Sheep's Head and Dog Meat
With Ryeong’s mediation as the catalyst, the Blade Ghost Faction and the Fire Tiger Sword Sect engaged in continuous dialogue. At first, neither side could completely let go of their mutual resentment, but as the days went by, they set their ill will aside and steeled their resolve to stand together. They had a common enemy to face, and false accusations to clear from their names.
Throughout the process, Ryeong rooted out the spies. Just as she had anticipated, the mole was not merely a single person; the count of traitors uncovered on both sides easily climbed into double digits. Even then, with no guarantee that every last turncoat had been found, she could not act carelessly. A single slip or suspicious gesture could ruin the entire operation, and failure was an outcome they could not afford.
Ryeong quietly laid the groundwork for their trap, mobilizing Haomun to spread carefully orchestrated rumors. The first to take the bait was Mount Wudang. Hearing that unorthodox factions were forming an alliance right on their doorstep in Hubei naturally set the Taoists on edge. While the Blade Ghost Faction and the Fire Tiger Sword Sect braced themselves for an armed clash with the orthodox giant, Ryeong assured them she would handle it herself. Leaving the two leaders behind, she set out with Jin Yeong toward the encampment of the dispatched Wudang disciples.
“Excuse me. Would the honored Taoists of the Wudang Sect happen to be staying here?”
“Who are you?”
“I am Jin Ryeong. And this here is Jin Yeong... Perhaps you know him better as the former Sword Dragon?”
“The former Sword Dragon? Of Mount Jongnam?”
Ryeong’s masterstroke to hold Wudang back was simple: leverage their sect affiliation. If played poorly, Jongnam risked being slandered as shameless meddlers seeking to unite Hubei’s unorthodox syndicates under their sway. Yet she chose a frontal approach because Wudang was an orthodox sect to its core. Throughout their long feud with the unorthodox factions, Wudang had steadfastly upheld the spirit of chivalry. Remaining true to orthodox righteousness was easier said than done, but Wudang stood at the absolute forefront of that ideal.
While Dang Cheol-ryeong and certain conspirators within the Tang Family had secretly colluded with the Demon Blood Divine Cult, they were only a corrupt few. Wudang was the foremost sword sect under heaven, the heart of Hubei, and one of the two great wings of the Nine Great Sects. She believed they would understand if explained the full picture. Fortunately, someone among the Wudang disciples recognized Jin Yeong’s face, and through reasoned discussion, Ryeong emphasized that the unorthodox unification was by no means a threat to Wudang.
“So if I piece your words together, you intend to hang up a sheep’s head to sell dog meat?”
“‘Sheep’s head and dog meat.’ I like the sound of that. Let’s call the plan Operation Sheep’s Head from now on.”
Hanging a sheep’s head while peddling dog meat. An idiom describing a flashy display that conceals a shoddy truth—and a perfect description of this so-called reconciliation between the Blade Ghost Faction and the Fire Tiger Sword Sect. On paper, the merger of two powerful factions would shake the martial landscape of the region, but peel back the outer veneer, and the vital essence of a true alliance was nowhere to be found. The real goal was merely to weed out the embedded spies and obliterate the instigators who had pitted them against one another in a single sweep.
“Believe us,” Jin Yeong pleaded earnestly. “If this unorthodox alliance brings harm to the common folk, I will hold myself personally responsible.”
“In what manner?”
“I will force them to atone for their crimes—even if it means shattering their dantians with my own hands.”
“You’ve grown fierce. The Sword Dragon I once knew was never so ruthless.”
The leader of the Wudang disciples nodded at Jin Yeong’s resolute answer. Uniting a lesser evil to forestall a greater one was a dangerous gamble, yet when asked by a disciple of Jongnam, he was willing to step back for once. Wudang was dealing with its own internal turmoil, after all.
A hidden hand deliberately driving a wedge between the two unorthodox factions to keep them apart, is it? What truly swayed his judgment was that one-in-a-million possibility. What if the Demon Blood Divine Cult was behind these machinations? Cultists had already infiltrated Mount Wudang, inflicted grievous damage, and vanished into the shadows. If they intended to strike Mount Wudang again by throwing Hubei into chaos, destabilizing the local unorthodox factions first would be the logical opening move. It was an arbitrary decision, and a reckless gamble, but a plan well worth attempting.
“Is there anything we can do to assist?”
“The meeting will take place two days from now at Gongsong Inn,” Ryeong answered. “Take a small detachment and lie in ambush around the perimeter. Even if trespassers storm the inn, let them pass through. All you need to do is send a sound transmission warning us that company has arrived.”
“Isn’t that far too reckless when we don’t even know the enemy’s full strength?”
“Rest easy. The sword of Jongnam has never grown dull.”
Ryeong offered a serene smile and released the faintest wisp of her energy. The Taoist shuddered. Brief as that instant was, it was more than enough to fathom the astonishing depth of her martial cultivation.
“Until we give the signal, stay on standby and under no circumstances enter the inn. Can we agree on that?”
“For the greater good, we will gladly cooperate.”
Ryeong extended her hand, and the Taoist shook it. With that, another avenue of escape was sealed against the enemies destined to converge upon the inn, and Jin Yeong’s initial task of holding off Wudang evaporated naturally into thin air.
Two days later, the Blade Ghost Faction and the Fire Tiger Sword Sect advanced toward Gongsong Inn in tandem. Marshaling the absolute elite of both organizations, their march was nothing short of a grand spectacle. The common folk felt it in their bones: something monumental was about to erupt today.
Streets emptied in the blink of an eye. Since Gongsong Inn doubled as a covert branch of Haomun, it remained open and running as usual. At its entrance, Gwi Hujin and Ho Jihwan came face-to-face. Yet when their eyes met, neither uttered a word. An unspoken dialogue flowed between them through glances alone.
“Shall we step inside?”
Wearing a gentle smile, Ryeong ushered the faction leader and sect master through the doors, her senses probing outward to track the presence of the Wudang Taoists lying in wait. Just as promised, they had formed a cordoned perimeter around the inn. Though fewer than twenty men, it was scarcely an exaggeration to call it an inescapable net of heaven and earth. All that remained was to wait for the quarry to enter the snare.
Factoring in the possibility that moles might still lurk among the upper echelons privy to this information, Ryeong made a show of acting openly, deliberately drawing eyes to herself. Whoever dared to breach the gates, the minimum requirements for the trap were already met.
“Aren’t you two going to say anything?” Ryeong nudged them. “You’ve exchanged plenty of letters, but this is the first time you’re sitting down face-to-face.”
At her prodding, Gwi Hujin and Ho Jihwan merely stared at each other. Words were absent once again, but their gazes crackled with silent conversation. Their throats did not so much as twitch, indicating they weren’t even exchanging sound transmissions. Who would have guessed that a grand peace conference would open in dead silence?
Clap, clap!
Unable to bear it any longer, Ryeong clapped her hands together, drawing the attention of both camps. A trap could hardly function if the atmosphere was this dismal.
“Let’s not forget why we’re here, shall we? You need to liven the mood! Sitting in silence defeats the whole point of gathering in public. What, are you lacking the confidence?”
The senior cadres of both factions were assembled, yet only two men in the entire room knew the true outline of this scheme: Ho Jihwan and Gwi Hujin. Thus, Ryeong spoke in circles, never directly admitting that this entire spectacle was bait to hook an enemy. Pushed to this point, Ho Jihwan finally opened his mouth.
“It has been some time, Leader Gwi. Have you fared well in recent days?”
“Thanks to Sect Leader Ho opting for dialogue, my days have been tolerable enough.”
“Good grief, why must you both sound so stiff? If you were going to talk like wooden planks, why bother meeting at all?”
Ryeong cut between the two men as they recited their painfully awkward lines like amateur actors reading a script. And the reason she suddenly interrupted after telling them to speak—
“It’s begun. Everyone, get ready.”
A telepathic voice from an ambushed Wudang disciple had just brushed her ear. A hostile vanguard was advancing on Gongsong Inn. Confusion rippled through the ranks of the disciples and gang members at Ryeong’s sudden proclamation. But the moment Gwi Hujin and Ho Jihwan rose to their feet with grim expressions—
CRASH!
Windows shattered in every direction as dozens, perhaps hundreds, of black-clad figures burst into the inn.
Ryeong drew her sword and roared at the top of her lungs:
“We’ve hooked a whopper, you bastards!”
“...!”
“It’s the vermin trying to ruin our alliance!” Ho Jihwan shouted.
“The trash who framed us all along!” Gwi Hujin bellowed in turn.
At the roar of their leaders, the bewildered eyes of the underlings transformed instantly. Instinct told them that this gathering had been an ambush laid out for these very intruders.
“Slaughter them all!”
The attackers who had brazenly shattered the windows faltered in confusion. This reception... it was as though their targets had anticipated the raid and baited them into a trap! Their realization, however, came a beat too late. Ryeong had already closed the distance to the vanguard, flashing before the strongest master among the intruders.
“Oh, you’re in the Transformation Realm?”
“What kind of crazy—!”
BOOM!
Caught completely exposed before Ryeong’s blade, the attackers' commander was blasted backward, tumbling clean out of the inn. That lightning-fast counterstrike shattered the assailants' morale in a single breath.
“K-Kill them!”
“Follow Sect Leader Ho and Leader Gwi!”
Conversely, the spirits of the allied disciples soared to the heavens. Even if they hadn’t known the details beforehand, their leaders were charging at the forefront. They hadn’t been caught off-guard; this gathering had been engineered specifically to crush these fiends.
“Don’t panic! We have the numbers on our—gack!”
“Numbers mean nothing when the difference in quality is this vast.”
Emerging from the shadows, Jin Yeong slit the assailant's throat. At long last, he had claimed his first kill as an assassin.
Yet in that very breath—
“It’s bad, Jin Yeong! There are far more of them than we thought! These ones are just the vanguard!”
A frantic voice pierced Jin Yeong’s ear via sound transmission. The full force bearing down on Gongsong Inn had not even arrived yet. It was news that struck like a bolt from the blue.