Chapter 14: Chapter 14
Leaving the campsite, Jang Geon and Ju Yeo-rang advanced along the dark mountain trail relying on a single torch.
Had they been ordinary commoners, it would have been an act resulting in a misstep and a broken ankle right away, but the two who had practiced martial arts advanced without much difficulty until the sun rose and were able to discover a small village.
“Great. It’s over there.”
“Is there a reason we must pass through that village? Didn’t you say we might get caught by the Branch Head?”
Ju Yeo-rang swept back her hair and answered.
“Even so, we must go. Because we have to send a carrier pigeon saying we’re coming.”
“To whom?”
“Who else. The people helping us. If it’s a clash with an ancient noble clan, they will need preparation too.”
Jang Geon looked at the size of the village and muttered.
“The village is small, so I don’t know if the postal office will have carrier pigeons.”
“There are. They’re always prepared.”
Ju Yeo-rang answered Jang Geon’s muttering as if muttering herself, then marched briskly toward the village. Jang Geon watched Ju Yeo-rang with sunken eyes before pulling Jojo’s reins and following behind.
“We have to be careful in the village. Though I said they might have bribed the Martial Alliance Branch Head, seeing last night, they might just use assassins. You understand what I mean, right?”
At her words spoken without even turning around as she walked, Jang Geon merely nodded his head.
Clear, cool air came down along the mountain ridge and settled calmly inside the small village. Over it, the morning sun that had risen was already beaming down bright sunlight, and though people frowned at that sunlight, they were moving busily.
A group of three or four children who had been running around together since morning came to an abrupt stop upon discovering Jang Geon and Ju Yeo-rang entering the village. Ju Yeo-rang smiled brightly at those children, approached them, and asked.
“Hello? Could I ask you something?”
The children hesitated with faces mixing curiosity and a bit of caution. Seeing that, Ju Yeo-rang knelt on one knee and looked the children in the eye.
“Do you happen to know where the postal office in this village is?”
At the simple question, the hesitating children all pointed in one direction. Among them, the fellow who looked the oldest spoke.
“Grandpa Chu is running the medical clinic and the postal office together. You can just look for the clinic signboard and enter.”
Ju Yeo-rang smiled brightly, patted that child’s head, pulled a few coins from her breast pocket, and handed them over.
“Thank you. Buy something delicious with this and share it.”
Receiving the coins, the children shouted ‘Waah!’ and stampeded away into the distance. Ju Yeo-rang couldn’t take her eyes off the receding children as she slowly stood up. Jang Geon also looked at the children’s backs and spoke.
“It seems you like children.”
“I had younger siblings. The age gap was quite large. There were two boys and two girls, and all four were truly bright and cute children… If they grew up well, they would have become good adults…”
Before anyone knew it, she was staring at the receding children with vacant eyes. Even when Jang Geon looked back at her, she didn’t seem to feel his gaze. Jang Geon quietly observed the sorrow and longing visible on her face before asking.
“Is this your first time in this village?”
“Yes, first…”
Ju Yeo-rang answered reflexively, then stopped her mouth. And she met Jang Geon’s eyes looking at her. His eyes were calm without a single tremor. It wasn’t a coldness like steel or inorganic matter, but a calmness like a quiet lake, where even if a large stone were thrown with all one’s might, a tiny ripple would be all it could cause.
“…Let’s go quickly. If we send the carrier pigeon now and move, we’ll be able to get help tomorrow morning.”
Having met those eyes in a daze for a moment, Ju Yeo-rang barely avoided his gaze and spoke like that. Afterwards, the two sent the same cautious glances toward the villagers who looked at them with cautious eyes, and entered the shop with a clinic signboard.
“Welcome. Outsiders have come since morning. What business brings you?”
An old man who had been burning tobacco in a short pipe since morning was scratching his head. He seemed to find guests a bit bothersome.
Ju Yeo-rang approached him and spoke.
“I’d like to use a carrier pigeon.”
“…Carrier pigeon?”
“Yes. Carrier pigeon.”
“No, this is a postal office, but… a carrier pigeon?”
The old man looked at Ju Yeo-rang with eyes full of absurdity, then asked as if to hear her out.
“Where are you sending it to?”
“The Yue Villa.”
Only then did the old man nod as if understanding, told her to wait a moment, and went to the back of the shop. After a moment, he returned with a really large birdcage in hand, and inside that cage were three carrier pigeons.
“What shall I write to send?”
“That I need help right now and am heading over. Please write down for them to come greet us.”
“Whose name shall I write?”
“Ju Yeo-rang.”
The old man wrote three notes with the same content and attached them to the ankles of all three carrier pigeons. Then he extended his hand to Ju Yeo-rang.
“…Pardon?”
“You have to pay.”
“Ah.”
Ju Yeo-rang fumbled in her breast pocket, then eventually pulled out the pipa strapped to her back and fiddled with it. Taking out a small pouch from the pipa’s hidden compartment just as seen last time, she pulled out a silver coin from it and handed it over.
Confirming the old man launching the carrier pigeons from the back of the shop, Jang Geon and Ju Yeo-rang came out and this time looked for a stable. Buying a horse for Ju Yeo-rang to ride there, they slowly exited the village, while the villagers merely watched with cautious eyes without picking any fights. The Martial Alliance Branch Head didn’t look for them either.
Finding that even more anxiety-inducing, Ju Yeo-rang looked around as they almost completely exited the village.
“What is this? Why is nothing happening?”
“If nothing happens, that’s good.”
“But… if they were planning to stop us, using this village would be the best option…”
Jang Geon straightened his crooked bamboo hat and spoke.
“It seems that friend is a person with more common sense than thought.”
“That friend?”
“Je Un-seong.”
Ju Yeo-rang let out a chuckle and shook her head.
“Would a person with common sense try to forcibly kidnap someone who says they dislike it? Truly a mystery.”
Riding their horses, the two were soon able to leave the village. Leaving the mountain valley, the densely packed trees decreased, and the jutting terrain softened into gentle knolls. As the terrain became gentle, it became easier for the horses to pick up speed. The two adjusted their speed appropriately so the horses wouldn’t get too exhausted.
Advancing like that for a long while, Ju Yeo-rang raised her hand and pointed at a low mountain visible in the distance.
“That way! I have a hideout I know over there!”
It meant entering the forest again after barely leaving it. However, without saying much, Jang Geon rode Jojo following behind her. The two rode continuously along a riverstream with low water levels until late afternoon.
Ju Yeo-rang, who was continuously following the riverstream, turned her reins.
“This way!”
Not far from there, they were able to discover a small cave between towering conifers. Dismounting from her horse, Ju Yeo-rang rubbed her eyes and spoke.
“Let’s rest here for today. We couldn’t even sleep yesterday.”
“How did you find a cave like this?”
The cave had a deep throat inside a not very wide entrance, and the pitch darkness appeared uncommonly deep.
“Shall I call it my secret place? It’s a place I found while avoiding rain around here last time. If you go in a bit, it gets too narrow to enter, but at the entrance, you can stretch your waist.”
The two unbuckled the horses’ saddles, lit a campfire, and boiled tea to drink. Not long after they set up camp inside the cave, the sun set and the surroundings quickly darkened. Holding a metal cup with both hands, Ju Yeo-rang looked out at the darkened exterior and spoke.
“They seem to have given up.”
Jang Geon, who was grilling and eating dried meat, looked at her as if asking what she meant.
“Je Un-seong. Since your skill is more impressive than thought, he seems to have simply given up for now. He’s probably thinking of aiming for an opportunity when I separate from you.”
She looked at Jang Geon and smiled brightly.
“However, by tomorrow morning my friends will come to greet me, and then that’s the end of it.”
“I see.”
Ju Yeo-rang looked at Jang Geon indifferently chewing dried meat and tilted her head.
“Tomorrow you’ll get to see Imperial Army martial arts, aren’t you looking forward to it?”
“Naturally I’m looking forward to it. It’s an opportunity to indirectly feel the Emperor’s martial arts.”
“But you don’t seem very excited, do you?”
Instead of answering, Jang Geon turned his eyes to the campfire and chewed the dried meat. Ju Yeo-rang looked at Jang Geon’s face for a long while, not feeling bad about the lack of an answer.
“Why didn’t you join the Martial Alliance?”
Jang Geon let out a light sigh and faced her.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, with that martial arts skill, it seems you could settle down in the Martial Alliance or a subordinate sect somewhere. Rather than wandering around like this and getting tangled in troubles.”
“…I just dislike being bound somewhere.”
Ju Yeo-rang smiled faintly.
“Aha. You have a deep wanderlust?”
Saying so, she went to pick up the pipa she had laid down beside her, but rethinking it, she set it down and stealthily approached beside Jang Geon.
“Can I ask a bit more?”
“About what?”
Ju Yeo-rang wore a subtle smile.
“Helping me, it’s because I’m pretty, right?”
“That’s part of it too.”
At Jang Geon’s immediate answer, she wore an expression of being rather deflated instead.
“…If that’s part of it, are there other reasons? Imperial Army martial arts?”
Chewing the dried meat, Jang Geon fixed his gaze on the campfire and spoke.
“I am merely protecting myself.”
“…Pardon?”
Following Ju Yeo-rang’s counter-question, his words continued.
“Ordinarily, its presence cannot even be known, nor can it be shown to others, but inside my chest, there is one more eye watching the world. That eye can do nothing. It merely watches quietly in a daze. Compared to other powers overflowing in the world, it is far too powerless and fleeting a gaze.”
Ju Yeo-rang looked at him with somewhat vacant eyes. Without taking his eyes off the fire, he continued speaking.
“However, when there is a fallen person before my eyes, that eye glares at me with all its might. As if shouting to help quickly, as if asking if that isn’t the virtue you learned. However, that is merely a powerless gaze inside my heart. Ignoring it causes no problem. So sometimes I truly ignore that eye. If I do so a few more times, the gaze loses strength and fades, becoming an even more vain eye. Given more time, it will probably vanish like passing adolescence.”
Jang Geon took his eyes off the campfire and looked at Ju Yeo-rang.
“However, in the end I cannot just watch that eye vanish completely. Because that eye is ultimately my eye. Because it is the past me that could never be recovered once gone.”
His eyes were looking straight into Ju Yeo-rang’s eyes. They were calm eyes showing not a single tremor as always.
“That is why I help you. Because right now, that eye is looking at you. Does that answer your question?”
Ju Yeo-rang continued to look at Jang Geon with a dazed face. Looking at him like that for a long while, she approached slowly as if not even feeling herself move. And she kissed Jang Geon.
After a brief silence where the campfire swayed and only the hooting of an owl was heard outside the cave, Ju Yeo-rang parted her lips and looked at Jang Geon.
“…You are truly strange. A strangeness that won’t exist anywhere else in the world.”
“A delightful strangeness.”
At Jang Geon’s answer, Ju Yeo-rang let out a chuckle and kissed him again. The campfire merely illuminated the two interweaving skins while swaying calmly as it was.
Outside the cave, Jojo diligently chewed grass in his mouth while intently peeking at those swaying shadows.
* * *
Jang Geon opened his eyes feeling that he had truly slept deeply for the first time in a long while.
Having exerted strength all night, it was perhaps a natural feeling. Rubbing his eyes as he stood up, Jang Geon realized that the campfire was extinguished. And that Ju Yeo-rang and her baggage were gone.
However, Jang Geon stood up as if nothing had happened, drank the cold tea, and put on his clothes. Afterwards, he picked up a torn cloth left in the spot where Ju Yeo-rang’s bed had been. Inside, characters written with soot were recorded.
[I’m sorry. Thank you for the past few days. Don’t think of chasing me. Because it’s dangerous.]
Neatly folding it and putting it into his breast pocket, Jang Geon grabbed his sword and came outside. And he spoke unwittingly.
“Fuck. Jojo, you bastard.”
Jojo was gone. Ju Yeo-rang had probably led him along while riding her own horse, but the Jojo Jang Geon knew was not a fellow who would be led away just because someone pulled him. Ju Yeo-rang had probably coaxed him with a smiling face, so he had promptly followed along.
Jang Geon stood lopsided and let out a deep sigh. Then, unstrapping the sword from his waist, he strapped it to his back and squatted on the spot. Before long, he was able to discover the horse hooves of Ju Yeo-rang and Jojo.
“Lightness art after a long time.”
Muttering to himself, Jang Geon tied the sword on his back tightly once more and hopped lightly on the spot. And the next moment, he sprang out rapidly in the direction of Ju Yeo-rang’s horse hooves. It was a speed as fast as a running horse.
Though soil and grass on the ground ought to be crushed by those fast feet, in the places he passed, only faint traces remained as if barely stepped on.