Bok Ha-gyu
There was no one in the Ranger’s Inn.
Not even the knife men who had been hanging around like restless ghosts, let alone the serving boys, the cook, or the innkeeper himself.
The second floor was silent too, which meant the lodgers had likely all been driven out as well.
Only the lamps blazed in scattered corners, leaving the interior bleak and desolate. It looked almost as if something had happened just moments ago and everyone inside had died on the spot.
The place was lit so brightly, with no one in sight, because tonight was a Black Night Gang affair.
I didn’t know what kind of man the owner of the Ranger’s Inn was, but if he planned to keep doing business in Seochon, it would not have been wise to get on the wrong side of the Black Night Gang.
Because the inn was on the outskirts, the land must have been cheaper; inside, it was about twice the size of Poongcheon Inn.
The tables were spaced far apart to keep trouble from breaking out, so there was no danger of shoulders brushing as people came and went.
The ceiling was high, and there were several windows.
I mapped the place out in my head, imagining where I would draw my saber if fighting broke out, and secured a route of escape.
I could not fight inside Poongcheon Inn. But walking straight into the Black Night Gang’s den was madness.
So this was the place I had no choice but to pick.
Even when I’d been here before, I’d thought the location was uncanny, just right for a place meant for wandering bladesmen who often had to run.
If you slipped out the back door, narrow alleys twisted together like a sheep’s intestines. The walls were low too, so once you hopped over a few of them, it would be easy to lose anyone trying to follow you.
Outside the western windows, a broad reed marsh stretched out waist-high. With darkness settling over it, it looked black as a mudflat.
If things went bad and I had to bolt, diving into that place would make pursuit almost impossible.
Now I understood why the opium dealer had done business with the woodcutter here.
He might even have hidden a few men in the reeds, but on a night with no moon, even the tightest encirclement could be broken.
Then again, I couldn’t just set the reeds on fire in a fit of anger. It was a dry autumn; the blaze would spread in an instant, starting with the shanties in the slums and sweeping all the way into the busy district.
And if the city turned to ashes, no amount of bribery from the Black Night Gang would make the magistrates look the other way.
I untied my long saber and sat by the window. My mouth was parched dry.
I went to the kitchen and found a teapot. A row of liquor bottles on one of the shelves caught my eye.
Should I have a free drink while I was at it? My mouth watered, but I didn’t reach for one. More than loosening up, drinking would dull my senses, and that bothered me.
The leader of the Black Night Gang would be no small fry. I had to keep my head sharp.
I took the teapot back to my seat.
I was sipping at cheap tea that had gone cold and bitter when I felt someone approaching the inn.
A moment later, the door opened.
A middle-aged martial artist with a burly build and a face as rough as one of the Four Heavenly Kings stepped inside.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Bok Ha-gyu, leader of the Solitary Ripping Unit of the Black Night Gang.”
Bok Ha-gyu. I’d seen the name in the materials I’d gathered on Jeok Chu-yeong.
He was one of the three closest men who had followed the Black Night Gang’s boss all the way from Hunan.
“I don’t know whether someone has your back, but if you’ve made me come here for nothing, you’ll pay for it.”
Bok Ha-gyu’s fingers brushed the scabbard at his waist as a fierce light flared in his eyes.
He didn’t bother hiding the savage aura rolling off him. He looked like a starving bear.
He was on a different level from the small-time thugs who had flooded into Poongcheon Inn earlier, scowling for show and never even drawing their blades.
A man like that wielding a sword would not be easy to deal with.
I let my quickening breath settle and answered calmly.
“Then go ahead and pay it.”
Bok Ha-gyu did not come any closer. He dragged out a chair and sat down at a table nearby.
Between us was roughly fifteen paces.
I figured that was the minimum distance he believed he could still stop if I tried to rush him.
He did not seem to think highly of me, but neither did he look down on me. I wondered if I could get a little closer.
Still, I couldn’t sit face-to-face with only a table between us.
Once I got within sword range, my survival instinct would itch to strike first before I was cut, and then the conversation would go nowhere.
So I skipped the dragging and got straight to the point.
“There’s a Martial Alliance man at Simhyangru.”
Bok Ha-gyu’s thick brows twitched. I had already written it in the letter, but he still seemed unable to believe it, and the reaction hit perfectly.
As expected, there was nothing that worked on black market men quite like the Martial Alliance.
They preached the eradication of evil and righteous conduct and killed at the drop of a hat, so even in their sleep, underworld men jerked awake at the mere mention of them.
“It’s Martial Alliance Inspector Pyo Hol-deuk.”
He looked completely unfamiliar with the name. To be fair, Pyo Hol-deuk and his escorts had ridden straight into Simhyangru by carriage.
If the Haomu Sect had kept their mouths shut, it would have been hard to learn anything from outside.
“He said he came all the way to Seochon from Gansu while tracking an opium dealer. He hired me to find proof that the Black Night Gang had been in league with him.”
Only then did Bok Ha-gyu speak.
“The Black Night Gang does not handle opium.”
That seemed likely. There were gambling dens and brothels in Seochon, but no opium dens.
Since returning to my hometown, I had never once heard opium mentioned until an opium dealer suddenly turned up out of nowhere.
I could more or less guess why the Black Night Gang stayed away from opium.
Once a man got hooked, he lay on the floor from that day on, doing nothing but smoking himself to death.
If every idiot who was supposed to be drinking in a tavern, rattling tiles in a gambling house, and rolling dice were doing that instead, any business would collapse.
Debt collectors were a headache too when the men who owed them money got high, collapsed, and refused to move.
Even vicious debtors who used the notoriously murderous Yanwang Loan House and barked, “Cut me open if you dare,” never actually let themselves be cut open. They were frightened into paying somehow.
In a city swept by opium, there were only wasted wrecks, skin and bones, shriveling up and dying. Opium addicts did no work and paid no taxes.
That was why the state had prohibited and cracked down on it in the first place.
“The truth isn’t what matters here. If the inspector ties it that way, then it’s tied that way. The man was dead set on making a name for himself. His eyes were practically spinning in his head. He was determined to drag the Black Night Gang into this somehow. He tracked an opium dealer, exposed the black-market gang behind him, and connected it to us. Wouldn’t that satisfy the Martial Alliance?”
Whether it was the truth or a fabrication, the Martial Alliance’s leadership would not care.
There was no such thing as a good black-market gang in this world anyway.
If they could use a criminal outfit like the Black Night Gang as a chance to flaunt their own prestige and force, they would wipe it out without a second thought.
“Once they have evidence, they can bring in the Martial Alliance strike forces from Hubei and Chongqing.”
Heavenly Dragon Unit. Righteous Heaven Unit.
The names sounded grand enough, but they were all nothing more than righteous-minded butchers from the orthodox schools and the Five Great Clans who had worked themselves into a frenzy killing black-market men.
Bok Ha-gyu did not say a word. He only studied me with cold eyes.
It was as if he was trying to see how much was true and how much was bluff.
He would have had every right to flare up and challenge me to prove it, but he didn’t so much as twitch.
He wasn’t just strong in martial arts; his backbone was hard as iron.
I wondered what sort of man Jeok Chu-yeong was to command someone like that.
This pressure I was putting on a Black Night Gang leader, meeting him one-on-one with nothing but a short letter, was not because I was impressive.
It was because I had the Martial Alliance inspector’s backing.
I had cornered him to the limit, so now it was time to offer a deal.
“I can prove that the opium dealer has nothing to do with the Black Night Gang.”
The moment I put a solution on the table, the words I wanted to hear finally came.
“What do you want?”
“I want to know where you took the people of Seochon seven years ago.”
Bok Ha-gyu’s Four Heavenly Kings face twisted into a nasty scowl.
“What kind of bullshit is this? You know the Black Night Gang only settled in Seochon long after the escort agency was already established.”
“Do I? Then there’s nothing more to say.”
I stood, hand on my long saber, and gave him a low warning while glaring straight at him.
“Go back to the Black Night Gang and wash your neck clean. When the Martial Alliance strike force gets here, your head will be neatly chopped off and hung out in the market for everyone to see.”
“Hmph. Have you considered that your own neck might be the first to go?”
Bok Ha-gyu snorted with studied calm.
“If I kill you, I can stop the Martial Alliance, can I? You can run and save your life, but your gang will have to shut its doors and lose every business it owns. So what are you going to do?”
Bok Ha-gyu shot back, “Why are you looking for the Seochon residents?”
“They’re my family. My neighbors.”
“You’re from Seochon?”
“I left ten years ago and came back not long ago. Someone saw Jeok Chu-yeong load the townspeople into a carriage and take them away. So stop pretending you don’t know anything and accept my offer.”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t in Seochon seven years ago. But the boss may know.”
“Then let me meet your boss.”
Bok Ha-gyu fell into deep thought.
“The Martial Alliance... the Martial Alliance...”
As he quietly repeated the words, the look in his eyes deepened to something chilling, his focus slipping away as if he were sinking into an abyss.
When he finally lifted his head again, a grim smile like a blade’s slash sat on his lips.
“Fine. I’ll let you meet the boss. After this matter is finished.”
“If you speak out of both sides of your mouth, you won’t get a second chance.”
“And don’t you go changing your story after you meet the boss.”
Bok Ha-gyu pushed himself to his feet. I thought the deal was done and he would leave, but instead he walked out into the passage and drew his sword.
Shrrrk.
The cold hiss of steel, like a beast baring its fangs, rang through the silent inn.
Beyond the tip of the sword aimed at me, Bok Ha-gyu’s bulging eyes blazed with a heat that seemed to burn.
“That’s enough running your mouth. From here on out, I’ll see how much weight your words really carry.”
Without a word, I stepped away from the table and drew my long saber.
I had more or less expected this.
Whether orthodox, heterodox, righteous hero, or black market thug, what martial artists hated most was being talked down to by a mouthy bastard.
Only after they took a beating in a real fight did they finally accept that they had lost.
Bok Ha-gyu’s face had gone red with fury. He looked irritated at being dragged out here to haggle over a deal he did not like.
He probably wanted to see my skill too, and if needed, strike me down in one blow, pin me upside down, and turn the tables.
I had no intention of dodging.
If I could gauge Bok Ha-gyu’s skill, I would have a better idea of what Jeok Chu-yeong was capable of.
Whoosh!
Bok Ha-gyu kicked off the floor and came at me. He was as swift and imposing as a charging bear.
His sword flashed coldly in the lamplight and flew toward my chest like an enraged claw. It was a strike meant to force me back.
No matter which way I dodged, he intended to seize the momentum and press in, stabbing relentlessly.
I gripped the long saber with both hands and knocked the sword aside with one of the ultimate forms of the Thousand Steel Saber Technique.
Clang!
Even with my full weight behind it, the sword was pushed back only about two handspans. His sword force was strong enough to make my grip tingle.
Bok Ha-gyu’s eyes flared and he brought the sword down in a vertical slash.
I slipped left with my footwork and kicked at his ankle, then swept my saber horizontally toward his chest at the same time.
Bok Ha-gyu twisted the blade oddly to block the cut and retreated several steps.
That was my opening.
I surged forward without hesitation and unleashed a storm of chained slashes.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
It was the most aggressive and tightly linked of the killing forms in the first eighteen techniques of the Thousand Steel Saber Technique.
I had thought I would land a cut somewhere, anywhere, on an arm, a leg, the torso, but to my surprise Bok Ha-gyu blocked every single one while being driven back.
Won Seo-gang had said the three men under Jeok Chu-yeong were troublesome and that the Black Night Gang could not be easily taken down because of them.
Having fought one of them myself, I could see he was indeed top-tier.
Were the other two on Bok Ha-gyu’s level? Jeok Chu-yeong was their boss, so he should be even stronger.
“Kraaaah!”
Bok Ha-gyu roared and charged again. As if trying to make up for being pushed back, he poured ferocious forms straight at my vital points.
The rain of sword strokes hammered against my saber, sounding like hail pounding a roof.
I swung my saber to open the distance and threw the chair beside me at him.
While Bok Ha-gyu’s vision was briefly blocked, I slipped to the side. He did not bother to dodge the chair and simply swung his sword through it.
Slash!
The chair was cut cleanly apart like tofu.
It might have looked like nothing, but to slice wood that neatly with a sword, the blade could not have wavered even a hair.
Through the falling wreckage, Bok Ha-gyu’s eyes flashed with a murderous glint. His gaze swept past the empty space in front of him and toward the side.
Before he could even spot me rushing from his blind spot, his body reacted first.
I had definitely caught him off guard, but he had already anticipated it from the moment the chair came flying. Bok Ha-gyu’s response was calmer than I expected.
He wrapped his sword around the stabbing blade and deftly deflected it outward, then drove a fist toward my face.
Too late to evade.
I twisted my upper body and raised my left hand to block the punch. My body leaned back, and I lost my balance.
Bok Ha-gyu came at me in a rush. He kicked my chest, then used the recoil to spring backward.
Having lost my center, Bok Ha-gyu also hurriedly stepped with his footwork so he wouldn’t topple.
Bang!
He only managed to stop after crashing into the inn wall.