Tea House Revelations
"Just two rooms."
"Yes, sir. Understood. As for the cost..."
As Yoo Eunhyeon prepared to settle the room fee, Ju Yu-ryeon thrust a silver coin forward from behind his back. He turned his head.
"Where'd you get money?"
"Heh. I snagged some allowance from Mom."
"You claimed you hated the lectures, yet you took everything you could get, huh?"
"That's that, and this is this. Haha."
Watching Ju Yu-ryeon plant a hand on her hip and declare it proudly, Yoo Eunhyeon thought of Yeo U-hui.
She knows he'll waste most of it on nonsense, yet she still hands over allowance... Auntie really doesn't practice what she preaches.
And that, he supposed, was a parent's heart as well—the contradictory urge to scold a plump child about losing weight while still packing them full of food for fear they might go hungry.
"Yes, thank you. Please head up to the second floor."
After receiving the change from the attendant, the two stepped back. A guest who had just finished his meal inside approached the counter as if he had been waiting for them to leave.
"How much is it here?"
"Yes, sir. Two nyang. Thank you. Please come again."
The departing guest's manner seemed a touch hurried. Yoo Eunhyeon glanced after him and spoke to Ju Yu-ryeon.
"He left because he saw us arrive, right?"
"Yeah. Looks like someone planted him..."
"Who?"
"Beats me. Judging by how clumsy it was, maybe we don't even need to worry about it."
They both tilted their heads, but it was not long before they learned exactly who had been waiting for them.
"Hyung-nim! Noonim!"
At the attendant's word that someone had come looking for them, they went downstairs and found Ho Won-jik waiting.
"Huh? Won-jik, you..."
Yoo Eunhyeon stared in surprise, but Ju Yu-ryeon went a step further.
"Ah. Right. This guy existed."
"Wait. Don't tell me you forgot about me?"
"No, I didn't forget."
Anyone could see she had completely forgotten, yet Ju Yu-ryeon lied without so much as a blink. Yoo Eunhyeon was not quite that shameless, so he offered an awkward laugh.
"So many huge things have been happening lately that it slipped my mind. Haha."
"Isn't that a bit much, humanly speaking? I've been going crazy trying to get in touch with you two somehow."
"Hey. For someone who claims that, you stayed awfully quiet until we got here, didn't you?"
In truth, the reason the two had forgotten about Ho Won-jik was that they had received no word from him the entire time they stayed with the Dang Clan. At first they had certainly wondered about his whereabouts, but the matter of the Jeokgang-dokshi had been so enormous that it had momentarily driven him from their minds.
"Hyung-nim. Don't even start. Do you know what it means to approach the Dang Clan right now? One wrong step and you're finished."
As he spoke, Ho Won-jik made a quick, intuitive gesture near his throat—head flying off. Yoo Eunhyeon lightly smacked the back of his head.
"What's with the theatrics, you punk. You think everyone else is blind? Sure, both the righteous and demonic sides have been watching the place heavily, so coming in person would have been hard—but sending a single letter wouldn't have been impossible. I know that much."
"Eunhyeon's right. You just got treated well at Honjakmun and decided you wanted to go back to living the way you used to, didn't you?"
Both Yoo Eunhyeon and Ju Yu-ryeon told him to stop the fussing. Ordinarily Ho Won-jik would have shrunk back, but this time he flashed a sly smile, wagged a finger, and clicked his tongue with an unpleasant look.
"Tsk tsk tsk. You two really don't know anything. Do you think someone like me—the Young Master of Chukhobang, for all that I may look like this—would be scared of a few Qingcheng or Emei types?"
"I heard the Heavenly Martial Alliance is here too. And one of the Ten Fingers, Yeonggop-binghan, is supposed to have come as well."
"I already kn— Aagh! Shh! Shh! Don't say that kind of thing here! Let's move somewhere else first."
Ho Won-jik started to reply, then registered their surroundings, glanced around frantically, and clapped a hand over his own mouth. This time Ju Yu-ryeon also had a word for Yoo Eunhyeon.
"This one's on you, Eunhyeon. This isn't the Dang Clan. Even if we all know the same things, you don't just casually talk about them anywhere."
"Right? That's our Noonim for you."
For once Ju Yu-ryeon took Ho Won-jik's side. He brightened and looked triumphant. Yoo Eunhyeon, whose common sense was inevitably lacking in these matters, could only tilt his head.
"Is that so? Then shall we go to the room?"
"Not this inn. The security's nonexistent."
"What nonsense is that? Before, when I was talking about joining the Demonic Cult and all that, that didn't need security?"
"That was different. Back then no one was paying attention to us. Now eyes are on our side too. Neither of you bothered with any concealment when you came here, did you? Anyone trying to track your trail would have an easy time of it."
"Well... that's true enough."
Circumstances certainly differed from when they had first arrived in Chengdu. Back then it had not been this bad, but now, even walking the streets, one could sense martial artists moving about or lying in wait everywhere.
"Then shall we relocate? I've got a place in mind."
In the end the three left the inn, even employing lightfoot techniques in secret to avoid notice as much as possible, and headed for a tea house a short distance from the Ilcheon Inn.
The place, called the Green Plum Tea House, looked quite high-class and even had private rooms. Once they had secured one and stepped inside, Yoo Eunhyeon turned to Ju Yu-ryeon.
"When did you ever come here?"
"Come here? With what money? While I was out gathering information I heard the rumors and figured I ought to try it sometime."
"What rumors?"
Yoo Eunhyeon asked, but before Ju Yu-ryeon could answer a staff member entered to take their order. She replied as if she had been waiting for the chance.
"Tea, wine, and some simple side dishes, please."
"Yes. Thank you."
The young female attendant, eyes slightly lowered, gave a small nod at Ju Yu-ryeon's order and left. There was even a touch of elegance in her bearing that made Yoo Eunhyeon think this truly was a high-class establishment. He whipped his head toward Ju Yu-ryeon.
"Wine?"
"It's a tea house, but they sell wine too."
"Why?"
"That's just how places like this are. On the surface it's a quiet tea house, but it's also a spot where people of high station can secretly enjoy a drink in broad daylight."
"Do they really need to go that far just to drink?"
"People of high station have their dignity to consider. My situation's different, of course."
Watching Ju Yu-ryeon smack her lips as she spoke, Yoo Eunhyeon gave up on saying anything more. After all, the girl who drank like there was no tomorrow had gone quite a while without, so her mouth must have been itching.
Besides, any further scolding would just make him sound like a stand-in for Yeo U-hui, and he had no desire to play that role.
"Noonim is the same as ever."
"You still like that about her?"
"That's her charm, you know."
"Since when is being a drunkard charming..."
Yoo Eunhyeon wore an incredulous look, but whether she cared or not, tea and warm heated wine soon arrived. Ju Yu-ryeon snatched up a cup as if she had been waiting and asked,
"You two want a drink?"
"I'm fine."
"I'll take one."
Yoo Eunhyeon shook his head. Ho Won-jik accepted a cup from Ju Yu-ryeon but, perhaps because it was daytime, only sipped little by little to wet his throat.
"Ahhh... I'm alive again."
Ju Yu-ryeon, of course, downed a full cup in one go and let out a sigh of pure satisfaction. Yoo Eunhyeon took a sip of tea, left the drunkard to her own devices, and turned to Ho Won-jik.
"Leave that drunk alone. Now talk. How are things on the demonic side?"
"But is it really all right to just spill this... Well, Hyung-nim and Noonim aren't of the righteous path, so it should be fine. The power struggles here don't really concern our Chukhobang anyway."
"Kid. We know what we need to know. And it's obvious without hearing it. The Demonic Cult must have dispatched some of their experts with Honjakmun as the center."
"Huh? How did you—?"
"It's obvious. If the righteous side is doing it, the demonic side will of course do the same. The only thing we don't know is who came."
Ho Won-jik asked back in surprise, but Yoo Eunhyeon answered as if wondering why that was surprising. Once he heard it, Ho Won-jik realized he had simply failed to notice the obvious and nodded.
"From the Heavenly Martial Alliance, Yeonggop-binghan So Jeongdan has been dispatched."
"Right. And from the Demonic Cult? To match that level it'd have to be one of the Ten Fingers, wouldn't it?"
"Yes. The commander of the So-hyeol-won-geom Squad, Cheon-yeom-eum-hwa U Sirang, is staying at Chukhobang."
"Oh. I've heard the name. What kind of person is he? Have you met him?"
"Ugh... No. I absolutely do not want to meet him."
"Why?"
Yoo Eunhyeon asked again, but instead of Ho Won-jik, Ju Yu-ryeon—whose tongue was already starting to thicken from however much she had drunk—answered in his place.
"Cheon-yeom-eum-hwa U Sirang has a rotten personality. They say he has the ability to solve problems but deliberately makes things more complicated. Then he enjoys watching the people around him suffer because of it, and only at the very end does he solve everything for the fun of it."
"What? That's the worst. So why did the Demonic Cult send a guy like that here?"
When Ju Yu-ryeon failed to answer because she was busy drinking, Ho Won-jik took over.
"For one thing, he's absolutely loyal to the Thousand-Year Dark Demon. And even though he creates problems, he always solves them himself in the end. Result: problem solved! That kind of thing."
"Talk about twisted... as expected of a demonic path type."
"He's just faithful to his desires."
"Coming from you, that sounds extremely persuasive."
"Haha. Well, you know."
Ho Won-jik himself was of the demonic path, and given that he had blindly followed them out of desire for Ju Yu-ryeon, he could certainly be called an excellent demonic path man in his own right.
"So? There must be something more than that for all this chaos."
"Yes. That's also why I slipped out. About three or four days ago, I think? Word is the Demonic Cult suddenly made a large-scale move. From what I heard, two squads of the Cheonhwang Paeundae, one squad of the Amyeong Jinchundae, and the Mangak Jipwondae for intelligence support all set out from the Demonic Cult at the same time."
"Three or four days ago? That would be right around when I left the Demonic Cult."
"Huh? R-really? Well... it probably has nothing to do with you, Hyung-nim?"
At Ho Won-jik's question, Yoo Eunhyeon fell silent in thought for a moment. If one simply jumped to the easy conclusion, it would be natural to see them as pursuers sent after the escaped Yoo Eunhyeon. But a little more thought showed that made no sense either.
Even for someone like Yoo Eunhyeon, sending over a hundred experts just to track one person was absurd. If the goal was to keep someone already found from escaping, that might be different—but for searching, information mattered more. One or two people might struggle, but ten would be plenty. A hundred were unnecessary.
"If they were going to chase me they would have done it right away. Sitting still while I escaped and then suddenly swarming out later doesn't make sense. It must just be a coincidence that the timing overlapped."
And even if the Doyakju had reached Sa Unsik, the proper response would have been to quietly send someone to invite Yoo Eunhyeon back into the Demonic Cult. Thus Yoo Eunhyeon could only conclude that this matter had nothing whatsoever to do with him—and that was the rational conclusion as well.
"Right? And though it's not confirmed, there's even a rumor that the Maunhwansaldae has come out too. No matter what, they wouldn't go this far just to catch one Hyung-nim. With a force of this size they could wipe out both Emei and Qingcheng completely."
"Then in the end, aren't they preparing for a clash with the righteous path? If things go wrong it could turn into an all-out war."
"Wouldn't that be it?"
Yoo Eunhyeon asked back, and Ho Won-jik, unable to find any other answer, nodded. But one more thought occurred to Yoo Eunhyeon.
"Or... what if they're not just trying to restrain the Dang Clan, but to destroy them completely?"
Ordinarily, unless there was a truly deep grudge, one did not completely annihilate a sect or clan. One dealt with the experts who formed its strength, seized various interests, and then sealed the gates—that was usually the end of it.
But according to Ho Won-jik, the Demonic Cult had brought out a force more than sufficient to wipe out the Dang Clan. So it was not unreasonable for Yoo Eunhyeon to think that way.