Chapter 41
Chapter 41
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 41
Chapter Title: The Virtue of Transactions (1)
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Outside the window, a hazy light was rising from the eastern sky.
It seemed dawn had finally arrived after a long night.
"Phew, a whole day has passed."
Sleep hadn't come at all.
Given the situation, it was only natural. His stamina was so exceptional that staying up all day and night posed no physical problem, but the languid feeling was unavoidable.
"Tch, feels sticky."
Murong Suhyang finished her meditation in the room and glanced toward the warehouse.
Inside there right now was the eldest daughter of the Ten Sword Sect, locked away.
The entire clan was on high alert, but even without that, who could sleep with a person shut up in the personal weapon storage?
"Damn."
Unable to bear the nagging unease in the end, Murong Suhyang opened the warehouse door.
Whoosh.
A cold wind rustled Lady Hwang Inhwa's hair.
Because of the sudden gust? Lady Hwang Inhwa's eyelids quivered.
A moment later.
"Gasp!"
Lady Hwang Inhwa, regaining her senses, rolled her eyes around.
"Wh-where is this?"
Looking around, her gaze finally landed on Murong Suhyang.
Lady Hwang Inhwa unconsciously swallowed.
The girl—no, more woman than girl, yet too young to call fully mature—looking down at her with a blank expression.
"Y-you, who are you?"
"Murong Suhyang."
Her curt voice spared no one.
"Murong Suhyang... Murong... Gasp!"
Only then did it all come flooding back.
Lady Hwang Inhwa cried out indignantly.
"Do you even know what you've done? Untie me right now!"
"......"
"Hey! Can't you hear me?! Untie me now!"
Murong Suhyang, who had been silently gazing down at her, slowly squatted.
A flush of color returned to Lady Hwang Inhwa's face.
'Yes!'
Relief washed over her. Murong Suhyang was the Murong clan's youngest, still young enough that a little sweet-talking might get her out of here somehow.
But that was one thing, and the boiling rage quite another.
She had lived twenty-five years without ever suffering such treatment; her fury now stabbed the heavens.
"You're all as good as dead. Think my father will let you off? He won't leave a single blade of grass on your clan's grounds!"
Rustle. Rustle.
"Even now, I recommend you run. No guarantee you'll survive, but at least before your limbs get torn off in agony, you might get the chance to off yourselves..."
Squeeze!
"Aaaack!"
Lady Hwang Inhwa screamed at the merciless tightening pain.
"Wh-what are you doing?"
Murong Suhyang grumbled with a pouty face.
"I knew it. Shouldn't have trusted that idiot. Tied so sloppily—what? Can't escape even dead and revived? Bullshit."
"Y-you!"
"Huh? Ankles even looser? Stinky feet, wanted to deal with 'em quick? Even so, this is too much."
Squeeeeze!
"Uwaaaack!"
"Phew, feels so much better. Well, shouldn't expect solid work from that moron. Yeah, exactly."
Murong Suhyang shook out her hands clean as she stood and opened the warehouse door.
Lady Hwang Inhwa shouted desperately.
"Hey, you crazy bitch! What the hell are you doing?!"
Murong Suhyang glanced down at Lady Hwang Inhwa, shrugged, and shut the door.
Bang!
It slammed like it might shatter.
Murong Suhyang's sullen face turned fierce in an instant.
"Where do you get off swearing? You death-deserving bitch."
Her blood pressure shot up.
She wanted to pummel those eyes black and blue until they were night and day. Both sides.
"Moved you somewhere less damp for your sake, and you don't even appreciate it, you ungrateful wench. Should've just told the idiot to dump you anywhere."
Muttering curses under her breath, she soon arrived before the patriarch's quarters.
"Huh?!"
An unfamiliar man knelt there.
Hands bound behind his back—looked like rope. His upper body was tied too.
But that wasn't what startled Murong Suhyang.
"Cough."
A rough cough brought up bloody spittle.
His face was deathly pale, as if every drop of blood had been drained from his body.
'Bloodbath again.'
An instinctive aversion welled up.
Frowning, Murong Suhyang turned her gaze to Murong Bi, seated cross-legged beside the man.
His face was serene. Impressive, managing to focus on meditation right after dismantling some unknown guy.
'Not human.'
As Murong Suhyang approached, the retainers bowed their heads.
"You're here."
"Legs aren't torn?"
Gwan Hyun shook his head gravely.
"Training suspended for now."
Murong Suhyang glanced down at the man.
"This pathetic wreck the reason, by any chance?"
"How did you know?"
"Unfamiliar face in this state here? Gotta be an enemy."
Gwan Hyun smiled.
But only briefly.
"Correct. This one's an assassin sent directly by the Ten Sword Sect Leader."
Murong Suhyang's shoulders twitched in that instant.
No matter how bold, anyone instinctively fears assassins.
Die fighting a master, at least you fell to the strong. Die battling a brutal demon lord, at least they call it upholding justice.
But caught by an assassin? You just die.
No satisfaction, no honor—just gone, clueless why. How horrifying.
"The Ten Sword Sect Leader sent an assassin?!"
"Yes."
Gwan Hyun eyed the shadow coldly, then glanced toward the patriarch's quarters.
"Likely targeting the Acting Patriarch."
Crack!
"Gurk!"
A kick to the chin sent the shadow tumbling backward.
Scarlet flames erupted from Murong Suhyang's eyes.
"You dog bastard!"
No one had time to intervene.
Murong Suhyang mounted him and unleashed a barrage of merciless punches.
"Die! Die, you dog! Die!"
"Gasp! M-Miss!"
"Stop her!"
The startled retainers pried her off Murong Suhyang.
But she wouldn't budge. Her rage-maddened strength defied even "superhuman" descriptors.
Only when Gwan Hyun joined in could they finally pull her away from the shadow.
"Let go! Let me go?!"
"Miss! He's a hostage too!"
"What hostage from an assassin! Kill him! Just kill him!"
"Please calm down!"
"Do I look calm right now?!"
At that moment, a calm voice spoke.
"The retainers are right. Calm yourself."
Murong Suhyang whipped her head around; her eyes instantly softened like a fawn's.
"Sister!"
A subtle elegance emanated from Murong Sujing as she emerged from the patriarch's quarters.
The retainers scurried back to their positions.
Murong Suhyang clung to Murong Sujing like a chick to its mother, fussing noisily.
"Sister, you okay? Not hurt anywhere?"
"Why would I be hurt."
"An assassin came! What if that scum poisoned you?!"
Murong Sujing chuckled softly.
"I'm fine, so calm down."
"Really? Totally unharmed?"
"Yes."
A mother's calm always soothes her child.
Sister or not, Murong Sujing's composure worked its magic on Murong Suhyang.
"Phew, thank goodness."
"Did you get any sleep?"
"What are you talking about? Sleep in a situation like this..."
Mid-sentence, Murong Suhyang gritted her teeth.
'You idiot.'
Yes, the clan was on full alert.
Even assassins showing up.
'Everyone tense on watch, and here you were, holed up fretting over your own discomfort.'
Murong Suhyang's gaze naturally drifted to Murong Bi.
That damn brother, serenely meditating after whatever—it grated on her.
Just as grating were her complicated feelings.
'That guy...'
She had felt his changes too.
But she didn't trust him. Or rather, didn't want to.
He'd surely revert to his wastrel days anyway. While Sister was away from home, how many times had she been disappointed, how many times hopeful?
Affection for the brother who betrayed clan and family had worn thin. Two years, three years already gone by.
Yet somehow, unrecognized even by herself, another thread of expectation had sprouted in a corner of her heart.
'Don't talk nonsense. It's not because of anyone. Just my own immaturity.'
Before any disappointment or hope in her brother, it was simply that she was immature.
She had thought only her own feelings mattered. Murong Suhyang felt ashamed of herself.
"Sorry, Sister."
"Huh? Out of nowhere?"
"Everyone's out here guarding the clan, and I was the only one selfishly holed up resting."
"......"
"I'm still far from ready. Very far."
"Of course you are."
Her sister's reproving tone, delivered calmly, cut all the deeper.
Murong Suhyang's head drooped. She had no face to show her sister.
"I'm far too, and so are you. The retainers need to grow stronger, and Bi needs to recover."
"...?"
"Our clan's full of people all lacking in their own ways. Of course you'd make mistakes."
"Sister?"
"Isn't that right, Chief Steward?"
Seok Ung stepped forward with a laugh.
"Indeed, Patriarch."
"Acting Patriarch."
"Time to accept it. Maybe the reason our clan has so many shortcomings is the lack of a true leader."
"No such thing."
"Well, the most lacking is probably me anyway."
Seok Ung's hearty laugh carried fatigue on his face. As a middle-aged man without proper inner arts training, staying up all night was exhausting.
Yet excitement and joy overpowered the weariness.
That made Seok Ung's face all the more beautiful.
"Dawn's breaking, by the way."
"So it is."
"What a long and short day."
"A new one begins."
"Wonder how brutal this one will be—already dizzy thinking about it."
That was when it happened.
"Urp!"
Murong Bi vomited up a torrent of blood.
"Young master!"
"Bi!"
A particularly murky, fishy stench rose from the gush.
Murong Suhyang's eyes wavered.
'What? Don't tell me these bloodstains...?'
Not the assassin's blood—the moron's?
"Phew."
Murong Bi uncrossed his legs, slowly rising while rubbing his nape.
"Man, this feels incredibly refreshing."
Murong Suhyang's face twisted oddly.
Refreshing? As in, refreshingly close to death?
"Bi, you okay?"
Murong Sujing's calm extended to all.
She worried for her brother, but showed no excessive softness like before.
Her back straight, serenity underlying her expression. A solidity that wouldn't blink if lightning struck before her eyes.
Murong Bi nodded.
"Fine."
"Good. But why the blood?"
"All turbid blood."
Surprisingly, the foul stench that had been so pungent vanished in an instant.
Murong Bi grinned as he approached the shadow.
"Didn't expect you to have one of these."
In his hand was a black pouch, plucked from the shadow's bosom.
"Hemostasis Pill... Rare stuff. Well, thanks to it, all my internal injuries are healed."
"...!"
"Anyway, why's your face such a mess?"
Murong Bi turned to the retainers.
"Who beat him again?"
The retainers' eyes shifted to Murong Suhyang.
As Murong Bi looked her way, Murong Suhyang's face soured anew.
"What're you looking at?"
Murong Bi chuckled and clapped while eyeing the shadow.
"Alright, you've been beat enough, I've recovered plenty—time for a serious talk?"
"I'll never..."
"Let's eat first. Head's spinning from all the blood loss."