The daylight was short.
It had been four days since Jwa Woryang was carried away in the Discipline Hall's carriage. Within three days, every rumor in the mountain estate had made the rounds. The Vice Chief had been dragged to headquarters. He had stumbled over his own words in front of the Gatekeeper and brought about his own downfall. Jang Isu passed through those rumors every day with the same steady steps. Nothing at the main gate was different from usual. Carts came and went, and attendants crossed back and forth.
Old Man Yu had once said, Isu, a gate isn't a place for opening. It's a place for standing. Back then, I thought he meant I was supposed to guard it. Now I understood. Just by standing there, someone would end up falling apart.
At dusk, an unfamiliar sedan chair stopped in front of the main gate. It was smaller than Jwa Woryang's and had no decoration. An old man stepped out. He wore silk, but it hung loosely on his body. With every step, he had a habit of bowing at the waist.
"Are you the Gatekeeper named Jang Isu?"
"I am."
"I'm the steward of the Vice Chief's household." The old man clasped his hands together. "Could I have a brief word with you?"
Jang Isu led him to the covered corridor beside the main gate. It was a place where few people passed. The steward did not even sit down. Instead, he pulled something from his sleeve first. It was a small pouch. Something heavy clinked inside.
"My master was dragged away unjustly." The steward lowered his voice. "Headquarters hasn't passed judgment yet. They're still investigating. And investigations can be overturned by a single statement."
"I have nothing to say."
"You've already said everything." The steward casually held out the pouch. "Now you only need to do one more thing. If the Hall Chief asks again, tell him that what you saw that night wasn't certain. Answer that way for me."
"I can't say I didn't see what I saw."
"I'm not asking you to say you didn't see it. Just say you weren't certain." The steward's voice rose a notch. "Who would know if one person changed his story? For my master, that one sentence is the crossroads between keeping his position and losing it."
Jang Isu did not look at the pouch. He only looked at the steward's eyes.
"No."
The steward's expression changed. He slipped the pouch back into his sleeve.
"For someone who's stood in this spot for three years, you really don't know how to count your gains." He approached with his voice lowered. "Where were you before you came to this mountain estate? Do you think nothing will come to light if I start digging into that?"
"Go ahead and dig."
"This isn't a threat." The steward waved both hands. "I'm only telling you how the world works. If my master falls, the people beside him will be shaken with him. Wang the Swordsman is one of them. The Wang Ho you know."
Jang Isu's eyes paused for an instant.
"Wang the Swordsman's position is on the line too," the steward continued. "If you change just one sentence, my master lives, Wang the Swordsman lives, and your own position improves. Everyone gets to live. Why are you blocking the way by yourself?"
"I'm not blocking anything. I'm saying that's what happened that night."
The steward paused to catch his breath. Then he lowered his voice even further.
"Where are your parents and siblings? A person who's stood alone in a place like this for three years must have nowhere to lean, don't you think? I could give you somewhere to lean. A position in a good family. A household with a wife and children already in it."
"I don't need it."
"People always say they don't need it before the price is named." The steward clicked his tongue. "I've seen plenty of people like you. They all refuse at first. Later, they regret not taking it sooner."
"I don't create things I'll regret."
The steward glared at Jang Isu for a long while, then suddenly lowered his voice and brought up something else.
"Fine. How about this?" He glanced around as he continued. "The money Black Wind Stockade received wasn't eight hundred nyang. It was five hundred. The other three hundred went somewhere else. Do you know how dangerous it is for my master that someone knows where that money went? So if you quietly make that paper disappear..."
"I never asked where the three hundred nyang went."
The steward clamped his mouth shut. For a moment, he had been too late.
A presence stirred behind one of the corridor pillars. It was an attendant who carried tea every day from the mountain estate's guest quarters. As he walked out, he pulled a token from inside his robe and showed it. It bore the mark of the Discipline Hall.
"Five hundred nyang. Three hundred nyang." The attendant—or rather, the man who had not been an attendant—murmured softly. "I heard everything you just said."
The color drained from the steward's face.
"W-why are you here...?"
"I've been in this mountain estate ever since the Hall Chief came by." He put the token away as he spoke. "I was ordered to watch what people from the Vice Chief's household said when they came here. I didn't expect you to come bribe the Gatekeeper, though."
"It wasn't a bribe! I only came to ask after his well-being..."
"Is the three hundred nyang part of asking after his well-being too?" The attendant's voice was low but unwavering. "Trying to influence a witness regarding an ongoing investigation, and mentioning the whereabouts of funds in advance—those are both things headquarters will be very interested in hearing about."
The steward froze in place. The pouch in his hand was halfway out of his sleeve. His mouth opened and closed several times as he searched for an excuse.
"I-I didn't know. That wasn't what I meant..."
"Headquarters will ask what you meant." The attendant turned and gestured toward the corridor. Two men walked out of the shadows. They were the ones who had been loitering near the main gate earlier. They were dressed like porters, but they did not walk like porters.
The steward was led toward the sedan chair as if he were being dragged. Even then, he looked back at Jang Isu several times.
"You... Did you bring me here on purpose?"
"I only showed you to the corridor."
"Didn't you say no one came here?"
"I thought no one did." Jang Isu answered briefly. It was not a lie. He had not known that the attendant would leave the guest quarters and stand guard over the corridor.
The steward could not continue. The sedan chair's door closed. The men dressed as porters surrounded it and disappeared beyond the main gate.
The attendant stood beside Jang Isu one last time.
"I'll report to the Hall Chief that the Vice Chief's side made a move." He straightened his clothes. His gait was not that of an attendant. "This is no longer a simple disturbance in front of the main gate. It has become obstruction of an investigation. Vice Chief Jwa won't be able to step down from his position this time."
"...Is that so?"
"Let's say it was thanks to you." The attendant gave him a faint smile. "I'll see you again, Gatekeeper."
The attendant soon disappeared beyond the main gate as well. Jang Isu remained alone in the corridor. The evening light was fading completely.
One name the steward had tossed out as if in passing kept bothering him. Wang Ho. His claim that Wang Ho's position was on the line too. His claim that the people beside Jwa Woryang would be shaken if he fell. That was not a threat. It was a fact.
As Jang Isu took the broom back in hand, his fingertips unconsciously brushed the callused spot on his palm. One of ten people had lost his position for good today. But at the sound of that one man's collapse, another name was already trembling.
Wang Ho stood at the far end of the corridor. There was no telling how long he had been there. Without saying a word, he stared toward the main gate where the sedan chair had vanished. There was even less color in his face than that morning.
"I heard everything." Wang Ho finally opened his mouth. His voice was hoarse. "If even the steward was taken away... is this really the end?"
"I don't know."
"You don't know?" Wang Ho took a step closer, then stopped. It was a step that could go neither forward nor back. "You've watched from my side for three years, and you don't know? You know how far this is going, but you won't tell me, is that it?"
Jang Isu did not answer. A light Jang Isu had never seen before flashed in Wang Ho's eyes. It was somewhere between resentment and fear.
"What... what will happen to me?" he barely managed to say before turning away, unable to ask anything more. Even his usual limp was unsteady today.
Jang Isu returned to the main gate and checked the gate bar. Night was coming. The main gate had to remain open until the final moment of the day, and today, too, an unfamiliar face had entered through it—only to be carried back out.
This was already the third time someone had reached out a hand over a single piece of paper. Jwa Woryang, headquarters, and the steward today. Who would reach out next? There was no name yet.
Through the narrowing gap of the closing gate, Wang Ho's shadow was still standing in that spot.