Hidden Weapons
There were eight people in total fighting in the clearing.
They were split into two groups of four, and it wasn't difficult to tell them apart.
The group that appeared to be the attackers wore black night-gear with hoods masking their faces. The other group, under assault, wore the distinct attire and carried the bundles of merchants—a sight I had grown sick of seeing since entering Chengdu. They were undoubtedly merchants.
Hye-un also grasped the situation at a glance. Even as he kept running, he asked me in a clear voice,
"It seems the merchants are under attack. What do you intend to do, Young Benefactor?"
I replied without a second thought.
"It is the duty of a martial artist to protect the weak. Though we do not know the exact circumstances, shouldn't we help the merchants first?"
Hearing my answer, Hye-un, who was running ahead, glanced back and flashed a faint smile.
As if he had been planning to do the exact same thing.
"It does not look like we have much time to spare. Please take the left, Young Benefactor. This humble monk shall handle the right."
"Understood."
Because we had rushed over the moment we heard the noise, the actual fight couldn't have been going on for long.
Yet, just as Hye-un said, the tide of battle had already turned.
In fact, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the fight was already over.
Three of the merchants were already collapsed on the ground, bleeding, leaving only a single burly man holding a sword to stand his ground.
On the other hand, all four of the masked assailants in black night-gear were completely unharmed.
Even at this very moment, one of the attackers pointed his blade at the burly merchant, who was swaying on his feet, barely holding on as if he might collapse at any second.
Hye-un unleashed his lightness footwork, darting toward them like a bolt of lightning.
"W-who goes there?!"
As Hye-un closed the distance to the assailant at the front who was swinging his sword at the merchant, the man gasped in surprise and instinctively lashed out with his blade.
The strike carried a decent amount of internal energy, making it quite swift and threatening.
However, only now, in the heat of combat, did the true worth of Hye-un's lightness footwork reveal itself.
His figure seemed to blur in midair for a fraction of a second, and before the assailant knew it, Hye-un had slipped past the blade and was right in front of his nose.
Hye-un held no weapon, but as if he had no need for one in the first place, he simply thrust his palm forward with a light, casual motion.
Yet, the palm force packed into that strike was anything but light.
Struck squarely by Hye-un's palm technique, the assailant stumbled back three or four paces, clutching his abdomen.
A stream of bright red blood erupted from his mouth, and his knees buckled as he collapsed face-first onto the dirt.
Next was my turn.
Arriving at the scene a split second after Hye-un, I bypassed the Heavenly Slayer Demonic Saber sheathed at my waist and instead snatched up a random sword lying on the ground.
This was because the martial prowess of these masked attackers didn't seem particularly high compared to mine.
At best, they were around the late stage of the Third-class Realm or the early stage of the Second-class Realm.
If that was the case, there was absolutely no need to draw upon the Heavenly Killer Star, let alone use the Heavenly Slayer Demonic Saber or manifest saber Qi.
I simply maintained my distance and swung the sword diagonally downward.
It was the first form of the Thirteen Styles of the Dark Moon: Moon-Crossing Flash.
*Whoosh!*
The sword I swung didn't actually touch the assailant on the left, but that was more than enough.
As my strike sliced through the empty air with a fierce, whistling wind, the man recoiled in sheer terror. He scrambled backward, tripped over his own feet, and fell flat on his backside.
That alone was enough to shatter their will to fight.
The remaining attackers quickly hauled up their companion who had been downed by Hye-un's palm strike and retreated a safe distance from us.
"Who... Who are you?"
The man standing furthest back among them cried out in a flustered voice as he stared at Hye-un and me.
He appeared to be the leader of the group.
Though his face was masked by a hood, leaving only his eyes exposed, I could see a flash of deep panic in them the moment our gazes locked.
And those eyes... they looked remarkably familiar to me.
But right then—
*Cough!*
The last standing merchant stumbled and sank to his knees.
A torrent of pitch-black blood erupted from his mouth, and he pitched forward, completely motionless.
Judging by his condition, he must have already been wounded before we arrived.
"Young Benefactor, please keep watch for a moment."
"I will."
Hye-un spoke hastily, then rushed over to the fallen man, crouching down to examine his condition.
"It seems he was struck by a poisoned hidden weapon."
In Hye-un's hand was a thin flying needle, which he had seemingly just extracted from the man's body.
"Please be careful as well, Young Benefactor."
The brief warning Hye-un gave me was laced with deep contempt for the assailants.
Hidden weapons—especially poisoned ones—were considered a cowardly, underhanded method even in the ruthless world of the Murim.
Looking closely now, the other collapsed merchants had no major external wounds either, yet they lay there having spewed black blood. They had clearly fallen victim to the same insidious tactic.
I, too, kept my guard up, warily watching their every move in case they decided to fling more projectiles.
"It is no use... He is already dead."
Hye-un muttered in a grim voice, then stood up, leaving the fallen merchant behind.
The merchant's limbs and head hung limp; he was completely lifeless.
By then, one of the masked men was reaching into his robes, about to draw something.
It looked like he was reaching for a hidden weapon, but the one who appeared to be their leader stopped him.
"Hold."
He then gestured to his subordinates. Supporting their injured companion, they began to slowly back away.
Their targets had been the merchants from the very beginning. Now that the merchants were all dead, they acted as if they had no further business here.
Moreover, since formidable opponents of unknown origin had suddenly intervened, they had decided to withdraw rather than risk unnecessary danger.
"Should we not pursue them?"
I asked Hye-un as I watched them slowly retreat, but he simply shook his head.
"They carry vicious hidden weapons. There is no telling what underhanded tricks they might pull, and I cannot allow you to be put in danger, Young Benefactor."
Hye-un's voice seemed to reach the masked men as well. Confirming that we had no intention of giving chase, they fully turned around and swiftly vanished into the distance.
Soon, they disappeared beyond the bamboo forest, completely out of sight.
"Young—ah, no, Brother! Are you alright?"
Yeongho Bin arrived late, his face twisting in horror at the carnage before him. However, the moment he saw I was completely unharmed, he let out a sigh of relief.
Leaving Yeongho Bin to his own devices, I examined the corpses of the merchants and their belongings, falling deep into thought.
Meanwhile, Yeongho Bin asked,
"Attacking merchants... Is this the work of bandits?"
I shook my head.
"Unlikely. If their goal was wealth, they wouldn't have gone out of their way to use poison and hidden weapons. Besides, they didn't even touch the goods the merchants were carrying..."
The more I thought about the attackers' actions, the harder they were to understand.
They weren't after money, nor did it seem like a grudge-fueled vendetta.
They had simply used poisoned needles to end their lives as quickly as possible.
Furthermore, they had held off on using a hidden weapon against the last man, threatening him with blades instead, only to kill him with a poisoned needle at the very last second.
This meant that simply taking their lives wasn't their primary objective.
Perhaps they were trying to extract some kind of information from them.
As that thought crossed my mind—
Hye-un had been crouching in front of the last fallen merchant for a while now, pressing and kneading his body here and there.
I had been wondering what on earth he was doing with a corpse, but then—
"Ugh..."
To my utter astonishment, a faint groan escaped the lips of the man whom Hye-un had just declared dead!
"Monk, is he alive?"
"Indeed. I merely sealed his acupoints to prevent the poison from spreading."
This meant that in that brief span of time, Hye-un had sealed the man's acupoints to paralyze him and halt the poison, deliberately making him appear dead to deceive the attackers.
It was a truly marvelous acupoint-sealing technique.
Immediately after answering my question, Hye-un patted the man's cheek and asked,
"Hey! Can you hear me? Wake up!"
"Nngh..."
From the mouth of the semi-conscious, groaning man, a cryptic word slipped out.
"Secret... Fire..."
Yet, as if he understood the meaning of those words, Hye-un's expression instantly shifted.
He hurriedly reached into his robes and pulled something out.
Emerging from a small paper pouch was a pitch-black pill about the size of a thumb joint.
Hye-un shoved it straight into the man's mouth.
Once the pill was down his throat, the man grimaced, shuddered violently, and then closed his eyes, falling completely still once more.
However, seeing his ragged breathing stabilize and the dark, poisoned hue of his complexion soften into a healthier flush, it seemed he had passed the critical threshold.
So the pill Hye-un had fed him was an antidote...
As time went on, the situation was only growing more convoluted, piling up inexplicable mysteries.
Who were those masked men? Who were these merchants? What did the attackers want to extract from them?
And what was the true identity of this monk, Hye-un, who acted as if he had anticipated this very situation?
While I was lost in thought, Hye-un hoisted the man's body up and stood.
"Young Benefactor, this man is someone I have been searching for for a very long time, so I must take him with me. I hope you understand."
"Go ahead. But who on earth is he? And those masked men just now..."
I asked out of sheer curiosity, though I didn't expect much of an answer.
Sure enough, Hye-un slowly shook his head and spoke in a low voice.
"Please understand that I am not in a position to give you a clear explanation. However, the hidden weapons those men used... they appear to be the exclusive hidden weapons of the Sichuan Tang Clan."
"Ah...!"
Hearing the name of the Sichuan Tang Clan, both Yeongho Bin and I gasped in unison.
The Tang Clan was a prominent family in the Sichuan region, renowned for their poisons and hidden weapons. They were one of the Five Great Noble Families, boasting power that rivaled even the Ten Great Sects.
"Therefore, it would be safest for you benefactors to stay out of this matter from now on."
Hye-un was advising us out of concern for our safety.
I, too, desperately wanted to wash my hands of such dangerous business, but a sinking premonition grew within me that this mission wouldn't be resolved so easily.
"Well then, this humble monk shall take his leave."
With that, Hye-un began to walk away, carrying the unconscious man over his shoulder.
Then, as if suddenly remembering something he had forgotten, he stopped and looked back at me.
"Since things went smoothly today thanks to your generous help, Young Benefactor, I shall no longer press the matter regarding the sweet and sour pork."
Adding that final remark, he flashed a bright grin and walked away. I stared after him, utterly speechless.
Once he was finally out of sight, a wry smile crept onto my face, and I muttered to myself,
"That was mine to begin with, you damn fake monk."
We even paid for what you ate back at the tavern.
What a shameless, degenerate monk.
"Y-Young Sect Leader. Actually, about that..."
Hearing my muttering, Yeongho Bin spoke up, hesitating with unusual caution.
"There was a slight mix-up at the tavern. It turns out that plate of sweet and sour pork belonged to that monk, who had ordered it first..."
"W-what?"
"They said they couldn't serve the one I ordered because they ran out of ingredients..."
Wait. So just now...
I really did steal and eat that monk's food?
It was completely unintentional, but realizing I had become a shameless scoundrel who snatched a monk's sweet and sour pork, panic set in, and beads of cold sweat began to form on my forehead.
"Ha... Haha. What a bizarre coincidence."
"..."
Even in a situation like this, acting the part of the dignified Young Sect Leader was truly no easy task.