The Thunder Brat
At a single word from the boy called Dan Mujin, the kids came pouring out in a rush.
They had given it the grand name of the Encirclement Annihilation Formation, so he had expected something impressive. It turned out to be nothing more than surrounding an enemy in a circle.
The old man snorted a laugh at the sheer absurdity of it.
"Protect Boss Mujin!"
"Yeah!"
A string of recent victories had put some fire in the little ones. They had clearly been fed well and slept well—for beggars, they had a decent amount of meat on their bones, and their eyes held real spark.
You could tell a leader's character by the state of his subordinates. Contrary to the merchants' venomous gossip, this Dan Mujin seemed like a decent enough kid.
"I won't say it twice. Leave before you get hurt."
Dan Mujin strode out from among the children, putting on every ounce of gravity he could muster, apparently hoping to scare the old man off. In the flesh, he was even more of a cheeky little thing than the rumors had suggested.
"Heh heh. So you truly haven't learned any martial arts."
His Taiyang acupoint was flat and ordinary. No inner energy registered at all, nor was there any trace of hard-tempered external training.
And yet they said he was strong as an ox?
"Boy. Let this old man take your pulse just once."
"No thanks, old man."
It had not, for the record, been a request.
The old man slipped forward and flicked his hands a few times. The children went huh? and dropped hard onto their backsides.
That was the moment their ambitious Encirclement Annihilation Formation collapsed into nothing.
The kids stared, eyes wide at those bizarre footwork and hand motions, and shouted.
"A—a master!"
Not some half-baked nobody—a genuine expert of the jianghu had arrived. Dan Mujin's crew plunged straight into shock and chaos.
"Damn it—Thirty-Six Stratagems!"
Dan Mujin barked something in a hurry, and the children, as if they had rehearsed it in advance, scattered in every direction and fled.
Against a martial artist trained in lightfoot arts, it meant absolutely nothing.
The old man's toes kicked off the ground. His right hand shot out like lightning toward Dan Mujin's shoulder.
Tak!
And then something that should not have been possible happened. Even after deliberately holding back against children, Dan Mujin had instinctively struck the hand aside.
"…Just now. How did you do that?"
The old man asked, genuine surprise in his voice. The little brat looked just as stunned, eyes round as saucers—as if he had done it without thinking.
"When I sense danger, my body just— Wait. Who the hell are you, old man?!"
Perhaps the hand that had closed on him like a bolt from a clear sky had sent a chill down his spine. Seizing the moment while the old man was briefly lost in thought, the boy bolted again.
"Huh."
He was sprinting desperately toward the crowded main street. Quite the lively little thing. The old man stepped into his footwork and closed the distance in an instant, appearing right in front of the boy's nose.
When the old man rose up like a ghost in the very direction he was fleeing, Dan Mujin let out a shrill cry.
"Holy shit!"
The curse had a strangely rustic flavor to it, but either way the old man loaded qi into his fingertips and struck the paralysis point and the mute point.
Tudduk!
It was clearly the first time he had ever been acupoint-sealed. At the bizarre sensation of his whole body locking rigid, the boy's eyes spun wildly in their sockets.
Wanting a proper look at the boy's frame, the old man started at the Jingmen acupoint and carefully worked over his chest, shoulders, groin, arms, and legs.
"…Mmff!"
Dan Mujin's little mouth worked furiously, desperate to yell something under those hands. The merchants had said his specialty was intimidation and threats. Good thing the old man had sealed his mouth shut.
"That's why you should have listened when I asked nicely. Tsk tsk."
If he had, a single check of the wrist would have been the end of it.
Clicking his tongue, the old man took Dan Mujin's pulse and sent a stream of inner energy through. The boy flinched and shuddered at the alien sensation of someone else's qi flowing along his meridians.
But the moment that energy traveled up the Governing Vessel, reached the Baihui acupoint, and peered inside—
The old man felt every hair on his body stand up like needles.
…!
In the Upper Dantian, which should have been empty, something bone-chilling was waiting.
Dozens of pairs of eyes, dripping vivid red blood, staring right back at him.
Inside the boy's body, a storm of murderous intent raged—intent enough to tear the whole world apart. A vision of hell where blood ran in rivers and corpses piled into mountains. Unidentified vengeful spirits trapped there, weeping tears of blood, screaming without end.
And in the instant that the terrible something binding them all began to register the presence of an intruder—
"…Hup!"
The old man yanked his hands off Dan Mujin in a panic.
Cold sweat ran down his spine. It had lasted no longer than the blink of an eye, but to the old man it had been an eternity of pure horror.
Stone-cold sober in an instant, the old man—or rather, the self-proclaimed Daoist—discerned the true nature of that swirling killing intent and let out a groan.
This was not a matter of being born with a martial bone, or having talent for the martial arts, or lacking it.
Among all the constellations filling the night sky, the most dreadfully radiant of the red stars of ill omen.
"The Heavenly Killing…!"
Some said it was a calamity that appeared when Heaven itself was furious—a walking natural disaster.
And that existence, which a hundred years ago had risen in the Central Plains and unleashed a bloodbath, was standing right in front of him.
"You—how are you still in your right mind?"
The old man stammered without meaning to.
Those burdened with the karma of the Heavenly Killing Star usually began to lose their reason around the age of ten, and before long became complete murderers. But this one, by every outward measure, looked perfectly normal.
To carry something that monstrous inside him and still keep his mind so sharp—
"Hey, for fuck's sake, quit groping me. You perverted old bastard."
…Well. Maybe not perfectly normal.
That was the first thing out of the brat's mouth once the old man had tapped the sealed points free.
"Stay back, old man."
What kind of disaster was this supposed to be, just on the way to buy dumplings?
The moment my locked arms and legs came back under my control, I scrambled back toward the main street and yelled at him not to come any closer.
"No."
But the old man just kept walking toward me, step by unhurried step, with a look that said and what exactly are you going to do about it?
This was no ordinary master. Judging by that ghostlike glide of his, running was not an option either.
"People of the neighborhood! Help me! Some perverted old man is beating kids!"
So I bolted out onto the main street, where people thronged like clouds, and screamed for help at the top of my lungs.
Weren't all under Heaven supposed to be brothers? When a little kid bawled for his life, at least a few eyes should turn. That was the normal way of things.
But today, everyone's reaction was wrong.
"…Why is everyone looking away?"
Not a single person would meet my eyes, as if I had turned invisible. People hurried past me, clearly wanting nothing to do with it.
"They saw footwork like that, and acupoint sealing on top of it. You think any madman is going to stick his neck out? Tsk tsk."
The old man stood with his hands clasped behind his back, clicking his tongue at the sight.
Still. Not even one person?
Not a single self-styled hero leaping out of the woodwork the way they did in the martial arts novels?
After all that yelling, you would think at least a constable might come running to see what the fuss was about.
"Ha."
So this was the Murim. A place where the weak died without even getting to scream.
Which, flipped around, meant the strong could do whatever they pleased.
"What do you want? My body?"
"…Do you truly take this old man for some kind of deviant?"
Having accepted reality, my answer left the old man laughing in sheer disbelief.
Then what was the point of groping a stranger first thing in the morning?
"Do you carry the Heavenly Killing Star?"
He cut straight to it, asking if I had received a star's descent. Earlier he had poured some strange energy into me, then nearly jumped out of his skin. So that was what it had been about.
"Old man."
"Call me Old Master Hwang."
"Old Master Hwang. Did you come to stab me too? Taking orders from those bastards?"
To finish the job my own sister, Moyong Cheonghye, had left incomplete. Come to think of it, why else would a master of his caliber go looking for a brat like me?
I had come all the way out here on purpose and buried myself among beggars, and they still hunted me down. Thorough bastards.
"What nonsense. I came of my own will."
Apparently that was not it.
The old man who had introduced himself as Old Master Hwang tapped the crown of my head—right where the Baihui acupoint sat—and pressed on with his questions.
"More importantly, I was too shaken earlier to hear properly. Answer me. Why have you not gone mad?"
He was grilling me about how, even while clowning around in front of a master, he could not sense the particular madness of the Heavenly Killing Star.
"How the hell should I know? If I'd known that, I wouldn't have a hole in my gut in the first place."
Not that figuring out the reason would have made the Moyong Clan believe me, either. After all the half-crazed things Moyong Cheongjin had done, talking to them had been useless.
"Truly extraordinary. At your age you ought to be thoroughly insane. Do you not, by any chance, feel the urge to stab people? Strange whispers in your head, perhaps…"
"Well, right now something does seem to be whispering that I should stab the old man standing in front of me."
Ever since that vicious energy had been recognized by this old man, it had been jabbing at my body, screaming at me to kill him. It was enough to drive a man up the wall.
Words that just boiled up and spilled out on their own.
"Then why don't you?"
"Because I don't want to?"
I was not some blood-crazed demon. Why would I lose my mind in broad daylight and start a bloodbath? Against a master of his level, no less. Even eggs against rocks had their limits.
"Hoo. A Heavenly Killing Star that keeps its reason. Am I truly meant to believe this?"
A hundred years had slowly worn down people's vigilance, but there were still plenty in the Central Plains who watched for the flash of those ill-omened stars.
The old man looked down at me in silence, clenching and unclenching his fist. I had seen that look before. Lord Moyong Cheon's eyes had been exactly like that when he shouted about cutting the grass and pulling up the roots.
He was weighing whether I would become a great disaster later—whether he should kill me now.
"…For fuck's sake. I am in my right mind."
I would almost rather deal with the escorts who had come to 'teach me a lesson.' How hard had I fought to survive that cliff, only to have my neck on the line again?
My protest did nothing to change the old man's face.
Murim people never listened to reason. A world drowning in distrust of human beings.
And then—
"You perverted old man!"
"Let our boss go!"
From far off came the voices of Ilhong and Ohchil. They must have heard my desperate cries for help a moment ago.
The kids were coming back this way, determined to rescue their captured boss.
Far more loyal than those Moyong Clan bastards, at least.
"Huh. Children running to save a Heavenly Killing Star?"
Even grown adults looked the other way out of fear of a master's might.
The old man's expression grew exceedingly complicated as the little ones charged in shouting Boss! A small furrow dug itself between his brows as his thoughts deepened.
"…Let us change locations for now. This old man needs to think."
Apparently he had no interest in squabbling with a pack of young beggars. He hauled me up by the scruff as he said it.
A brazen declaration of kidnapping, without so much as asking for consent.
"I refuse! Put me down!"
"Did that sound like a request to you?"
Choice, he implied, belonged only to the strong. As I thrashed toward freedom, he sealed my points again.
"Shit, not this again…"
Arms and legs stiffening like wood.
Then the whole world went black.
Merchant groups and escort agencies ran on credit and promises.
Escort agencies especially, tasked with transporting other people's expensive cargo, found themselves in a world of trouble when a job went wrong. They had to pay out damages, and they lost the world's trust on top of it—a double blow.
And the Eunseong Escort Agency had recently botched two critical runs in a row. Both times, it had been the work of one mad freak who wielded a Wolf Fang Staff.
Every time they set out on a convoy, the man would burst from the mountains and smash the cargo with a single thunderous strike. His martial arts were so overwhelming that even first-rate escorts were swept aside without a fight.
As a result, jobs stopped coming in entirely.
With funds drying up, Chief Steward Jin had been stamping his feet in frustration, while the accountants and escorts howled that they would starve to death if they could not go out on runs.
"That damn Wolf Fang—what the hell is he even doing?"
That was the jianghu for you. One master could make you weep or laugh. And so every merchant group was rushing about trying to recruit capable martial artists as retained guests.
Of course the Eunseong Merchant Group had kept pace and gathered a number of talents of its own.
But then their towering father had died suddenly. The new sericulture venture they had been pushing ran into crisis. Rumors of financial trouble spread. Word got out that an inexperienced greenhorn had taken the head seat.
And all those carefully cultivated connections decided the place was doomed and drained away like the ebbing tide.
"'A kind heart reaps kind rewards, and even grass will bind itself to repay a debt'—what a load of crap that was."
In the flower of her years. Twenty years old.
Exactly the age to learn how cold and filthy the world could be.
Eun Hwaran's face flushed hot—whether from the sunlight or a quiet burn of anger—and she snapped open her folding fan with a sharp charuk and fanned herself hard.
"At least Old Master Hwang came to us, so it looks like we might get another chance on the escort side."
He had said he would help with Eunseong's affairs for a while. How long that would last, she did not know.
Even so, in a world packed full of ungrateful beasts, how grateful she was for a man like him.
Though some of the staff had been suffering a bit under his eccentricities and the chaos that followed him around.
They had provided him with a luxurious guest hall, yet he insisted on sleeping on stone floors or rooftop tiles and kept getting discovered by the maids. He hummed incomprehensible songs at the top of his lungs, and faced toward the Imperial Palace to badmouth the Son of Heaven. His monstrous appetite was putting a permanent bend in the head cook's back, and he kept quietly making off with dozens of bottles of wine from the storehouse…
"…He does have an uncommon air about him, I will say that."
He did not seem particularly greedy for wealth, but his obsession with food and drink was something else.
Still, when a man's martial arts were that formidable, a few quirks could be overlooked. Masters who had reached a certain realm tended to be a little eccentric by nature.
"Mm-hmm."
Eun Hwaran nodded to herself, gently fanning her round, fair face—
When a sudden commotion broke out at the manor gate.
"Let go! Put me down, old man!"
A little boy was hanging off Old Master Hwang's shoulder like a sack of cargo, shrieking at the top of his lungs.
At that bizarre sight, every eye among the people preparing for the next escort run swung toward the main gate.
"You little… When did the mute point come free again?"
Old Master Hwang asked with a look of pure disbelief.
"Must be because you're old and the seal's wearing off! Just put me down!"
Perhaps thanks to some special constitution—the seal on his mouth had already come undone, and the kid was bellowing at full volume that there was a child kidnapper right here.
Old Master Hwang tapped experimentally at the mute points all over the boy's body—Jianjing, Ridong, Yamen, and the rest.
"Ugh, the pervert old man is groping me! People of the neighborhood, look at this!"
"…Have you ever seen such a thunder brat in your life."
Even the paralysis points seemed to be coming free. The boy thrashed on the old man's shoulder like a freshly caught fish, refusing to stop his tantrum.
While Old Master Hwang was fretting over how on earth to shut that mouth—
"Old Master Hwang? What on earth is…"
Someone addressed him in a thoroughly flustered voice.
It was none other than Eun Hwaran, head of the merchant group.