Blood Under the Red Lanterns
Darkness was settling over the sky.
The downpour was easing off.
People who had briefly vanished to escape the rain began pouring back out onto the streets. The occasional stray drop still fell, a quiet warning that the storm could resume at any moment, but no one paid it the slightest mind.
Even while the rain had fallen, the main avenue had been packed. Once it stopped, the crowds spilled out in even greater force. Shoulders knocked against shoulders. The throng grew so dense it became hard to draw a full breath.
Second-story windows opened one after another. Children with tiny hands leaned out, giggling, and tugged silk threads that ran from house to house across the avenue. Red lanterns hung along those threads swayed and drifted, stretching their light across the street. Beneath the rain-soaked clouds, crimson began to paint the damp avenue. Along the wet stone pavement, the shadows of a thousand people started to dance.
Someone struck up festive music. Melodies spilled into the air. Voices of hagglers and snack-buyers tangled together. A child’s crying as he begged for treats mixed with a woman’s soft coaxing. Lids of noodle shops lifted, white steam billowing thick. The briny smell of cooking water tickled the nose. A shop boy blew into the stove until spicy smoke made tears prick his eyes. Beside him, sugar-glazed roasted apples lined a stall, gleaming like mirrors under the red light; my face warped and shrank as I passed them.
Splash. Water sprayed across the stone. Buried in the crowd, my vision was blocked right up to my nose.
“Wh-what?”
A drunk man staggered into my back where I had stopped in the middle of the throng, then glanced sideways and moved on.
The hem of my black martial uniform brushed the gleaming wet stone near my heels. Night wind stirred. My eyes began to glow a faint, soft red in the lantern light.
I cracked my neck. Rolled my wrists. Clenched and unclenched my fists. The two short daggers and iron skewers at my waist clashed with a metallic ring.
“Two from behind, one from the front. One on the left roof. And at ten jang distance, another one, two, three… Six in total so far!”
Mumyeong rattled it off at speed.
I drew in the bloody scent of rain and regulated my breathing amid the noisy press of bodies. I was ready. Even if Muyeong-sintu had helped by sending me to the village nearest Cheonsubaekryeonsa, a crisis that could be offset so easily would never have triggered a prophecy of my death in the first place. Always assume the worst. That was the rule I had forged by surviving this long.
“Oh my, I’m so sorry. Dear, tell the young man you’re sorry for bumping into him.”
“Sorry, mister.”
A child clutching candy and his mother brushed my shoulder, apologized, and moved on. I whispered into the white breath of the night air.
“Odds I was wrong?”
“Zero. From what I’ve confirmed so far, six… no, seven. The moment the Host stepped onto the main avenue they started closing in straight ahead.”
I nodded and began walking forward, parting the crowd, checking the terrain as I went. Left turn. Forward again. I had memorized the map of Gwando thousands of times; even with my eyes closed it lay clear before me as if I had lived here for years. Four gates led out of the city—one for each cardinal direction. If I was going to leave while still hidden in the throng, and if I wanted the fastest route to the outermost border zone of Cheonsubaekryeonsa, I had to take the southern gate.
Imperial soldiers in uniform walked the streets at regular intervals, spears gripped like walking sticks, two by two, keeping order.
Well water does not interfere with river water.
The imperial yamen and the martial world respected each other’s domains and did not trespass. Under that rule, no faction of the righteous, demonic, or blood paths ever openly unleashed force where government troops were stationed. The soldiers themselves preferred to look the other way; but if that unspoken line was crossed, they would accept heavy losses to carry out a full purge. So the court and the jianghu had kept a delicate balance for hundreds of years, unbroken. Any sane person who walked the proper path observed it.
And yet—
“They’re not stopping. So that’s how they want to play it.”
Mumyeong’s warning made everything certain. Tonight, no one here recognized any limits.
I turned into a side alley. People filled every direction. My head stayed forward while my left eye swept left, my right eye swept right, then both lifted to the roofs of the impossibly tall buildings. Laundry left out in the sudden rain still hung dripping from lines.
Drop. Drop…
One droplet fell. Then two.
From a high wooden platform at the side of the alley a courtesan played a pump organ and sang in a clear, lovely voice: “Age of peace, age of peace—everyone happy, for such days the sages of old labored…” Everyone beamed and kept calling her beautiful.
Far overhead fireworks burst. Multicolored light washed the world. The density of the advancing crowd thickened. Everything slowed. The organ notes quickened. The courtesan’s voice climbed into a high register. Applause rose.
Fireworks flared. Wind stirred. Every noise seemed to bury itself—
And from the darkness at my side a black-masked assassin lunged, short blade thrusting for my ribs.
I seized the blue-edged short sword bare-handed as it drove into my side.
“Hk—!”
The assassin’s black eyes flew wide with shock. Fireworks exploding in the night sky reflected in his pupils. Red blood welled along my palm where I gripped the qi-coated blade and ran down my fingers. Glances flashed between us in the silence. Right beside us people chatted on, noticing nothing.
“Whew, what a crowd.”
“Tell me about it.”
Two government soldiers passed by. I stretched out my callused free hand and clamped it over the assassin’s mouth.
“Mmff—!”
I shoved him straight back into the dark side alley. He lost his footing, stumbled. Water sprayed from the stones. Two shadows were swallowed by the gloom of the back lane.
“Huh?”
A child licking tanghulu behind us watched for a moment, then turned back to the organ music.
I slammed the assassin into the stone wall of the narrow, damp alley where our breaths almost touched. Palm still sealing his mouth, I crushed the short sword in my grip. It crumpled like paper and clattered to the ground. His eyes blazed. The instant a second short blade left his hand, aimed at my heart and shoulder, I struck his Adam’s apple with the hand that had covered his mouth, wrenched his jaw, and slapped the blade aside with my palm. The qi-edged steel stabbed the wall beside my thigh. My elbow shattered his arm, then hammered the side of his neck.
“Ghk—!”
His voice box crushed, he could not even scream properly. I yanked the short blade free from the wall beside my thigh. It spun once in my wet hand and reversed grip, then flashed four times—straight into the assassin’s chest.
Thud. Thud-thud-thud.
“Ghk! Gah! Kuh—!”
His black eyes trembled and went still. He slid down onto the trash-strewn floor. I searched his clothes, found the mark of the Surayeomrang Squad, and crushed it to powder. I tossed the short blade down beside the dead man whose tongue lolled, then stepped back out of the alley.
Organ notes and fireworks still filled the street. People kept cheering. The child with the tanghulu looked at me again. I gave him a small nod and rejoined the flow of the crowd.
A wine seller passing beside me dropped several bottles. My steps halted. The man in the conical hat hurriedly gathered them back into his basket, glancing at me with an apologetic face.
“Oh dear, sorry about that. So many people, you know—!”
A dagger flashed from the wine seller’s robes as he lunged as if to embrace me. I slipped past the iron skewer and drove my shoulder up into his torso, then bent low, drove forward, and stamped my heel onto his instep. The fake wine seller’s body jerked to a stop.
“…Hk!”
“For a wine seller, there’s not a single wine stain on your clothes.”
His eyes bulged. I closed the distance, locked my right arm around his waist, and drove the iron skewer in my left hand through eight vital points in a single continuous sequence—Tongcheon, Chonghoe, Gokcha, Gwangcho, Indang, Sugu, Cheonggung, Cheondol. Without a single word the man convulsed in my arms and died. I snatched one of the wine bottles from his belt, yanked the stopper with one hand, and poured the reeking liquor over him while I set the bottle in the air. Then I whipped the cloth from beneath his basket and stuffed it into his robes a beat later as the wine began to soak through. The bottle smashed on the ground with a loud crash.
“Hey! What’s going on over there?!”
A patrolling soldier glared and started toward me, spear leveled. Still cradling the slumped wine seller, I answered calmly.
“Ah, my friend got a little too excited about the festival. Forgot all about selling wine and just drank himself stupid. Ugh—the smell. He’s completely out of it after throwing up.”
Fireworks bloomed behind me, swallowing every shadow. The approaching soldier wrinkled his nose at the thick alcohol reek.
“…Damn drunks. Get him out of here. Don’t block the middle of the main road.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.”
I half-dragged the wine seller into the side alley. A group of chattering people passed behind us. This back lane saw more traffic than the first killing ground. I propped the body against the wall, tilted the conical hat to hide the paper-white face, doused him with more wine, and pressed an empty bottle into his hand. Nearby sat a small tub of food scraps from a restaurant; I scattered them beside the corpse so they looked like vomit. Then I walked on.
“Two on the left. One above. This time they’re coming in open pincer. They must have realized you’re no easy prey.”
‘Then…’
With the city gate beginning to show in the distance I stopped for a short breath, then walked forward again with the crowd. Another shadowed alley appeared. I slipped into it—narrow enough that my shoulders nearly brushed both walls, flooded with stagnant seepage, the ground unpaved stone.
I drove my toes into the wall and launched. The wall crumbled; after three bounding leaps I shot up onto the rooftops.
“Ah—damn it!”
I locked eyes with a man who had been scouting from the roof—almost certainly another assassin. His mouth opened to shout.
“Target’s noticed—!”
My index finger shot into his mouth, hooked his lower teeth, and yanked. His jaw dislocated. Before he could make another sound both my hands clamped his temples and twisted his head all the way around. At the same instant two black assassin shadows came from either side.
“You monster bastard!”
“This isn’t anything like what Lord Yeomrangwang told us!”
Swords left their scabbards and thrust for my throat and solar plexus. My body swayed like a dancing shadow and the blades missed. I seized both men by the collars and hauled them together with everything I had. Their faces smashed into each other and they died on the spot.
The roof shattered. An assassin erupted from below, swinging a long staff tipped with a hexagonal iron mace with all his strength. I shifted half a step; the shaft whistled past my eyes and I caught it. I lifted the entire man and slammed him down onto the roof, then stomped his chest as he tried to rise still gripping the staff. I raised the iron mace. He screamed.
“N-no—!”
I brought the mace down in a frenzy until he was pulp. Confirming he was dead, I lifted my head.
“One left ahead. He’s running. Stop him before he can report.”
I looked up. Far away an assassin was scrambling across the rooftops. I glanced around, then wrenched free the iron mace still planted like a stele in the corpse and the broken roof.
“Host, that is not a throwing spear.”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“That is a mace.”
“It’s fine.”
I drew it back. My dry lips moved.
When the great Dao collapses, righteousness and chivalry arise.
Every muscle in my body swelled as if about to burst. From ankles to calves, thighs, waist, and back, contraction and release built elastic power. Veins stood out across my skin. Faint black lightning began to rise from my flesh. Ahead, the fleeing assassin’s back zigzagged left and right across my vision. The fireworks in the sky were climbing toward their climax.
A single thick, brilliant streak of light—the brightest of the entire display—split the night sky. I clenched my teeth until they creaked. As black lightning condensed through my entire body and erupted, I hurled the iron mace with everything I had.
It was a single roar that tore the air apart. The fleeing assassin spun at the killing intent that lanced up from behind, saw the black flash streaking toward him, and his eyes flew wide.
“Th-this… this is impossib—!”
At the same instant a dazzling burst of light blanketed the heavens. Beneath that brilliant fireworks, the assassin’s silhouette, the iron mace driven clean through his chest, hung for a moment in midair before collapsing onto the roof.
“Mumyeong. Check the surroundings.”
“No more assassins… no.”
Mumyeong’s voice stayed calm.
“One last one remains.”
“One…?”
I raised my head. Far beyond the rooftops, right in front of the city gate packed with government soldiers, a single black figure stood waiting for me amid the crowd.
I dropped from the roof and walked to the gate. The figure never wavered, watching me through the dense throng. I stopped before him. He pulled back the hood he had pressed low over his eyes.
“Impressive. Far more than I expected. You’re not a martial artist—you’re a butcher pure and simple. Completely different from the stylish poseurs of today’s martial world.”
I frowned. The one waiting was a hunched old man, back bent, a full head shorter than me.
I opened my mouth.
“Who are you. Where’s Jeokmaryeong.”
Thunder rolled. The brief lull ended and the downpour began again in earnest.