NOVEL NEXT chapter 76 - Namgung’s Change
At those words, Namgung Gangchang dashed out. He hurriedly cast his vote for Tang Sohwa and looked back. Namgung Gangchang’s followers came running in a rush and added their marks beside Tang Sohwa’s name.
Namgung Gangchang tried to ride the early momentum, but it was meaningless. The votes began to tilt overwhelmingly toward Namgung Hyun.
“I think I see why the Alliance Leader wanted Young Master Namgung.”
“This is far better than the copybooks we’ve been practicing with.”
“Putting all else aside—writing without a tremor like that on such a windy lakeshore. All three are remarkable.”
They soon forgot the scandal. They had scoffed, saying what “conversation” could there be when a man and woman had been shut in a secret room together for over two hours, but now that they had seen the hands themselves, they understood.
Every great family had at least one person mad for martial arts who would talk all day about a new mnemonic they had learned; thinking of calligraphy in place of martial arts, it seemed plausible.
If they had reached this level, then like that fellow who was mad for martial arts, these two must be mad for calligraphy; no wonder the conversation had gone long.
When the line that had formed to cast votes thinned away, Tang Sohwa spoke to Namgung Hyun.
“Congratulations, Young Master.”
“No.”
Namgung Hyun was uncomfortable under the surrounding gazes. In people’s eyes there was a subtle awe. As members of great martial families who had long determined victory and defeat by crossing skills, their treatment of a winner was distinct.
“Still, a victory is a victory—should there not be some sort of prize?”
Zhuge Jihwi took something from his bosom. Placing a branch on the table, he said,
“My precious plum branch.”
“...Little Clan Head, isn’t that the very branch you snapped from your quarters? The blossoms haven’t even fallen yet.”
“Yes. Among the flowers I saw at the Tang estate, it was the most beautiful. The moment it enters your eye may be but an instant, yet the memory remains for life. I’m giving Young Master Namgung Hyun a beautiful memory.”
He offered the seemingly casually snapped plum branch to Namgung Hyun once more.
“Carry today’s memory away with the most beautiful flower of the Tang estate.”
Zhuge Jihwi’s tongue was exceedingly smooth. If he put his mind to it, he seemed the sort who could ladle up the Yangtze and sell it.
Looking at the flowering branch, Namgung Hyun lifted his head and looked to Sohwa.
He respectfully received the plum branch given by the Zhuge Little Clan Head.
“I will cherish Little Clan Head’s sentiment.”
“Mm? The way you say that makes me sound like some sweetheart.”
With a distinctly uneasy expression, Zhuge Jihwi narrowed his eyes. Soon that gaze slid toward Sohwa.
Sohwa’s lips curved.
“I have nothing on me right now. I will think a bit more on what to give you, Young Master, and present it to you separately.”
“Oh-ho, I’m curious what Young Lady Tang will give. Young Master Namgung, do be sure to tell me later.”
Before Namgung Hyun could answer, Sohwa spoke again.
“I’ll prepare a rare gift that pleases Young Master’s heart, so be sure to boast of it to the Little Clan Head.”
“Ah-hah, had I known this I would have done my utmost. I’m truly looking forward to what Young Lady Tang will prepare. Might you hint at the price? Is it worth more than a single tael of silver?”
“Of course.”
“...Wait a moment. Let’s redo our calligraphy duel.”
Zhuge Jihwi spoke in earnest, but Sohwa took it as a jest.
She quietly made ready to take her leave.
A peculiar scent had been drifting from the surroundings for some time.
Too thick for grass, like old wood; not mere earth-smell, but with a metallic tang mixed in, like a mineral buried deep.
It resembled the faint odor that leaks out when one forcibly holds down long-suppressed retching.
It was a fragrance she often caught when Tang Ji-ha concealed his presence nearby.
But now it felt dense. As if the pillars of the Five Great Families had laid a concealment array around and were hiding.
She could not know why, but she did not wish to remain here and provide any pretext to be seized upon.
Sohwa swiftly left the place.
“I must go back as well. I’m starting to worry about the aftermath.”
When she departed, Zhuge Jihwi also turned to follow. Left alone, Namgung Hyun watched the attendants clearing the setting, then raised his hand.
“Wait.”
As the attendant moved to clear away Tang Sohwa’s paper, Namgung Hyun stepped to the table. Taking up the large sheet—its ink not yet dry, so it could not be folded—he left the spot.
Those remaining began to trade whispers furtively.
“What is it—has Young Master Namgung Hyun gone mad for calligraphy, or is he interested in Young Lady Tang?”
“Are you a fool? The latter. If it were the former, why would he leave the Little Clan Head’s sheet behind?”
No one was more startled by Namgung Hyun’s action than the Namgung youths. Because he had paid no heed at all to the eyes around him.
Of course, this was something the retainers of other families could not know. Only the Namgung family members watched Namgung Hyun’s back with startled eyes.
That ever-cautious old fox...
“Wow, when a fellow gets hit by fate in love, he becomes a different person.”
One of Namgung Gangchang’s followers muttered without thinking.
Namgung Gangchang bit his lip and asked,
“...You said the forbidden zone this year is in the western woods, right?”
“Pardon?”
The forbidden zone was where the Tang had gathered and set aside their mechanism-formation arrays.
The reason Namgung Gangchang’s men asked back was not because they did not know where it was. It was because Namgung Gangchang—the one who would go weak-kneed just passing near it—was the one asking.
Of course, Namgung Gangchang knew very well where it was. For the moment they arrived, the Tang had repeatedly warned them not to enter that sector.
In a tone uncharacteristically chilly for him, Namgung Gangchang said,
“Tell Namgung Hyun that I said to meet in the western woods.”
One of Namgung Gangchang’s followers, grasping the meaning, blanched.
“B-brother, you mustn’t!”
“That’s right! If your precious person is harmed, the Grand Elder will be furious with us.”
They tried to dissuade him with roundabout words, but Namgung Gangchang did not so much as act as though he heard.
“After the Hai hour (9–11 p.m.), I can come and go without being discovered. Tell him to come there after the Hai hour.”
Watching Namgung Gangchang, who set off first, the followers let out deep sighs.
“Isn’t this crossing a line?”
“My point exactly. And now it feels like we shouldn’t touch that guy...”
“Right. These days the Elders are subtly... no, treating Second Young Master rather well.”
Namgung Gangchang’s followers were quick on the uptake; they sensed fine shifts keenly.
Because he had put the Little Clan Head in a bind, the Clan Head’s second son had been demoted among them to this circle—but there were signs that the Clan Head would soon forgive him.
Whatever the reason—whether because of the family’s marriage politics or appearances—if the Clan Head acknowledged Namgung Hyun as his son again, that was a problem.
The Grand Elder’s treasured only son, and the Clan Head’s second son whom he was drawing back into the direct line.
“...”
By all accounts, this was a time to lie low.
“W-when we tell him to come to the western woods, can’t we add that it’s the forbidden zone so he should be careful? That old fox won’t fail to understand; it’ll be fine.”
“Ah, right. And if he isn’t well, let’s suggest he meet Brother Gangchang separately tomorrow.”
“Yeah, yeah! Isn’t it all in how we pass the message?”
Namgung Gangchang’s followers forced themselves to think positively and returned to the Namgung quarters. Still, they could not rid themselves of the creeping, uneasy feeling.
***
Namgung An fell into contemplation. He recalled the illegitimate child’s face he had seen at the lakeside. In over ten years, he had never seen such an expression on that boy.
He had thought him a fearsome child—dark by nature and able to hide his desires—but it seemed that boy could lay his heart bare, purely.
'Had I misunderstood...'
Perhaps, by birth, he had been taught he must not reveal himself.
Namgung Hyun’s mother had been a neat little woman like a small wildflower. Outwardly, yes. Yet within, she hid a bottomless depth of desire.
Namgung An overlaid the boy’s birth mother upon his illegitimate child. Thus, it seemed, he had been overly wary of him. He had been merely a child.
'Perhaps he was not such a great threat to the Little Clan Head after all.'
Unconsciously stroking his chin, Namgung An halted.
The hand caught by the Divine Physician rose, then fell back into place.
“My apologies. I drifted into other thoughts for a moment.”
“It’s quite all right.”
The Divine Physician, who had been taking Namgung An’s pulse, withdrew his hand with a grave face. In a voice as dark as his expression, he replied,
“Your pulse has changed much since the first time.”
Raising his ink-dark eyes, the Divine Physician stared straight at Namgung An.
“By any chance, have you still been feeling the same symptoms lately?”
“No. My body feels astonishingly light. Is it that, with age, I’ve changed into a constitution suited to the Tang? When I was young, whenever I came here I always wanted to hurry back to Anhui.”
Namgung An even added a pointless joke, as if truly feeling better.
“If you don’t mind, may I take your pulse once more?”
“Go ahead.”
Carefully placing his hand again, the Divine Physician took his pulse. Yet the pulse was clean.
It had certainly been a deep pulse (chimmak—a sunken pulse hard to feel), but now, even with his hand resting lightly, the beat was vivid.
From the start, Namgung An had been born with a perfectly endowed body for a warrior, and had lived on only the best. For such a body to show a deep pulse was serious. Whatever the illness was, for it to root itself in such a robust frame meant it was vicious; it could not be taken lightly.
And yet, in only a few days, the illness had vanished.
It was utterly incomprehensible.
Grasping at straws, the Divine Physician attempted a medical interview.
“Clan Head, do you recall the symptoms you felt ordinarily?”
“I suffered for months—hard to forget even if I wished.”
Lightly chuckling, Namgung An said,
“Sometimes my mood would grow hazy, and when I came to myself, time had passed. At first it was about seven to eight minutes, but recently there were times I lost the memory of about thirty minutes.”