Sudden Death
When people thought of the Sichuan Dang Family, several things came to mind.
The foremost poison house of the Central Plains. The greatest masters of hidden weapons. The family that boasted the finest blacksmiths in the land. The family that possessed the greatest medical arts…
A house full of eccentric, high-strung personalities. A house with many beautiful women.
And, for an orthodox clan, a house whose temper was cruel and vicious.
Those were the impressions the world held of the Sichuan Dang Family, and they were accurate.
The longer Hui-yeom lived in this world and learned about the murim and its martial artists, the clearer one truth became:
Orthodox martial artists were not the pure, righteous figures of the wuxia novels he remembered.
Of course they performed righteous deeds. They cut down villains, rescued suffering commoners, and raised their own renown. They knew shame and tried, at least outwardly, to live up to the Confucian ideal of the gentleman.
Yet behind that façade breathed a raw cruelty—the willingness to use the power of martial arts, and the martial artists cultivated by those arts, to trample another man’s interests and human rights for the sake of profit.
Even the Namgung Family, who posed as living saints, were committing atrocities against the completely innocent collateral branches of the Sichuan Dang Family in Anhui Province—and even against ordinary merchants whose only crime was trading with the Dang Family—all for the sake of keeping the Dang Family in check.
Those collaterals were so distant they might as well have been strangers.
This was the true face of the murim: the naked face of men whose power had been built by the sword.
And this was only the beginning.
For now the methods were isolation, exile, arson… but once they had collided with Namgung Jin, direct murder would follow soon enough.
In fact, Namgung Jin was already quietly arranging matters so that the Namgung Family itself would appear uninvolved.
Hui-yeom no longer intended to stand by, shackled by modern morals, while “his people” were sacrificed first. If it had been earlier, perhaps. But he had already lived through war and given countless orders that took lives. He had already become a man of the murim.
“I’ll have to send the Namgung Family a warning.”
Yet the method he chose was different from theirs.
Instead of scheming against the potential enemy forces sitting in his own backyard—or against the countless collaterals who were practically strangers—he decided to strike the close collaterals who bore the Namgung surname, right in Anhui Province, the very heartland of the Namgung Family.
And then…
“Young Master, a report. In Anhui Province, both direct-line and collateral members of the Namgung Family are being poisoned to death.”
“Hm?”
“Could it be… that you issued some order without my knowledge?”
At Ye-eun’s question Hui-yeom’s face went blank. He turned and looked at Dang Un-sang.
Only moments earlier, after hearing the report of the Namgung Family’s outrages, Dang Un-sang had been grinding his teeth and muttering, “I should have gone to that audience myself and pickled the bastard alive in poison.” Now he wore the same blank expression, then flinched and waved both hands frantically at Hui-yeom.
“Not me!”
“…Then who on earth?”
The Dang Family had not even issued an order for poisonings, yet Namgung blood relatives were dropping dead.
Something very strange was happening.
The Geumyul Merchant House of Anhui Province.
A man named Geum Jong-hwa had married Namgung Seon-a, a Namgung woman far removed from the line of succession, and under the Namgung Family’s protection his merchant house had flourished. Lately that same house had been pressuring every merchant in Anhui who traded with the Sichuan Dang Family—beating them, seizing their property, even setting fire to their shops.
Geum Jong-hwa himself was not a particularly special villain. He had performed his share of charitable acts and was, in ordinary times, a reasonably decent man.
But people have many faces.
When the Namgung Family gave him orders, Geum Jong-hwa carried them out with fanatical zeal and killed a great many people. How could he not be thrilled? The Namgung Family was conveniently clearing away all his competitors for him.
Now the time had come for him to reap what he had sown.
“Ghk…!”
“H-honey, what on earth is—ugh…!”
It was an ordinary afternoon.
He had beaten one merchant family and driven them out of Anhui Province, inventing some convenient pretext. After all, the Namgung Family were righteous rulers; if they declared a man “evil,” then in Anhui that man was evil. Geum Jong-hwa had confiscated their property, bribed a low-ranking official to keep mouths shut, and returned home to enjoy a quiet cup of tea with his wife.
Then he suddenly vomited blood and collapsed face-first onto the table.
Namgung Seon-a stared in horror—then clutched her own throat, choked, and toppled backward.
A double poisoning, right in the heart of Anhui Province.
Who possessed the skill to slip poison into the tea of a Namgung collateral while deceiving the eyes of the entire Namgung Family?
Given everything the Namgung Family had been doing lately, even a fool could guess the culprit.
The Sichuan Dang Family, those bastards who deserve to be torn apart…!
Crack!
Bone ground against bone in Namgung Jin’s clenched fist.
He had never imagined the Dang Family would be insane enough to strike this openly. Yes, he had looked down on them—how could he not? The Namgung Family was the Heavenly First Family under heaven; until recently the Sichuan Dang Family had been a minor house that people whispered was about to be expelled from the Nine Great Noble Families.
And yet they had murdered a collateral blood relative.
Not just any relative—Geum Jong-hwa, who had married a direct-line Namgung woman of the first generation of collaterals and had served as one of the family’s most loyal hands.
The shock would ripple through every Namgung collateral. By all rights Namgung Jin should have drawn his sword that very moment and exterminated those treacherous, underhanded dogs who behaved like heretical scum.
But…
“We have no justification. Damn it.”
That the Dang Family was behind it was only the Namgung Family’s own conclusion—highly probable by circumstance, yes, but they had neither caught the poisoner nor identified a toxin unique to the Sichuan Dang Family. Geum Jong-hwa had enemies everywhere. It could have been the work of some assassin sect. Even if the Dang Family were responsible, they could claim it was a lone act by some Anhui merchant whose livelihood the Geumyul Merchant House had destroyed. In that case, lodging a formal protest with the main house would be difficult.
Why? Because the Geumyul Merchant House had provided the cause.
To accuse the Sichuan Dang Family, the Namgung Family would first have to answer for its own sins.
Against the Dang Family alone, Namgung Jin might have crushed them by force. Against a Dang Family allied with Shaolin Temple and the Sama Clan, it was impossible. And there was no telling how the Zhuge Family—who had recently broken with the Namgung to ally with the Wudang Sect in order to check Shaolin—would react.
The fact that he could not simply declare “The Sichuan Dang Family is evil!” and launch a war whenever the mood struck him only enraged Namgung Jin further.
In truth, that restriction may have been a blessing. Had the Namgung Family truly declared war on the Dang Family, even a pure contest of family strength would not have favored them—though Namgung Jin did not yet know it.
The power of gunpowder weapons. The power of chemical weapons.
No matter that the Namgung Family Head was the Sword King Namgung Hyeok, a master of the Realm of Transformation—what use was that if the entire house and all its forces were already dead?
A heavy gloom settled over the hall. Then another messenger entered.
“Young Master… a death notice.”
“Another one? Where this time?”
“Namgung Eok, captain of the Heavenly Sword Squad… was found dead in his residence. Cause of death… poisoning.”
Bang!!
Namgung Jin slammed the table.
“Eok is… dead?!”
Namgung Eok was Namgung Jin’s younger cousin. Not pure enough blood to contend for the succession, yet still a core member of the direct line, and a Peak-level swordsman.
Namgung Jin stared at the messenger with wild, disbelieving eyes and roared,
“Who?! What dog of a bastard poisoned Eok?! No outsider could have infiltrated that place—there must be a traitor inside!”
“We… suspected the maid who prepared the evening meal and tortured her, but she appears to know nothing.”
“Then the cook who made the food! The servant who brought the wine! Break every one of them until someone talks!”
“We investigated them all. Even under severe torture none of them confessed… it seems they are telling the truth. More importantly, every one of them has served the main house loyally for decades. They have no motive to betray us and side with the Sichuan Dang Family at the cost of their own lives.”
“Nonsense! Are you saying the wine in the bottle spontaneously turned to poison?!”
The messenger himself was half out of his mind. An impossible thing had happened.
Impossible or not, Namgung Jin could not erase the conviction that the Dang Family was behind it. Nor did he feel any need to erase it. The motive was glaringly obvious to anyone with eyes.
(Somewhere in Sichuan, father and son Un-sang and Hui-yeom were looking equally blank and equally wronged—but Namgung Jin had already decided the Dang Family was guilty and ground his teeth.)
“Inform every blood relative: from this moment, no one is to put anything into their mouths that is not prepared by family. The only ones capable of this are the Sichuan Dang Family. The moment the autopsies identify the poison, we will submit a formal petition to the Murim Alliance.”
“A petition, my lord…?”
“The Sichuan Dang Family has laid hands on our blood. We are now irreconcilable enemies. Tell the Alliance we will not hesitate to wage full-scale war between the houses, and that they are not to interfere. And…”
“Yes.”
Fire kindled in Namgung Jin’s eyes.
“Every last bastard and bitch in Anhui who bears the Dang surname, every man who married one of them, every merchant who traded with the Dang Family—kill them all and hang the bodies in the marketplace—ha… damn it!”
Blinded by vengeance, he had been about to issue a drastic order. Then he exhaled a long, frustrated breath.
The situation was vicious precisely because he had only suspicion, not proof. Anyone would suspect the Dang Family, yet nothing had been conclusively proven. The Namgung Family, unlike the Dang, did not kill with poison; they would have to send warriors to carry out the executions in person. To outside eyes it would look exactly as if the Namgung Family had picked a fight and struck first.
The detestable Sama Clan would certainly seize the chance for a public-opinion war and brand the Namgung Family the aggressors. And the Zhuge Family, who once would have stood solidly at their side, were no longer allies.
Namgung Jin felt the walls closing in.
“…For the time being—only for the time being—we endure. Find proof that this is the Dang Family’s work. By any means necessary!”
He rose and strode toward the training cavern.
The Family Head, Sword King Namgung Hyeok, had long ago dumped every practical affair of the house onto his son and never left the training cavern. Namgung Jin needed to report the situation and beg for his father’s help. If full war with the Dang Family was truly on the table, only the Sword King’s personal intervention could keep the bloodshed to a minimum.
And so, out of season and out of nowhere, the drums of war began to beat between the Sichuan Dang Family and the Namgung Family.
“The way things are moving is strange. Someone may be working in the shadows, trying to force a fight between the Namgung Family and our house.”
Sama Yun offered the observation with her characteristic sharp insight and instinct.
“I’ll ask my family to gather every scrap of information they can.”
“I should ask Sir Baek Beon as well. This doesn’t feel ordinary.”
If war came, it had to come by their own will. Being dragged into someone else’s war never ended well.
Someone wanted this situation. Who?
“…Even so, we can’t delay construction of the second State-run Ironworks. No choice.”
They would push the ironworks project forward while preparing for a clash with the Namgung Family that could erupt at any moment.
“…No choice. I’d prefer to avenge the people who died unjustly with my own hands… but I’ll have to find another way.”
Hui-yeom decided to pretend reconciliation with the Namgung Family while binding them economically until they became dependent on the Dang Family.
And as the first step of that plan, he announced that he himself would pay a personal visit to the Namgung Family.
The entire Dang Family turned upside down.