A routine repeated for several days now.
Once breakfast was over, Jaegal Mun-hyeon headed straight for the Myriad Books Pavilion.
Always at the same hour.
"I shall be going, then."
Did the son look admirable to him, now that the morning greeting was done?
"Mm, today let us go together."
Out of nowhere, that uninvited guest called Father was going to walk him there.
"Pardon?"
"Why so startled? I mean only to stop by on my way to the hall."
I would rather not.......
Whether or not he knew how sour his son felt, Jaegal Do-yun left the pavilion to Mother's send-off and walked alongside the boy, matching his stride.
How could one put such contentment into words?
On the first day his son went into the Myriad Books Pavilion, he had asked him offhandedly.
What had he read that day.
And his son had said it was nothing much and recited, listlessly, the Chapter on Speech from the Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind.
It really was nothing much.
Among the descendants of the Jaegal Clan there was no child of seven who could not manage that. Since Jaegal Mun-hyeon had shown his scholarly stagnation, the children his age had already finished the Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind and begun the Four Books.
But!
In this moment Jaegal Do-yun envied nothing in the world.
His son, who had seemed stalled, appeared to have taken a step forward in his learning, and he was simply glad.
He had inwardly given up, and the gift of wisdom had returned.
So fierce was the feeling that he nearly forgot his dignity and burst into tears.
How splendid the boy was.
He felt terribly sorry for having groaned in disappointment.
There is a time for everything.......
Looking at his son's small, daintily clenched hand, he found himself wanting to take hold of it.
When the hand he quietly brought over made contact, Jaegal Mun-hyeon started and looked up at him.
"What are you doing?"
"Hm?"
"I only wondered why you suddenly took my hand......."
At the sight of his son watching him through narrowed eyes, Jaegal Do-yun felt sheepish and laughed.
"Heh heh, is it so strange for a father to hold his son's hand?"
"It is strange."
"Hm?"
"I am old enough. Why would I hold my father's hand?"
"But you are barely seven......."
"Barely? That is quite grown enough."
At the sight of his son hiding his hand away entirely, Jaegal Do-yun could not conceal his bewilderment.
He holds his mother's hand readily enough.......
This very morning he was rubbing cheeks with her, pleased as anything.......
"Ahem! Son, even so, for once let us walk hand in hand......."
"No, thank you."
"......."
"The Military Stratagem Hall lies a different way, and you have gone out of your way to walk me here, so this is quite enough. So-hye is with me and I know how to find the road myself, so please go on to your post, Father."
At the sight of the boy refusing flatly where the road forked, something beyond mere disappointment settled on Jaegal Do-yun's face.
The boy was still a child held in his arms, and his reading and grasping of books on his own was so admirable that he wanted at least to hold his hand.
At the sight of a son already playing the grown man, he felt a pointless urge to be stubborn.
"You rascal! None of your tantrums."
"Oh, come on!"
"Enough of that!"
Jaegal Do-yun caught up to his fleeing son in a single step and tried to snatch his hand.
But would he be caught!
He nimbly slipped past his father's hand.......
"Hah hah! Got you, rascal!"
Fucking he—.
Is a Seizing Hand really called for just to hold your son's hand?
Of course, the movement was plain to see.
Would a man who had been the Heavenly Demon fail to read how the hand of a father with skill the size of a mouse dropping moved?
But he was seven now.
Even that mouse dropping was too much for him.
Countless martial arts slept in his head and he had newly read the Lesser Heavenly Star Art, but knowing and doing are entirely different things.
Only his heart was the Heavenly Demon's. His body had not been trained, so it could not move as he wished.
"There. Is it not nice?"
"......It is not nice."
His lip jutted out a good five inches at once and his face screwed up.
What a childish father. How pleased he must be, a grown man beating a seven-year-old.
"Your father finds it nice enough. Come, let us go. Hah hah hah!"
Jaegal Do-yun laughed heartily and walked on with his son's hand held tight.
"Mun-hyeon."
"Yes?"
"You know the saying that a great vessel takes long to complete?"
"I do."
"I think our Mun-hyeon may be such a man."
"Pardon?"
"Yes. What does it matter if you are only at the Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind? Keep at it steadily. Do that and, slow though you may be, one day you will reach a great purpose."
At Jaegal Do-yun's gentle words Jaegal Mun-hyeon could not contain his astonishment.
A g-great vessel taking long?
Slow?
I will never understand the Jaegal Clan.
Was the Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind at seven not tremendously fast?
Anywhere but the Jaegal Clan it would be more than enough to be called a genius. And as for the martial side...... he was already a great vessel completed swiftly.
It was just as father and son reached the vicinity of the Myriad Books Pavilion, walking in their snug (?) fashion.
"Is that not Do-yun?"
At the weighty voice from behind, Jaegal Do-yun turned hastily and bowed his head.
"I greet the Clan Head."
"Hah hah! Such a stickler. Clan Head, indeed....... In private, call me brother."
"Even so, there are eyes watching. How could I use a title carelessly?"
Jaegal Do-yun observed the courtesies and smiled.
It was Jaegal Do-won, Clan Head of the Jaegal Clan.
He was with several retainers, apparently on his way to the Grand Hall.
"Mun-hyeon, what are you doing? Greet the Clan Head and these elders."
Jaegal Mun-hyeon, still unable to pull his hand free and with his cheeks puffed out, bobbed his head curtly.
"I greet Elder Uncle and the honored elders."
"Now then, you rascal. You must say Clan Head."
Jaegal Do-yun scolded his son over the title at once, but Jaegal Do-won waved his hands and stopped him.
"Heh heh! The son is better than the father. Yes, it has been a while, Mun-hyeon. Your elder uncle has been too busy to call on you often. I heard you had taken to music lately and have been meaning to ask you to play for me sometime. Have you been well?"
"Yes, I suppose......."
At Jaegal Mun-hyeon's answer Jaegal Do-won laughed kindly, stroking his nephew's head as he spoke.
"Good. Mastery of anything will do."
It was praise, but it felt deeply unpleasant.
'This damned elder uncle.......'
Touching the crown of my head?
Granting a hundred concessions, that is a place he permitted only to his parents.
Born a descendant of the Jaegal Clan he might be, but by rights he stood in the same generation as the Clan Head's grandfather's grandfather.
And yet he dared!
A thrashing was in order on the spot, but he had no strength and, considering his father's position, he barely held it in.
Also, his elder uncle had no children.
How lovely a child must look to him?
"Mm, and what brings you toward the Grand Hall? There is no Military Stratagem Hall report today."
"Ah, I am not going to the Grand Hall but to the Myriad Books Pavilion."
"The Myriad Books Pavilion?"
"Mun-hyeon has been going into the Myriad Books Pavilion these past few days. So I am walking him there."
In that instant Jaegal Mun-hyeon saw an odd light pass through his elder uncle's eyes.
Why?
And not the Clan Head alone.
The retainers behind him also wore startled expressions, for some reason, at the news that he was studying in the Myriad Books Pavilion.
"Ahem, was that so. But is seven not too early for the Myriad Books Pavilion? There would be nothing there worth his reading."
"I sent him half in doubt myself, and yet, would you believe it, no sooner had the rascal been to the Myriad Books Pavilion than he rattled off the Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind he had been stuck on all this while?"
"The Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind?"
"Yes."
An exaggeration.
It had not been rattling off.
He had recited just a very little of it.
But the moment the words were spoken, the retainers murmured among themselves.
Every one of them wore a pleased expression.
Whatever the Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind had to do with it, the reaction was plainly to the news that his talent was flowering again.
Gaining a member of the household with outstanding talent was always a good thing.
And a father's wish to boast of his son he understood more than well enough.
But on the other hand, he was uneasy.
He had heard it from So-hye.
What effect his talent was having on his other cousins.
"It seems the way I have been teaching the boy all this while was wrong."
"So it was. A truly admirable thing. I had worried a great deal over whether Mun-hyeon's talent had been dammed up. To hear he has begun his studies again is a relief."
"My thoughts exactly."
At his father's laugh, his elder uncle knelt and brought his eyes level with the boy's.
"Mun-hyeon."
"Yes, Elder Uncle."
"You must work hard. Keep it in mind that your talent can bring wide benefit to the clan."
"I shall do so."
"You rascal......."
His elder uncle wore that kindly look again and stroked his head.
I said do not do that.
He was his father's elder brother, so at two times he endured it.
"Ahem, off you go, then."
"Yes, Clan Head."
Jaegal Mun-hyeon glanced at the backs of his elder uncle and the retainers as they filed off toward the Grand Hall, and his face darkened.
Their encouragement toward him had been sincere.
It was the gaze of clan elders looking upon a junior of outstanding talent.
The problem came when the feeling in one of them surfaced crookedly toward his own child.
And what if, at home, he made comparisons? 'Mun-hyeon studies alone in the Myriad Books Pavilion! What on earth are you doing!'
A sense of competition might be born.
But that is only when things flow in a good direction, and usually they flow where no one wants them to.
'Haa. I wonder if I am not earning my cousins' hatred all over again.'
These were things a seven-year-old would not have known, but having already lived through one lifetime, he felt he could see the coming events plainly.
***
"You bitch!"
"......?"
"A lowly servant bitch, sprawling out for a nap on a table where scholars are to study!"
"F-forgive me, Young Master. This wretch has committed a mortal offense."
"Where is your master! Not even keeping his own servant bitch in order, in a library of scholars!"
"Oh, Young Master. Please forgive me. My own Young Master has done nothing wrong. It is all the fault of this slovenly wretch."
"Silence, bitch!"
It was around the time Jaegal Mun-hyeon, after no end of effort, had transformed the Lesser Heavenly Star Art into something wholly different and was committing it to memory.
An untimely shout rang ringing through the quiet of the Myriad Books Pavilion.
A deep indigo scholar's gown.
A small boy, wearing even a square scholar's cap as if to announce that he was a Jaegal descendant, was shouting with his face flushed scarlet.
'Haa. I knew this felt unsafe.'
Jaegal Mun-hyeon, who had been too absorbed in his recitation to mind his surroundings, frowned.
A few days after meeting the Clan Head.
The first floor of the Myriad Books Pavilion had suddenly become a world of children.
The word had clearly spread.
That Jaegal Mun-hyeon was studying in the Myriad Books Pavilion. That, by what they had heard, he rattled off the Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind.
Some of them would snort and say it was only the Precious Mirror of the Bright Mind. But some with slow-learning children of their own would surely come sniffing around the Myriad Books Pavilion.
'Grown people, honestly.......'
He understood the parental impulse to copy at once upon hearing that the neighbor's child started something and his learning suddenly improved.
But was this not going a bit far?
Education too should be fitted to a child's level and interest. What progress comes of forcing it on him blindly because someone else does it?
He did not want to pay it any mind.
Let those children glare at him with resentful eyes if they liked.......
But the one kneeling before that boy now, head bowed and begging to be killed, was So-hye.
'That damned brat should keep his own servants in order. Why is he throwing bullshit at So-hye? I have never once raised my voice at her.'
She must have dozed off.
She sat down for a moment lest she fall over while nodding on her feet, and then slumped onto the table without meaning to.
And was that something to be cursed for?
It was just taking it out on her.
Made to study in the Myriad Books Pavilion when he had no wish to, and then catching sight of a dozing maidservant — how delighted must he have been?
That brat was born into a very good world indeed.
Living in comfort under good parents had even grown him some understanding. In the old days he would have seized the boy by the hair and beaten him until he begged to be spared.
SNAP.
Closing his book, Jaegal Mun-hyeon rose with a sigh and spoke to the boy.
"Hey, that's enough. Anyone can doze off for a moment. Why get angry over something like that?"
"......?"
The boy turned his head at Jaegal Mun-hyeon's words and screwed up his face.
He had evidently not known the boy was over by the Martial Tome Shelf.
Then again, there was no reason he would have examined a shelf abandoned in a corner.
And with someone smaller than the bookcase crouched before it, he would not have been visible. He had also been quiet the whole time, absorbed as he was.
But the boy's face flared bright red.
"Hey? You wretch! What kind of mouth is that to use on your elder brother!"
The boy shouted at the top of his voice, going so far as to jab a finger at him.
Ah, he was my elder brother?
He should have said so sooner.
"Either way, leave it there. You are making a racket."
"What was that? You ill-bred wretch!"
"What?"
"Very well. Since it seems you were born of lowly blood and know nothing of manners, today I shall correct that habit of yours along with your bitch of a body servant!"
"......."
At the boy's words a deep furrow cut Jaegal Mun-hyeon's brow and his eyes went cold.
"Hmm."
He had meant to live as a descendant of the Jaegal Clan, so he was going to settle for a few knocks on the head over the boy's treatment of So-hye...... but that last remark seemed to have crossed the line by quite a lot.