Going To Tianshan (3)

The old man went straight to Tianshan. Neung Je-gang followed behind the old man. Following him like this was not especially difficult. However, in the sense that he had to lose sleep, it was by no means something worth recommending. Since he did not know when or where the other party would go, he had to fall asleep later than the other party and wake up earlier.

The old man wandered here and there, as if he truly knew the way. In his own way, it was a movement meant to avoid any pursuers who might exist.

But Neung Je-gang tracked him from outside the range where the old man could detect his presence. So he did not worry about being discovered from the start. The old man’s body already had a tracking scent on it that only Neung Je-gang could recognize.

The place the old man arrived at was one he had reached after moving for a full ten days from Hamil. He had only been a little late because he had gone around in circles for no reason. If he had come directly, it was a distance he could have reached in about seven days.

Why was it that almost all people who hid and lived in the mountains chose valleys as their dwelling places? This time as well, the place the old man arrived at was a certain valley. However, unexpectedly, the old man went inside and soon came back out.

“What? Is this not the place?”

Neung Je-gang entered the valley the old man had gone into and came out of. Before he had gone far, a small cave with traces of someone having lived there appeared.

“This place is a little cramped for two people to live in, isn’t it?”

He had thought the old man would go to the place where the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters lived, but it seemed the old man had other business besides going to the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters.

“It was a place where someone lived alone.”

There was nothing to see. Even though it was a cave located in a valley, it did not have much moisture, so he only felt that it was pleasant. He found one object that seemed to have been left behind by the person who had lived here.

It was a very thin knife. Such things were commonly called face-knives, and because they were sharp and keen, those who liked torture used knives like this for torture. They were used to slice flesh or fillet it.

“As expected, it seems that the old man really is the Blood-Squeezing Demon, Ak Chang.”

That was right. This place was none other than the residence of the Blood-Squeezing Demon, Ak Chang. And the old man’s identity was the Blood-Squeezing Demon, Ak Chang.

Ak Chang had deliberately waited for Neung Je-gang in Hamil and then guided him to Ghost Blade. The reason he had guided him to Ghost Blade first was to determine roughly how skilled Neung Je-gang was.

But he saw a sight that was far too astonishing. Ghost Blade was an opponent whom even he would have had to spend a certain amount of time to subdue. He knew that well because he had confirmed Ghost Blade’s ability when they killed the Prince Consort in the past.

But it was one blow. Just one blow. That was a scene he could not guarantee even the Great Demon of the Three Demons of Tianshan, said to be the strongest among them, could accomplish.

So he had agonized over it as well. He had even considered launching a surprise attack. But if he failed, he would die on the spot. When he tried to flee, he remembered that he had been chased from the Central Plains all the way to this Tianshan. He recalled the oath he had made that he would never run away again.

He abandoned the Mushik Poison Demon. If he tried to save him, his own identity would be exposed. After agonizing over it, Ak Chang decided to take Neung Je-gang to the Three Demons of Tianshan. After all, they were the strongest, and he thought that if he and they attacked together, they would at least not lose.

However, Neung Je-gang moved differently from what he had expected. Somehow, all alone, he had found the dwelling of the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters.

So Ak Chang decided to take the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters along with him to the Three Demons of Tianshan. If they were going to attack together anyway, six had a higher chance of success than four. That was why he had come to his own residence first. If he was going to fight, he needed to have a weapon, did he not?

Neung Je-gang had seen Ak Chang as suspicious from the very beginning. Then the moment he came to completely believe that Ak Chang was the Blood-Squeezing Demon was when he had gone to see the Mushik Poison Demon.

At the place where the old man had sat and waited, there had been a drawing whose meaning he could not understand. It was the same kind of trace he had seen at the entrance to the cave on Antang Mountain. There was no way Neung Je-gang’s keen eyes would miss it.

He could have made him confess on the spot, but Neung Je-gang decided to use Ak Chang as a guide, just as Ak Chang wanted. That was why he had applied the Tracking Incense and hired someone to act.

He had thought that if Ak Chang learned he could track him even without Ak Chang present, Ak Chang would take him to the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters. However, before that, Ak Chang had first stopped by his own residence.

Ak Chang gathered his weapon and ran toward the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters. Neung Je-gang finished his business by taking one old face-knife from Ak Chang’s residence, then followed behind Ak Chang again.

When Ak Chang came to his own residence, he had been that cautious, but when he went to the residence of the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters, he did not care about caution at all. It meant he did not care whether someone else’s residence was exposed or not.

Tianshan was low in the east, and the farther west one went, the higher it became. Qilian Mountain at the eastern end was on the high side among them, but if one headed west, a quasi-plain area appeared. Then the mountains began to rise sharply, and at last Victory Peak, the highest peak of Tianshan, appeared. Victory Peak boasted a height reaching two thousand six hundred jang.

The place the old man, the Blood-Squeezing Demon Ak Chang, headed for was also west. In the quasi-plain area, there were natives who lived with this Tianshan as their backdrop. Ak Chang went to one of those villages.

Neung Je-gang did not think the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters would be in a village of such natives. He had thought they would be holed up deep in the mountains or in a valley like other wanted men. But after Ak Chang entered the village, a short while later, he came out with two people and continued moving west.

“Are those two the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters?”

Neung Je-gang could not tell. He had only heard the name of the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters and had never seen them in person.

Whether they were the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters or not, it did not matter to Neung Je-gang anyway. Whether it was six, ten, or a hundred, it was enough if the people he had to catch and kill gathered in one place.

The two people he took from the village did not seem to be the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters. There was no way the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters would chop wood, draw water, and cook. Perhaps, to shake off any pursuer who might exist, he was using the two people as bait by making them pretend to be the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters.

It looked as if he was roughly going along without thinking, but Ak Chang was paying attention in his own way. After going for quite a while, the two people parted from Ak Chang and returned along the path they had come from. After the two people left, Ak Chang continued on his way again. Perhaps reassured after seeing that there had been no attack until then, he was now truly unrestrained.

There was a Heaven Lake in Tianshan. And there was also a Heaven Lake on Baekdu Mountain. People of the Central Plains claimed both were their territory, but Baekdu’s Heaven Lake belonged to the people of Joseon. His master, Nam Yeong, had always said that place was the sacred mountain of the Joseon people.

If the Central Plains had Taishan, then Joseon had Baekdu. If the Central Plains had Huangshan, then Joseon had Geumgang. That was what Nam Yeong said when he boasted about Joseon.

Strictly speaking, Baekdu’s Heaven Lake was not part of the Central Plains, and Tianshan’s Heaven Lake was not part of the Central Plains either. Even so, people of the Central Plains insisted otherwise. They insisted first and saw afterward. It was a wicked mentality of wanting to possess anything good without question.

Perhaps if it had not been for Nam Yeong, even Neung Je-gang would have said that both Heaven Lakes belonged to the Central Plains.

While following behind Ak Chang, Neung Je-gang saw a huge lake at the summit of the mountain. Since this was his first time coming to Tianshan, he did not know that this was the much-discussed Heaven Lake.

“Waaah!”

An exclamation of admiration flowed out by itself. This was why people of the Central Plains went mad because they could not have it. Even Neung Je-gang felt that if only he could possess it, he would want to.

“It seems to be Tianshan’s Heaven Lake. If this place is already this much, how majestic a place must Baekdu’s Heaven Lake be, where they say an even more numinous energy flows?”

Neung Je-gang wanted to go someday without fail to Baekdu’s Heaven Lake, which his master had boasted about so much. Of course, he also wanted to go to the place called Geumgang. They said Songshan had seventy-two peaks, so he wanted to confirm with his own two eyes whether it was truly true that Geumgang had twelve thousand peaks.

Ak Chang diligently advanced toward a place where eternal snow could be seen far away. Neung Je-gang also stopped admiring Heaven Lake any further and followed behind him. Several more days passed again.

‘Hm? This energy is?’

It was absurd. Before he knew it, there were people tailing Neung Je-gang. They were at a distance so far away that he would not have discovered them if his sense of qi had not been at Neung Je-gang’s level. When he went back again and looked, they were the two natives who had parted from Ak Chang long ago.

It seemed they had not only accompanied Ak Chang to be used as bait; their movements showed the form of martial artists, unlike natives.

“This is absurd. Did they turn back as if they were not involved, then follow behind again?”

Neung Je-gang was someone whose profession was chasing someone, not someone whose profession was being chased by someone. Because of that, the fact that someone was following behind him got on his nerves.

In any case, since he had sprinkled Tracking Incense on Ak Chang, it was not especially difficult to follow him even if he got far away.

“Then I should cut off the tail.”

Neung Je-gang’s form moved into the sea of coniferous forests winding around Tianshan. A sea of dense coniferous forests occupied every mountain near Tianshan Heaven Lake. Neung Je-gang’s figure immediately blended into those trees as if he had become one with them.

After a long time passed, two forms went past the place where Neung Je-gang’s figure had disappeared.

“Where did he go?”

“I don’t know. Surely he didn’t go ahead first to where our masters are, did he?”

The two natives exchanged such words as they passed in front of Neung Je-gang. The order changed again. Neung Je-gang followed the two from behind.

“They are not the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters. But they are definitely connected to them.”

The two natives conversed in their own language, so Neung Je-gang could not understand them. However, if they were not connected, there was no way they would step forward like this to interfere. They were likely disciples, or else something similar to unnamed disciples who had been taught one or two moves of martial arts.

“They will become an obstacle. I should cut them off before they connect with Ak Chang, who went on ahead.”

If it were only the two natives, he might have left them alone if possible, but seeing as they were helping the Wind-Wave Twin Monsters or Ak Chang, for now, they were enemies. If there were one or two such people among every tribe he met on the way, they would become a major obstruction later.

“Seeing how I worry this much about something that has not even happened yet, I am not a good person either.”

Neung Je-gang did not think of himself as a good person. He was only someone trying not to become bad.

Swish, slice.

Perhaps because the two were used to Tianshan’s great nature, they did not keep watch even as they slept. Acting like this with an enemy before them was no different from asking to be killed.

Neung Je-gang dug into the ground and buried the fresh blood that came from their necks in order to hide it. Because it was a mountain, the ground had hardened in the cold temperature, but it was cut away wherever Neung Je-gang’s fingers moved, creating a large pit.

Neung Je-gang placed the two natives’ corpses there and covered them with the clods of earth he had dug out. It bulged upward a little, but for now, the smell of blood no longer spread.

“Next time I happen to meet people like this, I should finish it cleanly by pressing their death acupoints.”

Seeing blood was not particularly good. Especially not amid clean nature like Tianshan.