PLINK, PLINK-PLUNK!
The pipa strings, plucked by tiny fern-like hands, spread a clear and pure sound.
"Ahh......."
So-hye, who had been hanging the laundry, stopped her hands without realizing and let out a cry of admiration.
Was it like a far-off mountain wind brushing pine needles? Like clear, cool water running between the valleys?
PLINK-PLUNK!
The sound that rang out next spread in ripples like raindrops falling on water, and passersby stopped their steps and listened.
PLINK-A-LING!
The sound, which had depth, drew out a piercing resonance and struck the strings of the heart.
A satisfied smile touched the mouth of Baek Su-hyeon, her eyes closed.
"Husband, is Mun-hyeon's talent not truly remarkable? Every note he plucks from the strings is quiet as a breath and free as the wind."
"I-indeed."
Agreeing with her appraisal, which was like a line of poetry, Jaegal Do-yun nonetheless wore a sour look.
His seven-year-old son, sitting on the veranda plucking the pipa.
His musical talent was no ordinary thing. Enough that even the performers attached to the clan praised him without reserve.
But the scholarly talent that had him speaking before a hundred days and reciting the Thousand Character Classic and the Lesser Learning at three was nowhere to be found any longer.
It was not as if he had fallen from a persimmon tree while playing, yet his son had become a dullard overnight, like a flower that took frost damage mid-bloom and stopped opening.
Since he had finished even the Lesser Learning in one go, they had taught him the Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind, but to this day he had not got past the middle of it. For four whole years he had been groaning over that one book.
They had coaxed him and they had scolded him, but there was no progress.
'Haa. Was it a brief glimmer after all, as the others say?'
He could not blame the boy.
To shout at him for neglecting learning and taking up idle arts would have been the same as cursing his mother.
Baek Su-hyeon. She was a musician's daughter, the First Beauty of the Danjiang and the finest player on the Danjiang.
He himself was the man who had fallen for her at a glance and, against the clan's opposition, argued that one could hardly call a gift worthless when every man is born with different talents, and married her.
How could he speak ill of his son for inheriting that talent?
He only found it a pity.
"How was it?"
"It was exceedingly fine. Your playing set me wandering above the clouds for a while, and your mother is deeply moved."
Jaegal Mun-hyeon smiled at the sight of his mother even wiping away tears, and this time looked at his father.
"Father?"
"Hm?"
"Was it not to your liking?"
At his son's downcast face he glanced at Baek Su-hyeon's mood, then startled and waved his hands.
"N-not to my liking? I was only steeped in the feeling of it and failed to give my praise. Your father is immeasurably glad to be able to hear you play."
"Phew, what a relief. I have been worrying all this while over how I might please you, Father."
"Worrying? How can you say such a thing? Nonsense."
"The truth is...... it seemed you were no little disappointed that my studies have not improved lately."
"Hm?"
"I do not know why I am like this either. I want to do better......."
As his son's face crumpled further toward tears, Jaegal Do-yun's face was stained with alarm.
"Mun-hyeon, how can you say that? Not once have I been disappointed in you. Have you forgotten? The very reason I first fell for your mother was her pipa playing."
"......."
"How could a man's purpose lie in learning alone? If each brings the talent he was born with into flower, that too deserves to be recognized. I am always cheering for you."
"Really?"
"Of course!"
At Jaegal Do-yun's words Baek Su-hyeon smiled.
All of it was, needless to say, Jaegal Mun-hyeon's meticulous plan.
'It was when I was five.'
While puzzling over a way to become a dullard without disappointing Father, and a way to please Mother, he heard his mother's pipa playing and thought: this is it.
Namely, to display musical talent.
He had heard the story of their love countless times through So-hye.
Playing the pipa?
How hard could that be?
He had never reached the summit of it, but there had been a time when music interested him.
Sound arts were martial learning too, and he used to pick up anything at all if it might bring enlightenment.
In any case, learning the pipa left calluses on his soft fingertips, but after repeated practice he could play quite respectably.
'Haa. Being a good son is truly difficult.'
Fortunately Father was not small-minded, so it worked.
Inwardly he sighed, but he had set his parents' hearts at ease, and that was enough.
He had learned the love between parent and child through them, and if something comes, something must go.
And now the time had come.
He had waited seven years, receiving his parents' love and devoted care.
The love he had not received in his past life was, by now, filled to overflowing.
Bound by the ties of heaven as they were, he would go on being loved.
He was now seven.
His head now reached just below his father's chest.
Perhaps because of the good conditions, he was a little taller than the average child his age.
Hiding his true self all the while, reading books and playing nothing but the pipa for years, he was itching beyond endurance.
It was time to quietly broach the main point.
Bastards who received a clan's full backing, who were managed from the womb and granted graces like Marrow Cleansing the moment they were born, had strong frames to begin with, so it did not matter if they began martial learning while still toddling. But to do that with a body that had lived as it pleased would mean disaster.
Martial learning in a body whose five organs and six viscera had not properly formed? Out of the question.
There is a proper time for training as well.
Seven: the age at which the bones finally ripen and inner and outer strike their first balance.
He had already secretly ordered his breathing and strengthened his blood vessels so that his energy could spread evenly, but he had reached the age that required learning in earnest.
But the Jaegal Clan did not teach martial learning until a child passed ten.
Stupid bastards.......
They were bastards who did not even know they were missing the window, so there was no chance they would listen to a seven-year-old child.
So he had no choice but to move himself.
"Father, if I may."
"Hm?"
"I have a request."
"Speak. I have heard fine playing, so a fitting gift is in order. Shall we go out to the market? The three of us could eat out for once, and buy those candied sweets you love."
"C-cand......."
He flinched.
Damned body, damned child's instinct.
But he clenched his teeth, looked at his father, and said what he had meant to say.
"I should like to go into the library."
"The libr......ary?"
At last he had shaken off the lure of those sweet candies.
One might wonder what was so impressive about that, but he had overcome a seven-year-old's instinct, so he had crossed a great wall.
"Yes. I hear there are countless books in the Myriad Books Pavilion."
Father's eyes flew open.
He was so excited that his snorting breaths were plainly audible.
He must be pleased.
A son who had neglected learning all this while, suddenly asking to go into the library.......
"Your request is truly to enter the library?"
"Yes. A man of seven years, how can he go on neglecting his studies? You are busy with public and private affairs, and my progress is slow, so I thought that if I entered the library and met with all sorts of books, my interest might rise again."
"Oh, ho ho ho ho."
"They tell me I am still too young to be let into the library. I hear an adult's permission is required, and a companion as well."
"That is so."
The Myriad Books Pavilion.
The Jaegal Clan's library, holding tens of thousands of volumes, boasted a scale among the greatest in the Central Plains. Classics, mechanisms, formations, miscellaneous studies and history, there was no book it did not have.
"Mun-hyeon, how admirable that you should think such a thing. But if you wish to study letters, your father is here, and I can assign you a teacher of letters if you like."
"No. I should like to try it alone."
"Alone?"
"Yes. I know my characters well enough, so I want to read this book and that on my own and find the study that suits me."
"Hmm......."
At his son's words Jaegal Do-yun furrowed his brow as though deliberating.
He could simply say 'very well' and be done with it. What was there to deliberate over?
Watching him, Baek Su-hyeon lent her support to her son's wish.
"Husband, grant it. Does the child not want it so badly?"
"......."
"The reason children are forbidden the Myriad Books Pavilion is the fear that they might damage the books kept inside. But what sort of child is Mun-hyeon? He is more grown-up than other children and does not even play pranks."
"That is......."
Seeing Jaegal Do-yun inwardly pleased yet hesitant, Baek Su-hyeon looked at her son and spoke.
"Mun-hyeon."
"Yes."
"Every book in the Myriad Books Pavilion is precious. You understand your mother's meaning?"
"Of course. I mean only to sit quietly and read."
"You see, Husband."
When Baek Su-hyeon took her son's side and pressed him, Jaegal Do-yun deliberated a moment, then unfastened the tally tag at his waist and held it out.
"Haa. Very well. So be it. This is the Military Stratagem Hall Leader's tally tag."
"......?"
"Show it to the guard of the Myriad Books Pavilion. I will obtain the Pavilion Master's permission myself. In exchange, you must take So-hye with you without fail. I trust you, but other people's eyes will not."
"Thank you, Father."
Snatching up the tally tag, Jaegal Mun-hyeon answered with the brightest smile he had ever shown.
His true intentions, of course, differed somewhat from what his parents imagined.
What he wanted was a beginner's martial arts manual.
He already remembered countless martial arts, but they were all demonic arts.
If he meant to leave the Jaegal Clan he could practice them at once, but run away from home at seven?
Absurd.
Murim was a harsh place...... he would likely die before he had a chance to bloom.
That was how the orthodox sects were.
They violently reject the martial learning of the unorthodox, the demonic and the heterodox.
And if traces of demonic arts were discovered and suspicion fell on him for nothing?
They would sever the sinews of his limbs and destroy his inner arts on the spot...... ugh, he did not even want to think about it.
And what reason was there to go to the Demonic Cult?
That tie ended when he died.
He had only to be true to his new life.
Above all he had good parents, three square meals a day, and the blood of a direct line in his own right.
The name Jaegal Clan nagged at him a little, but so what?
"How fine, Mun-hyeon. Your mother is always proud of you."
"Yes, Mother."
Baek Su-hyeon embraced Jaegal Mun-hyeon gently.
Warm and easeful.
An emotion beyond words fills my heart.
With this, why would I go back to the Demonic Cult?
I liked the Jaegal very much.
***
"Welcome. I have had word from the Pavilion Master."
At the tally tag Jaegal Mun-hyeon held out, the guard of the Myriad Books Pavilion bowed politely.
"May I go in?"
"You may. However, only the first floor is permitted, and you must keep your maidservant with you at all times."
"Thank you."
Having thanked the guard, Jaegal Mun-hyeon crossed the threshold of the Myriad Books Pavilion.
Who in the world had made the threshold this high?
It was rather a struggle for short legs, and it reminded him again how young he still was.
"Young Master, you know you must never damage the books?"
"I know."
"Never, ever."
"Honestly, I said I know."
"My life depends on it. Why do you think they make you bring me along? If a book is damaged you will only get a scolding, Young Master, but I who came with you will be beaten."
"That will not happen, so do not worry. Would I ever cause So-hye trouble?"
"I know, but I cannot help worrying."
"Ugh, honestly......."
At So-hye's fretting Jaegal Mun-hyeon sighed and shook his head.
Watching them, the guard smiled without realizing.
Even with a seven-year-old master, could a servant speak so freely of her own position?
In the Jaegal Clan, a clan of scholars that laid particular stress on proper conduct, it was not an easy thing.
It said plainly enough how Jaegal Mun-hyeon treated So-hye day to day.
"Well now, this is the first time I have envied a maidservant."
Come to think of it, Jaegal Do-yun, Leader of the Military Stratagem Hall, and his wife were the same.
They treated those beneath them with sincerity.
It occurred to him that it might be because of her origins.
They were unlike any other Jaegal couple.
Those who carried on the Jaegal name usually made political marriages with houses to match, with the children of merchant circles or small sects.
But Jaegal Do-yun braved the clan's opposition and married the daughter of a family of performers.
Had he not been the one man in the Jaegal Clan's history able to reproduce the Eight Formations Diagram, the marriage would have been impossible.
But Baek Su-hyeon never won the clan's acceptance, nor grew close to its people.
She was regarded as a kind of blemish.
"Still, I wonder if there will not be another uproar. Things only just quieted down once word spread that he was a dullard who glimmered briefly......."
Jaegal Mun-hyeon.
How galling must the genius he showed have been to the other Jaegals, who thought themselves superior?
"Haa. If the Myriad Books Pavilion ends up a playground for the young masters, it will be a headache......."
The guard grew uneasy for no reason.
If word spread that Jaegal Mun-hyeon had entered the Myriad Books Pavilion, attention would of course gather, and naturally the other children, still too young to be permitted entry, would come as well.
That was no matter.
If they damaged a book, they could answer for it themselves.
The problem was that however lofty their station, children were children.
They still found it hard to govern their feelings, so sometimes they spoke without thinking, and fights broke out because of it.