The Paeng Siblings
"I have committed a crime deserving of death……."
The head cook confessed cleanly, without a single excuse or denial, and begged for forgiveness. He spilled everything—how threats from the Mangeum Money House had left him no choice but to lace the food with poison. According to him, his son had fallen deep into gambling, racked up a massive debt at the Mangeum Money House, and finally been taken hostage.
"Mujin."
"Yes, Sister."
"……How did you figure it out?"
She had watched the man up close for more than ten years and never noticed a thing. How had I spotted the betrayal in a single glance? That was what she wanted to know.
"Trade secret."
A troubleshooter, like a stage magician, has to keep his tricks tightly under wraps if he wants clients to keep coming back.
……!
Salsung protested right in front of my eyes that I had only noticed thanks to her, but I ignored her completely. Annoyed by the brush-off, she flipped me the middle finger.
That one sure picked up some weird habits.
"Steward Jin."
Eun Hwaran snapped her folding fan shut with a sharp click.
"Send a formal notice to the Mangeum Money House. Tell them, in the name of the Eunseong Family, that we will not let this matter slide."
She could no longer tolerate their villainy and schemes; her expression had turned ice-cold.
"But my lady, they will simply deny any connection to the cook, the way a four-legged snake sheds its tail."
"I know. Send it anyway."
We had testimony and a witness, but no hard evidence. True to the sort of people who had tried to swallow an entire merchant group and escort agency in secret, they had left nothing that could serve as solid proof.
"And send a letter to Princess Dohwa as well."
The unexpected name slipped from Eun Hwaran's lips. They had powerful backers—but so did her side.
A brief silence fell. Steward Jin spoke again, cold sweat beading on his brow.
"If we confront them head-on, this could escalate into something far larger……."
He seemed worried the incident might become the spark for an all-out clash between two imperial factions.
"I know what you're worried about. Still, we have to prepare."
They had been revealed as mortal enemies who could not live under the same sky; Eun Hwaran was already stoking the fires of war.
"However long it takes, I will have my revenge. For my father's share as well."
The Eunseong Merchant Group had only just begun to regain its footing and stretch its wings; an immediate full-scale war would be too much. Yet as the saying went—a gentleman's revenge is never too late, even after ten years.
"Just wait and see."
In the merchant lord's office that late afternoon stood a woman grinding her teeth, vowing vengeance.
I stayed at the Eunseong Merchant Group for a while longer, just in case more hidden spies were still around. During that time Eun Hwaran packed a protest letter full of blood-chilling language and sent it to the Mangeum Money House. Naturally the other side didn't so much as bat an eye; they simply denied any connection to the cook.
"Those bastards deserve to die. They're worse than the eunuchs the prince sent."
It had been a while since I last saw my sister this furious—the exact same face she had worn the last time the eunuchs barged in, inspected the sleeping quarters, and declared, "From top to bottom, this place is a mess!"
Anyway, we decided to sit tight and wait for a response from the princess's palace. In the meantime I accepted an extra commission from Eun Hwaran and was currently thrashing someone within an inch of his life on the training grounds.
Thwack!
"Gueeeek!"
I kicked him square in the backside; Eun Yang-gon squealed like a wild boar and staggered forward in an awkward, shambling run. The way he gasped for air with a look that said he was about to die was the spitting image of me during my very first training session here.
"St-stop! At this rate you'll—huff—kill me!"
"No need to worry! I'm carefully measuring every blow!"
"Damn it! How the hell is this measuring…… Guh!"
A kick to the ribs sent him rolling across the ground. When I took a stance that promised another full thrashing if he resisted again, Eun Yang-gon spat out the breath that had climbed all the way to his chin and started running once more as if death itself were on his heels.
"Next drill is push-ups! One—alcohol and gambling! Two—quit them!"
"Huff… g-gambling… qu-quit…"
"Can't you say it any louder?! Ten owls!"
I kept demanding that completely baffling "Ack!" sound from him. Sprawled on the ground, Eun Hwaran's older brother shot me a look that asked what personal grudge I could possibly hold to treat him like this.
"Ilhong, why's he doing that to the guy?"
Hwang Geolgae, chewing on a dried-squid leg, asked while watching me cheerfully work someone over on the training ground.
"The merchant lord asked him to turn that good-for-nothing into a proper human being again."
After this latest incident she had finally realized that leaving him free to roam outside was too dangerous. Killing him outright didn't suit Eun Hwaran's temperament either, so the conclusion had been to recycle him somehow and keep him in the fold. Which meant I was currently attempting human recycling—trying to cure the bastard of his alcohol and gambling addictions.
"And thrashing him like that is supposed to fix him?"
"Yes. A little while ago he said he was confident it would work."
"That so? I beat the hell out of him plenty of times myself, and the man never changed."
Well, of course not—I wasn't an irredeemable good-for-nothing. Strictly speaking I simply never held back the words that needed saying, and only to people who thoroughly pissed me off.
"Guhhh… treating a person like some… beast! Beating him like this!"
I agreed with him on principle. You shouldn't try to correct people with violence. But when the person in question was a worthless bastard who had nearly ruined the family with wine and gambling, then failed to come to his senses and almost gotten his own sister killed a second time… a little sincere thrashing was in order.
"After all the trouble you've caused your sister, you still don't show a shred of remorse?"
"Wh-who the hell is your sister?! There's no such rogue in the Eunseong Family!"
"A sworn little brother still seems better than a blood relative on the family register."
"……Grrrk!"
Back in my detective-agency days I had dealt with more than a few gambling addicts. They were the sort who would pawn the family's entire fortune for one more bet, and whose brains were already so marinated in dopamine that ordinary persuasion never made a dent. That was when I learned it: to fix people like that, you had to become an even more vicious bastard yourself.
"Depending on how you behave, this instructor can be a living saint—or a demon from hell!"
Thwack!
My clenched fist slammed down hard on the crown of his head—a mysterious striking method that never split the skull yet delivered the pain in vivid, living color.
"Guhhh!"
The effect was perfect. Twisting his whole body as if he had been subjected to tendon-tearing, bone-crushing torment, Eun Yang-gon tried to scramble away. I chased him relentlessly, occasionally planting a sharp forehead flick right on the top of his skull.
"Always soused in booze! Can't tell right from wrong! Keep living like that and you'll end up a beggar just like some old man I know! A beggar!"
"Ack! Aaack!"
Every blow sent electric jolts of pain racing through Eun Yang-gon's body; he thrashed and writhed.
"That sure sounds like it's meant for my ears, doesn't it?"
Hwang Geolgae, standing nearby, tilted his head and asked Ilhong.
"W-well… who knows?"
She scratched her cheek and looked away, either covering for me or simply unwilling to meet his eyes.
"Gambling on top of everything else, plus the irresponsibility of abandoning the group he belongs to! At this rate he'll start beating kids next!"
No one should grow into that kind of grotesque adult. Declaring that I would fix him before it came to that, I picked up a nearby sparring club and began thrashing him with heartfelt care.
"Yeah… that was definitely aimed at me."
"Ahaha…… it sure was."
Hwang Geolgae gave a dry chuckle that said the kid really was a cheeky little bastard. I could feel his prickly glare boring into the back of my head, but I deliberately ignored it and continued reforming Eun Yang-gon.
Crack!
"Gyaaah!"
This time it wasn't a fist—a long sparring staff smashed into him. It wasn't the Dog-Beating Staff, yet I unfurled the Dog-Beating Staff Technique with a similar feel. From upper left to lower right, the tip of the staff sliced the air like a flying blade. The dreadful principles of striking that Hwang Geolgae had occasionally demonstrated rode the end of the staff.
As I kept swinging in that manner, a strange sensation began spreading from my dantian through my entire body—exactly like the tingling energy that had first danced at my fingertips when I first poured qi into a weapon.
Crack!
A blow that left no wound on the flesh yet drove the pain all the way into the marrow. Every time I delivered it with the staff rather than my fist, every part of my body seemed to connect into one seamless whole: staff and hand, arm and leg, dantian all the way out to the fine meridians of the entire body.
"Guh… I-I've come to my senses, so stop! I'll never go near gambling or drink again!"
I felt as though I had reached the very threshold of enlightenment. Stopping now would have been far too regrettable. I wanted to keep tugging on this clue that hovered just within reach.
"No. You still haven't come to your senses."
"I-I have, I tell you! Really! I'll never gamble again…!"
"I never trust a gambler's word!"
Crack!
"Kyaaah—!"
Is there anything lighter than a gambler and a drunkard claiming they've finally come to their senses? Yet even the lightest words gain a little weight when they arrive wrapped in bone-crushing agony. I continued thrashing Eun Yang-gon's body for a good long while with that sparring staff of sudden insight—under the thoroughly appalled stares of Hwang Geolgae and Ilhong.
"What a vicious little bastard."
The palace of the Third Princess. Lately a strange atmosphere had been hanging over the place—a maid who vanished without warning one day, a key palace lady who collapsed and would not rise, forbidden poisonous herbs growing in the princess's garden, and more.
"Ill omens, one and all. Ensure Princess Dohwa's safety without the slightest lapse."
"Yes, Director Cheon!"
The black-clad agents of the Eastern Depot bowed their heads and shouted their assent. It was plain that discipline throughout the princess's palace had grown slack. If these incidents were not mere coincidence but someone's calculated design, then they were almost certainly the work of that prince.
How convenient it would be to have a reliable bodyguard watching over Her Highness at a time like this.
"Director Cheon—also, a letter has arrived from the Eunseong Merchant Group."
The contents of that letter only fanned his unease further: the other side had once again schemed against them, this time targeting their financial lifeline.
"So the fragile peace is about to shatter."
He could feel the clouds of war gathering like an ominous storm front. That meant preparations had to be made. From this moment on, not the slightest disorder would be tolerated inside the princess's palace. Anyone targeting this place would surely begin by probing the smallest cracks.
"But you—what is that scroll at your waist?"
Cheon Su-gong had spotted something on the agents as they turned away and asked with open suspicion.
"Uh, this is… that is…"
Even after being questioned, the agent hesitated and dithered, clearly finding the object awkward to produce.
"Hand it over at once. Dawdling at a time like this—do you have a death wish?"
"Y-yes, sir!"
Yet when Cheon Su-gong unrolled the scroll with a sharp rustle, the image inside was something far more mysterious than he had expected.
"W-what in the world is this?"
"That… is the picture that has been spreading by word of mouth throughout the imperial palace lately."
Apparently someone had captured the famous Ju Wolay—already renowned among high ministers and great officials—in a single painting.
"Truly bewitching……."
Cheon Su-gong had seen plenty of beauty portraits in his time. But a lovely woman sporting beast ears?
"We really will have to turn this entire place upside down."
Discipline was even more lax than he had anticipated. That was the moment Cheon Su-gong decided to shake the princess's palace down to its foundations.
I continued escorting Eun Hwaran for quite some time after that, yet there seemed to be no further assassination attempts. So we returned to the office—together with the heavy money pouch she had pressed into our hands.
"With this much money we could loaf around for months, right?"
Ilhong was positively giddy now that cash had finally flowed into the office.
"You really think so?"
I pointed at the Purple Micro Star, who inhaled food with a ferocity that rivaled the Heavenly Killing Star. Stock anything edible in the pantry and she would instantly demolish it with loud, enthusiastic chewing. Together with me, she was the reason our office's Engel coefficient stayed so gloriously high.
"Hmm… months might be a stretch."
At any rate, we had finished one job and were waiting for the next commission when—
Boom!
Without warning a massive, hulking figure burst through the front door.
"Is Dog-Beating Dragon Dan Mujin here?"
A man who instantly earned the title of seven-chi giant. A terrifying great saber was strapped across his back.
"Who are you?"
"Are you the Dog-Beating Dragon? I came on the introduction of your sister, who said you do excellent work."
Huge frame, solid bone structure, great saber at his back—and he knew of me and claimed to have been introduced by my sister.
"Would you happen to be from the Hebei Paeng Family?"
"Exactly so."
He had all the classic features of a Hebei Paeng martial artist. One of the Five Great Families that had established themselves in Beijing, and among them one of the wealthier houses. It seemed a new client had just walked through our door.
"And what business brings you here?"
"Fraudulent gambling."
The giant snorted and answered in two short words. I had only just finished solving a gambling problem; the coincidence was almost amusing.
"Fraudulent gambling, you say?"
"The Mangeum Money House cleaned me out."
"……Oho."
And the opponent was none other than the same people who had tried to harm my sister. I opened my ears wide for what promised to be a very interesting story.