Tempest Aboard (4)

Hefei City.

Hefei lay in the center of Anhui Province, at the confluence of two waterways called the Eastern Fei and Western Fei; hence the name Hefei.

The Bao Gong Shrine stood on the outskirts of Hefei.

Neung Je-gang strolled through the precincts of the Bao Gong Shrine as if taking a walk.

“Did I get played?”

He might have been. No matter how much someone sowed discord, selling out the man he had once called Master would not be easy.

Thanks to that, Neung Je-gang drew the most attention instead. Those who had bowed to the statue of Lord Bao and offered prayers conspicuously avoided him.

It had been a wild-goose chase. Nowhere did he see anyone who looked like an assassin; if anything, he himself looked the most assassin-like at the moment.

“Yeah. I was definitely duped.”

Neung Je-gang reached that conclusion.

“Since I’m here anyway, I may as well offer a prayer to Lord Bao before I go.”

He had only one prayer: let him find those who had unleashed the blood calamity on his clan.

As for the one who killed his younger brother, he knew the name and face and would one day take revenge; but he knew nothing about the enemies of his clan, so he appealed to a transcendent being.

Perhaps the sight of a man dressed head-to-toe in black and even carrying a long sword praying looked strange, for he heard people whispering. Pretending not to notice, Neung Je-gang turned his body and stepped out of the shrine grounds.

“Haa!”

A long sigh escaped him. Now he had to ride for several days again to Anqing.

Just then.

〔Do you have an enemy?〕

A transmitted voice tickled his ear.

‘Huh? What’s this?’

Neung Je-gang nodded. He did have an enemy.

〔Are you, by any chance, a martial artist?〕

Nod.

〔Martial artists are expensive… Do you have money?〕

Vigorous nod.

Neung Je-gang realized this was precisely Blood Sword Pavilion’s way of doing business. Somewhere they watched visitors to the Bao Gong Shrine and approached those who looked like they might harbor grudges to make money.

〔Come to the front of Lord Bao at the stroke of the zi hour (23:00–01:00).〕

The transmitted voice faded. After standing there for a good while, Neung Je-gang found a nearby inn and rented a room.

“What a bunch of bums! You think business works like this? It’s clever to go to clients instead of waiting, but you’ll only net small fry this way… tsk, tsk! No wonder that so-called pavilion lord cheats his disciples about the contract fees.”

Flopping onto the bed, Neung Je-gang kept clicking his tongue.

When the zi hour struck, he opened the window and headed for the Bao Gong Shrine.

Meeting ‘in front of Lord Bao’ meant before the statue. Yet no one came to greet him even after he waited; about half an hour slipped by like that.

“Are they messing with me?”

At last he stopped waiting, pushed open the shrine hall’s doors, and trudged back toward the inn. Feeling as if someone had made a fool of him soured his mood.

〔My apologies. I was watching to see if you had someone with you. Come inside.〕

Just as he turned to go back, another transmitted voice reached him.

“Damn it!”

Neung Je-gang went back into the shrine hall.

The statue of Lord Bao gazed down blankly at his face.

At some point, a man stood there staring at Neung Je-gang. Unlike him, the newcomer wore a splendid embroidered long robe so ornate it was hard to believe he was an assassin.

“Name of the target?”

“Mm, Secret Shadow…”

At the name Secret Shadow, the assassin flinched in surprise.

“You know him?”

“I do—if by ‘Secret Shadow’ you mean the martial artist…”

“Of course I mean the martial artist.”

“Fine. I’ll take the contract. The fee? For a master like Secret Shadow, it won’t be small.”

“Huh? I’m here to collect a penalty.”

“W-what?”

“I’m here to collect the penalty for the Secret Shadow hit you took two months ago—one hundred twenty thousand nyang in gold, including the deposit.”

At the Assassin Pavilion, the contract period had been one month; in truth, none of the five outfits they commissioned even found a trace of Neung Je-gang in that month. By the rules, the job had simply failed.

Only Blood Sword Pavilion had pursued doggedly enough to eventually encounter him, but strictly speaking the deadline had already passed when they attacked him.

“Where are you from?”

“The Assassin Pavilion.”

“…!”

The man who appeared was not Blood Sword Pavilion’s pavilion lord. It was rare for a pavilion lord to accept contracts in person.

He continued speaking to someone by transmitted voice, then asked Neung Je-gang,

“What’s the passphrase?”

“…Passphrase? What passphrase?”

Ching—

The assassin drew his sword.

“Who are you?”

“Hell—do you even set a passphrase when you take a contract?”

Neung Je-gang asked in exasperation.

No answer came; instead, he sensed many people encircling the hall. True to assassins, they said not a word as they completed the encirclement.

“You’re insane—trying to run a scam in the Soul-Summoning Temple.”

“Soul-Summoning Temple? Isn’t this Blood Sword Pavilion?”

“Stop spouting nonsense. ‘Blood Sword Pavilion’?”

“Ha! Hahaha! I was totally fooled—clean as a whistle. Hahaha!”

Neung Je-gang laughed heartily.

“Look, I thought this was the Blood Sword Pavilion. I came to collect the penalty—and while I was at it, to take the pavilion lord’s head. No wonder those so-called ‘Seven Killers of Blood Sword’ pointed me here so readily. Hahaha!”

“Seven Killers of Blood Sword? Are you saying they sent you here?”

“Do I look like I’m lying when I’m about to die?”

Grit—

“Grr… Blood Sword Pavilion! Those sons of dogs sold out our Soul-Summoning Temple.”

Grinding his teeth, he clenched his fist and glared fiercely at Neung Je-gang.

“Either way, if you didn’t come for a contract, you can die here.”

“Try it!”

Neung Je-gang finally drew the No-Mind Sword. It exuded no killing intent whatsoever; the assassins quickly relaxed.

“So you’re a greenhorn who’s never killed.”

The assassins closed in on him step by step.

Neung Je-gang tilted his head.

“How come no one’s fallen yet?”

“What?”

“Grahk!”

“Ugh!”

“P-poison!”

As if his words had been a signal, the assassins clutched their chests in unison and toppled over.

“W-when did you poison us…?”

“If you noticed, what kind of poison master would that make me?”

Watching them sit or collapse and hurriedly swallow all kinds of antidotes, Neung Je-gang walked up to Lord Bao’s statue.

“Tsk, what good are pills? It’s only useful if the poison is ordinary. A moment ago, there was definitely no one here, and yet someone appeared without my senses catching it. That means there’s a Soul-Summoning Temple hideout somewhere around here. Not a bad profit if I trade Blood Sword Pavilion for them.”

Creak—

As he felt around the statue, it suddenly slid back, revealing a dark hole.

Papapat—

Venom-tipped steel needles shot toward his face as he bent to peer into the hole.

He tipped his head back and let the needles skim past, then reached toward the statue again.

“Funny, there wasn’t a sound when that guy appeared.”

Sss-rrk—

This time the pedestal beneath the statue slid back all at once. A larger opening appeared, and no hidden weapons flew out from there.

“Looks like this is it. Why are these assassins always holed up underground, anyway…?”

For safety he wrapped himself in protective true energy and leapt into the hole without hesitation. As he plunged into the darkness, an unknowable light flashed in his eyes.