Free Web NovelNamgung Hwi lightly vaulted over the wall, about thirty feet high, and slipped out from the inner estate to the outer estate. As for me?
I showed my entry pass to the gate guards and walked out, calmly, through the main gate like a normal person.
For a maid with not a grain of inner strength and no lightfoot skill training, that was the best I could do.
Honestly, it was the right way. Walls weren’t built for people to hop over them in the first place.
Namgung Hwi grumbled nonstop, apparently annoyed that I hadn’t gone along with his plan.
“You’re no fun.”
“I told you, I can’t climb walls. Unless you carry me on your back, Young Clan Head, it’s impossible.”
“It’s not impossible. I can jump over even with you on my back. You can hop on right now if you want.”
He hunched down, showing off. I quickly shook my head.
“They say men and women shouldn’t even sit together once they’re seven. Young Clan Head, how could I possibly ride on your back?”
At that, Namgung Hwi straightened and tilted his head.
“You’ve read the Confucian classics?”
He looked genuinely surprised, as if a maid had no business using those words. I smoothed it over with a smile.
“I only picked it up here and there. Ah, there it is. Let’s go.”
I pointed to the main road that led out from the outer estate gate, and Namgung Hwi started walking ahead with a bright, excited face. I followed one step behind him.
“Hurry up.”
Spotting the market street that unfolded along the busy main road, Namgung Hwi grabbed my sleeve and tugged, urging me along.
The crowded market street was crammed with all sorts of people selling all sorts of goods.
An inn with a server out front touting for customers, a cloth shop with bolts of silk in soft colors hanging in its doorway, an old-book shop where freshly copied texts were laid out to let the ink dry...
Unlike the ever-quiet Tang estate, this lively street smelled like actual human life.
The sight of the market, which I was seeing for the first time, tugged at my curiosity—but worry came first over whether we were really supposed to be wandering around like this.
In stories, troublemakers always showed up at markets just to pick fights.
I glanced at Namgung Hwi. Every time he moved, his ornate long robe shimmered with a fine sheen.
Anyone could see he was a rich Young Master from a wealthy household, dripping money. Sweat pricked my back at the feeling that I had to get him back without anything happening.
“Which family’s Young Master is that? He’s splendid.”
“Isn’t he the son of the White Wind Trading Company? Not just anyone can wear silk like that.”
“Come now, use your eyes. Look at the sword at his hip. He’s from a martial clan. He must be a guest of the Tang Sect. Didn’t several carriages go through their gate just yesterday?”
Even as people whispered, Namgung Hwi didn’t so much as blink. He was clearly used to a life under constant attention.
Had the people of the Namgung Clan noticed that their Young Clan Head had slipped out of the Tang estate?
This wasn’t my fault, but... I wasn’t going to get stabbed for enticing their precious heir out, right?
I wiped the sweat from my palms and slowly scanned our surroundings. Thankfully, I didn’t see anyone who looked like a thug nearby.
Well, there couldn’t be anyone so stupid they’d cause a scene within tripping distance of the Tang estate’s gate. And if there had been, they’d already be dead.
Relaxing a little, I started looking around the market properly as I followed after Namgung Hwi.
Cheap decorative blades, hair ties, fans, straw hats...
Past a stall selling miscellaneous goods, a stand appeared with nameless medicinal herbs packed tight.
Staring intently at a dried herb that looked like a shriveled mushroom, Namgung Hwi asked,
“What’s this?”
“I’m not sure either.”
“And this?”
“I don’t know that one either.”
“You really don’t know anything.”
What, you brat? You don’t know either, so why are you picking a fight with me.
After grousing at my half-hearted answers, Namgung Hwi changed his target.
“Shopkeeper, what’s this?”
“That there’s angelica, Young Master. Used as a medicinal herb.”
“Yeah? What’s it good for?”
“It’s good for near everything, Young Master. We use it to make a Royal Tonic Pill, and we put it into liquor as well.”
The herbalist stroked his goatee and answered politely. He was clearly desperate to sell something to the little customer who screamed “expensive Young Master.”
But Namgung Hwi only shook his head, uninterested.
“Then I don’t need it. Let’s go.”
“Yes.”
Answering meekly, I trailed after him. Past the herb stall and a grain merchant beside it, a rice-cake shop came into view.
A woman taking freshly fried sticky-rice cakes out of a pot, fragrant steam wafting up, called out cheerfully,
“Are you from out of town? You should try these fried sticky-rice cakes. I just pulled them from the oil—they’re delicious.”
When Namgung Hwi stopped, she beamed and held out a wooden bowl. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
Inside were fried glutinous-rice cakes. Just looking at their neat little shape made my mouth water.
They’d already be good just steamed, but frying them? These people knew how to eat.
Namgung Hwi couldn’t tear his eyes away from the cakes, either, the steam rising in soft curls.
“One—no. Give me two.”
He corrected the order after glancing at me, clearly meaning to get one for me as well.
Thanks, kid.
“That’ll be five coppers, Young Master.”
“Okay.”
Nodding, Namgung Hwi opened his silk pouch and, without a second thought, pulled out a silver ingot to hand over.
The sight of the horseshoe-shaped silver bar made both the woman and my eyes go wide. I hurriedly stopped him.
“Young Clan Head, that’s far too much.”
“Why? I only have silver ingots.”
“You can’t pay with those. I have some coins. Please use these instead.”
Declaring that absolutely wouldn’t do, I held out my little unbleached-cloth pouch. Namgung Hwi pouted.
But he didn’t seem intent on arguing, and obediently fished out five coppers.
Good-bye, my small, adorable monthly pay.
The woman looked a bit disappointed, but she didn’t show it, and quietly took the coins.
“Enjoy.”
“I hope you sell a lot.”
We each took a cake wrapped in bamboo leaf and started walking down the market street again.
After taking a bite of his sticky-rice cake, Namgung Hwi spoke in a disgruntled tone.
“Explain.”
“Sorry?”
“Why wouldn’t you let me pay with the silver ingot?”
Ah. Maybe I’d been a little too presumptuous there.
I gave an awkward laugh and looked at him. His expression was sharp, as if he really couldn’t accept what I’d done.
...Damn it. I’m a maid. I kept forgetting my own status.
Meeting his eyes, I slowly chose my words.
“Because that would be more money than she could possibly handle, Young Clan Head. You mustn’t pull out that much money in front of people like that.”
“Why not? It would be a good thing for her. It’s money she’d never even touch in her entire life.”
“And that’s exactly why I’m telling you not to. The people nearby saw you try to pay with a silver ingot, Young Clan Head.”
“I still don’t get it.”
He knit his brows.
“We have no idea what will happen after you leave. Thieves could break into her house in the middle of the night. Or someone could kill her and steal it.”
“Kill her for that?”
“Like you said, it’s money she’d never touch even if she worked her whole life. An excessive blessing often turns into disaster.”
At my words, Namgung Hwi’s eyes went round. It seemed he’d never once thought about what might happen after he handed someone an ingot.
He swallowed the rice cake with a gulp and muttered,
“...I almost got her killed, then.”
“That’s right. Good intentions don’t always lead to good results. That’s how life is.”
There are even lives where you read martial arts novels just to suck up to your manager, then end up possessed into an extra and suffer like a dog.
Ha. Ha. Ha.
Then Namgung Hwi stared straight at me. He blinked, surprised, and murmured,
“You’re smart.”
A little while ago, I “didn’t know anything.”
I shrugged and stuffed the rest of the sticky-rice cake into my mouth.
While I enjoyed the snack, crisp outside and soft inside, he just looked down at his own hand in silence, lost in thought.
“Let’s go back.”
“You don’t want to look around more?”
“Yeah. I want to go back.”
Answering quietly, Namgung Hwi turned his back.
Did I mess up again? What’s with him now?
Watching his mood, I followed behind him.
*****
When we returned to the Tang estate, what greeted us was a group of Tang clan martial artists led by Tang Bugyeong, and members of the Namgung Clan.
Judging from their faces, they’d been searching for their missing Young Clan Head for quite a while.
“Hwi, just where have you been?”
A burly middle-aged man strode up, voice booming. But Namgung Hwi answered calmly, not cowed in the least.
“I went to the market street, Father.”
From that answer, I realized this middle-aged man was his father and the Clan Head of the Namgung Clan.
“You should have said something before you went, boy. This isn’t Anhui—you can’t just wander around as you please in someone else’s territory. You’re supposed to set an example as Young Clan Head.”
“My thoughts were shallow. Next time, I will ask for permission first.”
A little earlier, he’d said he was going out precisely because his father wouldn’t allow it. From the sound of it, he must have been jumping walls all the time back in Anhui, too.
The way he answered now, sounding so grown-up, made him seem like a completely different person from the boy I’d been with.
So he wasn’t just a spoiled child; he actually watched his tongue in front of his father.
Either his father scared him, or he didn’t want to be seen as a child in front of him—or both.
The Clan Head of the Namgung Clan chuckled at his son’s answer and asked,
“So. Why did you want to go [N O V E L I G H T] to the market street?”
“Because hearing a hundred times isn’t worth seeing once. I wanted to see the world with my own eyes.”
“Our Hwi has already grown up.”
Smiling with satisfaction, the Clan Head ruffled Namgung Hwi’s hair.
“You’re right. What you see is worth more than what you read, and actually doing is worth more than seeing. Experience as much as you can. All of that will pile up and become your foundation.”
Mm. I want to go back quickly.
I stood with my hands folded politely, just waiting for the father-and-son reunion to end. As soon as the two of them were gone, I planned to quietly slip back to Tang Jung’s pavilion.
But my wish did not come true so easily. In the middle of his warm conversation with his son, the Clan Head finally noticed me.
Under his sharp gaze, I hastily lowered my head. He asked,
“And who is this child?”
At once, as if he’d been waiting, Namgung Hwi answered,
“Father, I want to bring her to Anhui.”
“Mm?”
“Please give me permission to take her with me.”
He declared it proudly.
...Has this Young Master lost his mind? freeweɓnovel.cøm
I stared at him, jaw hanging. Meeting my eyes, Namgung Hwi stuck out his chest, wearing a “I did great, right?” expression.
I couldn’t just smack him in front of his father. But what was this nonsense coming out of his mouth? “Take her with me”—what was I, a puppy?
“Hwi. What on earth are you talking about all of a sudden...”
The Clan Head, too, frowned, clearly thrown. He looked back and forth between us, and his face twisted.
Exactly. What on earth is he suddenly talking about? I’d love to know that myself.
I forced a smile. His face only grew harsher.
“Hwi, you come with me. You, as well. Both of you, come. I need to hear the full story.”
His voice cut like a knife, cold as a winter wind. My body trembled under that undisguised anger.
Felt like I’d just hit the ruin route.
I suddenly missed Tang Jung, somewhere inside the Tang estate.
Grand Elder. Please save me.
