Jackals at the Funeral
Incense smoke curled upward.
Three days had passed since I entered the main residence of the Moyong Family.
The family head’s return had been sudden and unannounced—and so had his death.
After years missing, he had come home covered in grievous wounds and died without leaving a single word behind.
Every event the Moyong Family had planned was canceled. The funeral itself was rushed through at breakneck speed.
Everyone wept and wailed. They offered silent bows before the coffin buried under flowers.
There is an old saying that when a high official’s dog dies, the gates overflow with visitors—but when the high official himself dies, no one comes. This time was different.
—Murmur, murmur.
The vast garden of the Moyong Family Residence was packed to bursting. Envoys from every corner of the murim had gathered. Each one bowed before the coffin and offered formal condolences. Beneath every lowered head, eyes glittered sharp and calculating.
They watched one another’s camps, already measuring how to move in this new situation. They looked exactly like black ants swarming from every direction toward a honey cake dropped on the ground.
“Not ants—jackals. Don’t they look just like jackals, little brother?”
At Moyong Ryu’s words I opened the third-floor window and looked down. The Moyong Family’s main house was enormous, yet the crowd filled every inch of it and still spilled over, a living sea of people surging below.
“Looking down on those bastards from up here—what do you think?”
“Hard to say. As you know, this is my first time setting foot in the main house…”
“They’re all here to tear us apart and eat us. You get that?”
—Ptooey.
Moyong Ryu spat.
“Does a single one of them actually wonder where the family head crawled off to die? You saw the elders’ faces earlier, right? Nobody gives a damn who killed him or how. Officially they’ll rage and swear to hunt the culprit down, but everyone’s already moved on. There’s only one thing anyone cares about now: who becomes the next family head, and whose coattails they need to ride to survive.”
“…Someone might hear you.”
Moyong Ryu was far more worked up than usual.
“Fuck it, let them hear. That family-head bastard left our mother to rot when she was dying and ran around with his whores. What good is leading a great family if you can’t even protect one woman of your own, that son of a bitch?”
“…I…”
Hearing it from someone else’s mouth twisted something inside me. It was my own story, spoken aloud by another.
A snow-covered white plain. For a single heartbeat the hellish landscape flashed through my mind.
“Hyung-nim, whenever I thought about the family head—about Father—I always wondered what I should say first. From when I was little until now.”
Moyong Ryu looked at me. I stayed perched on the windowsill and continued.
“Why did you vanish without a single word? Why didn’t you come see Mother even once? She waited for you until the day she died… I really wanted to know what face he’d make if I said that. But now I’ll never get the chance.”
“Bi.”
“I wanted to tear him apart a hundred times over. And at the same time I thought, he’s still my father. But seeing him lying there without a word… and seeing the main house already fighting over the leftovers with zero interest in why he died…”
I wet my dry lips.
“It just feels empty.”
“….”
Moyong Ryu walked over and clapped my shoulder.
“Honestly, this damn little brother of mine thinks way too deep. I hate the old man too, but there’s one thing I’m grateful to him for.”
“What?”
He grinned.
“A suspicious bastard like you—who’d slap even the old elders—ended up calling me hyung. Sure, I’m handsome enough to make men fall for me, but the real reason is the matching scars he left on both our hearts.”
“…There’s one part in the middle I completely refuse to accept.”
—Snort.
I laughed without meaning to.
“You’re not wrong, though.”
“Huh? Look at this punk smirking. Hey, admit it—I’m better-looking than you. Come on.”
“Speak properly. Honestly, I’m better.”
“What? You gonna put that teacup down or what? You know what Jin Muje calls you?”
“Anger-management issues? Mad dog? Idiot?”
Moyong Ryu slapped his knee and roared with laughter.
“Puhaha! I thought he only said that to me, but he said it to your face too! That damn thug of a Taoist!”
“I ran into him the day we returned to Cheonsubaekryeonsa after the trial. He showed up while I was eating.”
Moyong Ryu’s eyebrows twitched.
“That thug Taoist came looking for you first?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmph. That guy’s never quite like a proper orthodox martial artist, yet somehow more orthodox than anyone. I nearly died of shock when I heard about the Hwangbo Family incident later.”
“The Hwangbo Family? You mean those bastards we tangled with last time? What does Jin Muje have to do with them?”
Moyong Ryu flinched and waved both hands frantically.
“Ah, nothing! Forget I said anything! Jin Muje will kill me!”
“…?”
“Anyway! This isn’t the time to sit around. Getting out of Cheonsubaekryeonsa legally is basically impossible, so we might as well do this one thing right while we’re here. Drinks are on me.”
He made a drinking gesture with an empty hand and winked. That raccoon-like face of his somehow disarmed me completely.
“If water’s fine, I’ll keep you company.”
“You can’t drink? Why? Did you take some internal injury during the trial?”
“No, I just don’t feel like putting anything but clean water in my mouth for a while… and honestly, hyung-nim, you know as well as I do—getting drunk in the main house feels a little too dangerous.”
“Mm.”
Moyong Ryu scratched the back of his head.
“I get it. But while we’re here, don’t worry too much. Even if the other brothers try something crazy…”
He thumped his own chest.
“You’ve got me. Trust this damn hyung of yours. I might look unreliable and sloppy, but when it counts, I deliver.”
A beat later he added,
“I really do deliver when it counts.”
“Alright, alright. Our… what was it.”
I clumsily copied his way of speaking.
“I’ll trust our damn hyung. That good enough?”
“Heheh, perfect. Let’s go. The cooks in our main house are incredible. You’ve got the same taste as me, so you’ll love it.”
He clapped my shoulder and led the way down the stairs. Following him, I asked,
“So what exactly happened between Jin Muje and the Hwangbo Family?”
“Well… do you really need to know?”
Moyong Ryu scratched his cheek and looked at me. When he felt my unblinking stare he sighed.
“Haa… fine. What happened was…”
Three months earlier.
—Creeeak.
The inn door opened.
The place that had been wrecked in the brawl between the Hwangbo Family and Moyong Family factions had been repaired over time and was almost back to normal. Still, shards of glass on the floor and holes in the walls remained as scattered reminders of that day.
It was lunchtime. The inn was nearly empty.
—Step. Step. Step.
The waiter sweeping broken bottle pieces looked up blankly at the approaching man.
Pale skin, a jawline sharp enough to cut, striking features. Jet-black hair that contrasted perfectly with the black martial robes that reached his ankles.
In all his time working here the waiter had never seen a man who looked so sharp and intellectual.
“I’m looking for two people. They should be somewhere around here.”
Every word carried a chill.
“P-people?”
“Yes.”
The man stroked his knife-carved jawline and murmured,
“One looks like a sly raccoon. The other is a dull-looking bastard who turns into a mad dog the second things go sideways—basically a mutt. Not enough clues? Ah, right. They’re brothers from the same family. They don’t get along.”
“…What?”
The waiter echoed stupidly. How was anyone supposed to find people from that description? Some good-looking guy walking in at midday spouting nonsense.
He opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again.
Black martial robes that reached the ankles. A golden sash cinched at the waist. Glimpses of black-iron bracelets under the sleeves.
Wudang Sect?
Those were Wudang robes. If the man belonged to one of the Nine Sects and One Gang, you watched your tongue. The prestige of the Nine Sects in the jianghu rivaled that of the Five Great Families.
“Um, guest, to find someone I’d need more detailed clues—”
—Bang!
“Hahaha! So those bastards all got locked up in the stone prison! Serves the Moyong Family vermin right!”
“Hey, waiter! Bring every bottle you’ve got! We’re drinking it all today! Ahh, feels great—like a thorn’s been pulled from my eye!”
A noisy group of men swaggered in.
“Y-yes, right away!”
Startled by their energy, the waiter excused himself from the Taoist and hurried over to take their order. The men drank the liquor he brought and raised their voices.
“Kehehe, hyung-nim, you hear? Those bastards are already facing the maximum sentence—hanging from the ceiling all day, can’t even sleep!”
A bald man with a bandage around his head roared with laughter.
“Those dog bastards. Especially the younger one—typical concubine’s son, no manners. Who hits someone in the back of the head with a chair? Weak fists too!”
“Watching the two of them get stomped under the young master’s feet was so satisfying. Did you see the Moyong Family underlings begging them to stop while they got beaten?”
“I saw, I saw! Hahaha! Now both those Moyong Family brats will get dumped into Chunmu Hall. Let’s toast to kicking those annoying Moyong bastards out!”
The bald man ladled liquor straight from the jar into a bowl and drank.
“Gulp… Anyway… their group master was some old unorthodox bastard, so it makes sense… gulp gulp… hard to gather that many useless idiots in one group, from master down to the lowest dogs…”
“….”
—Step.
After finishing the order, the waiter was sorting the ledger at the counter when he tensed at the approach of the Wudang Taoist.
“If you could tell me again who you’re looking for, I’ll try—”
“How much?”
“Pardon?”
The man repeated,
“How much.”
The waiter’s pupils shook.
“G-guest, you haven’t ordered anything…”
“I mean,”
The man turned and counted. Long white fingers pointed slowly through the air—five tables, twelve chairs, three paintings of the Four Gentlemen covering holes in the wall.
“Five tables, twelve chairs, three Four Gentlemen paintings. Like that.”
“…What?”
“And one more.”
The Wudang Taoist picked up the flour-dough club lying on the counter and reversed his grip.
“This too. Total?”
A chill ran down the waiter’s spine.
“Um, guest, just a moment—!”
—Clink.
A heavy pouch of coins landed on the counter with a solid thud.
“My name is Jin Muje. If that isn’t enough, put it on the Wudang Sect’s tab.”
The young Wudang man, Jin Muje, walked toward the group.
“You lot.”
Jin Muje spoke. The noisy Hwangbo Family men focused on him.
“Say what you just said again.”
“What…?”
“Those Moyong Family… bastards… what did you do to them?”
The Hwangbo men looked at one another. Then—
“Puhaha!”
They clutched their stomachs and howled with laughter.
“What, trying to set the mood? You friends with those vermin or something?”
“No. Not even as empty flattery.”
Jin Muje shook his head.
“I’ll be honest. I hate those bastards too. But we’re in the same group, so I figured I’d check how they were doing after the promotion exam. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find them—turns out they got one-sidedly beaten by some rootless thugs at an inn and thrown in prison…?”
“Hey, mister. So you got a problem with that?”
The bald man snorted.
Jin Muje stayed silent a moment, then said quietly,
“Did they get hit a lot?”
“They probably won’t be chewing meat for a while. So stop changing the subject. You pissed off or what?”
“No. I feel good. Satisfying, even.”
“Then what? What are you trying to do?”
“At first I felt good… but the more I think about it…”
Jin Muje let out a short breath and rolled his wrists.
“It starts to feel really unpleasant.”
“What?”
Jin Muje stroked his chin and muttered in a slow, almost whispering voice,
“…So this is how my martial uncle felt when he beat me. Family is something only I get to beat… Only I can hit them. Only I am allowed to.”
“What kind of quack Taoist bastard is this? You their daddy or something? You come here to breastfeed them?!”
—Slow turn.
Jin Muje nodded, turned around, and walked out. He stood at the exit, gripped the door handle—
—Clack.
Dropped the bar. Locked the door.
—Crack.
Rolled his neck.
“My sect considers restraint of emotion a virtue, so I’m not particularly skilled at expressing feelings with words. I can’t do it as flashily as a certain mad dog, a certain mutt in our group…”
—Whoosh.
He shrugged off the long black Wudang robes that had covered him from shoulder to ankle and hung them on a nearby chair. The sleeveless undergarment left his arms bare—arms covered in thousands of blade scars and packed with dense, explosive muscle.
Gulp.
The Hwangbo underlings swallowed dryly.
“Still, I’ll try my best to express my current feelings as plainly as possible.”
—Whir.
Jin Muje’s fingers sank into the dough club in his hand.
“Clench your teeth, you sons of bitches.”