Reverse Interview 2: Uncle Cheol-san
Three days after Uncle Cheol-san recovered his strength, we began making the rounds of the villages surrounding the abandoned Taoist temple, asking questions wherever we went.
All of it was to find the hideout of Tak Un-yang, the Blood Hand Rakshasa.
Uncle Cheol-san had explained that mastering the Blood Hand Poison Claw absolutely required human blood and marrow. Check the surrounding villages for missing people, he said, and we would quickly be able to pin down the area around the bastard’s lair.
My own moment to shine would come after that.
“Is that so?”
“Yes, elder. Every year one or two people go missing after wandering into the jungle, but we have never had people disappearing on a regular schedule, nor large numbers vanishing all at once. And unless the circumstances are unusual, the missing are usually found again before long.”
“Thank you for the information, Village Chief.”
“Not at all. To be of help to the renowned Lord of the Sichuan Tang Family—it is my honor.”
“Then we will take our leave.”
It was the last village within a day’s travel of the abandoned temple. We confirmed the information on missing persons with the village chief and walked back out again.
Empty-handed, of course.
What we were hunting for was news of mass disappearances, yet the answer was the same in every village we visited: the occasional person vanished into the dense jungle, yes, but never in large numbers all at once.
“Nothing unusual in this village either, I take it?”
“Strange, Young Hero. From the way the bastard showed himself the moment he spotted us, I was certain his lair had to be somewhere nearby…”
If Tak Un-yang had revealed himself after discovering the Tang Family warriors, then his base should have been near our ruined temple. Yet we had scoured every village within a day’s walk and found not a single trace of him. Someone who knew him—or at least someone who had seen him—should have turned up by now. Nothing.
Strange, all right.
I had joined the search because Uncle Cheol-san’s reasoning sounded solid, but for there to be no trail at all… something felt off.
So as we left the final village, I cast my mind back to the words the bastard had spoken when he first appeared. People tend to let slip information about themselves without realizing it, after all.
What did that son of a bitch say again…? Ah!
I focused, and the first line he had spat while seizing me by the scruff of the neck rose clearly in my memory.
“I heard the Tang Family brats had come to Hainan Island, so I came to take a look—only to find the son of the Lord of Ten Thousand Poisons lying injured and alone.”
Something in that opening speech clicked. I turned at once to Uncle Cheol-san.
“Ah! Elder, do you by any chance remember what the bastard said when he appeared?”
“What he said when he appeared? I’m afraid I don’t recall clearly. Do you?”
Right—he’d been slammed into a stone step and was half out of it at the time.
Everyone has black marks in their past, and those marks are secrets best left buried. If he truly didn’t remember, there was no need to dredge it up. I simply nodded and answered.
“Ah… you don’t remember? The words came back to me just now. He said, ‘I heard the Tang Family brats had come to Hainan Island, so I came to take a look…’”
“And?”
Uncle Cheol-san clearly had never cracked a detective novel in his life; the clue sailed right past him. I swallowed my frustration and pressed on.
“Listen carefully. He said, ‘I heard the Tang Family brats had come to Hainan Island,’ did he not?”
“He did.”
“In other words, someone told him that people from the Tang Family had arrived on Hainan. If we retrace the places the Tang Family passed through, we should be able to find whoever informed him. We could show a sketch—or rather, describe his appearance—and ask whether anyone saw a man like that.”
“Oh! Brilliant! Young Hero, I thought you only knew about venomous creatures, but you have a keen mind in every direction. How did you figure that out? For a moment I thought I was speaking with someone from the Jegal Family.”
Well, hang around enough escape rooms and collab on enough mystery games with other YouTubers and it just happens.
And so the inquiries began again.
Fortunately, the Tang Family people had headed straight from the northern port—where they first landed—toward the herbalists’ village, and from there their destination had been the abandoned temple where I lived. In the end we heard talk of the man at the port itself.
“Ah! You mean the gentleman with the red hands?”
“Yes! Exactly! You know him?”
“Indeed. He appears once a month like clockwork and buys grain. He said he lives inland and that it takes him three full days to get here. Whenever he comes he takes enough for a month and ten days or so.”
“Excellent! Thank you.”
A precious lead from the rice merchant’s shop: the bastard bought rice once a month.
“Then shall we start checking the villages three days out from the port?”
Since the man had carelessly revealed how far he lived, I figured we only needed to examine the settlements a three-day journey away. Uncle Cheol-san, however, shook his head.
“No. After listening to you and thinking it over carefully, I don’t believe we can take it that simply.”
“Simply?”
It felt a little like he was taking a dig at me. I docked him a point on the reverse-interview score and asked again.
Personality that can trash-talk an employee to their face? Interview score –10.
“Then what do you mean?”
“The man is a martial artist of the murim. Three days on foot would not be three days of qinggong. He buys grain once a month—why only a month and ten days’ worth? Considering the travel time and the level of his martial arts, it has to be a seven-day distance. That much is certain.”
“Ah… that makes sense.”
At the word “qinggong” I recalled the thrill of riding on Uncle Cheol-san’s back—each stride flinging us several meters through the air.
Qinggong really is something else. That was a solid +10 on the interview score.
“And he almost certainly has no disciples.”
“Ah, right. Because he only buys a month and ten days’ worth of grain.”
“Exactly.”
Teach him one thing and he grasps ten. In my previous life Uncle Cheol-san would have been the kind of escape-room master other veterans look up to.
“Strange.”
Ten days later, on the western side of Hainan Island, Uncle Cheol-san stroked his chin with a baffled expression after hearing the same old story in the village we had just visited.
Hainan Island is as large as Gyeonggi-do and Chungcheong-do combined. With only Uncle Cheol-san and three of his warriors we could never cover the whole place; pinpointing the location had been critical. Yet around the area we had narrowed down, there was still not a single trace of the man.
“If it is a seven-day distance, it has to be the west, yet nothing…”
“Lord, you said his martial arts were comparable to the former lord, the Lord of Ten Thousand Poisons. Perhaps we should search farther west, toward the coast?”
“No. Even so, he would not have used his full power simply to buy rice. This area ought to be correct.”
Seven days from the port: east and south were ocean, north was the port itself. That left only the west. We had been almost certain—yet here, too, there were no missing persons.
We stood at the village entrance, all of us deep in thought, when the village chief came running up again, breathless.
“Huff, huff! Oh, thank heaven you are still here, Elder!”
“Hm? Why the hurry? Did something occur to you?”
The chief nodded at Uncle Cheol-san’s question. After catching his breath he answered in a strained voice.
“P-please try visiting a Ye tribe village. Huff… I had forgotten, but I recall hearing that some strange deaths occurred in a coastal Ye village…”
“Strange deaths? Ye tribe?”
Strange deaths could very well be what we were looking for. Uncle Cheol-san glanced at me with a look that clearly asked what the Ye tribe was. He knew little of Hainan, so I explained carefully.
“Besides the Han people, two tribes live on Hainan—the Li and the Ye. The Li are not friendly toward the Han, but the Ye, while their temperament differs from village to village, are generally well-disposed toward us.”
The Li and Ye were the minority peoples of Hainan. Unlike the Li, who would not even allow outsiders into their villages, the Ye were a quite amicable ethnic group who often welcomed guests with food. I myself had once gotten lost in the jungle while catching snakes and received help from the Ye, so I held a favorable impression of them.
“Is that so? Then we should pay them a visit. Thank you, Chief. Do you happen to know where the village that suffered those strange deaths is located?”
“Yes—about a day’s travel northwest of here.”
“Much obliged!”
Riding on Uncle Cheol-san’s back for half a day, we pushed through the jungle, reached the coast, and followed the shoreline a short distance. In the distance, smoke rose into the sky.
Along a ridgeline near the shore, roofs poked up through the jungle like clusters of pine mushrooms.
“That must be the place!”
“If we go to the village entrance, the Ye people will receive us as guests.”
“Understood. Let’s find the entrance.”
At the foot of the ridge we searched briefly toward the sea and soon discovered what looked like a wooden stockade gate. The moment we arrived, people came pouring out.
They wore black clothes embroidered with red thread, metal ornaments that clinked on their chests, black high socks, and short skirts—men and women alike. These were the Ye people.
“What business do Han people have at a Ye village?”
From among the gathering crowd an old man appeared, accompanied by two or three young men. He seemed to be the village chief or tribal head.
“Ah, I am Dang Cheol-san, Lord of the Tang Family of Sichuan. The reason we have come here is…”
While Uncle Cheol-san began speaking with the Ye chieftain, I studied the faces of the people who had gathered at the entrance.
From the moment we arrived, something about the atmosphere had felt wrong.
The village seemed steeped in a heavy gloom. How to put it—there was no vitality left. No children running and playing, almost no voices of women, even the birdsong felt hushed.
Hainan is hot, so people are usually listless in the middle of the day, yet the Ye folk standing at the gate all looked somehow off. More than half had unfocused eyes and wore expressions of utter exhaustion.
What is this? They look like they’ve all taken something.
A strange, drugged sensation hung over them. While I was still turning that over in my mind, the old chieftain’s firm voice cut through.
“We know nothing of any disappearances, and nothing is amiss in our village. Be on your way.”
“But there are so few people compared to the number of houses… and what of the strange disease?”
“That is no concern of Han people!”
Normally when guests arrived at a Ye village the women would flock to the entrance to welcome them and lead them inside. This was anything but normal. I glanced toward the raised voices and saw Uncle Cheol-san looking back at me with an expression that said my earlier claim of friendliness had been a little off the mark.
I did say it was case by case…
And then—
Thud.
Someone collapsed. One of the villagers watching us toppled to the ground.
A child?
The crowd parted around the fallen figure, revealing a little girl. Her chest heaved rapidly as she struggled for breath.
The old chieftain rushed forward like a madman, scooped the child into his arms, and cried out.
“Keuh-heuk… Mae-jin! N-no! You are the only blood I have left—how can you fall to the plague as well!”
The old man clutched the girl and wailed. Uncle Cheol-san sprinted over at once and made an offer: he knew medicine and would examine the child.
“Elder, I have studied medicine. Let me take a look at the child.”
“M-medicine? You have studied the medical arts of the Central Plains?!”
“Yes. I am no full physician, but I know the medical texts and techniques. Allow me to examine her.”
Moments earlier they had been ready to drive us out; the moment Uncle Cheol-san mentioned medicine, the atmosphere flipped. We went from unwelcome guests to the party of the god of medicine himself.
Doctor-nim.
“P-please! Save our Mae-jin! A plague has swept the village—children are dying and even the strong are wasting away! We tried to bring a Han physician, but none would come this far!”
“Understood. First let us take the child to your house.”
“Y-yes! What are you all standing around for! Escort the physician’s companions to my home at once!”
It seemed Doctor-nim was treated with reverence no matter the era.
And hearing that Uncle Cheol-san had studied medicine made the Sichuan Tang Family look a little different to me. A clan that trained in poison martial arts had felt rather unsettling—until I learned he was Doctor-nim.
Doctor-nim scores pretty high, after all.