Where Are You Going Without Me?

Gu Jin-ha had finished his treatment and was on the point of stepping out of the clinic. A band of men pushed the door open, filed in, and blocked the way in front of him and Gal U-heon. Gu Jin-ha started violently, certain the Namgung Clan’s martial artists had run them down.

“Who goes there!”

Hidden weapons filled both of Gal U-heon’s hands, and every nerve in him strained toward the figures closing on them.

“They are not the Namgung Clan’s martial artists.”

Gal U-heon was a peak master himself, and the energy reaching him out of the darkness felt dank and chill, nothing like what the Namgung Clan’s martial artists gave off.

“Are they men sent by Scholar Cheon’s mother?”

“That I do not know. Just make ready to fight.”

Their identity was beyond even Gal U-heon, and he settled into a posture for battle.

A man in a broad-brimmed hat stepped forward and asked Gu Jin-ha.

“Your grudge against Scholar Cheon runs deep, it seems.”

“It does. But who are you people? Are you of Scholar Cheon’s side?”

“We? No. We too hold a grudge against that bastard.”

“Who, then?”

“Never mind that. Take your revenge in these small ways and in the end it is Scholar Gu who will be the one to suffer. Why not take your revenge with a bit more nerve to it?”

“Hmph, that is easily said. I could shake out my whole fortune and buy nothing better than assassins. But I will not give it up.”

“Right, I like a hunger for revenge like that.”

“Have you a grudge against Scholar Cheon as well?”

“I have. A very great deal of it.”

“Hmph. A bastard who goes about playing the gentleman — how does he buy himself so many grudges?”

Gu Jin-ha muttered it. Gal U-heon, who could put no name to the man who had appeared, felt his way carefully.

“Before we go into grudges against Scholar Cheon, let us have who you are first.”

The man in the broad-brimmed hat nodded, then took the hat off. A fierce-looking middle-aged face came out from under it.

“Who are you?”

The aura the man gave off was nothing ordinary. It came coiling around Gal U-heon like a snake, and it told him, peak master though he was, that here stood a master higher still.

Nothing good could come of getting tangled with these people. Gal U-heon edged quietly backward, meaning to flee alone.

“Where do you mean to go, Elder Gal?”

Gal U-heon flinched. The one who had said it was the physician who had been treating Gu Jin-ha until a moment ago, and they had told him nothing whatever of who they were.

He knows me? And these are men who hold a grudge against Scholar Cheon?

Softly, Gal U-heon put the question.

“Who might you be, sir?”

The man answered evenly.

“I am Jeon Seok, Twelfth Pavilion Master of the Sacred Heaven Cult.”

Gal U-heon swallowed a low groan.

Jeon Seok, the Wind Demon King, the Demonic Cult’s Twelfth Pavilion Master. What is he doing here?

Jeon Seok turned to Gu Jin-ha, who was staring at him with eyes round as a rabbit’s, and spoke.

“It seems to me we are dealing with a common enemy. Will you not try an alliance with us?”

Gu Jin-ha hardly wrestled with it at all. He had joined hands with the Blood Cult already, and an alliance with the Demonic Cult could give him no scruple whatever.

Right. With the Demonic Cult I could be revenged and no mistake. And what am I now but rubbish the Murim Alliance threw away.

Clinging to a Murim Alliance he could never go back to was a fool’s hope and nothing more.

Gu Jin-ha asked.

“And what grudge does the Pavilion Master hold against Scholar Cheon?”

“Haha, have you not heard? That this seat’s battle corps was wiped out at Nanchang.”

The tale the storytellers had been putting about came back to Gu Jin-ha.

“Ah, you mean the Demonic Cult’s — no, the Sacred Heaven Iron-Blood Corps being wiped out to a man at the Hohyeon Estate? Did that truly happen?”

In truth, when Gu Jin-ha had heard that Scholar Cheon had destroyed the Sacred Heaven Iron-Blood Corps, the thing had been so absurd that he had only laughed. And now it turned out to be true.

“Even the Corps Chief this seat valued was killed. By that fellow Scholar Cheon you speak of. Which is to say, because of that bastard this seat’s standing in our Cult has become very precarious.”

“So you have set out to be revenged.”

“Just so. Revenge to be had, and a mission to carry out.”

With the talk this far along, Gu Jin-ha stole a look at the other man’s face.

“You may not know it, but I have the hunger for revenge and nothing else.”

“Ho ho ho. What talk is this? A man is himself a fortune. It is Scholar Gu we have need of, not Scholar Gu’s strength.”

“Can I be of use, with martial arts as shallow as mine?”

“Have you not heard? We have perfected a martial learning that amplifies a man’s strength twofold.”

“I have heard. A great art that amplifies innate true qi.”

“Right. With it Scholar Gu too can become a master. And as for that wrist, we can fit it with an artificial hand so that you can use poisons and hidden weapons.”

At that Gu Jin-ha pricked up his ears.

“Very well. I will help.”

Jeon Seok, the Twelfth Pavilion Master, asked.

“Elder Gal, and what of you? Will you come in with us?”

The question came as a choice, but Gal U-heon knew death waited behind a refusal, and refusing did not come easily.

“Very well. I will help too.”

Only then did Jeon Seok, whose eyes had been chill, break into a broad smile.

“Good. Good. Very good.”

Something in it had pleased him, and Jeon Seok let out a great open laugh.

The deeper the laugh ran, the deeper Gal U-heon’s unease ran with it.

Coming into Guang’an County in Sichuan, the first thing we looked for was an inn. We had been pressing on along the road with no chance to wash properly, and we were covered in dust.

“I should like us to put up at an inn today so that we can take a bath.”

Besides, I had Yeo-seol with me and could not simply keep up a forced march. The provincial capital of Sichuan, where the Dang Sect lay, was still two days off.

Dang Jin-ok turned it over, so I added a word.

“And Young Master Dang ought to have his wound looked at as well. If it festers for nothing it will be dangerous.”

Only then did Dang Jin-ok nod.

“Let us do so.”

Had he refused, I had meant to stop at an inn with Yeo-seol alone and follow on after.

Paeng So-un said.

“Elder brother, this is well. What do you say to a cup this evening?”

“This is hardly the situation for drinking.”

So many men dead, and here he was crying for drink. The madness might be lessening, at any rate, but the childishness was not.

Un Sang threw Paeng So-un a sidelong glare for it too.

We turned into a street lined with inns. Sichuan produced so much in the way of farm goods that a great many escort agencies were on the road hauling produce, and every inn flew the flag of a different one. Escort guards and escort hands out on a convoy were lodging at them. We made for the one among them that had no guests in it.

Before going into the inn I stopped short.

“What is the matter?”

I shook my head at Paeng So-un without letting anything show.

“It is nothing.”

A laugh escaped me in spite of myself.

Is this as far as they fled? Whether I have caught a mouse by walking backward¹ or they have walked into the tiger’s den, there is no telling.

The moment I was inside the inn I quietly called Dang Jin-ok, Jegal Do-won, Paeng So-un and Un Sang to my room. I unfolded a qi screen, and the party went tense in an instant.

“What is it?”

“Is there anywhere hereabouts we can have warriors sent to us?”

Dang Jin-ok knitted his brows at that.

“Let us know what the matter is first.”

Dang Jin-ok was a fellow with no notion of how a story ought to be built up.

I sighed and answered.

“The Demonic Cult’s Fourteenth Pavilion Master is putting up at the inn across the way.”

“What? How did you come to know that?”

Un Sang asked in astonishment.

“As we were coming in just now, I saw her going into the inn across the way.”

“Do you think she followed us? I felt nothing at all.”

“She did not follow us. I think she came ahead and waited. If she knows we are bound for the Dang Sect at all, then our passing through here is a settled fact.”

The company nodded.

I had felt the Flying Dantian’s energy the moment I turned into the street, and I was looking forward to how much internal force the one I had slipped into Oh Ju-hyang had drunk up by now.

She had taken an internal injury and needed to recover, so I had reckoned she could not have gone far. Nor, I judged, would she go far off without taking her revenge on me. To lead the Demonic Cult’s elites out, be roughly handled by me, and then go back to the Cult would leave her standing shaken, and on top of that it amounted to weakening still further the faction of the Third Young Master, whose standing was weak enough already. Only by killing me somehow could she recover her position.

“If she learns we have come, she will attack this very night. So we must use ourselves as bait and take the whole lot of them in one net.”

I went on.

“And more than that, that abnormal strength of theirs must become widely known. A great many people need to meet it for themselves.”

Paeng So-un asked.

“Elder brother is right. But how are we to gather the martial artists of the other branches? If we move, they will catch on.”

“As it happens there are wounded among our party. Going to a clinic or an apothecary, we can pass word to the Beggars’ Sect men and gather the martial artists at each branch.”

Jegal Do-won spoke up for once.

“Then rather than anyone else going, it had better be Young Master Dang and myself who move.”

“Just so. The two of you must go and pass word to the Beggars’ Sect men.”

We talked over how we would go at Oh Ju-hyang once the Beggars’ Sect men had been met, and when it had been thrashed out, Jegal Do-won and Dang Jin-ok went out of the inn.

Sure enough, the moment the two of them were outside there were men quietly tracking them. I watched them from the inn window and stroked the head of Yeo-seol, who was watching with me.

“Where shall I send Yeo-seol for safety?”

“Brother, do I really have to go somewhere safe? Can’t I fight alongside you? I’d get out of the way if it were anything ordinary, but the Demonic Cult’s martial artists have their innate true qi amplified, and they’re strong. I think it’s better if I help.”

“That’s a good thought too, but I think it’s better for Yeo-seol to be known as an ordinary person. That way you’ll be able to live a bit more easily. If word gets out that Yeo-seol is as strong as I am, it’ll be a headache.”

Yeo-seol thought it over carefully, then dipped her chin.

“I suppose if I got famous now it would put Brother in a difficult spot.”

“You rascal.”

There was something admirable in Yeo-seol thinking of me before herself. So it was settled that she would be moved elsewhere before night came.

As the sun went down and the dark came on, the passersby thinned out of the street. Once the night watch began to show, I too went into the inn and braced myself.

“We have got word to the Beggars’ Sect men, so reinforcements will arrive before long.”

Jegal Do-won spoke.

“But there is no Alliance or Dang Sect branch in Guang’an County, so it seems only the Beggars’ Sect men will gather. There is no telling whether we can take the whole lot of them with ourselves alone.”

Worry sat on Jegal Do-won’s face.

A little later a Beggars’ Sect man came hurrying to our inn.

“We told you not to come and go carelessly, since they may catch on.”

Dang Jin-ok scolded the Beggars’ Sect man.

“It is not that. The Demonic Cult men are moving off somewhere else just now. Have they not caught on to our pincer and taken flight?”

He said it because he did not know how strong a Demonic Cult man was.

“That makes no sense. They have no reason to flee.”

Dang Jin-ok said it, at a loss.

“Have you put a tail on where they are going?”

“Our sect’s men will be after them. I gave the order to keep watch at all times.”

I was curious. It meant something had suddenly come up important enough for them to leave us alone and go about other business.

“What shall we do?”

Dang Jin-ok asked it. He put the question to Paeng So-un, but his eyes were turned on me.

In an instant every eye had gathered on me. They were waiting on my decision.

“Let us go after them.”

Then I spoke to the Beggars’ Sect man.

“Will you guide us?”

When I, a scholar, carried on as though I were the head of the party, the Beggars’ Sect man cocked his head and then spoke.

“This way.”