Tu Gate - 10
The moment the martial artists of the Do Gate stormed into the mansion, what greeted them was a fog so thick they couldn't see a hand's breadth before their faces.
Wuhan was the provincial capital of Hubei, the province through which the Yangtze flowed. Thick morning mist was an everyday affair there, but fog in broad daylight? Especially when the sky had been perfectly clear right up until they'd crossed the mansion's threshold?
Even whipping up wind with their hands wouldn't scatter it. Someone was clearly standing right beside them, yet nothing could be seen.
As every fighter of the Do Gate stood dumbfounded, someone at last managed to dredge up the cause of the fog.
"A formation! Damn it all! It's the Zhuge Clan's formation!"
Only then did the Do Gate's warriors realize that the youngest daughter of the Zhuge Clan — a girl they had written off as no threat whatsoever — had plunged them into ruin.
"It was a trap...! Gack!"
The sound of the first man's throat being skewered as he burst through the gate tore at everyone's eardrums.
"Goddamn it! The warriors of Mangeum Hall are lying in ambush inside the formation!"
"Fall back! Get out first, then we re-form our ranks!"
"I can't find the exit! It was right behind me, I swear!"
"I leapt the wall and there's no wall on the other side!"
They had taken barely a single step inside, yet it felt as though they'd wandered into another world. Panicked shouts erupted from every direction.
"We're already caught in the formation's web! Once you're inside, there is no escaping! Pull yourselves together!"
Now that they had entered, the formation could only be broken by slipping out through the Gate of Life or by smashing the caster or the formation's anchor — nothing less would do.
The only path to survival lay not in flight, but in a calm, steady advance.
Of course, whether level heads alone could crack a formation woven by the direct bloodline of the Zhuge Clan was another question entirely.
"You blockheads. Scared of a little fog... Gack!"
Another Do Gate warrior met his end.
"Rally to my voice! Scatter and you die! Damn it all! Is even my voice being devoured by this fog?!"
The warrior bellowed his orders, but the words scattered into the void.
The Formation of Myriad Phenomena and Churning Mist was no ordinary fog-spewing array.
The mist choked off sight, then smell. As it thickened, it began to swallow sound as well. The stronger the formation grew, the more it devoured the presence of all things, severing the enemies' five senses one by one.
"Guh! I can't sense a single thing! Hup!"
The Do Gate warrior wrenched his waist aside in a desperate bid to dodge the blade flashing at him from point-blank range.
"Not a chance!"
The enemy's movement was far too large. Trapped in a formation or not, did they truly think he'd fail to dodge something this obvious?
Riding the recoil of his twist, the warrior drove his own blade with full force into the spot where his attacker's throat should have been.
"Kraaagh!"
"Got one... What the—! Wh-why you?!"
The corpse clutching its throat and crumpling before his eyes was unmistakably one of the Do Gate fighters who had entered with him. Why would the man who'd been aiming for his neck be on his own side?
The warrior could not begin to make sense of it.
"But that was definitely one of Mangeum Hall's men? D-don't tell me this formation makes it impossible to tell friend from foe?!"
What in the world was happening? A formation that turned those trapped within it against one another?
A killing ground. Only now did the warrior grasp how little chance he had of leaving alive.
"Goddamn you, Zhuge Claaan! Gwaack!"
It took no time at all for even the death cry of the man who had clung to his reason to fall silent.
Countless Do Gate fighters struggled desperately to resist, but the formation unfurled by the Zhuge Clan's direct bloodline had only just begun.
"So this is Zhuge the Rock — the Formation of Myriad Phenomena and Churning Mist. Incredible."
The Formation of Myriad Phenomena and Churning Mist, was it? Truly worthy of the Zhuge Clan — second to none when it came to locking people in and beating them down.
"I prepared so diligently at your suggestion, but this is beyond anything I imagined."
"I confess I hadn't known the Zhuge Clan's formations packed this much power either."
Listening to the death cries gradually fading away, I nodded along in the parlor.
Setting a formation around the mansion was something we had been preparing for quite a while. There was no telling when the Do Gate might cast all pretense aside and come for the estate. After I revealed Lady Hayeon's true identity to Lady Jegal, we had begun preparing at a leisurely pace, and with ten days left until the investiture ceremony, we had thrown ourselves into the formation's installation in earnest.
I had expected it to be strong enough to at least support Mangeum Hall's warriors — never that it would drive the enemy to annihilate themselves.
Unable to contain my astonishment, I turned to Jegal Hyang.
"Hehe. It's because you gave me so much time, Young Master Kaaang."
Our stunned expressions seemed to lift her spirits all the more; Lady Jegal spoke while fluttering a fan I had no idea where she'd procured.
"Do all the members of the Zhuge Clan learn this sort of thing?"
Was everyone in the Zhuge Clan a master of formations, then, true to their name?
"Ah, w-well, you see. M-my mother would smack my back raw if she caught me just lazing around. So I had to at least pretend to be doing something."
Lady Jegal admitted, fidgeting shyly with her hands.
"I see. So you applied yourself and mastered it, heeding your mother's word."
Though I'd never actually met the woman, I could somehow picture those mothers who sigh, good grief, there goes my screen-addled child, at the sight of their kid grinning slack-jawed at a computer.
Apparently Lady Jegal was the sort of daughter who, told that her computer's power strip would be confiscated until this month's grades came out, would grind out results by sheer force of will.
"Th-that's because... I wanted to read novels, and I wanted to draw, but there wasn't enough time for both. And once a formation is laid out, you can't really tell what's happening inside it, you seeee."
So she'd learned it purely as stealth optimization, had she?
"Haha. Well, it seems you studied it diligently all the same."
"Later my mother caught on, which was a bit of a problem. But once I realized all that mattered was not getting caught, I practiced even harder."
The art of indulging a fandom in the Zhuge Clan: train in formations so thoroughly that even the clan's own warriors never catch on. A passion for one's hobbies this fierce was formidable indeed.
It was like watching the top student of an entire school promise to reveal the secret of devouring both this season's newest anime and shows from thirty years ago — only to explain that you simply finish all your studying first, then enjoy your fandom to your heart's content.
"We have cleared everything. Most of the lookouts posted outside have been dealt with as well. Please, come out to the inner courtyard."
While we'd been chatting at our leisure inside, the captain of the guard had come to announce the end of the assault.
The fog had lifted before I knew it.
She had said the mist would clear once every intruder was dealt with. When we stepped out into the inner courtyard, the guards — all of them, thankfully, unharmed — were dragging the corpses out toward the outer courtyard.
"Thank you for your hard work."
"To think they'd dare assault a mansion under Mangeum Hall's protection. Those Sapa thugs have let their gall swell far beyond their means."
"I imagine the grudge from the Nokcheong Escort Agency affair has festered deep into their bones," I said, grinding a tuft of green hair scattered across the inner courtyard's floor beneath my heel.
There was no way I could tell the truth about the Shadowless Divine Thief or Haomen. To the people of Mangeum Hall, I simply repeated the story I'd once given the Mangeum Lord — a vendetta rooted in the Nokcheong Escort Agency incident.
Fortunately, it seemed the Do Gate bastards had prepared the hair themselves, planning to pin the whole thing on the Nokcheong Escort Agency.
"There's good reason bailiffs keep their distance from murim folk."
"People were hurt on my account who had no need to be. It weighs on my heart."
I let out a quiet sigh and bowed my head toward the warriors dragging away the attackers' corpses.
"Hahaha! We only did our duty. You, on the other hand, Young Master Kang — no, forgive me, Bailiff Kang — personally resolved a matter no one else would touch. You are doing truly righteous work."
A bailiff commanded no great power. It wasn't even a ranked official post — merely the lowest rung of frontline work, fighting ordinary crime.
Who would willingly entangle themselves with murim folk — people who could take your head over the slightest misstep — on a pittance of a salary? Far easier to nitpick at blameless merchants and shake loose a few coins.
The reason my name was on every tongue in Wuhan was precisely that a mere bailiff kept wading into cases involving murim men — and solving them.
"I only did what ought to be done."
"All of Wuhan is abuzz with talk of you these days, Bailiff Kang. The world will always hold those who envy and resent a man for doing right. Do not carry too much guilt."
Glancing around, I found the warriors of Mangeum Hall bowing their heads to me instead.
"Your kindness is more than I deserve."
I exchanged greetings with the captain of the guard and was surveying the courtyard when the outer gate burst open with a violent crash.
"L-let go of me!"
"We caught this one trying to run!"
Two guards hauled in a man who looked to belong to the Do Gate. A face I knew.
"A face I remember."
It came back to me — one of the men who had stood behind the Do Gate's Branch Master.
"Kang Yunho! You! How dare you lure us into a trap!"
"Have you ever seen a moth fly into a flame and then blame the fire?"
"B-because of you, our plan—!"
If your plan keeps failing, maybe consider cutting your losses. You go bust precisely because you keep raising the stakes, convinced the next hand will be yours.
"I'd love to hear the madman's next scheme, if he has one. Is running away all that's left to you now?"
"Guh! Then just kill me!"
The Do Gate officer ground his teeth and turned his face away, as if he had nothing left to say.
Not exactly the line I'd hoped to hear from a scruffy-bearded middle-aged man. Not that I'd have gone easy on him even if a noble swordswoman who'd never once known defeat had said it.
"This is murim business. We will handle him ourselves."
I briefly considered interrogating the Do Gate officer myself, then gave up on the idea and nodded. I had no professional interrogation techniques, and there wasn't time to pry open the mouth of a man resolved to keep it shut. I looked toward where the sun hung and said,
"The sun will be setting soon."
It had already sunk to hang in the western sky.
"So it will."
Soon the afterglow would fade and night would fall. The investiture of the Tu Gate's Branch Master — the ceremony we had awaited so long — was about to begin. I, too, was to accompany them to the appointed place as the previous Branch Master's sworn younger brother.
For Lady Hayeon too, today's sun must have stirred feelings all their own; she had murmured the very same words while gazing at the western sky.
"Lady Jegal."
I turned my head toward Lady Jegal, who was following our gaze to the western sky.
"Yes?"
"I think it best if you return to the Mangeum Lord's estate for a while."
"Whaaaat?"
Lady Jegal — I understood her shock. It must have sounded as though I were telling her to bow out at the very end. That was not what I meant.
"The mansion is in ruins, and there's no telling what might happen while we're away."
I gestured at the blood-drenched inner courtyard.
Once Lady Hayeon was invested as the Tu Gate's Branch Master, everything would be over. Now was the time to swat down every variable that could still arise and nail down our victory.
After all, there was no telling whether a cornered Do Gate Branch Master might not go around the bend a good 540 degrees and seize Jegal Hyang as a hostage. Even remote possibilities demanded caution.
"...Y-you are coming baaack, aren't you?"
Lady Jegal asked in a trembling voice.
"Of course. Once today's business is finished, we return to our everyday lives."
"..."
Lady Jegal neither answered nor nodded. She only looked back and forth between Lady Hayeon and me with trembling eyes.
Was there something she wanted to say?
Her lips moved a few times without sound; then, at last, she bowed her head, her shoulders slumping in dejection.
"Hm?!"
What was wrong?
Lady Hayeon suddenly seized my ear, drew her lips close, and whispered.
"How can you be so oblivious? Can't you see Lady Jegal is anxious?"
Anxious? Why?
I studied Lady Jegal's bowed head for a moment. Somewhere in her posture was a puppy trembling at the fear that its master was about to abandon it.
Ah.
Right — the reason we all lived together in that mansion was Lady Hayeon.
Any number of reasons had piled on top of one another, but the chief one had been protecting Lady Hayeon. Lady Jegal had likely been fooled at first, but she knew the truth now.
Once today passed, Lady Hayeon's problem would be solved. There would no longer be any pressing reason for the three of us to live under one roof.
So telling her to go back to the estate at a moment like this might well have sounded — one way or another — like a declaration that our cohabitation ended here.
I did promise to take responsibility, yet all my attention went to Lady Hayeon.
Had she been nursing an unspeakable sense of exclusion all this time? Did she fear that once this affair concluded, I might simply pretend not to know her?
Either way, small wonder she was anxious.
"Lady Jegal."
How could I dispel her anxiety? After only a moment's thought, I crossed the distance to her.
"Yes? Hwah?! Y-y-y-y-young Master Kang?!"
Lady Jegal's flustered voice rang at my ear. She had every reason to be startled.
After all, I had just swept her into my arms.
"Lady Jegal."
I called her name once more, lacing it with affection.
"Hnnngh."
I could hear her heart hammering away like a drum under siege.
"When I return, let's go on an outing together. We can take our time talking about novels, too."
Holding her precious and close, I whispered gently by her ear.
"R-re-re-re-really?"
So she truly had been afraid. I could feel Lady Jegal's anxious trembling against my chest. Still holding her close, I stroked the back of her head.
The scent of hydrangeas drifted up from her soft frame. Hold her too tightly, and it felt as though she might simply melt away.
"Yes. I'll come back safe and sound."
In my heart, I wanted to keep holding her forever. It took superhuman restraint to pull myself away.
"Yeeees. H-h-have a s-s-safe trip."
"Please look after Lady Jegal. I have bailiff's business to see to."
I said to the captain of the guard nearby, my expression entrusting her to his care.
"Ahem. Understood."
Had we been too dazzling to watch? The gazes of the warriors who'd been looking our way seemed somehow bitter.
"Heeheeheeheeheeheeheeheehee..."
"Lady Hayeon. We should be moving. Lady Hayeon?"
Leaving the steadily melting Lady Jegal behind, I spoke to Lady Hayeon.
"..."
And why were your lips jutting out a good four feet this time?
"If we're not to be late to the meeting place, we must leave now."
"R-right, let's hurry!"
Lady Hayeon seemed to have collected herself; she nodded and turned away.
"Let's make haste."
As though congratulating us for smothering the Do Gate's death throes, the sun hurried to lay itself down in the west.
The night we had awaited for so long was finally arriving.