The First Guests. (3)

I couldn’t understand why an animal corpse was moving as if alive.

All the fur was gone, and the skin was blackened with rot and shriveled.

Could it possibly be a being with immortality?

Everyone shivered at the sight of its sharp teeth clicking together.

“W-What do we do?”

“I-I’m trying to get out!”

The friends the granddaughter had brought didn’t know what to do and urged Yu Jinsan on.

Though they were children who had experienced hard martial training and plenty of hardship, they looked frightened now.

An utterly abnormal situation was unfolding, so confusion was inevitable.

But Yu Jinsan was just as flustered.

“Graaaandpa!!!”

Only after the granddaughter screamed did Yu Jinsan snap back to attention.

He glanced around, grabbed the nearby hook, and shouted.

“Everyone, fall back behind your grandpa!”

Yu Jinsan stepped in front of the children and lowered his stance.

Whatever that thing was, it certainly didn’t look friendly.

Its bloodshot eyes stared at him, and its gums-revealing sharp teeth were intensely aggressive.

It thrashed left and right and eventually managed to pull itself out of the ground.

Without a moment’s hesitation it leapt off the ground on all fours.

There was no time to debate anything.

With its jaws wide open, it seemed intent on biting his head off.

Yu Jinsan was not someone who would be taken so easily.

Prepared in advance, he swung the hook and struck the creature squarely in the torso.

Thud-!!!

The sharp blades of the hook pierced the rotten body and came out the other side of its back.

“Grandpa caught it!”

But the joy was brief.

Yu Seol, watching from behind, urgently pointed with her index finger.

“It’s still alive!”

Yu Jinsan looked again at the front and couldn’t believe his eyes.

The thing hanging on the hook shook its body and writhed, trying to escape.

He had clearly pierced what he presumed to be its heart.

He couldn’t help but be baffled at how it could still move.

“Everyone, look away!”

There was no need to show the children such a gruesome sight.

Yu Jinsan flipped the hook that had pierced it and drove it into the ground.

He then pressed his foot on its neck and executed the Thousand-Pound Hammer to immobilize it.

“If you’re dead you should rest in the afterlife, why can’t you go?”

First, he had to finish it properly.

With the edge of his hand he sliced the shaft of the hook diagonally.

The freshly sharpened wooden tip was immediately enveloped in a bright energy.

He intended to end it with raw, forceful qi.

A dazzling blaze of light began to scour the ground beneath Yu Jinsan’s feet.

Thud-! Shck-! Shhhh-!!

The monstrous corpse was torn apart in that way.

It only stopped moving completely after its head was severed.

Yu Jinsan covered it with a nearby pile of straw for the time being, planning to fetch tools later to remove it.

“What was that just now? It looked disgusting.”

The granddaughter’s eyes were full of questions.

A natural reaction. Yu Jinsan himself was very curious about its identity.

He lied a little about the situation to calm the children.

“There’s nothing to be scared of. Didn’t I tell you about Jiangshi before? Some wicked person must’ve turned animals into Jiangshi and sealed them under a statue.”

Though he said that, it was certainly not the sort of Jiangshi.

Having gone through much in life, he would not mistake such things.

Jiangshi were so inefficient for the cost and effort of making them that even demonic cults avoided using them.

And making them from animals? That was simply impossible.

“Then why would a Jiangshi come out from under our house?”

“That even grandpa doesn’t know. We’ll have to ask the people who used to live here.”

He casually answered to avoid worrying them.

But Yu Seol couldn’t calm down from the grotesque sight she had seen for the first time.

“I’m scared…”

“What’s there to be scared of? A thing like this would be sent to the afterlife with one of your punches.”

The friends the granddaughter had brought nodded in agreement.

Once the disgusting thing disappeared before her eyes, Yu Seol’s attention quickly cooled.

“Grandpa, so what do we do now?”

“Hmm. I’ll clean this up later, so let’s do some field work. Everyone okay with that?”

As if they’d been waiting, everyone eagerly agreed.

“Yes, Grandpa!”

“I wanted to try it too.”

Yu Jinsan led the children to the field with a pleased smile.

He planned to think more about what had just happened when he was alone.

“Come on, let’s go. Finish quickly and Grandpa will make something delicious.”

They finished the land reclamation work in less than 4 hours of time.

Because the children knew martial arts, they were more efficient than using oxen.

After the work, everyone gathered on the first floor of the pavilion for a hearty meal.

Yu Seol prepared a few tried-and-true dishes, and Yu Jinsan showed off his skills for once.

Perhaps because of that, the invited children looked happy.

“It was so delicious, Grandpa.”

“Thank you, that was great.”

Yu Jinsan nodded with a satisfied smile.

“Alright, alright. I told our sect leader, so play all you want, then sleep here.”

Strictly speaking, the children were not official disciples of the Defeating Blade Clan.

They had been placed there by Yu Jinsan’s arrangement and had been doing well so far.

And as time passed, their relationship had developed into something like family.

“Yes, Grandpa.”

“Hehe. Thank you.”

They were children sleeping away from home for the first time at a friend’s house, of course they were happy.

Everyone was happily eating fruit, except for one person.

Yu Jinsan looked at his granddaughter with a puzzled expression.

“Little one, what’s wrong?”

All eyes fixed on Yu Seol; she was silently staring at something alone.

Suddenly Yu Seol stood up and, as if entranced, walked toward the window.

It was a wooden sliding window.

She put her finger into a small gap and pulled something out.

“Grandpa, look at this.”

Yu Seol held it out as if she had found a treasure.

It was yellow paper, rolled and tied up, not an ordinary material.

Yu Jinsan took it silently and quickly unwrapped it.

Large, unreadable red characters were written on it.

“Hmm. This is a talisman.”

“What’s a talisman?”

“Generally, high-powered monks or shamans use them to ward off spirits and avert calamities. Of course, they can also be used for opposite purposes.”

There used to be an elder in the Yu household who practiced fortune-telling or shamanism.

He was Yu Jinsan’s uncle, and Yu had seen many things from his side as a child.

“But why was this hidden in our window frame?”

Yu Jinsan was more puzzled about that.

Why on earth would talismans be hidden in the house?

“That’s strange indeed. It’s unsettling, let’s look around together to see if there are more.”

Including the friends the granddaughter brought, the total number was six.

They scattered and began searching every corner of the house for talismans.

Martial folk have keen eyes.

They couldn’t miss the slightest marks or gaps.

The first to shout was a boy called Mandu.

“I found one, Grandpa!”

Surprisingly, it had been hidden in a gap under the main gate’s threshold.

“There’s one here too!”

“I found one too!”

Unfailingly, talismans were found at every entrance to the outside.

And in the corner of the bed, and under the tabletop.

In no time at all, the number of talismans they found exceeded ten.

What on earth was all this?

Before long, the pile of recovered talismans swelled greatly.

“Good work, everyone. Grandpa needs to go check something, play for a while and then go to sleep first.”

There was more than one strange thing.

He couldn’t let it pass, so he planned to meet Im Jeon-se, who had introduced the house to them.

“Be careful.”

As the children bowed politely, the granddaughter peered out and called.

“Bring something tasty back when you come.”

“All right.”

Yu Jinsan hurried to the Defeating Blade Clan.

It was a small pavilion for receiving guests.

Im Jeon-se sat politely across the table from him.

“So you’re saying an animal carcass sprang from the ground and attacked you, sir?”

Im Jeon-se’s tone was full of incredulity.

He seemed to think Yu Jinsan was joking with him.

“Did I come to you to joke? And look at this.”

Yu Jinsan took out a bunch of talismans from his clothing and placed them on the table.

“…What are all of these?”

“That’s the question I’d rather ask, why are there so many talismans in the house? Did the previous owner say anything?”

“The previous owner left after less than ten days, so they probably don’t know. The ownership changed many times, and many of those owners are deceased, so we can’t ask them…”

Im Jeon-se trailed off with a dark expression.

“I’m not blaming you. I already heard the basics, and didn’t I say I don’t believe in superstition?”

“Still, something mustn’t happen to you, sir… Were there any other problems?”

“Not yet, but there are more than a few oddities. It certainly feels like there’s something in that house.”

Im Jeon-se clasped his hands on the table with a grim expression.

After pondering for a moment, he spoke cautiously.

“Actually, after the sale I heard a strange rumor. It was so absurd I brushed it off.”

“Hmm. What was it?”

“Long ago in Ho County there was a martial arts sect called White Shadow Sect.”

Even Yu Jinsan, experienced in the murim world, had never heard that name before.

That meant it was likely a sect that perished long before his time.

“White Shadow Sect? Tell me more.”

“They were a cult pursuing the secret of immortality. I heard the manor might have been one of their hideouts.”

“So fanatics gathered in our house to conduct rituals?”

“It’s just rumor and conjecture. Supposedly the bodies of their followers were found in heaps there, cause of death unclear, and the leader disappeared.”

Unsettling as it was, it was an old rumor and shouldn’t be a problem on its own.

What he was curious about was the source of that information.

“Alright, I understand. But where did you hear that ridiculous rumor?”

“Our clan leader told me. He heard the exact location of the manor yesterday and mentioned it.”

“Little one, Baek Gyu?”

If it’s Baek Gyu, the clan leader of the Defeating Blade Clan, he would be a long-standing native of Ho County.

His words might carry some credibility.

“Yes. He learned of it late. He said it would only worry you if we told you, so it’s better to leave it be.”

Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

He couldn’t blame them for trying to spare him worry.

But that wasn’t the whole story.