Thief Gate - 14
"Do you really think they'll come find me on their own once their preparations are done? A thief never bothers with proper times or places."
The Branch Master of the Do Gate took a step back and leveled his blade at the new intruder.
"Your mongrel yapping ends here."
Uncle Wang intoned it low, in a voice that seemed one breath away from cutting every last man in the room to pieces.
Is that really the Uncle Wang I know? He's a completely different person.
"Alone? You think you can manage that?"
The words were no sooner out of the Branch Master's mouth than every warrior in the hall drew steel. The only allies still standing unharmed were Uncle Wang and me.
Could the two of us really take on close to twenty enemies at once? Perhaps I ought to stall for more time.
But while I was still weighing it, Uncle Wang's figure abruptly blurred.
"Gahk!"
One of the Do Gate warriors clutching his throat and crumpling to the floor, and Uncle Wang reappearing at my side, happened almost in the same instant.
"That's one fewer."
Uncle Wang — I didn't see a single thing just now, you know?
And it seemed I wasn't the only one, for bewilderment flickered across the faces of the Do Gate warriors.
"Ha... So even an old tiger keeps its claws sharp, I see."
The Branch Master laughed hollowly as he looked down at his subordinate, who had become a corpse in the space of a breath.
At that very moment, a warrior lying collapsed near the Branch Master flinched at the shoulder. Yes! There's my chance! The Tu Gate warrior had evidently reached the same conclusion, for he sprang up in a flash and hurled himself at the enemy.
"Die—! ...Urk!"
"Stay down. There's always one or two bastards who can't read the room."
Had he known all along? The Branch Master swung his blade as though swatting a fly and took the man's head clean off.
So the Branch Master of the Do Gate was no ordinary martial artist either. If we wanted to turn this around, my only play was to hold off the rest of them while Uncle Wang and the Branch Master went at it one-on-one.
Fine. Nearly twenty of them, after all. I'll just have to ask them to take a number and come at me in order.
"L-Lord Branch Master!"
"Tch!"
Fortunately, the ones waiting in line for a number weren't only the Do Gate bastards. One after another, the Tu Gate warriors who had managed to drive out the poison qi began rising from where they'd fallen.
"Do you think you'll walk out of here alive?"
Time was on our side. Uncle Wang urged the Branch Master to surrender.
"Walk out? Of course I can walk out! I'm holding a pass right here — what's to stop me?!"
With a triumphant grin, the Branch Master hoisted up one of the unconscious figures lying at his feet.
"Nngh..."
"Lady Hayeon!"
Who is that bastard grabbing? I was about to fling a hidden weapon when Uncle Wang's hand stopped me, and he spoke.
"You mean to take my daughter hostage?"
"She was already a hostage for ten years. One more day changes nothing, does it?"
"Do you truly believe you can carry off my daughter and shake off my pursuit with your back turned to me?"
Uncle Wang's blade gleamed a cold blue in the moonlight.
Look at our father-in-law, oozing confidence from every syllable. Honestly, it makes me want to bellow like some scheming stage villain — 'You shall all die!'
"That's... true, I suppose?"
Even the Branch Master seemed short on conviction; he smirked thinly and nodded. That's right. You're a gambler, aren't you? If you're rattled, then start preparing to die.
"Come along quietly— wait, what's that?!"
Something round had been drawn from within the Branch Master's robes.
What is that? A hidden weapon? While I hesitated over the question, the Branch Master seized Lady Hayeon's jaw and shoved the thing straight into her mouth.
"Mmph!"
"What the hell did you just make her swallow?!"
"Something good for the body! I'd been saving it to take after I became Mangju. The only trouble is that it has to be taken together with an antidote."
"Then I'll simply have to search your corpse."
A voice thick with killing intent bore down on the Branch Master.
"And if you catch me, you'll never find that antidote, will you?"
"..."
"At sunset this evening. We meet at the wine house the Do Gate runs along the Yangtze. The Tu Gate Branch Master will bring the seal ring along of her own accord. Until this evening!"
As if he had no further business here, the Branch Master turned on his heel and strolled unhurriedly out of the mansion.
Inside the mansion, now emptied of intruders.
"Nngh!"
At Lady Hayeon's pained moan, the two of us moved at once.
"Hayeon! Hayeon! Come back to me! Hayeon!"
Uncle Wang crossed the distance in a single stride, gathered Lady Hayeon into his arms, and called to her in desperation.
"Branch Master! No — this is terrible! I'll fetch a physician at once!"
"L-Lady Hayeon..."
Up close, the state of Lady Hayeon's face was beyond words. It was scarlet, as though painted over with cinnabar; sweat poured from her brow like rain, and her lips shivered without pause.
No.
My legs gave out beneath me. I dropped to my knees in a panicked heap. My stunned feet refused to move, so I clenched my teeth and dragged myself toward her.
My eyes met Uncle Wang's. Grief-stricken, he passed her into my arms. Her body burned — burned like a ball of flame — while her hands lay cold as fresh ice.
Don't you dare.
I had run all this way to change her fate. I had not come this far just to watch her fall.
Surging emotion drove me to pull her close.
"I know a trusted physician! I'll carry her to him mysel—hm?"
Aftereffects of the battle, maybe.
My body throbbed. It didn't matter. The one in pain right now was her...
"Huh?"
But why did only the places where I touched Lady Hayeon sting like bee stings?
"You! What in the world is going on—!"
"Huh? Wh-wh-whaaat?!"
The poison qi was streaming out of Lady Hayeon's body.
"You fed your daughter some wonder-working elixir and brought her here just to show it off, did you?"
In the private chamber off the banquet hall, once the commotion had settled, a renowned physician — one whose name I'd heard at least once even back in Wuhan — asked us with an air of utter disbelief.
"What do you mean by that?"
Uncle Wang asked with startled eyes.
"You gave her a wonderfully potent elixir and then summoned me here thinking she'd been poisoned. Am I wrong?"
"An elixir, you say?"
"Aside from the elixirs the great orthodox sects pour their entire resources into refining — your Great Restoration Pills, your Supreme Clarity Pills, and the like — everything else comes with side effects. Always has."
The physician spoke with a huff of exasperation.
"Side effects?"
"Let's see now. The elixir carries quite a lot of yin qi, so come nighttime she might well latch onto her husband and refuse to let him go. Though, counting the husband standing right there beside her, I'd say it'll fall short — so no real problem after all..."
"Quit muttering to yourself and give it to us straight!"
"My ears are ringing! What medicine in this world isn't also poison? The yin qi in her body has grown stronger, but she can bear it; there is toxic qi, but it can be treated. And once it's treated — what does a martial artist have left, hmm?"
So the thing the Branch Master pulled out really was an elixir closer to poison than medicine? If it was precious enough that he carried it on his person at all times, then he must have been in a truly desperate corner in that moment.
"There's no way that bastard fed her a proper elixir..."
Uncle Wang, please stop scanning me with those suspicious eyes. It's a little uncomfortable. Not that I didn't use a thoroughly suspicious method of treatment, of course.
My Defier of Destiny power finally earned its keep for once.
Human totem shaman. The cure-all for ten thousand diseases. Kang Yunho, entering the field. Today's totem of choice: the Healing Totem. The moment I saw the poison qi being drawn out of Lady Hayeon's body, I understood exactly what was happening.
I had to use it — fast.
After dressing it up as some secret art of my own devising, I administered the intensive treatment — the third heavy session tonight, if anyone was counting. For just a moment there I could have sworn I felt a thick wave of killing intent boring into the back of my head, but it hardly mattered.
The poison qi was erupting fiercely from Lady Hayeon's body, after all.
Life as an author, on top of my work as a bailiff. My fame stat must have climbed quite a bit compared to the old days.
Thanks to that, Lady Hayeon's complexion had returned to normal before the physician even arrived.
"The man who gave her this medicine claimed the antidote was on his person. So does she even need the antidote?"
I had no excuse to offer Uncle Wang. Time to steer everyone's attention back to Lady Hayeon.
"You came to me because you couldn't give her that antidote, no?"
"Yes. Exactly."
"Her body is primed to accept the next medicine. If she takes the antidote, it will neutralize the toxic qi within her at once, and she will gain even greater internal energy besides. But if the risk feels too heavy, there is another road."
"What road?"
"She takes the medicine I prepare for her and convalesces quietly for a time. Give it a few years of devoted rest, and the toxic qi will work its way out on its own."
"All she has to do is take medicine?"
Uncle Wang asked again, as though he couldn't believe his ears.
"'Just' medicine?! For any well-to-do family, saving one child with this would cost them the very foundations of the house. Of course, you're the sort of man who could replant the pillars themselves, so I suppose it's nothing to you."
"Mm..."
"When a face I hadn't seen in ten years turned up at the crack of dawn, I half thought you'd come begging me to keep you from becoming a ghost."
With the crisis settled, the physician grumbled at Uncle Wang.
"Sorry about that."
"Forget it. It was good to see your face again after so long. The girl should come around within half a day. Once her treatment is finished, she'll carry internal energy that even the prized prodigies of the Nine Sects and One Union would struggle to attain."
With a word that we should come collect the medicine once day broke, the physician took his leave of the mansion.
"Phewwww."
Thank goodness. With a long, deep sigh, I sank into a seat, a weight finally off my chest.
Uncle Wang, seemingly unable to tear his eyes from the daughter he'd found again after ten years, sat gazing quietly at the unconscious Lady Hayeon.
Where do I even begin?
I'm sorry, Uncle Wang.
You see, I took your Black Money and went looking for Haomen. And every last one of them threatened me.
I talked my way out of it by claiming we were sworn brothers, and somehow that snowballed into promising your daughter our future together.
No. That's far too condensed.
Lady Hayeon fell in love with me and agreed to give me her heart. No — hold on. Shouldn't I begin by playing up everything I did to earn it, and work the story out from there?
As I turned the problem over, I suddenly became aware of a gaze fixed on me.
"That power that saved my daughter — is it the art of the Defier of Destiny?"
With unsettling naturalness, Uncle Wang asked about one of the greatest secrets I carried.
"Sorry — what?"
The only person alive who knows I'm the Defier of Destiny is Sohee. The question came so far out of left field that my eyes went wide before I could stop them.
"A young man I kept such a careful eye on, forever at the side of the Heavenly Killing Star — surely I was owed at least that much understanding."
Uncle Wang smiled as he watched my reaction.
"You knew even that much?"
"Cheon-gi-ja told me. And along the way, I heard a few things worth hearing as well."
Uncle Wang bore his gaze straight through me.
"Things worth hearing, you say?"
"Nothing at all. I paid a generous divination fee, so I got an earful of everything under the sun."
So it was Cheon-gi-ja who'd told him, not Sohee. Convinced, I nodded along.
"How did you know to come here?"
"With the tale of the righteous thief, the Shadowless Divine Thief, ringing through every corner of Hubei Province, how could I not know? I paid that Guo fellow in Yichang a visit after all these years, heard the whole story, and arrived in Wuhan a few days ago."
"I see."
When I nodded again, a brief silence settled between us.
If he'd already seen and heard everything, perhaps he needed little in the way of explanation. And yet it felt right for me to give my side of it.
While I was still sorting through my words, Uncle Wang rose to his feet.
"Thank you for watching over my child in place of a failed father like me. I hardly know how I could ever repay you."
Uncle Wang dropped to his knees then and there and bowed his head to me.
"There's no need for that between us. And the matter isn't settled yet, either. We can trade our thanks once it is — it won't be too late then."
I had only meant to repay the help he'd once given me. And the business with the Do Gate was still far from over.
I scrambled up from my seat and helped Uncle Wang to his feet, wearing my friendliest smile.
"You're right. With the Do Gate madmen on the rampage, this is no hour for sentiment. We'll hold our reunion once the work is done."
Right. This really wasn't the time.
Since Uncle Wang already knew the broad strokes of what had happened, I had, thankfully, bought myself room to talk about other things. Outside, Haomen's civil war was in full swing, and I needed to be moving to put the whole affair to rest.
I looked at Uncle Wang and opened my mouth to lay out the plan.
"Father-in-law."
Uncle Wang's brow twitched.
Why no answer? Let me try again.
"Father...-in-law?"
Uncle Wang's brow twitched — no, it writhed like an earthworm.
Could it be...?
"Shall I go back to 'Uncle Wang,' then?"
"Call me Brother Wang. As a father who only just got his daughter back after ten long years, I'm afraid those words require a little more preparation of the heart before I can hear them."
Only then did Uncle Wang answer me with a smile.
"No — the fault is mine. Crisis or not, I'm sorry I went around calling myself your sworn brother."
Rather than lock wills with my father-in-law, I'd settle for a trade. I made a point of hinting that I'd been in a crisis at the time and had no choice but to lie.
"After all you've done for me, you fret over such a trifle? Whatever you'd said, I would have forgiven it."
Uncle Wang instead looked almost hurt as he smiled and clapped my shoulder.
Really, now?
You'd forgive anything I said?
"Well then — Father-in-law."
I launched another sneak attack.
Why, this rascal—? A flicker of having just taken a blow flashed across Uncle Wang's face.
Heh heh heh. Just accept it and get it over with. After all, who pulled Lady Hayeon back from the brink this time? Me, again. Show me another son-in-law this fine, and then we'll talk.
"...Does my daughter know about the Heavenly Killing Star?"
An utterly unexpected, perfectly aimed counterthrust ran me through the chest.
"Brother Wang..."
"Brother Kang."
Truly, the model sworn brothers of Haomen.
True brothers, grown beyond the gap of years, clasped hands with smiles on their faces and arrived at a dramatic accord.