The Blue Demon Five Wheels
—Creeeak.
The massive iron door swung shut. The boom shook loose a rain of dust from the underground ceiling.
A short man in leather clothes, a huge axe strapped across his back, stormed in bellowing at the top of his lungs.
"What the fuck?! Is that actually true?!"
—CRASH!
He brought his fist down on the wooden table in the center of the room. The oil lamp sitting in the middle rocked so hard it nearly toppled.
"You're telling me Unwol Jiju's Yukrim First Branch got completely smashed to pieces?! As if things weren't already a goddamn mess with that bastard So Cheonpa vanishing without a word!"
"You're giving me a headache, Chu Yeo-ryong."
A tall man with long white hair and long, slanted eyes rebuked him in a voice like midwinter frost.
"If you're late, keep your mouth shut. Can't you read the room?"
Chu Yeo-ryong, the man who had just smashed the table, glared at the long-haired man.
"Muk Se-hwi! Don't sit there pretending you're so calm. You bear plenty of blame for this mess yourself—your Banwol Fourth Branch is the closest to the First by distance, and you just sat on your fat ass at your own establishment and did absolutely nothing."
Muk Se-hwi's brow twitched. His hand drifted to the hilt of the sword at his waist.
"Chu Yeo-ryong. A back-alley trash-picker starts running girls out of a brothel, makes a little money, and suddenly thinks he can glare at his own hyung-nim."
"What did you just say?"
Chu Yeo-ryong shoved himself to his feet and closed the distance. He shoved his face in until their noses nearly touched and hissed,
"Sure, I play dirty—but am I really worse than a filthy bastard like you, Muk Se-hwi? Brewing opium and moonshine while playing the clean, refined scholar?"
"…You little shit."
—Crack.
A vein bulged on Muk Se-hwi's forehead. His grip on the sword hilt tightened until it looked ready to burst.
—Clench.
Chu Yeo-ryong's hand slid behind his back and locked around the haft of his axe. The air between them thickened, ready to explode.
"Nice work. Real nice. Even with the entire First Branch wiped off the map, you rabid dogs don't think about joining forces and making a plan—you jump straight to sticking knives in each other's guts."
The voice that cut through the tension belonged to a slender man with a thick cross-shaped scar carved across his face.
"That's enough. We're the Cheongma Oryun—we've built enough of a reputation in the underworld to be counted among the worst. Isn't that name a little too valuable to waste on petty squabbles like this?"
"…Count yourself lucky, shorty."
Muk Se-hwi bit his lip and took his hand off the hilt.
"If Paeng Ha-jin hadn't stepped in, I'd have split that pretty-boy skull of yours in half today."
Chu Yeo-ryong spat on the floor and turned away.
Paeng Ha-jin, the scarred man who had broken up the fight, clicked his tongue.
"This is exactly why that scarecrow figurehead So Cheonpa got more and more full of himself, acting like he was the real boss. How the hell is it more of a chaotic shitshow out here than in the underground fighting pits of my own Jeolhae Fifth Branch?"
Across from Paeng Ha-jin sat a red-haired man with a long bamboo pipe clenched in his teeth, puffing lazily. He murmured in a languid voice,
"Anyway—aside from Ha Hu-gang of the Yukrim First Branch, who's gone dark, that makes all of us, including me, Jeon Pung-gae. First full gathering of the Cheongma Oryun in a long while. Right, Paeng Ha-jin?"
Paeng Ha-jin nodded.
Cheongma Oryun.
The men who ran the greatest pleasure district in all of Shaanxi, each master of his own domain, looked one another over once more.
"First time we've all been in one place since we put So Cheonpa up as our representative. Three years."
As the lamps lighting the cellar flickered, four shadows wavered against the walls.
Ha Hu-gang of Yukrim, the First Branch.
Jeon Pung-gae of Sanggye, the Second Branch.
Chu Yeo-ryong of Ssangmun, the Third Branch.
Muk Se-hwi of Banwol, the Fourth Branch.
Paeng Ha-jin of Jeolhae, the Fifth Branch.
Ha Hu-gang of the Yukrim First Branch had run the largest brothel complex in all of Unwol Jiju. Jeon Pung-gae of the Sanggye Second Branch held absolute control over lodging and inns. Chu Yeo-ryong of the Ssangmun Third Branch managed the supply of courtesans and the rights to the red-light trade. Muk Se-hwi of the Banwol Fourth Branch handled opium and moonshine, and collected protection money from the common folk in Unwol Jiju's territory. And last, Paeng Ha-jin of the Jeolhae Fifth Branch operated the private gambling dens and underground fighting arenas.
Under their rule, vast rivers of gold flowed through Unwol Jiju every single night.
And last night, the Yukrim First Branch—not even on the outer fringe, but buried in the deepest heart of Unwol Jiju—had been annihilated overnight.
"Paeng Ha-jin. Bring in that witness you said you secured. We all need to know what happened before we can even start talking about a response."
Jeon Pung-gae adjusted his pipe and waved a hand. Paeng Ha-jin stroked the cross-shaped scar on his face and nodded. He pulled the rope hanging from the ceiling.
A bell rang, and the iron door opened.
"Oof—!"
A man came tumbling in as if he'd been shoved hard in the back. He hit the floor, looked up at the underworld bosses ringing him with murderous eyes in the pitch-black cellar, and his face went deathly pale.
"Spare me, please! I swear—all I did was go to the brothel as a customer that day!"
Paeng Ha-jin drummed his fingers on the wooden table.
"You said you were there from start to finish when the Yukrim First Branch got smashed. Tell us the truth. Do that, and I'll let you live."
The man dropped to his knees, trembling.
"Is that true?"
"Damn right it's true."
Chu Yeo-ryong and the rest of the Cheongma Oryun pressed the kneeling witness one after another.
"Every last First Branch thug dead or half-crippled, and Ha Hu-gang himself with his skull blown open on the spot—how many people hit them for Ha Hu-gang and his whole crew to get wiped out without even putting up a fight?"
"Someone from another district crossing the line?"
"I heard rumors the Hebei underworld had their eyes on Shaanxi."
The man spoke in a shaking voice.
"I-it wasn't a large group."
The Cheongma Oryun stirred.
"Then what?"
"It was one man."
"What? What kind of bullshit is that?"
Every face in the room twisted. Chu Yeo-ryong bit down hard on his lip.
"Hey. Talk straight. Make it make sense. The First Branch keeps more than fifty hard bastards on permanent watch—guys who've clawed their way up from the bottom. And you're saying some lunatic smashed the whole place alone? They even had at least three guys who could use sword qi, bought in at a premium. Or are you trying to tell us some peerless master of the jianghu personally dropped into this shithole and took them all by himself?"
"But it's the truth. I saw it with my own eyes. Clear as day. A-and—"
The man shook like a leaf as he forced the words out.
"That man was… different. The way he tore through everyone—there was nothing of the usual murim fighter about him. He was closer to a demon than a man. It didn't look like martial arts so much as a rakshasa thrashing its limbs at anything that moved."
"…"
The Cheongma Oryun exchanged looks of pure disbelief. Only Paeng Ha-jin, who seemed to have heard something already, smacked his lips and pressed a hand to his forehead.
"Shit. Looks like that rumor might actually be true."
"What rumor?"
Paeng Ha-jin rubbed the back of his neck.
"The incident at that reconciliation banquet between the Jegal Clan and the Hwangbo Clan that So Cheonpa pushed through on his own before he disappeared… You all heard about it, right?"
"What about it?"
"There was a story that some assassin from the Blood Death Sect in a dark crimson mask crashed the sparring exhibition they were holding for entertainment."
"The one who dropped So Jeongmun and Lee Eultak in a single blow?"
Paeng Ha-jin nodded.
"And by pure coincidence, a few days after that, rumors started circulating that a man in a dark crimson mask was tearing through Unwol Jiju like he was hunting for something."
"Ah—that's right! That man was wearing a dark crimson mask over his lower face too!"
The witness blurted it out as if Paeng Ha-jin's words had jarred the memory loose.
"That's when the bloodbath just… started. I was only there to drink and mess around with the girls, but… even then, that man just suddenly—"
Beneath the swaying oil lamp, in the damp underground chamber, the sole witness from the Yukrim First Branch began to speak.
—BOOM!!
With a detonation like an explosion, the massive oak doors blew apart. One of the giant brutes guarding the entrance to the underground collapsed in a heap of blood and pulp.
—Thud.
I flicked the blood from the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap and stepped into the cellar.
"Guh—!"
Another bald giant came thrashing along, hauled by the scruff of the neck. A stone planter stood nearby. The big man's eyes went wide and he screamed in panic.
"N-no! I told you everything you asked—this is the Yukrim First Branch, I swea—!"
—CRACK!
I smashed him through the planter, shattering it to pieces. He lay buried in the shards, limbs twitching.
I lifted my head. Noise like that should have drawn every eye in the place.
I was wrong.
—…… …….
A riot of instruments and human noise filled the dark so completely it felt ready to burst my eardrums. The vast underground ceiling was packed with red lanterns that painted every face crimson. Night-luminous pearls set along the corridors banished even the faintest shadow.
On every side hung half-transparent bamboo screens; in the partitioned rooms beyond, men and women clustered in threes and fives, lost in sprawling drinking parties.
—Sniff.
Through the mask I caught a faint pink-tinged scent. It was sticky and sweet, and simply breathing it in felt like watching your soul rot.
Opium…?
Crossing that threshold had been like stepping out of one world and into another—a world drowning in pink haze and red light. Despite the thunderous entrance I'd made, not a single person so much as glanced my way. They eyed one another with gazes that could no longer tell reality from hallucination, stuffing food and wine into their mouths without pause. They swayed their limbs in time with the music, dancing.
…
I narrowed my eyes and descended the stairs one step at a time, advancing down the red-carpeted corridor that ran through the heart of the countless bamboo-screened rooms.
A courtesan coming the other way with a tray piled high with food spotted me.
"Ah, I'm so sorry. We've had so many guests today I didn't even notice anyone new coming in. Which girl were you looking f— Ah."
She saw the shattered entrance doors behind me, and the blood-soaked man. The tray slipped from her hands.
—Clatter.
"Ah— Aaaah!"
Even the crash of the falling tray was swallowed by the decadent roar filling every corner of the place. The courtesan scrambled backward and vanished somewhere down the hall.
I started walking slowly toward the far end of the corridor where she had disappeared.
"Hey! You bastard—what the hell do you think you're doing, knocking over food headed for our table?!"
A man shoved aside a bamboo screen, tugging at his disheveled clothes, and staggered toward me from a corner booth.
"I paid good money today and this is how you treat your gu— Ghk!"
I seized him by the hair and drove my knee into his face. His nose caved in, his front teeth shattered, and he crumpled as if he'd been knocked cold.
"What's going on?!"
From the far end of the corridor, burly underworld thugs in black clothes came charging. Behind them, the courtesan who had first spotted me was screaming and frantically ringing a small handbell.
"Which son of a bitch dares—!"
"Why's the summons bell ringing… Shit! What the—why is the door smashed in?"
Behind me, too, underworld men poured in like a black tide. They saw the guest sprawled at my feet with blood pouring from his nose and their eyes rolled white with rage.
"Where does this lunatic think he is, daring to—!"
I looked up at the ceiling. The red lanterns swayed. I checked the width of the corridor on either side—narrow enough that if I stretched both arms out, my fingertips would nearly touch the walls. Even the Baekryeon-pal-ya-jong, said to transcend the limits of space, would be hard-pressed to unleash its full power in a physical gap this tight.
Which meant only one thing.
"Not some regulated sparring match—a pure street brawl. Exactly what I wanted."
—Flutter.
I muttered it under my breath as I shrugged off the dog-skin cloak from my shoulders and let it drop to the floor.
"Before we start, let me say this. They say if you endure three times, you can avoid murder… but I plan to apply that a little differently."
"Wh-what the hell is wrong with that guy's body?"
With the dog-skin cloak gone, the shape of my body showed through the thin martial robes—a beast forged by hellish training.
I raised the hand wrapped in the Chiljong-heukjusa-gap and held up three fingers.
"I start counting from three. Anyone who doesn't want to fight drops to their knees right now, hands high, points to wherever your branch head is, and smashes their forehead into the floor. That one lives. For reference—I'm a lunatic. Once a fight starts, I don't know restraint."
"…!"
The underworld men murmured among themselves.
"Is he insane? Look how many of us there are, and he walks in alone."
"Wait—that face looks familiar somehow."
A few of them stirred.
"That dark crimson mask… definitely…"
The murmuring spread through the whole crowd.
"That's the bastard who wrecked Captain So Jeongmun back then."
"Isn't that the crazy Blood Death Sect assassin? What's a killer doing here—!"
They recognized me. In the eyes of the ones who seemed to have been at that scene, fear was already taking root.
I frowned and lifted my fingers.
"Counting starts now. Three-two-one. Done. Over."
My three stiffly extended fingers snapped shut in a blur.
"…What?!"
A few who had been about to drop to their knees flinched and shouted.
"You crazy bastard—if you fold them that fast—!"
"I never planned on letting anyone go in the first place."
Out of the corner of my eye I caught children who couldn't have been ten years old, shackles on their ankles, serving drinks.
"Yeah. No intention of letting a single one of you walk, you animals who threw away every scrap of humanity. You really—"
I sniffed the air.
"Not just human trafficking. Every filthy crime under the sun. Even the Green Forest bandits would cry if they had to stand next to you."
—Crack.
I flexed both hands until the joints popped.
"This arrogant little shit—look at him, look at him. Does he even know how many of us there are—!"
Bloodshot rage flooded the underworld men's eyes. Blue-edged real swords began sliding free of their scabbards. From both ends of the corridor, blades leveled, they closed in.
I clenched my fists.
"There was a saying I hated more than any other in the jianghu: Might makes right. Power is the only law."
I tightened my core; my spine aligned with a series of sharp cracks.
"But today… I kind of like the sound of it."
I glanced left and right. On the table beside me sat a pair of wooden chopsticks. I closed my hand around them and whispered, low,
"Every last one of you. Come on in."