Chapter 39: Chapter 39
– Wolha Village, Seventh Small Palace.
Mao sat in the garden, oblivious to Sixth Young Master Maeng Hwi’s approach, reeking of a foul stench.
To be precise, his clothes were caked with dirt and stains from rolling on the ground. His face was swollen tight as if he’d been worked over. Dark circles hollowed his eyes from lack of sleep.
In a word, a wreck.
All he did was repeat one name, dripping with resentment and fury.
“Jang… I… seo… Heuheuheuhe.”
With good reason.
The Path of One Hundred and Eight Afflictions. The battlefield between him and the latrine.
Mao had suffered a crushing defeat there. The price was a horrific experience and a deep wound to his spirit. He felt especially sorry for his undergarments.
But he’d accepted it.
Yes. What was done was done. He’d conceded a hundred, a thousand times over.
Why was a good-for-nothing a good-for-nothing? If getting drunk and losing control was the worst of it, that was mercy.
“Heuhihihihi.”
But there was another reason Mao had lost his mind.
It was this house. The house where he should change clothes and sleep peacefully.
“Heuheuheu. A house is for resting. For sleeping. So at least let me inside. Huh? You bastards. Heueung…”
Mao collapsed onto the ground. Too much. Far too much. The Room of No Rest. That place had shattered Mao’s last remaining hope into fragments.
As if soiling himself at his age wasn’t enough, after getting beaten black and blue by terra-cotta soldiers and limping inside.
‘BUNG!’
An ominous chime. The ceiling opened. A massive round iron weight plummeted straight at Mao.
Urk!
He took it square in the chest. The impact launched him through the door, smashing it to splinters, and sent him tumbling across the ground.
Rolling in his own filth.
Devastating.
“Heuheuheuhe.”
Anyone who didn’t go mad after that wasn’t human. Right now, Mao was a shit-covered good-for-nothing.
“And he dares stay out all night on a day like this?! Jang I-seo… heu heu heu. I’ll kill him.”
Mao let out a chilling laugh. The moment he returned, it would be a death match.
Just as he steeled his resolve once more, the presence he’d been yearning for all night finally reached him from the entrance.
“Jang I-seo, you bastard! Do you know what time… Huh?”
But it wasn’t the infuriating Jang I-seo he’d waited all night to see.
“Wh-what… is this.”
A silk robe. Hair tied up with a sash. A black short spear strapped to his back. A small boy with round, bewildered eyes staring at him.
“A Maeng family brat?!”
“I’m your older brother!”
That was the official genealogy. In his heart, just a little runt who always picked fights.
The owner of the divine artifact bestowed by the Cult Leader, the shattered spear Black Silence.
Sixth Young Master Maeng Hwi.
“Why are you here.”
“An older brother comes to visit his younger brother, and you? You should be out here prostrating and bowing… Urgh! Let’s talk later.”
“What? Hey, wait!”
Maeng Hwi clutched his lower abdomen and rushed through the entrance.
FWISH! An iron club fired from right beside him without fail. Maeng Hwi’s eyes flashed and he tilted his head back, dodging it effortlessly.
“What?!”
Mao was the one who recoiled in shock. He hadn’t dodged a single one…
“You laid a trap to kill me-!”
“What nonsense! How would I know you were coming?”
“I suppose that’s true, but then this is… Hah!”
More iron clubs followed. Maeng Hwi dodged awkwardly but THWACK! Finally took one to the ribs.
Gurgle.
His face contorted. The ribs hurt, sure. But his stomach…
‘No. Absolutely not in front of this good-for-nothing! I’d rather die. Hold it! HOLD IT!’
Sweat poured down his forehead.
Maeng family youngest. Sixth Young Master Maeng Hwi.
Fifteen years old.
The crisis of his lifetime had arrived.
‘Just get inside!’
Why such a trap existed at the entrance was a mystery, but that wasn’t the priority right now.
“HYAH!”
A desperate battle cry burst from Maeng Hwi’s lips.
Pah-pah-pah!
He nimbly worked his feet, evading every iron bar, and made it inside.
But.
“Urk!”
The instant he crossed the threshold, a foul stench seeped into his nostrils, nearly knocking him unconscious.
Poison?! This bastard was really trying to kill him! Maeng Hwi glared at Mao, the source of the smell, with murderous intent, then whipped his head away.
His nose seemed to have gone numb, but now wasn’t the time to interrogate Mao. His stomach was about to eject everything. That came first.
“How did you only get hit once?! I took hundreds!”
Getting hit hundreds of times at that range would be harder. And…
“Sh-shut up. The more you talk, the worse it smells! Tell me… where the latrine is! Immediately, or…”
FWHK! Maeng Hwi drew the short spear from his back and pressed its tip to Mao’s Adam’s apple.
“You won’t survive today.”
Was the latrine a traitor or something? Why deliver that line with such dramatic flair? Mao was too dumbfounded to respond. He eyed him up and down and spoke.
“Hey. What are you doing barging into someone else’s house? What kind of bullshit is this at the crack of… And! The latrine is over there!”
The spear tip grazed his throat. Mao pointed and shouted. Maeng Hwi withdrew the spear and used light footwork to cover the short distance.
Pah-pah-pah!
His robe fluttering, Maeng Hwi landed gracefully. Face brightening, he turned the corner.
Almost there. Almost done.
Hope and relief flooded his mind.
But what awaited him was…
KUNG!
“What is this…!”
Not a latrine. One hundred and eight Four Heavenly Kings with eyes wide open.
Relieve yourself, or fight while relieving yourself.
Jegal Gwi-ryong’s nightmare. The Path of One Hundred and Eight Afflictions awaited.
“Father… Heuk.”
Tears brimmed in Maeng Hwi’s eyes.
* * *
Meanwhile, at that same hour.
Jang I-seo, having stayed out all night, had left Wolha Village and entered a quiet forest nearby. Not for fresh air, but to deliver a message.
Naturally, to send a letter normally, one would go to the village’s Pigeon House or dispatch a courier. But the message Jang I-seo intended to send today couldn’t be delivered through such conventional means.
‘Because this isn’t going to the Demonic Cult.’
Correct. The message had to reach his true organization. The Martial Alliance’s Hidden Pavilion.
Jang I-seo stopped before a large, thick tree marked with a white band.
Truthfully, even he didn’t fully understand how his reports reached the Hidden Pavilion. All he knew was that only two categories of beings could leave Cheonsan freely.
One: those with the Cult Leader’s permission.
Two: the black wood standing before him.
A tree without legs couldn’t possibly go anywhere, one might think. But it was true.
Cheonsan’s black wood commanded exorbitant prices in the Western Regions. The Demonic Cult felled mature trees like this one and shipped them along the Silk Road.
And what Jang I-seo did was carve dot cipher into trees marked with white bands, indicating they were scheduled for logging.
Scrape, scrape.
With the short sword at his waist, one dot at a time. Inconspicuously.
Wasn’t it dangerous if someone caught him?
Not at all. Getting caught was no real concern.
The dot cipher he was carving was a basic code used in countless places, interpretable in sixty-seven different ways depending on context. Translated according to Demonic Cult convention, the message he’d just written meant something like “Idiot, moron.”
Even if discovered, it would be dismissed as the senseless scribbling of a man exhausted from work.
Naturally, interpreted according to Hidden Pavilion convention, it read: “Safe return. Cult Leader is an idiot.”
How this tree was transported, where it was reinterpreted, and how it reached the Hidden Pavilion as a dispatch, he didn’t know.
Nor had they ever asked him to report.
But despite all that.
He took this tremendous risk for one reason alone.
The last shred of pride that his true affiliation was the Martial Alliance, not this Demonic Cult.
“Well, that’s a side errand. The real business is this.”
Jang I-seo finished carving and resumed walking through the forest.
His aimless steps suggested no specific destination. Scanning the greenery continuously, he appeared to be searching for something.
His steps finally halted before a tree heavy with yellow fruit.
Caw-! Caw-!
Looking up, he found an apricot tree housing a crow’s nest.
Jang I-seo regarded it quietly, then produced a sheet of parchment heavily scented with cinnamon bark from his robes. He leaped lightly onto a branch.
Despite the branch not being thick enough to bear a grown man’s weight, his movement was remarkably agile.
Shlk.
He crouched and loosely tied the parchment to the branch.
“The feast preparations are complete. Now we just need the guests.”
A cruel smile settled on his lips. For whom was this feast? The answer was simple.
‘I know full well you won’t stop here. But do you know? I have no intention of stopping either.’
The assassin syndicate of Cheonsan with which he’d already forged a bitter rivalry twice.
Slaughter. Kill.
Yes. The Slaughterhouse. Jang I-seo was preparing a feast for them. He’d already foreseen their imminent visit to Wolha Village.
‘Sa Do-cheol. I hear that after two failures, you personally step in on the third. You’ve already lost to me twice. This time, you’ll definitely come for me yourself.’
And Jang I-seo had no intention of wasting that opportunity.
The Slaughterhouse was only the beginning. The road to Young Cult Leader would undoubtedly be paved with countless attacks.
So he meant to show them.
What happens when you touch the Seventh Small Palace. No. What happens when you interfere with his mission.
Jang I-seo’s eyes flashed fiercely, as if welcoming what was to come.
*
By the time Jang I-seo returned to Wolha Village, the sun was already sinking below the western horizon.
His arms were heavy with fatigue after the long day’s work, but thinking of Mao grumbling about being abandoned, he’d picked up two roasted chickens wrapped in paper from the market.
Come to think of it, he’d gone too far. Mao had effectively been handed a one-month death sentence, and he’d left him alone to handle business.
Grumbling on the outside, Mao must be terrified and trembling inside.
He should go back and soothe him as best he could.
Lost in thought, he arrived at the Seventh Small Palace before he knew it.
“I’m bac…”
The moment he passed through the entrance with fluid movement and offered his greeting, Jang I-seo recoiled in horror and dropped the chickens.
“It’s okay… that’s life, right? But what did you eat? Smells good.”
“WAAAAAAAH!”
A crying child who had soiled himself. And a good-for-nothing who had also soiled himself, trying to comfort him.
Total catastrophe.