Reeling Them In
"Ilhong."
"Yes, hyung."
A pretty-faced youth looked up at me with a bright smile at the sound of my call.
"This is getting awkward… could you put a little distance between us?"
People were staring holes through us as we strolled down the street arm in arm. Young and old, men and women alike — every face was frozen in undisguised shock.
"Well, I'll be."
"What on earth…"
Apparently, in this era, two men walking arm in arm was scandalous enough on its own. We weren't just drawing attention — we were well on our way to becoming the talk of the entire Central Plains. The residents of Goan, drawn by the rumors, were studying us as if we were some rare curiosity on display.
"Do we really need to link arms like this? It's mortifying."
"Did you forget? We got paid specifically to do the mortifying thing."
Maybe it was because this city was so peaceful and quiet, so free of incident. It wasn't just people with a particular taste flocking to us — we'd become the whole neighborhood's free entertainment.
"We're getting a lot more famous than I bargained for. I should've worn a skin mask."
"Then your handsome face would be covered up."
Ilhong said it as if that would hurt the job — and, more importantly, be a terrible waste. A soft-featured youth with delicate features and skin like white jade, saying something like that to me.
"Looking at your face, I don't think a mask would hide much either."
She'd gone so far as to change her entire gender presentation, and still there was no sign of the attention dying down. If anything, every person who passed by — man, woman, young, or old — was sneaking a second glance.
"…Boss. You haven't seen me out of the male disguise lately, have you?"
"Mm. Now that you mention it, no."
At first it had been to evade the Haomu Gate's surveillance, which we couldn't even pin down. Then, after I brought the Hidden Pavilion Master under my command, she'd learned that watchers were planted everywhere and refined the male disguise even more thoroughly. How exactly had the girl beneath that skin mask changed over the past few years? The more I thought about it, the more unsettled I got.
"Anyway, peel off. At this rate someone's going to recognize us even back in Beijing."
I slipped my arm free of hers as I spoke. Beijing was so packed with people that spotting anyone was nearly impossible — but you never knew.
"…You never unlinked arms with Ju Wolay, though."
Something about that pretty courtesan had gotten under her skin. She kept bringing up what had happened at Cheonhwaru, and she was free with these little complaints too.
"You're always so harsh with me, hyung. You treat me like some tomboy every single day."
"Harsh? Please. I look after you like a little brother."
Even when the agency's cash flow dried up, I still paid her salary on the dot, didn't I? And when her share of the work on a case was high, I split the reward money fifty-fifty. Bosses like me were vanishingly rare in the Central Plains. She really ought to appreciate that.
"That's exactly the problem — the little-brother treatment. I'm all grown up now. I'm not a kid anymore…"
Grown up, at that age. Sure, she might meet this era's standard for adulthood, but to someone who'd crossed over from the modern world, she was still a kid — nothing more, nothing less.
"Fifteen is absolutely still a kid. What are you talking about?"
"Aigoo! I'm only one year younger than you, Boss! Stop calling me a kid!"
When I answered like she was talking nonsense, she stamped her feet in frustration.
"Mental maturity is different."
"Whatever. I'm going ahead to the inn."
She turned on her heel, a little sulky, and trotted off at a quick clip.
"Heh. Honestly."
Grinning ear to ear one minute, bristling the next. Her mood swung several times a day. But wasn't she supposed to be the vengeance-obsessed heir of the Haomu Gate? The kid who carved a killing oath into that Heukjin-whatever's name every night — so why had teenage-girl puberty suddenly hit her out of nowhere?
Idiot.
And then there was this bastard, who never missed a chance to insult me whenever he got bored. I circulated the Seongun Simbeop and banished the glaring red presence from in front of my eyes with a flick.
"Oh my, oh my. Looks like they had a fight."
"A lovers' quarrel, maybe?"
"Between two men…?"
The moment we split up, the onlookers started murmuring among themselves. My ears were itching. Inject a little excitement into a peaceful, boring city, and everyone got far too entertained.
A voice slipped into my ear. It was something I'd recently learned during training sessions with Hwang Geolgae and Yi Gal-ri, so I recognized it at once for what it was: a voice transmission.
"A suspicious man clinging to us in secret, huh."
The Paeng Clan martial artists had spotted the man who was stealthily following us — by stealthily watching him in turn. So the bait had been taken. That meant it was time to lure him somewhere secluded and make our move.
"But where did she… go off to now?"
Looks like Old Man Hwang had taught her the Beggar Sect's movement techniques properly. In that short span, Ilhong had vanished completely into the distance.
Shashak. Shashak.
I could see the eaves of nearby mansions and the bushes in the shadows trembling. The hidden Paeng Clan martial artists were moving in pursuit of our target. Follow them, and the pervert in question would turn up soon enough.
Taat.
I kicked off and ran, tracking their presence.
"Tch. Always this treatment. Does the Boss still see me as that little brat from my beggar days?"
A youth with milky skin and a sword at her waist muttered endlessly as she stepped into an alley. It was a shortcut to the inn — a path she'd found because the stares on the main street were too sharp, and because she didn't want to run into the Boss on the way.
"And always acting like the elder. Acting like an adult. When he's only a year older than me."
If her family hadn't completely collapsed, she would have been of an age to have a marriage arranged for her. And yet Boss Dan Mujin refused to acknowledge that and kept treating her like a little brother.
"Of course… I do admit he seems a bit more grown-up sometimes…"
Except when the madness flared up and he went completely off the rails, he was someone who could rein in his emotions and make reasonably sound decisions. He neither doled out good deeds like a fool nor wallowed in greed — and the way he struck a balance in between had a certain coolness to it, too.
"But the kid treatment is a bit much…"
She strode forward with bigger steps, as if nursing the grievance.
Then, from the far end of the deserted alley, a man quietly stepped into view.
"What's this. I came chasing the one who split off, and it's the little one instead of the big one… Hmm."
He had the air of a young master from a prestigious house — elegant if you were being kind, greasy if you weren't — and he blocked her path. The smile that spread across his face carried something off-kilter in the expression.
"Hmm. Drawing a catch so thick with yin energy is a disappointment… but that face alone… Heh. Truly my type."
Ilhong caught the subtle wrongness radiating from his features in an instant.
"Fine. I'll take you instead. Though you do seem a little short on yang energy."
He nodded with deep satisfaction at Ilhong's refined face, then began to unfurl a distinctly dangerous aura. As he walked toward her step by step, Ilhong flinched and retreated.
"You… you can't be…"
"That's right. I'm your husband!"
A blurred shadow split the air.
Papapak!
Palm strikes tore through the air, followed by a seizing hand aimed at her shoulder. Ilhong twisted her body just in time to slip free of his grip. But only for a moment — the pervert before her kept pouring out fist techniques without pause.
Taat.
Ilhong unfurled the Beggar Sect footwork she'd learned from Hwang Geolgae and hastily opened the distance. Then she drew her slender sword and answered at once.
Shwik! Shwishwik!
A flashing blade met every path his hands reached along. Finding it difficult to deflect and close in, the man scowled heavily and took a step back.
"The women were gossiping that you were a Second-class martial artist. You were First-class?"
He clearly hadn't imagined that a soft-faced brat with a small frame could be a First-class expert. But with no intention of backing down, the pervert — the Ghost-Faced Guest — only swelled his aura higher, as if this were even better.
"Heh. I was hoping to take you without a scratch. No helping it now."
He drew the sword at his own waist and began to raise a vivid blade qi — the exclusive art of a Peak Realm master, the kind that could shear through Ilhong's ordinary iron sword in a single stroke.
"Damn it."
As dismay crossed Ilhong's face, the Ghost-Faced Guest's eyes gleamed with something vile.
"Still, I won't touch the face. I'm rather fond of the pained expressions men make when their yang energy is drained. Heh heh."
His sordid laughter filled the alley.
Shwiik!
The sound of a foot driving into the ground, and his blade qi carved through the air — a razor trajectory shooting forward like a venomous snake.
"Heh. Be a good boy and let yourself be caugh—!"
Pung!
At the same instant, dozens of something came pouring from ahead.
Tadadadadang—!
With the near-unbelievable dynamic vision of a Peak Realm master, the Ghost-Faced Guest barely managed to bat the poisoned needles aside. The unexpected appearance of hidden weapons left a look of pure shock on his face.
"You little bastard! Who the hell are you, using the Tang Clan's hidden weapons—!"
And when something else left Ilhong's hand, a cloud of white powder filled the alley. The sound of fleeing footsteps came from beyond the smoke that blotted out his vision, and the Ghost-Faced Guest ground his teeth, kicked off the ground, and lunged forward.
Kung.
But on the floor inside the smoke he'd plunged into, a tiny iron sphere was waiting — something like a thunderclap bomb with its fuse cut extremely short.
"You son of a—!"
Thin shards of metal hammered every direction along with the blast.
"Kraaagh!"
It wasn't enough to kill a Peak Realm master, though. The Ghost-Faced Guest who burst through the smoke had torn skin and was streaming blood from all over his body.
"You cowardly little rat!"
The moment he saw Ilhong's tiny face, his features twisted into something demonic as he charged down the alley.
"The coward is the one ambushing a young boy in an alley!"
"Shut your mouth!"
Tatatak!
A ghost-defying movement technique that even the Paeng Clan martial artists had failed to shake off unfurled at full power at the alley mouth. Ilhong poured internal energy through the tips of her feet and did everything she could to evade — but within five strides, her arm was seized.
"Kh!"
"I was going to show you paradise before I killed you…! Forget it! Just hand over your yang energy and wither to death on the spot!"
He jabbed a hand into one of Ilhong's pressure points and began channeling a bizarre energy through it with terrifying force. Bound by a power that clamped down on her entire body, Ilhong could only open her mouth — she couldn't even form words.
"S-stop…"
"Heh. Afraid now, are we? This is something I modified to suit my constitution — Absorb Yang to Nourish Yang. A martial art designed specifically to extract a man's yang energy while avoiding women."
Because a woman's presence was dangerous to him, he'd specially remade the technique — and he explained it with smug pride, sneering that it was a bit of travel money for the road to the underworld.
Shwaaa—
At the alley mouth, a youth's arm and pressure points held fast, body twisting under the Absorb Yang to Nourish Yang technique. And yet… as time passed, the one whose face was going dark, whose body was trembling like an aspen leaf, was not Ilhong. It was the Ghost-Faced Guest.
Something strange, not a man's yang energy, was flowing in through the pressure points. The pervert's eyes twitched.
"Urgh… What is this?!"
Something had gone wrong — and this time it was him thrashing instead of Ilhong. The cotton padding that had altered her frame had come loose during the fierce fight just now, and only then did the pervert seem to catch on, staring at Ilhong's face.
"You! You weren't a ma—! Kraaagh!"
Not a man with slightly dense yin energy — a woman entirely. The Ghost-Faced Guest reeled in horror.
A martial art that absorbed yang from men and yin from women, and a constitution that fully took in any yin energy that flowed into him. Even on a warm day, the Ghost-Faced Guest began exhaling cold breath as the yin energy swallowed him and he started to collapse.
"How… how can I die this… hollow a death…?"
A face gone paper-white. The Ghost-Faced Guest rolled on the ground with his eyes wide open, as if he couldn't believe it.
"Kkeuuuh… kkeuup."
He had stood in this alley intending, as always, to drink in a man's screams and yang energy. Instead he had absorbed yin energy, and now one of the most infamous perverts of the age was dying in the most ridiculous way imaginable.
Tatatak!
And then there were people rushing urgently toward the site of the explosion — Dan Mujin and the Hebei Paeng Clan experts who had been pursuing the man.
"Ilhong! Something blew up — are you oka— …Huh?"
Dan Mujin saw the Ghost-Faced Guest collapsed on the ground, foam at his mouth, and stopped mid-sentence with a baffled look. He peeled the skin mask off the Ghost-Faced Guest with a zzzik, nudged him with his foot, and asked,
"Ilhong. What is this?"
"The Ghost-Faced Guest."
The bizarre pervert said to have reached the Peak Realm, who concealed his identity with ghostlike skill.
"…Don't tell me you took him down?"
"Umm. Probably?"
And the Paeng Clan martial artists, arriving late, stirred in astonishment as they looked at Ilhong.
"Isn't that the Ghost-Faced Guest?"
"But why is he down…?"
"Don't tell me — that little young hero?"
Startled gazes locked onto Ilhong all at once. She quietly sheathed the sword that had fallen to the ground at her waist.
"See? I'm not just a kid anymore."
In truth, the enemy had more or less self-destructed. But so what?
Ilhong puffed herself up, imitating Dan Mujin's usual tone for all she was worth.