Chapter 347
Chapter 347
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 347
Chapter Title: Night at Kongtong Mountain
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The group had entered the Kongtong Sect's grounds but returned sooner than expected, so Seolhwa widened her eyes and stared at them.
She was wondering why they were back so soon.
Soon, Seolhwa spotted the man slung over Namgung Myeong's back. Tufts of yellow, shimmering hair peeked from the man's head, much like her own.
Seolhwa asked Namgung Myeong,
"Who is that?"
"We don't know. You should."
It was a flimsy assumption that people of the Yellow-Eyed Tribe naturally knew each other.
Yet, whether by chance or necessity, even flimsy reasoning hits the mark sometimes.
When Namgung Myeong set the yellow-eyed man down on the ground, Seolhwa's expression turned serious.
"Hmm..."
As expected, it was a familiar face. Namgung Myeong said triumphantly,
"See? You know him."
"Looks like it."
"So you knew and brought him here. Close acquaintance?"
"Not close. But he seems to be one of the people I've been looking for."
It was exactly the response Namgung Myeong had hoped for.
If it had been some unrelated person's neck they'd snapped, that would be trouble—and snapping a close acquaintance's neck would be trouble too.
Dang Mujin's group examined the yellow-eyed man's face. His features were unusual for a yellow-eyed tribesman, and with his eyes closed, it was hard to gauge his expression.
But the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes suggested he was at least fifty.
Moreover, his skin was rough and cracked like fish scales in places, covered in small scars. Clearly, he'd endured a lot of hardship.
Seolhwa fell deep into thought and said nothing.
Dang Mujin's group waited for the yellow-eyed man to wake or for Seolhwa to explain, chatting among themselves in the meantime.
Their idle talk soon turned into a sword discussion between Namgung Myeong and Hyeon-gong.
Rather than swinging blades, they shared insights on swordsmanship and martial arts.
Dang Mujin and Hong Geolgae listened intently to the two. They figured luck might grant them a spark of enlightenment.
"Hyeon-gong. How many arms do you even have?"
"Two. Can't you tell?"
"Is that right? Then block this with just two arms."
But it wasn't long before the sword discussion devolved into fisticuffs.
Hyeon-gong had admitted defeat in the debate but got caught cheating.
According to the exchange, Hyeon-gong was clearly swinging his sword with his right arm while using his left hand to counter Namgung Myeong's Golden Claw technique.
The problem arose when Hyeon-gong slyly claimed he'd exploited an opening with a third arm.
Of course, Namgung Myeong wasn't entirely innocent either. In his bid to dismantle Hyeon-gong's defenses, he'd exaggerated the power of certain techniques and spouted nonsense. Some moves even looked improvised on the spot.
Sword discussions sound plausible in theory, but like anything involving pride, they rarely end cleanly.
The fistfight left Hyeon-gong with a split lip and Namgung Myeong with a bloody nose.
What started to avoid bloodshed ended in it.
Namgung Myeong snorted through his nose to clear it, wiped the blood, and spoke.
"By the way, when's this yellow-eyed guy waking up?"
"That's for you to figure out."
Acupoint strikes and neck snaps each had their pros and cons.
Acupoint strikes were clean, but resistance made them tricky.
The bigger issue was you couldn't hit both the mute and paralysis points at once. Seal the mute point first to silence them, and they flail wildly; paralyze them first, and they scream bloody murder.
Knocking out the sleep point or fainting point would be ideal, but those required a massive skill gap to land.
Neck snaps, on the other hand, silenced and subdued in one move.
The downsides: no telling when they'd wake, and if luck was truly rotten, they might die.
Namgung Myeong held a finger under the yellow-eyed man's nose to check his breathing.
"He's alive. Should wake soon."
After Namgung Myeong checked his breathing about three times, the yellow-eyed man twitched slightly.
"Looks like he's stirring."
With a groan, the yellow-eyed man drew a deep breath and opened his eyes.
He spotted Dang Mujin's group and froze stiff. Even in his dazed state, he could tell this wasn't normal.
"Ah, miss!"
Seolhwa put on a fierce scowl and berated the yellow-eyed man.
"Quiet. You're the one who fled with Baekhyanga, right?"
The yellow-eyed man protested his innocence.
"Baekhyanga...? You're the one who knew her best, miss. Why ask me?"
"Don't play dumb. Baekhyanga vanished around the same time as you. And what's a criminal like you doing wandering the Central Plains instead of the Western Regions?"
"I'm truly innocent! Sure, I fled to avoid punishment! But I hadn't done anything wrong—I just didn't want to be punished unjustly! I'm blameless! I have no connection to Baekhyanga!"
Seolhwa hesitated. He seemed far too genuinely wronged compared to her expectations.
But Hyeon-gong, who'd been listening, spoke up.
"He's lying."
That single word convinced not just Dang Mujin but Seolhwa as well.
She didn't know everything about Hyeon-gong, but she knew he had an uncanny knack for distinguishing lies from truth.
"He's lying, huh? Spill it straight if you don't want to see something ugly!"
"Why trust this guy so blindly?"
"None of your business!"
Seolhwa even drew her sword as she pressed the yellow-eyed man.
He insisted on his innocence for a while, but realizing his lies weren't working, he muttered something in a foreign tongue.
"Seolhwa. What'd he just say?"
"It was a curse."
The tongue invites wrath, so a loose one deserved a beating.
Hyeon-gong promptly kicked the man's Gate of Breath acupoint.
Not some thug's wild kick, but a master's precise strike.
The yellow-eyed man gasped for air, struggling to breathe, but soon glared at Hyeon-gong with fierce eyes and smirked.
"Hngh, heh."
He seemed accustomed to enduring pain.
Seolhwa pondered how to pry his mouth open, but Hyeon-gong knew the way.
"Seolhwa. Leave this to the human butcher."
"Human butcher?"
"Dang Mujin. He's a genius at this sort of thing."
"..."
It wasn't wrong.
But before diving into interrogation, there was something to clarify first. Dang Mujin asked Seolhwa,
"Seolhwa. This guy's a criminal from the North Sea Ice Palace, right?"
"Yeah. He pretended taxes were raised to embezzle from the people, got caught. There were also suspicions he stole spirit elixirs for himself. He endured interrogation on the second charge and got off, but the evidence was clear enough."
"Embezzlement? High-ranking official, then?"
"Think of him as an administrator-slash-martial artist. At least thousands of households got fleeced by him."
Thousands of households. That was no petty graft. Dang Mujin's guilt faded.
"I'm innocent!"
The yellow-eyed man interjected with another shout, but Hyeon-gong cut him off.
"This one's trying to weasel out with lies."
Dang Mujin didn't nod easily, staring at Hyeon-gong instead.
From Dang Mujin's view, Hyeon-gong wasn't entirely trustworthy either.
Hyeon-gong read his mind and declared confidently,
"It's certain. I stake Elder Yeongbo's reputation on it."
No idea why he was invoking someone else's name, but it was a solid judgment.
Hyeon-gong wouldn't lie staking Elder Yeongbo.
Dang Mujin approached the yellow-eyed man and squatted before him.
Their eyes met.
The yellow-eyed man thought Dang Mujin's face was unnervingly calm.
Interrogators usually scowled to intimidate.
His past interrogators had, and even Seolhwa just now.
But Dang Mujin's face held no anger or threat.
It wasn't uncertainty or ignorance.
He simply didn't need a menacing aura to extract a confession.
His eyes seemed to say,
'You're spilling everything anyway.'
The yellow-eyed man sensed it instinctively. Better to die here.
So he worked his tongue to dislodge the poison pill wedged where his molars should be and swallowed it.
Crunch.
Centipede venom flooded his mouth with a vile taste and stench. Yet he smiled contentedly.
The Yama Pill's poison promised a painless death. Limbs growing languid, floating toward the heavens in bliss, breath fading slowly—that was its effect.
But Dang Mujin barely reacted. Crooks often carried poison pills in their mouths.
Dang Mujin gripped the man's throat with his left hand.
Not to stop the already-swallowed poison—just to prevent thrashing.
'First, halt the poison's spread.'
Dang Mujin's right hand moved without hesitation, striking the Extreme Spring acupoint under the armpit, the Yin Junction on the wrist, then back to the forearm's Azure Spirit acupoint, channeling internal energy. Digestion slowed drastically.
'Now, make him vomit it up.'
Dang Mujin sealed the Stomach Lower Back-Shu near the spine, then hit the Spirit Gate below the navel, followed by Great Connection and Central Duct.
The yellow-eyed man felt no Yama languor—instead, his guts churned uncontrollably.
"What are you... Urk!"
He couldn't finish. His stomach and throat spasmed, forcing everything up. The most violent nausea he'd ever known.
He fought desperately to hold it back. But when Dang Mujin's fingers entered his mouth, rubbing the Pool of Heaven on the tongue and probing his throat, he broke.
No willpower could fight it.
Like suffocating with nose and mouth plugged, he vomited uncontrollably.
"Blarrgh!"
The Yama poison spewed out, reeking foully.
Even the man himself, and Dang Mujin's friends, had never seen someone force-vomited after swallowing poison.
"...Whoa."
Seolhwa marveled.
Dang Mujin flashed a light smile and moved to the next phase.
He'd stopped death; now, interrogation time.
Most would grab a blade or light a fire. Dang Mujin held nothing.
He placed a hand on the man's thigh and said calmly,
"If you want to confess, do it now. You won't be able to for the next half shichen."
"...Half shichen?"
"Yeah. I'll give you a chance every half shichen."
Who sets a timer for torture? Interrogation was half pain, half the dread of endlessness.
The man clamped his mouth shut, so Dang Mujin nodded.
Then his right hand's five fingers dug into the thigh.
"Hngh!"
Painful, but bearable.
Dang Mujin muttered,
"If you feel like confessing, say so. Can't speak? Tap the ground. Can't move? Blink. Remember: half shichen."
*Think I'll talk?* The man tried to retort.
But he couldn't speak. Dang Mujin's words seemed to slow, like molasses.
They started normal, but by the end, slower than a toddler's babble.
The last words burrowed into his ear.
"Of course, it won't feel like half a shichen to you. Hang in there. You won't die, so no worries."
The reassurance sounded eerily ominous.
Soon, a bizarre sensation emanated from the dug-in fingers on his thigh.
Like thousands, millions of insects crawling through veins across his body. But slowly. Looking down, no bugs.
Yet they writhed, as if bursting through skin.
Still nothing visible on the thigh—just a bit of blood.
But simultaneously, he saw bugs piercing his skin.
Eyes and reason said no bugs; senses insisted otherwise. His mind tangled, conjuring invisible insects.
"Aaagh! Uwaaaah!"
Unbearable pain and chaos. As he thrashed and screamed, Dang Mujin sealed his mute point.
The man twitched in place, mouth gaping silently.
*
With nothing else to do, the group bet on when the yellow-eyed man would confess everything.
Seolhwa figured even at best, he'd hold out two or three shichen. Honestly, she thought he might not crack at all.
He was tough. He'd denied stealing spirit elixirs through the North Sea Ice Palace's brutal interrogation.
Dang Mujin's friends bet on one shichen.
Impressive as Dang Mujin's skills were, men had pride. He'd resist once before breaking.
But Dang Mujin was certain.
"Half a shichen, done."
Exactly half a shichen later, the yellow-eyed man sobbed and spilled everything he knew.
Dang Mujin won.
The yellow-eyed man wailed,
"Baekhyanga! Yes, Baekhyanga! I helped her escape! The Small Warehouse Pavilion Master and Great Wall Pavilion Master smuggled her out of the Ice Palace and ordered me! They said just open the gate once at night, and they'd handle the rest..."
Hyeon-gong asked Seolhwa,
"Who are the Small Warehouse Pavilion Master and Great Wall Pavilion Master?"
"Small Warehouse manages the Ice Palace's elixirs and funds. Great Wall's one of the martial instructors."
But the yellow-eyed man ignored them, babbling desperately—as if pausing meant more torment.
"So I opened the gate at night! But something felt off. I thought Small Warehouse and Great Wall would just get her out and return, but they never did... That's when I realized I'd been used. I followed their trail! Better to survive outside than stay and die!"
Simple summary.
The Small Warehouse and Great Wall Pavilion Masters fled the North Sea Ice Palace with Baekhyanga.
This yellow-eyed man caught on late he'd been duped and escaped to serve as their lackey.
Dang Mujin asked,
"So. Why'd you come to the Kongtong Sect?"
"I... I just followed orders!"
"Better explain in detail."
At Dang Mujin's words, the man clawed at his hair in anguish. But he looked at the group with frantic eyes. Nothing more to say.
"Where's Baekhyanga?"
"I don't know. Really, I swear...! She said she'd contact me here!"
After that pain, no more lies. Dang Mujin asked again.
"Anything else you want to say?"
"..."
No answer. Dang Mujin glanced at Seolhwa.
She pondered briefly, then nodded.
He'd suffered enough; no need for more.
Dang Mujin sealed the death point, granting a painless end.
The man collapsed with a relieved expression.
Dang Mujin stared at the corpse a moment, then stood and said,
"Alright, let's figure out our next move. And Seolhwa—things are getting big, so I need to hear your full story."
Seolhwa nodded.