Overturning the Board
“So you’re the boy everyone’s been whispering about.”
The External Pavilion Head looked me up and down as though he were appraising livestock. He already knew the story, then. That would make things simpler.
“If you know, then summon the Clan Leader for me.”
I poured strength into my eyes and glared at him with every ounce of swagger I could muster.
“Arrogant brat. The Clan Leader is not presently within the compound. Wait outside and we will call for you when the time comes.”
He shot me a look of clear displeasure at my failure to use an honorific for the Clan Leader, then jerked his chin and turned to leave.
The Clan Leader wasn’t even here, so I was supposed to wait outside? It was the exact same line every half-asleep civil servant used: “The person in charge is out. Please call again later.” Pure dereliction of duty mixed with buck-passing.
Fine. I had a way around that.
“This is a matter that arose because of the Dang Clan’s own sins, and you mean to turn a blind eye? Countless lives were sacrificed just to get me here! There are people among us who might not last the night!!!”
I roared loud enough for every person milling outside the gates to hear. Neighbors, look! We have a civil servant sleeping on the job!
“Quiet! Too many ears.”
Startled by the volume of my voice, the External Pavilion Head spun back around and spoke so only I could hear. Ah, so this was the sort of scandal that must never reach outsiders.
“The Clan’s bastard son, the Dokin, Dang Geoho, the traitors, the Demonic Cult—tell me which one I’m supposed to keep quiet about. Point it out and I’ll leave that one out of the shouting.”
I gave him a thin, mocking smile and whispered the words like a knife between the ribs. The Dokin experiments were the Dang Clan’s dirtiest secret. They wouldn’t want that aired in public. So open the gate.
“You little—!”
“Glare all you like; I have no intention of looking away. There are people dying right now. How could I possibly turn my head?”
I had trained under the murderous aura of the Star of Heavenly Kill itself. A mid-level pavilion master’s killing intent wasn’t going to make me flinch.
We locked eyes for a long moment. When he saw I would not yield, the External Pavilion Head let out a quiet sigh.
“Let them in.”
Still wearing the ghost of a smile, he addressed the troops behind him.
“External Pavilion Head! The Council of Elders clearly ordered—!”
“The only voice I am bound to obey is the Clan Leader’s. I have already made a sufficient show of deference to the Council. Open the gates.”
So it hadn’t been simple laziness after all—just a tangled chain of command.
“Yes, sir!”
“Enter.”
Under the External Pavilion Head’s escort, we passed into the Sichuan Dang Clan.
Passing through the gates, however, did not mean things would now go our way.
“Do not take so much as a single step outside this building.”
The External Pavilion Head herded our entire party into the Guest Reception Hall—the building reserved for visitors—and then surrounded the place with armed guards.
A week of detention followed.
A few people came and went, yet we never laid eyes on the Clan Leader, nor even anyone who looked remotely senior.
Hwarin still had not received the Human-Faced Spider’s Poison Core. The clan’s medicinal supplies merely kept her stable for the moment.
“They say a massive purge is underway.”
Just as I was growing desperate to know what was happening beyond our walls, a Medical Pavilion operative slipped in with news from inside the clan.
“A purge?”
I asked, face full of genuine confusion.
“They are rounding up every single person who had any connection to Dang Geoho—interrogating them one by one about the Dokin experiments and whether they were spies for the Demonic Cult.”
“So the Sichuan Dang Clan is drowning in a river of blood right now.”
“Yes. Because the scandal involves Dang Geoho—once a direct-line member of the clan. From the very day our report reached them, every entrance was sealed and they have been hunting down the rats that were hiding inside, one by one.”
The Medical Pavilion operative painted a picture of an atmosphere so brutal it felt like a battlefield.
The news was certainly shocking enough to justify it.
That the forbidden Dokin experiments had been conducted in secret would have been earth-shaking on its own. That they had been conducted by the hands of a direct descendant—Dang Geoho—was catastrophic.
And it did not stop there.
“If word spreads that the Sichuan Dang Clan colluded with the Demonic Cult to create Dokin, the fallout will be immense.”
The Demonic Cult’s involvement made it impossible to dismiss the whole affair as the work of a few rogue members. The scale was simply too large.
Dozens of the Clan’s bastard children had died, and Medical Pavilion operatives had fallen under the joint assault of Dang Geoho and the cultists.
“Exactly. On top of that, it has come to light that the Young Clan Leader’s qi deviation is connected to Dang Geoho’s faction. The Clan Leader himself is currently hunting down the remnants who managed to escape.”
“So that’s why the Clan Leader was absent. But why keep the actual key witnesses—us—locked outside?”
When we arrived, we had not been the only ones barred from entry. Still, why refuse the very people who held the truth?
“That much I could not discover. There seems to be a deeper reason, but it was impossible to dig out through rumor alone.”
The Medical Pavilion operative bowed his head in apology.
“We’re all prisoners here. You’ve already done more than enough.”
In the same cage, learning the truly sensitive secrets would be nearly impossible.
“Allow me to explain the rest.”
Just as I was wondering how to gather better intelligence, a voice came from behind me. I turned and found an unexpected face.
“Dang Pae? How are you here?”
Dang Pae, Deputy Head of the Medical Pavilion, stood smiling as though genuinely glad to see us.
“I’m relieved everyone arrived safely.”
Dang Pae explained that he had stayed behind to gather the wounded of the Medical Pavilion and had only just reached the clan.
After exchanging brief greetings with his subordinates, he continued with the internal situation he had uncovered.
“Miss Hwarin’s condition is the Clan’s sin, but the Demonic Cult also has its fingers in it. Some argued that bringing a Dokin into the compound would force the Clan to admit full responsibility, so the decision was made to keep you out for the time being.”
“Bullshit.”
The curse slipped out before I could stop it.
“I heard Young Master Kang made quite a scene at the gate. Thanks to that, the news nearly leaked to the outside world, and those who tried the half-hearted stalling tactics were severely reprimanded. You did well.”
For a moment I remembered the External Pavilion Head’s weary sigh. So that had been the sigh of a middle manager caught between hammer and anvil.
“We’re inside now, so that’s settled. Why haven’t they given her the Human-Faced Spider’s Poison Core?”
“The Human-Faced Spider’s Poison Core is one of the Clan’s greatest treasures. It cannot be handed out lightly. Either the Clan Leader’s personal approval or the Council of Elders’ consent is required. The Clan Leader is away, and the Council is currently shouting itself hoarse over the matter.”
“Is the majority against giving Hwarin the Core?”
“The Elders still regard Miss Hwarin as just another failed Dokin experiment.”
“If they ever saw her fight, they’d never say that again.”
Anyone who witnessed Hwarin in battle would have no choice but to admit she was a Dokin on the verge of perfection.
Dang Pae nodded and continued.
“Unfortunately, all they have seen is Miss Hwarin unconscious. There is a faction that considers using the Core on an incomplete Dokin a pure waste.”
“Didn’t the report we sent ahead spell everything out in detail? Hwarin is a victim of the Clan. Once she is cured she will become a perfected Dokin—the Clan’s greatest living secret weapon. How can they hesitate?”
The entire lot of them had come down with the classic RPG stinginess disease. Whether it was a miracle elixir or a one-of-a-kind poison core, you used the damn thing in the final boss fight!
“Yes. In fact, many voices argued that it should be used. But then several people who had heard news of Young Master Kang Yunho joined the opposition, and the two sides are now deadlocked.”
“What does that mean?”
What possible connection could my existence have with the Human-Faced Spider’s Poison Core? I stared at Dang Pae in genuine bafflement.
“It seems word of Young Master Kang has reached the Clan Leader and a portion of the Elders. When the Clan Leader formed the pursuit party, he reportedly said he intended to speak with ‘that child’ upon his return. That remark set the place on fire.”
So my poorly written paperwork had finally landed on the CEO’s desk. The thought alone made the world spin.
“A new son appearing for the Clan Leader must have been quite the surprise.”
Regardless of my own feelings, the Clan Leader would be shaken. He already knew there might be a child from his affair with Hyang-a; he would not have denied the possibility outright.
“Under ordinary circumstances you would have been nothing more than a bastard. But the timing is… inconvenient. The Young Clan Leader’s crisis, and then a child who could become a perfected Dokin appearing at Young Master Kang’s side.”
Dang Pae watched me carefully, as if testing whether I understood.
The Young Clan Leader and a perfected Dokin. I assembled the pieces of the simple puzzle with the evidence I already possessed.
I saw the shape of the board clearly now.
“The Young Clan Leader lies at death’s door from qi deviation. Then a healthy son appears, and that bastard could gain the full support of a perfected Dokin. That alone is enough to overturn the entire succession structure of the Clan.”
A perfected Dokin was no ordinary martial artist.
If Hwarin became complete, then—as Dang Geoho himself had once said—the Sichuan Dang Clan would be Dang Hwarin, and Dang Hwarin would be the Sichuan Dang Clan. She would carry that much symbolic weight.
And if that perfected Dokin threw her support behind her one and only friend—the black-haired bastard—as the next heir?
In a martial family that worshipped strength almost as highly as bloodline, such a declaration could not be casually ignored. Naturally, there would be those who would rather die than see that future arrive.
“Exactly right. Several members of the Young Clan Leader’s faction are currently blocking any use of the Human-Faced Spider’s Poison Core.”
Dang Pae nodded in full agreement.
“If the Clan Leader returns, will he give Hwarin the Core?”
“Rumor says the remnants fled with extreme cunning. The pursuit is dragging on.”
“So it will take time.”
“Some are already whispering that they should remove the bastard’s chance of ever becoming Young Clan Leader before the Clan Leader returns. Therefore it would be wisest to remain quietly inside these walls until he arrives.”
“Haha. Are they planning to assassinate me, then?”
I tossed the question out in a light, joking tone.
“……The External Pavilion Head is one of the Clan Leader’s closest confidants.”
Dang Pae did not confirm it outright, but his eyes flicked toward the soldiers surrounding the Guest Reception Hall.
My joke refused to remain a joke. For a moment I could find nothing more to say.
“Not detention… protection, then.”
Having heard everything, I muttered the realization while staring at the External Pavilion troops, lost in thought.
I had assumed they were there to keep us from escaping. In truth they were a wall against suspicious factions.
Do I simply wait for the Clan Leader?
The situation was a tangle of thorns.
If I moved carelessly, they could accuse me of leaking the Clan’s secrets, or frame me for collusion with the Demonic Cult or Dang Geoho, and simply eliminate me. Or they could just assassinate me outright.
Waiting for the Clan Leader might resolve everything.
But if I wait for a Clan Leader who may never return in time, Hwarin could die.
The real problem was that I had no idea how much time Hwarin had left.
“If we simply wait, we will wither to death while sitting on the board. The fallen operatives would never want Hwarin to die.”
I spoke to Dang Pae and the other Medical Pavilion members who were waiting for my decision.
I would not lose my friend. I would not lose a true heroine candidate. And only if Hwarin lived would any of us walk out of this tiger’s den alive.
Countless operatives had already died for her. If she perished, every one of those sacrifices became meaningless.
Only her survival would prove their blood had not been wasted. One by one, they nodded.
“Then what do you intend to do?”
Dang Pae asked.
I looked over the Medical Pavilion members for a long moment.
I had already steeled myself to walk into the tiger’s den knowing the beasts would bare their fangs.
For Hwarin’s life. And so that I myself would not be torn apart by those same tigers.
I had to move now.
“We overturn the board.”
I began laying out the scheme I had already formed in my mind for the Medical Pavilion operatives.
“Deputy Head Dang Pae, what are you looking at so intently?”
A member of the clan asked, noticing Dang Pae staring fixedly at something in his hands.
With the smooth, practiced motion of a man who had rehearsed the gesture a hundred times, Dang Pae turned the book so the title faced the other man. His expression was that of a missionary about to save a soul.
“My friend. Have you ever heard of the novel called Dangga Pungun?”