Chapter 157: The Time Has Come
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‘Hmm.’
A light suddenly rose on Cui Lan’s face as she rolled her eyes attentively.
Curiosity.
It was a natural reaction.
Though it had been nearly ten years since she first saw that abandoned house sitting lonely deep in the mountains, this was the first time she’d sensed any human presence.
This was a forest quite far from Jianwen Mountain, her master Seop Pyo’s longtime hermitage.
Cui Lan, who enjoyed hunting, often visited this place, and whenever it rained or stormed, or when she wanted to take a brief rest, she would stay in that abandoned building.
It was the same situation now.
She had finished her martial arts training early and filled her stomach, then come out to hunt mountain animals to get provisions for the next several days.
But she hadn’t expected to detect an unexpected human presence.
Probably not hunters.
In fact, the Jianwen Mountain area, formed of primeval forests, was extremely rugged, and with many packs of fierce beasts living there, it was a remote region that common people avoided entering.
Suddenly, the words her master Seop Pyo had said flashed through her mind.
-Occasionally there may be people who enter the mountain areas around Jianwen Mountain, but avoid unnecessary contact. Unexpected encounters in treacherous mountains are especially dangerous… In particular, you must be extremely careful of groups. There are mountains everywhere in this land, so those who would come all the way to this harsh place to meet most likely don’t have good intentions. That suggests a high possibility they’re plotting something that requires avoiding the public eye.
She had heard those words not long after becoming Seop Pyo’s official disciple.
‘My martial arts were immature back then, but now I’ve reached first-rate level in lightfoot techniques alone…’
By her visual estimate, the distance was about five jang.
If she used the skills she’d honed to approach about ten more steps, she felt she might learn something.
But.
Soon shaking her head, Cui Lan smirked inwardly.
‘Heh. I’m quite curious but… I should listen to my elder’s words.’
Right, if she made a mistake, she might end up poking a hornet’s nest.
It would be better to just quietly pass by as if she knew nothing.
Having suppressed the curiosity in her heart, Cui Lan muffled her presence as much as possible and turned her body.
Just then.
CLATTER-
A window of the old house over there opened with a sound and a person poked their head out.
Simultaneously.
SWISH.
Cui Lan crouched in the underbrush and heightened her eyesight to look that way.
Suddenly.
Great ripples arose in Cui Lan’s eyes.
‘…!’
All the blood in her body suddenly felt like it was heating up and surging backward.
The person checking outside the window was Dancing Saber Mandarin Duck Gyeon Mi.
THUMP THUMP.
Cui Lan’s heart beat faster as she bit her lip hard and suppressed her breathing as much as possible to avoid revealing her presence.
Before long, the faded window closed again.
CLATTER-
Only then did Cui Lan quietly let out a long breath, her eyes flashing as sharp as a honed blade.
Rage.
Killing intent swirled in her cold gaze.
The long scar on her back hidden by clothes… The person who had given it to her was here.
The enemy who had murdered her parents in the past.
Gyeon Mi.
She never imagined she would see that face, which she had never once forgotten, here of all places.
-I’ll, I’ll give you everything we have… Please, just our daughter… GAARGH!
-KYAAAAAH! Darling…!
A nightmare-like memory.
Cui Lan recalled that incident once again.
At the time, her parents were peddlers in a small village, and one day they gained a tidy sum through a fairly large transaction and started a family trip combined with an extended rest.
While enjoying those pleasant days touring several scenic spots in this region, they passed through a secluded forest path and met their end at the blade of some evil wanderer.
The identity of that murderer was Dancing Saber Mandarin Duck Gyeon Mi.
The reason was simple.
Robbery.
She hadn’t hesitated to kill to steal others’ money.
Gyeon Mi had deeply slashed even the back of ten-year-old Cui Lan to destroy evidence, in preparation for any future pursuit by the government.
However.
Whether heaven watched over her, Cui Lan miraculously regained consciousness after some time had passed, and embraced her parents who had become cold corpses, crying and crying.
It was a grief too great for her small, young body to bear.
Fate is mysterious, they say.
As it happened, Seop Pyo had come out for a long walk to relieve the tedium of his secluded life and chanced upon that scene, and in the end, unable to resist his pity, he took her as his disciple.
From that day, Cui Lan trained in martial arts and vowed revenge.
‘I saw it that day! Your alias engraved on your blade…!’
That’s right, she could never forget.
Dancing Saber Mandarin Duck.
The alias proudly engraved on the tip of the Willow Leaf Saber’s blade.
Having learned to read from a young age, she had immediately read it.
She was lucky.
At the time, Gyeon Mi had assumed the young her was dead and fled with the money without paying much attention.
GRIP-!
Cui Lan tightly gripped the handle of the sword hanging at her waist.
Not a wooden practice sword, but a real blade meant for killing.
She always used this sword when hunting animals.
For the purpose of learning practical combat sense, with her master Seop Pyo’s permission.
But… Today, her target had changed.
To a person.
She could consider this another kind of hunt.
The rough features she had just glimpsed were definitely Dancing Saber Mandarin Duck Gyeon Mi.
She had identified that appearance at once.
In truth, she had planned to take revenge with overwhelming martial prowess after fully completing her martial arts training, but now that she had actually confirmed that face, her desire for revenge boiled like lava and she absolutely couldn’t endure it.
Even a master with exceptional composure would find it hard to maintain reason when seeing an irreconcilable enemy.
‘Master! Finally… I think the time has come!’
* * *
“Worried someone might have followed?”
At the black-robed man’s low voice, Gyeon Mi shrugged as she closed the window and turned around.
“One should be careful in all things.”
At that, the black-robed man nodded and glanced at Black Rope Wondrous Lady Na Rae-hyang standing to one side.
“What, surprised I came?”
At Na Rae-hyang’s cold question, the black-robed man answered politely.
“Not at all… I received information that you needed a large sum of money recently, so I expected you would certainly appear.”
“Don’t talk like you’re showing off. If I get annoyed, I’ll chop up that body into tiny pieces and throw it to pigs and dogs as feed.”
Gyeon Mi, Seok Mo-pil and others nearby looked overwhelmed.
The black-robed man, however, rummaged in his clothes with an unbothered expression and pulled out several sheets of paper.
“This is a physical description of Gam Tae. Just use it as reference.”
Thousand-Man Foe Axe Tang Mu-gae took the paper and grinned.
“Heh, I don’t quite understand the circumstances but… You’ve targeted him as someone who needs to be killed and eliminated, haven’t you?”
What he said essentially meant: if you add a little more money on top of that large sum, we’ll handle that too.
“It’s not such a simple mission.”
“Keheh, no complaints? Just find him, is that it? This doesn’t feel like a job…”
“What’s so hard about killing? Finding him is just tedious. At first we wanted to handle it with our own power, but we decided to separately hire outsiders to shorten the time. So do your best.”
“Fine, understood.”
The moment Tang Mu-gae nodded, Na Rae-hyang opened her mouth.
“‘We,’ you say… I’m newly curious. What kind of group.”
“Refrain from unnecessary questions.”
“I said I’m curious. If I try to find out using force, what will you do?”
As Na Rae-hyang’s unpredictable attitude rapidly froze the atmosphere in the room.
Just as the faces of Tang Mu-gae, Gyeon Mi and the others stiffened.
“Heehee. Well, probably… It would be hard to come out unscathed.”
When the black-robed man replied leisurely, Na Rae-hyang smiled meaningfully with a faint grin.
“Oho, so you have something to rely on that makes you unafraid of me. Fine, I’ll stop testing the waters here… Tell me the search range.”
“I shall.”
The black-robed man answered and spread out a rough map to explain.
“Here, here, and here – we expect he’s quietly hiding somewhere in the mountains between these three cities… If no leads are found, we plan to expand the search range a bit more.”
Tang Mu-gae, who had been studying the map, asked a question.
“Hey, but you’re not searching Wuyang and its vicinity?”
“Our people are already operating covertly there, so don’t worry about it.”
“Ah, I see. But you know what? There’s been a rumor that Thousand Snake Group was destroyed by a surprise operation led by Wuyang’s County Magistrate. I heard about it when I came here.”
“So?”
“I’m telling you not to do anything that might give that government office an excuse. It’ll be a headache if we get entangled with them.”
“What, are you afraid of officials?”
“Damn, shut up! Who’s afraid of anyone!”
When Tang Mu-gae flared up with bulging eyes, the black-robed man waved his hand as if telling him not to worry.
“The government’s movements aren’t much of a threat anyway. Our people have expertise in erasing traces.”
At that moment, One Sword Without Mercy Seup Yeo, who had been staying quiet, asked carefully.
“Um, but what if… An unexpected martial arts master intervenes, or if a traitor emerges from among us…?”
At that, Gyeon Mi beside him quickly added her own question.
“Would there be separate compensation for handling that?”
The black-robed man’s eyes lit up as he nodded slightly.
“Of course. If such a thing happens in the future… I intend to give whoever handles it compensation equivalent to today’s large payment. How about it, satisfied?”
Na Rae-hyang laughed upon hearing those words.
“Heehee. I really like that.”
The black-robed man smiled back and spoke.
“Is that all? The person who finds Gam Tae first will also receive very generous compensation separately.”
Tang Mu-gae, his motivation heightened, let out a chuckle.
“Kahaha, kahahaha! Wow… We’ve landed a great patron. This competition is going to get fierce.”
The black-robed man adjusted his bamboo hat and turned.
“The initial set period is a fortnight. Gather at the abandoned temple courtyard at Mount Zhongmen, southwest of Baizhou. I’ll hear the progress of the work then.”
Having thus ended the meeting, the group came out of the abandoned house and each walked off in different directions.
Immediately after.
Cui Lan, who had been hiding in the bushes sharpening her blade of vengeance, followed at a slight distance behind Gyeon Mi, who had chosen a secluded mountain path and disappeared.
Meanwhile.
Black Rope Wondrous Lady Na Rae-hyang, walking alone down a shaded path, slightly pulled up one corner of her mouth.
‘Ha, you can’t fool me. Someone from the demonic martial world stepping into the martial world to search for some old man’s whereabouts? I need to find out what this is about. It seems like something very big.’
* * *
The training ground inside White Peak Sword Sect.
Under the warm sunlight, Yeop Hwon, Hyeop Mu-geuk and the others were gathered there training.
RUMBLE RUMBLE… RUMBLE RUMBLE…
Suddenly, from far beyond the main gate of White Peak Sword Sect, clamorous sounds rang out continuously.
It was the sound of Divine Wind’s hooves violently shaking the ground.
“Ah, he must be finally coming!”
At Tae Sa-ja’s brief cry, Namgung Sang-rin and Hae Su-yeon stared at the main gate with expectant expressions.
RUMBLE RUMBLE- RUMBLE RUMBLE-!
Soon the sound rapidly grew closer, and simultaneously Divine Wind lightly leaped over the main gate roof and dropped down on one side of the training ground with a THOOM.
Immediately after.
Cheol Ryu-heun indicated Gal Jung-heon behind him with a head gesture and said.
“Say hello. A Guest Retainer from the demonic martial world.”
At that moment, Gal Jung-heon spotted the Guyang three brothers standing nearby and harbored a great question.
‘Oh! How can this be – there are already three demons in the sect besides me…?’
Cheol Ryu-heun read his thoughts and muttered inwardly.
‘Hmm, everyone flinches in surprise just looking at those three faces. Should I take this chance to actually teach them demonic arts?’
Right, well, there was no reason it couldn’t work.