Chapter 1
It was a hot summer night deep in the season of Great Heat. A hazy moon hung in the sky, and insects had been chirping away since dusk.
In the western quarter of Wolgyeseong, in a rarely visited stretch of commoners' homes, candlelight flickered through the window of one house, casting the shadows of three figures across its walls.
"We're not getting anywhere here. I'm telling you to leave the item behind and go. Is that really so difficult to understand?"
The middle-aged man spoke with his pot belly thrust forward. The silk robes draped over his body and the bejeweled ornaments at his throat glittered brilliantly even in the dim candlelight. Behind him stood a hulking man with a broad blade at his hip, arms crossed tight, baring his teeth in a low growl that practically radiated bloodlust.
Opposite them stood a young man who had not yet reached his twentieth year. His black clothes were little better than rags compared to their finery, but his face was fairly handsome, and his eyes gleamed sharp and bright.
On the table between them, inside a sandalwood box, sat a Night-Luminescent Pearl the size of a child's fist.
The young man — Yi Yeok — bowed at the waist. Servility and flattery oozed from his handsome face. His voice, however, rang out clear and crisp.
"Lord Song, I risked my life to bring you this. Withholding my payment isn't exactly in keeping with the rules, now is it?"
The man called Lord Song slammed a fist down on the table.
"Rules? You dare lecture me about rules, you gutter thief? Are you playing stupid, or are you just that stupid?"
Yi Yeok bowed his head even lower. Yet there was still no fear in the voice that followed.
"How could a lowly thief like me presume to jest with my lord? I'm merely appealing to reason. I've delivered the item you desired, so in turn you must pay me the hundred silver taels you promised."
Lord Song burst into laughter. Then, abruptly, the laughter stopped, and he flicked a glance at the hulking man, who still stood there like a block of stone.
The big man drew his blade at once and closed the distance to Yi Yeok in two strides.
"The elder is showing you a rare kindness. Leave the item here and get lost. Or die right here, right now."
Under the threat of that blade, Yi Yeok bowed his head once more. The dense little thief seemed to finally understand his place. The moment the hulk began to lower his sword, however, Yi Yeok spoke again.
"Lord Song, rules must never be broken. I take rules very seriously."
The big man could bear it no longer. His blade came down toward the back of Yi Yeok's bowed neck, flashing with a razor-sharp gleam.
In that instant, Yi Yeok slipped backward like a phantom. A single step was all it took to evade the strike, and now he stood behind the hulk's broad back.
When the startled man whipped his head around, his head exploded. Against the wall behind him bloomed a radial spray of blood, as if someone had hurled a watermelon at it with all their strength.
By the time Lord Song turned back, Yi Yeok had already returned to his original spot, as though nothing at all had happened.
Lord Song turned his head again and again — to his guard who was suddenly missing a head, to the bloodstain on the wall, to Yi Yeok's still-bowed nape — and still could not grasp what had just occurred.
Thud!
Only when his guard's headless body crumpled to the floor did Lord Song finally piece the situation together.
"Y-you're the...?"
Yi Yeok slowly raised his head. Not a trace of servility or flattery remained on his face; it was as if he had become a different person in the space of a heartbeat. Looking at the ashen-faced Lord Song, he smirked.
"Now, wait just a moment! So this is—"
Yi Yeok's arm moved with a speed no eye could follow.
At its end, a cold light flashed.
The flash swept past Lord Song's throat in the blink of an eye.
Lord Song staggered backward until he slammed into the wall, blood pouring from between the hands clutched around his neck.
Through the blur of his dimming vision, he could see Yi Yeok's right hand. Between fingers that moved with a fluid, unearthly grace, a thin crescent-shaped blade danced and spun.
Yoziyu.
It was Yi Yeok's weapon of choice, a blade of peculiar design.
Lord Song shrieked, his voice contorted with terror.
"You can't kill me! The Shadow Alliance has rules! I'm a client — you're not allowed to kill me...!"
Yi Yeok arched an eyebrow.
"Quite right. Rules are very important. I kept my end of the bargain with you, my lord. You were supposed to keep yours too. That's what rules are. Do be sure to remember it in your next life."
Lord Song screamed in desperation.
"If you kill me, you think you'll get away with it? My sister will—"
CRACK!
Yi Yeok kicked Lord Song's head clean off. The neck crushed against the wall snapped, and blood geysered all the way up to the ceiling.
"Honestly, what a pain. Why do I always end up with clients like this?"
Yi Yeok spat on the floor.
The agreed price for stealing the Night-Luminescent Pearl had been one hundred silver taels from the start. He'd known Lord Song's reputation was hardly spotless, but he had never imagined the man would try to stiff him so brazenly, right to his face.
Yi Yeok searched the dead man's robes. His fingers found a heavy pouch. He fished it out and counted the contents, and his face twisted in disgust.
"A measly twenty taels? So he never intended to pay at all."
Every commission Yi Yeok took came through the Shadow Alliance, the organization that managed the flying thieves. The Alliance claimed three-tenths of the promised fee regardless of whether the job succeeded or failed. On a hundred-tael job, thirty taels went straight off the top — and having received only twenty, Yi Yeok was now ten taels in the red.
He lifted the Night-Luminescent Pearl from the box. He couldn't sell it through proper channels, so he couldn't expect a fair price, but he'd be damned if he took a loss on the whole affair.
He tucked the pearl into his breast, then gave the dead Lord Song a long, deep bow.
"Thank you for your patronage of the Shadow Alliance. Please use our services again in your next life!"
Then, flashing a saccharine smile, he added:
"And do be sure to honor your payment next time, of course."
Humming a little tune, he strolled out of the house.
* * *
Yi Yeok was a flying thief temporarily affiliated with the Shadow Alliance.
The Alliance had its own code, of sorts. A thief was a thief. He must never kill, never rob — he was to steal objects and objects alone. They called it the Thief's Creed.
Yi Yeok snorted.
"A thief is a thief, no matter how you dress it up."
He didn't particularly respect the so-called creed, but as long as he remained affiliated with the Alliance — even on a temporary basis — he couldn't afford to flout it entirely.
After the mandatory tribute, the work hardly made him rich, but it put food on the table well enough. Unless he landed a truly major score, staying under the Alliance's umbrella was the safer bet for now. Even if the occasional unpleasantness came with the territory. Like today, for instance.
Yi Yeok abruptly stopped walking and slid his right hand into his sleeve. Some thirty paces ahead, beneath the murky moonlight, a shadow stirred in the darkness.
"Did you just kill a client? Have you forgotten the Shadow Alliance's rules?"
Yi Yeok tilted his head with feigned innocence.
"I delivered the item exactly as commissioned. He refused to pay the agreed sum — which constitutes a breach of contract. The contract having been voided, he was no longer my client. So you can hardly call that breaking the rules, can you?"
"You insolent brat! Your mouth gets slicker by the year!"
Yi Yeok grinned.
"Well, I learned from the best, didn't I, old man?"
Whoosh!
A rush of wind, a flash of cold light.
The shadow that lunged at Yi Yeok moved like lightning — too fast for the eye to track.
But Yi Yeok was every bit its match. The two figures blurred together, and the darkness rang with dozens of metallic clashes, each one accompanied by a razor-sharp flash that seemed ready to slice the night wind itself in two.
Clang!
At last the two shadows broke apart.
Yi Yeok's hand flashed once, and the Yoziyu vanished back into his sleeve. He spread his arms wide and threw himself at the shadow with a laugh.
"Old man, I missed you!"
The shadow turned out to be a gaunt, stoop-shouldered old man. He patted Yi Yeok's back a few times as the young man hung off him, and let out a long sigh.
"You rascal, how many times do I have to tell you? A flying thief is still a thief. You have to live by the rules."
"I told you, old man. I didn't break any rules. He broke them first. What was I supposed to do?"
"Yes, yes, now let go, will you? You're squeezing the life out of an old man."
The old man finally pried him off and looked him up and down.
"You've gotten taller."
"Obviously. Do you have any idea how long it's been since I last saw you? Where on earth have you been hiding yourself?"
The old man dodged the question, changing the subject instead.
"Oh, here and there. As it happens, I passed through the area near your old home. I hear your grandmother is about to celebrate her eightieth birthday. Word is she's still asking after you, sending word to every corner of the land trying to find you."
For the first time, a shadow fell across Yi Yeok's face.
"Why not go see her, just this once? It's your own grandmother's eightieth, not some stranger's."
"Tch."
Yi Yeok stuck out his lips in a sulk.
"There's nothing good waiting for me if I go. It'd just make a mess for me and for them. Better to leave it."
The old man raised an eyebrow.
"How can you be so stubborn? It's been more than ten years, and you're still carrying that grudge around?"
Yi Yeok clenched his jaw.
"Me? A thief? And of a family heirloom, passed down for generations? They beat me so badly I couldn't walk for the better part of a month — and I was six years old! Even if I really had stolen something, is beating a child like that something anyone could call reasonable? And no one believed me. Not a single one. If it had been my older brother, it would've been different. Or... would it? Maybe they knew I hadn't done it, and just pretended not to believe me to get rid of my brother's rival. Or — wait, was there even a stolen item at all?"
Yi Yeok poured out his bitterness as if the events of a decade past had happened only yesterday.
"So I made up my mind. Everyone insists I'm a thief? Fine — I'll become one. A disgrace to the family, a stain on the clan, is it? Wonderful! Then I'll show every last one of them exactly what a stain on the family really looks—"
The old man hastily raised both palms to cut off the tirade that threatened to go on forever.
"Enough, enough. I've heard that speech thousands of times already. But look here, Yeok — hateful or not, they're still your kin. Do it for my sake, at least, and go visit them once. If you hate it, you can always walk right back out and come along with me again."
Yi Yeok hung his head and fell silent for a moment. When he lifted his face again, the bitterness had drained out of it.
The old man realized there was nothing more to be said.
Yi Yeok switched back to cheerful banter, as though the whole subject had never come up.
"Forget the gloomy stuff. Old man, it's been a whole year since I saw you. What kind of commission could possibly have kept you away this long?"
They were standing in a spot deserted even at midday, yet the old man glanced around warily all the same before drawing a porcelain bottle from inside his robes.
"I was occupied getting this."
Yi Yeok's eyes went wide.
"No way. That's top-grade Heavenly Azure Jade, isn't it? Even fenced as stolen goods it'd fetch at least a hundred taels!"
The old man clicked his tongue.
"Is that all your eye is worth, after all these years living in the wind and dew? The bottle isn't the point, boy — what's inside it is. Open it."
Baffled, Yi Yeok pulled out the stopper.
In an instant, a refreshing fragrance wafted out. The moment it touched his nose, his mind snapped wide awake. Yi Yeok hastily sealed the bottle again before the medicinal essence could disperse.
"Old man... you didn't lay hands on a client's property, did you?"
He couldn't identify it, but judging from that one whiff, this was no ordinary medicine. It was clearly a rare treasure that ordinary people — and even the cultivators of the immortal sects — would struggle to lay eyes on in a lifetime.
There's no way this old coot got himself into serious trouble, right?
The moment the thought crossed his mind, the object in his hand began to feel distinctly unwelcome.
"Don't tell me you've come to leave a will? Out with it — where'd you stash the inheritance? I'll make sure to give you a grand funeral when you go."