It was deep in the night by the time Seo Woojin returned to the Baek estate, and he went straight to Baek Gyeong. Fortunately Baek Gyeong hadn’t gone to bed yet, and welcomed him warmly.
Out of habit he went to pour tea into Seo Woojin’s cup, then caught himself.
“Ah. But you wouldn’t drink it, so—”
Before he could finish, Seo Woojin lifted the cup and drank.
Baek Gyeong couldn’t hide his surprise. Only a few days ago Seo Woojin had refused the tea, saying he was still on his guard.
Seo Woojin read his flustered look and gave a faint smile.
“The scent is fine.”
Baek Gyeong made a low sound in his throat and refilled the empty cup.
“It’s Longjing tea. The Military Advisor sent me some as a gift a while ago.”
“Advisor Woon did?”
“Yes. Every so often, just as I was about to forget her, she’d send word.”
Seo Woojin nodded.
Woon Seorin too must have wanted the Baek Clan on her side, neutral faction though it was. Which was why she had been cultivating the connection so quietly, without ever moving in the open.
“Then let me hear it now. You had a reason for wanting to see me at this late hour? Or is it that you mean to refuse my request?”
The voice was calm, but tension was threaded clearly through it.
Seo Woojin took another sip of tea.
Tak.
Then he asked his question.
“There’s something I want to ask first.”
“Go ahead.”
“Why does the Baek Clan stand at the middle?”
“…?”
Baek Gyeong tilted his head, seemingly unable to follow.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Just what I said. You received the Military Advisor’s protection — why didn’t you throw in with the Woon Clan? Your daughter’s life was held hostage — why didn’t you throw in with the Cheon or the Gok? What great cause is there, that keeps you belonging to no side at all?”
“…”
Baek Gyeong kept silent for a while. He seemed to be weighing the intent behind the question, and choosing his words along with it.
Seo Woojin waited. At length, Baek Gyeong spoke.
“A great cause…”
He let out a deep sigh.
“A purpose without responsibility puts everyone in danger. The howl of a wolf baying at the sky is desperate, and it stirs the heart — but to the sky it is only one noise among many.”
Baek Gyeong let out a wry laugh.
“How much less now, when all that’s left are mad dogs — purpose lost, rabid with greed. In a place like that there is no great cause.”
He had called the hardliners mad dogs. It was a strong thing to say, but Baek Gyeong stayed perfectly calm — he seemed not to care which side Seo Woojin stood on.
“Then what would you say of the hunting hound that fastens its own collar? The patience of such men was surely beautiful at first. But patience becomes habit, and habit builds inertia. The obeisance of the bowed head is no longer shame; the humiliation of watching for their moods is no longer disgrace. What great cause could there be in the life of livestock, its dignity cut away, dying by slow degrees?”
As biting an appraisal as before. And how did he judge himself?
Baek Gyeong gave a self-mocking smile.
“I am no different. The word ‘middle’ has been dressed up nicely and pinned to me, but the reality is only a man too irresolute to choose either side. I take comfort in the fact that I have no strength of my own, and I only watch the dark path die. You asked what great cause there is in holding to the middle? What great cause could there be for a small man who does nothing and looks only to his own safety?”
The words rang sincere. He looked squarely at what the dark path had become, and blamed himself for his own cowardice in the same breath — that much came through.
Seo Woojin put his next question.
“Then what does Clan Head Baek think the great cause of the dark path should be?”
“…”
Baek Gyeong fell silent again. He turned his words over for a long moment, then gave a small laugh.
“There’s not much to a great cause, really. One need only go the opposite way from everything I’ve just described.”
He looked Seo Woojin straight in the eye. Worry, that look, or longing? For the moment Seo Woojin couldn’t tell.
“To take no man’s interference. To be no man’s hunting dog. And by our own laws alone, to stand on our own as one piece of the murim. That is the great cause I imagine for the dark path.”
Thud.
Something heavy seemed to settle.
Seo Woojin felt the whole of what lay behind the words, and gave a small nod.
Truth be told, he didn’t really know. No — to put it bluntly, the great cause of the dark path held no interest for him. He only needed to find his enemy.
But he did want the man he was saving to be worth saving. And having glimpsed even a part of what Baek Gyeong carried, that much was beyond question.
“The Baek estate is going to burn.”
“…!!”
Baek Gyeong’s eyes went wide, but he held his tongue. Just as Seo Woojin had been taking his measure, he had been taking Seo Woojin’s — and for now he meant to hear him out.
“How many are there in the Baek Clan’s direct line? As many bodies as there are direct-line members will be found scattered across the estate. The fire that swallows the place will burn those bodies too. Nobody will be able to tell who was who.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“It’s simple. I’m going to stage the annihilation of the Baek Clan.”
“…!!”
“Starting from today, the Baek Clan’s warriors must slip away a few at a time. They’ll leave in different directions, but their destination will be the same.”
Baek Gyeong’s steady gaze wavered.
“That means—”
Seo Woojin nodded.
“I won’t kill anyone from the Clear Water Baek Clan. I intend to save every one of you.”
Baek Gyeong reached for his cup with a trembling hand, then gave up on it. And when he spoke, his voice shaking a little as well, it was to doubt the thing first.
“Is that… is that even possible? And what would Young Master Seo stand to gain from it?”
“The malice that was aimed at the Baek Clan will scatter without ever reaching its target. That alone — the mere fact of wrecking their scheme — would satisfy me. But…”
A deep smile hung at the corner of Seo Woojin’s mouth.
“The biggest reason is that I want it for myself.”
“Want what?”
“You. And this clan.”
“…!!”
“I want the Baek Clan under my command. That is why I mean to save you.”
The man who had stayed composed in the face of his own death was visibly shaken now. He surely hadn’t imagined an offer like this one.
An ordinary man would have seized a lifeline dropped from heaven without a moment’s thought. But Baek Gyeong was not an ordinary man.
“I’ll have to speak frankly, even at the cost of manners. Setting aside whether Young Master Seo’s plan will succeed — suppose you did save us. Do you have the strength to protect us? And if it came out that we had fled, wouldn’t you have lost this trial?”
Seo Woojin agreed readily.
“I’ll do my best to fool their eyes, but it might not work. Even so, I placed the value of the Baek Clan higher than the second trial. So whether I pass it isn’t important.”
“But—”
“And as for the strength to protect the Baek Clan — that’s solved once I become Alliance Lord, isn’t it?”
“…”
Baek Gyeong could not readily answer yes. To his eyes the walls of the Cheon and the Gok stood sky-high.
Seo Woojin read as much, and wasn’t offended in the least. If anything, the caution pleased him.
“There’s one more problem. There isn’t much Vein-Moistening Grass left in the clan’s stores. Even if we escape safely, if I lose my daughter… I would sooner stand and fight.”
Yes — it was for this moment that he had gone and done the thing he most abhorred.
Seo Woojin drew an envelope from his robes. Inside was a fairly thick sheaf of paper. Baek Gyeong asked with his eyes what it was.
“Vein-Moistening Grass grows only on Red Damp Mountain now. And Red Damp Mountain was sold by a high official of Ningbo Prefecture — to the Bonghwa Jang Clan.”
“Then—?”
“This is the document that proves the sale. I took it from the Jang Clan’s clan head.”
Now Baek Gyeong couldn’t keep still. With shaking hands he drew the sheaf out of the envelope. Every sheet bore a red official seal, pressed clear and sharp, and the location and extent of the mountain were set down there. It was unmistakably Red Damp Mountain.
“H-how could this…?”
Would Baek Gyeong ever know the filthy deal Seo Woojin had made to obtain that document?
[You’ve been keeping busy, haven’t you. Opium poppy, the raw material for narcotics. Even saltpeter, the main ingredient of gunpowder. All items the state forbids trading. And you’ve been selling them across the sea.]
The ledger recorded the goods the Jang Clan and Yun Giwon had smuggled together — what item, in what quantity, sold on what day and at what hour. It was meticulous. Of everything in it, the opium poppy and the saltpeter were grave enough to count as high treason; the ledger alone would have been enough to indict them.
If only those two had been the whole of it. Then Seo Woojin would not have found it so hard.
But the ledger recorded other things as well.
[There were people’s names in it. Ages. Sex. Height. Distinguishing features. Every one of them a child, not yet twenty. Some even under ten. I’ll ask you. What is this list?]
The Jang Clan’s head could not answer.
So Seo Woojin cut his ankle with the short sword, and severed the tendon in his left shoulder. And the moment he brought the blade toward the man’s eye, still screaming, the man answered.
That he had sold people. That he had handed children over to lands across the sea.
The cord of his patience felt ready to snap. He had kept his mind fixed on the “deal” precisely so as to hold his feelings out of it — but the sheer depth of their evil dragged them back out of him anyway.
Even so, he endured. Had time not been short, he would surely have taken the man’s head and gone looking for what he wanted himself.
[I’m curious. What do you suppose your head is worth? And this ledger?]
When the man asked what he wanted, Seo Woojin said it plainly.
[I hear you bought Red Damp Mountain recently. It’s worth far less than this ledger, but I’ll take the mountain as payment.]
Without a moment’s hesitation, the man handed over the purchase document. Had Seo Woojin not done violence to him when he first hesitated, he would never have gotten it this fast.
For the sake of that one deal, Seo Woojin had become a warrior of the dark path through and through.
Seo Woojin let out a faint sigh.
He had handed the ledger over, but it didn’t matter — what he’d handed over was a copy. Through Mun Seok he had also learned the location of the warehouse, and he’d passed the information to the Cheongeum Envoy before coming to the Baek estate. Woon Seorin would take care of the rest.
Violence and deceit. A deal made in evil. Perhaps it was arrogance to want all of it at once. But Seo Woojin had decided to keep his eyes on the goal he meant to reach and not on any invisible line — which was why the choice had taken him so little time, and why he didn’t regret it.
He breathed out again, clearing the thoughts away, and raised his head to look at Baek Gyeong.
“You’ll be able to keep getting Vein-Moistening Grass. Well, then. How does it look? The Baek Clan’s weakness is gone, and a rope has been let down. Will Clan Head Baek turn away from the rope in front of him because he can’t see the heaven it came from?”
Baek Gyeong drew a deep breath in. Then, with bloodshot eyes, he looked Seo Woojin straight on.
“Then I will ask as well. What is Young Master Seo’s great cause?”
Seo Woojin let out a small laugh.
“A great cause — I couldn’t say. But…”
He had decided to look only at the goal he meant to reach. Finding his grandfather’s enemy was more urgent to him than the great cause of the dark path. But he needed companions to walk that road with him.
Tak.
Seo Woojin rapped the tea table lightly. A rich smile hung at his lips, and in his eyes was a firm resolve.
“To protect those who have stepped inside my fence. That, for now, is what I’ll take as my first great cause.”
It was a small wish to call a great cause. But it was enough to move a man’s heart.
Swish.
Baek Gyeong rose from his seat. And then—
Thud!
“I, Baek Gyeong, Clan Head of the Clear Water Baek Clan! Here and now I declare it! The Baek Clan’s blades shall be turned solely against my lord’s enemies, and my heart I shall offer up for my lord! Wherever my lord walks, I shall follow — even should that road lead into a hell where death lies waiting!”
Baek Gyeong’s oath carried a weight heavier than any promise.
Seo Woojin raised him up from his knees and broke into a grin.
“Then let’s start by annihilating the Baek Clan.”
(End of Chapter 30)