They've Taken the Bait
One day, the quiet city of Goan began to stir.
Whispers ran especially thick among the women and ladies of the town, and the cause was a pair of striking figures who had appeared on the streets out of nowhere — a handsome youth of peerless looks, and a fair-skinned boy as flawless as white jade.
"Boss."
"Call me hyung here, you brat."
I said, smoothing the fine white silk of my hero's headscarf. If we slipped back into our usual titles and word got around Beijing that I was some cut-sleeve dragon of the south, we'd be finished. So we'd changed our names for the job — Ilhong to Ihong, and me from Mujin to Hujin.
"Hyunga."
"Hey, drop the 'a' at the end."
Anyway, since arriving in Goan under the Paeng Clan's backing, we'd been living large — eating, drinking, and sleeping like royalty. Even now, the moment we opened our eyes, we were parked in the most refined teahouse in the district, savoring expensive snacks and the mellow fragrance of fine tea leaves as if they were morning coffee.
"Yeah. This is how a person ought to live — with some class."
No debt, no taxes breathing down your neck, no work chasing you — just a commission that paid you to eat and drink while drawing every eye in town. Nothing felt better than living high on someone else's coin.
After drifting from one gourmet stop to the next, we'd settled for the moment at a place called the Sohyang Teahouse. It was a proper, high-class establishment — a respectable salon for the well-to-do by day, and once noon hit, a favorite haunt of ladies and young misses.
"Hyung, you've got something on your mouth."
Ilhong leaned in then, gently wiping a crumb of mooncake from the corner of my lips with a neatly folded handkerchief.
"……"
For a moment, silence settled over the teahouse. Then, from nearby tables and from the women watching from farther off, muffled little cries of kyah and oh my, oh my burst out like steam from a kettle.
"We're working, hyung. Why are you so startled?"
"…Ah. Right. Yeah."
Our real goal was to lure out that cut-sleeve deviant — the color-mad bastard who preferred men. Drawing attention and spreading our reputation was exactly what the client had asked for.
"So then — open up. Ah."
This time Ilhong popped a sweet pastry straight into my mouth. Soft flesh and sugar bloomed across my tongue.
"Huk!"
"Oh my, oh my!"
Of course the women who'd been pretending not to stare went completely wild. They clapped their hands, squealed, and whispered in a frenzy of barely contained excitement.
"Madam Hwa, did you see that just now?"
"Those two sitting over there — they really must be……"
"Oh my. Oh my, my."
Apparently, no matter the era, there was always a certain type who went soft for handsome men tangled up together. In an age that hammered masculinity into every corner of life, the sight of two beautiful youths feeding each other and cooing like that had a particular sort of woman completely unhinged.
"Kyah, how lovely! How absolutely lovely!"
"Miss Hwa, hurry and fetch the young ladies of the Wu household as well!"
"What? But they'll be busy right now."
"If not now, you'll never see a spectacle like this again! Quickly!"
The stares were blistering. They were treating it like a historic tableau for the ages. The women were spreading the rumor for us all on their own, making sure every eye in the room got a good look. With a little qi poured into my hearing, I could catch every last scrap of it.
"How was that? My feeding technique — better than that courtesan Ju Wolay, right?"
Having whipped the whole place into a frenzy, Ilhong asked with a thoroughly satisfied face.
"Why is she the comparison?"
"But Boss, you were completely head over heels for that courtesan. You couldn't think straight."
"Head over heels, my ass… That never happened."
Bringing up something from the middle of a job. Honestly.
"Oh, it never happened? I should have sketched that vacant look on your face and kept it on file."
We were bickering under our breath so only we could hear when the tea leaves ran dry, and the teahouse master himself came over to attend us.
"I trust the leaves are to your taste… This is Moon-Fragrance Tea, specially brought in from Sichuan."
The master's manner toward us was more than polite — it was practically worshipful. Fair enough. We were inflating his receipts with Paeng Clan money, and distinguished guests were pouring in just for a look at us. Of course he was fawning.
"Excellent, Master. The fragrance of this tea conjures another world entirely. Allow me to bestow upon your establishment the refined title of Sutabaksoo — the Applause That Follows of Its Own Accord."
Playing the part of some nameless young master of lofty birth, I struck a pose and delivered the line with as much poetic grandeur as I could muster.
"…Ahaha. A splendid title indeed. You honor me, young master."
Helpful for today's sales, maybe — but coming from some nobody rather than a local notable, the bizarre nickname clearly wasn't something he intended to use. A bead of sweat slid down his temple as he replaced our leaves and quietly withdrew.
"You're embarrassing him with weird titles for the shop, hyung."
"What's wrong with Sutabaksoo? That man has no eye for the future, I swear."
I shook my head and muttered.
Whispers. Murmurs. While the leaves had been empty, the rumor must have spread even farther — the crowd had swollen again. This was normally a pricey teahouse with a sparse clientele, but today the building itself was packed wall to wall.
"At this rate, word should have reached that color-mad bastard's ears by now, right?"
We already felt like Goan's newest celebrities. With a pair of faces like ours, grabbing attention was hardly work at all. Of course, we'd seasoned the bait with a few… stimulating extras.
"Yeah. At this point, it'd be stranger if he hadn't heard."
Just as Paeng Hwayeop had requested, the fishing line was cast to haul up that hidden cut-sleeve. The only question left was whether the bastard would take the bait.
"Hyung, try this too. Ah."
Ilhong kept the act going even though we'd already done more than enough.
"…Fine."
And yet — why did it feel like I was the one caught on the hook…?
"Hehe. Still not enough. We took the money, so we should work hard."
Ilhong beamed, clearly delighted with the whole situation.
Two beautiful youths strolled the streets at a leisurely pace, trailing a throng of women at a respectful distance. They seemed remarkably close — never more than a breath apart. Every time they leaned in for a private word or clung a little nearer, delicate gasps rose from every side.
And among those who had come out on the strength of the rumors, only to witness this extraordinary spectacle for themselves, was a certain man.
"What in the world……"
For a moment he could not close his mouth, watching the two youths share even a half-eaten peach with the devoted intimacy of a shared peach's affection.
"And martial artists, at that?"
Both wore swords at their hips. The one who looked more youth than boy, in particular, seemed solidly trained.
"What a blind-turtle-and-floating-wood stroke of fortune."
He had only been lying low to avoid tiresome trouble — and now a beautiful youth of precisely his tastes had rolled straight into his lap of his own accord.
"Though the smaller one carries a strange aura."
By his innate constitution, he could not always read yang energy — but he could sense a person's yin. And that one, though a male, seemed to hold a dense store of yin energy nearly equal to his own. Could he share a similar nature?
"That one would be of no use."
The other, though, appeared properly pure of yang. Fine looks that suited his preferences, clear traces of martial training, and a bearing that suggested some highborn young master of a distinguished house.
"Hmph."
He licked his lips without a word, watching the youths in the street.
"Young master, what rumor exactly did we come out to confirm?"
The question came from a house guard of some young master's family — a man whose master this creature had already killed, whose yang he had drained through the dual cultivation of yin-harvest, and whose identity he had stolen along with a human-skin mask. The guard eyed the man who had bolted out the moment he heard the gossip, clearly puzzled.
"Nothing of importance. Pay it no mind."
He waved a hand as if it were nothing. Lately his habits had shifted, and that had already drawn a few curious looks. It was about time to change face and identity once more.
"Just right. Absolutely perfect."
In the plain clothes of common folk, this week's stakeout. The Paeng Clan martial artists watched the two youths who had turned Goan upside down with glazed, astonished eyes.
"Lady Paeng Hwayeop, where in the world did you find young heroes like that?"
One of the Paeng men asked with a hollow laugh, staring at the pair glued together — or more precisely, at the smaller one who seemed to have the larger one thoroughly under his thumb.
"W-well, I'm not sure."
Paeng Hwayeop fumbled, too flustered for a proper answer. The warriors murmured among themselves, each tossing out an admiring remark about how there was no way that cut-sleeve bastard wouldn't take the bait.
"That's acting, right? If it is, it's damn fine work."
"Or maybe they really are that way. The Central Plains are vast, and people's natures are many — isn't that what they say?"
"Then a great many ladies will be grieving. Of all people, for jade-faced gentlemen like those to… Hah."
The Paeng martial artists were gossiping every bit as eagerly as the women trailing after the pair. Only then did Paeng Hwayeop come back to herself, staring at the affectionate duo and muttering in disbelief.
No — do men really go that far with each other…?
From what Dang Yeohye had told her, they were simply close — like brothers. It had seemed that way when she'd visited the agency, too.
Perhaps… I may have awakened something in them.
If so, she had done her dear friend a terrible wrong. She covered her face with both large hands and hung her head.
"Ugh. What am I supposed to do about this?"
She had sought out Dan Mujin partly to commission the hunt for the color-mad deviant — but also to take the man's measure for her friend Dang Yeohye's sake. After hearing the Dang Clan had weathered some great trouble, she had gone to visit, and found her friend's expression not half as dark as expected. Digging for the reason, Dan Mujin's name had come up again and again. The look in her eyes, the tone of her voice when she spoke of him — it had been anything but ordinary.
Afraid that her sharp-tongued but secretly soft-hearted friend might have fallen for some bad man and was suffering for it, she had deliberately placed the commission.
Does that youth even understand what it means that she handed over every gold, silver, and bronze token bearing her name?
Once, when the talk had turned to men, Dang Yeohye had snorted and declared she wouldn't so much as glance at anyone who didn't bring her all three.
"My friend… I'm sorry. What have I done……"
Until now, only half the world had been her competition. Now, perhaps, the entire world was.
She was berating herself, drawing a bitter hand down the hilt of her greatsword, when—
"Lady Paeng Hwayeop. It seems the color-mad bastard has shown himself."
"……!"
One of the Paeng martial artists, who had been watching from concealment with his presence suppressed, ground his teeth as he spoke. Paeng Hwayeop set aside the turmoil in her heart and began to quietly draw up her inner energy, focusing on the matter at hand.
"This time we do not let him slip. We take him for certain."
"Yes, my lady."
Another busy day for the Murim Alliance's Demon Extermination Unit, tirelessly hunting the wicked across the martial world. And into that bustling building walked an unexpected guest.
The visitor was none other than Namgung Jin of the Namgung Clan, known as the Blue Cloud Sword. At the appearance of the Heavenly Sword's son — the man widely expected to become the next greatest under heaven — a brief stir ran through the Demon Extermination Unit's halls.
"Vice Leader of the Demon Extermination Unit. Might I have a moment of your time?"
Naturally, Namgung Jin bypassed the Unit Leader, Jeok Unyeop, and addressed the real power — Vice Leader Moyong Cheonghye. Jeok Unyeop was only too happy to slip quietly from his seat, patting his chest in relief.
"Young Hero Namgung Jin… What brings you here……"
A martial genius of extraordinary gift. The very man who had driven her younger brother Moyong Hwi to despair and left her father Moyong Cheon thoroughly displeased. With him standing before her, her voice wavered just slightly.
"I came to share intelligence, nothing more. Are we not all pursuing the Blood Sect together?"
She had never heard that Namgung Jin was formally attached to any hunt. Still, the Namgung Clan always repaid what they received — so she had expected they would be tracking the Blood Sect one way or another. But for Namgung Jin to come to the Demon Extermination Unit in person, rather than send a messenger…
"What intelligence did you wish to share?"
"Hmm. I've asked at other places as well, but found little of use……"
Apparently the subject was delicate; he raised a curtain of qi before carefully posing the question.
"Lady Moyong Cheonghye."
"Yes. Please speak."
He scratched his cheek, hesitated, and at last asked:
"Do you… know anything of the Heavenly Killing Star?"
"……"
The moment the words reached her, Moyong Cheonghye went rigid where she stood.