Men of the Tang Clan
The formal dress of the Tang Clan men, as everyone in the martial world knew it, was a wide-sleeved robe made from green cloth, the color of poison itself. That was why people called them human vipers. I’d even seen the Tang Clan’s green robes with my own eyes once before, back in Sichuan.
But the Tang Clan members who came to visit the Haomu Sect branch in Seochon were dressed in plain indigo martial outfits.
It was the sensible thing to do.
The Tang Clan already had enemies everywhere. If they went around openly advertising who they were outside Sichuan, they’d be ambushed at every turn. They all wore swords at their waists like ordinary martial artists, but if you’d ever seen them in a real fight, you’d know their true weapons would come flying out of those wide sleeves in the form of all sorts of hidden blades, each one coated in poison.
Probably because of the side effects of training poison arts, every one of them had dark, almost blackened hands.
When Won Seo-gang and I approached, the Tang Clan members stopped talking and turned to look at us. Like lunatics who’d been swallowing poison since childhood, a faint venom seemed to linger in their eyes and their very presence.
The cold beauty standing alone among the men—probably a young lady of the Tang family—looked like she had plenty of fire in her too.
The door to the house opened, and Geuk-hwan came out with someone and stood before us.
“These are the Haomu fighters who’ll be accompanying us tomorrow. This gentleman is the deputy hall master of Jeodok Hall, who brought the pursuit squad.”
“I am Tang Do-hun of the Sichuan Tang Clan.”
“Won Seo-gang.”
“Jeong Dae-cheon.”
While we were exchanging those brief greetings, the young cold beauty suddenly cut in.
“Now that the numbers are filled, let’s leave. We don’t have time to waste.”
Tang Do-hun looked up at the sky and shook his head.
“It’ll be another hour before the sun sets. We already have Haomu men tailing them, so there’s no harm in tracking them tomorrow.”
“The traitors won’t stop running just because it’s night.”
“Exactly. If they’re forced to keep running without proper rest or food, they’ll eventually collapse under their own weight.”
“And if we lose them?”
“Enough.”
Tang Do-hun gave her a stern glare.
“Don’t forget the basics of tracking. If you let your enthusiasm run ahead of your head, you make mistakes. It should be the hunted who grows anxious and can’t breathe, not the hunter. If the hunter gets impatient, the whole job goes to ruin.”
Even so, the cold beauty still looked unconvinced, staring at him in silence, and Tang Do-hun frowned.
“Hye-seo, didn’t you already lose those traitors once in Sichuan because you rushed? Are you planning to make a mess of this again and drag us all the way to the edge of Central Plains? All Jeodok Hall members, listen up.”
Aside from the cold beauty, the Tang Clan members all clasped their hands and bowed at once.
“Yes, Deputy Hall Master!”
“We’ll stay here tonight and depart before sunrise tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir!”
The Tang Clan members moved briskly. The cold beauty watched with a dissatisfied look, then must have felt my gaze, because she suddenly snapped her head toward me.
Our eyes met.
For some reason, I felt a little guilty and quickly looked away, but her stare, sharp as a hidden blade, clung to my face and wouldn’t let go.
Fortunately, Geuk-hwan came out and led Won Seo-gang and me out of the detached building.
“That young lady you just saw is Tang Hye-seo.”
“Hmm. So she really is a Tang Clan woman. I’ve heard the clan’s discipline is no less strict than the military’s, but to openly challenge the deputy hall master in front of her own subordinates... I suppose she must be direct lineage.”
At Won Seo-gang’s reasonable guess, I nodded without saying anything. In a closed bloodline clan like the Tang Clan, blood had to outrank office.
Geuk-hwan neither confirmed nor denied it. Won Seo-gang glanced at me and let out a snort.
“Our Jeong hero already seems to have locked eyes with Miss Tang. Those eyes of hers were burning pretty hot, weren’t they?”
The man was trying to get me killed, and I couldn’t help laughing.
“Don’t talk nonsense. If I went around flirting with a Tang family woman and got poisoned, I don’t think even my bones would stay intact.”
“You two will probably end up getting along. You’ll have plenty of chances to talk from here on out.”
Won Seo-gang and I turned at the same time, and a faint smile appeared on Geuk-hwan’s pale, paper-white face.
“The person who requested our sect’s help this time is Miss Tang Hye-seo. The two of you, Mr. Won and Mr. Jeong, are tasked with escorting her from tomorrow on.”
*
Early the next morning, two large carriages left Simhyangru.
Tang Do-hun and the Jeodok Hall men rode in the front carriage, along with an unnamed monk, while Won Seo-gang, Tang Hye-seo, one young Tang Clan member, and I took the rear carriage.
I wasn’t any good at riding horses, so I’d prepared myself to get my backside roasted off, but riding in a carriage was a huge relief.
Once we’d left the quiet city streets and entered the main road, the horses picked up speed.
I sat near the rear door, where the carriage jolted and rattled, and watched Seochon grow smaller behind us.
The wind coming in through the wide-open windows on both sides and the rear door cooled my face nicely, but my mood was still unsettled.
This was the first time I’d left Seochon since coming home. I’d refused escort work before because it felt like if I left again, I might never come back.
I could return in five days, sure, but the sight of my hometown receding before my eyes still put me in a foul mood.
I even started wondering if I’d taken this job for no reason at all.
As long as this thing was settled safely, I figured I should just hole up at home from now on.
“You’re Mr. Won and Mr. Jeong, right?”
I turned my head and saw Tang Hye-seo looking at me blankly. Her beautiful features were as cold as midwinter, yet for some reason they suited summer so well that just looking at her made a corner of my heart feel strangely cool.
Won Seo-gang had his arms folded and his eyes closed, so I answered instead.
“That’s right.”
“You heard what you’re supposed to do, yes?”
“We’re just meant to escort Miss Tang, right? That’s what I was told.”
“That’s right. No matter what happens from here on out, the two of you just protect me.”
Won Seo-gang opened his eyes and looked at Tang Hye-seo.
“May I ask one thing?”
“Go ahead.”
“If you’re the deputy hall master of Jeodok Hall, you should have enough force to wipe out a middling sect by yourself. Why go out of your way to hire swordsmen you’ve never even met as escorts?”
“There’s nothing wrong with being careful.”
“Then the people you’re chasing must be pretty formidable. Yesterday you called them traitors... are they Tang Clan members too?”
It was a sensitive question, one that touched the Tang Clan’s own dirty laundry, but Tang Hye-seo didn’t seem to care.
“Yes. They were Tang Clan members.”
“So they use poison and hidden weapons too?”
“Not every Tang Clan member is skilled in poison arts and hidden weapons. Most of them are ordinary people.”
“That’s a relief.”
Won Seo-gang and I exchanged a glance, but Tang Hye-seo calmly dashed that thought to pieces.
“But the traitors do. That’s why we’ve chased them all the way here.”
“Miss.”
The Tang Clan member who’d been listening in silence tried to stop her, but Tang Hye-seo ignored him completely.
“They’ll find out anyway. The Haomu Sect already knows. There’s a branch in Sichuan too, so they know everything. They just pretend they don’t.”
“So he isn’t one of Jeodok Hall’s men?”
He was the only one riding in the same carriage as Tang Hye-seo, and he didn’t seem to be watching her all that closely either.
“He’s my subordinate. Anyway, whatever happens, the two of you just guard me. We’ll handle the traitors ourselves, so absolutely do not interfere. Understood?”
“Don’t worry. I won’t interfere.”
If the Tang Clan wanted to beat their own people half to death, that was a relief as far as I was concerned.
Even if Tang Hye-seo changed her mind, I had no intention of getting involved. The deputy hall master would obviously refuse too, saying it was a family matter.
That was enough for me. Won Seo-gang closed his mouth too and turned to look out the window.
The sun rose higher, and harsh light poured in through the windows. That was exactly why I’d agreed to take a carriage instead of riding a horse.
No matter how wide the brim of a bamboo hat was, traveling under the blazing midday sun on horseback would still drain the life out of you.
Even with the east window shut, the opposite window and the rear door were open, so the inside of the carriage remained pleasantly cool.
On the other hand, the road was in such terrible shape that the carriage kept lurching so violently I could feel my butt getting sore.
After charging along noisily for quite a while, the carriage finally stopped in the shade of some trees. It was around noon, when the sun had climbed right overhead.
“We’ll rest here for a while.”
At Tang Do-hun’s order, the Jeodok Hall men spread out into the surrounding shade.
Even though the area was open on all sides and there was no real need to worry about a surprise attack, none of them let their guard down while resting.
Tang Do-hun was in charge of this pursuit squad, so Won Seo-gang and I said nothing and stretched out our stiff bodies before taking seats on a rock and pulling out a bamboo tube.
I quenched my thirst with cool tea water and put some dried meat into my mouth. While I chewed, Won Seo-gang studied the others carefully.
“Those two sides definitely don’t get along.”
Even though they were all Tang Clan members, the Jeodok Hall men never exchanged a single word with Tang Hye-seo. It wasn’t outright rejection so much as everyone clearly watching Tang Do-hun’s mood.
It wasn’t hard to guess what was going on.
“The whole group is Jeodok Hall, but she and her subordinate are the only ones mixed in. Looks like she forced her way in through sheer stubbornness. If she caught the traitors in Sichuan and then lost them, the deputy hall master would naturally be displeased too.”
“Probably.”
Won Seo-gang nodded, as if agreeing with my guess.
But I still felt something wasn’t quite right.
I’d only seen Tang Hye-seo briefly yesterday, and we’d only exchanged a few words today, but she didn’t seem like some reckless spoiled girl who couldn’t tell her head from her ass. She’d grown up well cared for from a young age, but that didn’t mean she was stupid.
Even now she was still talking at Tang Do-hun, and though she seemed to be arguing stubbornly, there was a subtle probing quality to her questions.
I was watching her closely, trying to make sense of it, when Tang Hye-seo glanced over here.
I casually turned my gaze back to the road, and Won Seo-gang snorted.
“Good timing.”
“What is?”
“Nothing you need to worry about. Anyway, we don’t need to step into the front line, so that’s fine. We can just watch from the back and return when it’s over. Have you ever seen Tang Clan martial arts before?”
“No. If I had, I’d probably have been dead already. What about you?”
“A few times.”
“And you’re still alive?”
“Didn’t I tell you? The shadows of the Haomu Sect are more useful than you’d think.”
Once a person first picked up a blade, and until the day they died by a blade, most martial artists ended up crossing weapons with opponents who used swords or sabers.
Every now and then, they’d also run into freakish weapons with sawtoothed blades, whips, or curved, sickle-like chain swords.
The inexperienced ones died or were crippled there and then.
But the most damnable things to deal with were poison and hidden weapons. You couldn’t really practice against those in any meaningful way, so there was no proper way to prepare for them either.
“Don’t worry. If they were going to kill anyone who’d seen Tang Clan martial arts, they wouldn’t have let me join in the first place. And the deputy hall master doesn’t look stupid enough to stab the Haomu Sect in the back.”
That part bothered me too.
No matter how much of a direct descendant she was, no matter how precious she was to the family, why had Tang Do-hun agreed to bring in outsiders as escorts for a family matter?
After resting for about the time it takes to drink two cups of tea, we got back into the carriage.
Because we were in a remote area, the road got worse and worse as we went on.
The surface was full of bumps, so the carriage bounced hard from side to side, and fallen trees, rocks, and deep potholes blocked the road again and again.
Every time that happened, the coachman had to veer off the road and make a detour to follow the front carriage.
“Those damned officials. I don’t know what the hell they’re doing with all the taxes they squeeze out of us. They should at least maintain the roads.”
As I listened to the coachman grumbling while chewing on dried meat, Tang Hye-seo, who was sitting beside me, suddenly leaned in close.
A cool fragrance like a winter orchid drifted over me in a rush.
“What are you eating?”
“...Dried meat.”
“Give me some.”
Without meaning to, I pulled a few pieces from my pocket and handed them over.
It was cheap dried meat—tough, hard, and smelling a little off. There was no way a young lady like her would like it.
I expected her to frown and hand it back, but Tang Hye-seo sniffed it once, checked that it hadn’t gone bad, and then just popped it into her mouth.
She chewed away as if nothing were wrong, then handed one to her subordinate too. She really had grown up tougher than she looked.
“I’m fine.”
Her subordinate seemed to have a weak stomach, because he shook his head and politely declined.
By then the carriage had entered a mountain road. Won Seo-gang, who’d been sitting opposite us and silently watching the view outside, called out to the coachman.
“Mangseok.”
The coachman turned around from his seat.
“What is it?”
“Speed up the carriage.”
“Huh?”
“Ever since we came into this mountain, the birdsong and the sound of insects have dropped off all at once.”
Only then did the coachman seem to understand. His face stiffened as he glanced around, then he hurried the horses along.
Won Seo-gang and I dropped to one knee on the floor and looked out the windows. Tang Hye-seo and her subordinate also lowered themselves to the floor.
“What is it?”
“Not sure yet.”
Like Won Seo-gang said, the birdsong had vanished, but that alone wasn’t enough to be certain of anything.
The carriage picked up speed little by little, then suddenly came to a stop.
“The front carriage stopped! Something must have shown up!”
The coachman hurriedly took a broad saber from the driver’s seat and climbed down to the ground.
I got down through the rear door and quickly checked the surroundings. We were right in the middle of a wide valley. The steep slopes on both sides were thick with fresh, living brush.
Once I moved away from the carriage, I could see what was happening ahead.
A group of bandits armed with sabers and bamboo shields was blocking the road. Their clothes were filthy and their faces rough and unwashed. At a glance, they were definitely mountain thieves.
Won Seo-gang clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“The crows are going to feast.”
For Tang Clan members who specialized in poison and hidden weapons, a bunch of bandits relying only on numbers didn’t even qualify as opponents.
Once they understood the situation, the Tang Clan members got down from the carriage and took positions around the bandits at a set distance.
The monk who’d traveled with us slowly backed away while scanning the mountainsides.
When Tang Do-hun gestured, the sleeves of the Jeodok Hall men behind him fluttered.
Whiz!
A hidden dart shot out with a faint cutting sound and struck one of the hairy bandits right in the eye.
“Aaaagh!”
The bandit screamed and collapsed, rolling on the ground. He didn’t even have time to block it with the bamboo shield in his hand.
With a cold stare at the twitching bandits, Tang Do-hun spoke.
“I’ll say this only once. Get lost. We’re in a hurry, so I’m being generous. If any of you are still here after I count to ten, I’ll make sure you end up looking like that.”
By then, the poison had already spread. The bandit’s face had turned black as soot, and white foam poured from his mouth as he convulsed violently.
It looked like Tang Do-hun had deliberately not killed him outright, just to give the others a proper view of what awaited them.
The effect was immediate. Seeing their comrade die in such a hideous way without even getting a chance to resist, the bandits went pale and started trembling.
That alone was enough to make them realize the martial artists in front of them were not prey they could handle.
It was common for bandits to get their teeth kicked in after failing to recognize experts and trying to shake them down.
All that was left was to tuck tail and run, but the mood was strange.
Everyone kept staring at one another with fear in their eyes, then one by one began nodding.
They weren’t agreeing to retreat. Their faces were far too solemn and desperate for that. Around the valley, teeth were being ground and fists clenched.
Rising from the boiling tension, a large bandit who seemed to be their leader straightened his shoulders and spoke.
“...Are you Tang Clan members?”
“That’s not the important part.”
“It is important. Are you Tang Clan members?”
“For a bandit, you sure talk a lot for someone about to die... Wait, don’t tell me, were you waiting for us?”
As if he’d realized something, Tang Do-hun’s face twisted, and the bandit chief raised his great saber and shouted.
“They’re the ones! Attack! They’ve got the antidote!”
The bandit chief’s bellow thundered through the valley.
“Waaah!”
The bandits raised their bamboo shields to cover their bodies and charged at Tang Do-hun’s group like lunatics.
At the same time, from both sides of the carriage and from deep in the mountains, answering cries exploded all at once as if they’d been waiting for the signal.
“Waaah!”
Dozens of bandits with their eyes red and wild came pouring down the slopes without hesitation and launched a surprise attack on the carriage.