Chapter 79
Chapter 79
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 79
Chapter Title: The Walking Corpse
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After finishing the deboning, he sat hunched over in his chair, looking as if everything had been burned white.
Gulp, gulp.
And the cheap baekju that was always placed at his workstation.
A man who wouldn't look out of place if he dropped dead right then and there—why did he love alcohol so much? Woocheol could count on one hand the number of days he'd seen him sober.
“Hyungnim, you'll die if you keep drinking like that.”
“……”
“You barely eat, so why force down all that booze?”
At Woocheol's worried words, Baekpyo slightly raised his head.
“Hic! Aigoo, that glare.”
He always felt it, but Baekpyo's eyes were too terrifying. They gave the chills, as if death itself stood at his side.
To the point of goosebumps prickling the skin.
That was why people called him a walking corpse behind his back.
“Ugh, really. At least have some side dishes with it.”
“My ears are ringing. Get lost.”
A tone as blunt as could be.
A personality that no one in the world could warm to, topped off with a frightening aura.
“Tch, does it hurt to speak nicely? No wonder you have no friends.”
“……”
“That's why, with skills like yours, you're stuck working at this rundown butcher shop on the outskirts. Can't you act a little friendlier?”
As Woocheol gathered the basket of meat, Baekpyo laboriously lifted his head to stare.
“Go.”
“Tch! Fine, I'm going.”
At Baekpyo's words, Woocheol scowled and tossed a money pouch from his bosom onto the table.
“I'll come again tomorrow.”
“……”
“Aigoo. Never mind, never mind.”
Baekpyo offered no farewell, whether Woocheol left or stayed.
Staring blankly at Woocheol's retreating figure as he carried off the basket, Baekpyo kept bringing the bottle to his lips nonstop.
Gulp, gulp.
Baekpyo's daily routine was always the same.
He would rise and walk nearly one sichen—close to an hour—to get to work.
His home wasn't far. It was a distance others could cover in one gak, fifteen minutes, but Baekpyo had to pause and rest every few steps.
Then his work would begin. The workload was exactly whatever the Yeowa Pavilion needed.
Anything more was impossible anyway.
Despite his exceptional deboning skills, those who knew Baekpyo never entrusted him with other tasks.
Push him too hard, and they might end up handling a corpse.
The pinnacle of knife work, yet his stamina was so lacking it bordered on worrisome.
That was Baekpyo.
“Haa... haa...”
Setting down the bottle, Baekpyo barely managed to stand for closing time and picked up the money pouch Woocheol had left behind.
“……”
Not coins, but something else in his clenched fist.
Baekpyo laboriously opened the pouch. He pulled out the crumpled note inside.
Unfolding the paper that had been folded four times, a cold killing intent flashed across his pupils.
An gaze utterly unfit for a butcher.
The glistening sheen held only by those who had killed humans, not beasts.
“……”
After reading the note in full, Baekpyo reverted to his indifferent expression and vacant eyes.
Then he began closing up shop.
Laboriously...
Baekpyo's home was located on the outskirts of Ox Market.
A place crammed with cows, pigs, dogs, chickens, and all manner of livestock—it wasn't fit for human habitation. Even those who lived there were only the destitute, scraping by in plank shacks.
All because of the overpowering stench of manure and carcasses.
Creak.
The rusty hinges grated harshly on the nerves, but Baekpyo paid it no mind and opened the door.
Soon, the light went out.
A place devoid of people. Where no one cared about anyone else.
That was where Baekpyo lived. Just as he was, like the dead.
But shortly after.
Baekpyo, who had seemed asleep, slipped out of his dwelling.
He wore loose black garments that hung off him.
The odd thing was the door—the same one with the rusty hinges that had screeched on the way in—now opened silently.
“……”
Baekpyo slowly scanned his surroundings before heading off somewhere.
The back alleys of Ox Market.
Baekpyo arrived at the narrow lane packed tight with countless iron-barred pens, the air suffocatingly oppressive.
Mooo, moooo.
The shattered silence jolted the beasts awake, and they began bellowing madly.
Step. Drag. Step. Drag.
With each footfall came the sound. The eerie drag of feet across the ground silenced the cries in an instant.
For some reason, the livestock in the pens he passed tucked their tails between their hind legs and buried their heads in terror.
Some trembled and pissed themselves.
Thud.
Baekpyo's steps halted at one pen.
It was a black ox.
The largest among the cattle.
Moooo.
The black ox met Baekpyo's eyes, bulged them wide in fright, and backed away until its tether went taut.
“Kekeke.”
Baekpyo's lips parted slightly, and an eerie laugh leaked out.
Then his hand slowly reached into the bars.
Grab.
The black ox couldn't budge even as his hand seized its nape.
Crunch, cruuunch.
An unnatural sound.
The black ox's body began to twist.
Cruuunch.
How much time passed?
Plop.
Baekpyo's hand released its grip.
The black ox inside the pen resembled one abandoned in a field and withered away—nothing but skin left.
The eyes that had stared at Baekpyo had turned a lifeless gray.
“Fuu.”
But the strange one was Baekpyo.
He had grown.
His once-loose clothes now strained tight.
“Kuh, this should do? Humans are better, though. Ah well, can't leave traces.”
His voice brimmed with vigor, unlike the strained rasp from before.
And then.
Bang!
Baekpyo, now clad in clothes that fit perfectly, vanished without a trace.
Silence returned once more to the livestock pens.
Slash!
“Kuh!”
The middle-aged man in the yellow official robe clutched his spouting neck with both hands.
Clean cut.
The assassin with unbound, whipping hair had appeared out of nowhere.
He had staggered drunk into a deserted alley when he brushed past the man he took for a mere vagrant.
In that instant, fangs gleamed white, and a crude, boxy knife slashed short.
That was the last sight the man beheld.
Thud.
As he collapsed, he saw his five guards fallen the same way in his fading vision.
“Dead?”
A very short, concise word.
His voice carried not a trace of emotion.
It was Baekpyo. No longer the scrawny wretch, but a man with a sturdy, muscular build.
“Hmm, couldn't confirm again. Qingcha Magistrate Yi Deok-sam?”
Squatting by the man in the yellow robe—no, the corpse—he spat the question, but no one remained to answer.
“Eh, probably right. If not, just kill again tomorrow.”
Baekpyo grinned and rose.
But then.
His gaze turned to the alley mouth.
One woman, slumped in terror.
She had witnessed the murder, but Baekpyo's expression showed no change.
Instead, he smiled and asked.
“Saw it?”
“Uuuu.”
“You saw, huh?”
The woman's face was etched with dread as she thrashed, eyes bulging, desperate to flee.
But her trembling legs refused to obey.
“Oh dear, guess you have to die too.”
“……!”
The woman saw the smile curling Baekpyo's lips and summoned every ounce of strength to lurch to her feet.
In that moment.
Crack!
A thin red line traced her nape.
“Sorry, can't leave witnesses.”
With those cold words, Baekpyo melted into the darkness as if seeping away.
And then.
Thud.
The woman's head hit the ground.
“Long time no see.”
Jinmu, who had just arrived at Dongting Lake by boat, disembarked at the dock and gazed out over the vast waters.
Numerous pleasure barges afloat on the river, tourist boats carrying poets and scholars.
Drunks bellowing from midday onward, merchants hawking meat near the dock, hagglers bargaining.
The riverside crammed wall-to-wall with taverns.
Nothing had changed.
“Fought plenty here.”
Dongting Lake held many memories.
He had stood at the center of countless battles over interests, living each day by the blade.
“Tsk, should have claimed it ages ago.”
Jinmu clicked his tongue.
Leaving the waterways to those water bandit scum who called themselves river kings had been a mistake. He should have stepped in himself.
The core of the Yangtze waterway was this Dongting Lake.
All merchant ships gathered there. Anyone passing through the Yangtze had to go via it.
Seize that?
Profits enough to drain several cities dry, no doubt.
“Eh, doesn't matter now. The whole Central Plains will be mine eventually anyway. Hahaha!”
Jinmu laughed heartily as he left the dock.
Jinmu's goal, departing from Wuxian, was the Central Plains' Five Great Daoist Sects.
No need for anywhere else.
He had traveled the Central Plains countless times over eighty years. Nothing novel there.
What was the point of wasting time on that when even finding the latter half of the Two Forms Heart Art was a stretch?
The Central Plains Five Great Daoist Sects.
Wudang, Huashan, Kunlun, Qingcheng, Kongtong.
Five in total.
Of course, he had heard there used to be one more in the past.
Zhenjiang, said to be the origin of Central Plains Daoism. Long gone now.
In any case, Jinmu had boarded a boat from Wuxian to visit those five.
The starting point: Sichuan's Qingcheng.
From Qingcheng to Qinghai's Kunlun, Gansu's Kongtong, and Shaanxi's Huashan—circling in a ring via the shortest route.
“First, some money.”
Jinmu planned to stop by the Dongting branch of the Donglin Battlefield.
He needed a sword that felt more Wudang-like, and some clothes. Walking around in black uniform instead of a daoist robe felt oppressively grim.
After much deliberation, he settled on yellow-brown.
Yes, yellow-brown. The most neutral color, after all.
As he headed toward the auction house, a throng of people filled the alley ahead.
“Huh? What's this? Blocking the road? This is the shortcut.”
His face soured.
Without this shortcut, it was a long detour.
Officials stood with spear tips raised, blocking passersby, while crowds formed several layers deep to gawk.
“Damn it. Shouldn't have picked this way?”
In Jinmu's memory, the next quickest route from this direction?
“That one's got a nasty smell.”
The leather and meat market, for sure.
“No helping it.”
Jinmu, who wanted to avoid needless trouble, slipped through the crowd and changed paths when whispers reached his ears.
“Killed again, huh?”
“Yeah. Same guy?”
“Man, that one's something. A magistrate—government-recognized expert, right? And his men went down with him?”
“Yeah. Even martial artists couldn't touch him...”
“Hiya, that assassin's got guts. But who put out the contract?”
“Who knows? Gotta be over a hundred happy that magistrate bastard's dead.”
“True, he did plenty of dirty deeds.”
“But a woman got killed too?”
“Woman?”
“Yeah.”
“Witness. A witness.”
“What a ruthless assassin, no blood or tears.”
Speculation ran wild. Everyone whispered their own conclusions.
‘Assassin? Well, it's Dongting Lake.’
Jinmu smirked as he overheard. Such things happened constantly, then and now.
A lawless land. Endless strife. How many bore grudges?
Plus hordes of unregulated martial artists.
The government? Utterly powerless.
Hundreds of inns and taverns, plus gambling dens beyond count. Black money overflowed.
Even officials were no different—no, with their pitiful salaries, they corrupted faster.
Tangled webs of interests made it a paradise for contract killers like assassins.
An everyday occurrence, so Jinmu passed by without a care.
Before long, he entered the edge of Ox Market—the very place he hadn't wanted to go. The stench assaulted his nose from a distance, yet it teemed with people packed shoulder-to-shoulder.
‘How do these guys stand it?’
Jinmu shook his head and sought a less crowded route.
Even there, idle chatter flew back and forth.
“Fuck! This shit again.”
“What's up?”
Merchants. One was furious, the other puzzled.
“Not like it's haunted by a fox spirit or something. Look at this—twisted up again overnight.”
The merchant irritably eyed the mangled black ox carcass.
Jinmu, passing by and glancing indifferently, suddenly halted.
Huh?
“Was fine up till yesterday, I swear. Then overnight, this.”
“Damn, makes you wonder if ghosts are real.”
The merchant kicked the black ox corpse in frustration.
Then Jinmu approached, crouched, and peered intently at the carcass.
“What?”
Already fuming, his words to Jinmu were none too polite.
Poke, poke.
Jinmu ignored the merchant's question and examined the body this way and that.
“What the hel—Gah!”
The instant the merchant glared, Jinmu shot up and seized his windpipe.