The Shadow Of The Cult

Bang!

“Captain!”

Gwak Ung—massive and burly—kicked the door open with gusto and shouted.

Ssshhh—

Thwack!

“Gah!”

Crash!

But a book suddenly flew at him, smashed into his face, and sent him tumbling back out the door.

“Damn it! Why hit me! Shi— … ”

Clutching the book as if to tear it apart, Gwak Ung shuffled back into the room, grumbling.

“Tsk, tsk. You boar of a man! How many times have I told you not to kick the door in? Because of you I spend all my time remaking door panels and can’t do anything else, you punk!”

Neung Je-gang adjusted his attire while watching Gwak Ung through the mirror.

He wore a gaudy silk outer robe that clashed with the black light armor of a martial officer. Studying his well-built figure in the mirror, he checked meticulously for anything out of place. At the end, he slung a supple soft-sword at his waist.

“It’s because it’s urgent—was I wrong to do that? Fuck … ”

“Fuck? Shall we start the day by butchering a pig?”

Unable to endure the glare shot at him through the mirror, Gwak Ung turned his head away.

“You freeze up the instant I say one word, yet you still talk back… Fine. What is it? If you got me worked up over nothing first thing in the morning, you’re dead. Got it?”

“Oh, right! Captain, the Branch Chief is looking for you.”

“Who died this time?”

“Uh, a Grand Academician from the Hanlin Academy, I think? Anyway, a really famous person. Looks like he was found at Peony Pavilion at dawn. Stark naked. Hee-hee-hee!”

“Peony Pavilion, huh… A Grand Academician dying in a pleasure house—gabby types will set the Beijing marketplace abuzz again. And is going to a pleasure house that delightful to you? You’re drooling, you mutt! Go fetch Cheong Yeon already.”

“Cheong Yeon already went to the scene. Honestly, is there anyone in the Eastern Depot lazier than you, Captain?”

“I’m not lazy—I’m unhurried. Anyway, shall we go to Peony Pavilion then?”

“Huh? But the Branch Chief is calling you?”

“Forget it. I already know what he’ll say… No doubt the scholars stormed in demanding we catch the culprit. When things like this happen, those bookworms move faster than martial men. Either way, let’s start a brand-new day. Let’s go.”

Peony Pavilion.

Entering the pleasure house, Neung Je-gang cast a sidelong glance at the people detained by constables and head constables dispatched from the Police Office. Under the label of witnesses and suspects, everyone present in the house had been rounded up.

“The Police Office is working hard.”

“Tch! They’ll let them all go after getting paid anyway.”

Neung Je-gang clicked his tongue, displeased about something.

“I-is that how it is? What if the real culprit is actually there?”

“Tsk, tsk! If you were the killer—of a celebrity like a Grand Academician at that—would you want to stick around? The culprit will have flown far, far away. If the culprit is a martial artist, he’ll be even farther than we think.”

“Then catching the culprit is impossible?”

“Tsk, tsk! Gwak Ung, from now on I’ll call you a bear, not a boar. Even if you’re from the Secret Institute where orders decide life and death, you still need basic thinking. There are five kinds of death: accidental death, self-inflicted death, death caused by someone else, and death by illness or old age—natural causes.”

“Is that all? That makes four.”

“The last is death by unknown cause. For us, that’s the trickiest. But most ‘unknowns’ turn out to be deaths by martial techniques or poison—that’s the consensus of everyone in the Capture Bureau’s Investigation Unit.”

“And?”

“Every martial technique leaves traces. Poison does too. If the cause of death were clear—even if it were the Grand Academician’s own grandfather—the Police Office wouldn’t ask the Eastern Depot to investigate. They have their pride.”

“What does that have to do with them holding those people?”

“Tsk, tsk. This way, even if they fail to find the culprit, they can say they did all they could. It’s not some random old man—it’s a Grand Academician who died. They can’t handle it like a routine case.”

While they talked, the two arrived at the scene.

It looked like a courtesan’s room: a single corpse lay naked on the bed, and one sharp-eyed stalwart stood guard, allowing no one to approach.

“You’re here, Captain.”

“Oh, Cheong Yeon! You’re the only one I can rely on. It’s too much to work with that bear.”

Neung Je-gang shot a fierce glare at Gwak Ung.

But Gwak Ung’s eyes had already drifted to the cluster of whispering courtesans.

“Haha! Please understand. He and we were taught very different things.”

“It’s because I understand that he’s still alive. So—learn anything?”

“There is one unknown detail. This Peony Pavilion doubles as a secret gambling den. The Grand Academician was a patron there.”

“Huh—! A Hanlin Grand Academician and gambling… If that was never known, he was living a nearly perfect double life. Cause of death?”

Neung Je-gang asked as he approached the corpse.

“Nothing visible on the surface. I think we’ll need your specialty, Captain.”

“Indeed. I smell it. This must be…”

He had already drawn a small dagger and set it on the corpse’s abdomen—to open the belly and inspect the organs.

“Is that all right? He’s still a Grand Academician. We should follow formal procedure and conduct an autopsy…”

Cheong Yeon spoke with a slightly worried look.

But Neung Je-gang unhesitatingly slit open the belly.

Ssslrrp—

At once, blackened blood seeped out and soaked the bedding.

“It’s fine. If the Grand Academician’s family had died, we’d need his consent. But it’s the Grand Academician himself—who’s going to complain? And the Eastern Depot isn’t the sort of place that tiptoes around.”

He dabbed the oozing blood onto the dagger and sniffed it.

“It’s Blue Scorpion Poison. Assassins often use this…”

“Then it’s a contract killing.”

“Not necessarily. Blue Scorpions are everywhere. If you know how to make it, anyone can. That’s why assassins use it a lot. Still, one thing is certain.”

“What is it?”

“Someone wanted the Grand Academician dead—and succeeded. And they even paraded his weakness—gambling—before the world in style.”

“I see. Once it’s known he gambled illegally, the honor he built collapses in an instant.”

“That’s why they placed the body here. On purpose…”

“Meaning—this isn’t the murder scene?”

“Right. Even with a lethal dose of Blue Scorpion Poison, death takes more than a quarter-hour—agonizingly painful. But this room is too clean. Nothing’s ransacked, the bedding barely wrinkled. If this were the scene, the sheets would be shredded. So either the killer, or whoever found the body, moved it here.”

Wiping the dagger with a cotton cloth, Neung Je-gang brought it to the corpse’s hands next. The hands held nothing, but the fingertips and nails were blood-bruised.

“There’s nothing more to learn here. Have the body taken to the Magistrate’s Office. We’re returning to the palace.”

He suddenly sprang to his feet and called out.

“Huh? You’re not going to the Grand Academician’s house? Shouldn’t we at least question the family first…”

“Something’s bothering me. I should see the Branch Chief first. So you drag that drooling bear along. I’ll go ahead.”

“Haha! Understood.”

“Captain Neung is here.”

A sentry saw Neung Je-gang and announced inside.

“Send him in.”

Neung Je-gang had come to the Beijing Branch of the Eastern Depot’s Central Plains Headquarters—seat of power that could, as they said in the Imperial Capital, make even birds drop from the sky.

“Welcome. You’re a bit late.”

“Yes, I stopped by the scene first.”

At Neung Je-gang’s words, Beijing Branch Chief Yeon Bo-pyeong’s expression flickered in surprise.

“Then you already know.”

“Yes. It was the Eastern Depot’s doing. The moment I realized that, I rushed over.”

The bruising beneath the nails was the trace of torture—marks of something driven under the nails.

They were tiny enough to miss unless one looked closely, and they were the simplest torture method commonly used by Depot operatives.

“Mm. A thorny problem. Three factions—each holding power second only to His Majesty—are at war in the palace right now. The Grand Academician, unfortunately, belonged to one of them.”

“I…”

Neung Je-gang cut in.

“I have no interest in power or regimes—so long as they don’t pressure me or intrude on my life. I came to ask how this case is to be handled.”

“The culprit is our Eastern Depot. A joint work of the Operatives Bureau and the Secret Institute.”

“ … !”

This did happen on rare occasions. In the Imperial Capital, besides the Eastern Depot, there were mighty organs like the Brocade Guard and the Eorim Institute; each ran its own clandestine service training operatives—spies and agents.

In such outfits, kidnappings and torture were routine; when someone died in the process, the body was dumped in secret—left as an unsolved case, as with the Grand Academician.

“More people will die from now on. Quite a few Depot agents, too. You could be among them. Even if you don’t care about power, some will want you dead simply because you’re Eastern Depot. They may strike from the shadows, or erase you politically. Capture Bureau officers are especially at risk—their faces are known. I called you not to order an investigation but to warn you.”

“I understand. But… you still haven’t said how the case will be handled.”

“Unresolved. As always…”

“…Understood. Then I’ll take my leave.”

With a slightly tired face, Neung Je-gang returned to his quarters. Power struggles did not suit him. And it vexed him even more that, after seeing victims sacrificed like this, he could do nothing.

“If I can just find my little brother, I can walk away from this. Until then, endure. Damn it…!”

He had joined the Eastern Depot to find the younger brother he lost as a child. When it came to handling information, nothing in the Central Plains surpassed the Depot.

But even for the Depot, finding a person on just the three syllables “Neung Je-gwon” was hard.

Time slipped away. Against his wishes, he became a veteran among Depot agents, and before long he stood out as a capable man—most trusted among the Capture Bureau’s captains.

He put revenge aside. He neither knew who “they” were, nor whether his brother was dead or alive; finding the brother came first. Revenge would be considered after that.

“In any case, it’s a filthy tangle. Heh-heh.”

His brother’s betrothed had vanished from Cheonghae Province. That family, too, disappeared. A perfect disappearance the Depot couldn’t trace. They were likely living somewhere under false identities.

Snapped from his thoughts, Neung Je-gang sprang up. Cheong Yeon and Gwak Ung were just returning.

“Let’s head to Operatives.”

“Yes.”