Chapter 103
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 103
Chapter Title: Chapter 30. Mad Dog Ho Tae-ah-hu
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The man was the small leader of the Yellow Swarm Gang, "Mad Dog" Ho Tae-ah-hu.
A few days earlier.
He had set out with around a hundred bandits, led by the second leader and his junior master, "Mad Leopard" Hyeok Ryeok-chang, to capture the Jeong unit that had crushed their vanguard.
But it had been a lure.
Gu Myo had disguised himself as part of the Jeong unit with a few accomplices, leaving a trail heading south as they fled. They had chased after them.
Of course, it was all for nothing.
Then word came that the gang's home base had been ransacked, and they hurried back.
But what greeted them were corpses strewn everywhere and buildings left eerily empty.
True to form for thieving scum, they'd looted the storehouse, grabbed their cut, and all vanished.
Yet the thing that truly shocked Ho Tae-ah-hu was the fact that Great Master White Horse Deung—who had always seemed like he'd live forever—had been stripped naked like some pervert and brutally mutilated in death.
It was a shame.
But he didn't explode with emotion like his junior master, who had raged and ranted like a madman.
Once Hyeok Ryeok-chang finally calmed down, he talked of revenge. Then he proposed that they rebuild the Yellow Swarm Gang together.
It wasn't an order or coercion—it was a genuine proposal, in the sense of laying out an agenda.
In other words, the master was gauging his disciple.
Ho Tae-ah-hu was utterly unpredictable, with a bizarre way of thinking, and he treated respect for his master like something to toss to a stray dog.
How extreme was he? He'd been called "Mad Dog" since childhood, and as he grew, the nickname had hardened into his official title.
And yet he'd survived without being beaten to death long ago by his three ill-tempered masters. That alone was impressive.
Whether it was some strange affection, or because he showed innate talent in martial arts, or for some other reason—only his now-sole surviving junior master, Hyeok Ryeok-chang, knew.
In any case, he had always been consistent, which had earned him plenty of beatings as a child.
But the masters' punishments had abruptly stopped seven years ago, when he turned twenty. Not because they'd given up, but because they could no longer bully him with martial arts.
And after a few more years, even the masters had started sweating nervously, watching his mood.
In this way, he had inherited the teachings of the three peak experts: Mad Wind White Horse Deung, Mad Leopard Hyeok Ryeok-chang, and Mad Hero Do Ryeong. He was a master who didn't yield even to the foremost among them, White Horse Deung.
The world didn't know it yet.
Not quite.
Ho Tae-ah-hu gave an ambiguous reply to Hyeok Ryeok-chang's proposal.
"Eh, we'll decide based on how things play out."
"You bastard dog! Aren't you pissed about your sworn brothers' deaths? They were your masters, no matter what! How did they raise you all those years!"
Staring at his bellowing junior master, Ho Tae-ah-hu remained nonchalant.
"No point bringing it up now. Have I not been a bastard dog for just a day or two? Sure, I'm miffed they died, but honestly... is this really something worth talking revenge over?"
"Then you're saying no?"
"Come on, how many people did they kill unjustly? Feels kinda off to start yapping about revenge now that they got offed."
"Hah~"
The disciple was ashamed of his masters.
That said, he didn't hate them.
If he did, he would've left ages ago.
A love-hate relationship, perhaps?
Hyeok Ryeok-chang had sensed it but was still floored hearing it aloud. Ho Tae-ah-hu, looking a bit sorry, scratched his head and tried to soothe him.
"Ahem, just how I feel. We'll talk about it later. We got nothing but time now anyway, right? More importantly, what's the plan right now?"
The two discussed their next moves.
Though their true intentions differed: the master planned to somehow coax his disciple into sticking around for succession, while the disciple intended to leave a letter and bolt once the master settled somewhere.
In any event, they reached an agreement.
They kept only five subordinates they could somewhat trust and disbanded the hundred-odd bandits who'd followed them.
Hauling that many around would draw too much attention right away, and feeding them wouldn't be easy.
They headed west.
Planning to leave Shaanxi Province for Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province.
They'd lay low for a while, hit up the brothels there, wash off the grime they'd buried for so long, and party hard while they were at it.
But with no ready cash on hand, they stopped at Jidan County on the northern plateau. It was a village at a key pass to Gansu, and Hyeok Ryeok-chang had a private villa there he'd set up on the side. (*He had a few such villas—more of a hobby.) They aimed to liquidate the gold stashed there, and if possible, even the manor itself, for some quick funds.
And so Hyeok Ryeok-chang, Ho Tae-ah-hu, and their five underlings—seven bandits in all—stayed in Jidan County for two days. They figured the situation wasn't that dire, so they took it easy...
But that became their downfall.
The evening before.
What Ho Tae-ah-hu and Hyeok Ryeok-chang didn't know was that their movements had long since been spotted by the surveillance network Gwak Nan-hoe had scattered at key points.
Thus, they fell into an ambush laid by warriors of the Northern Alliance.
A hundred warriors led by the young lord of Ye Liang Sword Sect, Geum O-ryang, unleashed a volley of arrows all at once.
Young Lord Geum O-ryang had been tasked the day before at Ten Thousand Steeds Escort with wiping out the Yellow Swarm Gang remnants. To that end, he'd assembled a force of two hundred warriors, centered on Ye Liang Sword Sect's Five Tiger White Wolves that he'd brought along.
But the remnants weren't grouped up; they'd scattered in all directions, each fending for themselves.
For efficient extermination, Geum O-ryang had agreed with his captains to split the unit into three groups, each handling one direction.
And to capture the biggest fish among the remnants—the second leader Hyeok Ryeok-chang—Geum O-ryang himself had led a hundred warriors straight to Jidan County on horseback, lying in wait nearby.
Falling into the ambush was one thing, but they were downright unlucky. Especially Mad Leopard Hyeok Ryeok-chang.
In the sudden arrow storm, three of the five bandits who'd come along screamed and dropped dead on the spot.
Hyeok Ryeok-chang himself took seven arrows to the back and tumbled.
A master of his caliber could normally pluck incoming arrows out of the air with two fingers without batting an eye. But this was an unforeseen ambush, and one perfectly timed shot from a blind angle struck his back—pure bad luck.
That shook him, and in that gap, six more arrows slammed in.
Ho Tae-ah-hu swiftly hoisted Hyeok Ryeok-chang and bolted. One of the two remaining bandits fleeing behind him got caught and killed.
From then on, they faced relentless pursuit.
With no choice, Ho Tae-ah-hu handed the half-unconscious Hyeok Ryeok-chang to the one bandit who'd escaped alive and had them hide together. Hyeok's condition was dire; someone needed to tend him.
Ho Tae-ah-hu then drew the pursuers off alone.
He'd originally wanted to slip out of Shaanxi as quietly as possible, with minimal blood on his hands.
But they'd backed him into such a corner—what could he do?
Time to play!
Ho Tae-ah-hu fled with lightness skill for about fifteen minutes, judged he'd put enough distance from his master's hiding spot, and picked a suitable site.
The spot he chose was a deep forest abutting a mountainside, under the cover of thick midnight darkness.
From then on, Ho Tae-ah-hu began a game of hide-and-seek with his pursuers. His heart pounding with long-forgotten thrill.
But it quickly grew stale. No real pressure.
Of the fifty-odd warriors who'd dogged him this far, half were dead, yet there'd been no proper counterattack.
And by now, the enemies' movements felt sluggish and perfunctory, to the point where he doubted they even intended to find him.
In truth, it was only natural.
Whoever it was—even Ye Liang Sword Sect elders—got sliced up the moment they spotted him hiding. Who'd want to seek him out?
In any case.
Disappointed, Ho Tae-ah-hu switched roles and declared himself the seeker.
That was the sequence of events up to now.
And his first cry as the seeker was...
"Hide tight now. I see some hair."
Ho Tae-ah-hu burst out shouting that.
But Young Lord Geum O-ryang of Ye Liang Sword Sect and his twenty-odd warriors couldn't accept that attacker and defender roles had flipped.
So Ho Tae-ah-hu and the others got into a huge spat over who was actually the seeker.
The result?
Geum O-ryang's head split open and he was carried off, with nearly ten more warriors dying again. Only then did they accept that Ho Tae-ah-hu was the seeker, and they were the ones who had to flee or hide.
After that, Ho Tae-ah-hu prowled as seeker for nearly thirty minutes.
And the game ended around then.
Everyone had fled; not a soul left.
Mad Dog Ho Tae-ah-hu had single-handedly repelled a hundred warriors. Not rabble, but elites from the renowned Ye Liang Sword Sect.
The near-unknown man had burst onto the martial world like a comet, splendidly announcing his four-letter name: Ho. Tae. Ah. Hu.
And...
"Whoa~ what the fuck!"
When Ho Tae-ah-hu finally returned, exhausted from battle, to the spot he'd fought so hard to protect, only a single corpse lay sprawled there waiting for him.
His junior master Hyeok Ryeok-chang was dead, and the "loyal" subordinate was gone.
The cause of death: a dagger plunged into the heart. His chest had been ripped open, and the money pouch he'd clutched was missing.
So who did it?
Ho Tae-ah-hu dug a hole in the ground, laid his junior master inside, and covered it with dirt. He started to make a mound but stopped. On second thought, he had no reason to come pay respects, and if some passerby recognized the grave, they'd be lucky not to spit on it—the man was that shameful.
Instead, he stole a jar of liquor from a nearby village, sat by the flat grave, and drank through the night.
The jar emptied.
Ho Tae-ah-hu downed the last gulp, then poured the rest over the grave.
He staggered to his feet and slurred a farewell to his junior master with his twisted tongue.
"Tch, if I'd known you'd croak this quick, I'd have lied through my teeth—said I'd avenge you and rebuild the gang like you wanted. Might've made your last moments feel good. Heh heh, uh..."
He hesitated a moment, then spoke as if granting a grand favor.
"Junior master, I'm too ashamed to keep bandit-ing. But instead, I'll handle revenge for you, the great master you revered so much, and even the youngest master you bickered with every day. All of it. I promise!"
With the dawn sun rising brilliantly at his back, Ho Tae-ah-hu staggered away drunk.
And far south in Chang'an City, Flying Tiger was stepping out of a tavern at the exact same crack of dawn. It was the crack-of-dawn morning right after the Face Pursuit Unit Jeong had returned from their operation.
