The pavilion master was waiting for me in the reception room where we had met yesterday. She offered me a seat, then showed me the Mak Jade she had been fiddling with.
“Do you know what this is?”
“I heard it is a Mak Jade.”
The pavilion master’s gaze turned cold. She stared at me intently before placing the Mak Jade down in front of me.
“This is not mine.”
“Then please find its owner. I found it nearby.”
“We have more than one or two distinguished guests visiting the Deep Fragrance Pavilion. Wouldn’t it be difficult to find the owner?”
“I heard it is something used in the Hubei Province area, so it must belong to one of the guests from Hubei.”
“There are many distinguished guests from Hubei.”
The pavilion master shook her head firmly. Yet, she did not tell me to leave or stand up from her seat. She only brought the teacup to her lips, savoring the aroma and sipping the tea.
It was as if she was silently pressuring me to say more. In the end, I had no choice but to bring it up. I carefully chose my words so as not to sound like a threat, rehearsing them a few times in my head before I opened my mouth.
“Some time ago, I heard someone humming a tune. As it happens, a certain lady was singing it, and the next day, a young scholar hummed the same melody." "I did not know then, but it turns out it’s a popular lullaby from Hubei Province. Thinking back on it, the tune was truly poignant." "The lullaby my mother used to sing to me when I was young was also like that. I, too, lost my parents in a flood, so I know well the feeling of longing for one’s kin.”
I picked up the Mak Jade and placed it in front of the pavilion master before continuing.
“I heard this Mak Jade is a gift to pray for a baby’s health and long life. For a distinguished guest to treasure it so much as to mend its broken parts with gold, it must hold a truly heartfelt story.”
The pavilion master, who had been looking at the Mak Jade, moved only her eyes to stare at me. Her gaze, like a sheet of ice, was sharp enough to pierce right through me. I was half in doubt, but it seems I hit the mark.
My throat was dry, so I picked up my teacup. The sound of my drinking echoed loudly in the room, which had fallen into a suffocating silence. In the midst of the hair-trigger tension, I was mentally mapping out an escape route when the pavilion master let out a long sigh.
“I believe I understand. I will find the owner and return it. Is there something you wish for?”
“The culprit who killed Escort Bang Jo-in has not yet been caught.”
“That is true.”
“As you know, I was the first to run over and examine the body after hearing the scream. I’m afraid my position could become difficult if things go wrong.”
“If it is that matter, there seems to be nothing I can do to help.”
When I frowned slightly, the pavilion master gave a faint smile.
“Our Deep Fragrance Pavilion has trusted the Dragon Sky Escort Agency in the past and continues to do so now. Since the Chief Escort Leader has identified the black-clad masked man as the culprit, we will believe it to be so. We will continue to do so.”
“You are aware that the Inspector has arrived, are you not?”
“Do not worry. Nothing will happen to Escort Jeong… no, to Great Hero Jeong. I shall meet with the county magistrate tomorrow evening and arrange for the case to be concluded at this point. It would not be good for our pavilion if things were to become any noisier. Tell me what you desire, other than that.”
The county magistrate was the head of the county. He was not an official one could meet easily just by asking. And yet, the pavilion master guaranteed it as casually as if she were taking something from her own pocket.
It did not seem like a lie. It seemed she had some kind of connection. Come to think of it, the county magistrate had also attended the celebration for the provincial exam a while back.
“I have no other desires.”
“It would not be right to receive a favor and not repay it.”
The pavilion master opened a wooden box and took out a red silk pouch.
“Please open it.”
When I untied the pouch, a bundle of paper came out. They were promissory notes. Golden slips, issued by a place favored by all as they could be exchanged for silver taels anywhere in the Central Plains.
There were ten slips, each worth ten silver taels.
“This is too much.”
The pavilion master shook her head.
“It is not excessive. This Mak Jade is a precious object, the only one of its kind in the world. Even a mountain of silver would be lighter than this. I would like to offer you hundreds of taels, but it would seem rude to express my gratitude only with silver, so I shall give you this instead.”
The pavilion master reached into her robes and took out something small, round, and ink-colored. When I took it, it felt light and hard, as if made from agarwood, and gave off a faint fragrance. The character ‘下’ (Ha, meaning Under) was carved into the front.
I casually flipped it over and looked at the back, and the hair on my head stood on end.
‘汚’ (Oh, meaning Filth) I felt I knew what the small inscription of Village Heart below the character meant.
“Was this place the Underworld Information Clan?”
Seeing my face stiffen in surprise, the pavilion master smiled. The Underworld Information Clan (Haomun) was an organization formed by those who lived and worked in the dregs of society—courtesans, waiters, coachmen, boatmen, gamblers, thieves, pickpockets, and the like. No one knew who founded it, when, or the extent of its size and power.
The locations of its main office and branches, and the methods of contact, were known only among its members. There were only two reasons for a member of such an underground organization to reveal their identity to me. Either I was about to die, or they considered me one of their own.
Judging by the atmosphere, it thankfully seemed to be the latter.
“Allow me to introduce myself again. I am Hong Hee, the head of the Underworld Information Clan’s Western Village branch.”
It was so shocking my mind went numb. I had guessed at the relationship between the pavilion master and Lee Yun-jae to some extent, but I had never dreamed I would hear something like this here.
I had thought the Black Night Gang and the Dragon Sky Escort Agency divided the Western Village, maintaining a balance of power, but to think the Underworld Information Clan was in between them. Did I run from a wolf only to leap into a tiger’s den?
A chilling shiver ran down my spine, a sense of crisis as if I were surrounded by unseen blades. I gripped the token tightly and only then realized what it was.
“Is this, by any chance, the thing I’ve only heard stories about? The Token of Gratitude?”
“It is sometimes called that. You know of it?”
“I have heard of it. How is it used?”
“The branches of our organization span the entire Central Plains. Wherever you go, if you discreetly show this to a waiter or an innkeeper at an inn, someone will recognize it." "You can obtain the information you seek, or be provided with a safe house or an escape route.”
According to the pavilion master’s explanation, it was an item more useful than a hundred silver taels to a martial artist who was often either pursuing or being pursued.
“How can you give something like this to me so recklessly, without knowing how I might use it?”
“The token is not all-powerful. It can only be used once, and unreasonable requests may be refused.”
“But could not that single use potentially cause great harm?”
Perhaps impressed by my extreme caution, which showed not a hint of greed, the pavilion master stared at me with a newfound interest.
“In the world of flowers, blooming and withering, the only things I’ve gained are wrinkles and an eye for people. If I have misjudged Great Hero Jeong, that is something I will bear. Do not concern yourself with it.”
A moment of silence passed. The pavilion master observed me carefully as I fiddled with the token, then she lifted the jade teapot and refilled my cup.
“Would you care to hear a rather uninteresting story?”
Without waiting for my answer, the pavilion master continued.
“I have never been married, but I had a son.”
I quickly pulled my lips from the teacup and interjected.
“I am not sure if this is a story I should be hearing.”
“Weren’t you already fairly certain when you came here? It is fine for you to hear it. Just for finding this, you have more than earned the right to listen.”
As if she could see right through me, the pavilion master began her story, fiddling with the Mak Jade.
“At fifteen, I was sold for debt and began my life as a courtesan. A courtesan’s life is that of a talking flower. No matter how painful or difficult things are, you must adorn yourself beautifully and always smile.”
That was a matter of course. The guests came to enjoy drinking and entertainment in a lively atmosphere, not to console the courtesans. Occasionally, some would lend an ear to win a courtesan’s favor, but most of the time, it ended with them slyly slipping a hand into their clothes.
“Then, I met him. He was the first person to see the tears hidden behind my smile and wipe them away.”
The pavilion master’s eyes grew distant. A young scholar who, dejected from repeatedly failing the civil service exam, sought solace in a brothel, and a timid young courtesan. As if they had fallen in love at first sight, they soothed each other’s rough edges, and their relationship deepened in an instant.
“Then, I came to bear his child. It was a son.”
The scholar’s affection for the pavilion master seemed to have been genuine. This was evident from the fact that he paid a large sum to the brothel to buy her freedom and set up a separate home for her in a quiet place.
A soft smile, like a flower gently blooming, spread across the pavilion master’s face as she recalled those days. It seemed to be the happiest time of her life, a time when just looking back on it made her heart swell with emotion.
“When the child turned five, his legal wife came to find me. I thought she would try to harm me, but… the look in her eyes as she gazed at my son was filled with envy and desperation.”
The legal wife was a barren woman, unable to bear children. All the concubines the scholar had taken in had only given birth to daughters, so there was no son to carry on the family line. Even his relatives had few children, so trying to adopt a son was not an option.
Among all the scholar’s children, the only son was Lee Yun-jae, born to the pavilion master.
“She said she would take my son and raise him as her own. He, too, being greatly indebted to his wife’s family for their help, turned away, saying he had no choice. It seemed that once the burning passion had cooled, his courage to stand up to his wife’s family had vanished with it. He was a delicate and good person, but a truly weak man. Perhaps that is why I was more drawn to him. And just like that, I lost my only child.”
The pavilion master furrowed her brow and let out a shallow sigh. She had no power to get her son back. Even after she entered the Underworld Information Clan by a chance opportunity, became a courtesan again, and clawed her way up to a position of power, she could not go to her son.
“The ways of the world are truly cruel, are they not? Only then did the harsh words the legal wife had spat at me pierce my heart like daggers.”
Not all guests who visited the brothels were debauchees lost in pleasure. Among them were men of extraordinary talent who, due to their mother’s low birth, could not fulfill their ambitions and drowned their sorrows in drink.
“At some point, I began to see my son’s face superimposed on theirs. I was terribly afraid that if I stepped forward, my son’s future would become like that.”
The pavilion master’s son was a natural-born scholar who had mastered the Thousand Character Classic at the age of five, just before they were separated. He was said to be receiving the full expectation and support of his clan as a prodigy who could raise the family’s standing.
“That is why I could not go to him, even more so. I did not have the confidence to face my son, whose ambitions might be crushed before they could even blossom, all because of his wretched mother.”
She had been soothing her longing by hearing news of him through the Underworld Information Clan’s Hubei branch, but recently, she could no longer bear it. Her son had finally passed the provincial exam.
“I made a request to the prefectural city head to hold the celebration banquet at our brothel. My son, whom I was reunited with after twenty years, had grown into a truly fine young man.”
I recalled the sight of Lee Yun-jae as he got out of the carriage. His face was bright and proud, as if he owned the world. And the next day, it was filled with anguish and worry, as if he had lost it all.
Lee Yun-jae did not recognize the mother he had been separated from as a child. He had been told she had died of illness.
“For the sake of my son’s future, perhaps that would be for the best. I tried to convince myself of that, repeating it in my mind, but I could not control the sorrow welling up inside me. As I retreated to a detached house to calm my heart, I found myself humming the lullaby without realizing it. I did not know he would come looking for me after hearing that sound. I did not know he would remember the lullaby, or that he still cherished this Mak Jade…”
Having finished her long, confession-like story, the pavilion master lifted her teacup with a look of relief, as if she had washed away all the dark clouds in her heart. It seemed she had wanted to pour her heart out to someone, just once. Of course, she did not mention the important things.
The culprit who killed Bang Jo-in. The truth of that day. Now, I could be certain without much difficulty.
Lee Yun-jae, who had stepped out for some air during the celebration and was drawn as if bewitched by the sound of the lullaby to reunite with his birth mother, must not have been purely joyful. He would have been shocked to learn that his mother, whom he thought dead, was alive.
He would have been confused to hear she was a courtesan. And he would have been furious with his father and his legal mother for deceiving him all this time. He probably did not sleep a wink that night.
It must have been a painful night, tormented by anguish so much that his face became haggard overnight. The next day, when he visited the Deep Fragrance Pavilion again, Lee Yun-jae did not go straight to the detached houses.
He drank at the main hall, then went outside, looked at the moon, and sang the lullaby his mother had sung to him in his childhood. He was probably stroking the Mak Jade, just as he always did whenever he thought of his mother. Perhaps he hesitated because his birth mother had changed so much she was like a stranger.
Just as my hometown was no longer the hometown I once knew, the pavilion master must have been very different from the mother he had so desperately missed.
He gathered his heart and went to the detached house to continue the conversation they had not finished yesterday, but as fate would have it, that was when Bang Jo-in climbed over the wall. Despite having heard what he should not have, Bang Jo-in took money and survived. And for Lee Yun-jae, another worry was added.
If Bang Jo-in started blabbing about his birth mother, his official career, which had not even begun, could come to an abrupt end. Did Lee Yun-jae know that his birth mother was a branch leader of the Underworld Information Clan?
Probably not.
Like most people who were not martial artists, he probably had never even heard of the Underworld Information Clan. If he had known, he would have watched things unfold more patiently. When Bang Jo-in came back again to extort more money, he would not have followed him with a weapon and taken matters into his own hands.
Even though she could have easily guessed who the culprit was, the pavilion master remained calm. Was it confidence that she could handle the aftermath of a single martial artist like me, with no background, no connections, and no family?
Was that why she did not kill Bang Jo-in to silence him, but simply sent him away with a moderate sum of money? As a branch leader of the Underworld Information Clan, it was certainly possible. There were fools who looked down on the Underworld Information Clan, thinking it was just a gathering of bottom-feeding riffraff.
I had never seen one of those ignorant fools who did not end up as an unsightly corpse in a back alley. A martial artist who earned the enmity of the Wudang Sect could rest easy once they left Hubei.
A man who sinned against Shaolin could reduce his chances of being dragged to their repentance caves if he could flee from Henan, Shaolin’s sphere of influence. It was the same for the Five Great Families, the dark paths teeming with human scum, and even the demonic warriors of the Heavenly Mountains.
They were only rulers in their own established territories; once they left their domain, they could not properly wield their power. The Underworld Information Clan was different. Countless members were spread all over the Central Plains.
At first glance, it was similar to the Beggars' Sect, but beggars were easily identifiable as beggars. They revealed themselves as disciples of the Beggars' Sect with the knots tied at their waists, so one could avoid them if one wished. The members of the Underworld Information Clan had no such thing.
Just by looking at the street vendors, petty thieves, touters, and peddlers you encounter on the street, you could never tell who was a member of the Underworld Information Clan and who was not. Therefore, if you became an enemy of the Underworld Information Clan, you could never feel safe, no matter where you went.
Your food could be poisoned in an inn, or you could be stabbed in the back alley of a gambling den. When crossing a river, the boatman could capsize the boat in deep water.
The rumors about martial artists who met a violent end after making an enemy of the Underworld Information Clan were as chilling as the horror stories of those who got entangled with the Tang Clan and were gruesomely murdered.
Some people did not even consider the Underworld Information Clan a martial sect because they only dealt in information and had no known masters. That was not because the Underworld Information Clan truly had no masters, but because there was no reason to show them off.
In the martial world, one was told until their ears bled to always keep thirty percent of their skills hidden. They were not hanging a sign and running a business, so there was no reason to expose their full strength. When I leave here, I will surely be watched.
Whether I end up as an unwelcome corpse like Bang Jo-in or enjoy a leisurely life with a hundred silver taels depended entirely on my mouth. If I let the pavilion master’s secret, which I just heard, slip out even in a drunken stupor, I would be found as a corpse in a back alley that very day.
And I would be branded a traitor who had ambushed the Black Night Gang and murdered a fellow escort. The disgrace of a secret leaked due to misjudging a person could be buried by killing everyone who heard it and covering it up with a bigger incident and grander rumors.
It was a long way from the Western Village to Hubei Province. For someone like the branch leader of the information-dealing Underworld Information Clan, covering a rumor with another rumor would be no trouble at all. Still, there would be some risk and a lot of hassle.
Why would she go through all that trouble to confide her secret in me? Was it out of gratitude for finding the Mak Jade that held her precious memories? The pavilion master tossed her homework-like story at me and leisurely enjoyed her tea.
While pretending to be composed, there was a subtle hint of anticipation in the way she kept her senses sharpened. The purpose of most people who had tested me in this way before had been the same. The pavilion master was testing me.
“I suppose I looked useful to you?”
The pavilion master put down her teacup and gazed at me intently. The smile on her face had deepened, as if she were satisfied.