Chapter 8
A day had passed since the break-in, and Seojun had scarcely found his bearings when his father—who’d learned of the incident through a servant—summoned him to give an account to a police investigator.
Seojun shared what he could, fabricating a tale about how his box of coins had been stolen, while carefully omitting any mention of his missing manuscript.
Once the investigator left, Seojun quietly began his own inquiries.
He questioned Maid Daebi again, along with nearly a dozen other servants who had been awake when the crime had occurred.
One by one, they confirmed the same unsettling thing: Not a single person had witnessed or heard anything.
It was as if the thief had slipped through the estate like a ghost. How was this possible?
The questions swirling in his mind soon became a tangle, impossible to grasp the longer he brooded over it.
Seojun rode out of the capital that day to clear his thoughts.
Before long, he reached the open field surrounding Hwasadang and spotted Byeongho, the estate’s owner, who had sent him a note that morning expressing his intent to practice archery.
Several targets had been set up accordingly, yet it appeared his friend had long since lost any will to shoot.
“You’ve come at last,” Byeongho said in greeting, lighting his smoking pipe as Seojun dismounted and tethered his horse.
“I know I invited you to join me, but you will have to practice on your own, I fear. My shoulder is already throbbing in pain after a couple of shots.” There was a long pause as Byeongho considered him for a thoughtful moment.
“You know, you look positively awful. Another lecture from your father?”
“Far worse,” Seojun muttered, and proceeded to explain the break-in to Byeongho, whose brows shot higher with every detail.
When Seojun finally finished, Byeongho took a long puff from his silver smoking pipe and said ponderously, “So someone stole your keys, broke in, and took the entire manuscript. Who else knows of your writing endeavors?”
“Not many. The only people who know are my sister, Wol, and you.”
“But why would they steal your manuscript? To sell it? I suppose book thieves are rampant these days…”
Seojun took a narrow band of leather and wrapped it snug around his left wrist. With a final tug, he secured the wrist guard and snatched up a bow. “Perhaps they were book thieves. It could also be for the handwriting.”
“To somehow prove your identity?”
“That’s the only other reason I can think of.”
“But prove it to whom? And why?”
“Handwriting is like a signature.” In one smooth motion, Seojun drew the bowstring to his ear and found himself wishing he could maneuver this puzzling case with as much ease. “Perhaps they have a mind to blackmail me.”
“Your family is immensely wealthy. I would blackmail you, too, if I had no morals.” Byeongho drew lazily on his pipe and blew out a cloud, watching the smoke drift into the clear blue sky.
“And you believe the theft of the keys occurred at the gibang house. You returned there, did you not, on the morning of the break-in? I remember seeing you when I was about to leave the house myself.”
“It was to inquire if anyone had discovered a pair of keys.”
“And did you find it?”
“No.” Seojun steadied his focus, narrowing in on the target, and released the arrow.
It cut through the air with a sharp whistle and hit the target with a resounding thud.
But he was still not satisfied. He felt no calm.
His shoulders remained as tense as a rock.
“I also spoke with Madam Seolhwa there, to see if anyone of suspicious character had been seen on the premises. But she couldn’t recall anything. ”
“It seems like you’ve walked straight into one of Black Lotus’s vignettes,” Byeongho said with a grin, “full of convoluted mystery and thrills, seedy characters and an intelligent investigator—but who will be the investigator? The police? You yourself?”
Seojun took up another arrow and aimed, but concentration was difficult as thoughts swarmed in his mind. “I don’t wish to draw too much attention to the break-in; it could invite speculation,” he noted, then frowned as he recalled information he’d uncovered earlier.
“What is it?”
“The house was ransacked without anyone hearing a thing, not even the gatekeeper, who was resting nearby,” Seojun said. “Although … Maid Daebi claimed to have heard a clatter and a thud.”
“So she heard something no one else heard,” Byeongho repeated. “Intriguing.”
“Books were tossed around—surely that would have made some noise. Alerted someone. But no, only she heard. And no other rooms were disturbed. Nothing else was stolen but my manuscript.”
Byeongho pursed his lips. “It’s almost as though the culprit wants you to know his intent.”
“I inspected the gates and walls.”
“And?”
“At first I thought a thief had scaled the outer wall to enter. There were footprints crushing the flowers, and dirt on the tile capping the wall. But there were no corresponding marks on the other side. No scuff marks at all. No crushed plants to suggest someone had stood there. The tracks were all made from within the mansion.”
“What are you suggesting?”
“The scene was staged. This was not a break-in, but really, a breakout. And there is one detail that leaves me utterly bewildered.” Lowering his bow, he glanced at his friend as he voiced the question that had plagued him all day: “How did the thief manage to open my locks? To open the first, the thief would have had to find the keyhole hidden at the bottom, behind a sliding panel. Then unlock the outer body, pull out the inner mechanism, and slide aside another panel, all while inserting the key at precisely the right moment. He would then have had to turn the key at a full rotation to make the lock finally give way. He opened both, with two different unlocking mechanisms, before anyone took notice of him. It’s impossible. ”
Byeongho shrugged. “I’ve heard of master locksmiths. Or maybe a servant saw you opening it a few times.”
Seojun remained unconvinced, but all possible explanations eluded him. He was completely and thoroughly bewildered.
“Well, I am quite sure you will find the culprit. You always get your way.” And with this, Byeongho sprawled out under a pine tree, retrieving the book he’d left abandoned on a rock nearby.
“Here, let me cheer you up before you snap that bow in half, as you appear on the brink of doing. Listen to this poem,” he called out as he flipped the book open.
Pining for each other, we can meet only in dreams;
Yet while I rejoice to see you there, you rejoice to see me here.
If we are to dream of each other on a night to come,
Let us set out at the same time to meet on the road.
Seojun raised his bow again, determined this time to find his equilibrium. “‘Meeting in Dreams’ by the gisaeng Hwang Jini.” He steadied his breathing, aimed, and released, watching as the arrow struck the target once more.
“Of course you know. What book or poem has Yu Seojun not read?” Byeongho expelled a wistful breath. “You know, if I ever meet a girl whom I pine for so painfully that I would write poems about her, I would marry her right away, even if she were a gisaeng or a servant girl.”
Seojun sent him a puzzled glance. “What?”
Byeongho grinned, placing the poetry book aside again. He stretched out, one hand tucked under his head, the other holding his pipe. “I would, you know.”
“It would be illegal,” Seojun said flatly. “Intermarriage between classes is forbidden.”
“I would elope with her, of course.”
Seojun grunted. “You would marry for something as mundane as love?”
“Mundane? Love is the closest thing to the heavens.”
Shaking his head, Seojun set aside his bow to examine his loosened wrist guard.
Normally his manservant took care of securing it, but Namgil had disappeared this morning, another mystery that had left Seojun bewildered.
At least Byeongho’s concern was simple enough.
“Gentlemen do not marry for love. Marriage is an alliance between two families—”
“You can be such a bore, sometimes, Yu Seojun. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw you alone with a lady at the House of Bright Flowers,” Byeongho pointed out, a conspiratorial note in his voice.
“You were in the garden, staring at her with such piercing attention. Perhaps your heart is not so immune to the finer feelings as you make yourself out to be?”
“I would hardly call her a lady,” Seojun muttered.
“She’s a gentleman’s daughter. I recognized her, one of the three Shin daughters. She’s always out and about, going on long strolls and bribing her maid with sweets to escort her.” He smiled. “The eldest daughter is known to be a great beauty. I’ve only ever seen her from a distance, though.”
“The girl I spoke to was no great beauty.” Seojun continued to thread the leather strap through a loop, his thoughts drifting back to that night.
Back to the girl who had stared at him in silent challenge.
With one aggressive tug, he finally resecured the wrist guard. “So she must not have been the eldest.”
“The youngest daughter, in particular, is known for her youthful vigor and reckless friendships with heretics. And the mother!” Byeongho declared.
“Oh, the stories I have heard. I get a good laugh the more I learn about that woman. She is like a butterfly that only seeks flowers and does not care for the dangers of wind and dew. Such a delightful family, don’t you think? ”
“The family sounds more like a thing of nightmares.”
“At least they could never bore me—you know I despise being bored. Sometimes I wonder how we ever remained friends.” Byeongho took a puff of his smoking pipe and heaved out a sigh, more clouds forming before his lips.
“Never mind about me, I’m more concerned about you right now.
This investigation … it’s quite troubling, isn’t it?
Someone knows who you are. They must. Why else would they take your manuscript and nothing else? ”
The gravity of the situation returned, and the bow now felt ten times heavier in Seojun’s grip. He’d usually had an answer for everything, until now. “I haven’t the damnedest idea.”
“You’re certain no one else knows of your identity as Black Lotus? What about that scribe—Magpie? You practically grin like a fool whenever you mention your correspondence with him.”
“I do not grin like a fool.”
“Oh, of course not! Lord Yu Seojun never smiles. Except, of course, when he’s reading letters from Magpie. Mysterious creature, that one.”
“I doubt Magpie knows my true identity.” Seojun re-nocked an arrow, slower this time. “And even if he did, he would have kept it secret.”
“How can you be so certain?”
Seojun fell silent for a moment. “There are very few people I don’t find irritating, and fewer still whom I trust. Magpie is one of them.”
“You trusted him that much? What on earth did you two write about?”
He drew back the arrow, just as words from their very first correspondence filled his thoughts. Words that were burned into his memory.
Dear Black Lotus,
I am Magpie, the scribe whom Mistress Wol entrusted with the transcription of your work. I have diligently washed your writing away after completion, per your request. I hope you’ll forgive me the liberty I’m taking of writing freely to you.
He readjusted the aim of his arrow.
I have been eagerly transcribing and following the journey of the main character Scholar Hong for the past nine volumes of your work.
I do hope you will keep working on it, and if you have the next volume but feel uncertain about it, you and I can go over it together. I would be happy to review a selection of your compositions before transcribing them for the public.
His grip on the bow tightened as he tried to hone his focus.
Words are no good whatsoever to capture how I feel. There are few peaks in my life, and transcribing your work has been the highest of all. Thank you for everything. Your writing makes me very, very happy.
His focus wavered.
The arrow flew wide and missed the target entirely.