The Poisoned Homecoming
Hwangbo Taejin felt as if he were dreaming.
How did I end up Clan Lord?
The thought rose unbidden.
"So you're telling me the main house was sacked?"
If this truly was a dream, it was the perfect moment to wake. Yet he could not seem to claw his way free of it.
"Every hall of the main house burned. They say the buildings have completely collapsed."
The instant he understood it was no dream, fury crashed over him.
"We return to the main house at once!"
There was selfishness in that rage as well—an urge to shed the weight of his own mistakes.
This is my fault.
He had decided all of it himself. Never once had he imagined the enemy would abandon their own manor to strike the Hwangbo Clan's main seat. Even if he had, he would never have calculated that two people alone could bring the Hwangbo main house to its knees.
The warriors left behind had been enough force to erase any ordinary mid-sized sect without a trace. And yet they had been wiped out by two. Worse still, the ancestral halls that were the living history of the Hwangbo Clan had all been lost to fire.
I was wrong.
There was nothing left to do but rage.
"I'll kill them. Every last soul tied to Deungmyeong Manor—I'll kill them with my own hands!"
What remained was vengeance. Not for his father. Not for his elder brother. Vengeance for himself.
But the subordinate who had been weathering that fury did not turn away at once. He held his ground.
"Is there more?"
"Are we to withdraw from Gyounam entirely? We still haven't found the First Young Master."
He had forgotten completely.
And Hwangbo Taesan—already fading from everyone's memory—was somewhere unexpected.
"Ugh…"
A groan rose from the forest floor as Hwangbo Taesan opened his eyes and instinctively clutched his aching head. Pressing hard against the throbbing pain, he forced his upper body upright—and something felt wrong.
"Huh?"
The chains that had bound him were gone. Reality snapped into focus. He opened his eyes wide and scanned the woods. It was a forest not far from the main road.
"I was being dragged off by that steward…"
The household of Deungmyeong Manor had all boarded a ship, while the steward and a six-foot giant had hauled him elsewhere. Bound to a carrying frame, he had been dragged along until the giant suddenly collapsed. The shock had knocked him unconscious. Only now had he woken.
"What happened?"
Questions crowded him at first, but one thing was certain.
"This is my chance."
He had been living only for the day he would die, enduring humiliation day after day. That long stretch of despair had even dulled the edge of his desire for revenge.
"I have to move."
He rose at once and fled the spot.
After Hwangbo Taesan vanished, two figures dropped from a nearby tree. Cheongu and Panseok.
"Chief Manager hyung-nim. Is it really all right to let him go like that?"
"Yes. For now, he's only useful this way."
"But he knows a few of the manor's secrets."
"Don't worry. He won't live long enough to speak them."
Cheongu drew an empty medicine vial from his robes and held it up.
"Ah. So you gave him that."
Panseok knew exactly what the medicine was for. Every vial was a different color, and he had been ordered to memorize each purpose without fail.
"But Chief Manager hyung-nim—if you're going to kill him anyway, why not just finish it cleanly?"
"Killing him outright would be a waste. He should still manage a few last words, at least."
When Panseok still looked lost, Cheongu explained in careful detail, as he always did.
Panseok respected and liked Cheongu not simply because he was Ja Gangcheon's friend. Cheongu was the only person who would explain something as many times as it took until it made sense. Even Song Jain would change her approach if someone was slow to learn—but Cheongu never did. However frustrating it became, he kept explaining, as if he were talking to an ordinary man. Listening that way, understanding always came little by little. That was why Panseok hung on every word Cheongu said.
"Hwangbo Taejin's footing is badly shaken right now. His bad judgment cost the clan far too much. The only reason the clan warriors still follow him is because the situation is that desperate. So we're going to show them something. That his own blood brother was alive not far away—and that Hwangbo Taejin's half-hearted search failed to find him. Rescuing him was supposed to be the single greatest purpose of this entire expedition, and they didn't even attempt it. That will stick."
"Ah. Then they won't be able to trust Hwangbo Taejin."
"Exactly. They'll start questioning every order he gives. And on top of that—what happens when the Young Clan Lord, the one who still held a formal claim, dies right before their eyes?"
"Hmm. That part's still hard for me."
"People cling to what they've lost. The current Clan Lord will start to look smaller. His shortcomings will stand out even more. The cracks begin there."
Panseok let out a sound of pure admiration.
"Hyung-nim, how do you know all this?"
"I had nothing, and I was small on top of it. A nobody like that still wanted to succeed, so all I grew was a sharp eye for people."
"So I'm dull because I'm big, then."
"You're dull because the world is fair. If someone that strong had a good head on top of it, it would be too unfair."
"Heh heh. Is that how it works?"
Cheongu always lifted Panseok's strengths until the weaknesses slipped from mind.
"Anyway, we move too."
"Where to now?"
"We've arranged to link up with the Lord of the Jangpung Escort Agency. Starting with the Hwangbo Clan's businesses on the outskirts of Shandong Province, we're going to swallow them one by one."
"Won't the important places be heavily guarded? The Manor Lord hyung-nim told us not to do anything dangerous."
"By now every warrior worth calling elite will be racing toward Jinan. With the main house fallen, the chain of command is gone—they'll have no choice but to see it with their own eyes. We'll exploit that gap. We make sure they have nothing left to come back to."
"Ah! So that's it? Then let's go!"
At Panseok's eager shout, Cheongu nodded.
"We have to lighten Gangcheon's load, even a little."
"Yes, hyung-nim!"
They left Gyounam behind and ran toward the heart of Shandong Province.
"Kh…!"
Once clear of the forest, Hwangbo Taesan found the main road without difficulty. Something sat heavy in his chest, a tightness like a knot, but he could not stop walking.
I have to get farther away—even a little.
That was when he felt it: a band of men approaching, their presence thick with menace. He dove back into the trees at once.
Then he saw their clothing—and instinct hurled him out of the forest again.
"Halt!"
The group that appeared belonged to the Hwangbo Clan.
Hwangbo Taesan brightened at the unexpected reunion, but to the clan warriors the figure before them looked anything but welcome. A man in rags, covered in wounds from head to toe, hair a wild tangle, blocking their path—and barking orders as if he had the right. They had every reason to be on guard.
Some madman?
Most of them thought so. But among them was one whose habit was always to look closer.
A familiar voice. A familiar way of speaking. And through the tangled hair, features he knew.
"Y-Young Clan Lord?"
It was a warrior of the main house who had been especially close to Hwangbo Taesan in his days as Young Clan Lord. Like most of the clan, they were blood kin. The same age since childhood, they had lived almost as friends. Rank had drawn them apart as they grew older, but whenever the holidays left them worn down by their elders, they still slipped away together without fail to drink.
"Myeonggon."
"Young Clan Lord!"
Hearing his own name, Hwangbo Myeonggon seized both of Taesan's hands.
"What in the world happened?"
"It's a long story. Never mind that—where are we, and where are all of you headed?"
"Pardon?"
Myeonggon found the question strange, but answered honestly for now.
"This is near Gyounam. We're on our way back to Jinan."
That was when another voice cut in.
"Elder Brother. So you were alive."
Hwangbo Taejin approached with an expressionless face and offered his greeting.
The others smiled at the Young Clan Lord's safe return. The temporary Clan Lord did not. Even his greeting came out curt.
Watching a younger brother who showed no joy at his survival, Hwangbo Taesan spoke coldly.
"You must be deeply disappointed."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Were you not even curious whether I lived or died? You never searched for me."
"There were far too many urgent matters for that."
"So saving me was not an urgent matter. Is that what you're saying?"
"What exactly did you expect us to do for a man taken hostage, whose life or death was unclear?"
Hwangbo Taejin poured out every frustration he had been holding onto, straight at Hwangbo Taesan.
"If you were going to show up unharmed like this, where have you been all this time? And before that—what were you doing when Father died? Didn't all of this begin because of your shortcomings, Elder Brother?"
"What did you say?"
"A Young Clan Lord who failed to protect the Clan Lord—who exactly do you think you have the right to blame?"
"Silence!"
At last Hwangbo Taesan raised his voice.
"That bastard has…"
He had been about to speak the warning he had so desperately wanted to deliver and never could: that Ja Gangcheon possessed the Bihwang-gwon-gap, and that no one should meet him head-on.
But before he could even name the Bihwang-gwon-gap, something surged up from deep inside him.
"Keh!"
He vomited whatever had been knotted in his chest, and for an instant the tightness vanished. His chest felt clear—yet the reactions around him were all wrong. Only then did he see what he had brought up.
Black blood soaked the silk robes of the younger brother standing before him. At last Hwangbo Taesan understood that something had gone terribly wrong.
"What is this… keh!"
When he coughed blood a second time, the relief was gone. Instead he felt something snap inside his skull.
Thud.
Hwangbo Taesan collapsed where he stood. On his back, staring at the sky, his body went into convulsions.
"E-Elder Brother…"
Hwangbo Taejin was shaken as well. He had wished him dead—but not like this, not right before his eyes.
"Ghh…"
In the end Hwangbo Taesan spat one last thick mouthful of blood and died on the spot.
The Hwangbo Clan warriors who witnessed that hideous end wore complicated faces. Most shaken of all was Hwangbo Taejin.
What in heaven's name is happening?
From the moment he became Clan Lord, nothing had gone as expected.
Anger clearly burned in the many expressions of the Hwangbo Clan warriors—but there was no way to know whom that anger was aimed at.
Was it Deungmyeong Manor, the root of every disaster?
Or the temporary Clan Lord who had ruined everything?
An outside enemy should have bound the clan tighter together. Instead, the atmosphere among the Hwangbo warriors was unsettled, frayed at the edges.
It was an antlion's pit.
They had raced here the moment word came that the main house had fallen—only to find a swamp waiting to swallow them whole. A swamp of poison that burned flesh and melted bone.
"Kraaah!"
Because they were closest to Jinan, the ten warriors of the Shandong Money House arrived first—and before they ever reached the Hwangbo main house, they met the Poisonous Loving Mother and fell into despair.
As the keepers of the clan's core funds, their skill was high. It was not high enough to defeat Dokjamo.
"Don't resent this. Every privilege you enjoyed under the Hwangbo Clan's shadow was the price of accepting today's danger."
There was only one reason they had to die.
"You should never have touched Deungmyeong Manor. Failing to know your opponent is the greatest sin in the jianghu."
The Hwangbo Clan was paying that price in the most brutal fashion.
At the same hour, south of Jinan, the same thing was unfolding.
The warriors dispatched from the Shandong Medicine House had rather unusual histories. Unlike the other businesses, their work demanded specialized knowledge, and so they had developed along their own path. Many of them carried weapons rather than relying on bare-handed techniques—for a simple reason. Beasts were often a greater threat than men. With so many ginseng hunters among them, blades were more common than empty fists.
They primarily trained in the Thunderquake Sword Art and the Taishan Eighteen Turns Sword. Neither was particularly suited to facing Ja Gangcheon.
"Ghh…"
"How can he be this strong…"
The seven Medicine House warriors fell into the illusion that they had met an unbeatable beast.
We cannot win.
A beast of the mountains. If you could not defeat it, death was all that waited.
As Hwangbo Clan warriors died both within and without, the mood across all of Jinan turned grim. The atmosphere grew so tense that even the local authorities began to watch closely.
And then, once more, those who would herald a new change appeared.
"The Beggars' Sect?"
"Yes. Beggars' Sect disciples have entered Jinan in large numbers."
At Mi-ho's report, Ja Gangcheon frowned.