Tracking Incense
The old man stood in the middle of the stage. Straightening his back, he slowly swept his gaze over the spectators packed into the first floor of the inn.
Then he tipped his chin up to meet the eyes of the martial artists leaning over the railings on the second and third floors, and spoke.
“Fellow martial comrades! Welcome! I am Ha Eul-san, the host of this martial tournament.”
His voice had a vigor that hardly suited his age.
As soon as the head of the tournament appeared, the hall erupted in a stir.
I’d worked for plenty of different factions before, but I’d almost never met the boss in person. All the real business was always handled by the people beneath him.
The tournament was no different. Smooth-talking, quick-witted staff hurried about greeting the guests.
In any organization, when the leader showed his face personally, it meant something had gone wrong.
Ha Eul-san had dragged his frail old body onto the stage himself to announce that the tournament was over.
“The Blood Sand Gang, the patron sponsoring this tournament, was attacked by fiends two hours ago. The gang leader of the Blood Sand Gang is also my younger brother. For that reason, today’s tournament must end here, and we shall resume it another day.”
Violent protests and mutters of discontent burst from the crowd.
“What kind of nonsense is that? We should at least finish the finals!”
“Do you know how much everyone’s lost already? You should give us a chance to make it back!”
“What kind of way is this to handle a job like this…”
Ha Eul-san fixed one person after another with a drawn-out glare, as if trying to burn their faces into memory. The dissatisfied expressions quickly stiffened, and eyes turned away.
His voice rang out again through the now-silent inn.
“We’ll choose a suitable day soon and continue the tournament then. For now, let us call it a day and all return home. Anyone who stirs up trouble will meet me alone later.”
With a flick of his sleeve, Ha Eul-san descended from the stage. His subordinates, receiving the order, moved at once.
“All right, everyone out! Out! I said out!”
The hall descended into utter chaos as they started shoving the spectators out like unwelcome intruders.
Wanting no part of the crowd’s crush, I stood quietly by the kitchen and caught hold of a familiar staff member as he passed.
“Is the tournament really ending like this?”
The employee scratched his head with an awkward look.
“It can’t be helped. It was the chairman’s decision.”
“What happens to the one tael of silver I paid as the entry fee?”
“Please show me your participant tag.”
When I took out the wooden token, he flipped open the ledger.
“You’re the Clear Saber Hero, I see. Normally there are no refunds under any circumstances, but this time we’ll make a special exception and return it to you. Since you won one match, we’ll also count four taels of silver as your prize money, so you’ll receive five taels in total. This way, please.”
The accounting was done in a room beneath the stairs. As he handed over the silver, the staff member asked in a low voice, “Would you be interested in making a little more money?”
“What money?”
“The chairman is gathering wandering swordsmen to help support the Blood Sand Gang. The pay will be more than generous…”
“No need.”
I cut him off and turned away.
I had no intention of playing blade-for-hire in someone else’s war. Besides, the opponent was almost certainly the Black Night Gang under Bok Ha-gyu’s command.
If anything, I ought to have been cheering them on to take Blood Sand Gang over cleanly and recover the internal cultivation manual that had been stolen from them.
When I made it up to the third floor, Tang Hye-seo and Bi-hyeon were just about ready to leave as well.
“That masked saber fighter from earlier was you, wasn’t it?”
“You saw?”
“He was much better than when you dealt with the bandits before. You must’ve trained a lot, huh?”
“...Really?”
Her unusually high praise left me feeling strangely off-balance. I’d won, sure, but I hadn’t used the Thousand Steel Saber Technique.
It had been a meaningful victory won through exquisite timing and basic saber work, cutting the opponent’s momentum apart without any flashy moves.
To most of the onlookers—and probably to most martial artists too—it would have looked bland and unremarkable, which made it all the more surprising that Tang Hye-seo had noticed.
Come to think of it, when she’d dealt with the bandits before, she’d used her sword rather than hidden weapons.
Bi-hyeon studied the chaotic railings below and asked, “Master Jeong, is the Blood Sand Gang here in Baekgye-hyeon?”
“No. They’re in a village about two hours away by horse.”
“Do you know who attacked them?”
“Probably the Black Night Gang. The two sides don’t get along.”
Tang Hye-seo tilted her head. “The Black Night Gang? Those black-dressed scoundrels in Seochon?”
“That’s right. Let’s head down too.”
We took our time going down the stairs and joined the tail end of the crowd flowing out like a receding tide.
The spectators spilling out of the inn like vomit gathered in little groups and scattered into the night streets.
To keep the excitement alive, they drifted off to bars and pleasure houses with their doors still open, discussing the martial artists they’d just seen in action.
The unexpected tournament ended in an equally unexpected way.
Tang Hye-seo, Bi-hyeon, and I headed back toward the inn.
“Well, that ended rather awkwardly.”
Bi-hyeon glanced back at Eunbyeongru with visible regret. Tang Hye-seo stretched lazily and looked up at the night sky.
“It was still pretty fun. Got to watch people living, and made some money too.”
Was watching people hacking and bleeding really watching life at work?
Tang Hye-seo didn’t seem to have been raised like the precious jewel of the Tang Clan people imagined. Then again, she was a Tang through and through; she must’ve seen plenty of ugly things from a young age.
Come to think of it, whether man or woman, if you couldn’t enjoy a good fight to watch, you weren’t really a martial artist.
“You bet on it too?”
“I put ten taels on each masked fighter when they came out, and won both rounds.”
“...On me?”
“There was a masked swordsman too, remember? Both of them won. Honestly, the real highlight of a tournament is the masks.”
I’d worried a lot before entering the tournament, but the results weren’t bad.
I hadn’t managed to get any spiritual herbs, which was a pity, but I’d had a light fight with one saber user and still come away with four taels of silver.
Where on earth had Do Goeng-il gotten the spiritual herbs he’d used to replenish his internal energy? When spring came next year and he returned, I’d have to pry the answer out of him somehow.
By the time we got near the inn, there were few people left around us. Only then did I catch a faint, prowling presence.
I turned and looked back.
Far down at the mouth of an alley, a yellow dog had stuck out its tongue and was watching us.
It wore no collar, but the flesh over its ribs showed it wasn’t starving and roaming wild.
The mutt’s tail swayed gently as it stared at me with mild, intelligent eyes.
Anyone who didn’t know better might’ve thought it was my dog, the way it kept watching me so intently.
But it was definitely the first time I’d ever seen it.
After a moment’s glance, I went into the inn.
I slept for about two hours, then took a carriage out of Baekgye-hyeon early the next morning.
Maybe because the tournament had broken off halfway through, the streets still felt unsettled.
Once we left the city behind, open fields spread out before us.
Yesterday, grain ripening under the summer sun had rippled in the wind like waves.
Now the harvest was over, and all that remained in the fields were piles of bundled straw and mounds of manure.
Just like last time, I kept a close eye on the road, wary of another pack of bandits attaching itself to us.
But no ominous cloud of dust rose anywhere in the peaceful morning landscape.
By then the sun had climbed fully over the eastern hills. Bathed in the sunlight streaming through the open back of the carriage, I let my guard down and closed my eyes.
Beside me, Tang Hye-seo was chewing through my jerky while grumbling to herself.
“We scattered the slips and put out the scent all over the place, and not even a nose from those bastards showed itself…”
She didn’t seem pleased at all to be going back empty-handed.
What had happened to the carrier pigeon that the Sichuan black merchant connected to the Iron Arm Armor had sent toward Seochon? If the same black merchant had received it, then it had to be one of the black merchants in Baekgye-hyeon.
The moment someone heard a rare tracking incense had been ordered, they’d either come to sell it or at least stick their head in to find out who was asking.
If the message hadn’t been passed along yet, or if they were still testing the waters, then it would take some time.
“Are you coming to Black Market Night again in ten days?”
Tang Hye-seo nodded with a hardened expression.
“I have to. Next time, I’ll need to bring a few Tang Clan members with me.”
Tang Clan members, huh…
With the coordinated attacks and hidden weapons they’d shown while wiping out the bandits, Black Market Night would be a bloodbath in no time at all. Of course, I wouldn’t be there to see it.
The carriage rocked on without pause, unhurriedly making its way back to Seochon, where my home was.
As I watched the distant scenery slip by, last night’s events began to nag at me.
What had happened to the Blood Sand Gang?
If Bok Ha-gyu had attacked them at night, the matter would already be wrapped up by now.
On the way to strike the Black Night Gang before, the Blood Sand Gang had fallen into an ambush and lost quite a few of their men.
Their strength had to be weakened. The Black Night Gang might well have swallowed them without much trouble.
Ha Eul-san had gone to call up reinforcements to save his younger brother, but I had no idea how much good that would do.
If the Black Night Gang had decided to leave no loose ends, the owner of Eunbyeongru might be different before long.
And if they did recover the internal cultivation manual, who would learn it and perform True Qi Guidance on Jeok Chu-yeong?
Bok Ha-gyu would probably be the one, but it wouldn’t be easy from the manual alone.
Still, the Black Night Gang had money. They could easily buy a few spiritual herbs and swallow them down.
Damn it…
I folded my arms and leaned back, trying to catch a little more sleep, when something moved in the forest far ahead.
I narrowed my eyes and stared.
It was the yellow dog.
“Is something there?” Tang Hye-seo asked.
“A dog’s following us.”
“A dog?”
“I can’t be certain from this distance, but… it looks like the one I saw near the inn when I came out of the tournament last night.”
Tang Hye-seo moved closer and stared hard at the spot I’d pointed out.
The yellow dog was strangely moving only through the grass and open fields, ignoring the broad road entirely.
That made it so hard to spot that unless you looked carefully, you’d never know it was following us at all.
After watching it for a long while, Tang Hye-seo turned and looked at me.
“Did something happen when you went out alone last night?”
“Nothing special…”
A drunkard I’d run into in an alley on the way to the herb shop.
When he collapsed after vomiting, a faint puff of dust had risen.
“Dust?”
Tang Hye-seo’s eyes narrowed. Suddenly, she shoved her face into my chest and started sniffing me.
“What are you doing?”
Even when I shoved at her shoulders in alarm, she ignored me and stayed pressed close.
“Hold still for a second. This is important.”
After a moment, she dug several bamboo tubes out of her bundle. Using a brush, she dipped into the white powder inside and dusted it evenly over my clothes.
My upper body turned blotchy blue in spots.
Tang Hye-seo’s large, clear eyes glittered with a strange excitement.
“I knew it. There’s no way they’d just sit around and do nothing.”
“...What is this?”
“Tracking incense.”
“Tracking incense? The kind used for tracking techniques?”
A vile incense powder that, once stuck to a target’s body, wouldn’t come off for at least half a month.
I’d only ever heard about it. I’d never seen it, let alone experienced it myself.
“The scent is too faint for people to smell, but dogs are different. Their noses are incredibly sharp. They can follow the trail of a scent left hanging in the air.”
That was a problem.
I couldn’t go back to Seochon with tracking incense all over me.
I told the carriage to stop. After stepping outside to take a short break, I pulled out some jerky and called the yellow dog.
The dog had hidden itself in the woods a hundred paces away and didn’t budge an inch. Even when I lit a fire with flint and roasted the jerky to send the smell drifting out, it stayed where it was.
“No use. It must’ve been trained since it was young. Usually they don’t get this close. Maybe the quality of the tracking incense is low, or maybe the training wasn’t thorough enough.”
“Then we should kill it.”
Tang Hye-seo shook her head.
“Pointless. There’s no guarantee that’s the only tracking dog they’ve got.”
“...Can’t the tracking incense be removed?”
“It can. You just need to mix a pungent scent into dragon incense oil and spray it over yourself. No matter how sharp a dog’s nose is, it can’t do a thing once the smells are all muddled together.”
“Can you do that now?”
“Not right now. We need to keep that bastard attached to us, or else they won’t come looking.”
With no other choice, we let the yellow dog trail us from a distance as the carriage continued toward Seochon.
By the time the sun had fully set and dusk had deepened, the carriage stopped in the alley in front of Simhyangru. The man who had brought it there was one of Bok Ha-gyu’s trusted aides.
“Did you come looking for me?”
“That’s right.”
“So Bok Dae-ju really did attack the Blood Sand Gang?”
The aide straightened his shoulders proudly and smiled.
“We took over the Blood Sand Gang last night. As for the matter we promised before, the leader would like to see you.”
“Understood. Tell him to meet me at the Wandering Swordsmen Inn tomorrow evening.”
The carriage drove straight into Simhyangru. I decided to stay in the annex too, until the tracking incense issue was dealt with.
“Wait here for a moment.”
Tang Hye-seo sat me down in one corner of the back garden, where only Tang Clan members were around, then went inside.
She looked oddly pleased with herself, and even her steps seemed lighter than usual. That made it feel even more ominous.
Sure enough, something infuriating happened—something I’d never wanted to run into under any circumstances.
My aunt had come looking for me.