Chapter 145: Love (7)
Translator: bjgoofy
「My master, with the composure befitting a supreme martial artist, quickly tempered the surprise that had widened her eyes and swiftly took in Ji-ryeon's appearance.
Shoes, clothing, hair ornaments, and lastly, the broken sword.
She seemed to be checking whether what Ji-ryeon had said was true by examining the shoes, clothing, and hair ornaments.
But Ji-ryeon had come out wearing training clothes, so there was nothing about the shoes or garments that could reveal whether she was truly a princess. Her hair was simply tied back with a single cord, so there was no way her master could find anything there to confirm her identity either.
However, the hilt of the broken sword was the last thing her master examined.
She couldn't have noticed while Ji-ryeon was gripping it, but the moment she saw the hilt studded with countless jewels, the sound of her master swallowing hard reached Ji-ryeon's ears.
-Gulp.
After a long silence, her master's lips parted with a single question.
"Is that... really true? No, is it really true?"
It certainly felt like her master was thoroughly shaken.
It hadn't even been a full quarter of an hour since Ji-ryeon had decided to take her as a master, yet already fearing she might be cast aside or expelled, Ji-ryeon snatched up the broken blade, pressed it against her own throat, and cried out.
"If you're thinking of pretending this never happened or turning me away, I, I'll end my life right here and now!"
But who was she dealing with?
The Sect Leader of Botaam Temple and the head of the Sword Pavilion, known to have reached the highest pinnacle of swordsmanship among all women.
-Clang!
With a single stroke of her master's sword, swung so fast Ji-ryeon couldn't even perceive it, the broken blade vanished from her grasp.
She wanted so desperately to learn the sword. She wanted to learn a supreme sword technique that truly suited her. She wanted to cleave the sunset, the darkness, the moonlight, just as her master did. And in that moment, the hope she had clutched, however briefly, slipped away.
"Hnngh.... P-please, I want to learn the sword so badly...."
If only she weren't a princess, she could study the sword to her heart's content....
Sobs came pouring out uncontrollably.
Then her master, who had been gazing down at her in silence, asked in a quiet voice.
Why she wanted to learn the sword so desperately.
"Why is it that you want to learn the sword so badly?"
"Sniff. I don't know. It's just... ever since I first picked up a sword at the age of six. Hic.... The sword has been everything to me."
There was no grand reason.
Ever since the day she first picked up a sword at the age of six, every thought in Ji-ryeon's mind had been of swords and nothing else.
Was it not the sword that brought her joy even after swinging it all day long?
Her master nodded slowly.
"Then, I'd like to hear that story."
Rather than casting her out or pretending nothing had happened, her master said she wanted to hear the story.
Ji-ryeon's eyes went wide, and she launched headlong into her tale, starting from the age of six.
"So, at first, it was the swords on the belts of the Imperial Guard soldiers......."
And when the long story ended and dawn began to break, her master drew her sword, rested it upon Ji-ryeon's shoulder as they watched the rising sun, and spoke.
"Perhaps this, too, is a stroke of fate.... Very well. With such exceptional talent, at first I thought perhaps Shakyamuni himself had sent you to me as my successor, but I shall accept you as a lay disciple of this temple.
Our temple has never taken lay disciples, but I will make an exception.
And while Non-Interference in Martial Affairs is the rule, our temple is a sect that largely stays out of the martial world's affairs. Even if your status is that of a princess, it shouldn't pose too great a... no, it will pose a problem, but I shall manage it somehow. I leave the Imperial side of things to you, Princess."
At the words that she would be accepted as a lay disciple, Ji-ryeon trembled all over.
She had finally obtained the status of disciple she had longed for so desperately.
"Th-thank you! Thank you!"
And so, under the pretext of undertaking a hundred-day devotional prayer, she stayed at the hermitage and secretly studied the sword under her master every night.
On the day Ji-ryeon parted from her master, after the hundred days had passed.
"You truly are fast. The 108 Temple Sword, the Prajna Bodhi Sword Technique, the Great Compassion Thousand Hands Sword, the Great Compassion Thousand-Li Sword Control, and even the Seven Extinction Demon-Subduing Sword Technique... I never imagined you could learn every form and formula and wield them all skillfully in just a hundred days."
"It's only thanks to your teaching, Master."
"No. It is because you are exceptional. My one regret is that, since you are a lay disciple, I cannot pass on the Eighty-Four Thousand Bodhi Demon-Subduing Sword Technique, the very essence of the Sword Pavilion. What a pity."
"That's...."
The sword techniques she had learned so far were already this extraordinary, so how incredible must the Eighty-Four Thousand Bodhi Demon-Subduing Sword Technique be, the art passed down only to the successor of the Sword Pavilion?
On the road home after a hundred days of tutelage.
Ji-ryeon's mind was filled with the burning desire to study more swordsmanship under her master and thoughts of the Eighty-Four Thousand Bodhi Demon-Subduing Sword Technique.
And when she arrived at the Imperial Palace, she came to one resolution.
She would become her master's successor, no matter what it took.」
***
"And so, you see...."
-Creeeak.
-Tssrit?
「Daddy?」
The princess was in the middle of excitedly telling her story when the sound of a door opening was followed by Bin's question.
Tang Hwa-eun was still outside, but it seemed the constant waiting had become too much for Bin to bear.
I asked the princess in a cautious voice.
"She's probably going to keep interrupting. Would it be all right if I let them stay beside me? I just need to move a chair or two."
"Your venomous creatures really are fond of you, Young Hero. All right, go ahead. I doubt the little ones will go around telling anyone my story."
When I said I'd move some chairs, the other two followed Bin inside.
Once Cho and Yohwa had also latched themselves firmly onto my body, the princess let out a small laugh and continued.
"Where was I?"
"You'd just said you were determined to become the successor, no matter what."
"Ah, right. So, after returning to the Imperial Palace, the first thing I did to keep my promise to my master was inform His Majesty that I had become a lay disciple of Botaam Temple. Other members of the imperial family have tutors for their studies, and having a master isn't a crime."
'Wait, she just went straight at it head-on?'
A princess through and through, charging in without a shred of subtlety.
The princess went on.
"At first, His Majesty tilted his head a little when I told him I'd become a lay disciple to learn swordsmanship, but after hearing from the Commander of the Imperial Guard and seeing my sword skills for himself, he was greatly pleased......."」
***
「"So what you're saying is that the princess becoming a lay disciple of this place called Botaam Temple means 'the martial world has recognized the princess's excellence'. Is that it?"
"Precisely, Your Majesty. The Nine Great Sects and other martial factions do not accept disciples unless they are truly exceptional. Moreover, Botaam Temple is known as a reclusive sect and does not take lay disciples. That they broke their own precepts to accept the princess as one speaks volumes about how remarkable she is."
"Ha ha ha! To this Botaam Temple that has become the princess's school, I shall bestow a hundred gold bars, a thousand seom of grain, and silk... no, since they're a Buddhist temple, a thousand bolts of plain cotton for the monks' robes. Not bestow, donate!" [TL Note: A seom is a traditional Korean unit of volume for grain, roughly equivalent to about 180 liters.]
Having managed to repay even a small measure of her debt to her master, Ji-ryeon was relieved.
The matter with the emperor was settled more smoothly than expected. The following morning, she sat the Commander of the Imperial Guard, who had come to oversee her training, down before her and spoke in a careful voice.
"Old Knight, today I have something to discuss with you. Let us share a cup of tea."
"You have something to say to me?"
"Yes. About the matter with Botaam Temple."
"Ah, understood."
Ji-ryeon had told her master at Botaam that she had no other teacher, but the Commander of the Imperial Guard, who had watched over her for more than ten years since she was six, was half a master in his own right. He was the only person who genuinely worried about her, and thus the only one she could consult about such things.
"The truth is, my master at Botaam told me she had even considered making me her successor."
"Her s-successor!? I thought you were just a lay disciple!?"
At Ji-ryeon's words, the Commander of the Imperial Guard, his hair now fully white, widened his eyes in shock.
He was originally from the martial world himself, so he understood exactly what it meant to be named the successor of Botaam Temple.
"No, I am a lay disciple. It's just that she said my talent was so outstanding she wished she could make me her successor, but since I'm a princess, she couldn't, and she lamented that."
"Oh, oh my.... That must have been heartbreaking?"
"Yes, terribly so...."
The Commander of the Imperial Guard knew well the depth of her desire for the sword, and Ji-ryeon nodded at his words.
Heartbreaking didn't even begin to cover it.
"But that would mean entering the monastic life, and there's no way the emperor would permit...."
Botaam Temple didn't require shaving one's head, and marriage was allowed if desired, but even so, it would still mean leaving worldly life behind.
Just as the Commander said, the emperor, who doted on her beyond measure, would never allow his princess to take such vows.
But Ji-ryeon had already made up her mind.
She smiled and said,
"Yes. But I intend to 'leave home'."
"What!? Cough! Cough!"
Startled by the declaration, the Commander of the Imperial Guard choked on the tea he was drinking and sputtered it out in a fit of coughing.
Wiping the tea that trickled down his beard, he asked again.
"I, I beg your pardon, Princess. But what on earth are you thinking!? You know as well as I that the emperor would never permit you to enter monastic life!
If things go wrong, it could bring great trouble to Botaam Temple as well. It would cause problems for the very master you have already sworn yourself to!"
He must have been thinking that if she announced she was entering monastic life, the emperor would throw a fit, and that would put Botaam Temple in an impossible position.
But the "leaving home" Ji-ryeon had in mind was not that kind of leaving home at all.
"When did I say I was entering monastic life? I said I was leaving home... to marry." [TL Note: The Korean wordplay here hinges on two homophones: 출가(出家), meaning "to leave home for monastic life", and 출가(出嫁), meaning "to leave home through marriage". Ji-ryeon deliberately uses the ambiguity.]
"What!? Leaving... huh!? You mean you intend to take a husband?"
Indeed, what Ji-ryeon had in mind was not the 'leaving home' of Buddhist ordination, but the 'leaving home' of marriage.
She had good reason for thinking of marriage.
Her master's Botaam Temple was located on Mount Putuo in the Zhoushan Archipelago off Zhejiang Province.
To get there, one had to take a boat from Hangzhou. Her plan was to install her husband in Zhejiang Province, come and go from Mount Putuo as she pleased, and then, once the husband died, use his death as a pretext to "take refuge in the Buddha" and slip into Botaam Temple for good.
After all, history was full of precedents of princesses entering Buddhist orders out of grief after losing their husbands.
"A marriage, yes, but more of a staged marriage, I suppose? So what I'm asking is, could you perhaps find me a man who's going to die soon? Someone with an incurable illness, perhaps?"
At Ji-ryeon's words, the Commander of the Imperial Guard's white hair seemed to turn even whiter still.」
***
"So the Commander of the Imperial Guard managed, impressively enough, to find a man who not only had an incurable illness but also was a castr... no, possessed the 'talent', shall we say, of a eunuch. Is that it?"
"Th-that second condition wasn't something I asked for! He said that even if things went wrong, my virtue shouldn't be called into question, so the C-Commander insisted on finding someone like that...."
"Anyway, so why are you here in Yueyang instead of Hangzhou? I thought you said you wanted to go to Hangzhou."
"Ah! Now we're getting to the most important part of the story!"
Listening to all this, the princess really was someone utterly, completely obsessed with the sword.
She'd gone so far as to arrange a sham marriage, all because she wanted to learn swordsmanship.
No wonder the Governor earlier couldn't even bring himself to say the words "Love Bug" in front of his wife.
Just as I was shaking my head in disbelief, the princess continued her explanation.
"Since he was my husband, I asked His Majesty to appoint him as the Governor of Zhejiang Province. But for the first time ever, the emperor refused my request. Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province is a trade port, with enormous sums of money flowing through it. The ministers covet it too, so they opposed giving the governorship of Zhejiang to an inexperienced prince consort.
Still, he couldn't simply refuse my request outright, so the emperor agreed that once my husband built up a record of merit in Yueyang, he would grant the appointment regardless of the ministers' objections.
He told me to spend two or three years here building accomplishments. But that would mean I couldn't see my master during all that time, wouldn't it?
So the reason I absolutely had to do something was to resolve this Love B... no, this black bug infestation, and use it to petition the emperor once more for my husband's appointment to Zhejiang Province."
"Ah. I think I'm starting to see the full picture now."
It had been a long story getting here, but now I was finally putting it together.
So the princess was in a sham marriage, and the groom was a man with an incurable illness who wouldn't live long.
The princess, who wanted nothing more than to continue her training under her master, needed to get to Hangzhou by any means necessary. That required a great achievement, and the Love Bug swarm that had conveniently descended upon them was just the thing: solve the infestation, then petition the emperor to send her husband to Zhejiang Province as her reward.
"You'll help me, won't you? Our passions are different, but I'm obsessed with the sword and you're obsessed with venomous creatures, so we can understand each other, right?"
So that was what the princess had meant when she said the two of them could understand each other.
'No, I don't understand at all....'
I was still wearing a look of utter bewilderment when the princess, reading my expression, clapped her hands together and spoke.
"Ah! That's right! Young Hero, do you only care about venomous creatures? What about spiritual creatures?"
"Spiritual creatures?"
"Yes, if you help me with this, I think I might be able to give you one."
"A spiritual creature... what kind?"
My ears perked up at the mention of a spiritual creature.
The princess smiled and said,
"I believe it's a Fire Carp.... I haven't seen it myself, so I can't say for certain. My master mentioned it in a letter."
"A Fire Carp?"
-Hisss!?
A Fire Carp was a type of ornamental carp.
At the mention of Fire Carp, Yeondu shot out of my robes in an instant.
Yeondu stared up at me with perfectly round eyes.
And for good reason. As it turned out, Yeondu hadn't been eating the Fire Carp out of hunger so much as out of sheer habit.
The elders of my clan and I had surmised that, much like Cho, Yeondu had likely consumed the Inner Core of a Fire Carp to become a Flying Celestial Serpent and had simply kept eating them ever since. If that was the case, then this was an opportunity for Yeondu to return to her magnificent true form.
I smiled and replied.
"I think you're absolutely right that you and I can understand each other like old friends, Princess. I understand completely. How could two people be so alike? Are we twins?"
"R-right!? I knew it! So what do we need to do?"
"Let's make the Governor eat them!"
"Make him eat them?"
"Yes, there's a story I once read in a book about a king whose land was overrun by locusts. The king swallowed a locust and declared that they should gnaw at his own innards instead of tormenting his people. Let's do that!"
'Which king was it again? Solomon?'
My general knowledge was a little weak.
*****
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