It’s not like I’m doing it for you. (2)
Everything was spinning. Everything began to blur together, as though he had gulped down a whole jar of potent liquor.
‘Poison….?’
The martial arts of Yurim were pure and orthodox. They permitted nothing corrupt or impure. Under normal circumstances, he should have been able to suppress poison of this level somehow. But being able to suppress the poison and having to deal with these people while suppressing it were two entirely different matters.
But what tormented Jwa Gohak now was not the situation he found himself in. It was the fact that he had been thoroughly played by them every step of the way until things had come to this. That realization tightened around Jwa Gohak’s throat.
Back when he had been in the academy in Yurim, he had been a man with nothing in this world to fear. A remarkable man upon whom everyone’s expectations had been placed.
But from the moment he set foot in Beijing, he had failed to accomplish a single thing properly. Even Yu Hanbin, who had been so young, had been of more help than him.
‘Was I really this inadequate?’
Jwa Gohak forced his dimming eyes wide open. If he lost consciousness now, he would be left in a state where he could not even take his own life. While he was still conscious, he had to cut his throat with this…
“That won’t do.”
Clang!
At that moment, a flexible sword that shot through the air sharply knocked the sword from his hand.
Bang Hwi, who had personally struck Jwa Gohak’s sword away, wore a cold, mocking smile.
“Perpetrators like you all think alike. Especially idiots who delude themselves into thinking they’re doing something grand.”
Jwa Gohak clenched his lips tightly. But he no longer even had the strength to vent his rising indignation.
“Don’t worry. You’ll soon learn your place. That shallow conviction of yours will be stripped away the moment you set foot in the Eastern Depot’s underground prison.”
Jwa Gohak flinched beneath a gaze so chilling it seemed capable of freezing him solid.
“In the end, you’ll spill everything you know. Once you’ve even given up the names of your own kin with your own lips, you’ll understand perfectly well what kind of man you truly were.”
With an expression devoid of emotion, Bang Hwi lowered his sword and gestured with his chin.
“Take him away. He’s a traitor, so make sure he doesn’t take his own life.”
“Yes!”
The Eastern Depot agents surrounding Jwa Gohak quickly moved in to subdue him. Since Jwa Gohak was poisoned and on the verge of collapsing, there was hardly any need to be on high alert.
But the moment the Eastern Depot agents seized Jwa Gohak by the shoulders, his hand moved like a flash of lightning.
“Huh!”
The Eastern Depot agents, too, were men who had been through countless trials, and even amid the confusion, they defended themselves perfectly against the hand that shot towards them. But they had never been Jwa Gohak’s target in the first place.
Grab.
Jwa Gohak’s hand seized the hand of the Eastern Depot agent as he pulled back. The flexible sword in the agent’s grasp swayed violently, as though startled.
“Don’t look down on me!”
Jwa Gohak shouted, almost roaring.
Enduring through sheer willpower was not difficult. Even if his body were torn into a thousand pieces, they would not hear a single word from Jwa Gohak’s mouth.
But Jwa Gohak knew. Yurim had opposed the Eastern Depot for as long as anyone could remember, and he knew that among their interrogation methods were techniques impossible for human willpower to withstand.
And so, there was only one best choice for anyone captured by the Eastern Depot.
“Hah!”
“What?”
With not the slightest hesitation, Jwa Gohak thrust the flexible sword he had seized into his own throat.
At that very moment, as though they had never imagined this choice, the Eastern Depot agents’ eyes widened of their own accord.
“That crazy bastard.”
Whiiiiing!
From somewhere, a sword came hurtling through the air, spinning violently, and cleanly sliced through the blade flying towards Jwa Gohak’s throat.
Crack!
The sword, having lost none of its momentum even after cleaving the flexible sword, plunged into the ground almost up to its hilt. Jwa Gohak stared blankly at the sight before abruptly turning his head.
“No, but did he really have to take his own life?”
“Look at him. He doesn’t know the value of his own life.”
“This is why scholars are like this…”
“No…”
Startled by the familiar voices, Jwa Gohak blinked. A group of figures with familiar builds slowly emerged from behind the forest.
“I-I thought you said you weren’t coming.”
“Hm.”
Then, the masked figure with the most insufferable air among them cleared his throat awkwardly and turned his head away.
“It’s not like I’m doing it for you.”
“…”
“We just happened to be passing by….”
“You… you lot.”
Jwa Gohak’s lips trembled.
They said that, but hadn’t they followed him because they were worried? They had known him for less than ten days, yet they were even willing to stand against the Eastern Depot for his sake.
How could he have treated such kind-hearted people so harshly?
It was just as tears began to well in the corners of Jwa Gohak’s eyes.
“But if he was just going to drop dead that neatly, did we really need to come save him? Nothing would leak out then anyway.”
“Shh!”
“Quiet.”
“Ahem!”
“…”
The tears that had been slowly forming in Jwa Gohak’s eyes dried up instantly.
Just as he thought. Those damned Taoist bastards. There was no way they had come because they were worried about him.
“…Did you come to kill me and silence me because you were afraid I’d spill everything?”
“Now, now. Kill and silence? What a dreadful thing to say. We came to help you, help you.”
“….I’m so grateful I could cry. You bastards.”
It was his mistake to expect anything from these people.
As Jwa Gohak tried to suppress the curses seeping through his clenched teeth, Bang Hwi turned towards them with a look of disbelief.
“What an absurd sight.”
Bang Hwi nodded as he looked at Hwasan’s disciples.
“A fish that got away jumping into the net of its own accord. Looks like luck will be on my side for a while.”
At his words, the disciples of Hwasan looked at one another.
“What’s he saying?”
“He says we’re fish.”
“Chung… Ahem. Hey, what do you think?”
“Fish, huh.”
Chung Myung grinned beneath his mask.
“That’s selling us a little short. At least a whale would be more in our league.”
Impressed by this bold declaration, the disciples of Hwasan began whispering among themselves.
“Have you ever seen a whale?”
“No.”
“How big are they supposed to be?”
“I’ve heard they’re enormous. In the pictures, they were almost as big as a house.”
“Come on, that can’t be right. How can an animal be as big as a house?”
“They weren’t just the size of a house. They were practically as big as a whole pavilion.”
Chung Myung covered his face with both hands.
These bastards. After dragging them around from one place to another, they had become so brazen that their liver was no longer merely swollen – it had grown so enormous it was rolling around beneath their feet.*
“…Have these bastard really lost their minds?”
What saddened Chung Myung was that he could not really argue with Bang Hwi’s words. How had they all ended up like this?
– It’s all because of you! You!
“Ah, what did I do!”
“….Huh?”
“No, sorry. Never mind.”
Chung Myung let out a deep sigh and gestured to Bang Hwi.
“Anyway, that’s how things stand. They say even bad blood is still a bond, and it looks like we’ll have to take that guy with us, so why don’t you back off here.”
“Back off?”
Bang Hwi looked at Chung Myung in disbelief.
“How dare an insolent brat tell me whether I may withdraw or not?”
“Tsk.”
Chung Myung clicked his tongue as though Bang Hwi was being completely unreasonable.
“Come on. You already got a taste of it once. Surely you know perfectly well that if you don’t leave quietly, all you’ll get for your trouble is aching bones?”
No sooner had Chung Myung finished speaking than Hye Yeon stepped forward. Recognizing Hye Yeon from his build alone, Bang Hwi recalled the formidable prowess he had displayed last time and let out a low groan.
“Come on, let’s settle this peacefully. We don’t particularly want to make trouble with government officials for no reason either.”
“……Hasn’t enough trouble already been caused?”
“…”
Chung Myung had nothing to say, so he looked away. Bang Hwi let out a chuckle and glared at him.
“I can certainly tell that you’re no ordinary bunch.”
Although they had broken an Eastern Depot agent’s flexible sword, Jwa Gohak was still surrounded. Yet their confidence – the way they acted as though they could rescue Jwa Gohak whenever they wished – made their strength easy enough to guess.
They did not look particularly old, but their skill was impossible not to acknowledge.
“But… you took the Eastern Depot far too lightly.”
“Huh?”
At that moment, one of the agents surrounding Jwa Gohak pulled a signal flare from inside his robes and fired it into the air.
Fweeeeeee!
A spark shot from the small tube and soared into the air before bursting with a tremendous bang.
“……Uh.”
“We laid this trap to capture all of you in the first place. Surely you don’t think it would be such a flimsy trap that you could break through it merely by showing up?”
“Well, when you put it that way, I suppose not.”
Chung Myung scratched his cheek, then shrugged.
“But I wonder if you know this.”
“Hm?”
“Inescapable Net Formation [천라지망(天羅地網)] is made to be broken through in the first place, you know.”
“…”
“I don’t know how many people you’ve mobilized, but we happen to be quite skilled at running away. I’m not sure whether you can really catch us just by doing this.”
The disciples of Hwasan began whispering among themselves again.
“Since when were we skilled at running away?”
“He’s talking about himself. You know how he always casually talks about himself like he’s talking about all of us.”
“Then just how much running away has he done to go so far as to say he’s an expert at it?”
“Maybe he got beaten so often when he was a beggar that he became an expert at escaping.”
“That sounds plausible.”
“…”
Chung Myung silently lifted his head and gazed at the distant sky.
What riches and glory did I think I was going to enjoy, ending up with people like these…
“Ahem. Anyway.”
Chung Myung shrugged and spoke.
“You sure don’t sound very threatening for someone talking so high and mighty. I suppose that’s for us to prove, though. Anyway, looks like it’s about time for us to make a run for it, so what’ll it be? Will you hand him over quietly, or do we really have to fight?”
Chung Myung stepped forward. As if he would draw his sword at once if the answer was not the one he wanted.
But Bang Hwi, who had watched him closely, burst into laughter instead of showing any fear.
“Hahahahahaha.”
“…No, why are you suddenly laughing? Have you lost your mind?”
“Indeed… Yes, you certainly are audacious. Well, I suppose you have reasons to be confident.”
“Hm?”
Chung Myung tilted his head. He had the feeling that things were unfolding differently from what he had expected.
“But you’ve made one big mistake.”
“What mistake?”
“When did I ever say I had laid out an Inescapable Net Formation?”
“…”
“The Eastern Depot is an elite force of only a select few to begin with. Mobilizing an army just to catch a handful of people isn’t how the Eastern Depot operates.”
“Then what was that signal flare just now?”
“Exactly what it was: a signal. To call in a tiger, not a swarm of rats.”
“A tiger?”
Chung Myung frowned. And just as he was about to shoot back, ‘You’d have a hard time finding anyone who could play the tiger in front of us.’
“Though I am not exactly the sort you’d call a tiger.”
From up ahead, a huge man slowly approached them, his voice deep and heavy.
“Huh?”
“But certainly I can play the part of a cat capable of catching a few rats.”
“Huh?”
Chung Myung blinked as he stared blankly at the man who had appeared. That man was definitely…
“Do Hyeon? The Chief Eunuch?”
“That’s right. It’s me.”
Chung Myung’s mouth fell wide open.
“What are you [댁 – quite casual] doing here…”
“‘You’ [댁]?”
“I-I mean, My Lord.”
“…”
The disciples of Hwasan narrowed their eyes at Chung Myung as he shrank into himself.
“Looks like we’re screwed, doesn’t it?”
“Sure seems that way.”
A collective sigh escaped their lips.
________
*The “swollen liver” is an idiomatic expression that means to be audacious. They got so brazen that they are practically tripping over their own liver.
________
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