Chapter 151
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 151
Chapter Title: Chapter 41. Man-Slaying (4)
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Jin Ga-yong let out a sigh. He drove the point home, saying it might be disappointing but some things just couldn't be done. For him, responding this gently without losing his temper was already a huge concession.
But Flying Tiger was persistent.
"In that case, let's at least do the math properly. How much benefit has Zhao Family Manor gained from the information I passed along through this kid? How many lives were saved that would have been lost if you'd been caught off guard by those elite assassins' invasion?"
"What, are you saying I should hand one over since you saved several?"
"Foreman Jin, I'm disappointed. I didn't expect this from you. It's baffling."
"And why is that?"
"For example, if killing one old man would cost the life of one of your junior brothers, would you accept that deal?"
"......"
"See? The math doesn't add up. We're not con artists here... Tsk."
What Flying Tiger meant was this: to you, one life from Zhao Family Manor is more precious than one old man's life, so why are you undervaluing the worth of all those precious lives I saved? Or perhaps he was threatening him with the life of the captured Go Dan-o right now.
The unspoken follow-up was that letting the old man go, plus granting a few more favors, would balance the scales.
Watching Flying Tiger turn into a shrewd merchant right before his eyes, Jin Ga-yong's mind filled with all sorts of stray thoughts. One of them was the urge to smack him across the face. But since he fundamentally pursued fairness and impartiality, he felt inwardly uncomfortable. Suppressing his rising anger, he said,
"How about asking for something else instead? I'll grant it, even if it's a stretch."
"No. It has to be that old man."
Flying Tiger knew well that throwing a tantrum like this wouldn't easily sway Jin Ga-yong's mind. Even so, he had no choice but to push it.
Because...
In the end, Jin Ga-yong's patience hit rock bottom, and his eyes turned fierce. He asked coldly,
"What if I still refuse? First you appealed to my emotions, then you switched to haggling like a merchant. If that doesn't work, are you going to throw a fit now? Grab onto my pant leg, maybe?"
"My pant leg?"
Flying Tiger's eyes went wide.
Not even in my dreams would I complain about a gift from heaven like this.
"Fine, I'll do it. If that's what the foreman wants, I'll grab onto it."
With that, Flying Tiger crawled toward Jin Ga-yong on his knees.
Jin Ga-yong couldn't hide his shock at this unexpected behavior.
What the hell is this guy doing!
But somehow, the knee-walking was fast.
Tap tap tap tap.
In an instant, this grown man was about to grab his pant leg, and just imagining the scene made Jin Ga-yong's face burn with humiliation. Startled, he instinctively stepped back.
As he pulled away, Jin Ga-yong felt a sense of wrongness.
'Such a fuss isn't something I'd do. So why am I acting like this?'
Originally, swordsmen like Jin Ga-yong had honed their mind and body to the extreme, so their mindset and conduct were extraordinary.
A true master swordsman needed a cool-headed heart unshaken by anything in the world and ruthless hands that could strike anyone without hesitation.
So this was something that never should have happened normally, leaving Jin Ga-yong confused.
In his distraction, he failed to properly see Flying Tiger approaching.
Snap.
Flying Tiger tensed his big toe and snapped his bent knee straight like a spring. Using that propulsion, he lunged at Jin Ga-yong in one breath and thrust out his left fist.
It was a sneak attack!
Jin Ga-yong's body reacted first. He retreated half a step as his left hand shot out a fist toward Flying Tiger's, while his right hand simultaneously gripped the sword hilt. (*He was wearing the Soul Spirit Sword that Flying Tiger had offered him earlier at his waist.) It was flawless defense and counterattack, hard to believe it was against a surprise assault.
As he moved, Jin Ga-yong glared at Flying Tiger.
'Oh no.'
On one hand, he was stunned.
And only then did fury surge.
The wavering waves of emotion swelled high. The amplification of emotions had spiked dramatically.
Thus, all conditions for Man-Slaying—contact, assimilation, resonance, rupture—were met.
And so, as Jin Ga-yong glared into Flying Tiger's eyes...
Whoosh—they were sucked in.
There, he saw a ridiculously broken world.
......!
The next instant, Flying Tiger twisted his wrist and wrapped his left hand around Jin Ga-yong's incoming fist.
Clack.
The moment flesh met flesh, Jin Ga-yong snapped out of his momentary daze. But by then, the rope dart had already uncoiled from Flying Tiger's gripped left wrist and shot out.
Pfuk.
The rope dart pierced near Jin Ga-yong's chest.
Jin Ga-yong doubled over in pain but tried to draw the Soul Spirit Sword gripped in his right hand.
However, Flying Tiger followed up, slamming down on the end of the hilt with his right hand, forcing the half-drawn blade back into its sheath.
Then, with his left hand, he flung away Jin Ga-yong's captured fist and grabbed the dagger at the rope dart's end, thrusting it in deeper.
Pfsst.
The two were pressed close together.
In that position, Flying Tiger whispered a warning to Jin Ga-yong.
"Shh, don't move. One wrong twitch and you'll nick your heart."
As Flying Tiger said, the dagger had barely grazed past Jin Ga-yong's heart before embedding.
So Flying Tiger could feel Jin Ga-yong's heartbeat through the hand gripping the dagger.
Thump thump.
Flying Tiger had completely subdued Jin Ga-yong. And this was one of Flying Tiger's three great assassination arts: Man-Slaying.
Man-Slaying originally came from a rather bizarre scripture called the Peering Other Shore Sutra (the method of peeking at the far shore).
The sutra itself was a record of an ancient ascetic's enlightenment on mental cultivation, and while its practices were quite radical, it didn't contain methods for killing people.
But a genius assassin of later generations happened upon this sutra and had a wild idea.
'Huh? If I adapt some of these practices, I could create an amazing killing technique.'
As they say, the eye sees what it wants: he took a method meant to save himself and twisted it to drag others into the abyss.
That was the origin story of Man-Slaying.
In any case, because of that origin, learning Man-Slaying required studying the sutra. But the sutra's contents were so abstract and lofty that it wasn't easy. And even if one mastered it, applying it was incredibly tricky. The targets were limited too.
Given all that, no one bothered to learn it.
Even the instructors didn't know it fully. They approached it academically, knowing only the theory, not how to apply it in real combat.
That's why Flying Tiger puzzled it out alone after listening to lectures and became the only one who mastered it.
Then why did the assassin group teach something like this in the first place, and how did Flying Tiger end up learning an art no one cared about?
Amusingly, the sutra was filled with excellent teachings on the mindset any assassin should engrave in their heart.
For instance: 'taming an anxious mind,' 'confronting and separating the self,' 'maintaining oneself amid others and observing them with a spectator's eye,' and so on.
So it was adopted as introductory mental discipline for assassins.
And what captivated Flying Tiger was a passage in the sutra's 'practice' section.
It described building one's own mental imagery world and immersing in it to devote everything to cultivation.
Young Flying Tiger at the time didn't need a place for cultivation. He just needed a secluded spot cut off from the outside world—a place to breathe. Every day was hellish torment.
A kind of mental refuge.
That desperation forged something within him, allowing him to interpret and wield Man-Slaying. As a side benefit—or drawback—he also found a way to separate and settle his own personality.
In essence, Man-Slaying was a form of mental control, hypnosis, suggestion—starting from oneself and influencing others' minds.
Make contact with the target to form empathy, then build a bond. This was the process of contact and assimilation.
For contact, leave a strong first impression—the flashier and louder, the better.
Assimilation wasn't becoming truly one; it was molding oneself to the target, creating an illusion of strange kinship.
Resonance was shaking the thread connecting their minds. By then, even a negative relationship was fine. Negativity actually made it swing harder, so it was recommended.
Agitate the target's mind until they peer into your inner world. At that moment, the seed of doubt planted earlier activates, cracking their mind—that was rupture.
Once contact, assimilation, resonance, and rupture were complete, the target was mere prey for the user, no matter how formidable they were.
In truth, Jin Ga-yong had long shared a tense dynamic with Flying Tiger, so the groundwork was already done, making him ideal for Man-Slaying.
The only thing Flying Tiger had to watch was whether he could decisively strike at Jin Ga-yong.
So, resolved to subdue him, Flying Tiger's first step was reverting to his assassin self from those days.
And there was the old man from Shandong.
Upon facing him, Flying Tiger realized the old man was an immeasurable master too, so he couldn't predict who'd win between him and Jin Ga-yong. Thus, he'd laid the groundwork on the old man as well—if the old man had beaten Jin Ga-yong, Man-Slaying would have triggered on him instead.
In short, Flying Tiger had prepared Man-Slaying for both and waited to see the outcome.
Thump thump.
Jin Ga-yong's heart pounded wildly, as if about to burst.
From self-reproach and pain, no doubt.
The sensation made Flying Tiger uneasy and uncomfortable.
It was Man-Slaying's backlash. Influencing someone's emotions meant being influenced back.
Call it sympathy.
Of course, relationships varied as much as people, but Man-Slaying worked that way.
Especially against targets with strong mental defenses, breaking through required even stronger sympathy.
So the more Jin Ga-yong shook, the dizzier Flying Tiger felt.
Soon, Flying Tiger sighed and soothed him.
"Foreman Jin, stop blaming yourself and pull it together. Your junior brothers, A Jeok-gang, and the comrades who came with them—they're all safe."
Jin Ga-yong looked up startled, and Flying Tiger nodded.
"I just put them to sleep temporarily so they wouldn't interfere while I handled business with you."
"But..."
"I've cleared everyone around. And I promise: they'll all be safe at least until today ends. Even if it means I get chased down for it."
Jin Ga-yong's gaze grew conflicted, but Flying Tiger sensed he'd calmed and got to the point.
The real reason he'd arranged this encounter.
"So now, Foreman Jin, forget about them and focus only on the issue between us. Your next words will decide our future relationship. Including your life or death."
"The issue between us... What do you want to know?"
"Why did you kill Ma Yeop's thug?"
Jin Ga-yong's eyes twitched.
Thump thump.
And Flying Tiger intently felt the heartbeat through his hand.