Blood Whistle
It had begun by chance.
In the pouring rain of a recent dawn.
After calling out Cheon Gang and Gwak Ho-shin from night watch and sharing the spirit herbs he had brought back, something shifted.
Beside the pavilion stood a great ginkgo tree. Beneath it, Gwak Ho-shin and Cheon Gang took turns circulating their energy. Because the pure qi they absorbed pushed out turbid energy and expelled the body's waste, they had deliberately taken the spirit herbs outdoors in the rain, alternating shifts outside the pavilion.
Swaaaa—!
Together with the dense rush of falling rain, Gwak Yeon sat cross-legged beneath the ginkgo last of all, swallowing his share of the spirit herb.
Gulp.
Thanks to his vampire body, the herb's energy was absorbed the instant it went down—but rising at once would have looked odd, so he sat as if circulating his breath.
Swaaaa—!
How long had he been taking the driving rain? Cheon Gang and Gwak Ho-shin, who never would have imagined the energy could be absorbed so easily, were still holding their posts when Gwak Yeon decided it was enough and opened his mouth.
"……That's it! No problems, right?"
Neither Cheon Gang nor Gwak Ho-shin answered.
His words never reached them.
Between the pavilion and the ginkgo, a sudden gale had roared up.
Whoosh— pit-pat!
Even in Gwak Yeon's vision the downpour twisted on a hard slant from the left. Seeing the two of them miss what he had said because of the strong wind, he smiled faintly and was about to rise—
!
In that moment, with the gale keeping his quiet call from carrying, a single idea struck him.
Wait.
The path of a voice affected by the wind. In other words, sound could reach someone—or fail to—depending on the flow of the air.
The instant he considered that property, a small clue attached itself to a problem he had been turning over for some time.
……Sound?
……Sound arts?
There had certainly been such things in his past life. People who delivered sonic waves laden with mighty inner force through the playing of instruments like the pipa. There had even been those who cultivated sound arts through song—who, by shifting pitch with exquisite control and fine manipulation of inner force, could fell a flagpole a hundred paces away faster than an arrow.
So.
Gwak Yeon found himself wondering what would happen if a few drops of blood entered the air that carried a sound charged with inner force.
I'm not aiming for proper sound arts, but……
This vampire body. There was no telling how many abilities the Ageless Corpse Demon had never mentioned still remained. More than that—blood that harmonized with inner force. He had already forged Hosinganghyeol from it; finding the sensation of launching a sonic wave laden with that blood did not seem impossible.
Of course it would fall laughably short of true sound arts.
But.
What if I narrowed the range to the extreme?
Like a whistle, for instance. If he could lightly hold blood in his mouth and load it onto the resonance a whistle created—what then of the wave that shot out?
The thought went further. These vampire senses, sharpened far beyond the ordinary, could catch things ordinary people never perceived. So what if he used those senses to shape the resonance itself?
……Wait.
Curiosity became action at once.
Conveniently, after sending Cheon Gang and Gwak Ho-shin inside first and stepping back out—
Swaaaa—!
Through the branches thrashing in the downpour, he spotted a rat scampering past.
He quickly held blood in his mouth, then—
Whee.
—blew a light whistle in that direction.
……Huh.
Whether it was imagination or not, he thought he felt a slight hitch. Still unsatisfied, he adjusted the amount of blood and whistled again as if playing a grass flute, adding a touch of vibration.
Whee.
This time it was certain. The rat on the branch froze as if seized.
But…… it was still ambiguous. The faint blood-qi that seemed to fly out with the whistle looked extremely thin, yet was hard to distinguish at root from the blood threads he normally shot.
More than that—focus on the whistle itself. More the feeling of launching the tremor of the air.
He practiced that way several times.
Swaaaa—!
It was fortunate the rain was falling. After honing his sight to its sharpest edge, he observed the sonic waves by the faint blood-qi dispersing through the air and kept drilling. At last he found the right sensation.
Whee.
The rat that had been narrowing the distance toward a hole in the ginkgo, flinching a little with each whistle, twitched again—but not with the rigid freeze of before. It shuddered as if shaking off rain, came fully awake, and bolted back to its nest.
……That's it!
Gwak Yeon nodded.
"Sorry. You worked hard."
He took a few jujubes the merchant group had distributed from his robes and tossed them into the hole the rat had entered. With his hearing pulled up to its keenest pitch he could hear the creature gnawing—startled, then, but not badly hurt.
In a real fight, I just need to push the launching feel a little harder.
The ability completed that way showed its worth first thing this morning.
Whee.
Used on horses that had been thrashing about excitedly since dawn, the animals flinched, shuddered, and lost their fire. He had launched a sonic wave faintly steeped in blood-qi like a whistle in broad daylight, yet the people of the merchant group—who were not its targets—thought nothing of it.
"You can handle horses as well, Pavilion Master?"
"Haha. I'm only pretending."
"My word."
They simply had not seen the fine blood energy riding the sound. What that "flinch" would feel like to a person was something he could test on the wicked. And if so—
Used with control…… it shouldn't look like sorcery, should it?
An ability he could wield in the light. Perhaps he could produce, with a single whistle, the effect of a peerless master unleashing killing intent on street thugs. In a formal duel he could even use it like a taunt from the opponent's blind spot—not a bad option.
My reputation will be garbage, though.
That did not matter. Information on the great evils of the martial world could not be gotten from the black paths alone. Just as now, on the road to the Hubei Pang Family. There might come moments when he would have to draw his sword on the bright stage of the Central Plains as well—among the righteous sects and the authorities.
I'll be living as two people for a while.
The clash with the Green Forest bandit chief, and this newly found whistle. With these, Gwak Yeon judged, he might reveal himself to the martial world through a style of fighting different from what he used in the underworld. A disguise, at times, was a powerful weapon of its own.
Click.
He suddenly thumbed the sword at his waist. Come to think of it—he still had not uncovered the secret hidden in this blade, his true weapon. A sword that looked far too ordinary. For that very reason, whether in light or shadow, it was unlikely to expose Gwak Yeon's identity.
Blade or scabbard, beyond being absurdly sturdy……
He still did not know if it was anything that special. Ha Mu-won had said he would come to understand in time. When they had met before the caravan set out, what had he said? Concentrate on the scabbard……
Click, click.
He was idly thumbing the sword when—
"……Is something troubling you?"
Hwang Pil, riding alongside and holding his own reins, spoke up.
"Ah, I'm fine."
"Glad to hear it. You simply look as if your blood is running hot."
"Pardon?"
"Our meeting with the Hubei Pang Family draws nearer by the day, does it not?"
"Ah."
"Like you, Pavilion Master Gwak, I am looking forward to it. Those fellows' eyes roll back in their heads the moment they see a strong opponent. Everyone is going to be in for a shock."
"I'm only an escort, haha."
"Keh-keh! The Pang lot won't see it that way. You've probably never met people of the Pang Family, so you wouldn't know, but……"
Hwang Pil edged his horse closer and murmured behind the back of his hand, as if sharing a secret.
"……Whatever it is, if you take the rumors and add a little more on top, you'll be about right."
"Is that so?"
"Keh-keh, I'm telling you it is!"
Hwang Pil smacked his own forehead with a look of pure exasperation. Gwak Yeon played along as if he knew nothing—but in truth he too had ties to the Hubei Pang Family from his past life. Like the Moyong clan, the Hubei Pang Family had once counted one of his old comrades among its own.
……Damn Pang bastard.
A bitter smile touched Gwak Yeon's lips as he recalled an old friend he would never see again. Looking back now, the man had not even been sacrificed to the root of a great evil—only to one of its branches.
But that was the past. Whether the present Hubei Pang Family was entangled with the Blood Cult or not was something he would only know by going there himself.
Just then—
Kraaaaaaawk—!
A cry from the sky shattered his thoughts.
It was Heoksijo's shout.
"Power is surging—!!! Power is gushing gushing gushing—!!!"
With powerful wingbeats the bird was circling over everyone's heads like a whirlwind, its eyes glittering even from a distance.
……Yes.
……It had eaten a spirit herb.
On top of Cheon Gang and Gwak Ho-shin, Heoksijo—upon waking that morning—had somehow managed to absorb a spirit herb's energy as well. Fortunately there had been no real side effects. The problem, if it was one, was that the bird had gotten a little louder.
"Just keep going straight—!!! Strong like me—!!!"
No one particularly minded. Cheon Gang and Gwak Ho-shin were already on horseback, absently rolling their arms this way and that as they gauged the size of their newly gained inner force.
"Heh heh heh heh."
"……"
And near the carriage following behind, a small commotion had broken out.
"Urgh."
Along with a coppery smell rising from somewhere, the sound of an argument reached him the moment he tuned his ears.
— Young Master!
— Wh-what, whaaat!
— How could you just gulp that down! You're supposed to take it somewhere safe!
— B-but it turned out fine, didn't it!
— Ugh, the smell!
— Never mind that, look! D-don't I seem a little stronger?
Gwak Yeon understood the situation at once.
That spirit herb…… the little one had eaten it.
And so time passed again.
One day, two, three, four…… Another week went by, then one more day, two……
Clatter, clatter.
Crossing field paths, grass tracks, official roads and guest routes, the small caravan of the Cheonhae Merchant Group drew nearly to Beijing. Nothing major had happened. Now and then bandits or highwaymen would rush them in lonely stretches, but such problems were settled at once without any need for Gwak Yeon to step in—the moment Heoksijo screeched a warning, Cheon Gang and Gwak Ho-shin would charge from either side of the carriage with staff and great saber and reduce the attackers to pulp.
Sometimes they lodged at inns in small towns, at government-run relay stations, and occasionally—as before—in pavilions or open ground near the road. Through it all the escorts and the merchant party had grown considerably closer than on the caravan's first day.
Close enough that, under moonlight at a camp pitched near a bamboo grove—the last shortcut toward Beijing—Yeo Baek-rang and Cheon Gang could trade easy conversation.
Crack! Crackle!
Before the campfire, Cheon Gang chewed dried meat and opened his mouth.
"But you know."
He put the question he had been holding all this time to Yeo Baek-rang, who was still watching Heoksijo perched on his head with a look of bright curiosity.
"The Cheonhae Merchant Group is a pretty big outfit, isn't it?"
"Not merely pretty big—it is a merchant group that has already surpassed Zhejiang and now contends for the foremost place north of the river as well, I do say!"
"Then you must have branches in every region?"
"You have hit upon it exactly!"
"So why haven't we stopped at a single one this whole trip?"
"Is that what you wish to know?"
Still swaggering in his awkward grown-up speech, Yeo Baek-rang set a plump finger to his lips and went on.
"This is a 'secret' caravan. Under 'special' circumstances, with none other than the merchant group's own 'Young Master' traveling—I did not wish to advertise that fact here and there, you see."
"Oho."
"We have a branch in Beijing as well! Once we arrive and I hand over the sample goods under my 'special charge' to the Hubei Pang Family side…… only then may we visit at our ease."
"Is that so."
Unaware that Cheon Gang was fighting laughter every bit as desperately as Gwak Yeon behind them, Yeo Baek-rang had already acquired a taste for his own brand of adult impersonation.
"And you, Warrior Cheon—what do you mean to do once we reach Beijing?"
"Well. Eat some good food, maybe."
"Beijing is a place where without silver one can scarcely taste a proper broth!"
"Haha."
At Yeo Baek-rang's words, Cheon Gang jangled a pouch of silver coins from his robes—part of the money he had won back at the family estate betting on Gwak Yeon's duel. Considering how many in the Central Plains never saw a single silver tael in their entire lives, it was a fair sum.
"Money I earned thanks to our Pavilion Master Gwak."
"……It is insufficient."
"What?"
"Only with this much can one claim, with any pride, the means to properly enjoy Beijing. I say—Guard Ju!"
Yeo Baek-rang smirked and turned his head—toward Ju Hwa-jeong, who was warming herself at another fire with Gwak Yeon and Hwang Pil, deep in some conversation. Hearing talk of Gwak Yeon, whom he still could not stop minding, had made him want to show off something of his own again.
"My coin purse is, where—"
Of course the attempt was snuffed out by the pointed look Ju Hwa-jeong sent his way.
Zing.
"Ahem, never mind that! More importantly!"
He cleared his throat and muttered, pointing needlessly at Ju Hwa-jeong.
"In a place as crowded as Beijing, one never knows what may befall one! I, for one, feel secure so long as Guard Ju there is with me! Should any of you have need, you may accompany us as well!"
As if to imply her protection was more reassuring than Gwak Yeon's, Yeo Baek-rang was quietly putting Gwak Yeon down while elevating Ju Hwa-jeong. So Cheon Gang, who had been playing along until now, answered in a oh, is that how it is? spirit.
"We're fine. Our Pavilion Master is extremely strong too."
"In truth, Guard Ju is far stronger than you imagine."
"In truth, so is our Pavilion Master."
"Haha, this is the truth."
"Haha, same here."
"Our Guard Ju has, in fact, never once lost!"
"Just like our Pavilion Master."
"And that is not all! Had she but set her mind to it, she might long since have claimed a place at the foot of the Martial Rankings!"
"That sounds exactly like our Pavilion Master."
"In truth, I myself am rather deep in the martial arts. I do not say this idly."
"Young Master and I have much in common. As you saw last time, I have not only martial skill but the eye to judge it as well……"
Just then—
The three who had been warming themselves at the far fire turned their heads toward the pair whose conversation was picking up speed.
Shhh.
Ju Hwa-jeong, Gwak Yeon, and Hwang Pil with them. They gave Yeo Baek-rang and Cheon Gang a silent signal, then slowly turned their faces the other way again…… and the air around them was not ordinary.
Gulp.
Catching on, Yeo Baek-rang swallowed dryly with a tense face, while Cheon Gang quietly woke Heoksijo, who had been dozing on his head.
"Why'd you wa—"
"Shh."
Even the newly woken Heoksijo sensed the grave mood, and Gwak Ho-shin and the Cheonhae Merchant Group's warriors were already on their feet with weapons in hand. As the caravan's drivers and porters gathered to the rear and the armed men naturally took post in front of them—
Everyone could see it.
Step…… step……
Clatter…… clatter……
Near the bamboo grove where eerie mist hung thick, something had begun to approach.
.
.
.
"Those are the banners of the Wondan Escort Agency."
The words left Caravan Master Hwang Pil's mouth as he watched the procession draw nearer. At the head, an escort flag flapped. With several carriages and people moving past, the column looked at a glance like an escort run or a merchant caravan—but.
"An escort run at this hour? Strange."
At Gwak Yeon's words Ju Hwa-jeong nodded as well.
"And if those are Wondan Escort Agency flags—did we not see them two days ago at the relay station by the fork in the road?"
"The roads diverged there for certain."
"They do not look like the same people either."
"Everyone has their heads down, so it's hard to tell—but it is suspicious."
The figures drew steadily closer. Approaching as if they meant to pass straight through the bamboo grove, their course had at some point angled subtly toward the people of the Cheonhae Merchant Group.
Step…… step……
Clatter…… clatter……
Hwang Pil looked their way and was about to shout when—
"Everyone! Hold for a mom—!"
"Caravan Master Hwang."
Gwak Yeon caught his shoulder and murmured.
"You had best prepare to fight."
"So it is that after all."
Hwang Pil nodded and drew his weapon at once. Taking the front beside Ju Hwa-jeong, who was already fully armed, he spoke in a low voice.
"Do you all remember? Chief Im once said that near Beijing there were strange ones who imitate escort agencies—"
"I don't think 'strange ones' covers it."
"Then?"
Gwak Yeon drew up the senses unique to a vampire. He caught it at once—somewhere in that suspicious carriage column posing as an escort run.
"Over there…… there are things that aren't human mixed in."
Along with a bizarre kind of blood-scent he had never smelled before, there was flowing out the smell of some uncanny something that could never come from a human being.