Flames of Vengeance at Daeheung Mountain
There was a small incident that interrupted his sleep thanks to Deungmu, but Jeong Won-ji returned to bed with hopes for a brighter tomorrow. Before drifting off, he had indulged in a fantasy—pushing aside Zhang Jue after the man became emperor and claiming the throne for himself. That same Jeong Won-ji jolted awake to the smell of something burning.
Still half-dreaming, the sight of flames right in front of him snapped him fully alert. The scent that had crept into his drowsy mind was his own tent going up in smoke. He scrambled out in a panic.
Jeong Won-ji, who had fallen asleep dreaming of a hopeful future, now fled from a fiery prank. The scene that greeted him was indeed “tomorrow,” but nothing like the bright future he had imagined. Every single thing in sight was burning.
Subordinates startled awake by the fire were cut down by blades from unfamiliar attackers. Those who woke too late rolled across the ground screaming, bodies wreathed in flames. The handful of men who had been standing guard rushed forward to resist, only to be blocked by a single woman.
WHOOOOSH—!!!
“Gahhhk!”
“Aaaargh!!!”
“…Fuck! Stop falling back and attack! Just kill that bitch—grraaaah!!!”
“How dare you turn your backs with Yunzhang standing before you?”
“Y-you monstrous bitch…”
Shockingly, the entire group could not mount any real resistance against the lone woman swinging her crescent moon blade. Flames raged in every direction. Dying subordinates lay all around him. And right in front, a monstrous woman was single-handedly slaughtering men twice her size. No matter how he looked at it, there was no answer.
Jeong Won-ji, commander of fifty thousand Yellow Turbans, was being annihilated by a mere handful of volunteer troops. His grand ambition to seize all of Youzhou and then devour Bingzhou as well had gone up in smoke in a single night.
In a situation like this, there was only one thing left for Jeong Won-ji to say.
“What the hell is going on here!!!”
And there was one annoying bastard who answered a question that had not been seeking an answer.
“What else? Everything’s fucked.”
“Who are you!”
“Good grief, Won-ji! If you’re a slave, you should recognize your master’s youngest son’s voice immediately, shouldn’t you?”
That bastard was none other than Bang Yeol, the youngest son of the Bang family from Dondocheon.
“…Bang Yeol?! How did a bastard like you get here…?”
“Oh, that? I told your underling that a slave from our house had run away and I’d come to catch him. He kindly guided me straight here. So I followed along, and wow~ you really were sleeping like a pig? You fucking piece of shit. The master hasn’t gone to bed yet, but the slave is out cold. Huh?! So I woke you up myself. Aren’t you grateful? Or maybe not?”
The utterly enraged Jeong Won-ji trembled with fury. No—honestly, shouldn’t I be the one shaking with rage? My father was killed. My mother was killed. My sisters were killed. My brothers were killed. On top of that, the entire family fortune was stolen. And all of it by one man? Even Buddha wouldn’t be able to endure it. If it had been Jesus, he would have already slapped both cheeks. To be honest, it feels a little awkward to proudly declare “I was the victim!” Since it was the previous owner of this body who actually suffered.
Still, as someone permanently renting this body for free, I have to get angry even if I don’t feel it, right? …Fortunately the body still remembered the previous owner’s grudge; a slow-burning rage began to rise inside me. Thank goodness.
“You bastard…! You ruined everything!!! Do you even realize what you’ve done…!!!”
“Of course I do. The runaway slave from our house made terrible friends and caused nothing but trouble for the people here. I simply corrected the situation. Hunted the slave, killed the thieves, made the people happy. How wonderful is that? …And as a bonus, I got my revenge. Perfection.”
When Bang Yeol pointed his blood-stained sword at Jeong Won-ji, the man instinctively flinched with his right hand. It was time to end this tiresome connection. Once I relieve the limit and take the money, I can finally live however I want. After I split from Liu Bei’s group, I’ll bribe a few officials and snag a quiet, remote county magistrate post. Then I’ll ignore whether the country splits apart or who betrays whom. The Central Plains is too brutal for decent people anyway. Once I’m a magistrate, the first thing I’ll do is change my name. Bang Yeol—what kind of name is that?
Of course, before any of that, there was one last thing I had to do.
“Won-ji, what are you waiting for? Draw your weapon. Want to put on armor? Shall I wait for you?”
“…Ha! You stupid fool. You don’t even know that I once fought those horse-riding bastards in Bukpyeong, yet you dare point a blade at me? Do you really think I’d need armor against the likes of you!!”
“Stop talking shit and put the armor on. Don’t go crying to the grim reaper later that you fought without it.”
“This idiot really is begging to die… Fine! This elder will specially don every piece and send you straight to your dead family’s side. Don’t you dare regret it!”
Whether he felt uneasy about fighting without armor or not, Jeong Won-ji stopped refusing and slowly began to put the plates on. Now’s my chance.
He secretly flung the dirt clutched in his left hand straight into Jeong Won-ji’s eyes.
“Wha— Aaaagh!! You cowardly—”
“Fuck, now even a thief’s son is lecturing me about cowardice.”
He brought the sword down toward the man’s head, but Jeong Won-ji nimbly threw himself aside. Because dirt blinded him, however, he couldn’t see to dodge properly and relied on instinct; the blade carved a deep gash into his left thigh.
“Kugh… You damn bastard!”
He still couldn’t open his eyes properly and was frantically rubbing them with his left hand. Yet it seemed true that he had plenty of combat experience—while keeping distance from me, he kicked up a huge pile of fallen leaves and scattered them in every direction. Ooh, autumn-leaf play!… No, he was probably planning to keep rubbing his eyes until they recovered, then dodge the opposite way the moment he heard footsteps on leaves.
But I had no intention of playing along with his plan.
Swish!
“Hyaah!!!”
At the sound of something flying through the air, Jeong Won-ji ducked low. A shallow cut opened along his waist as the sword buried itself in the tree behind him. He let out a chuckle.
“Ha… hahahaha!! You stupid bastard, now that you’ve thrown your sword, how are you going to—.”
Whiiish!
“Graaah!!”
This time a heavy spear flew at him. Jeong Won-ji rolled desperately to avoid it, but because he still couldn’t see clearly, a long wound opened on his right leg. As he tumbled across the ground he picked up cuts all over from the scattered blades. Only then did Jeong Won-ji finally realize the truth.
That’s right. The Yellow Turbans slaughtered by the volunteer army hadn’t left only corpses—they had left their weapons behind as well. It was a duel between a huge man whose eyes were full of dirt and a perfectly sighted ranged fighter with an entire arsenal lying on the ground.
You can’t see, yet you increased the distance? With this many things to throw? I can just pick them up and keep attacking one-sidedly.
It was the mistake of a man who had been ambushed in his sleep and failed to properly assess his surroundings.
“Uwaaaaaah!!! You fucking bastard!! Just like your father, all you know how to do is pick cowardly tricks!! You coward, you look like a rat too scared to come near me—it’s hilarious!”
As a last resort, Jeong Won-ji resorted to parental insults to provoke him. Unfortunately, I couldn’t have cared less whether Bang Yeol’s parents were being insulted or not. Would I really get angry over something that weak? My mind and body had been trained by cyber-friends who asked about my parents’ health every single meeting. Compared to them, Jeong Won-ji’s taunts only looked pathetic.
I kind of want to give him advice. “You NEET bastard, it’s because you leech off your parents’ backs that—” No. Stop getting distracted and focus.
“Won-ji… are you rolling around on the ground because you take after your mother? You once offered that filthy body to me just to be accepted as a slave. Oh dear… I don’t like it when it’s that dirty—”
“FUCK!!! I’LL KILL YOU!!! FUUUUUUCK!!!!!”
Provoked, the man charged blindly. But could someone who couldn’t even see properly reach me safely? The answer came immediately—while running, Jeong Won-ji slammed head-first into a burning wooden pillar. His neck snapped with an audible crack and he collapsed.
Jeong Won-ji lay on the ground, twitching. A collapsing wooden pillar fell directly onto his face.
BOOM!
With an enormous crash the burning pillar crushed him. He screamed and writhed, but even as his entire body roasted into charcoal, the pillar remained firmly in place until the moment he died.
And so Jeong Won-ji perished—running blind, breaking his neck against a burning pillar. A rather hollow end for the man who had gathered fifty thousand Yellow Turbans in Youzhou.
Ah, I never got to ask whether his family name was Jeong or if his given name was Won-ji….
While Jeong Won-ji’s charred corpse brightly illuminated the whole of Youzhou, the sight of the main Yellow Turban camp burning was clearly visible even from the suppression army’s tents far in the distance.
“Aman! Aman! Wake up right now! Aman!”
Xiahou Dun, who had been unable to sleep and was pacing around the tent, witnessed the blaze and rushed to the sleeping Cao Cao, shaking her without mercy.
“Ugh! …Mmm, Wonyang…. What is it at this hour~? Aha! You’re scared of the thunder again and came to sleep together, didn’t you? When Wonyang was little—”
“Aman! This is no time for jokes! Their main camp is on fire!”
Because the situation was so urgent, Xiahou Dun cut off Cao Cao’s playful words. …It was definitely not because she was embarrassed about how she used to run to Cao Cao’s bed whenever it thundered as a child.
“Is that true?! Wonyang, are you certain?”
At the unexpected news Cao Cao’s face filled with surprise. Her usual sleepy, narrowed eyes opened wide, and her red pupils shone directly at Xiahou Dun.
“Yes, I saw it myself. Could the ones holding out at Takhyeon have launched a surprise attack?”
“…Who knows~. I doubt those people have the spare strength for that. We’ll find out once we go see for ourselves. Wonyang, shall we head out? I’m embarrassed because I’m not dressed. Well~ if Wonyang wants, I’ll endure the shame and—”
Returning to her usual squinty smile and teasing again, Xiahou Dun flinched in panic and fled. Wonyang really is so easily embarrassed~ Cao Cao murmured with a smile as she watched her go, then added, “Still, I wonder who played with fire~? I never even hoped for the luck of burning their main camp… Hmm! How truly impressive. Really… I’d like to meet that person once.”
Her red eyes gleamed once more.