The One-Character Letter
"Haah……."
These days, Eon Jungmi could not rest easy, her nerves frayed to shreds over the matter of the Geumo Merchant Guild.
Where on earth has he gone?!
Her husband Tang Woo had slipped away amid all this chaos to idle about in comfort, and all she could do was fume.
Though it was time to sleep, she felt no drowsiness at all—only a growing, prickling irritability.
If the Geumo Guild Master is captured… then everything will come to light. The operating funds siphoned out of the Benevolent Dragon Unit, and the money borrowed from the main clan in the Tang family's name—every last coin of it!
Her nails, always trimmed to meticulous neatness, were bitten down to ragged stubs—proof enough of just how unsettled her mind had become.
Why does tonight feel so wrong?
Somehow, today, she felt strangely cut off from the world outside.
Screeech.
Just then, without so much as a word of warning, someone hurried in—and Eon Jungmi's already raw temper sharpened into open fury.
"Have you lost your mind, girl?! Entering without permission?!"
"Madam! This! Look at this!"
As always, her hand rose first—but the moment she saw the letter the maid held out, she snatched it away in haste.
A heartbeat later, her eyes threatened to split wide open.
逃
Flee.
A single character on the page: flee. But she grasped at once what it meant.
"Gihyo! Where is Gihyo?!"
"That is… he's in the annex!"
"Out of my way!"
She sprang up and hurried toward the annex at a frantic pace. Upon arriving, she found the servants gathered outside.
"What is the meaning of this?"
"Madam……."
"I asked you a question!"
Smack! Smack! Crash!
The sounds from inside the annex were unmistakable—someone throwing things, someone striking flesh.
Screeech.
The moment the door swung open, Eon Jungmi found herself frowning without meaning to.
"You wretched creatures dare! You dare snub me? Hah!"
One servant already lay bleeding from the head, frothing at the mouth, while the maid's face was smeared with blood, her eyes rolled back—unconscious, clearly.
"Tang Gihyo!"
"…Mother?"
"What do you think you're doing?"
"I was… educating these insolent wretches……."
It was an excuse even he found embarrassing, and Gihyo glanced away as he said it. He braced himself for his mother's shriek to follow at any moment—but Eon Jungmi had never spared servants so much as a passing thought.
"Why waste your hands on lowborn vermin? Enough of this foolishness. Pack a few things—quickly—and come with me."
"Things? Why?"
"Now!"
She flared up harder at the question than she ever had at the beating of servants.
"What is this, a spectacle?! Clear these wretches away at once!"
At her words, the servants simply stared at her in silence for a moment. They said nothing, but Eon Jungmi understood exactly what their eyes were saying.
"How dare you! Where do you get such insolence!"
She longed to beat some manners into their disrespectful faces right then and there—but there was no time.
"You lot… I'll deal with you when I return! Come, Gihyo!"
"Yes, Mother."
And so Eon Jungmi and Tang Gihyo, carrying a few hastily gathered belongings and dressed in plain travel clothes, slipped covertly around to the rear of the Benevolent Dragon Unit's compound.
The Tang fortress looked no different than any ordinary day, yet the flow of air through it had shifted, ever so subtly.
"Mother, why not just call for a carriage?"
"A carriage? A carriage!"
"Mo—Mother!"
The sight of her son spouting such naive nonsense made something surge up in Eon Jungmi, and her hand flew out before she could stop it.
The treatment she had always reserved for the servants came pouring out unbidden at the slightest offense to her pride.
"Don't hit me!"
At the terrified look on Gihyo's face, she lowered her hand belatedly.
"I'm sorry. I can't afford that right now. We must leave the Tang fortress as quietly as we can."
"But… why do we have to?"
Gihyo could not fathom why they were creeping about, avoiding the people of the Tang clan like common thieves. To her son, Eon Jungmi said:
"That Tang Sanlong has framed your mother with lies."
At that, Gihyo's face flushed with rage.
"Then go to Father at once! Once you do, even that Tang Sanlong won't be able to touch us!"
"Your father is……."
How was she to find Tang Woo when she had no idea where he even was? Worst case, she had to consider the possibility that he had already been seized.
"If Father won't do, then go to Grandfather! I'll carry the message myself!"
Much as she wished she could follow Gihyo's advice, the fact that whoever sent that letter had barely managed to pass along a single word suggested that the boy's grandfather's situation was far from good either.
Damn it all! They must have failed to assassinate the Guild Master!
Things had clearly gone wrong.
That Geumo Guild Master—that son of a bitch must have told them everything!
Wasn't there a saying that you should never take in a beast with black hair? No matter how well you fed and cared for it, it betrayed you at the decisive moment.
Once we reach the main clan, I'll kill the Geumo Guild Master first of all!
Face twisted with venom, Eon Jungmi moved in secret.
"Ahhk!"
Just then the maid following behind tripped over a stone, and watching such antics when every second counted made Eon Jungmi's temper boil over.
"You clumsy fool!"
"I'm sorry!"
"Can't even stand back up?! Did you bring the key?!"
"Y-yes!"
"Open it. Quickly!"
"Yes!"
As the maid wearily pushed aside the overgrown vines, a small door came into view.
"Nnngh… nnngh!"
She groaned and heaved at the rusted door. Any decent person might have lent a hand—instead, Eon Jungmi only berated her, hurrying her along.
"You useless girl! Won't it open any faster?!"
"It's… it's o…pen!"
Thud!
Perhaps because the passage had been neglected and abandoned for so long, a damp, musty stench assailed her nose.
"Come, Gihyo."
"Mother… it's filthy. And why are we even running like this?! It's a false accusation!"
Her son's thoughtless whining was about to make her burst—when a voice struck her ears.
"Eon Jungmi has vanished!"
"Find the traitor of the Tang clan—Eon Jungmi!"
The shouts erupting all across the fortress at once drained the color from her face.
"Mo… Mother? What are they saying?!"
"Did I not tell you it was a frame job?! I said move, so move!"
"But it is a frame job, isn't it?! If we just explain ourselves calmly——"
"Gihyo! Listen to me well. A frame is not something so easily undone. We slip beyond these walls first—then, afterward, we can untangle everything piece by piece."
"Yes……."
Only after barely soothing her son could Eon Jungmi finally enter the passage.
If I were alone, I'd have been well clear of the Tanggata by now!
"Ah! It's filthy!"
Gihyo shrieked as if in a full-blown fit after stepping in a bit of mud. And yet she had patience enough to indulge the petulance of her one and only child.
"Kyahk!"
"Keep it down, will you!"
Smack! Smack!
That patience, of course, extended only to her son—and never to the maid.
"Ugh!"
When Gihyo clamped his nose at the sewer stench and tried to turn back, Eon Jungmi grabbed him.
"Gihyo, bear it just a little longer."
"Mother……."
Seeing him whimper, the light gone from one eye, Eon Jungmi felt her heart tear in two.
If only it weren't for Tang Sanlong!
She swore to survive, no matter what, and to kill that man with her own hands.
And so the end of the dark passage came into view.
"Open it!"
"Yes."
The maid pulled the rope slowly with a worn-out face, and the door creaked open.
"Move!"
"Kyahk!"
Gihyo shoved the maid aside and pushed through first, with Eon Jungmi close behind.
"Hoo……."
Outside, the smell that greeted them was not sewage but fresh grass. Then, as her eyes adjusted——
Huh?
Just as she was savoring the scent of the open air, something else mingled with it. Smoke. Something burning.
Torches?
Watching her surroundings slowly brighten with firelight, Eon Jungmi cried out.
"Gihyo! Turn back, quick——"
The moment she sensed something was wrong and spun to retreat, the door slammed shut behind them.
"You—you! Youuuu! You damn wretch!"
"Fool of a girl!"
The maid shut the door with a face full of venom, and in the same instant, torchlight flared on all sides as the Dark Dragon Squad emerged from the darkness.
Their retreat was cut off, and they were surrounded on every side.
It was four walls and a trap—desperation, complete.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
The sound of slow applause drifted through the grim night air. Following it with their eyes, they found Tang Sanlong standing at its source.
"It's been a while, Eon Jungmi."
"You insolent wretch! I am the wife of the Benevolent Dragon Unit Leader! Watch your tongue!"
Watching her posture so defiantly, Sanlong turned to Tang Chiyeol beside him.
"She still hasn't figured out her situation, huh?"
"How would I know? Though seeing how she scurried off like a rat, maybe she does have some idea."
At Chiyeol's perfectly reasonable answer, Sanlong gave a huh, is that so? tilt of the head and looked back at Eon Jungmi.
"You've been through a lot, I see. A lady of the Benevolent Dragon Unit Leader's house, scurrying through the night like a rat—what is this?"
Unlike the mud-splattered, disheveled mother and son, Sanlong and the Dark Dragon Squad were immaculate. And seeing that not one of them was even slightly out of breath, Eon Jungmi finally understood.
"You knew we would come out here."
"I didn't even have to look. The reports just kept flooding in. My, my~ you certainly managed your people well, didn't you?"
"Lowborn vermin dare—!"
Even now, she blamed the servants. Sanlong shook his head with an expression of pure disdain.
"I didn't lift a finger, and they came to me on their own—your location, your escape plan, all of it, drawn up and delivered. Honestly, at first I thought it was some scheme of yours."
The servants had been so cooperative that Sanlong had genuinely wondered, at first, whether Eon Jungmi had laid some kind of trap. The moment word spread that Tang Woo was dead, they had cut off information from the outside, handed over every letter meant for her to Sanlong before it reached her, and even shown him the secret passage she intended to flee through.
"Well, you know what they say—call people 'lowborn vermin' every day, smack them around, treat them like they're not even human, and loyalty tends to dry up."
"Silence! Filthy rabble—what do I care for the likes of them!"
Sanlong nodded at that.
"Good. Consistent to the end. So then… how would you like to be taken? Quietly? Or the hard way?"
"I……."
Just as Eon Jungmi opened her mouth, Gihyo stepped forward.
"It's you who framed us! You'll be the one taken! We'll go and expose the truth!"
So utterly confident, so utterly clueless—Sanlong doubted his own ears for a moment.
"Did I just hear that right?"
"He says you framed him."
At Chiyeol's deadpan reply, Sanlong was genuinely dumbfounded. He'd heard the boy had gone a little strange after losing an eye and taking a few beatings—but seeing it firsthand was something else entirely.
"Me? Are you actually serious right now?"
The reaction from Sanlong and the Dark Dragon Squad finally made Gihyo sense that something was off. And to him, Sanlong decided to deliver a dose of cold, hard reality.
"Do you know what your mother did? She embezzled the Benevolent Dragon Unit's operating funds, borrowed money from the Cheonha Merchant Guild through the Jinju Eon Clan in the Tang family's name, and hired Sam Sal of the Ghost Blade Three Killers to have members of the Tang Youth Training Unit killed. And now she's a fugitive. You still haven't figured out the situation? You two are, in a word, absolutely finished."
"The Sam Sal business was just a tangled accident! I never intended that! And what does it matter that a few washed-up nobodies died? Hah?! They matter less than Gihyo by a hundred times, a thousand times!"
At her screaming—little more than a cornered animal's thrashing—Tang Gihyo staggered backward, as if struck by lightning.
"But Mother said… Mother said you framed him… she… she said……."
Panic seemed to have swallowed him whole. He clawed at his own head, trembling, and as his mind visibly unraveled, Eon Jungmi rushed toward him.
"Gihyo! Don't listen to him!"
People who wouldn't grant a servant the dignity of personhood—and yet how desperately they adore that one child of their own. Of course, that very love had dragged both mother and son down the road to ruin.
"Touching. Truly touching."
"Sanlong!"
Just then, Gihyo crawled forward to Sanlong and dropped to his knees.
"I—I didn't do anything wrong, did I? Huh? It was all Mother, wasn't it? Right?"
"What?"
"You can just take her. Me… I'm… I'm——"
"Gihyo!"
Eon Jungmi's face was more stricken than it had ever been. But Gihyo seemed unable to hear her at all.
"Just take Mother! Spare me, won't you? Huh? I truly didn't know anything!"
He groveled with hands and feet, begging for his life. Turning away from the sight, Sanlong looked at Eon Jungmi.
"What a close, loving family you are?"
"Gihyo… how could you……."
"Mother's the one who has to pay, isn't she?! Why should I be punished along with her?! Just surrender quietly!"
"Tang Gihyo!"
"Beautiful. Just beautiful."
Tang Chiyeol exclaimed in admiration around a mouthful of beef jerky.
"Enough."
Leaving the mother and son to their squabbling, Sanlong slowly drew something from his robes.
"You want to live, don't you?"
"Of course I do!"
"Then drink this, and show me your resolve."
"What… what is it?"
"Coagulated Blood Snake Poison."
As he said it, Sanlong looked toward Eon Jungmi. What she had once done to his own mother—he intended to return it to her in full.
"C-Coagulated Blood Snake Poison?"
"That's right. There's a certain risk involved, but survive it, and your inner power will rise to another level entirely."
Gihyo had heard of the Coagulated Blood Snake Poison. It was rare and dangerous to consume—but those who endured it, the stories said, gained a body capable of withstanding any poison thereafter.
"Gihyo! Don't drink it! Stop! Stop it! You lowborn wretches!"
Even betrayed by her own son, Eon Jungmi tried desperately to hold him back.
"Well? Choose. Drink it—or be dragged off with your mother."
"A rise in inner power……."
Nothing more needed to be said. He was already staring at the poison vial like a man bewitched by a demon.
"If I drink this, you won't take me in?"
"Right. But you're only thinking of saving yourself? What about your mother?"
"What does she have to do with it! I'm innocent, I told you!"
"Gihyo!"
His mother existed no longer in Tang Gihyo's mind.
Glug! Glug!
And so, without a moment's hesitation, Gihyo swallowed the Coagulated Blood Snake Poison.
A bitter, chalky taste—unique to the poison—spread across his tongue.
…Huh? It's fine?
Nothing like what he'd been told. He was still puzzling over the anticlimax when——
"Kghk! Kghaak! Kghk!"
Agony erupted through his entire body, as if someone were hammering him from the inside out.
Save me! Somebody save me!
He had to circulate his qi—he had to! The pain was so overwhelming that even breathing was torture.
Antidote! The antidote!
He tried to scream for the antidote, but no voice would come. All he could do was claw at his own throat, choking, convulsing.
"Gihyo! Gihyo!"
Save me! I don't want to die like this! I don't want to die!
Sanlong watched him thrash on the ground, his face utterly unmoved.
"Gihyo, you have to circulate your qi."
He said the words, but circulating would be impossible. After all, what the boy had just swallowed was no ordinary Coagulated Blood Snake Poison—it was a vintage thirty years in the making.
"Kgh… kgh… urkk……."
How long had passed? Tang Gihyo no longer moved at all.
"Gihyo… Gihyooooo!"
Eon Jungmi screamed as though the world itself had ended.
And how much longer after that? She simply stood there, hollow-eyed, offering no more resistance. The one reason she had to live had vanished from the world.
"…Did it have to come to this?"
"You've got to be kidding me."
In answer to her question, Sanlong brought over a stack of papers and began to read them out, slowly.
"Stableman Lee. Beaten by Eon Jungmi, denied proper treatment, cast out, and worked to death. His wife and children nearly starved before they were rescued."
He turned the page.
"Benevolent Dragon Unit servant Ma. Struck in the knee by a throwing dagger when Tang Gihyo decided to 'test his martial arts,' leaving his leg crippled. Maid Yu Yang. Blinded in one eye at Eon Jungmi's hand."
On and on it went—the litany of horrors the two of them had inflicted on their servants over the years.
"You expect me to feel guilt over the deaths of lowborn vermin?"
Reading the venom in her eyes, Sanlong nodded as though he'd expected nothing less.
"No. What I'm saying is that your son died because of what you did."
And with that, Sanlong slowly rolled up his sleeve.
"Also—out of respect for the direct bloodline, I'm giving you fair warning: I intend to settle the grievances of the servants who suffered and died unjustly. Tang Chiyeol."
"You're really going through with this?"
"Servants are people of the Tang clan too. Their grudges deserve to be repaid."
Chiyeol finally handed over a well-made, sturdy wooden rod. It fit neatly into the palm. It felt good.
"Well then—eyes first."
"Wh-what are you doing! Kyaaaah! My eye!"
Sanlong swung the rod into Eon Jungmi's eye. And with that, the reaping began.
"Kghk… kghaak……."
Looking down at what had once been a woman—now reduced to a shape he could hardly recognize as human—Sanlong drew something else from his robes.
Chime.
He tossed a throwing dagger down before her.
"There! Eon Jungmi, you who cherished your son so dearly! I'll give you the chance to restore his honor."
"You… you mad bas…tard……."
Sanlong spoke quietly as he watched her.
"Which is it—the son who abandoned his mother to save his own skin and died anyway? Or the filial son who chose death in his mother's place?"
At that, Eon Jungmi erupted into hollow laughter.
"Ha… haha! Hahahaha!"
She laughed until the mountains themselves seemed to tremble—and then, slowly, she picked up the dagger.
"So you would take your own life, grieving for such a son?"
"If you'd rather not, you can simply be taken in as you are. A son who abandoned his mother to live alone—and died for it! And the mother left behind. What a picture."
At Sanlong's words, Eon Jungmi gripped the dagger.
"Keep your promise!"
"Don't worry. Unlike you, I keep my word."
"You… you……."
For all the fervor with which she'd seized the blade, she stood trembling for a long while, doing nothing. Again and again she hesitated.
Then—a figure darted past Sanlong, blindingly fast.
"Hey!"
"You damned wretch!"
"Kgh… kghaak!"
Thud!
She kicked Eon Jungmi's hand, driving the dagger she held deep into her own throat—and with the final cry of a grudge long suppressed, she spat her last words.
"Go to hell! ptoo!"
"Tang Yeonghui!"
At Chiyeol's call, the woman in her mid-twenties with the thin scar across her cheek turned her head. Without the scar, people might have called her pretty—perhaps not a beauty, but certainly fine-looking. Yet the scar and those sharp, fierce eyes somehow made her seem wild.
And so Tang Yeonghui of the Dark Dragon Squad stared for a long time at the woman with the dagger through her throat—Eon Jungmi—then knelt silently before Sanlong.
"I will accept my punishment. Kill me."
Sanlong regarded her in silence for a long moment, then waved a hand.
"Enough. What punishment could there be for a daughter who avenged her father?"
He glanced once more at Eon Jungmi's body, then murmured quietly:
"That was worthy of the Tang clan."
Her face remained expressionless—but her eyes trembled, ever so slightly.
"…Thank you."
She was the daughter of Stableman Lee, and Sanlong had never had any intention of punishing her.
Jeokak-yeoang—accumulated evil brings its own ruin. Sin moves slowly, but it always finds its way home.
"Let's clean this up."
A strange sensation washed over him—part relief, part emptiness. After all, this was the moment when Eon Jungmi, who had made his and his mother's lives a living misery, finally ceased to exist.
"And here you were, saying revenge was meaningless."
"Why? Feeling hollow?"
At Chiyeol's question, Sanlong shook his head.
"It does feel empty. But I've decided revenge has meaning in and of itself."
"I see. By the way—did you really have to turn Tang Gihyo into a 'filial son'?"
Sanlong snorted at that.
"He broke the promise. So I had no reason to keep mine."
"Ha! Hahaha! You terrify me, Third Young Master."
Leaving Chiyeol's laughter behind him, Sanlong quietly turned and started to walk.
"Let's go. Home."
"Yes, Third Young Master!"
He said it as if it were nothing, but the hollow feeling refused to fade easily. Still, once today passed, it would evaporate like smoke.
"The moonlight's filthy bright tonight."
Without another word, Sanlong descended the slope, gazing up at the moon.