Chapter 32: Tiger Pit Forest
An evening when the sunset spread.
…*Thud!*
A gold medallion was placed on a woman’s dressing table.
Chui was currently inside Ho Ye-yang’s room.
Before Ho Ye-yang, who had gone to the Namgung Clan, could return, Chui had returned to the Tiger Pit Sect before her and entered her room.
“Brother Ho. Your revenge has all been completed with this.”
The gold medallion placed on Ho Ye-yang’s dressing table was the one he had received from Ju Ye-hwa, the escort leader of the Swift Tiger Escort Agency in the past.
Since he had erased all the names written on the death list, there was no longer any reason to remain in the Tiger Pit Sect.
Moreover, it was even more so since he had stirred up the Namgung Clan, the overlord of Anhui Province.
If he wanted to prevent any unnecessary sparks from flying toward the Tiger Pit Sect in the future, leaving this place far behind was the best policy.
Chui looked around Ho Ye-yang’s room.
A room of a simple and cozy size, fine furniture and clean decorations came into view.
“……”
Chui was momentarily soaked in memories.
He recalled the days when he used to share a soldiers’ barracks with Ho Ye-yang in the past.
The wet, damp mud on the floor, the insects swarming inside the cramped tent.
The military camp where the laid hay was crawling with fleas and lice, and where it was difficult to even open one’s mouth properly to converse due to mosquitoes and flies.
But the days in the trenches where even such a tent felt cozy.
And the outdoor bivouac life on the battlefield, which was even worse than that.
Comparing the dwelling of the times Chui remembered with the dwelling Ho Ye-yang was staying in now, it could be said to be truly a world of difference.
“In this life, please live well, without knowing any hardships.”
Chui lit an incense stick on the dressing table and turned his head.
It is a rule that one must not look back at a carriage that has departed.
Although recalling old memories was good, it must not drag down the time of reality.
Chui came out of Ho Ye-yang’s room.
A few maidservants who were entering to clean her room screamed in surprise, but he did not care now.
*Step- step- step-*
The sun was setting.
Following the sunset light spreading from beyond the horizon, Chui moved his steps.
At that moment.
“Hey!”
Someone called Chui from behind.
Where he turned to look, Woo Dong-won and the other stable boys were visible.
Woo Dong-won spoke with reddened rims of his eyes.
“Are you leaving?”
“Yes.”
“Farewell. I won’t see you off far.”
However, Woo Dong-won followed closely behind Chui the entire way he walked.
With a tight frown, as if trying to hold back tears.
“But where are you going?”
“West.”
“Hey! Where is the west!”
“Henan.”
That place was also where the majority of the Fifteen Pillars of the Orthodox Path, including the Martial Alliance, were gathered.
Chui judged further conversation to be unnecessary, and quickened his steps.
Soon, the wall of the Tiger Pit Sect came into view before him.
A wall that was neither very high nor very low.
Chui scaled the wall in a single breath, which gave an ambiguous feeling of whether it was meant to block or capture.
The moment Chui was just standing by stepping on the roof tiles on top of the wall.
“Farewell! You heartless bastard!”
He heard Woo Dong-won shouting from behind.
Boys are like that.
As if they had been that close, the fellow was shedding tears continuously, quite out of the blue.
“Farewell, Chui! Take care of yourself!”
“A guy who handles horses as well as you was a first!”
“If you have nowhere to go, come back to the Tiger Pit Sect anytime!”
“I will leave the best spot in the stable vacant!”
“If you come, I will lay twice the hay on your cot too!”
“Where could you go anyway? Since we will wait, come without fail! Without fail!”
The stable boys also saw Chui off, each saying a word.
“……”
Chui still did not look back.
He merely raised his hand briefly and waved it once.
* * *
Chui walked on the main road.
Because it has rained a lot over the past few days and it was pitch dark, there were no people.
A side path extending all the way behind the manor of the Tiger Pit Sect.
Chui was entering a dense bamboo forest along that path.
Drizzling rain was falling damply.
Chui slung the staff diagonally over his shoulder.
And then, wearing a simple reed hat on his head, he melted into the dark mountain path.
Right at that moment.
“Bok-deong!”
Once again, a voice was heard from behind.
There was only one person who called Chui by this name.
Where he turned to look, Ho Ye-yang was standing.
She was breathing heavily, receiving the drizzling rain just as it was.
“Bok-deong!”
“……”
“Bok-deong!”
“……?”
Toward Ho Ye-yang, who went out of her way to call his name three times, Chui twitched one eyebrow.
Soon, Ho Ye-yang spoke.
“Bok-deong. You were Three Calls of the Yellow Springs.”
The gold medallion Ju Ye-hwa the escort leader had given was held in her hand.
When Chui was silent, Ho Ye-yang continued speaking on her own.
“Bong-i follows all other people well, but is afraid of exactly two people. You, and the person who gave the money for the wound-healing medicine on that rainy day.”
Bong was the name of the horse she liked.
Ho Ye-yang smiled, showing the gold medallion.
“And I also smell horse dung from here.”
“……”
Chui unconsciously raised his sleeve and smelled it.
At that, Ho Ye-yang burst into laughter.
“Just kidding.”
“……”
Soon, her expression settled down.
A calm voice resonated through the mist-filled bamboo forest.
“Thank you.”
“……”
“For lighting the mugwort fire, driving the horses, and listening to my worries.”
“……”
“And for the matter of the Cao Family Manor and the Black Path Gang. The matter of the Staff Ghost. The matter at the Namgung Clan this time as well.”
“……”
“That you are involved in all of it. I know it now.”
“……”
“I am grateful, and I am also curious about why you are helping, but if you were going to tell me that, you wouldn’t have hidden it, right?”
“……”
Chui pressed down his bamboo hat.
Ho Ye-yang accepted that as a sign that he would say nothing.
Soon, she took a step forward.
And approaching Chui, she gently grasped his hem.
“Do not go.”
“……”
“We are family, after all.”
What man in this world could reject this woman’s request.
How could he ignore the deep and moist appeal created by those beautiful eyes.
However, Chui did not turn his head to the very end.
There are still many karmas to clear.
The blood debt to collect still remained.
The sun is setting, but the road is far. Acting against the natural order.
The day is setting, but the road to travel is far.
Therefore, even if it was a path he should not go, he had no choice but to go.
In the end, Ho Ye-yang spoke.
“Are you going?”
Words he had heard inside his mental realm once.
Only the voice of it had changed.
“You are going.”
The Ho Ye-yang of now did not have her face ruined, nor did she lose her voice.
“Farewell.”
However, she was crying.
Chui also spoke.
“Be well.”
The conversation broke off here.
…No, it should have broken off.
However, a scene quite different from what he had seen inside his mental realm followed.
*Snatch!*
Chui felt a hand roughly taking off the reed hat he was wearing.
The moment the flustered Chui turned his head.
Ho Ye-yang’s two hands tightly grabbed Chui’s cheeks.
*Thud-*
The reed hat fell to the floor, but no one picked it up.
“……!”
A kiss.
Unsure whether it was shorter than an instant, or longer than eternity.
Soon. Ho Ye-yang lifted the reed hat and covered Chui’s head deeply again.
And then she spoke in a voice moist like the water mist floating inside the bamboo forest.
“Meet again. Without fail.”
They were words that even Chui, who had gone through two lives, did not know how to answer.
* * *
At the same time. In a dark forest.
*Rustle-rustle-rustle…*
The sound of bamboo leaves brushing in the wind was noisy.
Numerous shadows flying in by stepping on bamboo stalks were secretly gathering toward one place.
The special operation units of the “Purple Moon Special Task Force,” which was called the most elite even within the Namgung Clan.
They were the hunting dogs of the Northern Gate who had lost their master due to the death of Namgung Paeng-saeng.
And at the very front of the shadows stood the new master leading them.
Sharp eyes and a prominent nose bridge visible under ebony-like hair.
Sword Flower Namgung Yul.
She was pursuing the footprints in the forest with a gaze as sharp as a blade.
Namgung Yul recalled the events of last night.
To her, who had regained consciousness after being poisoned, her sky-like grandfather ordered.
‘Capture Three Calls of the Yellow Springs and bring him back. You must bring him alive.’
She does not know why her grandfather gave such an order.
However, she thought it was just as well.
‘…I will surely pay back the insult I suffered.’
Originally, Namgung Yul intended to return directly to the Ascending Heaven Academy once the vacation period ended.
However, she soon discarded that thought.
Whether she had to use up the vacation period in its entirety, or take a leave of absence, she would definitely capture the villain who had inflicted an unwashable disgrace on her.
*Slide-*
Namgung Yul stroked her neck once.
The back of her neck was aching.
A faint bruise still remained.
At the same time, the terrifying fear she experienced for the first time in her life made her body tremble.
A man’s body.
Hard muscles.
Stiff wolf fur.
The strong stench of blood.
The teeth that constricted her neck.
The voice that felt like listening to wildness itself.
‘From now on, I am going to strike your acupoints. If you struggle, I will cut off your ear.’
‘If there is any bastard who tries to interrupt my words from now on. I will first cut this girl’s throat before that.’
All these things, which were raw and unfiltered, were shaking her mind and emotions completely.
Was it merely fear and anger?
Or was it an emotion mixed with something else besides those?
Namgung Yul felt confusion.
She was born noble and had lived noble.
Everyone smiled, bowed, and humored her before her eyes.
Having lived her whole life like that, she experienced being treated roughly by someone for the first time.
Along with her first kiss, which was spicy enough to burn the root of her tongue.
“…… …… ……”
Recalling the memory of that time, Namgung Yul’s body trembled thinly once again.
Her face heated up, her breath grew rapid, and cold sweat broke out.
She did not want to admit that this emotion was not just a mixture of fear and anger.
The desire to stand on top and be the master, and the desire to be laid underneath and submit.
The former was something she took for granted, but the latter was something she newly realized this time.
Namgung Yul tried hard to ignore this contradictory and ambivalent emotional state.
And in order to shake off this confusion, she thought she must capture that wolf-masked man and make him kneel at her feet.
‘…I will definitely catch him. I will catch him, tie him up tightly in front of me, and even whip him. Until his entire body becomes drenched in blood, like back then.’
Namgung Yul bit her lips and clenched her fists tightly.
Even if she had to search Anhui Province in its entirety, and even go outside if necessary, she would definitely find him.
She would risk everything she had and catch him, by whatever means necessary.
Having suffered the embarrassment of being taken hostage in front of all the influential figures in the clan and the humiliation of having her first kiss stolen, she was fully qualified for revenge, whether as a martial artist or as a woman.
Namgung Yul looked back at the Purple Moon Special Task Force, the most elite of the Namgung Clan.
And pointing at the faint footprints on the ground, she spoke in a cold voice.
“Pursue.”
The master’s command was given.
The hunting dogs of the night leapt into the forest.
Unrivaled Spear Ghost