Ruckus at the Sichuan Dang Clan
"Argh, you rotten punk... What could possibly hurt enough to earn all this bellyaching?!"
The Execution Hall Master clicked his tongue as he watched Dang Muyeong roll back and forth across the dirt, muttering under his breath.
"Tsk, tsk... A boy in the prime of his youth, carrying on like a dying man over one little whack to the shin."
"Aigoo... you're killing me here. Uncle, how could you thrash your poor, frail, delicate nephew like a stray dog during the dog days of summer?!"
When I looked up at him with eyes full of reproach and said that...
"Whazzat? Oh, you will, will you... Then I'll show you myself, right now, how one goes about catching dogs on the dog days."
And with the hem of his robe swirling in a dazzling flourish, he began stomping me into the ground.
"Ack! Aaagh!"
For a good long while after, my screams rang across the mountain...
Watching the sun crawl up over the horizon, the Execution Hall Master addressed the Dang Clan warriors tidying the scene. "Gather up every last one of those demon-men corpses and bring them back to the clan. I'll take this worthless brat and head on ahead."
"Understood."
Leaving the warriors bowing behind him, he gave my rear a boot and said—
Thwack—
"Quit the theatrics and get up already."
"Yes, sir..."
Truth be told, the Execution Hall Master had been all bark and precious little bite, so I managed to rise, rubbing my backside as I went.
"Hoh... those eyes of yours are getting downright insolent. Shall I kick your balls this time instead?"
I had been hauling myself up with a sullen scowl when his low mutter reached my ears — whereupon I snapped bolt upright.
"Heh heh... shall we be off to the clan, then?"
Watching me point the way ahead with both hands, smiling faster than any man alive, he shook his head with a look of fond exasperation and started walking.
How long had the two of us tramped down the mountain path together? By then the sky had brightened enough for the scenery around us to come into fuzzy focus.
"By the way, what on earth happened with the Green Heaven Squad Leader?"
"You mean that rascal Giyeong?"
"Yes, sir. I simply can't wrap my head around how a man who left saying he was off to buy booze ended up back at the clan of all places..."
The Execution Hall Master chewed on my question for a moment, then turned to me wearing a grave face.
"Muyeong... listen well."
"Yes..."
With a face like court calligraphy given human form, he spoke in a low voice. I gulped and hung on every word.
"That fellow Giyeong, you see..."
"Yes..."
"The truth of it is... with those Demon Cult bastards, he..."
"Yes?!"
The Execution Hall Master had dragged things out an eternity, and just as he was finally about to reach the heart of it...
"...you can hear the rest from the man himself once we reach the clan."
"Huh?"
Stunned at being told to get it straight from the source, I could only gape at him; he replied with an expression of supreme indifference.
"Didn't you say you'd explain back at the clan how you slaughtered every last one of those Demon Cultists? Then whatever you're curious about, you can hear it once you're home with the family too."
"Wow....."
Confronted with logic so eminently reasonable, so airtight, I spent the rest of the descent quietly contemplating whether I might "accidentally" sweep a leg out and trip him down the slope.
Meanwhile, while Execution Hall Master Dang Hawun had been giving his midnight "performance" with Dang Muyeong, a very different tune was playing somewhere in the underbelly of the Dang Clan.
"Kuaaaaagh!"
"Kieeeek!"
Dang Jihwan — a man whose drowsy-lidded gaze normally made him look like the friendly uncle from next door — was regarding a handful of bound men with an icy expression wholly unlike himself.
They were lashed to wooden chairs stained a deep reddish-brown, as though someone's blood had long since soaked into the grain, and they were so far past resembling human beings that all they could manage was to squawk and shriek.
"So. Which of you is the spy you planted?"
The men stared back at Dang Jihwan — whose voice alone was enough to send a shiver crawling up the spine — and offered no answer at all.
".........."
How long did that silence stretch on?
Judging there was nothing more to be wrung from this place, Dang Jihwan issued one last order and walked out.
"The All-Poisons Hall Master was just saying he needs bodies he can burn through without consequence... send them his way."
Splash... splash...
His footsteps ringing like a man wading through pooled water, he climbed the stairs, murmuring softly to himself.
"I was half in doubt before... but now I'm certain..."
Dang Jihwan wore the look of a man recalling something long past — then, a heartbeat later, his fist clenched tight.
Creeeak—
"C-Clan Leader...! Huk...!"
One of the warriors standing guard on the staircase down to the underground beheld the Clan Leader wearing a twisted expression he had not seen once since the incident years ago — and felt a distinct warmth spread through his lower half.
By the time the Clan Leader, having left several men damp in his wake, returned to the Clan Leader's Hall...
"Uncle! In that case, I'll just pop over to the Medicine Hall!"
"You brat! The Execution Hall comes first—"
Ignoring the voice chasing anxiously after me, I bolted for the Medicine Hall.
Bang—
The instant I flung the door open hard enough to tear it off its hinges and stepped inside...
Wham—
...someone smacked the back of my skull hard enough to crack it and said:
"Open a door gently for once in your life!"
The Medicine Hall Master — evidently roused from sleep, drool crusted at the corner of his mouth — bellowed at me, and I ducked my head.
"Yes, sir... So where's the Green Heaven Squad Leader?"
Eyeing me — barging in out of nowhere and demanding Dang Giyeong straight off — the Medicine Hall Master pointed with tired eyes.
"Over there... and don't wake him for nothing. I only just managed to get him under."
I followed his outstretched finger and found Dang Giyeong lying there like a corpse, his chest wound round and round with bandages.
"Hah..."
Even as recently as last night, when I'd been grinding my teeth and cursing a blue streak in the dead of dark, I had never once pictured a sight like this. As I let out a hollow laugh at it, the Medicine Hall Master — who had somehow materialized behind me — spoke up.
"Whether by luck or providence, he just barely kept his organs from being carved open... though his sternum was hacked clean to pieces, and running all the way here in that state left his insides a catastrophe."
As I took in the rundown and looked down at Dang Giyeong, I saw fresh red blood still seeping through, darkening the white bandages.
"In any case, it appears he burned through even his Innate True Qi... he'll be holed up here recuperating for some time."
"He spent Innate True Qi just to run back to the clan?"
"He did... His life is no longer in danger, but stepping into the realm beyond that will be a great deal harder for him now..."
A solemn hush settled over the room.
"...In any case, don't lay a finger on him. Just look, and go."
The Medicine Hall Master drilled the warning into me and soon took his leave, and I sank onto the edge of the neighboring bed and fell deep into thought.
Hah... so what the hell is Dang Giyeong supposed to be, then...
His suspicious face, his suspicious manner, the pile of circumstances surrounding him — everything pointed to a man with something to hide. And yet the fact that he had staked his very life to carry a plea for help to the clan kept scrambling my thoughts.
Was it nothing more than a coincidence of absurd proportions? Too much didn't add up for that... Which meant he had engineered this entire situation deliberately? Even at the cost of burning Innate True Qi?
The longer I turned it over, the further the answer receded. I tapped my knee with my index finger and muttered, "Hmm... what do I do with him..."
Tap, tap, tap, tap—
Having done nothing but abuse my poor knee, I finally gave up on a conclusion, swept my hair back, and grumbled half in complaint, "Ugh... I don't know. One more look, then. Watch him a while longer and see if a verdict shakes loose."
Sighing from the depths of my soul, I left Dang Giyeong behind and headed for the door of the treatment room.
Scrape... scrape... click.
In the treatment room, now empty save for Dang Giyeong lying half-dead like a corpse... the man who, mere moments before, had lain with closed eyes and the faintest thread of breath was wearing a sinister smile.
"Heh heh..."
That low, warped chuckle rippled through the silent room — and no one in the world heard it but him.
I was on my way from the Medicine Hall to the Execution Hall, my business there concluded, when someone caught hold of me.
"Young Master! The Clan Leader requests your presence at the Clan Leader's Hall."
"The Clan Leader's Hall?"
"Yes, sir! The Execution Hall Master headed over just now as well."
"Got it. Thanks for the heads-up."
Steeled for Dang Jihwan's summons, I stepped into the Clan Leader's Hall.
Whew... easy does it. Don't go rambling myself into a slip of the tongue... A half-decent story should carry me through just fine.
Praying I could skate past any suspicion about how exactly I had disposed of those demon-men, I traced the Sign of the Cross once and stepped through the doors of the Clan Leader's Hall—
"So we're just supposed to sit here sucking our thumbs, is that it?!"
"Everyone, please, calm down first—"
"Now that I look at you, the way you talk is exactly like a Demon Cult mole!"
"Ha... are you quite finished?"
Old men who had all comfortably cleared their fiftieth year were seizing one another by the collar, eyes blazing with twin flames of fury, pummeling away at each other — and my head throbbed on their behalf.
"What in the world..."
Just as I was lamenting into my palm at the absurd spectacle...
"Enough."
At that single, quiet word from the Clan Leader, everyone instantly felt as though a colossal boulder had settled onto their shoulders — and only then did the storm subside.
The hall masters who had been at each other's throats moments before cleared their throats in unison, as if they'd rehearsed it, and returned to their seats. Looking around, I found the faces of virtually everyone who was anyone in the Dang Clan.
Squad leaders around Dang Mulin's age, hall masters around the Clan Leader's, and elders so advanced in years that a coffin would have surprised none of them...
"Clan Leader. I heard you were looking for me..."
Under a baptism of countless stares, I spoke; Dang Jihwan answered in a voice slightly lowered.
"Muyeong..."
"Yes?"
"Everyone has already read the reports, but I judged it better for you to recount last night's events yourself. That is why I called you here."
"I suppose that would... be for the best?"
This was markedly different from his usual mild, easygoing manner... Even back during the Qingcheng Sect affair, the Clan Leader had stopped short at merely venting his fury. Now, however, he pressed me with killing intent that rippled off him like heat haze...
Tsk... this throws a wrench into things.
Despite being guilty of precisely nothing, I opened my mouth with cold sweat trickling down my back.
"Um... might I have a sip of water before I begin?"