Tu Gate - 8
Dawn was breaking.
The sewer rats that fed on the filth of the night streets had melted away without a trace — this was the hour when they ought to be waiting for darkness to fall once more — yet today was unlike any other.
"Inspect everyone who boards a ship!"
"What am I supposed to do if you tear apart every piece of merchandise I have to sell?!"
"Shut your mouth if you want to live!"
The warriors of the Do Gate ran rampant — checking the color of people's hair, prodding through their baggage, every manner of thuggery — but with blades gleaming deadly frost, not a soul dared step forward to stop them.
If the port opened, they would lose me beyond the reach of their grip. The Do Gate warriors crammed into the harbor looked desperate.
"No ship sails today without our permission! Got that?"
What a madhouse.
Just how many of these Do Gate bastards are there? For now, I'd move along the infiltration route the Tu Gate man had shown me. The goal: reach the anchored ship without getting spotted.
"If you find any black-haired bastards, drag every last one of them over here!"
How was I supposed to punch through this?
Near the moored ship, I tucked myself among the unloaded cargo and quietly watched the situation unfold. If I showed myself now, I'd end up like prey surrounded by an army of ants.
"Hey! You over there! What is this?!"
So this was my limit, then. They'd spotted me after all.
Should I run? No. I'd come deep into enemy territory — moving rashly now would only turn me into a beehive.
"Who, me?"
With a voice that feigned utter bafflement as to why anyone would call on me, I revealed myself.
The mask had been discarded long ago, but thanks to the straw hat pressed low over my brow, neither my hair color nor my face gave me away at a glance.
"What's a bastard like you doing here?! Who let this guy in?!"
"What seems to be the problem?"
The warrior glanced around, but whoever had let me through was hardly going to show himself. Playing the clueless innocent, I walked on naturally, one step at a time, toward the anchored ship.
"Hey! You! Take off that straw hat!"
"And who might you be, to order me to remove my hat?"
I staggered backward as if terrified. Naturally, the direction I retreated was toward the ship.
"Are your ears blocked? Take it off, now!"
"O-okay, I will."
If they caught me while they still had room to maneuver, a fight would erupt on the spot. I slowly removed the straw hat.
"Black hair? Found him! It's this bastard!"
Right. A suspicious black-haired man wandering near the port — of course I'm the only suspect. Still, did every last Do Gate thug have to pin his eyes on me?
"I'm afraid I don't follow. I need to board that ship, so would you kindly step aside?"
I turned with perfect nonchalance and started for the boat, only to be cut off by a warrior's voice at my back.
"You thought a mask would keep me from knowing your face?"
A familiar face, that. Shooting a sidelong glance, I placed him: the thug who'd been standing out front back when Mae-ri Mark I made her noble sacrifice.
"There seems to be some misunderstanding here."
I backed away another step.
"Heh heh heh. You rat of a man! If you don't know, I'll make you know! Your little rampage ends here!"
"Come along — before we punch holes clean through you!"
The Do Gate warriors closed in on me.
Did they think the chase was finally over? Joy, relief, and tension flickered across their faces one after another.
Almost there. Somewhere along the way, my body had come within a stone's throw of the anchored ship. Don't tense up. I set the Soyun Mind Image Art spinning in an instant.
"To think ruffians would be baring blades at the harbor just as dawn breaks."
It was a low murmur, but my reinforced voice carried more than enough force to seize the ears of everyone around.
"Listen to the barbarian bastard throwing his weight around. You think the ship just leaves because you board it?"
"Heh heh heh. You utter fool. What, you figure the captain's going to say, 'Our honored barbarian big brother has boarded — let's cast off!'? You think that's how it goes?"
Had they caught on that I was trying, by any means necessary, to get close to the moored ship? The Do Gate thugs hemming me in traded sneers.
Fair point. The ship wasn't about to up anchor just because I stepped aboard.
How, then, was I to cross the river?
My carefully laid plan had come apart. The enemy's pursuit kept tightening, like a blade closing on my throat.
If I found myself in a bind, wouldn't some straw-hatted boatman come rowing out of nowhere, bellowing, 'You there! Board my boat!'? But leaning on coincidence is the habit of men without plans.
Should I fling a log into the river and leap aboard to ride it across? Should I try the Water-Treading Art (Jesus Walk) and stroll right over the water?
With my level of martial arts — impossible.
A Do Gate warrior drew near. But it no longer mattered.
"What in the world do you lot think you're doing?!"
Because my plan had already succeeded.
The voice boomed across the harbor, and the warriors froze mid-step.
"Wh-what the—?"
The Do Gate warriors lifted their heads toward the source of the sound. The furious bellow had come from atop the ship.
They had no choice but to be thrown into confusion by the identities of those who had appeared so suddenly.
Because—
"Constables? What in the world is this?!"
every last soul standing on that deck was a constable.
"The Yangtze has official vessels that make regular runs back and forth for government officials."
Did they think I'd drawn every eye with the Soyun Mind Image Art for nothing? I'd said it loud and clear so the constables resting aboard would hear every word.
"Ha! You think constables are going to protect you! How dare government officials meddle in the affairs of the murim—"
"Is that not Bailiff Kang! We have been waiting for you, sir!"
The man descending from the ship with a face full of delight was Constable Jeong, a member of the Tea Book Club.
"Constable Jeong. Thank you for turning out at such an early hour."
"Not at all, sir! To hear the Shadowless Divine Thief had appeared at dawn and come running straight out to conduct an on-site investigation — what truly remarkable dedication!"
"It is only natural, as the bailiff assigned to the Shadowless Divine Thief case."
"Wh-what in the world is this......"
"Bailiff Kang, please board. The official vessel departs shortly."
Against men with blades, one did not necessarily need to draw a blade of one's own.
You simply played the strongest card in your hand. Constables could not arrest murim warriors — but murim warriors could not carelessly cut down a constable, either.
Savoring to the very last drop the dumbstruck stares of the Do Gate bastards, I strode aboard the official vessel in triumph.
"You've been living with Kang Yunho this whole time? And the Gi-mun wasn't hiding you away at all?"
Inside a courtesan's room drenched in blood, the Do Gate Branch Master asked as he idly wiped down his blade, soaked through with gore.
"Yes. F-for certain! She sometimes came here with the black-haired bailiff!"
Amid the countless corpses, the sole surviving courtesan answered, trembling like a leaf.
"Those fucking bitches stonewalled me right to the end — and the whole time, they were shacked up with him."
He had been played, and played badly. The Do Gate Branch Master let out a hollow laugh at the feeling of having been made the ultimate mark.
It was not as if he had only brushed past rigged gambling tables once or twice. But never in his life had he been taken for such an enormous sucker.
Exposing scam after scam and finishing with the swindler's arm severed — that role had always belonged to the Do Gate Branch Master. But today, the bastards who had deceived him were nowhere before his eyes.
To soothe the filth clinging to his mood, Dan Wan-gwi raised his cleaver of a blade.
"Spare me! Please, spare me! I told you everything I know!"
The courtesan, sensing her fate, begged until her hands and knees were worn raw for mercy.
"You lived longer than the other courtesans. Be content with that."
Beheading the courtesan — her face a ruin of tears and snot — Dan Wan-gwi eased, if only a little, the indignation that would not be filled.
"And what of the Gi-mun Branch Master?"
The Do Gate Branch Master asked the subordinate waiting at his back as he wiped his blade once more.
"She has vanished. The Gi-mun's core members are nowhere to be seen either. Once day breaks, tracking them down will be difficult."
"That damned woman's instincts are something else, I swear. And that fake Shadowless Divine Thief — Kang Yunho — what's become of him?"
He would give a great deal to see that woman clinging to his trouser leg, wailing for mercy. So the Do Gate Branch Master thought to himself — yet he was no man who could not tell the order of things.
"They say the barbarian bastard's knack for escape is first-rate, so they're having a devil of a time."
"What that bastard has been training in is beyond doubt the Shadowless Body Art. Did the woman teach him? Or did the previous generation truly pass it down?"
"If the Tu Gate acknowledged him as their rightful successor, the latter would seem likely."
The loyalty of the Tu Gate's officers to their previous Branch Master was famed throughout the underworld. Had the black-haired barbarian been a false successor, the Tu Gate would never have acknowledged Kang Yunho.
And since the Do Gate needed to win the backing of that vanished Tu Gate Branch Master, they understood the Tu Gate better than anyone.
"And here I thought they'd simply fallen for each other and were shacking up. So she'd been leaning on her father's chosen successor from the very beginning."
"Branch Master!"
While Dan Wan-gwi was still piecing together the whole affair, the subordinate charged with hunting the fake Shadowless Divine Thief flung open the door and burst in, urgency written across his face.
"Did you bring him in?"
"Well, you see......"
"'You see'? Youuuu see? I don't much like the sound of what's about to come out of that mouth of yours. Am I imagining things?"
The Do Gate Branch Master tapped the man's chin with the flat of his blade as he spoke.
"The black-haired bailiff crossed the river aboard a government-operated vessel...... Ugh!"
A kick charged with the Branch Master's fury slammed the subordinate into the wall.
"And you just stood there and watched?"
"Troops disembarked from the official vessel and guarded the black-haired bailiff directly — there was nothing we could do!"
Desperate not to share the fate of the corpses littering the room, the man threw himself to his knees.
"And if this blade sinks into your belly, will you tell me then, too, that there was nothing you could do?"
"My apologies! I have already dispatched a pursuit team — we will bring him in."
"And if you fail, will it once again have been 'nothing you could do'?"
"I-I will do my utmost!"
"Did that barbarian bastard share some karmic grudge with me in a past life? Why is he so damned eager to obstruct my every move, from one to ten?"
Kang Yunho. A name he was sick to death of. Just as Kang Yunho surely thought of the Do Gate Branch Master, so the mere thought of Kang Yunho set his teeth grinding.
"Day is breaking, Branch Master."
Filthy work must be done when few eyes can see it.
Let internal strife erupt in broad daylight, and the day would come when even the orthodox sects observing the affair could no longer sit idle. The subordinate offered this counsel in a tone calculated to provoke his superior as little as possible.
"I know! I know, damn it! That barbarian bastard! Take this courtesan bitch's head to the Gi-mun Branch Master as a token of my regards. Tell them that from now on, anyone who interferes with our business gets finished off first."
"You intend to target Lim Hayeon? That place is entangled with two great powers. If you move recklessly......"
If Lim Hayeon had gone back to the mansion where Kang Yunho lived, the matter became complicated — the youngest daughter of the Zhuge Clan resided there, and it was ground under Mangeum Hall's protection.
Lay a finger on it, and he would be provoking two great powers at once.
"Gather men whose deaths would leave no loose ends. Promise them whatever money they want."
"Branch Master — you don't mean—?!"
"When I could sweep the entire pot, losing for want of a single card in my hand would be too bitter a pill to swallow, wouldn't it?"
The Do Gate Branch Master, too, was playing a hand with his life staked on the table. The moment he raised the white flag, everything would be gone. In Dan Wan-gwi's eyes gleamed the peculiar madness of a gambler.
"......I will make preparations."
"Good. Let's ride this out to the very end."
Win everything, or lose everything. The option of giving up halfway no longer existed.
The madness of a man who had staked his life on the pot was not yet finished.