Chapter 65
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 65
Chapter Title: Extras' Small Gathering
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“Didn’t you hear it straight from your father?”
Peng Ha-ran shot back in a voice laced with suspicion and irritation, her words interrupted twice today against her will.
“Probably keeping it from you young masters. It’s not something they’d want to tell kids, with the Demonic Cult on the verge of rising.”
“…Demonic Cult?”
He’d been ready to roam the Shaolin Temple all day just to hear anything about the Demonic Cult, and now it fell into his lap like this. Talk about lucky.
Jeggal Hee flashed the smug smile unique to those holding rare information, fanning herself lightly with her fan as she spoke.
“It’s come out that the Demonic Cult is involved in the recent spike of kidnappings in the Central Plains martial world.”
His eyebrows twitched at the unavoidable keyword.
“Hold on, kidnappings?”
“Yes. Around the same time, children about ten years old were kidnapped from several clans and sects. A few failed attempts revealed it wasn’t just disappearances but organized abductions.”
A few months back, his own kidnapping attempt came to mind. And how the adults clammed up when he asked about the culprits.
Sure enough, it was the Demonic Cult. Not just him—others had faced it too.
‘Why target not just orphans but kids from clans and sects?’
In the original story, the Demonic Cult’s full uprising was in 10—no, precisely 11 years. For stirring up the martial world now, the gap to their rise felt too long.
There was that foreshadowing about the protagonist’s friend slipping off a cliff, but it hadn’t resolved even in the serialized parts he’d read.
Why’d he end up in an ongoing series instead of a completed one…!
“I heard they even tried to kidnap a Mount Hua disciple in Hwam-eum… Probably left the disciple wandering on the brink of death, right?”
Jeggal Hee glanced at him as she said it, and he nodded, chin in hand.
“Yeah, I saw the River of Three Paths and all.”
Silence fell instantly. Four pairs of eyes fixed on him, and he scratched his head awkwardly.
“Dodging a Demonic Cult kidnapping attempt… pretty cool, right?”
Sure, all he’d done was take a poisoned knife to the side and stab the kidnapper’s leg in return.
Catching the kidnapper and keeping him from getting dragged off? That was Uihyeon’s doing.
He was nodding to himself in admiration when Namgung Seheon shoved Jeggal Yun to the floor beside him and grabbed his shoulder, shaking it vigorously.
“Your tastes are seriously weird! Anyway, forget that—are you really okay? Can you even be walking around like this? Did I drag you to Shaolin for nothing?”
“I was fine until just now, but you’re shaking me so much I’m not anymore.”
He grimaced at his dizzying vision and shot back. Namgung Seheon flinched and let go immediately.
“I’m not okay either…”
Jeggal Yun muttered pitifully from where he’d rolled on the floor, but no one paid him any mind. Not even his twin sister, Jeggal Hee.
He straightened his disheveled clothes and snorted.
“If I wasn’t fine, I’d be lying in the guest quarters, not here. I’m not so battle-crazed that I’d drag my sick body to Shaolin after getting your challenge letter, am I?”
Even so, this was a body that had endured a re-descent into Selection Hell.
“It wasn’t a challenge letter.”
“Then what was it? We’re not exactly the type dying to see each other’s faces, are we?”
“Speak for yourself.”
Namgung Seheon, who’d wiped his face dry, pressed on before he could point out the oddity in his words.
“Anyway, you’re definitely okay?”
With a bored expression, he grabbed the side of his robe and flapped it open and shut.
“I told you I am. Oh, I’ve got a scar on my side. Not that I can show it.”
“Not like I want to see it.”
He snickered at Namgung Seheon’s recoil when Peng Ha-ran suddenly buried her forehead in his shoulder.
Her pulling hand lacked strength, so he could’ve shaken her off easily, but the hand gripping his arm was trembling badly. With a sigh, he let her be.
Jeggal Yun snatched her slipping hairband mid-fall with a clap.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Well, it wasn’t exactly a great experience, and there’s no reason I had to bring it up first…”
“…My close friend suddenly faced thugs trying to kidnap him, dodged them, and fell off a cliff.”
Her thin voice trembled like the hand clinging to him.
“To think I almost lost another close friend without knowing…”
The sudden physical contact was startling enough, but “close friend” hit harder.
Peng Ha-ran hadn’t even seen his face ten times yet—hadn’t met the friend criteria.
Until now, it’d been her one-sided friendship.
But since she’d covered for his blunder back then, he decided to fudge the remaining criteria and call her a friend. He had that much flexibility.
Whoa, mutual friends from now on!
He patted her back awkwardly when his eyes met Jeggal Hee’s, who watched with keen interest, fan over her mouth.
As her story unfolded, he voiced the question nagging at him.
“How are you so sure it’s the Demonic Cult? Couldn’t it be Black Dao thugs?”
“Good point.”
Snap. Jeggal Hee folded her fan and glanced around warily, confirming no one was near before beckoning them closer.
Her grim, tense face was plenty ominous.
“What I’m about to say absolutely cannot leak to anyone else—never. Not even to your brothers or fellow disciples. Got it?”
As she emphasized it, he thought: Technically, wasn’t she leaking it right now?
But saying it aloud might make her clam up, so he swallowed it silently.
“Got it. I swear on the Primordial Heavenly Venerable.”
She relaxed at his casual oath and whispered low.
“Gu poison was found in the kidnappers’ bodies.”
Gu poison…? He instinctively glanced at the others, but he was the only shocked one.
Namgung Seheon’s brain was pure, so that made sense, and Peng Ha-ran and Jeggal Yun looked clueless about gu poison too.
Namgung Seheon blinked and asked.
“What’s gu poison?”
“No idea. The adults freaked out and sighed ‘Demonic Cult’ the moment they heard it. Then they chased me out, saying it wasn’t for kids’ ears, so I didn’t hear more.”
Then why build the suspense if you don’t know?
Some wuxia novels had gu poison as an excruciating ultimate toxin, but from his vague memory, in [Sword God Returns], gu poison was the Demonic Cult’s signature technique.
Feeding a target a gu insect to turn them into a time-bomb puppet.
Better to stay quiet than explain and risk drawing Demonic Cult suspicion here.
‘Where the hell does she get all this info?’
His curiosity must’ve shown, as whoosh—Jeggal Hee unfurled her fan again, fanning lightly as she answered.
“My aunt’s the Murim Alliance’s strategist. Hanging around her nets some nice intel.”
She added that she couldn’t visit often due to her aunt’s busyness, her face brimming with pride.
Namgung Seheon smirked and jabbed.
“You got chased out before the juicy parts.”
“What I’ve shared so far is plenty juicy, Young Master Namgung. Did you even know the meeting topic before coming?”
Stung, Jeggal Hee mercilessly thwacked him with words.
Namgung Seheon shut his mouth, out of retorts, and Peng Ha-ran snickered behind her sleeve.
Ignoring their childish spat, he asked Jeggal Hee.
“Something I’ve been wondering—why do you keep using formal speech with Namgung Seheon? Your twin doesn’t.”
“Even friends need manners—”
“Manners my ass. She’s just imitating her aunt. The aunt uses formal speech even with close friends.”
Jeggal Yun cut in to correct her, his urge to expose his twin’s bluff outweighing any reluctance to talk to him.
Ah, a formal-speech-attribute strategist from the Zhuge family. No meeting in person, but the image formed perfectly, and he nodded.
“Hee wants to be just like her aunt more than anyone. That fan’s part of it.”
“Exactly. Someday, I’ll be a strategist as great as her.”
Jeggal Hee smirked confidently, folded her fan with a snap, and thwacked Jeggal Yun’s crown before tucking it into her sleeve. He nodded at the sight.
Yeah, go for it. You seem like a side character who might get one line like us, from what I remember.
Even a non-genius like him could aim for Mount Hua’s top sword; dreams were free. Side characters deserved dreams too.
Cough. Peng Ha-ran, leaning on his shoulder, let out a cough.
He figured it’d be her usual one or two and done, but it kept going.
Looking back, her face seemed paler than usual. Remembering she was truly on borrowed time made the cough suddenly dire.
He rose to support her to the guest quarters when someone he absolutely didn’t want to see entered his view—and drew closer.
“Youngest brooo!”
Screeching like a banshee, Peng Ha-ran’s little big brother charged in, scooping her up. He glared at them.
“What were you lot doing while my little sister got like this?! Four people here and not one noticed the sick kid? Oh no, my poor maknae can’t pick friends worth a damn, oh no!”
“Little bro… shut up… head’s ringing…”
“Sorry, maknae. Let’s get you inside. And you lot—we’ll talk later.”
“If you touch my friend, I’ll never see your face again…”
“Hahaha, just a token of sincerity! As if this big bro would grab some innocent friend of my sister’s.”
The reaction was 1.5 times crazier than expected. Regretting not hauling Peng Ha-ran to the guest quarters sooner before the sparks flew, he sighed deeply.
Bad enough being a side character—didn’t need to feel like one in a family drama too.