EP.9 Nine Dragons Gathering (3)
Nine Dragons Gathering (3)
The reason the engagement between the Peng family and the Gu family proceeded was simple.
The Gu family was a prestigious family no less than the Four Great Families, and the blood descendants of both families happened to be of similar age.
If there were no irregularities, I was to become the family head, and the Peng family judged that an engagement with the Gu family would be acceptable.
For martial families of the Central Plains, expanding their influence through marriage engagements was common, so it wasn't particularly strange.
The problem was that I kept causing incidents.
The childhood engagement would have been maintained if nothing happened.
But with my bad reputation spreading throughout the Shanxi region, and rather than making any effort as a martial family's blood descendant, only my dissolute nature growing, it couldn't have looked good from the Peng family's perspective.
Of course, the final nail in the coffin was what I had said to that girl.
"Why...!?"
The girl, Peng A-hui, shouted in surprise.
I was more curious. Why was she here?
Though relatively closer than other regions, Hebei and here were places that required a long carriage ride back and forth.
So why on earth would the Peng family head's direct blood descendant be in the Shanxi region where the Gu family was holding the Nine Dragons Gathering?
"That's what I want to ask. What are you doing here?"
When I took a step closer, Peng A-hui flinched. Soon after, her escort Yeo-bi stepped forward as if to protect her.
She was wrapping around her as if protecting her from a villain. Well, I suppose I am a villain?
Having gained stability from her escort's back, Peng A-hui glares at me and says.
"I just came for business. Shanxi isn't all your land, do I have to report everything to you?"
"If you put it that way, I have nothing to say."
I ignored Peng A-hui and ordered dumplings. I shouldn't forget my original purpose.
Peng A-hui, who was lightly ignored, seemed rather flustered, but I didn't care.
Even if she came to Shanxi for travel it would be awkward, and if she came for business, I wanted to get entangled even less. It would definitely be troublesome.
The ordered dumplings came out quickly. The neatly stacked dumplings looked appetizing.
As I took the dumplings and turned around quickly, an urgent voice came from behind.
"W-wait a moment."
I stopped my steps at the voice and turned my head. Peng A-hui was looking at me with anxious eyes.
The words that popped out of Peng A-hui's mouth were extremely out of place.
"...They said the Gu family is selecting the Sword Squad tomorrow."
"What?"
It was true that they would select Sword Squad members on the second day of the Nine Dragons Gathering tomorrow.
But why is Peng A-hui asking about that?
Her questioning expression and tone of speaking were strange, so I asked back.
"Why are you asking about that? Are you participating too?"
"Why would I participate in that! And why are you speaking casually? I'm a year older!"
Was she now?
"Sorry, sister, I forgot."
"...Don't call me that so suddenly, I feel like I'm going to throw up."
What am I supposed to do...?
It was a broken engagement in poor form, so there was no way good memories would remain.
Talking more wouldn't be good for Peng A-hui, so I planned to leave quickly.
"Yeah, whether you came for work or for fun, have a good stay and go back."
I was about to move my feet worried the dumplings I received would get cold, but I looked at Peng A-hui again.
When I suddenly turned around, Peng A-hui flinched again. Even when I moved my steps, she was still looking at my back.
After briefly meeting eyes like that, I moved my feet again.
******************
Peng Woo-jin, the Young Patriarch of the Peng family, was evaluated by others as a wind-like person. He was a man assessed as the greatest genius since the Peng family was established in the Central Plains, but.
He didn't particularly make any effort.
He spoke of his dreams, saying his dream was not to be the family head. He was a man who always had words about reality being unavoidable on his lips.
He graduated at the top of his class from the Shinryonggwan led by the Murim Alliance, and became the Young Patriarch at the youngest age in Peng family history.
But he still seemed somewhere floating and cloud-like.
Then one day, before winter had fully passed, Peng Woo-jin told Peng A-hui that he wanted to leave the family.
Peng A-hui told him to just go out for a bit then, as if it were the usual joke. At the words Peng A-hui threw out like a joke, Peng Woo-jin stood blankly then laughed heartily.
'Right, I could do that.'
He said.
And half a month later, Peng Woo-jin left a short letter saying 'I'll go play for a bit' and disappeared without a trace.
When the Young Patriarch went missing, the Peng family's search party immediately launched a search, but finding Peng Woo-jin's trail was not easy.
As only innocent time passed, the Gaebang, which had been commissioned, barely managed to pick up a small trace of Peng Woo-jin.
None other than that Peng Woo-jin had headed to Shanxi.
At this, the Peng family head said something ridiculous, that since Peng A-hui could at least get through to him somewhat, she should go bring the Young Patriarch back.
From Peng A-hui's position, she headed to Shanxi out of guilt because it was due to her words.
"...My older brother gives me enough headaches with his business, and of all people I had to meet that guy."
To Peng A-hui, Gu Yang-cheon was an unpleasant face to look at.
The relationship after the broken engagement was one thing, but they had fought every time they met, so it wasn't a good relationship from the start either.
Gu Yang-cheon was always on edge. He was a mad dog who bit without caring who the target was.
Peng A-hui also had the Peng family's characteristic roughness rather than a gentle personality, so she fought back viciously against Gu Yang-cheon's temperament.
Then eventually Gu Yang-cheon crossed the line.
And when her uncle heard about it, he broke off the engagement under the pretext of acting as the family head's proxy, putting an end to it.
'Who do you think you are, you're just a concubine's child!'
Partly it was something blurted out in anger, and he also retaliated with words and actions just as much, so she didn't hold it against him.
As a result of breaking the engagement, the Gu family's formal apology due to Gu Yang-cheon's recklessly blurted words brought many political advantages.
It was just that Peng A-hui was intrigued by how Gu Yang-cheon, who had seemed quiet for just a few years, appeared.
"His eyes looked like they've changed a lot."
Should she say he's matured? Or maybe he just looked that way because it was a good day for him.
There was no way that mad dog-like guy would have matured so easily.
Rather than maturing, his appearance just now was more like.
"...I don't know how to describe it."
For the young Peng A-hui, that appearance was difficult to express in words.
Peng A-hui shook her head as if she didn't know, then asked Yeo-bi.
"Yeo-bi, how's the search status? Did you find anything?"
"...They haven't been able to find him easily, but it seems certain that the Young Patriarch is in Shinwol-hyeon."
"This crazy brother, why did he have to come here of all places."
She wanted to ask why he ran away to Shanxi of all places, leaving so many regions behind, but Peng A-hui already knew Peng Woo-jin's answer.
He would definitely spout nonsense like 'It's sort of far but close, isn't it?'
She had long acknowledged his extraordinary talent, but she couldn't understand his personality.
He was definitely of the Peng family bloodline, but while everyone had similar personalities, Peng Woo-jin was a person far removed from such a temperament.
"...So annoying, really."
"It'll get deep into night soon. Let's go back and rest first, miss."
At Yeo-bi's words, Peng A-hui let out a deep sigh, then glanced in the direction Gu Yang-cheon had disappeared and turned her back.
"Just try finding him.... I won't let this go."
After Peng A-hui disappeared fuming, at the dumpling shop where they had been.
"Achoo...!"
The man who had been stuffing dumplings into his mouth sneezed repeatedly.
Then he roughly wiped his runny nose on his clothes.
"Is someone badmouthing me? Why is it so ticklish."
With a nonchalant expression, he picked up another dumpling and ate it.
******************
Day broke and finally it was the day of the first part of the Nine Dragons Gathering, the Nine Dragons Battle (俱龍戰). I really didn't want it to happen, but time never goes as I wish.
The Nine Dragons Battle starting early in the morning involved countless martial sects of Shanxi as well as the Gu family's branch families.
Of course, other than that, anyone who could prove their identity was also allowed to participate.
The long lines of people standing since morning were all participants of the Nine Dragons Battle.
What exactly is the Sword Squad that so many people want to join?
If the Gu family was at this level, the Four Great Families and the Nine Sects One Clan would be even more so, not less.
"The Nine Sects One Clan probably don't do this since they only select from their own sect members."
I heard that was the case but didn't know for sure.
At the sparring grounds, the Gu family's Sword Squad members who had been holding a festival yesterday stood as judges.
Even though they drank that much, there wasn't a single sign of difficulty from hangovers on their faces, so I didn't know if they were desperately holding it in or if it truly didn't bother them.
When I asked Mu-yeon later, he said they had woken up an hour earlier and suffered through circulating their inner energy to purge the alcohol.
They should have drank in moderation.
Wi Seol-ah, energetic from eating dumplings yesterday, brought a red dao robe that looked exactly like yesterday's with vigorous steps.
I took it and let out a deep sigh.
"...Right, it'll be over if I just get through today."
"Young master! Today's the day for that thing, right? The swish-swish-tap-tap thing!"
"I can't understand that at all, could you be a bit more detailed...?"
"You know, the thing Mu-yeon oppa does all the time."
It seemed she was talking about the swordsmanship training Mu-yeon secretly did in his quarters.
Even so, wasn't swish-swish-tap-tap too abbreviated?
"That looked really cool. I definitely want to try it someday."
'...You'll probably do it until you're sick of it.'
For Wi Seol-ah, it might be a fateful remark.
I couldn't dare predict what hardships she would go through to reach that place in the future.
But at least I didn't believe that talent alone could kill the Heavenly Demon.
Looking at Wi Seol-ah who was excited, I held my words.
I changed clothes and moved to watch the sparring.
I was walking slowly since I had some time to spare when I heard someone shouting loudly.
"No! Why can't I!"
"...P-please calm down first."
"I'm telling you I don't have time! If I get caught like this, will you take responsibility?"
It seemed like someone applying for the Nine Dragons Battle, and they appeared to be arguing about some problem.
Since identity verification was mandatory, people who had issues would cause disturbances like this.
The strange thing was that Gu family's martial artists should have been standing by to subdue those causing trouble.
But they weren't rashly laying hands on them.
'Well, they'll handle it.'
There wouldn't be just one or two people like that. They'd surely handle it well.
However, at the words that followed, I couldn't help but stop my feet.
"What's wrong with being from the Peng family! You said anyone can participate if their identity is verified!"
"..No matter what, that... we also have our position, so we need to properly verify."
"What more do I need to show? It's not like I walk around with 'I'm the Peng family's Young Patriarch' written on my belly... oh, would you believe me if I did that? I'll write it right now."
"Aaaah! Please calm down!"
.....Eh?
"What did you just say...? Young Patriarch?"
...I must have misheard, right?