TSBIRBV Ch 34

Chapter 34 Black Ghost (6)

“Chief Jin Sam has apparently risen to the position of general manager…”

“No wonder there’s been no word from him for a while.”

Tang Seoak set aside the bamboo slip he’d been reading and let out a bitter laugh. Before him, Tang Eonbo lowered her shoulders. Her cousin, usually so skilled at concealing any emotion, now wore a decidedly grim face.

“I thought I had found a fine friend in the Qinghai Company after years of working together. Yet now that his status has changed, he dares turn his back on me.”

Tang Eonbo swallowed a sigh.

“Once he settles, he’ll reach out again.”

“You think so?”

Meeting his hopeful gaze, she nodded.

Her chest ached to see her older cousin, who had always soared so steadily, now stumbled by hardship.

The Tang Clan in Sichuan was strict in its divide between the main and collateral branches. Tang Seoak and Tang Eonbo were both of the collateral, born and raised in Tangkata. They had been indoctrinated from birth, reared as workers for the clan. No matter a lifetime’s devotion, their fate was to serve the direct line.

But her cousin Tang Seoak had something different about him. Always working tirelessly, he honed his talent until his martial prowess could rival even the direct line. On top of that, his reputation inside and outside the clan was excellent. Elders of the clan were even keeping him in mind, rare for someone collateral.

Yet after the deal with Qinghai Trading soured and he was forced to pay a large compensation, even his hard-earned status was now on shaky ground.

One mistake—that was all it took. And for collateral like Tang Seoak, even that was unforgivable.

I should have supported him better.

How hard had he tried to curry favor with that one caravan master? He had drunk foul wine by the urn, only to vomit at dawn. He’d been dragged into brothels he detested, because Jin was a debaucher whose vice turned each night into humiliation.

The upright cousin who returned home at dawn felt ashamed under her eyes—and shut himself in his room.

That was the connection they had with Qinghai.

Jin Sam, to dump all responsibility and vanish—we’ll see what becomes of you if I ever find you.

No—wrong.

It was Tang Eonbo herself who had ruined things.

Hadn’t she guarded countless caravans before? But she had underestimated the ragtag Green Forest bandits—and everything had been stolen.

Even when she managed to chase them late, by then the fortress was burned to cinders. Realizing the goods had been too valuable, the bandits had abandoned their lair entirely.

Her cousin’s voice broke her train of guilt.

“Thanks to you paying part of the compensation, the backlash within the family is less.”

Because of her intervention, he had managed to downplay the amount owed to Qinghai. If the full story had come out, he would have been finished.

“Thank you. I will not forget this.”

“It’s nothing.”

In that moment, she felt grateful for the mother who had married outside into a merchant’s family.

“It is my responsibility.”

Seoak’s palm landed on her shoulder.

“I worry for what comes next, but I trust you can handle it.”

Contracts had gone to the branch families allied with Emei and Qingcheng, but surely Qinghai would remain with Tang, thought Seoak.

Emei Sect. Qingcheng Sect. Those names landed with the weight of boulders in her chest. If the Nine Schools wanted to expand in Sichuan through those branches, it was obvious. They might even send disciples from their main mountain to join the escort lines.

“Have you found out who will now oversee Qinghai’s Sichuan branch?”

“I pried it out of one of Jin Sam’s men. Last caravan, the one who accompanied them—a so-called Young Master Wen—he looks to be the new one.”

Tang Eonbo had wrung the name out, rough as it felt. The worker said that after everything was overhauled internally, the name Wen Yegyeol was put forth.

Anyone living in Sichuan, even as branch staff, knew they could not ignore the Tang Clan. That made it possible to uncover.

She hadn’t enjoyed bullying the weaker into spilling. But she bore with the foul taste.

“Wen… Yegyeol, was it.”

Seoak’s brow twitched as he recalled Jin’s drunk ramblings in the pleasure house: some wet-eared brat had appeared to take Qinghai’s future into his grip. Jin had only said that much, as though deliberately gagged.

Perhaps it was even a secret Jin himself didn’t know. His loose tongue usually boasted of everything.

“In any case, I’ll find an opening. Meet him properly.”

His eyes narrowed.

“I will not disappoint you this time, cousin.”

“Don’t say that, Eonbo.”

He reassured her with a tap to her shoulder.

“Blood may be distant, but we are still family.”

“Cousin…!”

Her eyes burned. Bowing her head, she steadied her rising emotions and forced them down.

“I will hunt them down. I will chew their very flesh.”

Her eyes gleamed with the characteristic green glow—the Tang Clan’s famed poison qi. Seoak nodded with satisfaction.

“Good. Formidable.”

“I don’t want to go.”

Yegyeol muttered as he lay sprawled in the rear garden’s grass. Coiled on his stomach, Baembaem lifted its head, flicking its tongue.

“What, you think I just shouldn’t? But going is a greater gain.”

He stroked its snout and fed in a breath of his own qi. Its eyes flashed golden.

It looked like any other snake—but in those flashing eyes, Yegyeol felt a kinship that defied words. To know there was another creature—not human—that shared his power, that used the same force, was oddly comforting.

“Don’t they have spirit-beast scholars here…?”

Information on the Millennium Thunder-Horned Python was desperately scarce. How Yegyeol longed for a search engine, cluttered with ads but still delivering knowledge in seconds.

Now, the only way to learn more was through battered ancient tomes or some hermit sage hidden in remote valleys. Consulting networks like Hao Clan or Beggar’s Union was possible, but from that moment on, everyone in Jianghu would know the lost python’s master was found.

Social media stars get sponsorships. Martial-world stars just get beheaded.

“Still, at least you understand me. Right?”

Smiling, he poked a finger out for Baembaem to nuzzle.

If replenished with qi regularly, the little spirit beast didn’t even need food. It had taken quite some time to discover this. Early on, he had tried offerings of meat, fruits, bird eggs, fish, even insects. All disappeared quickly enough.

He came to see—it could eat anything, but preferred bird eggs and fresh fruit. Watching it gulp down an egg bigger than its own head, he almost missed his old phone—the one he’d fried with lightning.

“There you are.”

A shadow fell across him. Yegyeol pushed himself upright. Baembaem slid smoothly off his belly, vanishing into the flowers.

“You just let it go like that?”

Asked Je Haryang, resting his paper parasol.

“It’s just avoiding us for a bit. It’ll wander, grab a meal, and come back.”

Setting the umbrella by his side, Haryang replied,

“You two have grown close.”

Noticing his Senior Brother about to sit beside him, Yegyeol quickly raised a hand to delay him.

“Wait.”