I wish they would all just die. (2)
“Y-You bastards?”
Bang Hwi instinctively took one step back.
“Y-You dare lay hands on members of the Eastern Depot! Are you truly saying you intend to become traitors!”
“…Wasn’t he talking about skinning us alive just a moment ago?”
“Guess that doesn’t quite count as treating us like traitors.”
“Then what happens if you are treated like a traitor?”
“Our whole extended family gets skinned alive together?”
“Wow.”
Cold sweat began to trickle down Bang Hwi’s back.
‘How?’
Those who had just been smashed into the pavilion across from them were the elite agents Eastern Depot was so proud of. Wasn’t their skill proven simply by the fact that they were guarding none other than the Chief Eunuch?
And yet those elites had been taken out in a single strike?
‘Just what the hell are these bastards?’
Judging by their builds and voices, they were clearly not that old, so how in the world could they possess such absurd skill?
“Who, who the hell are you people?”
Baek Cheon sighed and pressed a hand to his forehead.
“…No. Do you think we would answer just because you asked, and in a situation like this?”
“We’ve been telling you, haven’t we? He’s a little slow.”
“…”
At the culprits’ nonchalant demeanor, Bang Hwi’s face twisted violently.
“You bastards… you’re no ordinary men.”
“What an obvious thing to say….”
“And someone like you dares target the Chief Eunuch?”
“Uh…….”
“You bastards have ties to Gangho, don’t you?”
Baek Cheon let out a sigh. Who would answer just because he asked them…….
“Ha. Haha. Ha”
Everyone’s eyes turned to Chung Myung.
“Don’t…….”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Gangho. What is that?”
“…do it.”
Catastrophic.
Watching Chung Myung jerk his head from side to side like a creaking wooden puppet, Baek Cheon felt as though he were reliving the memory of wetting his bed at the age of five, then being hung upside down from a tree and beaten on the buttocks by Jin Geumryong. In terms of sheer humiliation, the two seemed almost on par……
“…So you really are martial artists after all.”
“I told you, we’re not.”
“…Enough, you bastard. Just keep your mouth shut.”
At what was practically an admission, Bang Hwi grew even more triumphant.
“How dare some scum from Gangho try to meddle in the affairs of the Imperial Court? You bastards! You’ve got some nerve! I will make you answer for this!”
“…”
“Don’t think this will end with you. I don’t know which sect you bastards belong to, but not a single foundation stone of it will remain. I will make certain you pay the price for this.”
“…”
“Haha. You look a little frightened now, don’t you? But it’s already too late. I will make you pay dearly for daring to spy on the Chief Eunuch and lay hands on Eastern Depot’s agents!”
“…”
A puzzled look crossed Bang Hwi’s face as he continued his triumphant speech.
“……What’s with that reaction?”
At some point, he had realized it. With every word he spoke, these bastards were growing more and more frightened.
What was strange about that? The strange part was that he didn’t seem to be the one they were afraid of.
“What are you looking at?”
Everyone’s eyes turned towards one person standing at the back. He rested a hand on his chin and seemed to ponder something deeply, then nodded.
“Hmm. I suppose there’s no other way.”
“Uh, well……”
“We’ve probably been found out anyway… and this fact hasn’t reached anyone else yet.”
The corner of the masked man’s mouth twitched. It looked as though he were smiling faintly…
“Now that things have come to this, we have no choice but to kill them and silence them all…”
“Grab that bastard!”
“Good grief, please come to your senses!”
“Let go of me for a second! I know what I’m doing!”
“That’s the problem! You idiot!”
Jo Geol desperately clung to Yoon Jong, who had lost all reason at the thought of Hwasan being put in such danger.
“I’m telling you, there’s no other way!”
“They don’t know who we are! We just have to make sure they never find out!”
“Our opponents are the Eastern Depot, the Eastern Depot! There’s no way we can keep it hidden forever.”
“That doesn’t mean we can just kill people!”
Just as Jo Geol and Yoon Jong were grappling with each other.
“Enough!”
Baek Cheon’s fierce voice rang thunderously.
Baek Cheon glared at everyone, his anger plainly visible even through his mask.
“What disgraceful behavior is this!”
“We’re sorry.”
“We have no excuse.”
“To make such a fuss over something as trivial as our sect’s name possibly being exposed!”
Bang!
Baek Cheon stamped down hard and roared boldly.
“Is this how Jongnam taught you to behave?!”
“Wow….”
“Whoa….”
He’s a devil. A devilish bastard.
How did Jongnam ever manage to produce something like that?
“But listen well. We neither hide nor flee.”
“Um, Sasuk. That’s enough…”
“Take this! Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven!”
Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven unleashed by Baek Cheon… or rather, something whose forms, at least, looked remarkably convincing as the Thirty-Six Swords Under the Heaven, embroidered the sky.
As the disciples of Hwasan stared blankly at the scene, Chung Myung’s dazed voice reached their ears.
“He really is insane. That guy…”
“…”
❀ ❀ ❀
“You lost them?”
“….Please, this is punishable by death.”
Do Hyeon narrowed his brows as he looked at Bang Hwi, who was prostrated before him.
“Were you unable to track them down?”
“We succeeded in pursuing them, but we were outmatched.”
Do Hyeon narrowed his eyes a little further.
“You were outmatched?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got some nerve saying that. And you call yourself a squad leader.”
Bang Hwi lowered his head even more deeply.
“My apologies.”
“Hmm.”
A peculiar displeasure crept into Do Hyeon’s eyes.
These men were not exactly great masters. The Eastern Depot specialized in surveillance, not in taking people down. But even so, these men who could reasonably be called the Eastern Depot’s elite had faced their enemy and still let them escape…
“Explain.”
“I have no excuse……”
“Explain.”
Bang Hwi swallowed dryly and continued.
“We did not make any particular mistake. We simply could not contend with their martial prowess. As you can see from the fact that we returned alive… they showed no particular desire to seriously antagonize us. And yet…”
“You couldn’t catch them?”
“Yes.”
At Bang Hwi’s concise answer, Do Hyeon chuckled.
“So they weren’t people we knew. If they had been, there’s no way you wouldn’t have recognized them.”
“That is correct.”
“Then take a guess. Who were they?”
Bang Hwi lightly bit his lip before opening his mouth.
“First… they were clearly martial artists.”
When Do Hyeon simply stared at him without answering, Bang Hwi squeezed his eyes shut.
Don’t think. His role was merely to report what he knew. Chief Eunuch Do Hyeon was the one who would do the thinking.
“And… the culprits said they had come from Jongnam Sect.”
“Jongnam Sect?”
“Yes. It is a sect in Shaanxi. The ten strongest sects in Gangho are known as Gupailbang…….”
“I’m not asking because I don’t know.”
“I-I’m sorry.”
After a brief moment of looking down at Bang Hwi with a cold gaze, Do Hyeon let out a low chuckle.
“So they said they were from Jongnam.”
“Yes. Upon investigating the swordsmanship used by one of them, we found that it did indeed bear similarities to the Thirty-Six Swords Under Heaven, one of Jongnam’s signature martial arts.”
“What a masterpiece.”
The corner of Do Hyeon’s mouth twitched faintly.
“He used his own swordsmanship right in front of the Eastern Depot, as if to flaunt it. Even though he had no intention of taking your lives.”
“…Yes.”
“Do they take the Eastern Depot for fools, or is their grudge so deep that they have no room to consider the consequences?”
“Chief Eunuch, then…….”
“There’s no point speculating.”
Do Hyeon, the Chief Eunuch, answered firmly.
“Even if they are ruffians of Gangho, they surely are aware of the Eastern Depot’s reputation. They wouldn’t deliberately make an enemy of us. It must be a disguise. A disguise so clumsy that it’s laughable even to call it one.”
Bang Hwi unconsciously let out a sigh of relief. He too shared the same opinion as Cheif Eunuch Do Hyeon. But if Do Hyeon came to a slightly different conclusion, something terrible would befall the sect called Jongnam.
“Then I will exclude Jongnam from the investigation.”
“Why?”
Bang Hwi nearly asked a question without meaning to, but hurriedly changed what he was about to say.
“Chief Eunuch, you just….”
“Of course Jongnam isn’t the culprit. But that is no reason not to investigate Jongnam.”
Do Hyeon spoke as he indifferently stamped the official seal onto the documents on his desk.
“The ruffians of Gangho sometimes forget that they are His Majesty’s servants. The stronger the sect, the more likely they are to do so.”
Bang Hwi nodded blankly.
“Then we ought to make them realize that fact. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“…I failed to grasp the full extent of your considerations.”
To Do Hyeon, whether they were truly connected to the culprits was not particularly important. What mattered was that this presented an opportunity to put pressure on the people of Gangho.
Distinguishing truth [眞] from falsehood [假] was difficult, but distinguishing what could be done [可] from what could not [否] was not particularly difficult. And it was the Eastern Depot’s job to make even the impossible possible.
“Send men to Shaanxi. Let us use this opportunity to investigate this place called Jongnam. It does not matter if they are a little rough about it.”
“Yes, Chief Eunuch.”
Bang Hwi quickly bowed his head. But there was still one problem remaining.
“What about the culprits who escaped…”
“Hmm.”
Do Hyeon closed his eyes slightly and thought.
‘What a nuisance.’
If he truly set his mind to it, catching them would not be impossible. He could mobilize large numbers of men specially trained in tracking, or obtain the Emperor’s permission to put pressure on Gangho and force them to hand over the culprits themselves. Neither would be particularly difficult.
There were other ways as well. If he simply had a few innocent people beaten and tortured, those men would eventually choose one of two options. They would either turn themselves in, or come to kill him. Most martial artists tended to act that way.
So bringing the matter to a conclusion would not be particularly difficult. The only problem was that, whichever method he chose, there would be no preventing this affair from escalating.
The position of Chief Eunuch was by no means an insignificant one. No matter how skillfully he tried to gloss it over, the mere fact that the Chief Eunuch had nearly been attacked would draw the attention of the public.
If that happened, his political enemies would seize the opportunity to tie his hands. That was not what Do Hyeon wanted.
“We have no choice but to leave them be.”
“Chief Eunuch, that’s….”
“Enough.”
Cutting him off mid-sentence, Do Hyeon smiled faintly.
“If they really are nothing more than people who were caught up in this by chance, they won’t appear before me again, so there will be no problem. But if they were truly targeting me…”
The official seal in Do Hyeon’s hand rose slightly into the air, then was slowly driven down towards the desk.
Vrrrrm.
Having driven the seal into the red sandalwood desk without even touching it, Do Hyeon muttered in a flat voice.
“They’ll show those faces before me again sooner or later. When they do… I need only make them pay the price for this as well.”
“Yes, Chief Eunuch.”
“That will be all. You may go.”
Do Hyeon watched Bang Hwi’s back as he immediately headed outside, then murmured quietly.
“But I wonder…..”
Something about it definitely felt off.
“Are they really martial artists?”
Who knows. In truth, there was no reason for people of Gangho to go out of their way to watch him. He had no interest in Gangho whatsoever. Which meant.
“The Confucian scholars?”
An icy chill shimmered in Do Hyeon’s eyes.
“It will be useless all the same. You will never be able to stop me. Soon, that day will come. The day that will turn everything upside down.”
After a brief silence, Do Hyeon picked up the documents and opened them with a familiar motion.
Only the sound of pages turning echoed through the strangely cold room.
Special Spinoff Chapter 68 >>>
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