Barking Dogs Never Bite
A fleeting silence fell.
In that brief span, sparks leapt between the three pairs of eyes locked upon one another.
Tension coiled through the air.
[I thought her bearing and presence were nothing like an ordinary rich family’s daughter, but…]
Mumyeong let out a low sigh.
I bit down hard on my lip.
At the time I had no other choice. Even if I were sent back to that moment I would do exactly the same thing—kidnap the woman before me as a hostage and use her as a shield to break free.
Back then I was incomparably greener than I am now. I had not yet received Asura’s teachings. I did not even know how to seal acupoints. I had no idea that overusing Heaven and Earth Great Shift was rotting my body in real time and twisting my axis out of true. It was an era when, without any master’s guidance, I scraped by on martial arts copied through the Heavenly Demon Jade, surviving and growing by pure, desperate improvisation.
But.
In the old days I would have exploded in rage and ruined everything. I would have snapped that I had done it without knowing she was the eldest daughter of the Jegal Family, and flown into a fury.
I showed no reaction at all. I simply stared at Jegal Sea with black, unreadable eyes.
“Huh.”
Puzzlement rose in Jegal Sea’s eyes instead.
The old rage and resentment had not vanished; they remained exactly as they were. All of it lay submerged in darkness like flames smoldering at the bottom of an ink-black lake. Until the very last moment I would stay silent as the primordial abyss and keep my body coiled.
A barking dog can never bite. A dog that has truly decided to tear into something suppresses its hellish fighting spirit without so much as a growl, crouches low, and waits for the chance to sink its teeth into the throat.
The rage quietly accumulating in the dark would draw true fear from opponents who were nothing more than a flock of sheep, and become the root of all my power.
This was the teaching of Asura, God of War—the core of what he wished to impart to me.
“This isn’t the reaction I was expecting. Are you really the man I knew?”
Jegal Sea’s voice had gone stiff.
“I think it would be best if you stopped playing around.”
Eun Seollyeong stepped between us.
“I know better than anyone that you are not the sort of person who would flip a promise made to me as lightly as turning over a hand.”
“That’s true. I’d already given the other Oho-samhwa I met beforehand a suitable heads-up about the brand, and just now I was only teasing. I’m not so stupid as to let myself get swept up by some private grudge and make an enemy of a Guardian. But still… still…”
Jegal Sea frowned up at me.
“Can a person change this much in such a short time? Are you really the same man who tore through the Ju Family back then?”
She suddenly came right up and sniffed me.
“The scent, the height, the overwhelming presence from your build—everything matches. It’s enough to make a ghost weep. As far as I know, for a person to change this much—”
“They must have faced a trial that nearly killed them, or met a fated connection that remade them from the ground up.”
Jegal Sea’s eyes, beneath her white crane-feather hat, blinked. The crane-feather fan in her hand fluttered, stirring a light breeze around her. Her black hair swayed.
“…A man who exceeds my imagination every single time. Fine.”
Jegal Sea flicked her crane-feather fan and turned away.
“Follow me. I can’t guarantee the brands of the other Oho-samhwa, but at the very least I’ll give you the one I promised—my younger sibling’s brand. Not for your sake, but for Eun Seollyeong’s. However.”
She raised one long finger.
“Unfortunately I can’t give it right now. Our family has a rather troublesome matter on our hands at the moment.”
I had lived through something similar before. To be precise, it was when So Yeomgyo and I visited the Emei Sect.
So Yeomgyo and I had shared a room that contained beds. Thankfully they were not the same bed, yet a man and a woman confined together in one sealed space was pressure enough by itself.
Men and women even smell different. Share a room and, even with your eyes closed, you can vividly sense the sound of breathing, the rustle of hair against the blanket, the scent of skin itself.
I am a man. I am definitely not a eunuch or someone without desire. During our stay at Emei, every night I had to sleep in a formal posture with my hands clasped, staring at the ceiling so I would not look at So Yeomgyo lounging in comfortable clothes right beside me. It was incredibly hard. On top of that, the way she slept so completely unguarded—like a tigress sharing a room with a male dog without the slightest worry that he might pounce—wounded my male pride more than a little and left me quietly sad.
Still, I had told myself it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience and tried to take it positively. Just a good memory, I decided, and moved on.
And now, right before my eyes—
“…Heaven above. What grudge do you have against me?”
“Hm? What’s that all of a sudden?”
Eun Seollyeong was straightening the bedding, her silver hair cascading down. True to her meticulous nature when it came to cleaning and organization, she was carefully arranging the room we would be staying in for a while. She pointed to the inner of the two beds.
“You need protection, so take the bed farther in. I will take the one by the door.”
Pat.
I caught the pillow she tossed, hugged it to my chest, and stared blankly at the ceiling.
“….”
I could not bring myself to say it out loud. Asura’s training had been that brutal. I cursed inwardly. If only I were a eunuch, at least my mind would be at peace.
I obediently sat on the edge of the inner bed as Eun Seollyeong instructed and recalled what had happened with Jegal Sea before we arrived at this room.
“…The Hwangbo Family unilaterally moved up their visit, so right now we are holding a family-to-family meeting. The estimated duration is one week. Even for me it would be unreasonable to stamp brands or anything of the sort in the middle of that, so just stay comfortably until the Hwangbo Family leaves again.”
Jegal Sea had guided us to a room on the outer edge of the guest courtyard.
“The Hwangbo bastards don’t get along with the Moyong Family either, but they get along particularly badly with us. The atmosphere won’t be pretty. You understand what I’m saying?”
Knowing I belonged to the Moyong Family, Jegal Sea winked at me. While staying here we agreed that my official title would be the alias I had been using—Biryu—to prevent any possible trouble. Eun Seollyeong also hid the fact that she was a Guardian, and we agreed she was simply a guest visiting on personal friendship with Jegal Sea.
“Any particular preference for the type of room? You’re guests invited by the eldest daughter of the great Jegal Family, after all. Just say what you want for the room and I’ll arrange it.”
I, who thought a lodging only needed to be a place where you could rest your back and sleep comfortably, had no requirements. At that moment Eun Seollyeong stepped forward and cut in coldly as frost.
“We need a large room that can accommodate two.”
Jegal Sea’s expression—eyes wide as if they would pop out—was extremely memorable. Then she looked me up and down with a meaningful smile.
“Hmm, do you need an especially sturdy bed?”
Eun Seollyeong tilted her head and answered calmly.
“Sturdy? If the bed is strong it could serve as a shield in an ambush, but it does not matter much. As long as the four directions are secure, that is enough.”
Jegal Sea frowned.
“Tch, boring. Even a rotten herring is still a herring—so you’re a scion of the Moyong Family after all. Looks like you’ve even formed the Covenant of the Sacred Mountain. The way a Guardian is talking about having to protect someone…”
“No, it is not that sort of relationship.”
“What?”
The smile vanished from Jegal Sea’s face.
“Then a Guardian is protecting a stranger without even forming the Covenant of the Sacred Mountain?”
“There are circumstances that warrant it. This man is more complicated than he appears.”
She has too many thoughts as usual, Eun Seollyeong added.
…She could not have thought I would miss that last remark, right?
“Honestly.”
Jegal Sea pressed a hand to her forehead and shook her head as if giving up on thinking further.
“When Eun Seollyeong used that expression in the carrier-pigeon message I wondered what kind of man he was. Truly a man who surprises me from start to finish.”
“What expression? What’s that about?”
Neither woman answered my question.
“…Moyong Bi?”
Eun Seollyeong’s call pulled me from my thoughts. Having finished arranging the bedding, she sat on the edge of the bed opposite me and faced me.
“Your complexion is poor. Do not worry. Your skill is outstanding. While you are awake there is no need to fear an ambush, and even when you sleep and are vulnerable I will protect you. Have I not told you repeatedly? As long as I am here, there is no one who can ambush you.”
“Yeah, just thinking about spending another week sleeping in a rigid posture with my hands clasped staring at the ceiling has my heart pounding with excitement. Maybe this time I should plug my nose and ears too.”
“…?”
“It’s nothing.”
Eun Seollyeong tilted her head, then propped her chin on her hand. Her face was dark.
“More than that, I expected as much from the contents of the carrier pigeon, but… the situation seems more serious than I thought. It worries me.”
“The situation is serious?”
“Do you remember Unwol Jiju, where we had friction on the way here?”
I nodded.
“Until now the Jegal Family of Shaanxi, with their overwhelming wealth and power, completely dominated and regulated them, and they too obediently stayed within the lines. That is how yin and yang were in harmony and Shaanxi had peace.”
“Peace?”
I questioned her words. The scenery I had seen on the way was far from peaceful. On the outskirts of Shaanxi Province, ruffians who could have been officials or thugs were extorting tenant rents. Even inside the city walls, people of the red-light districts and black-path groups prowled about from broad daylight, radiating an oppressive atmosphere. Anyone could see it was a landscape where the boundary between yin and yang had collapsed.
“All of that must be because a new great power has appeared that promised Unwol Jiju military force and additional support, and is covering for them. When someone is covering your back and telling you to run wild as you please, what reason do those black-path groups have to stay within the lines?”
“Don’t tell me.”
Quietly raising a banner of rebellion against the Jegal Family, gradually expanding their power and coveting the light of day. To act with such swollen guts requires the backing of a force at least equal to the Jegal Family. In the current situation there was only one force that would do such a thing.
“Their sudden visit this time is probably also meant to slowly gnaw away at the roots of the Jegal Family’s pillars through Unwol Jiju’s expansion of influence while simultaneously pressuring the Jegal Family and looking for some pretext—under the guise of goodwill.”
The mastermind behind all this would be the Hwangbo Family, mortal enemies of the Moyong Family as well.
Eun Seollyeong poured warm tea from the pot prepared in the room as she spoke.
“In any case this is a power struggle between families, so it should not concern us greatly. I only hope that nothing happens during the week until we obtain the brand. There is a reason the saying goes that in the righteous, demonic, and blood factions of the martial world—especially among the orthodox—the Nine Sects and One Gang hold the martial power while the Five Great Families hold the wealth.”
Eun Seollyeong sat in a chair sipping tea and opened a book. It was a book she had requested from Jegal Sea in advance.
“This will be your first time in Shaanxi Province. If you plan to go out, take this.”
What she handed me was a thick silver thread.
“Tie this around your wrist and break it if anything happens. Then I will immediately know something is wrong.”
“Don’t tell me this is also the kind of price that would make our family furrow their brows a little?”
Eun Seollyeong nodded while turning a page.
“I shouldn’t have asked.”
My fingertips trembled as I carefully tied the silver cord around my wrist as if enshrining a sacred treasure.
The lodging Jegal Sea had arranged for us was located near the rear gate even within the Jegal Family compound. Thanks to that I could go outside without unnecessarily running into other family members.
Shaanxi was an extremely bustling street. It was packed with countless shops and people of every trade. I was busy sightseeing for a while. But one thing was different from the past. Now that I was a martial artist rooted in the jianghu, there was something I naturally looked for even while sightseeing.
“Huh.”
At first I thought I was mistaken. I wandered this way and that for a long time, but it was certain.
A city of this scale, and not a single minor sect?
In a capital of this size there would normally be minor sects here and there that at least claimed to carry on some lineage. The power struggles of the great sects centered on the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Families were one thing, but below them there was always another domain belonging to the lower world. Yet no matter how much I looked around I saw no one in the attire of a martial artist, nor any groups claiming to be disciples. Even in a small rural town there would be young packs of a sect swaggering about with their shoulders squared. Ruffians and black-path types were overflowing, but martial artists were nowhere to be seen.
What in the world…
“Hey! Young man! Just a moment!”
When someone tried to grab my shoulder from behind I immediately shook them off. There was none of the clean motion unique to someone who had learned footwork; every action was full of waste. A typical ordinary person who had not even polished the basics of martial arts.
At that absurd clumsiness I looked back and saw a hollow-cheeked middle-aged man in a completely tattered martial uniform. His back was bent and he was gaunt as if he had not even eaten thin gruel. I could not feel the slightest qi of internal energy. On both hands he wore what looked like rotting leather wrist guards that might once have been gauntlets. Since he gave off no martial artist’s air at all, I first wondered if he was mentally unwell—or, if not that, someone spreading a strange religion.
The man looked at me and his eyes widened.
“Um, who are you to suddenly…”
“Y-you there!”
The man seized both my hands. He shoved his face right up as if he might kiss me.
“To think a heaven-sent martial bone like you was rotting away in a marketplace like this!”
“Excuse me?”
As if he could not bear to let go of the hands of someone staring blankly, the man gripped them tightly again.
“How pitiful! You don’t know your own potential at all!”
“I already know it quite well…”
“No! You wouldn’t know! Looking at you, you seem like a pure country youth who’s never known martial arts and only honestly worked the fields!”
“…Pure? Country youth?”
[If you stay pure twice more you’ll even pluck the head of the Martial Alliance Leader.]
Mumyeong quietly added.
With his sunken cheeks the man shouted passionately as if coughing blood.
“How about joining our sect right away?! I’ll make you the greatest master under heaven!”