The Golden Evil Snakes
Jeam Jincheon Scripture — Chapter 126
Part One: Geumsa-sa, the Golden Evil Snakes
Luoyang Yeon Family — camp of the Second Young Master.
Headquarters of the Jiangnan Division.
"…Have you no thought of looking for another way?"
Strategist Choi, charged with countering the Fourth Young Master, asked in an uneasy voice.
"You know as well as I do. This is the only method left to us now."
"But…"
Strategist Han Myeong-hwi continued, his eyes gleaming.
"In the end, we strategists are quick enough to throw other people's lives away — yet never willing to stake our own when we lay our schemes."
His eyes narrowed.
"If we mean to deal any real blow to the Eldest Young Master and the Fourth, we have no choice but to risk ourselves."
"…"
Strategist Choi bowed his head with a sour expression.
"You know what this means for you. Demotion. You understand that, don't you? The last method remaining to us is Geum…"
Han Myeong-hwi was about to speak Geum-jil's name when Strategist Choi's sharp look made him swallow the rest.
"…In any case, we must secure that Geum fellow's cooperation."
Cornered as he already was, Elder Son's stern warning had long since been shoved out of Han Myeong-hwi's mind.
"…Very well."
Strategist Choi gathered his thoughts, steeled himself, and rose from his seat.
"Let us go."
"Where?"
Strategist Choi took up his coat as he answered.
"When I dug into that 'Geum fellow' before, I learned of someone."
Little by little the sky flushed crimson, and everything on the ground began to soak in the color of blood.
Yet even that sunset could do nothing against the darkness that hung low and stretched its domain ever wider.
Faces hidden behind blood-wind cloaks, Strategist Choi and Han Myeong-hwi walked an alley already claimed by the dark.
As Strategist Choi picked his way through the tangled, filthy backstreets, checking the path now and then, Han Myeong-hwi asked,
"…This is a dangerous district. Are we truly fine coming alone, without escorts?"
Strategist Choi answered while steering clear of passersby with sinister faces.
"The moment we bring anyone with us, that one will vanish."
"Just what sort of creature is this person supposed to be…"
Han Myeong-hwi was grumbling out of habit when Strategist Choi suddenly stopped; he nearly collided with the man's back.
"This is the place."
Strategist Choi descended into the basement of a shabby, filthy building.
The old wooden stairs creaked, leading down into a deep maw of darkness without a single oil lamp.
"…"
From time to time Han Myeong-hwi found himself thinking that the darkness of Luoyang was a darkness of a different depth from the brutal dark of Jiangnan where he had once lived.
It was a sticky, constricting darkness — as if it meant to swallow anyone who dared try to plumb its depths.
Han Myeong-hwi swallowed dryly once, then followed Strategist Choi down the stairs.
An underground gambling den…?
The place was thick with tobacco smoke and occupied by gamblers muttering curses under their breath and filthy, half-formed obscenities.
Bloodshot eyes drunk on the new drugs; vacant faces dulled by poppy.
Flickering oil lamps that burned cheap grease hung here and there like corpses on a noose.
They cut across the dim room and at last reached the table furthest in.
The darkest seat, being the most remote of all.
The table was empty.
Without a word, Strategist Choi pulled out a battered chair and sat; Han Myeong-hwi took the place beside him.
The raw stench of vomit, the heavy reek of cheap liquor, the unpleasant smell of people who lived without ever washing properly.
Drawn by the foul environment, gnats and flies drifted back and forth about their faces.
When the meaningless muttering of drunks and drug addicts began to circle his ears, Han Myeong-hwi could no longer hold his tongue.
"Just when is this person we arranged to meet going to—"
"Are you chasing once more what ought not to be chased?"
A chill raced up his spine as if he had fallen into a midwinter sea.
"……?!"
Someone was sitting directly across from him — where, only a moment before, the seat had most certainly been empty.
Through a tear in the deeply pulled-down bamboo hat, eyes that looked like a dead man's were fixed upon him.
Han Myeong-hwi cried out by reflex.
"W-we must find that man!"
"…Do you not know?"
The figure in the hat spoke in a deep voice that seemed to press downward.
"In this world there are things one must never look upon from the other side."
He spoke as if insects were gnawing dryly at rotting food.
"As one does not look at the reverse of a shattered ritual mirror. As one does not peer between the tears of a torn talisman. As one does not spy into the hollow of a rotten old tree."
Han Myeong-hwi glanced to his side — but from the instant the hat-wearer had appeared, Strategist Choi had done nothing but pour cold sweat.
"…Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva. Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva."
Looking closer, the man had his eyes shut and was earnestly working a string of prayer beads.
What a pathetic creature!
The sight cleared Han Myeong-hwi's head at once.
He gritted his teeth and said,
"…I do not believe in superstition!"
Blackened teeth showed beneath the hat.
"Where there is that which is bright and plain, there is also that which is dark and silent. Why do you fail to grasp so obvious a truth?"
Han Myeong-hwi shook his head firmly.
The cold sweat that had been running freely now flung left and right.
"If this is talk of strange powers and chaotic spirits, I heard it to weariness long ago from the boatmen of Jiangnan. I simply wish to meet the man who goes by the surname Geum."
"Geum…?"
The eyes visible through the gap in the hat curved with a hint of laughter.
"I am not warning you about that half-finished monster."
Han Myeong-hwi frowned.
"What do you mean? That Geum-jil is a half-finished monster?"
"Just so."
The eyes rolled once in a full circle and answered.
"You have already spoken its name several times — so it will come looking for you."
He could not understand.
"That he will come looking for me…?"
"An obvious principle."
The tongue thick with white film, visible between the black teeth, was revolting.
"As a stillborn cast into the fields without proper offering climbs the golden rope to find its parents. As a death-curse, launched on hair bound with grudges and set to the wind, returns upon the one who cast it."
"…"
Because he had spoken Geum-jil's name several times, Geum-jil would come seeking him?
What in the world is that supposed to mean…
Han Myeong-hwi shook his head roughly.
"Then what of the warning you gave a moment ago? What was that warning meant to point at?"
The eyes narrowed.
"What you are pursuing. That which must not be pursued. That which must not be peered into. That which must not be known. That which must not exist."
"I…? I only sought the man named Geum—"
What had he been chasing by seeking Geum-jil?
The words slipped from Han Myeong-hwi's mouth before he knew it.
"The Eldest Young Master. And…"
His voice thinned.
"Amcheonjon… mm."
He barely managed to stop himself from finishing the name.
The eyes narrowed further.
"Clever. But that is a being that has nothing to do with names."
Han Myeong-hwi's face twisted.
"That Amcheon… is he truly so dangerous?"
"How dangerous is a being that ought not to exist, you ask?"
A thick laugh seeped out between teeth blackened by the influence of Southern Barbarian ritual arts.
"Ordinarily, to put a question to me, one must pay a price of equal weight."
So now he wanted a fee.
Han Myeong-hwi roughly searched his robes.
"Fine, very well. How much—"
"But why do you suppose I am answering your questions so readily?"
"What do you mean…?"
The eyes glimpsed through the hat seemed to mock Han Myeong-hwi.
"I am offering rites for one who is already as good as dead."
The hat-wearer waved a hand.
"Karmic retribution for karmic retribution."
"What do you mean by that?!"
The man's hands were covered in tattoos of Southern Barbarian ritual characters Han Myeong-hwi could not read.
"You mean this Han Myeong-hwi is fated to die soon?!"
Han Myeong-hwi slammed to his feet so hard the chair he had sat in went tumbling violently.
He panted roughly, trembling with rage.
"W-what is the matter with you?"
Beside him, Strategist Choi stared at him with a blank face.
That stupid expression only made Han Myeong-hwi's fury climb higher.
"This man just told me—!"
The hand he had raised to point fell limp.
"W-what is this…?"
Across the table, no one sat.
Startled, Han Myeong-hwi hurriedly scanned the surroundings.
Because he had leapt up shouting, every gaze in the room had fixed on him.
Those hollow stares were strange — and ominous.
"You do not look well."
Strategist Choi tucked the prayer beads he had been holding into his robes and rose.
"It seems that one will not come today. Let us leave for now."
How they crossed the gambling den and climbed the stairs, Han Myeong-hwi did not remember.
He only knew that Strategist Choi's hand had drawn him back out into the dirty, narrow back alley where the darkness hung low.
"…"
To the vacant-faced Han Myeong-hwi, Strategist Choi asked,
"You saw something, did you not?"
"…"
Without answering, Han Myeong-hwi slowly nodded.
Strategist Choi nodded in turn.
"I see. I had a similar experience once myself. Do not try to speak of what it was. Let us return for now."
The two men turned and set off the way they had come.
And then they realized that in that narrow, filthy back alley, not a single passerby was to be seen.
"……?!"
Strategist Choi looked about in alarm.
Under the blood-red sky, in the alley draped in darkness, there were only the two of them.
Han Myeong-hwi clenched his teeth.
"Geum-jil's underlings."
Startled by the words, Strategist Choi looked the same way.
In a place that had been empty only a moment before, two small human silhouettes stood motionless.
"Geumsa-sa is Geum-jil's daughter."
"Geumsa-sa, the Golden Evil Snake, is Father's adopted daughter."
From the darkness the silhouettes creaked forward.
"Why do you seek Father?"
"For what business do you seek the master of Geumsa-sa?"
What emerged into view were girls whose entire bodies looked as if they had been patched together with scrap upon scrap.
"H-hiiik?!"
Strategist Choi, who had been supporting Han Myeong-hwi, felt his legs give out and sank to the ground where he stood.
"Ugh…!"
Han Myeong-hwi, who had been leaning on him and nearly toppled with him, gritted his teeth and held his ground.
For some reason, in that moment he could faintly sense it.
That the things standing before his eyes were unmistakably of the same kind as what he had just seen underground.
"Speak."
"Declare it."
They bared gums that looked as if they were rotting.
Han Myeong-hwi shouted,
"I-I wish to join hands with your father and seize a common enemy!"
The girls fell silent.
"Have the Eldest Young Master and the Fourth Young Master of the Luoyang Yeon Family not seized the Valley of Sin? I am their enemy! And did the Geumzhou and the Black Bone Sect not get swept away by Amcheonjonza?! I have business with him as well! Therefore, form an alliance with me—!"
"Father already knows."
"What it is you pursue."
The gazes of the Geumsa-sa — eyes clearly stitched in from other people — raked over Han Myeong-hwi as if appraising him.
Then their mouths opened, and what spilled out was the voice of a middle-aged man.
"…Very well."
"…Very well."
As the Geumsa-sa gave voice to a middle-aged man's words in unison, the sound echoed with an ominous ring.
"I shall lend you my power."
"I shall lend you my power."
On Han Myeong-hwi's ashen face, a look of wild elation rose.