The Chase (2)
The Chase (2)
Gwak Ryong set his foot on the table and looked down. Beneath that proud and lofty gaze, every Mount Hua Sect disciple was hastily bowing their head or turning their eyes elsewhere, flustered and fumbling. Gwak Ryong read the fear veiling their eyes with perfect clarity.
The Mount Hua Sect was, by its very nature, a sect of people who shut themselves away in the mountains to train in the sword. Naturally, they rarely ventured into the field, and even those who had undergone a certain amount of training and entered the martial world seldom gathered information on their own.
Because the mountain terrain was so rugged, even those with some training never particularly enjoyed leaving Mount Hua. As a result, Mount Hua Sect talents excelled in combat but were poorly suited to gathering and analyzing information.
"Do you lack confidence?"
"N-no, sir!"
Their vehement denial was itself an affirmation. Gwak Ryong knew the men standing before him had lost confidence in a task completely new to them and were simply trying to gauge his mood.
"Even if you lack confidence, you must succeed. Because the future of Shaanxi—no, the entire martial world—rests in our hands."
Of course, a lack of confidence was no excuse to postpone the task. Tracking the Hao Sect's location was Mount Hua's top priority. This was not a simple matter of chivalry. It was a golden opportunity for Mount Hua, which had long been confined to its mountain, to rise as the master of Shaanxi.
Gwak Ryong spoke.
"Then, explain."
*********
"First, look at this."
Zhuge Yeong-yu spread a sheet of paper across the table. It was a map of Shaanxi Province. The locations of various sects were marked in large characters, and reading the names, I saw they were all places I had never heard of. I frowned as I scanned the names on the map.
"Phoenix Blade Sect, Plum Blossom Sect, Flying Dragon Sect... What are all these?"
Zhuge Yeong-yu said,
"At first, we deployed the full capabilities of both the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Zhuge Family to make inquiries throughout the Shaanxi region. But we obtained nothing. Second, we visited the brothels and inns, sought out members belonging to the Hao Sect, and discreetly probed into the search operations currently underway in Shaanxi. Yet nothing of much significance came of that either. It seems the leadership and the search teams alone are privy to the situation, and no information has been given to the lower members."
"Were your inquiries thorough?"
"The Embroidered Uniform Guard commander said that even when he pressed the weaknesses of every martial artist he knew, they claimed to know nothing—so they truly do not know. Since the Embroidered Uniform Guard says it, it is certain."
I stroked my chin and asked,
"Then by what criteria did you narrow down the sects shown on this map? Surely you marked these sects on the map because they share something in common?"
Zhuge Yeong-yu nodded.
"They do. We could not learn what the Hao Sect leadership was investigating, but we did learn when they received their commission and entered Shaanxi. At the time, word among Hao Sect members was buzzing that the Hao Sect Leader had come to Shaanxi."
I asked,
"Since when?"
Zhuge Yeong-yu raised his fingers with a triumphant look.
"The period when Venerable Geumbok was vigorously buying up sects. It is said that the Hao Sect leadership entered this region at that time. Think about it, Great Hero. For a first-rate master like the Hao Sect Leader to establish a base for intelligence-gathering—a base that could handle frequent comings and goings, maintain strict internal security, and yet attract no attention—what sort of guise would he have to adopt to infiltrate?"
There was exactly one answer. Such a base could only have flourished in the era when Venerable Geumbok ran rampant. A disguised base where frequent comings and goings would not arouse suspicion, where strict internal security would seem entirely natural, and which would not draw the eyes of Shaanxi locals—no matter what it pretended to be, nothing would appear out of the ordinary.
"He slipped in right when sect trading was booming—disguised himself as an unknown martial artist, brazenly inserted his own people, created a fake sect, and just like that earned local goodwill while openly exchanging intelligence as people came and went."
Zhuge Yeong-yu nodded.
*********
"You say he created a disguised sect and infiltrated? Are you certain?"
At Gwak Ryong's question, his junior martial brother nodded. Lowering his head like a subject paying homage to a king, he said,
"Yes, senior martial brother. Did not Venerable Geumbok engage in sect trading all across Shaanxi? At that time, it appears the Hao Sect Leader hid his name, passed himself off as a second-rate martial artist, and jumped into the trade. Since second-rate martial artists are hardly rare, he could call himself anything without raising suspicion."
"Where did you get that information? Is it reliable? Impressive."
Gwak Ryong's admiration was genuine. He had assumed they would make no progress in the information war without the Beggars' Sect's help, so it amazed him that they had obtained intelligence so easily. As he had thought, Mount Hua's members merely failed to display their abilities because they were buried in the mountains—if they set their minds to it, they could do it.
"Ah, well, the Hao Sect search team that entered Mount Hua to investigate got caught in the battle formation laid around the mountain and couldn't move, so we seized them. The information was extracted by torturing those bastards while we had them."
"Hmm..."
Gwak Ryong felt somewhat deflated. There was something lacking for Mount Hua to call it an achievement they had made on their own. He had sent sect members out to gather intelligence, only for the search team to be captured right inside the mountain—how hollow.
After frowning briefly, Gwak Ryong shook his head and brushed away the mixed feelings. An information war was not martial training. Unlike cultivation, which valued the process, intelligence simply required obtaining the crucial content, regardless of which direction it came from.
Gwak Ryong asked,
"So, did you get anything else out of those Hao Sect search members? You must have found out which sect they infiltrated?"
At Gwak Ryong's question, the junior martial brother broke out in a cold sweat and turned his head away.
"Ah, well, that... During the torture we got carried away and accidentally pressed the wrong pressure point..."
Gwak Ryong blinked. He looked at his junior and asked,
"How many were in the search team?"
"There were three."
"...All three?"
"....W-well, there were circumstances."
Gwak Ryong pressed his forehead.
********
"But isn't the crucial question which sect he infiltrated? Even if he did infiltrate a sect, there were plenty of second-rate masters who crawled in under Venerable Geumbok's name. How do we single out the Hao Sect Leader among them?"
Unless the words 'Hao Sect Leader' were written on his forehead, how could we find a Hao Sect Leader whose face and name we didn't even know? Zhuge Yeong-yu nodded at my words and said,
"That is also true. But by using the Embroidered Uniform Guard's intelligence network, narrowing down the candidates among them is not particularly difficult. The method of elimination is simple. Even the Hao Sect Leader could not impersonate a person who had long been a local luminary in his own region, or someone who had held power in one area for a prolonged period. Therefore, all martial artists who are native landholders of the Shaanxi region and whose origins can be confirmed with certainty are excluded."
So saying, Zhuge Yeong-yu began crossing out the names of sects one by one with his brush. Half of the dozens of sect names in Shaanxi vanished.
Zhuge Yeong-yu continued,
"And even those from outside the province, if their whereabouts are clear and they have a record of participating in specific incidents, they too cannot be mimicked by the Hao Sect Leader. These as well are excluded."
Zhuge Yeong-yu's brush again erased sect names. Roughly seven-tenths of the remaining names disappeared.
Yet still, quite a few names remained.
"But even so, the numbers are still considerable."
Zhuge Yeong-yu dipped his brush in ink and said,
"Among these, we next eliminate the sects that caused incidents large enough to provoke backlash or draw attention. For instance, in the case of the Plum Blossom Sect's leader over here, he once beat an old man twenty years his senior to death in broad daylight simply because the old man did not bow his head deeply enough in greeting, and suffered disgrace for it."
"....It ended with mere disgrace?"
Zhuge Yeong-yu nodded and said,
"That was back when Zhongnan Sect still backed Venerable Geumbok, and the Plum Blossom Sect's leader was a gentleman wholly loyal to Venerable Geumbok. One old man dead did not become a major problem. But it is far too excessive a crime for the Hao Sect Leader to commit when he must avoid attention."
Zhuge Yeong-yu's brush erased the sect names once more. Once all those names were wiped clean, the names of the remaining sects stood out as if they had been underlined.
"Flying Dragon Sect and Phoenix Blade Sect."
*******
"Senior martial brother. Even so, using that information as a base, we singled out one plausible bastard among those who gained their sects through Venerable Geumbok's sect trading."
"Plausible bastard?"
The junior martial brother nodded and continued,
"Yes. When we thought it through, there was one fellow who was the most suspicious. Once we examined his movements, we concluded it had to be him! Listen. He appeared suddenly, jumped into Venerable Geumbok's trading, went to suspicious lengths to win the hearts of the nearby villagers as if trying to keep his sect afloat by any means necessary, and displayed martial skills that seemed far beyond his age—brazenly proving his prowess. Moreover, according to what we heard, there were eyewitness accounts of numerous suspicious people coming and going, and it is a sect frequented by individuals who appear to be martial masters!"
Gwak Ryong asked,
"Who is it?"
With an air brimming with confidence, the junior martial brother opened his mouth.
"Docheol of the Crimson Ring Sect."