The Assault

“There is a way to shorten the period, but it is by no means an easy one. The medicinal herbs have to be prepared, the chances of success are low, and the pain is considerable. Will you go through with it even so?”

Doctor Yu asked, his face troubled.

“That is fine. Please make the preparations.”

I had been through it in my past life, so I knew well how severe the pain was. I knew, too, how my body would change once I had endured it. There was no reason not to do it.

Making a source of income came first, though, and as it happened, the means to one lay with Doctor Yu himself.

I put it to him obliquely.

“Do you happen to have any healing pills or wound salve on you?”
“Yes, I have a few.”

Doctor Yu drew a small medicine bottle and a paper-wrapped pill from inside his robes and held them out to me. I took them.

“I will put them to good use.”
“They will be far more potent than anything you could buy on the market.”
“Is that so? Hm…”

I made a show of thinking it over, then went on.

“Doctor Yu, I would like to put a proposal to you. What would you say to selling these healing pills and wound salve?”
“The healing pills and the wound salve?”
“If they are more potent than what is on the market, as you say, they will sell like wildfire. To a martial artist, good medicine is as good as carrying a spare life around with him.”
“If it is of help to you, Benefactor, I will gladly do it.”

Seeing him agree so readily put me at ease.

I nodded, and I was tucking the bottle and the pill away when something struck me as off. I brought my nose close to the medicine.

— Sniff, sniff.

There is no smell.

In my past life the medicines Doctor Yu made had carried a distinctive bitter grass scent. There was none of it here. A scene from that life surfaced in my mind.

“Being here has taught me all over again that piling in fine ingredients is not the whole of it. Even a few ingredients can yield tremendous efficacy, depending on the combination and the proportions. Is it not a curious thing? The medicine I make here on this barren Blood Sand Plain works better than what I made outside, where herbs were plentiful.”

He had said that to me once, on a day we went out together to gather herbs.

I groped back through the memory. I was no physician, so the precise components were beyond me, but the method of preparation and the key ingredient I did remember. Passing on what I had recovered was easy enough.

“Doctor Yu, the truth is that in the cave I saw more than the cure for the Severed Meridians. There were methods there for making healing pills and wound salve as well. It said to cut the medicinal herbs that go into the usual healing pills and wound salve by half, and to make up the difference with mugwort.”

After all, I had the secret art that crushed every question flat: ‘the fortuitous encounter in the cave.’

“…Is that true?”

Doctor Yu’s brow furrowed. Doubt filled his voice, but what else could he do? The treatment that had cured his daughter’s Severed Meridians came out of that same encounter in that same cave. He had to believe.

I spoke with deliberate composure.

“Yes. Do not doubt it. You need only trust me.”

Doctor Yu nodded slowly.

“Very well. I will try making the new healing pills and wound salve as you say, Benefactor.”
“Thank you. I will get you whatever funds you need before long.”
“There is no need. A great deal of the gold you gave me is still left, Benefactor. I will send word as soon as it is ready.”
“I leave it all to you, Doctor Yu. If any trouble should ever arise, come to the Yang manor at any time.”

I finished my talk with Yu Baegun and left the room.

Two birds with one stone.

The healing pills and wound salve secured the family a source of funds, and improving my constitution advanced my own growth. From here on, all I had to do was wait.

Everything was unfolding smoothly.

Qingzhou, Shandong. The office of the leader of Geodobang.

Its leader and his lieutenants were gathered inside.

“Mmm…”

Black Leopard, the leader of Geodobang, let out a low grunt.

— Scritch. Scritch.

The lieutenants around him watched those raking fingers and began darting their eyes about, reading his mood. They knew the sign well enough; it was what the boss did when his temper soured. Experience had taught them, too, that crossing him at such a moment earned a beating.

He worked the tabletop a good while longer before his fingers went still, and then he asked his men.

“The ones I sent to Linqu County — all dead, you said?”

One of the lieutenants answered him.

“Yes, Boss.”
“Tsk.”

— Scritch. Scritch.

He clicked his tongue and went back to raking the table.

Losing the men he had sent to widen his reach into Linqu County was of no importance in itself. They were the sort he could take or leave. His anger had another source.

He told me he had sunk his teeth into a proper score.

His branch chief had reported a chance at a solid haul. Now the men were gone, and the chance had gone with them.

“Did you at least look into how they died?”
“They say every one of them was beheaded.”

The word beheaded dug a deep furrow into Black Leopard’s brow.

“Useless bastards. They didn’t go and pick a fight with the wrong man, did they?”
“That does not appear to be it. There has been no word of any noted martial artist turning up in Linqu County.”
“Then was it the Heuksubang, or the Hyeolpungbang lot?”
“That does not appear to be it either.”
“Ah, damn it!”

— Scritch. Scritch.

With no straight answer forthcoming, he raked at the table again. The lieutenant hurried to speak.

“It is not certain, but by the account of the survivors in Linqu County, it seems they were done in by a martial artist who uses a spear.”
“A spear?”
“A young one, not yet twenty, but they say he handled the spear like a demon. Nobody around Linqu County had ever seen the face before.”
“As if spearmen were in short supply. Taken down by some house’s young master, were they. Halfwits.”

Black Leopard clicked his tongue.

“Anything else besides my boys getting themselves killed?”
“There is a rumor that a timber merchant named Hwang Yanggeon recently made a great deal of money selling lightning-struck jujube wood.”
“Lightning-struck jujube wood? Hold on.”

He raised a hand.

Lightning-struck jujube wood had been the talk of Qingzhou of late, ever since some sharp operator unloaded a haul of it for the enormous sum of two hundred taels of gold.

Isn’t that the one they say swings a spear in the street, claiming he cures the Severed Meridians?

A young one who had sold lightning-struck jujube wood, exactly like that timber merchant out of Linqu County. A young one who used a spear. In his head, Black Leopard felt the broken shards click into place, forming one whole picture.

“Hey. That spearman. Isn’t that the Yang manor’s eldest?”
“Uh…”

The lieutenant dragged the word out a moment, then bobbed his head.

“Now that you say it, Boss, it does seem to be him. It matches the description the survivors gave.”
“Hah!”

A hollow laugh burst out of him.

He had already been eating himself up over the rumor that some nobody had cleared two hundred taels of gold. And now it turned out the money had been as good as his own, and Yang Mujin had snatched it out from under him. Rage came to a boil in him.

— Slam!

Black Leopard brought his fist down on the table. He wanted to drag the brat in that very instant, break his legs, and take the money back.

But he could not move rashly. The boy was the Yang manor’s eldest, and that gave him pause.

A nothing house it may be, but his father and that Ju Cheolsan, the two of them, are first-rate masters, and that is the trouble. Against that, the only first-rate man Geodobang has is me.

Even if he pushed it through on sheer numbers, the Yang manor’s name stood well in Qingzhou. One misstep could rouse the fury of the orthodox sects and see Geodobang itself swept away.

Stuck, and chafing at being stuck, the leader of Geodobang spat a curse.

“Damn it, has nobody got a decent plan? Put those heads to work!”
“Just drag him in and work him over.”
“You brainless idiot! If we haul him in and work him over, do you think his father is going to sit still for it? That head of yours nailed on for decoration? I ought to—”
“I am sorry, Boss.”

Black Leopard shouted at the rest of his men.

“The rest of you — no bright ideas?!”
“…”
“…”

For all his bellowing, his men only went on watching his face. Like boss, like men. Not one of them had any gift for using his head.

“Ugh, forget it. I’m the fool for asking you lot to draw up a plan. Damned wretches.”

The leader of Geodobang snorted and forced his anger down. Without at least that much, the churning in his gut would have been more than he could bear.

Just then one of the men opened his mouth, carefully.

“Boss, a while back I saw the Yang boy at an inn with some physician. They did not look like ordinary acquaintances.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. The Yang boy treated him with a good deal of courtesy.”

A mean smile hooked the corner of Black Leopard’s mouth.

“That will do nicely. Start work on the physician first.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Not our own boys — use the moneylenders’ men. So that if it goes wrong, nothing ties back to us.”
“An outstanding decision, Boss!”
“There is no one like you, Boss.”

His mood eased a little, and his men fell over one another to flatter him. He wore that mean smile and muttered.

You will pay in full for daring to snatch Black Leopard’s money. With generous interest on top.

The Benefactor’s words were true.

Yu Baegun could not hide his astonishment as he looked at the healing pills and wound salve he had newly made. All he had done was follow Yang Mujin’s advice, halving the usual medicinal herbs and making up the difference with mugwort, and yet the result was remarkable. The cost had fallen by half while the potency had climbed to nearly double what it was before.

Has he truly come by some fortuitous encounter after all?

At first he had half believed and half doubted. A secret method chanced upon in a cliffside cave. As a physician, he found that a hard story to credit. But with the product of it sitting in front of his eyes, he could not help believing.

From the cure for the Severed Meridians to the making of healing pills and wound salve. Every one of them had succeeded the instant he did as Yang Mujin said, so smoothly it hardly seemed real. At this rate he really was going to have to believe the story about a fortuitous encounter in a cliffside cave.

I have come to serve a truly interesting man.

Yu Baegun let out a short laugh. He had stopped at the apothecary for the herbs he needed and was on his way back to the inn with the basket of them in hand.

— Bump.

“Oof!”

In an alley he bumped shoulders with a group of men.

“My apologies.”

Yu Baegun apologized politely and made to go on his way. But the men blocked his path and picked a quarrel.

“You knock into a man and then just walk off?”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Is the old man deaf? Can’t get a word through his skull. You think sorry covers it? You hand over the doctor’s fee before you go, don’t you?”
“You would try extortion in front of a physician? Get out of my way this instant.”

He ignored them and tried to pass. The men closed around him in a ring instead.

“This bastard dares insult us?”
“You picked the wrong day.”
“Stomp him!”

They rushed him and beat him without mercy. Down on the ground, Yu Baegun curled around the herb basket and held it tight against his chest.

Inside were the herbs needed to improve the Benefactor’s constitution, and the ingredients for the healing pills and the wound salve. Whatever happened, he had to protect them.

“Hey, that basket must be worth something. Take it off him!”
“Let go! Let go of it, you old bastard!”

Merciless fists and boots rained down on him, and still Yu Baegun never let his grip on the basket slacken. But one man alone was no match for a pack of grown men. When he finally went under after a long beating, they stopped their hammering as well.

“Whew— tough old bastard.”
“Grab whatever is worth money and let’s clear out.”

They wrenched the herb basket out of his hands, went through his robes, and took his money pouch. At the sight of the gold inside it they let out a long whistle.

“The old man is a rich one. Carrying this much gold around.”
“Let’s drop by a pleasure house at the hour of the Dog tonight, Boss.¹”
“Why not. Boss is buying today!”
“Hahahaha!”

They vanished, cackling. The passersby who had been watching came up to Yu Baegun cautiously.

“Brother. Brother. Get a hold of yourself, now.”

They shook the fallen man awake.

“Nnh…”

Yu Baegun barely came to. His whole body hurt as though it were being crushed, and a fever boiled up in him. If he stayed out on the street like this, he might die where he lay. Leaning on a passerby’s arm, he got to his feet and moved off, slow and staggering.

Dragging his blood-soaked body, Yu Baegun somehow made it back to the inn and went straight to where his daughter was.

“Father!”

Yu Yeohui saw her father and screamed in shock.

— Thud!

At the sound of his daughter’s voice Yu Baegun seemed to let go, and he collapsed to the floor like a kite with its string cut.

Yu Yeohui clung to her unconscious father, at a loss, and wept.

What do I do, what do I do…

Leaving her father like this would clearly end badly. Then one person came to mind.

“If any trouble should ever arise, come to the Yang manor at any time.”

The Benefactor!

It was Yang Mujin.

Yu Yeohui sprang to her feet and ran for the Yang manor.