WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
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◈ Murim in my Hometown ◈
Chapter 21: Hao clan
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The Pavilion Master was waiting for me in the reception room I had visited yesterday. After inviting me to sit, the Pavilion Master showed me the Maek Jade they had been turning over in their hand.
“Do you know what this is?”
“I was told it is called Maek Jade.”
The Pavilion Master’s gaze turned cold. After scrutinizing me closely, they set the Maek Jade down before me.
“This is not mine.”
“Then please find its owner. I found it nearby.”
“Wouldn’t it be difficult to find its owner when so many esteemed guests visit Simhyang Pavilion?”
“I heard it was used around Hubei Province, so it must belong to one of the guests from Hubei.”
“There are many esteemed guests from Hubei as well.”
The Pavilion Master firmly shook their head. Yet they neither told me to leave nor rose from their seat.
They merely raised their teacup, savored its fragrance, and took small sips. It was an unspoken demand that I continue.
In the end, I had no choice but to bring it up.
After carefully choosing my words so they would not sound like a threat, I repeated them several times in my mind before speaking.
“Some time ago, I heard someone humming a tune. By coincidence, I later heard a woman singing it, and the next day, a young scholar had the same melody on his lips. I didn’t know it then, but I later learned it was a lullaby popular in Hubei Province. Thinking back on it, the melody was deeply wistful. The lullaby my mother sang to me as a child was like that as well. I lost my parents in a flood, so I understand what it means to long for one’s family.”
I picked up the Maek Jade, placed it before the Pavilion Master, and continued.
“I heard this Maek Jade was given as a gift to pray for a baby’s health and long life. It must hold a heartrending story for some esteemed guest, if they treasured it enough to repair it with gold after it broke.”
The Pavilion Master had been looking at the Maek Jade, but then looked at me with only their eyes. Their sharp, icy gaze seemed as though it might pierce straight through me.
I had only been half certain, but I had guessed correctly.
My throat was dry, so I lifted my teacup. The room had fallen into such suffocating silence that the sound of me drinking seemed to ring out loudly.
As I began quietly mapping out an escape route amid the hair-trigger tension, the Pavilion Master let out a long sigh.
“...I believe I understand now. I will find its owner and return it. Is there something you want?”
“The murderer who killed Escort Bang Join has not been caught yet.”
“That is true.”
“As you know, I was the first to inspect the body after running over when I heard the scream. I fear my position could become troublesome if things go wrong.”
“I do not believe there is anything I can do about that matter.”
When I frowned slightly, the Pavilion Master smiled.
“Simhyang Pavilion trusted Yongcheon Escort Agency in the past, and we trust it now. The chief head escort identified the masked man in black as the murderer, so that is what we will believe and will continue to do so.”
“You know the Criminal Judge has arrived, do you not?”
“Do not worry. Nothing will happen to Escort Jeong, no, Hero Jeong. Tomorrow evening, I will meet the County Magistrate and arrange to settle this matter here. It would not benefit this pavilion if things became any more troublesome. Tell me what else you desire.”
The County Magistrate was the official who governed a county. It was not someone just anyone could meet simply because they wished to.
Yet the Pavilion Master made that promise as casually as if taking an item from a pocket.
It did not seem like a lie. There appeared to be some connection. Come to think of it, the County Magistrate had attended Yi Yunjae’s provincial examination celebration banquet.
“There is nothing else.”
“It would be improper not to repay a favor.”
The Pavilion Master opened a wooden box and took out a red silk pouch.
“Open it.”
When I loosened the pouch, a bundle of papers came out.
They were banknotes.
They were issued by the Golden Bank, whose notes could be exchanged for silver anywhere in the Central Plains and were favored by everyone.
There were ten notes worth ten taels of silver each.
“This is far too much.”
The Pavilion Master shook their head.
“It is not too much. This Maek Jade is a rare treasure unlike any other under heaven. Even if silver were piled as high as a mountain, it would weigh less than this. I would like to offer you several hundred taels, but it would be rude to express my gratitude with silver alone, so I will give you this instead.”
The Pavilion Master reached into their robes and took out something small, round, and dark in color.
When I accepted it, it was light and hard, seemingly made of agarwood, with a faint fragrance.
The front bore the engraved character for “down.”
I turned it over without thinking, then felt the hair on my body stand on end.
The reverse bore the character for “filth.”
Below the character, small letters read “Seochon, Heart.” I thought I understood what that meant as well.
“...Is this place part of the Hao clan?”
The Pavilion Master smiled at my frozen expression.
The Hao clan, whose name meant the Low and Unclean Sect, was an organization formed by people who lived at the bottom of society, doing unpleasant work: courtesans, inn attendants, coachmen, boatmen, gamblers, thieves, pickpockets, and the like.
No one knew who had formed it, when it had been founded, or how vast its numbers and influence were.
Only those in the know knew the locations of its headquarters and branches, or how to make contact.
There were only two reasons someone connected to such an underground organization would reveal their identity to me.
Either they thought I was about to die, or they considered me one of their own.
Judging by the atmosphere, thankfully, it seemed to be the latter.
“Allow me to introduce myself again. I am Hong Hui, head of the Seochon branch of the Hao clan.”
The shock was enough to make my head buzz.
I had somewhat guessed at the relationship between the Pavilion Master and Yi Yunjae, but I never imagined I would hear this here.
I thought the Black Night Gang and Yongcheon Escort Agency had divided Seochon between them and maintained a balance of power. To think the Hao clan was nestled between them as well...
Had I fled a wolf only to leap into a tiger’s den?
A chill ran over my skin at the sense of danger, as though invisible blades had surrounded me from all directions. I gripped the Ink Token tightly, only then realizing what it was.
“Is this perhaps the Token of Favor I have only heard about?”
“It is called that as well. You know of it?”
“I’ve heard of it. How is it used?”
“The Gate’s branches cover the entire Central Plains. Wherever you go, show it discreetly to an inn attendant or innkeeper, and there will be someone who recognizes it. You may obtain the information you seek, or receive a hiding place or an escape route.”
According to Hong Hui’s explanation, it was more useful to a martial artist, who often had to pursue or be pursued, than one hundred taels of silver.
“Is it really all right to give me something like this so casually? You don’t know how I might use it.”
“The Ink Token is not all-powerful. It may only be used once, and unreasonable requests may be refused.”
“Even one use could cause great harm.”
Perhaps she was impressed that I showed no greed and remained so cautious. Hong Hui stared at me with new interest.
“All I have gained from blooming, withering, and fading away in the world of courtesans is wrinkles and the ability to judge people. If I have misjudged Hero Jeong, that is mine to bear, so do not concern yourself with it.”
A moment of silence passed.
Hong Hui carefully studied me as I turned the Ink Token over in my hand, then lifted a jade teapot and refilled my cup.
“Would you like to hear an uninteresting story?”
Without waiting for my answer, Hong Hui continued.
“I have never married, but I had a son.”
I quickly pulled my lips away from the teacup and interrupted.
“I do not know whether this is something I should hear.”
“Did you not come here already somewhat certain? It is fine for you to hear it. Finding this alone gives you more than enough right.”
As though she could see straight into my heart, Hong Hui began her story while turning the Maek Jade over in her hand.
“I was sold to pay a debt and began life as a courtesan at fifteen. A courtesan must be a flower that speaks. No matter how painful or difficult life is, one must dress beautifully and always smile...”
It was only natural.
The customers came to enjoy drinking, music, and dancing amid a lively atmosphere, not to comfort courtesans.
There were occasionally people who listened in an effort to win a courtesan’s favor, but apparently most merely ended by slipping a hand beneath her robes.
“Then I met him. He was the first person to recognize the tears hidden behind my smile and wipe them away.”
Hong Hui’s eyes grew distant.
There was a young scholar who had repeatedly failed the civil examinations and visited the pleasure house in despair, and there was a timid young courtesan.
As though they had fallen in love at first sight, they soothed each other’s rough edges, and their relationship quickly deepened.
“...Then I bore his child. It was a son.”
The scholar’s affection for Hong Hui seemed to have been sincere. He had paid the pleasure house a considerable sum to free her, then set up a separate household for her in a quiet place.
A gentle smile blossomed across Hong Hui’s face as she recalled those days.
It appeared to have been the happiest period of her life, so happy that even remembering it made her heart swell.
“When the child was five, his principal wife came to see me. I thought she might mean us harm, but... the way she looked at my son was full of envy and longing.”
The principal wife could not bear children.
The scholar’s concubines had all given birth only to daughters, so there was no son to carry on the family line. Even his relatives had few sons, making it difficult to adopt an heir.
Among the scholar’s children, Yi Yunjae, born to Hong Hui, was his only son.
“She said she would take my son and raise him as her own. He said he had received great support from her family and could do nothing about it, then turned away. Once the feelings that had burned so brightly faded, it seemed he no longer had the courage to stand against her family. He was a gentle and kind man, but also a terribly weak one. Perhaps that was why I was drawn to him. And so, my only child was taken from me.”
Hong Hui furrowed her brow and let out a quiet sigh.
She had no power to reclaim her son.
By chance, she joined the Hao clan, became a courtesan again, and clawed her way upward until she gained power. Even then, she could not go to find her son.
“Is life not truly cruel? Only then did the cruel words his principal wife had spoken become daggers lodged in my heart.”
Not every customer who visited a pleasure house was a libertine lost in drink, women, and gambling.
Among them were people with extraordinary talent who could not fulfill their ambitions because of their mother’s low status, and who soothed their resentment with drink.
“From some point on, I began to see my son’s face overlap with theirs. I was terribly afraid that if I appeared, my son’s future would become the same.”
Before being torn from his mother at the age of five, Hong Hui’s son had already finished the Thousand Character Classic, a scholar born with talent.
His family had placed all its expectations and support upon him, calling him a prodigy who could restore the family’s fortunes.
“That was why I could not go to him. I could not bear to see the face of my son, whose ambitions would be crushed before he could even fulfill them because of his worthless mother.”
Hong Hui had soothed her longing by receiving news through the Hao clan’s Hubei branch. But recently, she could no longer endure it.
Her son had finally passed the provincial examination.
“I petitioned the Prefectural Magistrate, and we decided to hold a celebration banquet at our pleasure house. The son I met again after twenty years had grown into such an admirable man.”
I recalled Yi Yunjae as I had seen him stepping down from his carriage. His face had been bright and proud, as though he possessed the entire world.
The next day, he had seemed to have lost it all, his face filled with anguish and worry.
Yi Yunjae had not recognized the birth mother from whom he had been separated as a child. He had believed she died of illness.
“For my son’s future, perhaps that was better. I tried to convince myself of that, but I could not control the sorrow that welled up inside me. As I withdrew to the separate residence and tried to calm myself, I began humming a lullaby without realizing it. I never expected him to hear it and come looking for me. I never imagined he would remember the lullaby, or that he would still treasure this Maek Jade so dearly...”
After finishing the long story, which felt almost like a confession, Hong Hui lifted her teacup with a relieved expression, as though every dark cloud in her heart had been washed away.
It seemed she had wanted, at least once, to unburden herself completely to someone.
Of course, she had not spoken of what mattered most.
The person who killed Bang Join. What truly happened that day.
Now I could be certain without much difficulty.
Yi Yunjae must not have been purely happy when he stepped out for air during the celebration banquet, heard the lullaby, and was drawn to reunite with his birth mother as if bewitched by its sound.
He must have been shocked to learn that the birth mother he believed dead was alive, confused to hear she was a courtesan, and enraged at his father and his father’s principal wife for deceiving him since he was torn from her as a child.
He had probably not slept a wink that night.
It must have been a painful night of torment, enough to leave his face haggard overnight.
When Yi Yunjae returned to Simhyang Pavilion the next day, he did not head straight for the separate residence.
He drank in the main building, then came outside and looked at the moon as he sang the lullaby his mother had sung to him as a child.
He had likely been caressing the Maek Jade, as he always did whenever he thought of his mother.
Perhaps he had hesitated because the unfamiliar birth mother before him had changed beyond recognition.
Just as my hometown no longer looked as I remembered it, the Pavilion Master would also have been very different from the mother he had desperately missed.
After gathering his resolve, he went to the separate residence to continue the conversation they had been unable to finish the day before. By coincidence, Bang Join climbed over the wall at that very moment.
Though Bang Join had heard what he should not have heard, he accepted money and survived.
And Yi Yunjae gained one more concern.
If Bang Join began spreading word about his birth mother, Yi Yunjae’s official career could be ruined before it even began.
Did Yi Yunjae know his birth mother was the head of a Hao clan branch? Probably not. Like most people who were not martial artists, he likely had never even heard of the Hao clan.
If he had known, he would have watched more patiently.
He would not have followed Bang Join with a weapon and acted when Bang Join came back to extort money from him.
Even though I could make a reasonable guess as to who the murderer was, Hong Hui remained calm.
Was it confidence that she could easily handle a martial artist like me, someone without influence, connections, or family?
Was that why she had not killed Bang Join to silence him, but merely paid him a suitable amount and sent him away?
It was understandable for the head of a Hao clan branch.
Some fools looked down on the Hao clan, saying it was merely a gathering of lowlifes from the bottom of society.
I had never seen one of those ignorant halfwits avoid being found as an ugly corpse in a back alley.
A martial artist who earned the enmity of the Wudang Sect could feel safe after leaving Hubei Province.
Likewise, someone who committed a crime against Shaolin Temple had a lower chance of being dragged into the Repentance Cave if they escaped Henan Province, where Shaolin’s influence held sway.
The Five Great Families, the Unorthodox Faction filled with the worst of humanity, and even the demonic people of Tianshan were the same.
They were rulers only in the regions where they had settled. Once they left their territory, they could not properly wield their power.
The Hao clan was different. Its countless members were spread throughout the Central Plains.
At a glance, it resembled the Beggars’ Sect. But anyone could easily recognize a beggar as a beggar. They displayed their affiliation with the Beggars’ Sect through the knots at their waists, so it was possible to avoid them if one tried.
Members of the Hao clan had no such sign.
Among the street vendors, petty thieves, solicitors, and peddlers one passed on the road, there was no way to tell from appearances alone who belonged to the Hao clan and who did not.
That was why anyone who became enemies with the Hao clan could never feel safe anywhere.
Food could be poisoned at an inn. A blade could strike in the latrine behind a gambling den. A boatman could overturn a boat in the deepest part of a river crossing.
Rumors of martial artists who met violent deaths after forming a grudge with the Hao clan were as chilling as the horror stories of martial artists horribly murdered after becoming entangled with the Tang Clan.
Some people did not even consider the Hao clan a martial sect because it handled only information and had no known masters.
That was not because the Hao clan truly had no masters. It was because there was no reason to put them on display.
The martial world constantly advised people to keep three-tenths of their ability hidden.
The Hao clan was not the sort to hang up a signboard and open for business, so there was no reason to reveal its full strength.
Once I left this place, I would surely be watched as well.
Whether I became an unwelcome corpse like Bang Join or enjoyed a leisurely life with one hundred taels of silver depended entirely on what I said.
If I let Hong Hui’s secret slip from my lips, even while drunk, I would be found as a corpse in a back alley that very day.
I would be branded the murderer who attacked the Black Night Gang and the traitor who killed a fellow escort.
If a shameful secret was exposed because she had misjudged someone, all she had to do was kill everyone who heard it, then bury it beneath a larger incident and rumor.
Seochon was far from Hubei Province. For someone like the head of a Hao clan branch, who dealt in information, covering one rumor with another would be no difficult task.
Even so, it would involve some danger and considerable trouble. Why reveal a secret to me despite that?
Was it gratitude for returning the Maek Jade that held such precious memories?
Hong Hui had presented a story like a riddle, then leisurely enjoyed her tea.
She appeared deliberately calm, but the subtle alertness in her manner held a strange expectation.
The people who had tested me in this way before had usually shared the same goal. Hong Hui was testing me.
“Perhaps I looked useful to you?”
Hong Hui set down her teacup and gazed at me. The smile on her face deepened, as though she was satisfied.
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