Eating Someone Else's Meal (2)

"Hm. Your pulse hasn't grown any more ragged, I see."

"Is that so?"

"It is. There was hardly a proper fight to speak of this time. You did burn through some internal energy coming and going to Changsu Village, but your lifespan — a week lost at most, I'd wager."

"Most people don't shorten their lives just walking that distance."

"Those are people whose meridians are intact. For you, this counts as a good prognosis."

I let out a sigh. Damn it. All because I'd helped myself to a little of the frost piled up in Changsu Village.

"What are you thinking about?"

"That the frost — a byproduct of demonic qi — might actually have been an elixir for me. I regret not eating more of it."

"Aha. Well, you do carry an anomaly's traits, so... An amusing notion. If you'd joined the Four Black Lotuses, you'd have gorged yourself on all sorts of delicacies."

"Like what?"

"Tiger meat?"

"You mean a tiger possessed by a chang-gwi?"

Byeol-ui nodded.

Those things actually exist?

The chang-gwi was a creature of legend — a person devoured by a tiger whose soul remained bound to the beast, compelled to lure in victim after victim on its behalf.

Then again, if even spirit beasts like the thousand-year white tiger existed in reality, the existence of such demonic beasts was hardly inconceivable.

"Would such a tiger count as an anomaly?"

"I believe I told you something similar back when you tasted the gudu. A tiger that has merely developed a taste for human flesh is not an anomaly."

Tigers grow old and sick, hunting properly becomes difficult, and so they turn to the easiest prey of all — humans. Such beasts were ordinary predators. The kind of thing a passing chivalrous hero or a magistrate's hunters would be dispatched to deal with.

But if a creature ate people not for the meat itself, instead coveting the spirituality within them — the vital essence, body, and spirit alike — then...

"From that point on, it's an anomaly. And a chang-gwi is nothing more than a soul bound to a tiger, isn't it?"

"Er, hold on a moment. Are you telling me the Four Black Lotuses keeps chang-gwi tiger meat in stock?"

"They may operate differently from spirit beasts that walk the righteous path, but they are still animals that have gained spirituality, no? I hear they handle and stock such things, actually."

Byeol-ui brought his impromptu lecture to a close with the remark that people who went after such meat for the eating tended to end up with demonic qi seeping into the baekhoe point at the crown of the head and losing their minds.

"Well, I've drawn my last needle for the day — time we went and found ourselves a meal. Anywhere you like. It's my treat."

"Wait — really?"

"It's not my money anyway!"

Among the budget allocated to the Management Records Bureau, there was, in fact, a line item earmarked for meals.

Herein lay the problem. Baeksam Byeol-ui belonged to the Medicine Hall as well, and Paeng Ju-hyeok was doubly registered with the martial forces branch. Ok-rin, at least, belonged wholly to the Bureau — but her body had no need of food to begin with.

"Registrars are formally attached to other divisions, you see, so even ordinary lunches come out of their home offices. Which means the meal budget assigned to the Management Records Bureau just piles up, year after year, with no one to spend it."

It was blind money — occasionally drawn down for welcoming dinners for new hires, or blown on any outing where two or more registrars ate together on the grounds that it technically counted as a staff function.

"Hmm. Couldn't it go toward something better? Like those misidentification talismans for anomalies."

"If money alone could produce more of them, the Chief would have done it already. Trouble is, that one's a matter of time more than coin."

Byeol-ui strolled out of the Medicine Hall with the ease of long habit and marched boldly toward the Murim Alliance's rear gate.

The rear gate opened straight onto the main thoroughfare — the stretch lined with taverns where off-duty Alliance members knocked back drinks, and guest lodges where visiting sect guests took their rest.

Byeol-ui jerked his chin at me. Pick whatever place you want to eat at, the gesture said.

I went 'hmm' and stroked my jaw.

"Hmm? What's the matter. You're the young man with an appetite robust enough to eat bugs."

"That's exactly the problem."

This was a busy street, thick with foot traffic. I couldn't very well say the word anomaly out loud here.

"Even roasting bugs smells nutty and pleasant to me. What if I follow my nose in good faith and we walk straight into some seriously wrong establishment?"

"Haha. A worrywart to the bone, I see."

At his confident air, I rolled my head back and forth doubtfully.

"Well. Surely no such shop could exist right in front of the Murim Alliance's gates. I must have been overreacting."

"Hmm? No, no. I was thinking that if we found an anomaly potent enough to kill you just by eating it, we might as well stop in and dispose of it on the spot."

...Is he actually the Freak Physician?

The place my nose chose was the neighborhood eatery run by a proprietor surnamed Hong.

The shop had been in business a long while, though I'd never once set foot in it. Today, it was the dumplings that drew me ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to a seat.

From the street, you could see the distinctive steam rising off the great pot where the dumplings were boiled — a damp, heavy mist unique to dumpling steamers.

The proprietor kneaded an enormous mound of dumpling wrappers with a single iron rod, his arms working so hard they could have been mistaken for the staff technique of some seasoned martial artist.

Wait. He might genuinely be a martial artist? A former Alliance member who retired and opened a shop here by the gates, perhaps.

With old comrades dropping by, a steady clientele would practically guarantee itself. A sound strategy, all told.

I shelved my daydreaming about the proprietor and looked down at the dumplings in front of me.

The ones we'd ordered came wrapped not in thin, translucent skin but in a thick white casing like a steamed bun, stuffed within with soy-marinated minced meat. Strikingly similar to the chashubao from the dim sum house I used to visit back on Earth.

"Hm. Seeing as this is public money, we could have gone somewhere pricier. You're sure about this place?"

"Going by the smell of the food alone, this was the most appetizing of the lot. Dig in!"

"My, how admirably frugal. Very well."

The Freak Physician picked up a dumpling with his chopsticks, all elegance. I attempted a imitation of that stately orthodox-school manner, then promptly gave up.

A dumpling, as a matter of principle, must be enjoyed with the crushing sense of weight that fills the whole mouth. I seized one with my fingers and crushed it between my teeth.

"Delicious, no question!"

Having added a plate of stir-fried bok choy to the order, Byeol-ui tossed out an utterly random question.

"Master! The filling in these dumplings is wonderful. What kind of meat is it?"

Hong answered in a gruff, blunt tone: "Lamb."

The Freak Physician nodded along, exclaiming "Lamb, as I suspected!" and the like — then leaned in and whispered to me under his breath.

"You know, lamb is quite a rare delicacy. Didn't you realize?"

"Rare? Lamb skewer shops are a dime a dozen."

"No, not that kind of lamb. A lamb with two legs. A two-legged lamb."

"There's such a thing as a two-legged lamb?"

I tilted my head. Did a lamb that cultivated long enough become a spirit beast and start walking about on its hind legs?

"That, he can tell you best."

"What on earth are you talking about?"

"Why, aren't you Inpisuksu of the Four Black Lotuses' Destroyer Hall? What business does a man like you have working in a place like this?"

Inpisuksu?

Inpi — as in human skin? That Inpi?

"......"

Proprietor Hong stared at us with a face gone stiff. I had thought his hands were quick and his build unusual, certainly.

But a martial artist of the unorthodox factions?

"...I'm afraid I don't follow your meaning, Elder."

"Oh, come now. You think I've only seen you trotting around in a peeled face once or twice?"

I wanted to send a transmission, but regrettably I lacked the cultivation ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠for it.

If that fellow was truly a wicked criminal who killed people as casually as breathing, shouldn't he have been dealt with the very moment we laid eyes on him? Was that the caliber of martial prowess that could slip straight through the Murim Alliance's encirclement?

Damn it all. If only I could just reach First-rate...!

As if he'd read my anxious churn, the Freak Physician sent a single transmission my way.

He appended that he did it as a kind of memorial to the dead, as far as he was concerned.

That counts as a hobby?

Wasn't crafting masks from human skin less a memorial and more a desecration of the deceased?

The Jianghu had far too many madmen. Far, far too many.

Hong — or rather, Inpisuksu, disguised as Hong — frowned.

"A tiresome tail has latched onto the newly emerged demon of the White Bone Sect. Word is, two people from the Murim Alliance's side put it there."

Inpisuksu, who had long been planted in the Alliance's vicinity, had assumed all of this was the Management Records Bureau's design.

Setting the Gold Robe Guard on the White Bone Sect's demon to blind it from probing with demonic qi — a masterpiece of stratagem. He had been about to move more aggressively to unpick the information the Records Bureau had committed to its archives when Baeksam Byeol-ui himself came calling.

That Byeol-ui was a man of such standing he had once been granted a personal audience with the Emperor — it would have surprised no one if he had been the one who set the Gold Robe Guard in motion.

"You know everything already, then. Have you come to warn me to withdraw?"

"No, I knew nothing at all. The shop I picked at random just happened to be the one where ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you work."

Behind the mask of human skin, Suksu's eyes glinted cold. He looked nothing like a man who believed a word of it.

"For the record, it was this young man who chose the place."

The Freak Physician patted my shoulder twice.

What kind of madness is this?!

Inpisuksu heaved a sigh. Four Black Lotuses, Murim Alliance — it made no difference. Masters with formidable martial arts all turned eccentric in exactly the same way.

No wonder he'd dragged that young one along just to needle him.

"...I understand your meaning well, Elder. Since our craftsmanship falls short of a mere registrar of the Records Bureau, I shall close up shop and withdraw once business ends today."

Baeksam Byeol-ui gave a shrug. The fellow's skill at sweeping away unorthodox tails was, in truth, first-rate.

Glancing sideways, I caught sight of the newbie cursing me out with his eyes alone.

Had this kid truly picked this restaurant by chance — or had something in his constitution led him here?

The Four Black Lotuses had given their anomaly division the aggressive name of Destroyer Hall, but they did not set out to destroy every anomaly they encountered.

As with the chang-gwi tiger meat, if an anomaly could be put to use, they used it without hesitation.

And so the martial arts practiced by the Destroyer Hall's fighters had come to carry a certain perverse, unsettling savor.

If Yeok Cheon-myeong had read that lingering echo of demonic qi without even realizing it, then...

I may need to find him a way to train his nose before his martial arts!

As it happened, the Murim Alliance's Medicine Hall possessed a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠deeper store of knowledge on external energy training than any single group in the murim.