Damn It! I Might Die on the Way There (1)
Jin Yigang stared dead at the five men.
The one in the center was very short and bald, his gleaming eyes carrying a hint of outright madness.
Toilet Brush, Jin Yigang murmured inwardly.
He looked even smaller than Fatty Moyong Cheonhu. A lifetime of being mocked for his height seemed to have curdled his temperament; his eyes were thick with venom.
To the right of the man Jin had just dubbed Toilet Brush stood someone whose face was so long it looked faintly bent. Gaunt as a rake and tall with it, he made a stark contrast with the squat figure beside him.
Twisted Horse Face. A fine nickname, Jin decided, and let his gaze drift to the next man.
This one was almost impossible to sense at all. His face was utterly unremarkable — it was the eyes that sent a chill down the spine. Jin had felt this exact sensation countless times before. The aura of the Demonic Cult's shadow troopers had felt precisely like this.
Assassin. Having christened the plain-faced one, Jin turned his eyes to Toilet Brush's left.
A man stood there whose face was flushed red, as if it had been painted with red dye. The Four Heavenly King statues guarding temple entrances wore faces just like that.
And you're Maple.
The man beside Maple had a solid, sturdy build, and both his hands were stained a grimy black.
Black Hands. Now that one's almost too good...
For all their distinctive looks, the five men shared one thing in common: a savage, murderous air.
It was as if all five were silently growling the same threat — I'm a genuinely bad man, so don't you dare start anything with me.
"Here."
Jin Yigang pointed at his own spot.
The five exchanged glances, then clambered up onto the bunk.
"Think we should slather poison all over his gear rack?" asked Twisted Horse Face, the tallest of the five.
"Suit yourself. Say — what's this box?" Toilet Brush flipped open Jin Yigang's chest.
"Whoa!"
"What?" Maple asked.
"It's crammed full of medicine."
"They did say he was the second son of Jecheon Medical Manor — looks like he's hauled half an apothecary along with him."
"Ooh, there are nourishing tonics in here too."
"Nourishing tonics? Aren't those virility drugs?"
"Right?" Toilet Brush asked.
"You've all got the wrong idea, so allow me to set you straight. The rumor that nourishing tonics are virility drugs is 'fake news.' They are taken for one purpose only: to make you healthier than you are right now."
The five men stared at Jin Yigang, dumbfounded.
"If I were you, I wouldn't eat those."
"Why not?"
"The owner of that box has a vicious temper. He might just beat you all to death."
"Beat US to death?" Toilet Brush asked.
"Yep."
"Do you have any idea who we are?"
"How would I have any idea?"
"Then what about the Absolute Ten Evils?"
"Oh, that I know. I hear Padun is one of the Absolute Ten Evils. Anyway, if I were you, I wouldn't touch those pills."
"Catch."
The short man tossed a single nourishing pill to Jin Yigang.
"Why me?"
"Eat it."
"I..."
"If you don't, you die first."
"What, am I the royal food taster now?"
"So you do know a thing or two."
"Thieving bastards, getting all suspicious..."
Jin Yigang popped the nourishing pill into his mouth and chewed it to pieces.
"If you're Absolute Ten Evils, you must have some fancy epithets too, no?" Jin asked, washing the medicine down.
"We are called the Five Killing Ghosts."
Jin Yigang glanced at Ji Gon.
"The little one is Ban Jeok, the Heaven Killing Ghost. The one with no presence is Sin Do, the Dancing Shadow Killing Ghost. The long-faced one is Gal Mun-do, the Myriad Poison Killing Ghost. The black-handed one is Gi Bong, the Black Hand Killing Ghost. The red-faced one is Gu Gwang-ja, the Blood Face Killing Ghost. Their crimes were too cruel for words. Most villains confine themselves to preying on martial artists — these five made no distinction between warriors and common folk. In the end the imperial court put a price on their heads, and they were caught and thrown into prison. That was ten years ago."
Ji Gon explained through a whispered transmission.
"Nothing's wrong with me. Go ahead — eat up."
When a good while had passed and nothing at all happened to Jin Yigang, all five of them chewed down their nourishing pills together.
"The owner of that medicine has one hell of a temper, boys. You're really in for it now."
Jin Yigang took a leisurely sip of his leftover tea.
"Didn't you say you have to drink that stuff slowly?" Ji Gon asked.
"It's kicking in a little fast, is all."
"Kicking in?"
"It's a secret I was going to share with you and you alone, old man... nah, forget it. Not telling."
Jin Yigang rose, the Blood Yellow Demon Umbrella in hand, then turned to face the Five Killing Ghosts.
"Gahk!"
The first to groan was Gal Mun-do, the Myriad Poison Killing Ghost. A supreme master of the poison arts, he was the first to realize the truth — those nourishing pills were poison pills.
"What's wrong with—"
"Gahk!"
"Hurgh!"
"P-poison?"
"It's poison."
The faces of the remaining four went gray in the same instant.
"You lot. Come with me for a minute."
Jin Yigang seized the legs of the Five Killing Ghosts still seated on the bunk and dragged them off it. Not one of them could offer the slightest resistance.
"Wh-who are you?"
"Let's start with a beating."
Jin Yigang swept the Blood Yellow Demon Umbrella high overhead.
WHAM!
"GYAAAAH!"
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
"GYAAAH!"
"AAAGH!"
Harrowing screams tore from all five mouths.
"W-we're the Five Killing Ghosts! Wh-who the hell are you?!" Toilet Brush shrieked.
"The owner with the filthy temper."
"...?"
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
"GHAAK!"
"GHK!"
"GYAAAH!"
The five screamed anew.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
Jin Yigang simply beat them in silence, blow after blow. Nearly an hour passed before he finally stopped.
"Nothing to say?"
"P-please, spare us!"
Toilet Brush begged. He had read it in Jin Yigang's eyes — those flat, emotionless orbs staring down at them — that Jin fully intended to beat them to death.
Jin Yigang raised the Blood Yellow Demon Umbrella once more.
And brought it down.
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
"GYAAAAH!"
"AAAAAAAGH!"
"GRAAAAAH!"
Another hour passed before Jin Yigang stopped hitting them. Then he looked down at Toilet Brush.
"S-Sagong Pyo sent us," Toilet Brush said.
"The Southern Jinmusa?"
"Th-that's right."
"What exactly did he tell you?"
"He said to rough you up a little."
"And the reason..."
"We don't ask about things like that."
"Got it."
Jin Yigang lifted the Blood Yellow Demon Umbrella again.
"Are you going to kill us?" Toilet Brush asked.
"You said you'd smear poison all over my footlocker, remember? And they say in this line of work, you repay death with death. Unwritten rule of the trade."
"You son of a bitch!"
Whoosh! Whoosh!
All five hurled themselves at Jin Yigang at once. Even as they'd absorbed his blows, the Five Killing Ghosts had been quietly gathering their internal strength. Pin Jin Yigang down, they were certain, and an antidote would be theirs.
WHAM!
The Blood Yellow Demon Umbrella smashed into Toilet Brush's temple. He saw it coming and still couldn't dodge. His eyes flew open so wide they seemed about to tear, fixed on Jin Yigang — and the light in them guttered out fast.
WHAM!
Maple's fist cracked against Jin Yigang's back. Pitching forward as if to fall, Jin spun on the spot and drove a fist up into Maple's chin.
WHAM!
The fist sank in deep. Maple's eyes bulged; his body lifted clean off the ground, then crashed back down. Twisting at the waist, Jin Yigang snapped out his left fist.
WHAM!
It burrowed into Black Hands' temple, and Black Hands' face whipped violently from side to side. What Jin Yigang had unleashed was something akin to the Dark King Fist he had learned only days ago. The instant it landed, the inside of Black Hands' skull shattered to fragments, and his soul departed it.
The fist that had just caved in Black Hands' skull drove onward, headed straight for Twisted Horse Face's face. Gal Mun-do thrust out his right hand in desperation.
WHAM!
His palm caught the fist.
Thud. Thud-thud.
The force erupting from Jin Yigang's knuckles raced down the length of Twisted Horse Face's arm.
WHAM!
With a wet, bone-deep burst, blood and brain matter erupted from Twisted Horse Face's nose, ears, mouth, and eyes.
"Hmm. I'd better ease up a little."
Jin Yigang muttered, studying Twisted Horse Face's ruined face.
"Didn't you say you didn't know any martial arts?" Ji Gon asked, stunned.
The men Jin Yigang had just flattened were Absolute Ten Evils. Poisoned or not, being put down that easily was hard to accept. No — unrealistic was the only honest word for it.
"I said I don't know martial arts. I never said I can't fight. Anyway — what do we do with these?"
"Beats me. You're the one who killed them. You figure it out."
"There are trees behind the barracks, aren't there?"
"Trees, we've got plenty of."
"Let's give them a tree burial."
"A tree burial?"
"They spent their whole lives doing rotten things, so let them do one good deed now that they're dead. I'll haul the bodies over — you dig, old man. Hold on a second... think this'll do the job?"
Jin Yigang fished out a small hand hoe for digging herbs and held it up.
"Aren't you working me awfully hard for a single cup of tea?"
"We've all got to help each other get by."
Tucking a corpse under each arm, Jin Yigang headed outside. Just as Ji Gon had said, the ground behind the barracks was thick with trees. While Ji Gon dug, Jin popped back into the barracks and carried out the remaining three.
Once the pit was deep and wide, they dropped all five in and covered them over. Then Jin swept fallen leaves across the spot until not a trace of disturbed earth remained.
Back inside, they scrubbed the spilled blood off the floor. With every last shred of evidence gone, Jin set the tea to steeping again.
"What poison was in them?" Ji Gon asked.
"A blend."
"A blend?"
"Everything but the kitchen sink, all mixed together. Paralytic powder that locks the muscles up, something that melts the flesh, something that shuts the nerves down."
"Did you take an antidote beforehand?"
Jin had swallowed the pills too, yet sat there without a mark on him — hence the question.
"Nope."
"Then how..."
"I've eaten poisons tens of times deadlier than anything I carry, in quantities bigger than my meals. It's safe to say there's no poison in this world that can poison me."
"You mean you're what they call impervious to all poisons?"
"In my case? Call it that if you like."
"What on earth did you used to do, that you gulped poison down like rice?"
"I told you — I blew up the Thousand Martial Statues."
"The Thousand Martial Statues... so you were one of Jecheon Medical Manor's Geomseonin?"
"Yep."
"And what did you do before you became a Geomseonin?"
"Studied."
...
"From the time I was four, it was books, books, and nothing but books, come hell or high water."
"And then..."
"The country collapsed, and twenty years of my life went up in smoke, just like that. For a man who knew how to do nothing but study, the Geomseonin life was the perfect refuge. You gulp down pill after pill, and if your luck holds, you might even get to die..."
"If your luck holds?"
Ji Gon suddenly remembered what Jin Yigang had once said to Ju Chuchu, her face ruined beyond recognition. Dying is harder than living, isn't it? — that was what he'd told her. It hadn't been a line for effect. It had come straight out of experience.
"Yeah."
Ji Gon said nothing, only looked at Jin Yigang.
"By the way — how long does it take to reach the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains, where the Demonic Cult's headquarters is supposed to be?"
"Half a year if we're fast. Eight months if we're slow."
"Didn't you say the Demonic Cult was in the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains?"
"I did."
"Last I heard, the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains sit in Guangxi Province. How does it take half a year to get there?" Jin Yigang asked, genuinely taken aback.
"The Hundred Thousand Great Mountains are where the Demonic Cult first coiled its nest. A thousand years of purge campaigns — dozens of them — have shoved them west and west again, until now they're holed up beyond the Tarim Basin, wedged between the Tianshan and Kunlun ranges."
"So even after being driven thousands of li from their old home, people still call them the Demonic Cult of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains?"
"It's not the Central Plains folk who call them that. It's the cultists themselves."
"Damn it! We're gonna die on the way there."
Jin Yigang flopped spread-eagled onto the bunk.