Chapter 145. Those Wearing Black Masks (4)
“I offer my greetings to my benefactor.”
Traces of years had faintly spread across her entire face, and white hairs had discolored strands of her black hair here and there.
Though time had stolen her youth, the woman, whose very appearance exuded a unique and mysterious beauty, was offering me a deep bow.
I quickly tried to help her up.
“They say excessive courtesy is contrary to propriety. Whether by Jianghu seniority or by age, I am your junior, so such excessive hospitality is burdensome.”
Even at my words, the woman merely wore a faint smile at the corners of her mouth.
“If I do not consider the person who saved a mother’s child to be my benefactor, then who in the world could be called one?”
She was Hae-ryeong, the first disciple of Hao Gate Master Yeo Mi-mi.
Hae-ryeong, who calmly rose from her seat, gestured to the table with elegant movements. For some reason, at her behavior, Seong Mo-ran and Namgung Seon-hwa seemed to stiffen instead.
“May I prepare tea for you?”
“…….”
“…….”
At Hae-ryeong’s words, the two young ladies nodded at the same time, and Hae-ryeong laughed softly as if she found their appearance adorable.
Pour.
Her appearance as she prepared the tea and poured it.
Beauty was embedded in each and every movement. That must have been what the world called dignity.
Before her, Seong Mo-ran and Namgung Seon-hwa were sitting stiffly, as if they were students seated before a strict teacher.
The savory scent of tea rose, and because I had been thirsty, I quickly drank the tea down in one go. Namgung Seon-hwa and Seong Mo-ran looked at me with startled eyes.
“……!”
What were those looks?
“Why are you doing that?”
“……It is nothing.”
“…….”
I tilted my head, wondering if I had done something wrong, but the two women gave no answer.
Instead, Hae-ryeong covered her mouth and laughed quietly, as if even that was amusing.
“You are still the same, Young Master.”
“Has not too little time passed since we last met for a person to change?”
“In that short time, Young Master’s fame in the Jianghu has changed as much as the difference between heaven and earth.”
“How could that be something I accomplished by my own strength alone? It was possible because an excellent sect like the Hao Gate helped me.”
“I can only be grateful that you say so.”
As Hae-ryeong and I exchanged a conversation only the two of us understood, Seong Mo-ran and Namgung Seon-hwa looked at me with faces that could not suppress their curiosity.
“Um…… May I ask who this person is……?”
Seeing the fiery Seong Mo-ran suddenly become such a lady, was there perhaps some dignified aura I could not understand that came from Hae-ryeong?
I did not know how to introduce Hae-ryeong, the first disciple of the Hao Gate.
To begin with, I had never thought I would meet Hae-ryeong here, and even if I had met her, given her nature of wanting to keep secrets, I would naturally have made Seong Mo-ran and Namgung Seon-hwa wait outside.
However, as if making my worries meaningless, Hae-ryeong rose from her seat and bowed deeply.
“I am Hae-ryeong, Pavilion Master of the Hao Gate’s Ten Thousand Guests Pavilion.”
“…….”
“…….”
At Hae-ryeong’s words, Seong Mo-ran and Namgung Seon-hwa exchanged glances, then gradually opened their mouths as if they could not believe it.
“If you are the Pavilion Master of the Ten Thousand Guests Pavilion…… then you are the first disciple of Hao Gate Master…….”
“Yes. She took in this lacking person.”
“Huh…….”
“……I heard that the Hao Gate never reveals the personal information of its key figures to outsiders.”
Hae-ryeong looked back and forth between me and the women, then spoke.
“Because you are our Young Master Jin’s friends.”
“……‘Our’?”
“……She definitely said ‘our,’ did she not?”
At Hae-ryeong’s words, the two of them wore expressions that looked as if their heads had become complicated.
While the two of them continued to agonize over it, Hae-ryeong looked at me and said,
“You came because of Elder Jang’s matter, correct?”
“You knew?”
“We were monitoring it from our side. When we heard Young Master had arrived in Yueyang, I thought you would stop by.”
If she had anticipated that much, there was no way the Hao Gate would have done nothing.
After swallowing once, I asked carefully,
“……Then is it really the Demonic Cult?”
The most important question.
The two young ladies, who had briefly fallen into a state of shock, also snapped their heads up at the words “Demonic Cult.”
Hae-ryeong rose from her seat and approached the bookshelf.
“The reason I came to Yueyang was actually because of that rumor. That malicious rumor that the Demonic Cult is abducting people.”
Hae-ryeong spread a large hanging scroll across the center of the table.
It was a map densely depicting the entirety of Yueyang.
Red dots and black dots were marked here and there on that map.
“The red dots mark people whose deaths have not yet been confirmed, and the black dots mark those whose deaths have been confirmed.”
“This is all of them?”
The number and distribution of dots spread widely across the map showed that so many disappearances and murders had occurred that it was impossible to infer a specific area.
“There are no commonalities between the dead and the missing either. This Heo Hu was an eighty-year-old man who traded grain, and this missing young lady named Jeonghwa was an entertainer who played music at a Courtesan House.”
“……I cannot tell what the culprits want.”
“Yes.”
As I listened to the story, I asked about the very first question that had occurred to me.
“Where is the source of the rumor that the people who did this are the Demonic Cult……?”
If the real Demonic Cult had acted, their identity would not have been revealed.
If their identity had been revealed, the Murim Alliance would already have been turned upside down.
“That is something we do not know either. After the incidents began, everyone in the marketplace began mentioning the ‘Demonic Cult’ as one.”
Their purpose was rule by the demonic path, not chaos.
Moreover, these meaningless deaths and abductions would only raise vigilance against the Demonic Cult.
When my thoughts reached that point, heat slowly began rising in my head.
“Someone…… impersonated the Demonic Cult for their own benefit…… seems to be the answer.”
Hae-ryeong nodded silently.
In my previous life, how many desperate deaths had I witnessed in order to stand against the Demonic Cult?
Countless sacrifices and frustrations had happened because of the Demonic Cult.
To view this as something done simply for profit was crossing the line by far.
“……Those damned bastards…….”
At any rate, this case was one where, even if I searched through all the records under heaven in my library, I could not find a point of contact with the Demonic Cult.
In other words, something that had not happened in my previous life had occurred in this life.
“By any chance, when did this case begin?”
Hae-ryeong quickly flipped through the book she had brought with her and said,
“Half a year ago from now. The first case began on the Day of Gapjin in the Month of Imin.”
“Half a year ago… half a year ago……. Was there anything major in Yueyang at that time?”
“There was nothing in Yueyang, but there was quite a major incident in nearby Hubei Province.”
“In Hubei Province? What happened?”
Hae-ryeong looked at me and laughed softly.
“Young Master Jin led the Black Path sects and visited the Murim Alliance.”
“Ah!”
I had become so buried in the case that I had completely forgotten something that had happened to me.
“What are you saying? That is a misunderstanding. I merely participated across black and white as a sign of respect because their will was noble.”
“We will spread that rumor that way as well.”
For some reason, Hae-ryeong covered her mouth and laughed quietly as if she found it very amusing.
It bothered me for no reason.
“……At any rate, did this incident begin in Yueyang immediately after that?”
“That was not the case. The Black Path sects based in Yueyang, the Mukhyul Gang and the Black Axe Palace, entered into an urgent conflict with the Yuwol Sect and the Changseong Sect, and bloodshed also occurred.”
“Were those two sects not originally the local powers in Yueyang?”
“Because they held a grudge over the events at the Demon Spirit Plateau, it seems the Mukhyul Gang and the Black Axe Palace tried to create justification and divide Yueyang after the Black Path Murim’s event. But in the end, they failed, and the result was the establishment of Diancang’s Seongsa Tea Garden.”
“Then one could think that the Black Path sects committed these acts out of resentment over that matter.”
Hae-ryeong nodded.
“However, we ultimately could not find any suspicious points with the Mukhyul Gang or the Black Axe Palace.”
“…….”
The case quickly sank into a maze.
To begin with, if Hae-ryeong had solved it, she would have brought me the information.
After asking Hae-ryeong’s permission, I began scanning through the book containing the list of missing people and the dead, storing each one in my head.
I did so in case it might connect to even a small clue while solving the case later.
However, while placing the names into my head one by one, my movement suddenly stopped at one place.
“If it is the Silver Peak Inn, is that not operated by the Shandong Ak Clan?”
“Yes. It is one of the three largest inns in Yueyang. Because the innkeeper there died, the Silver Peak Inn also closed its doors for a while.”
“…….”
“Is something strange?”
Instead of answering, I placed the entire booklet into my head to the very end.
I examined the booklet again and compared it with the information in the library inside my head.
Something…… It felt as if a tiny thread that I was about to grasp kept slipping out of my hand.
And the moment I caught that faint sensation.
Tap.
“Among the people related to the Diancang Sect, there are no dead or missing people.”
“……!”
“…….”
An inexplicable silence drifted through the room.
It was not merely because this place was deep underground.
“Do you also have information related to these victims? For example, what happened to their businesses or families after this person died…….”
“……Yes.”
Hae-ryeong swallowed hard and brought over a booklet as thick as a wooden case from one side.
It was not originally made as a book, and its form was loose, as if information had been bundled together, but it was enough for confirming the information.
“After the old man Heo Hu died, the grain trading rights he held passed to an escort agency operated by the Changseong Sect.”
“……The father of the entertainer named Jeonghwa is the owner of Blue Bamboo Pavilion. Blue Bamboo Pavilion was recently in the middle of an acquisition deal with the Diancang Sect.”
“……So the ones who always benefited after these incidents were Diancang and the sects related to Diancang…….”
As we compared the information one by one, the weight in the room grew heavier and heavier, pressing down on the surrounding air.
And when all the information had been checked, no one could easily open their mouth.
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
“…….”
With the information we had confirmed so far, one could not say that Diancang had committed this.
It was merely possible that the incidents had happened purely by coincidence, and that the people who benefited afterward just happened to be related to Diancang…….
“……Possible, my ass.”
At my curse, the three people who had sunk into silence raised their eyebrows.
“Those things called a pillar of the Murim Alliance dared to impersonate the Demonic Cult to satisfy their private greed?”
“…….”
At my words, Hae-ryeong spoke with eyes full of worry.
“Young Master, with this kind of evidence…… you cannot jump to conclusions.”
Of course, they might not be related.
However, there was no way Diancang could be completely free from this matter, where the Yuwol Sect and the Changseong Sect were deeply involved.
To begin with, this was practically something that could not be done unless Diancang allowed it.
Hae-ryeong’s hidden meaning, though she had spoken indirectly, was that condemning the Diancang Sect was impossible.
Even if we called the Execution Pavilion and had them investigate, it would end the moment the Diancang Sect feigned innocence.
Moreover, the arrow of suspicion would instead turn back toward me, giving them the justification that I had insulted them.
Perhaps the disciples of the Diancang Sect might even rush to the Murim Academy to take my head.
“I know.”
“…….”
“Even so, this is not something we can simply let pass. Is it not?”
Unlike Namgung Seon-hwa and Seong Mo-ran, whose faces were anxious, Hae-ryeong let out a small sigh.
“How may I help you?”
“Will you help?”
“You intend to act even if I do not help you, do you not?”
We returned to Jang Do-won’s house.
I told the children of the Taeul Sect what we had learned, and the four of them were, naturally, even more outraged than us.
However, it was not a situation where we could reveal everything simply because we were angry.
“If we touch Diancang, not only us, but the Namgung Clan and the Iron Sword Sect will also be put in a difficult position.”
I agreed with Sa-ryeon’s words.
Resolving this matter was certainly necessary, but if we touched it carelessly, we would be caught in the backlash and be shattered instead.
“The Namgung Clan will not simply watch this situation happen.”
Namgung Seon-hwa said that, but if we gave Diancang justification, we could not cause another great upheaval for the Namgung Clan, which had only just found stability.
“In the end, that means we need to find the missing people while avoiding Diancang’s eyes.”
At Eun-ho’s words, I nodded.
“The Hao Gate is gathering people and searching in earnest, but it will take time. And if they learn that we are searching, they may try to erase the evidence.”
Eun-ho briefly fell into thought, then raised his head and scratched his cheek.
“This…… is a little off-topic, but when we get snacks, Brother Geum-pyo and I eat them right away, while Dong-ryong always saves them and eats them later.”
“……What?”
I tilted my head at the sudden story, but Eun-ho continued speaking.
“Since we know Dong-ryong eats them later, we always look for the place where he hid his snacks, but his hiding skills kept getting better.”
“……And?”
“So one day, I asked Dong-ryong whether he had eaten the snack he hid. I told him it was really, really sweet, and that if he left it alone, ants would swarm it.”
As if remembering that time, Dong-ryong’s eyes sharpened.
“Dong-ryong watched us for a moment, then quickly went to the place where he had hidden the snack, and the two of us were able to share the snack Dong-ryong had hidden.”
“You little…….”
As soon as Eun-ho’s story ended, Dong-ryong began clinging to Eun-ho furiously, and Eun-ho stopped him while pretending to be an adult.
“……Hmm.”
Instead of us finding it, make them go there themselves…….
It was not a bad idea.
Leaving Eun-ho and Dong-ryong, who were still bickering, behind, I looked at Namgung Seon-hwa and Seong Mo-ran and asked,
“Shall we try it?”
“……Try what?”
Yueyang’s night streets were more splendid than the day.
People who had flocked from all over the world to see Dongting Lake at night, and people rushing busily among them to secure their own profits, were so numerous that one could trip over them.
That was Yueyang’s night street.
The gazes of people who would not have cared much even if high officials and nobles or renowned figures of the Jianghu appeared began gathering on two women.
“Huh…… Are they human? Or immortals?”
“I thought Soul-Capturing Xi Shi and Jade-Faced Little Smile were the peak of beauty, but today my eyes are being broadened.”
“Who in the world are they?”
“Do not think about approaching them. Earlier, the Flower Young Master’s group tried to speak to them and was flung three zhang away and slammed into the ground.”
“Their martial arts are impressive too?”
The two women who had drawn people’s gazes headed to the Flower Moon Pavilion, famous for being expensive even among Yueyang’s splendid wine houses.
The many men whose gazes had been stolen by them began following them in a crowd, and the waiter of the Flower Moon Pavilion, who had been soliciting customers, quickly opened the doors of the Flower Moon Pavilion as if thinking this was a windfall.
When the two women entered, the inside of the Flower Moon Pavilion instantly grew quiet.
“…….”
Then, as if forgetting the stories they had been laughing and chattering about until just moments ago, everyone began whispering while looking at the two women.
The waiters rushed over as if competing to escort the two women to their own tables.
“I will certainly serve you well tonight.”
“Please entrust yourselves to me.”
“Do you perhaps have an ideal type you prefer? I will search all of Yueyang to find him for you.”
At the waiters’ competition, the women looked into each other’s eyes and laughed softly before speaking.
“We did not come to enjoy drinking, singing, and dancing.”
“Ah, then……?”
“We came to meet my younger second cousin. I heard she plays the zither here.”
“Ah…… Is that so? May I ask her name?”
“Jeonghwa.”
At Namgung Seon-hwa’s words, the waiters looked at each other and tilted their heads.
“Was there an entertainer named Jeonghwa?”
“I have never heard of her.”
“There is no such entertainer at the Flower Moon Pavilion.”
The waiters answered simultaneously.
“That is strange. I heard she played the zither here.”
While the first and second waiters wondered what to do, the third waiter stepped forward and asked,
“May I ask why you are looking for that entertainer?”
“It is nothing serious. My grandfather said she must attend the Namgung Clan’s event this time.”
“What?”
The waiter was startled as if greatly shocked, and Namgung Seon-hwa tilted her head.
“Why are you reacting that way?”
“Ah, no. By any chance, Miss, you are…….”
“I am Namgung Seon-hwa.”
“…….”
“Jeonghwa is a distant relative, but she was a younger sister my family and my grandfather especially cherished.”
“……I-I see.”
“If she is not here, there is nothing to be done.”
In the end, Namgung Seon-hwa and Seong Mo-ran, who had failed to find Jeonghwa—or rather, had never intended to find her there from the beginning—left the Flower Moon Pavilion.
When the gazes of the people on the street gathered on them again, they put on face veils to cover their faces and turned into an alley.
After they had walked through the darkness for quite some time, a sound transmission reached Namgung Seon-hwa.
-Thank you for your hard work.
The one who sent the sound transmission was none other than Jin So-un, who had been watching the place from the roof of the Flower Moon Pavilion.
Namgung Seon-hwa gave a slight nod so it would not be seen.
-Is there any change?
-Right now, one waiter is pushing his way through the kitchen people and heading outside.
-It must be the person I spoke to.
-It likely is.
The culprit was moving to check the snack.
