Fighting Dog Tang Do-gyeong -1
The moment Yeo Il-ye and Black Cat confirmed the face of the man dressed in Tang Clan martial attire, both of them scowled.
Until they actually looked at him, they had assumed some clueless brat was butting in where he didn't belong.
In Sichuan, the Tang Clan reigned like royalty, and the family had more than its share of arrogant young masters. Their unprecedented achievement of wiping out the unorthodox sects had earned them the adoration of the entire province, and with power that vast, more than a few of them couldn't keep their noses from pointing at the sky.
But this man was no mere brat.
Tang Do-gyeong.
A direct descendant of the Tang Clan and one of its rising stars. Even accounting for the bloodline of a great family, his martial skill was exceptional, and his face was the kind people found easy to like.
The reason both women grimaced the instant they recognized him, however, had everything to do with his temperament.
So he was here.
Tang Do-gyeong was putting on a show of chivalrous magnanimity, clapping at his leisure and steering the mood of the crowd — but his eyes never left Black Cat for a second.
As a scion of a great clan, he had seen straight through the Shadow Image Qi Gong wrapping her body.
Black Cat possessed a figure of peerless beauty that anyone would acknowledge even without seeing her face. What burned in Tang Do-gyeong's eyes, though, was not lust.
It was pure fighting spirit.
Fighting Dog Tang Do-gyeong.
"Young ladies as lovely as a single blossom — your peerless skill has stirred this Tang's heart."
It was the kind of line a foppish young master might toss out while making a pass, yet both women felt as though they had just been handed a formal challenge to a duel.
I want to fight!
That was what Tang Do-gyeong's entire body was screaming, and he had shoved his way into their confrontation for exactly that reason.
Black Cat and Yeo Il-ye both felt a headache bloom in an instant. Yeo Il-ye, who lost her mind at the mere sight of a Nangin, still came from one of the Nine Great Sects, and after a careful polishing of her reputation she had earned a respectable title — the Red Bamboo Sword Hero. But Tang Do-gyeong of the Tang Clan, a house that in Sichuan commanded even greater prestige than the Nine Great Sects themselves, went by the moniker Fighting Dog.
A man so sincerely devoted to combat that every soul in Sichuan had given up trying to dress it up with a better name.
A man so mad for fighting that he would break up someone else's brawl just so he could throw himself into it.
That was Tang Do-gyeong.
So that's why they rushed me straight to the clan head.
Yeo Il-ye had been escorted from the main gate directly to the audience hall of the family head, and she had taken the message as something along the lines of we're past the point of standing on ceremony with each other. Looking at the present situation, though, it seemed far more likely that someone inside Hwanggeumga had scrambled to keep her and Tang Do-gyeong from crossing paths.
If the two of them started a fight inside the Golden Family's estate, Hwanggeumga would become the clan that couldn't even manage two of its own guests.
"I have long admired Young Hero Yeo Il-ye of the Ten Rising Heroes."
"...Is that so."
"It is! That boldness of yours — holding fast to your convictions without a care for the eyes of others! I have always hoped that one day we might share a conversation, and exchange martial arts as well!"
Being praised as a lunatic by an actual lunatic made Yeo Il-ye's eyebrows twitch.
Endure it. Benefactor is here. If I draw my blade in this place and hand that mad dog a pretext, there's no telling what will happen.
"Young Hero Yeo Il-ye's martial renown resounds across all of Sichuan, and my admiration for her has only grown by the day — yet to meet her so coincidentally like this, the Heavenly Emperor himself must have bound our fates together!"
Yeo Il-ye understood. So did Black Cat, who was listening, and so did Ho Cheon-an.
This bastard cooked up some excuse at the main house and came all the way to Sichuan Province just to meet Yeo Il-ye.
"And yet..."
Black Cat took a step back from the feverish gleam in Tang Do-gyeong's eyes.
"To think that such a charming Nangin lady stands as Young Hero Yeo Il-ye's equal in skill. Today this Tang has clearly been guided by the gods themselves."
For the first time in her life, Black Cat discovered that a pickup line she had heard a thousand times could actually be terrifying. He was probably trying to smother the fighting spirit raging inside him — a thing that could only be called madness — by wrapping it in that greasy, honeyed tone.
But his eyes blazed like a furnace, and battle-lust poured off his entire body in waves. Changing his manner of speech was never going to fix that.
"Haha."
Ho Cheon-an laughed as he watched the whole mess unfold. Honestly, nothing ever went right whenever Yeo Il-ye got involved. The first time they met, she nearly died and ran for her life. The second time, she stormed into the Wanderer Inn and helped manufacture that whole "walking bag of enlightenment" image for him.
And now she had stepped in meaning to help — only for Fighting Dog Tang Do-gyeong to come bursting out of nowhere.
Get tangled up with her one more time and a Sword Venerable will probably drop out of the sky.
Grumbling to himself, Ho Cheon-an decided he would have to rethink his plan of using Yeo Il-ye as a wild card.
First, though, he had to do something about the situation in front of him.
This is way too much.
The whole thing had started as a way to rough up Go Bu-rin of the Golden Family and put the middleman in his place. A day or two of noise in front of Hwanggeumga was nothing, really. Anyone working at the Wanderer Inn would understand exactly what a Nangin causing a scene at the Golden Family's gates meant.
But to the crowd that knew nothing of the connection between Go Bu-rin and Ho Cheon-an, there was no way of knowing why a Sichuan Nangin's magic performance had been staged in front of Hwanggeumga of all places.
All that would circulate were rumors of how astonishing and mysterious the illusions had been — the work of a Nangin who channeled the power of a ghost called Jeon-gwi.
Until Ho Cheon-an wrote something on the empty banner hanging from the magic cart, Hwanggeumga's face would take no real damage. At worst, they would feel a mild irritation watching people gather and a Nangin make noise at their front gate.
But if three Super-Peak Realm martial artists started a brawl in front of Hwanggeumga because of a Nangin's magic show?
That would shatter the Golden Family's dignity completely. And if it actually came to that, would Hwanggeumga be able to hold Tang Do-gyeong of the Tang Clan and Yeo Il-ye of the Diancang Sect properly accountable? Almost certainly not — which meant they would grit their teeth and try to devour only Ho Cheon-an and Black Cat, the ones who had started it all. He could already see it.
Imagining himself as a public enemy of the Murim, racing down mountain paths, Ho Cheon-an let out a hollow laugh. How had a plan that was supposed to be nothing more than a magic performance ended up like this? The memory of snickering while he drew up the promotional flyers already felt like a distant past.
Ho Cheon-an let out a long breath.
Black Cat and Yeo Il-ye had each moved according to their own calculations and logic, but the situation had become what it was, and Ho Cheon-an felt a crushing sense of helplessness looking at it.
From where he stood, things were already a tangled mess. Yeo Il-ye's appearance had been unexpected. Black Cat needling her had been unexpected too. And who could have predicted that Tang Do-gyeong would show up while those two were about to fight?
Wasn't I supposed to be the guy with the luck trait?
Grumbling, Ho Cheon-an fretted at the Golpae in his hand.
Tang Do-gyeong was not a man anyone in Sichuan could rein in. Hell, even if the Tang Clan head himself came charging out, he wouldn't be able to stop a Tang Do-gyeong with his blood up.
Black Cat and Yeo Il-ye couldn't settle this. That left Ho Cheon-an no choice but to step in.
"You lot have gone too far, carrying on like this while people are watching."
Shwaeaeaeek!
Three Golpae tiles, carrying the principles of Ho Cheon-an's hidden weapon technique — the Wood-Stone Throwing Technique — shot toward Tang Do-gyeong.
"Hm?"
Even with his fighting spirit blazing toward the two women, Tang Do-gyeong was a man whose martial skill matched his obsession with combat. He casually caught the Golpae Ho Cheon-an had thrown, pinching them between his fingers.
The tip of the tile in his hand had another Golpae driven into it, and behind that one, yet another.
Proof that three tiles thrown as hidden weapons had been concentrated on a single precise point.
"Ho."
Ho Cheon-an was merely Second-rate, and the Wood-Stone Throwing Technique was less a proper hidden weapon art than a crude stone-hurling method for flinging rocks off the ground. Even so, despite the rough technique and his insufficient internal energy, Ho Cheon-an's hand skill was enough to draw Tang Do-gyeong's attention with a genuine display of hidden weapon work.
"This place exists to proclaim the greatness of Lord Jeon-gwi's power, he who hails from the Vast Ocean Hell. It is no place for the likes of martial artists to raise a ruckus."
"Your sleight of hand with hidden weapons is decent enough, but this is no place for a mere swindler to stick his nose in. Get lost."
"Hahahahaha. A swindle. A swindle, he says. No matter how many times one tries to open their eyes, the foolish masses never cease to be."
It was a laugh that should have grated, but Tang Do-gyeong had no attention to spare for Ho Cheon-an.
His gaze had already swung back to Yeo Il-ye and Black Cat. Being a man of the Tang Clan, he had been briefly interested when Ho Cheon-an demonstrated a hidden weapon technique. But the technique itself was low-grade, and the internal energy behind it was lacking.
The only thing of any real use was the hand skill. A hidden weapon throw of that level was something even the younger descendants of the direct line could manage without trouble.
He had drawn a moment's notice by showing off the technique, but once it was clear he was nothing special, Ho Cheon-an held no interest for Tang Do-gyeong whatsoever.
"Well, I suppose eyes like yours could never hope to take in Lord Jeon-gwi's power — the power that warps the very principles of all creation."
"...What did you just say?"
That is, until Ho Cheon-an threw down the gauntlet.