Chapter 346: v14c21 - The Trap of the Trap
Volume 14 Chapter 21 – The Trap of the Trap
Flash.
As lightning struck a nearby old tree a thunderous roar that seemed to shake heaven and earth struck everyone’s ears.
“—–!”
“—!”
Those who had hurriedly thrown themselves onto the muddy ground stood up and shouted something at each other, but and, naturally, in the midst of it all, there was no one who could pay attention to Grand Tactician Zhuge, who was left alone inside the armored command carriage.
*Beeeeep—* due to the roaring sound that had struck their eardrums from a close distance, only tinnitus shook their heads.
“—Danger—!”
“—Lightning—!”
“—Must avoid—!”
* * *
Since it was the armored command carriage, which could be called the darling of the Luoyang Sword Family’s technology the impact of the lightning’s roar had no effect on the hearing of those inside.
“—-!”
“—!”
The desperate struggle outside the window, reflected in Grand Tactician Zhuge’s eyes became a boundary dividing the inner and outer worlds, making it feel as if he were simply watching the performance of actors appearing in a mere pantomime from the spectator seats.
‘…Would they feel the same emotion if they looked at me inside the carriage right now?’
They would never.
Not the goosebumps rising all over his body right now, nor the chill that seemed to freeze him from head to toe.
They would not be able to feel a single thing.
“…I see.”
His lips twitched.
“The Eldest Young Master…”
In that brief moment grand Tactician Zhuge, who had finished organizing his thoughts, looked at the Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon, who was sitting opposite him.
“You planned this from the very beginning.”
No matter how long he had been outside the Eldest Young Master, who was already soaking wet, dripped water from his collar and the tips of his hair, but casually leaning back comfortably, he picked up the teacup that had been placed in front of Grand Tactician Zhuge, and savored it as if it had been prepared for him.
“The aroma of the tea is good.”
“Did you prepare separate water to brew the tea? You prepared it so well in such a short time.”
The corners of the Eldest Young Master’s mouth curved upward, forming a sneer.
“Isn’t the Strategist Department bullying their subordinates too much?”
“You purposefully set out alone, Eldest Young Master.”
Grand Tactician Zhuge ignored the Eldest Young Master’s deflection and continued his deduction.
“You must have used yourself as bait to shave down our forces, who would move rashly after being hooked by the bait, before the situation officially unfolded.”
“That is a good deduction. However,” the Eldest Young Master smiled faintly and set down the empty teacup.
“To be precise, it was not mere troops…”
The white breath coming from his mouth, which held the warmth of the tea, was warm.
“I was aiming for you, Grand Tactician Zhuge.”
“……!”
However, to Grand Tactician Zhuge the Eldest Young Master’s breath, close enough to be felt on his face, felt like the cold breath of the Grim Reaper.
“…Me.”
Grand Tactician Zhuge desperately suppressed his trembling voice and said, slowly, as slowly as possible, he picked up a new cup that was set aside and tilted the teapot.
“…It seems I have, quite honorably, caught your attention, Eldest Young Master.”
He tried his best to avoid eye contact, but in the Eldest Young Master’s gaze, which could be felt clearly all the way to his fingertips as he poured the tea, there was clearly a sticky, murderous intent contained within.
“How did this young and inexperienced tactician end up drawing unnecessary interest from you, Eldest Young Master?”
“You humble yourself too much, Grand Tactician Zhuge.”
From the beginning until now, the Eldest Young Master continued to speak, never taking his eyes off Grand Tactician Zhuge for even a moment.
“Are you not one of the only two proud Grand Tacticians of the New Martial Alliance?”
Ordinarily, that might have been the case.
However, right now, Grand Tactician Zhuge wanted to throw that name far away and discard it if possible.
“…It is a hollow title. Moreover, it is merely a case of a fox playing master in a mountain without tigers.”
Grand Tactician Zhuge suppressed his speech, which kept trying to speed up and forced himself to take a sip of tea to slow the flow of the conversation.
The tea was already cold.
“Since there has been an extreme lack of qualified people since the fall of the Martial Alliance,” one person was trying to build the other up, while the other was desperately trying to lower himself.
“this mere pale-faced scholar was simply selected by borrowing the grand name of his family.”
From the outside, it might have been a sight that elicited a chuckle, but to the person involved, it was a desperate struggle to secure time to survive by finding a path to life.
“Is that so…?”
To buy time grand Tactician Zhuge purposefully waited a beat, and after nodding his head, he even naturally opened his mouth to express agreement.
“Yes, it is.”
“…Hmm.”
The Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon, lightly tapped the empty teacup he was holding.
That small tapping sound to Grand Tactician Zhuge, sounded louder than the harsh rain pouring down on the carriage, and even louder than the intermittent lightning strikes.
“That is different from what I know.”
“That is—” before Grand Tactician Zhuge could ramble further, this time, the Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon, cut him off.
“A few years ago.”
“At that time, there were plenty of prominent candidates trying to take the vacant seat of the Grand Tactician, but the young genius of the Zhuge Clan was selected among them.”
The Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon, raised his hand and pointed at Grand Tactician Zhuge.
“I mean you.”
“That is true…!”
Grand Tactician Zhuge hurriedly nodded his head to grasp the thread of the conversation and babbled.
“At that time, there was a huge uproar due to the controversy of occupying the position through the family’s grand name—” the Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon, continued his words.
“However,” the Eldest Young Master, Yeon So-hyeon, did not allow his words to continue.
“Among the highest echelon back then, where the heads of numerous groups gathered, not a single complaint arose.”
“That is—!”
“It is strange. That was before the organizations of the Old Martial Alliance entered the Main Family under the name of the New Martial Alliance.”
“For there to be no noise about a suspicious appointment among those who were so focused on power that they remained united even after the collapse of the era-defining Martial Alliance…?”
It was an impossible thing.
“T-That is…!”
Grand Tactician Zhuge could not even distinguish whether what was flowing down his forehead was his cold sweat or rainwater leaking from the ceiling.
“It was all thanks to the extraordinary reputation of the Zhuge Clan—” to shut the mouth of Grand Tactician Zhuge, who was trying desperately to string words together, a single sentence from Yeon So-hyeon was enough.
“Grand Madame Ha.”
“…….”
Flash.
Outside, lightning struck, and Grand Tactician Zhuge’s face shone whiter than ever.
“…….”
Was it due to the lightning?
Or was it because all the color had drained from his face?
“I mean the mother of my younger sisters, the twins Third Young Lady Yeon Da-eun and Fourth Young Lady Yeon Da-hye.”
* * *
“I am not as easy to deal with either, even if I am not like your mother, Sister So-yu.”
The last words of Grand Madame Ha that the young Yeon So-hyeon had heard.
That hot summer day.
Just like right now after a sudden shower poured down harshly, the pale, decomposing corpse of Grand Madame Ha lay under the brilliant rainbow hanging in the sky.
The smell.
As always, the smile that hung on her lips until the very last moment looked exceptionally strained.
“To enjoy boating at a time like this…”
“They said there was heavy rain upstream. There was no way that small ferry boat could withstand the suddenly swollen water.”
“No, but still. To play in the water alone on a ferry boat without a single guard…?”
“Shh. Quiet.”
As always Yeon So-hyeon remembered everything.
* * *
Flash.
Rumble.
Once more, thunder and lightning crashed down and as the lingering resonance faded, a tapping sound of the harsh rain beating against the carriage’s ceiling was heard again.
“The death of Grand Madame Ha, Mother Ha. That was—” to the ears of Grand Tactician Zhuge, whose pupils had dilated to the limit, Yeon So-hyeon’s quiet voice drifted in.
“It was an assassination disguised as an accident.”
Although the speed at which Yeon So-hyeon tapped the teacup with his finger was constant strangely it felt to Grand Tactician Zhuge’s eyes as if it were gradually speeding up, and to his ears, the sound seemed to grow louder.
“The culprit was ultimately never found. The mastermind who gave the order was not found either.”
“T-That was an accident—” grand Tactician Zhuge tried to open his mouth to say something, but his voice did not form properly.
“Not long after, the forces of the Old Martial Alliance succeeded in gathering under the Third Young Master, and as you know, Mother Ha’s matter fizzled out in the commotion.”
An arc formed at the corners of the Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon’s mouth, but neither Grand Tactician Zhuge nor the Eldest Young Master himself considered it a smile.
“However, I remember.”
“With Mother Ha’s death, the business of the Ha Family, which consequently lost its influence in the Main Family, took a massive step back across the entire land of Zhongyuan.”
Tap, tap, tap.
The sound of tapping the teacup.
“At that time, the Third Young Master’s side amicably divided and devoured that vacant spot.”
“…….”
Although he had not been hit by a single drop of rain Yeon So-hyeon’s gaze swept over Grand Tactician Zhuge’s body, which was trembling like an aspen leaf.
“Your appointment as Grand Tactician occurred right after that.”
Wherever Yeon So-hyeon’s gaze landed “Everyone might have forgotten about that matter by now, but” goosebumps broke out on Grand Tactician Zhuge’s body.
“since then, I have never taken my eyes off you. Not even once.”
Tap, tap, tap.
“I could not forget.”
Tap, tap, tap.
“Grand Tactician Zhuge.”
When Yeon So-hyeon called Grand Tactician Zhuge to be precise when he called up to “Grand Tactici—,” the teacup Grand Tactician Zhuge was holding flew toward Yeon So-hyeon’s face, and when the syllable “—an” followed, Yeon So-hyeon’s hand lightly shattered the flying teacup, and when he concluded with “Zhuge,”
“Hup!”
Grand Tactician Zhuge’s White Feather Fan revealed itself from behind the teacup crumbling in the air.
*Clash, clash, clash!* the White Feather Fan, deflected by Yeon So-hyeon’s sleeve, continuously aimed at fatal acupoints like the head of a living snake, meaning the martial arts Grand Tactician Zhuge had hidden from everyone until now were beyond imagination.
“Oh?”
Nevertheless as a matter of course it was incomparable to the martial arts of Yeon So-hyeon, who could be called a Grandmaster, however, in that brief instant, grand Tactician Zhuge succeeded in pressing a small footplate placed at his feet.
*Crack, crack, crack!* and Yeon So-hyeon’s white hand, which slid up while continuously deflecting the White Feather Fan snapped Grand Tactician Zhuge’s wrist, broke his forearm, twisted his elbow, shattered his upper arm, and then tore his shoulder to shreds.
“Ugh…!”
‘I never expected such a shallow trick to work in the first place!’
*Click.* the Zhuge Clan’s special mechanical device, designed to blow up the person sitting opposite him, detonated, still, grand Tactician Zhuge, who escaped from the carriage at full speed without even looking back, shouted while clutching his torn shoulder, not even caring about the success of the attempt.
*Boom!* and the carriage wall on the side where the Eldest Young Master was sitting vanished entirely, but inside the smoke and dust, the figure of the Eldest Young Master who had been sitting there could not be found.
“It is the Eldest Young Master!”
“The target is here!”
*Clash, clash, clash!* while the elite troops Grand Tactician Zhuge had brought instinctively drew their swords, from the carriage, which was half-destroyed and on fire, emitting black smoke, a voice drifted out.
“Indeed, it was so.”
“It was you.”
For some reason that voice carried a metallic ring.