Tu Gate - 13
Now that everyone had acknowledged her, the rest of the ceremony was nothing but cumbersome pomp and pageantry — but custom, as ever, was a law that had to be kept.
Hayeon tipped back the fierce liquor in one clean swallow, from a cup bigger than a pencil holder.
The fumes alone were reaching me from clear across the room. Would she be all right?
What was Hayeon's tolerance, again? We'd shared a few light drinks over the years, but never to the bottom of the cup — because if the two of us ever drank until we dropped, there was no telling how far we might end up going.
Perhaps the alcohol had hit her all at once; Hayeon swayed for a moment, then nodded as if to say she was fine.
"The Tu Gate Hyangju has accepted our loyalty and our duty, as a Hyangju must. Now, members — kneel with me and receive the wine our Hyangju pours."
"We greet the new Tu Gate Hyangju!"
"We pledge you our loyalty!"
"...I shall drink it well."
"A feat no one in the Tu Gate's history has ever achieved! I stand in awe!"
Everyone was drinking from the big cups, too. That stuff was basically a bomb cocktail — the hangover would be murder. Ignoring my worried stare, the cup had already made its full round before I knew it.
No one bothered to say it aloud, but every one of them knew what it meant.
Tu Gate Hyangju of Hubei Province. The Shadowless Divine Thief. Lim Hayeon. Our long road had finally crossed the finish line.
"In the midst of all this chaos, I have become your Tu Gate Hyangju."
Hayeon turned her head slowly and found me, sitting quietly in a corner.
It had been long. We had struggled. We had endured. Our eyes met in a look that no words could ever capture.
"Chaos is when the likes of us get to run wildest — isn't that how it's always been?"
"Hahahahaha!"
Hayeon let a small laugh escape at the ripple of laughter around her, then spoke again, her face turning grave.
"I have no intention of standing by while this chaos spreads."
All that remained now was the counterattack. We would drive out the Do Gate Branch Master and take back our peace. That was what I believed.
"Against the Do Gate Branch Master, we will figh—... f-fight? Ugh?! Uuurgh!"
What? The cup Hayeon had been holding slipped from her fingers and fell.
Her breathing had gone ragged. Watching her clutch her throat and crumple, it felt as though the moment were replaying in agonizing slow motion.
"What's happening? Tu Gate Hyangju! Ugh!"
"Ugh!"
"What's wrong with— uurk!"
"Wh-what is this?"
Beginning with Hayeon, everyone in the estate was collapsing one after another. I had to reach her side and check on her.
I kicked back my seat and lunged toward her — and my eyes caught a man clutching his chest who showed no pain at all. In that same instant, the estate's gates burst inward.
"Finished drinking? What kept you? It's only the first round."
A languid voice drifted in from behind. A voice I would have given anything never to hear again — one branded into my brain — came crashing through the shattered doors.
"The Do Gate Branch Master?!"
The voice belonged to the Branch Master of the Do Gate.
"Uurk! What's... happening to me?"
One of the executives swayed where he stood, fighting to stay upright, and asked.
"Care for me to share one of my secrets for winning at the tables? Gambling, you see, isn't a game won by quick fingers alone."
As the Branch Master spoke, one of the fallen Tu Gate members rose to his feet, smiling.
"I put the poison I was given into the wine instead. Easy enough to hide in that foul-smelling chaos brew."
"You plant a mole. Simple as that."
The Branch Master said it with a shrug.
So among the Tu Gate members who had traveled from the far corners of Hubei for today's inauguration, a spy had been hiding all along.
Had it been an ordinary wine, someone would have caught the taint by taste — but with dozens of liquors swirled into one, no one had sensed the venom.
"You bastard! Betrayal?! And you still dare call yourself a man of the Tu Gate!"
The executive glared at the traitor as if he would tear him apart with his bare teeth.
"Loyalty and devotion? Between Haomen thugs? The tide has already turned."
Head high, the traitor walked across the hall and took his place behind the Branch Master.
He had a point, didn't he. What loyalty or devotion exists between Haomen thugs? The me of any ordinary day would have nodded along — but betrayal, when it's your own turn to taste it, cuts straight to the bone.
"You bastaaard! Uuuurgh!"
The executive screamed until the veins stood out on his neck, then staggered and dropped to one knee.
"Don't excite yourself. The more you struggle, the faster it spreads. Sleeping toxin cut with anesthetic — marvelously effective stuff."
The Tu Gate members nearest the Branch Master had already slumped to the floor, out cold.
So it wasn't a lethal poison, at least. But why? Don't tell me the bastard still hasn't given up on her.
"What is the meaning of this, Do Gate Branch Master! It's over. Everything is already over!"
"Over? I've never once stepped down from the table. Who said you could end it?"
While the Branch Master was distracted, I took stock of our situation.
I hadn't touched the wine — I'd had no oath of loyalty to swear. My body was clean. Twenty Do Gate thugs had stormed the hall. My fingers found the Tang Clan's hidden weapons tucked inside my coat.
How many could I put down? Would any of the Tu Gate be in any shape to back me up?
"Ha! So even now, someone's eyes are still rolling in his head."
For a heartbeat, my gaze locked with the Branch Master's.
"Take him down!"
"Urk!"
Both arms pinned, I was hauled forward and thrown at the Branch Master's feet.
"So at last I get to look on that cursed mug of yours. We go way back, you and I — though for me, it's the first time."
The Branch Master licked his lips like a wolf that had finally run its prey to ground and glared at me.
"...You wretched bastard."
No — stubborn was more like it. Or a shamelessly tenacious cur. I'd never imagined he would storm in at a moment like this.
"Ha! You little shit — that's my line. The black-haired rat hid what he really was splendidly. Didn't you?"
"Kgh!"
His fist, heavy with force, buried itself in my gut.
"Hey. Barbarian. What the hell are you, exactly?"
He seized a fistful of my hair and wrenched my face up to meet his, eyes glistening with madness.
"What?"
"I waited ten years for my chance to steal that woman away. And on the day of my raid, someone snatched her first — as if he'd been waiting all along. Mangeum Jeonjang. The Seocheon Escort Agency. Even the Zhuge Clan. What in the hell is so special about that woman that they all guard her like this?"
He prodded Hayeon — dragged over beside me at some point — with the toe of his boot as he spoke.
"Nnngh!"
"Hayeon!"
This was bad. Of everyone present, Hayeon had drunk the most poison. She bit down hard on her lip as if to anchor herself, but consciousness kept slipping through her fingers.
"I had that woman seized at the Gi-mun — and he strolls in and walks off with her. I paid the Left Head Constable to have her arrested — and the bastard turns constable himself. He's blasted every single one of my schemes to pieces and made a name for himself as the black-haired constable. Tell me — how could that not make my blood boil?"
The Branch Master thumped his chest like a man protesting his own innocence to all the world.
"Might I suggest you stop groveling like a cur and simply give up?"
How many lives had this man's greed shattered? How many breaths had his madness snuffed out? All of it — every last bit of it — because of him and him alone.
"You insufferable bastard! You think you're any less wretched? Hey! Answer me. Did that woman whelp your brat or something? Why else would you throw your life away trying to save her?"
"Y-you... r-run... Ugh!"
Hayeon's hand caught weakly at the Branch Master's ankle — one shake of his leg and she crumpled, spent.
Rage roared up from somewhere deep in my chest. Hold it down. Spitting my fury out now would only end in humiliation.
Was there a way out of this?
I had to find one, whatever it took. Unlike before, I could see the Tu Gate members' shoulders beginning to writhe — they were quietly driving the poison from their bodies.
I needed more time. Just a little more.
"Does a man need a grand reason to save the woman he loves?"
I answered with a sneer — though my eyes burned with a passion deeper than anyone else's in that hall.
"You moron. When you've staked your wife on the table and you can feel yourself losing, you pull your hand out."
"Strange advice, coming from a man who's never once won a hand against me."
A man bled dry for years, lucky exactly once, and now he wanted to preen? I snorted and laughed in his face.
"Kheheheh. Well, now that you... mention it? Kheheheh."
Perhaps he was delighted by his last-minute reversal. The Branch Master clutched his chest and laughed for a good long while.
The trembling in my allies' shoulders was dying down.
A little longer. Stall a little longer, and help would come.
"Tu Gate Hyangju! The Ma Gate has launched its attack!"
One piece of good news bought us another beat of time.
"Ha... that old fool just can't help himself. Hey! See to that woman first."
Clutching his forehead, the Branch Master pointed a finger at Lim Hayeon.
"And what shall we do with this one?"
One of the Do Gate warriors prodded me with his scabbard as he asked.
"Hey. You. Are you truly the Shadowless Divine Thief's sworn brother?"
"Yes. That's right."
The traitor nodded as if there were not a shred of doubt.
"Ha, shit. Everything in me wants to wring his neck right this instant... but what do I do with this bastard..."
"Shall we truss him up and take him with us?"
The Branch Master circled me slowly, eyeing me the way a man eyes a plump, succulent cut of barbecue.
Don't shake.
Faking terror would only hand him the show he wanted. Like a sprinter coiled at the line for his final burst, I quietly finished readying the Soyun Mind Image Art.
My reaction must have bored him — the Branch Master clapped his hands as if a thought had just struck him and spoke.
"Wait a moment?! The Shadowless Divine Thief will want proof too, won't they — proof that we have the girl and the sworn brother in hand?"
"Yes. I believe we'll need it."
"The girl, who can say. But surely we could send one of the sworn brother's arms as a warning?"
The blade that had severed countless wrists slid from its sheath.
"Wh-what? Ah! N-no, that won't be necessary! You bastard, hold his ar— Gah!"
I flooded my entire body with inner power and shook off the men gripping me in one explosive burst.
It opened with the Jade-Faced Guardian Divine Skill. The blade skated across my skin like glass on ice — and my hand chased down its length to clamp around the wielder's throat.
"You bas— Urk!"
I twisted the man's neck and flowed straight into the Shadowless Body Art, my full weight behind a kick that smashed into the jaw of another lunging at me from behind.
"The barbarian— what the hell—!"
Two down in a single breath. I flung my throwing daggers and broke away to open the distance.
Why weren't my allies moving? Not enough time yet? My fingers worked at the hidden pocket inside my coat.
"Ha! So the rat knows a trick or two. This it? All of you, out of my way!"
With a look of contempt, the Branch Master shoved his own obstructing men aside, blade pinched in his grip.
"Branch Master!"
"I'll cut this bastard down myself."
Should I play my trump card?
There would be no telling friend from foe once it flew. Hayeon could be hurt. And if I used it — then what? If the Branch Master survived, what would come after?
"Ha?! Where do you think you're looking!"
Damn it — I'd overthought it.
The blade went for my throat. I wrung every last drop from the Jade-Faced Guardian Divine Skill to shield my neck — and the blade's arc bent without warning.
Of course. He'd promised to take my arm.
"Too la—!"
The frost-blue edge flashed for my right hand. Could my arm withstand it?
It couldn't.
I clenched my teeth without meaning to, bracing for the horror to come. But the thing I imagined never happened.
Not because the Branch Master had stayed his hand.
The blade had been stopped.
By someone else's blade.
I stared, stunned, at the back of the man who had appeared out of nowhere. He spoke to the Branch Master in a voice seething with fury.
"What is the meaning of this — laying hands on another man's sworn brother?"
What?
Whose sworn brother?
"Ha! No way?! Well, look who it is."
Bewilderment flooded the Branch Master's voice. No — it had every right to.
"You. Are you all right?"
I lifted my head toward the source of that worried voice.
White-haired — but no old man. His hair had simply gone white too soon. And threaded through the white hair of this man, now well into middle age, glinted unmistakable streaks of pink.
I couldn't believe my eyes.
This man — in my hardest days, he had looked out for me and lent me his company. Even when the world scorned me as a barbarian, he never once hesitated to share my table, to ask after my well-being with real worry in his eyes.
The man who had reached out a hand of kindness to me, freely and without reserve.
"Uncle Wang...?"
Uncle Wang from the drapery shop.
The Shadowless Divine Thief of the previous generation, after all.