Chapter 94: Meat Shield (1)
Winter in the land of Ba-Shu, which is difficult even for birds to fly over, was exceptionally harsh.
A snowstorm-swept snowy mountain.
A far-off, secluded mountain peak.
In a cave there, a bizarre scene was unfolding.
Men with bandages wrapped around their entire bodies were lying on couches carved out of stone.
Each of them wore a mask with a Yaksha’s face drawn on it, and the colors varied, including red, blue, and yellow.
Among them, there was a single woman walking around on two feet.
She wore a black Yaksha mask and was dressed in a white long robe.
Gazing at the numerous bandaged people lying in the stone room, she muttered in a low voice.
“Indeed, it is a rapid achievement. That demonic art called Spear Ghost Calling…… seems it is not completely absurd after all.”
Then, an answer returned immediately from the opposite side.
“Of course. Although it is still insufficient to control the living, controlling the dead is a simple matter, is it not?”
The owner of the voice was an old man.
He had white hair, white skin, and wore white clothes, with only his pupils being red.
He introduced himself as ‘Hong Laoye’.
“Since the Black Yaksha of the Nailuo Valley finally seems to recognize this Elder Hong, it is indeed a moving thing.”
Nailuo Valley.
An assassin organization that boasted a power strong enough to belong to the Fifteen Heterodox Pillars.
However, unlike its prestige, both its size and location were places thoroughly shrouded in secret.
To the point that even among dilettantes who loved the Secret History of the Martial World, a debate over whether the Nailuo Valley actually existed passed back and forth every time.
And the figure of Black Yaksha, whom Hong Laoye was facing, was the leader-class figure of this assassin organization.
Black Yaksha nodded her head.
“I originally intended to revive the corpses of dead assassins by having the vital energy of the mountain dwell within them. However, since the research did not progress at all with just that, I was always feeling frustrated.”
“At that moment, this old man appeared in a timely manner.”
Hong Laoye stretched out his finger and drove it into the brow of a corpse lying in the stone room.
Rattle! Rattle! Rattle!
The forehead of the bandaged corpse turned red, and before long, it began to flop violently like a freshly caught fish.
Seeing that, Black Yaksha nodded once again.
“Indeed. Even after gathering and breathing in the primal energy of the snowy mountains of Ba-Shu, it was the most to make one or two finger joints move, but combining your demonic art makes the progress speed much faster.”
“I suppose I have kept the promise?”
“You have more than kept it. So, now it is my turn to keep the promise.”
“I like that our conversation is quick.”
Elder Hong bowed his head.
Black Yaksha nodded.
“In any case, a directive has just come down from the Heterodox Alliance. To capture and kill the one who slaughtered Staff Ghost Gu Gang-ryong.”
“That is right. Three Calls of the Yellow Springs. That guy is also the culprit who killed my beloved disciple Ga Jeong-maeng.”
Tiger Butcher Ga Jeong-maeng.
And Hong Laoye, who was calling him his disciple.
Black Yaksha nodded indifferently.
“Whoever the ones you want may be, three of them. We will have them bid farewell to this world. This is our promise.”
“That is right. This is the first of them.”
“But Three Calls of the Yellow Springs…… does such a wandering expert have that much value? Enough to use the personnel of our Nailuo Valley on such a place.”
“He has value.”
Hong Laoye spoke with a grin.
“Because I saw a single possibility in that friend.”
“Possibility?”
“Since I saw the scene of that friend killing my beloved disciple in real-time.”
“Have you not been in this cave the entire time?”
“I can roughly guess by looking at the movements of the stars in the heavens.”
“Ah, you cast a horoscope.”
Black Yaksha nodded as if she understood.
Hong Laoye chuckled and stroked his beard.
“Those stars in the sky are very far away. So, even though at a glance they seem to move immediately right now…… in reality, humans observe belatedly what moved a long time ago.”
“Is that so?”
“It is so. In other words, even if a new Killing Star suddenly appears and devours my disciple’s star…… it means that it is not a sudden anomaly but a destiny scheduled from hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years ago.”
Hong Laoye’s talk of astrology was always enigmatic.
Knowing that, Black Yaksha waved her hand in the middle of it.
“I do not know of things like the sky. I simply implement the set promise.”
“That much is enough.”
The conversation between Black Yaksha and Hong Laoye ended at this point.
Soon, Hong Laoye vanished into the darkness, and Black Yaksha helped a few of the men who had been lying wrapped in bandages to stand up.
“Bring me the head of Three Calls of the Yellow Springs.”
Nailuo Valley.
One axis of the Fifteen Heterodox Pillars.
The most mysterious assassin sect in this world.
They, of whom it was said would cut off even the head of King Yanluo if paid money, set out to capture Chui.
* * *
Meanwhile.
Chui was thinking of something.
‘……He must be moving by now.’
Hong Gong. His weapon was not just the single demonic art of Spear Ghost Calling.
His ability to read the sky and divine the movements of the stars to read the heavenly secret was something that even Chui had not fully learned.
However, although he did not know how to look into the movements of the stars, he could clearly pinpoint the movements of people.
If Hong Gong looked at the stars, Chui looked at Hong Gong who looked at the stars.
‘The preparations have already been finished. The only thing left is execution.’
Having finished his thoughts, Chui raised his head.
The place where Chui was currently standing was the middle of the underground prison.
Inside the cave where the Yangtze River Water Bandit Union captured and locked up criminals.
Chui was scanning the prisoners locked up there.
“Thousand-Head! Please look here! I am innocent!”
“Please save me! Just spare my life!”
“I am truly innocent!”
The prisoners locked inside iron bars and wearing heavy cangues.
They, without exception, wailed as they protested their unfairness.
However, there was not a single one among them who was innocent.
Because they were prisoners whom Jeok-hyang had personally selected and locked up one by one.
The pretext for locking them in prison for the time being was a very trivial one: ‘They got the choreography wrong when they performed the fan dance.’
Jeok-hyang had traversed among the water bandits dancing with fans to seek out those who got the choreography wrong, but in fact, it was nothing but an excuse.
‘For the Yangtze River Water Bandit Union to return to being a righteous bandit group, we must liquidate the karma piled up in the meantime.’
Jeok-hyang’s will was straight.
She had sought out all those who had plundered helpless commoners until now, or who had embezzled public funds to fill their own bellies.
However, using the excuse of ‘disobedience at the time of the fan dance’ was a fact that everyone knew and yet condoned.
Righteous ones pretended not to see Jeok-hyang’s measures, and the guilty ones, not knowing when their turn would come, trembled and confessed the evil deeds they had committed, begging for leniency.
In other words, the one hundred and eight criminals remaining in this underground prison meant they were the stubborn ones who did not confess until the very end.
And Chui’s gaze looking at those vicious bastards was.
“…….”
Something so affectionate and warm that there had never been a precedent until now.
So, it was also understandable that Jeok-hyang, Gyeon Sul, Namgung Yul, and others standing behind Chui were looking with peculiar expressions.
‘Did that fellow originally make that kind of expression too?’
‘Our handsome guy is even more chillingly handsome today.’
‘Wow— it is an expression of someone drawing up some terrifying plan.’
Just as they said, those with good intuition among the prisoners beyond the iron bars were shivering with chills whenever Chui’s gaze landed on them.
Eventually, at the end of his patrol, Chui reached the final section of the prison.
That was a place where only the most vicious of the vicious prisoners were locked up.
Jeok-hyang tipped him off in a low voice.
“The guys locked up here are stubborn bastards who absolutely do not admit their guilt. There is absolutely no way to know where they hid the embezzled wealth either. Vicious ones who do not make any confession and simply persist in playing innocent unconditionally. Well, I do intend to gradually apply torture, but…… I don’t have high expectations.”
At that, Chui’s gaze turned even more affectionate.
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
The prisoners were packed densely in the cramped prison.
They were not discouraged even by Chui’s gaze and rather opened venomous eyes.
Chui spoke toward the prisoner who was glaring with wide eyes at the very front.
“Lower your eyes.”
“…….”
The prisoner did not listen.
He simply glared this way with his eyes even wider as if to overpower Chui’s spirit.
At that moment, Chui’s finger moved.
…Whack!
A flick of the finger. That which was called a ‘flick’ exploded on the prisoner’s eyeball.
“Aaargh!?”
The prisoner screamed, cupping his burst eyeball with his hand.
Before long, Chui’s words became slightly shorter.
“Lower your eyes.”
“What kind of dog-like behavior is this, you crazy……!”
At that, Chui raised his hand once again.
…Whack!
The prisoner’s opposite eyeball burst successively.
“Arrgh!”
The prisoner who had lost both eyes shed tears of blood, unable to even sit down due to the cramped space.
However, Chui’s expression remained expressionless.
It was a composure as if he had caught and killed a single flying insect.
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
Only then did a change occur in the expressions of the prisoners in the cell.
The gazes that had glared at Chui as if to kill him turned toward the floor all at once.
It was not as if he had specifically demanded a confession, and having two eyeballs burst simply for resisting a demand to lower one’s eyes was far too unprofitable, was it not?
However, the prisoners did not know that these small surrenders, one by one, would gather and soon lead to a major surrender.
And Chui, who had served in the army for a long time, knew it well.
“I will post a notice.”
The contents of the notice were almost identical to what had been posted at the Black Path Gang, the Cao Family Manor, and the Hegemon Society.
First. Some of the Yangtze River water bandit packs plundered helpless commoners and pocketed wealth.
Second. We hand down punishment on behalf of the people who suffered damage because of it.
These were also the reasons why the prisoners here had been locked up in jail.
Chui stood holding the notice and spoke to the prisoners.
“From now on, you must make compensation to those you harmed and their families. Also, you must pay the price for tarnishing the honor of the group.”
At that, one of the prisoners spoke while checking the mood.
“H-How can we make such compensation? We truly have no wealth saved up……”
They all nodded their heads.
It seemed that even if they died, they had no intention of revealing the location where they hid their wealth.
However, Chui did not seem to care much.
“Do not worry. I will find a way.”
It was a statement that could sound chilling depending on how one heard it.
Chui turned around at the end of those words.
And he spoke to Jeok-hyang, who was standing with a expression full of curiosity.
“Do not give these guys anything for four days. No food, no water, no light. We will depart after that.”
“Where to?”
Gyeon Sul, who was beside Jeok-hyang, asked.
Namgung Yul was also showing a curious look.
Eventually, Chui’s mouth opened.
“Nailuo.”
The moment the prisoners heard those words, they trembled at the spine-chilling goosebumps.
Because even at a single listen, it did not seem like a very good place.
Unrivaled Spear Ghost