Reunion Over Roasted Rabbit
The largest Blood Sect hideout in the Central Plains was discovered deep in the Funing jungles of Yunnan, exactly as the Blood Sect scum captured in Wuhan had confessed under interrogation.
A short ride east would bring a man to Guangxi Province; a little farther north and Guizhou and Sichuan lay practically at his feet. It was a strategic crossroads of the first order. That was why Murim Alliance Leader Ju Joong-hak moved with such ruthless speed.
The prisoners had sworn that, aside from the tiny outpost they had used to watch the Alliance headquarters in Wuhan, the sect had not yet spread its roots any farther. The timing could not have been better. Delay even a little and the Blood Sect’s influence would flood uncontrollably into Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, and Guangxi.
After all, Blood Sect arts let a man grow terrifyingly strong simply by drinking or absorbing blood—an irresistible temptation to every lowlife thug and black-path rogue in the jianghu. Thirty years earlier, during the Blood Sect’s great upheaval, they had recruited exactly that sort of vermin and swollen their ranks overnight.
So Alliance Leader Ju Joong-hak hastily assembled a punitive force and marched on Funing. The result was that a single Zhuang village of more than a thousand souls, hidden deep in the Funing jungle, now found itself under sudden assault by martial artists of the orthodox path.
—Whoosh, crackle.
Flames began to devour the thatched roofs. Surrounded by the tightening ring of Murim fighters, Ju Joong-hak’s face twisted with pure fury.
“So these dogs were hiding in Zhuang clothing! They are a blight upon the Central Plains—leave not a single one of them alive!”
The reason the hunters who had come for Blood Sect remnants were now storming a village of the Zhuang—one of Yunnan’s minority peoples—was simple: the sect members had cleverly disguised themselves as Zhuang. Their houses, their clothes, everything was identical to the real thing.
“Yes, Alliance Leader! Forward! Not one Blood Sect dog walks away!”
“Understood!”
At Ju Joong-hak’s enraged command the net closed. His personal Azure Dragon Unit charged into the village at the spearhead, disciples of every major sect thundering after them.
“Waaaaaah! Kill them! Leave no Blood Sect scum breathing!”
“Purge the Blood Sect!”
“Th-the Murim Alliance is attacking! Kuhurk!”
“H-how is the Alliance here already—ghhk…!”
Inside the burning Zhuang village the battle between Blood Sect cultists and orthodox martial artists raged without mercy. When the smoke finally cleared, the fight had become a one-sided slaughter—thanks to the dissolving poison the orthodox forces had prepared, a toxin fatal to anyone who cultivated Blood Sect arts.
“M-my inner energy!”
“Filthy orthodox bastards coated their throwing knives—watch out!”
Cultists struck by the rain of poisoned darts collapsed as if they had never trained a day in their lives, dying with pathetic ease.
“Alliance Leader!”
Before the dying flames, Ju Joong-hak snapped the neck of a man who looked like a Blood Sect elder. He wiped the blood from his brow just as the commander of the Azure Dragon Unit dropped to one knee before him. The fighting seemed finished.
“Well? Is everything settled?”
Ju Joong-hak assumed the man had come to report total victory—until the commander’s urgent voice cut him off.
“We captured or killed roughly half—about five hundred—but the rest… the rest vanished without a trace!”
Scouts had counted more than a thousand cultists in the village beforehand, yet only five hundred heads had been taken. The orthodox forces and Alliance warriors had ringed the place so tightly that escape should have been impossible. It made no sense.
“What?! Find them! People do not simply disappear. We cannot let a single one slip away!”
“Yes, Alliance Leader!”
At once Alliance warriors and sect disciples combed every corner of the ruined village. After roughly two hours they found a narrow earthen tunnel—its entrance hidden at the bottom of a dried-up well in the village center.
“A tunnel? Send the pursuit team immediately! Choose men skilled in close-quarters grappling and those with the sharpest eyesight!”
“Understood!”
They gave chase at once, but what followed inside the cramped passages and chambers was pure mud-wrestling slaughter. For three full days Blood Sect cultists and Murim fighters butchered one another in the darkness. When the pursuit team finally fought its way to the far end of the tunnel, they found themselves staring at the border guards of the Kingdom of Dai Viet.
The long tunnel had run straight under the border into Dai Viet itself.
—Sizzle.
Changryong Yang Seong-hu slit open a rabbit’s belly, scooped out the entrails, peeled the hide, and laid the meat on a hot stone. The rich aroma that rose made him smile with pure contentment.
“Mmm. Perfect.”
Catching six rabbits normally meant hours of tramping through the brush, but today he had simply found a warren nearby and bagged all six with almost no effort. Three for tonight, two left for breakfast—his mood could not have been better.
It did not last.
“Rabbit again today? At this rate my mouth’s gonna start smelling like the damn things.”
Doryong Paeng Gyu-seong stomped into the cave after checking the trees for fruit, took one look at the roasting meat, and made a face of pure disgust.
“You should be grateful we have this much! What the hell were you two thinking, volunteering for a search mission when you can’t do a single useful thing?!”
Changryong’s temper flared; he turned his anger even on Sword Phoenix Seon-hwa, who was trailing in behind Doryong.
“Hey, why are you yelling at me too? I was just standing here!”
The reason for his outburst was simple. Sword Phoenix and Doryong had volunteered to help track the Blood Sect remnants who had fled into Dai Viet, yet they proved utterly useless at everything that mattered—hunting, laundry, fire-starting, even basic tracking. When they had run around together as friends in the Central Plains he had never noticed. Changryong himself had learned a hundred practical skills from the many elders of his house who served in the military. Doryong, however, was a Paeng of that Paeng family, and Seon-hwa was the great disciple of Diancang—apparently her junior martial brothers handled all the menial work.
His dear friends, it turned out, were hopelessly spoiled.
He could almost forgive Doryong. Everyone knew the Paeng family of Hebei cared about nothing except martial arts; expecting anything else from them was pure foolishness. But Sword Phoenix of Diancang was another matter. Her sect sat on Diancang Mountain right in the middle of the Yunnan jungles—surely she would know something about surviving in this green hell. Instead she knew nothing. “Too many bugs,” she had said. “I never go into the jungle.”
“Aigoo… I should just keep my mouth shut…”
Changryong decided further argument would only tire him out. He flipped the roasting rabbit.
—Sizzle.
He kept quiet because he had already tried that conversation a few days earlier, and both of them had given him the exact same answer.
“A man who has taken up the blade only needs to swing the blade well. Where would he find time to learn anything else? Hahaha!”
“Exactly. A swordsman only needs to be good with the sword.”
Their heads were completely filled with sabers and swords. Changryong shook his own head in despair and flipped the meat again, then asked Sword Phoenix,
“Anyway, we ought to check the rendezvous point and see how the other teams are doing. What do you think, Sword Phoenix?”
Twelve three-man teams had crossed into Dai Viet under the Alliance Leader’s secret orders. They had already been in the jungle half a month; it was high time to learn whether anyone else had found a trail.
“You’re right—it’s about time we dropped by.”
“Exactly. Fifteen days today. Someone may already have picked up the scent.”
“Hmm… they might have, at that.”
Both Sword Phoenix and Doryong nodded at the suggestion that they head for the rendezvous tomorrow.
“Then let’s eat well tonight and check the rendezvous first thing tomorrow.”
“Fine by me.”
“Sounds good.”
They finished their brief council and Changryong was giving the rabbit one last look when a clear, ringing voice suddenly floated down from nowhere.
“Pardon the intrusion!”
—Whoosh.
“Wh-who’s there?!”
Changryong shot to his feet, snatching the spear he had leaned against the cave wall and scanning every shadow. The moment he realized the voice came from the ceiling, something enormous began descending from the darkness above—
an enormous…
“A-a centipede?”
A giant blue centipede he had never seen in his life, and perched astride it was a young hero he knew only too well, slowly drifting down from overhead.
“Th-that young hero?!”
“Wi So-ryong? How in the world are you here?!”
Sword Phoenix and Doryong cried out in equal shock as the young man rode the great blue centipede down like some descending immortal. The youth smiled.
“Changryong, I’ve saved your life twice already, yet it seems you still haven’t broken the habit of drawing your spear at the drop of a hat.”
Behind him, the Poison Flower’s eyes went wide as she stared at Changryong. Changryong hastily hid the spear behind his back. His heart might have moved on, but he still hated the idea of being disliked.
Why? Do you know them?
Yes, Noona. I know them, sort of.
Then those are the Five Poison Sect dogs hiding among the Murim?!
Because the men were gathered right outside the Five Poison Sect’s underground passage, Seol-noona naturally assumed they were Five Poison agents operating in secret. But these were orthodox heirs—some of the most celebrated rising stars in the entire Murim. There was no way. I shook my head.
No. They’re Hwa-eun’s friends.
Not friends, So-ryong.
Hwa-eun shot the denial back the instant the words left me. Lately she had grown a little more talkative while following Seol-noona and me around and helping raise the little ones, but her personality had not changed one bit. I smiled at the thought of how wounded Changryong would be if he heard that, then spoke to both of them.
Noona, the fact that these people are here suggests this place isn’t especially dangerous. Why don’t we go down and get some of that meat you said you wanted?
Beg for meat?
Yes. I’ve saved Changryong’s life twice—he can hardly refuse.
So-ryong saved his life?
It’s a man-to-man thing.
While Hwa-eun and Noona stared in surprise at the news that I had once saved lives, I called down toward the cave floor.
“Pardon the intrusion!”
—Whoosh.
“Wh-who’s there?!”
While Changryong shouted and Sword Phoenix and Doryong cried out in alarm, I rode Cho down with Hwa-eun and spoke to Changryong.
“Changryong, I’ve saved your life twice already, yet it seems you still haven’t broken the habit of drawing your spear at the drop of a hat.”
Changryong jumped and hastily hid the spear behind his back. Every eye in the cave turned on him.
“By the way, Young Hero Wi—ah, you said you’ve become a man of the Beast Palace, so should we call you Young Hero So now?”
“Just So-ryong is fine.”
“All right, So-ryong. But what did you mean earlier when you said you’d saved Changryong’s life twice?”
After a rather long round of introductions—explaining Cho and Yo-hwa, and how each of us had ended up in this corner of the jungle—we sat around the fire and accepted plates of rabbit. Sword Phoenix immediately asked about the claim that I had saved Changryong twice. I smiled toward Changryong.
“Just a story between men. Right, Changryong?”
“R-right. Of course, So-ryong.”
Changryong nodded with a face that had gone deathly pale. I decided I could milk this for quite a while, then tore a rabbit leg free and stuffed it into my mouth.
This is supposed to be Changryong’s cooking, so why does it taste so damn good?
They say the tastiest food is the food you snatch right before it reaches someone else’s mouth. Of all the rabbit I had ever eaten, Changryong’s was the best.
—Slurp.
I polished off the entire leg and tossed the bone into the fire. Doryong’s voice rose beside me.
“You eat like a man who’s never known hunger. Here, have this too.”
“No, no, Hyung-nim, you need to eat as well.”
He tore both hind legs from his own share and thrust them at me. I waved both hands in refusal, but Doryong only raised his voice and shoved the meat closer.
“Ah, nonsense! Just watching you eat fills me up. Come on, no more refusing.”
This was only our second meeting—last time we had barely exchanged greetings—yet Doryong was treating me with extravagant kindness. And the reason I called him Hyung-nim was the same reason for that kindness.
Turns out he’s Yeong-yeong’s big brother.
When Hwa-eun first introduced him at the Murim Alliance I had simply wondered if they shared a surname. No—he was Yeong-yeong’s eldest brother. On that first meeting we had been in such a rush to find food for the stone-scale chicks that Hwa-eun never got around to mentioning it. The moment he recognized us earlier he had greeted me like a long-lost relative.
“Well, if it isn’t Young Hero Wi! My father told me all about you. Thank you for saving my little sister! To think I’d meet my benefactor in a place like this!”
“Pardon?”
“Yeong-yeong. I’m talking about Yeong-yeong.”
“Oh! Yeong-yeong! Then you’re the Paeng Family Head’s—?”
“That’s right. I’m the eldest son of the family.”
The Paeng Family Head, on his way home after entrusting Yeong-yeong to us, had stopped by the Alliance and mentioned that I was treating her. That was why Doryong was being so warm. Apparently, since Yeong-yeong and I had sworn brother-and-sister oaths, that made me his little brother too.
“You took care of Yeong-yeong like your own blood sister and even became sworn siblings, didn’t you? Then I’m your hyung-nim, my friend!”
“Uh…?”
I felt a little awkward calling a near-stranger “hyung,” but setting everything else aside, the simple fact that he was a tank rather than a bandit or a hunter made me accept the offer at once. Remembering the martial prowess the Paeng Family Head had displayed when Seol and Bing went to meet him, I was certain the Paeng clan were natural-born tanks. After the raid on the Flying Divine Snake I had decided that a reliable list of tanks was something I absolutely needed for hunting other venomous beasts.
I accepted the rabbit legs with both hands and bowed my head.
“Thank you, Hyung-nim. Ah—and Grandfather Ten-Thousand-Poison Divine Lord will be arriving soon. We’re also tracking the Five Poison Sect’s trail, so we might as well move together, Hyung-nim.”
“Oh, perfect! Following the Five Poison Sect’s tracks might lead us straight to the Blood Sect dogs. That works out great!”
It looked like a partnership that would benefit both sides. Yet two full days passed, and neither my foster father nor Grandfather Ten-Thousand-Poison Divine Lord appeared.