Chapter 40
Chapter 40
No one understood Salmak’s methods better than Salmak itself.
Yeo Il, who had piled up countless sins and earned not only a dreadful reputation but also that man’s trust, knew how little she understood about the organization.
Especially in cases like the impostor Namgung Chu-myeong’s mission—orders that went beyond simple assassination and required long-term infiltration.
Come to think of it, quite a long time has passed.
She, too, had once been such an infiltrator.
Like the false Namgung Chu-myeong, she had lived under a fabricated identity for over two years for a particular objective.
Not within one of the Five Great Clans, but within one of the Nine Great Sects.
[Why… why is that vile mark carved into Senior Sister Yeon-woo’s back…?]
The plan had gone awry, and the ending had not been clean.
But whatever the outcome, she had carried out a similar mission. She could claim to understand the impostor’s psychology better than anyone.
Yes—psychology.
That was the crux.
Psychology was the surest tool she possessed to manipulate the impostor.
Hoo—
At last, the oil lamp went out.
Darkness swallowed the room that had glowed with yellow light.
This was Dongcheong—the residence of the three Namgung brothers, including the Sogaju (Clan Heir). Among them, Namgung Chu-myeong’s quarters stood isolated on the western outskirts.
Tall bamboo grew thick along the outer wall, making it ideal for discreet communication with the outside.
It had been a long while since Yeo Il wore black.
A black veil covered everything below her eyes. Her hair was pinned up with a golden butterfly-shaped hairpin, from which delicate floral ornaments dangled and chimed faintly with even the smallest movement.
The attire was both secretive and ostentatious, leaving a subtle trace of presence with each step.
Namgung Chu-myeong’s bedchamber was guarded by an unusually large number of bodyguards.
Chareureuk—
The soft, seductive chime of her hair ornament drew their gaze. In the next instant, she struck their acupoints, knocking them unconscious.
One. Two. Three.
Seven in total.
There was meaning in incapacitating each one: to maximize the impostor’s sense of alarm.
He would already have sensed her presence.
He would be hiding a dagger coated in lethal poison beneath his sleeve, ready to trade flesh for bone in a moment of crisis.
Yeo Il stopped before the door.
“The craftsman is dead.”
She felt the man inside still his breathing.
“It means the method to replace your human mask has vanished.”
She opened the door.
Namgung Chu-myeong lay motionless upon the bed as if in deep sleep. But she saw through the pretense and wandered the room leisurely.
“More useless than expected.”
Her steps were light, but her gaze swept every shadow the moonlight barely touched.
“Slow.”
“……”
“Incompetent.”
“……”
“I will grant you one quarter-hour. Convince me why I should let you live.”
A concealed weapon flew toward her with a faint sound that would escape anyone not listening closely.
She sidestepped lightly. The impostor sprang upright, lunging at her vital points.
For someone who lived as Namgung Chu-myeong for so long, his movements were swift—well trained.
It did not matter.
Udeuk—
“Ghk.”
She twisted his right wrist and pinned him beneath her weight.
His fingers twitched as if debating suicide. He exhaled harshly.
“Who are you?”
“Must you ask?”
It did not occur to him that the woman before him was Namgung Soyo.
Naturally. No one in the Namgung Clan had ever seen Yeo Il standing with clear, open eyes.
“……I have never heard of someone like you.”
“Even your comprehension is slow.”
Silence fell. Then he whispered,
“Yonghwang Yuse.”
At first she wondered why he recited his sect’s name.
“Yonghwang Yuse.”
Ah.
A passphrase.
For a sect so obscure, the name had seemed absurdly grandiose. It was merely part of a code phrase.
More precisely, “Yonghwang Yuse” was only a fragment—an efficient method to distinguish ally from foe.
He was demanding the proper response.
As though answering “Eombyeong Cheonbyeong” or “Jiralttongssa.”
But did she know the reply?
Of course not.
Yet when one does not know, there are ways to respond.
She gave a small snort.
“Yonghwang. Do you even know whom that Eternal Emperor refers to?”
He would not. She herself had never known the true meaning behind Salmak’s own passphrases.
“Yonghwang Yuse.”
“Yuse. Do you know what legacy the Emperor left behind?”
“Yonghwang Yuse.”
Those with guilt speak the longest.
She could not afford to appear so. So she let her words ramble—like Jin Cheong-ak.
“What meaning does any of it hold? Salmak or you. Turned into ignorant puppets, unaware of what grand cause you serve. Without knowing the cause, you remain endlessly incompetent. Chanting passphrases like fools.”
“……”
“Losing even Chuhyeol Geomgwi was especially painful. I wonder how far the consequences of your grand mistake will reach.”
His body stiffened for a fraction of a second at the mention of Salmak and Chuhyeol Geomgwi.
Was Yonghwang Yuse truly Salmak reborn?
If so… why had Salmak vanished two years ago, only to return under a new shell?
She wished never to be entangled with them again.
Yet fate had already woven her into their web.
If she wished to avoid collision, she needed information.
“Yonghwang Yu—”
Satisfied she had sown enough confusion, she retrieved a red-poisoned concealed weapon from his sleeve and flung it aside.
“Your quarter-hour dwindles.”
An assassin denied suicide grows desperate.
“Thanks to your stupidity, Namgung Jeok-myeong has discovered a second human mask. Time has passed, and your usefulness dwindles. You should find a solution before he rings your death knell. Otherwise—”
“He? Who do you mean?”
For the first time, he abandoned the passphrase.
She had broken his composure.
This was the crucial moment.
So there is someone he fears.
A face surfaced in her mind.
The man of absolute authority and overwhelming martial might within Salmak.
A born killing demon who long discarded human morality. Filth. Trash. Rot. Mire. A rabid beast.
“Would you recognize the name?”
“……Yonghwang Yuse.”
She dragged her foot across Yongcheon-hyeol and pressed down.
“Ghk!”
Pain wracked him. He shuddered, then regained composure and muttered again,
“Yonghwang Yu—”
Press.
“Yonghwang—”
Press.
“……”
Press.
“—Ghk! I have not spoken!”
Beast or man, if words fail, pain persuades.
“Tell me who he is.”
If Yonghwang Yuse truly descended from Salmak, then surely—no, certainly—he was connected to that man.
“Jeilak.”
Though two years had passed, no one in Jianghu had forgotten that name.
A man whose title of “Number One Under Heaven” was said to make the heavens weep—thus cursed instead with the infamous name:
Jeilak Cheon Mu-ryeong.
The First Evil.