The Crimson Letter
The escorting warrior spoke.
"This brat came saying he had to see the Young Lord."
Leaving only those words behind, the warrior whirled around and strode off. He had observed the basic courtesies owed to the Grand Young Master, but look as hard as one might, there was not a shred of respect to be found in him. It was only to be expected—after all, it was Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor that paid his monthly stipend.
The child who had shuffled up timidly spoke to Ouyang Qiangang.
"A-are you… Young Master O-Ouyang Qiangang…?"
"That's right. You have business with me?"
"Yes… a man told me to deliver this to you, Young Master……."
The boy held out a letter of vivid red. Ouyang Qiangang took it and unfolded it on the spot, and as he read the words within, a dreadful killing intent gathered in his eyes.
The contents were simple.
Come to the abandoned temple fifty li west of the Ouyang Clan Manor by midday today. You must come alone.
If I see so much as the shadow of another person, your darling little sister's head will hang above the main gate of the Ouyang Clan Manor tonight.
The air around Ouyang Qiangang sank cold as a block of ice.
'How dare they touch Cheong-cheong… that sweet little child… I'll kill every last one of them……!'
Doctor, your adrenaline levels have reached the danger threshold due to emotional agitation. In this state, you cannot make sound judgments. What you need right now is not rage, but the coldest reason. Calm yourself!
At Akasha's words, Ouyang Qiangang barely managed to force down the rage boiling up inside him.
He turned to the scrawny, shabby boy who had brought the message. Terrified as the child clearly was by the murderous aura rolling off him, he still lingered where he stood, glancing up expectantly, unable to make himself leave.
"Um… th-the man said… if I delivered the letter, Young Master Ouyang would give me a silver coin for the errand……."
The boy's voice shrank into itself as he spoke.
Ouyang Qiangang drew a one-nyang silver coin from his robe and held it up.
"Good work. This silver is yours."
But he did not hand it over just yet. He fixed the boy with a steady gaze.
"Before that, just a few questions. Who sent you on this errand?"
"Th-that is……."
The boy hesitated for a moment, but the pull of a full nyang of silver proved stronger than his fear, and he spilled everything he knew.
"I never saw his face. He had a bamboo hat pulled down ever so low……. Judging by his voice, he was a man well past forty."
"Where did you meet him?"
"In the alley beside the Man-gyeong Tavern, about five li from here."
"Is that all?"
"Yes, Young Master. That's truly everything I know."
"Understood."
Only then did Ouyang Qiangang toss the silver over.
"Go on, now. And breathe a word of today's events to no one."
At the cold edge in his voice, the boy's face drained white. He nodded frantically, snatched up the coin, and fled the Ouyang Clan Manor as though running for his life.
Ouyang Qiangang slowly raised his head to the sky. Bloodshot threads crept into his eyes, and a chilling killing intent smoldered there.
Hwang Nodae asked in a grave tone.
"Young Master, do you not intend to inform the Clan Head?"
"I do not."
Ouyang Qiangang continued, his voice glacial.
"This is no simple kidnapping—it is a trap laid by enemies who are after me. If I told Father, he would mobilize every soul in the clan and comb all of Nanchang to the last blade of grass. And such an uproar would only place Cheong-ah in greater danger. So this matter must be ended quietly, and swiftly, within my own reach."
"Are you going to handle this one alone as well?"
Unease rippled through Du Jin-seong's voice as he asked.
"I have Hwang Nodae and Brother Du with me, don't I? So no—not alone."
At those words, Hwang Nodae and Du Jin-seong breathed quiet sighs of relief. They had been worried he might once again try to shoulder everything by himself.
After stowing the luggage back in his room, Ouyang Qiangang went to the main hall and met with Ouyang Baek and Dong Yeon-hwa.
"Father, we will search for Cheong-ah outside the manor. I will postpone our departure until she has been found."
The two could only nod, their faces dark.
Ouyang Qiangang, Hwang Nodae, and Du Jin-seong left the manor at once.
When they reached the alley where the Man-gyeong Tavern stood, just as the boy had described, Du Jin-seong asked.
"Young Lord, how do you intend to find the little miss? We haven't a single clue to trace the kidnappers by, do we? We can't simply tear the whole area apart on a whim……."
At his words, Hwang Nodae too nodded with a stiff expression.
But Ouyang Qiangang was the picture of composure. Drawing the red letter from his breast, he said—
"Why would we have no clue? The surest clue of all is right here."
Holding the letter out to Geum Wang on his shoulder, he went on.
"Brother Geum, the scent clinging to this letter. Can you smell its like anywhere nearby?"
Geum Wang pressed his nose to the letter, sniffed a few times, and nodded vigorously. The creature leapt straight down to the ground and darted into the back alley behind the tavern, where it pointed at a spot on the ground, shrieking kki-kki!
That had to be where the errand boy had waited.
Hwang Nodae's and Du Jin-seong's eyes went round.
Ouyang Qiangang asked the monkey.
"Brother Geum, can you track this scent?"
Geum Wang nodded with a supremely confident look and thumped his own chest with his tiny hands. Then he set off at a brisk run down the alley, and Ouyang Qiangang's party followed at his heels.
Before long, Geum Wang turned into the residential quarter along the eastern main thoroughfare. It was still early, and few people were about, but the party trailed him carefully, mindful of drawing eyes.
Running without pause, the creature finally stopped in the deepest reaches of the residential quarter—beneath a high wall.
Kki-kki!
Then it raised a finger and pointed at a grand mansion of some fifty bays, its walled grounds covering a good seven thousand square feet.
Ouyang Qiangang asked.
"Brother Geum—the scent went into that house?"
Kki!
Geum Wang nodded hard.
Ouyang Qiangang turned to Hwang Nodae and Du Jin-seong.
"Wait here a moment, both of you. I will take a look inside first."
Before either could get a word out, he unfolded the Heavenly Meteor Divine Art and closed in on the mansion. His internal power had already surpassed two full gapja—more than a century's worth of cultivation—and his movements were so swift and so silent that even the watching pair could scarcely sense them.
Reaching the wall, Ouyang Qiangang first swept the grounds with his qi perception. All his senses caught was a dozen-odd presences lying in concealment throughout the mansion's garden—and nothing more.
His eyes deepened.
'They wield the same stealth art as the one who ambushed me last night. Brother Geum has led us to exactly the right place…….'
He gritted his teeth.
'They can't all be outside. There will be more, deep inside the house—men whose concealment is refined enough to slip past even my qi perception…….'
He immediately set his nanobots sweeping every corner of the house, inside and out. Soon a three-dimensional rendering of the mansion's interior, built by Akasha, rose in his mind's eye, the enemies marked in red. Ten in the garden, and nine in the various rooms within.
'Nineteen in all…….'
Then a single still image flashed before his eyes—and sparks seemed to scatter from Ouyang Qiangang's gaze.
It was a picture of Gu-yang Cheong-cheong, curled up small in the corner of a room, fast asleep. Like a needle striking its acupoint true, everything clicked into place. And in a chair beside the child sat a man in his forties, gaunt as bamboo and utterly expressionless, a sword laid across his knees.
With the intelligence in hand, Ouyang Qiangang returned to where the two waited. Sketching the mansion's layout on the ground, he explained the interior in detail, then gave his orders.
"Hwang Nodae, while I draw their eyes from the front, go with Brother Du and rescue Cheong-ah."
Du Jin-seong spoke up, his face grave.
"Let Nodae rescue the little miss, and I will fight at your side, Young Lord."
Ouyang Qiangang shook his head lightly.
"With you at my side, Brother Du, my movements would be hampered."
"Mm……."
The words had been softened, but the meaning was plain—you would be nothing but a hindrance—and Du Jin-seong bowed his head with a low groan. Ouyang Qiangang felt a pang of regret, but there was no room now to spare feelings.
"When I give the signal with a whistle, slip into Cheong-ah's room at top speed and carry her out. And once you have her, do not wait for me—return to the manor at once with the little one."
Having glimpsed a measure of his true realm the night before, Hwang Nodae accepted without hesitation.
"Understood, Young Master."
Ouyang Qiangang transferred Geum Wang to Hwang Nodae's shoulder.
"I will hold them in place in the meantime. And take Brother Geum with you. When Cheong-ah opens her eyes, the sight of him will help steady her heart."
At such thoughtful care, the two men nodded.
Leaving them behind, Ouyang Qiangang unfolded the Ghost Shadow Dance. His form shot toward the mansion like a single thread of black mist. Having grasped the essence of the Ghost Shadow Secret Manual and fused it into his Heavenly Meteor Divine Art, his stealth art yielded to not even the professional killers lurking within that house.
Swish—
Over the wall like a ghost, he began to hunt the ten assassins hidden throughout the garden with terrifying momentum.
Thud—
The assassin lurking in the shade of a tree crumpled where he stood, the Baihui point at the crown of his skull crushed to pulp, without ever grasping what had struck him. Behind him was nothing but empty air, as if no one had ever been there. Ouyang Qiangang had already moved on to his next target.
With Gu-yang Cheong-cheong's life hanging in the balance, he stayed his hand for no one.
Thud-thud-thud-thud—!
In the darkness, a grim harvest of deaths no one had foreseen continued without pause. The assassin sprawled on the roof sagged onto the tiles with his heart skewered, and the one submerged in the pond never rose to the surface again.
They were a rank beneath the Chilho, perhaps, but assassins fully capable of slaying even a First-rate master. Yet in the very spots they had prided themselves as perfectly concealed, they perished without ever realizing they were dying. The god of death who had swept in like a storm read their positions as though seeing them with his own eyes, and cut their threads without a flicker of hesitation. It was less a battle than a one-sided slaughter.
Crack-crack-crack-crack—!
Wherever his palm force landed—wielded as he moved like lightning—blue frost bloomed in spiderweb patterns amid the dull crack of bursting bodies. The assassins went down without even a scream, racked by pain as though their entire bodies were being crushed, their very blood seeming to freeze beneath that vicious cold. Along the path Ouyang Qiangang had brushed past, crushed corpses piled up, the ground stained a bloody violet.
Before long, those inside the house sensed that something had gone terribly wrong. The signals from their comrades outside, which should have come at regular intervals, had fallen silent. But the realization came far too late.
KWAAAAAANG—!
The door of the mansion burst inward as though it had exploded. Without a moment's hesitation, Ouyang Qiangang walked into the house—into the very den of the assassins. Dawn was breaking outside, but the mansion's interior, lightless, lay submerged in a murky dark.
The moment his foot touched the corridor, a tactical map drawn by Akasha bloomed across his mind, the house's inner structure and the assassins' positions recorded in sharp clarity.
Shiiii—!
Lethal strikes came pouring out of the darkness from every direction. Daggers dropping soundlessly from the ceiling to burrow into the crown of his head, a treacherous blade erupting up through the corridor floor, hidden projectiles tearing through the doors of the rooms—with every single step, deadly killing moves flew at him.
But to Ouyang Qiangang, who through the nanobots' surveillance already saw their positions and movements as plainly as the lines of his own palm, these were no longer ambushes at all. They were nothing more than the dance of puppets moving through a predetermined sequence.