TSBIRBV Ch 55

Chapter 55 The Beast-Faced Tiger (5)

All the way back up to the inn room, Yegyeol moved in a daze.

Samrang’s face, having heard everything from the Beast-Faced Tiger, was drawn tight—but he had no room left to worry about it.

“Did you make sure Senior Peng went into his room?”

“Yes. I tossed him neatly onto the bed.”

“Ruthless.”

“He’s heavy.”

Samrang dragged a chair opposite Yegyeol and sat as he slumped onto the bed. Only then did he notice how grave her expression was, and tipped his chin for her to speak.

“A moment ago, you walked a very dangerous line.”

“Using the name Je Haryang? Or extracting that old history from Peng Munhyeong?”

She lowered her eyes. “Both.”

“As a direct scion of the Hebei Peng clan and a peerless master, some people keep close watch on the Beast-Faced Tiger’s movements.”

“Perhaps the hand behind turning him from ‘Hero Peng’ into ‘Rabid Tiger’ is watching, too,” Yegyeol added, almost lazily.

Samrang’s eyes narrowed.

“This was not done without thought,” he said quietly.

Even so, her face did not ease.

“Doesn’t it trouble you more that it was planned?”

Samrang knew well he was bold—but this time he had danced on a blade. To invoke their lord’s name before the clan head’s own elder brother—of the Five Great Houses, no less…

That it had smoothed over owed to Yegyeol’s astonishing tongue and quick mind, but her heart still hammered.

“Hm. Surely not everything goes to plan,” he said, shaking his head at the memory of the Yangtze.

Tang Seoak, whom he’d thought fully cooked, had proved more vicious than expected.

“But if we’d let Peng go, we’d never have learned that outside Kunlun, Je Haryang is spoken of as a dead man—or that the orthodox abandoned Kunlun in the massacre.”

Most of all, he now ached to know why Kunlun’s sect master, who first insisted Je Haryang lived and sought to rescue him, had reversed himself at the end.

That puzzle piece could only have come from Peng Munhyeong.

Still, with just this, the outline refused to form.

“Have the village that Soul-Chaser raided twenty years ago bought up—all of it.”

“…Pardon?”

“Let the people resettle anywhere they wish, at our expense.”

Samrang frowned.

“What is this for?”

It didn’t feel like a cover-identity scheme; stirring things this hard would draw suspicion from anyone.

“Because a tiger may take a liking to raising it,” he said with a bright smile.

“I’m laying a trap in advance.”

“I thought you’d squeezed all you needed from the Beast-Faced Tiger.”

At her doubtful look, Yegyeol widened his eyes.

“Huh? Why bring Senior Peng into this? I only said ‘a tiger.’”

Samrang groaned. If he chose to be this opaque, she had no hand to play.

“We don’t have the money.”

“Then there’s no helping it.”

He shrugged.

Has he really given up? she thought, unease lingering. He never lets go that easily.

And indeed—

“Let’s head to Sichuan. There’s a fresh batch of contraband to fence.”

“And the Three Great Trading Houses?” she prodded, shaking his grandiose dream at him like a lure.

“It’s fine. I’m the capable guild master who made lightning-struck wood on the first try. Buying one village won’t dent us.”

He meant it, more or less. Samrang’s lips trembled.

“You said Baembaem made it.”

“Baembaem is me, and I am Baembaem. Right?”

He reached out; the serpent peeped its face out. Catching herself staring greedily at those glittering scales, Samrang squeezed her eyes shut.

So the “Top Three” bait wouldn’t sway him; he meant to acquire that village one way or another. True, Peng might someday seek it while hunting a false “Je Haryang.” But she still couldn’t see why Yegyeol needed the Beast-Faced Tiger. Peng was a wanderer—Hebei Peng by blood, but alone, with no force to command.

I need Jinyoung, she thought sourly. Life would be easier if the person with the really useful brain were here. Their lord needed to see how sharply Young Master Mun’s mind spun—so that Jinyoung, not poor Samrang, would be the one squeezed dry.

“There’s a Black Spot branch here, you know,” she tried.

“You’re slow on the uptake,” Yegyeol said shamelessly. “Meeting Lord Black Ghost is exactly the point. Good to cultivate ties early for smoother deals later.”

Deals—or rather, relations—his words dripped ulterior motives.

Even if she couldn’t read his heart, instinct prickled: danger.

“Please, spare my liver,” she pleaded. “Compared to before serving Young Master Mun, it must have shrunk to a quarter.”

Her mock-weep was as convincing as crocodile tears. After a properly serious pause, he intoned:

“A fox-spirit would try to eat you, then spit you out for lack of meat. Be grateful.”

His audacity refreshed itself every time he opened his mouth.

“There are no fox-spirits,” she grumbled, rising. Playing weak was pointless; better to plan cleanup.

“In any case—rest. If we visit Sichuan’s branch and then return to the Yangtze, we’ll be swamped.”

She blew out the single candle. Darkness fell.

“Samrang,” he said.

She halted at the door.

“Would Senior Brother… want me to stop digging into his past?”

“Hard to say.”

Unusually curt for her.

“I’ve never been ordered to stop you.”

“…”

“Think only of what you want to do—just as you always have.”

The lone line of light vanished as the door closed.

Yegyeol flopped onto his back, then curled a moment later. Baembaem wriggled up onto the bed.

Sensing his mood sink, the golden snake rubbed its head against his fingertip.

He paused—the pad of his finger felt something uneven.

“Mm?”

He lifted Baembaem close. Like a kitten’s milk teeth, two tiny horns had sprouted on its head.

“So you really are the ‘Millennium Thunder-Horned Python’—you even grow horns?”

Baembaem wagged its tail. A soft zzzzt of current began to run across the nubs.

“Up till now, when I used power, you just gulped it down. You can pull power out yourself now?”

The snake rolled its body in a proud little wave: exactly that.

Maybe because their powers were kin, they understood each other with just a glance—but watching Baembaem’s happy wiggle softened his chest.

After a long quiet, Yegyeol spoke.

“I thought if Senior Brother simply survived, all would be well.”

The murmur slipped out.

“It seems I was wrong.”

To the young Yegyeol, Je Haryang had been a hero—not because he belonged to Kunlun, but because Yegyeol had known him long before he became the Kunlun Cloud-Dragon.

So he had just assumed Je Haryang would overcome anything; that no matter what trials lay ahead, it would be fine.

He had pieced together versions of Je Haryang’s life, like a few-volume novel, imagining the survival—like every wuxia protagonist, he won, avenged, loved, and lived happily ever after.

But now, the scant clues in his grasp were screaming.

Je Haryang’s life was not at peace.

The honor he once held had vanished into time; what remained to him now was, at best, disgrace.

Baembaem rested its chin on Yegyeol’s forefinger and stared. As if to ask—so, will you stop here?

He snorted.

“As if. I’ll go as far as I can.”

Perhaps returning to the Central Plains had been fate after all.

He never believed in “fate,” the word espers loved to spout—waiting for some destined guide, enduring gag-worthy days. They were romantics dressing up scheduled ruin.

But here, he had found his fate.

Twice stepping from death’s door, overturning worlds, even crossing time—to meet his guide.

To Yegyeol, Je Haryang could only be called destiny.

If so, then what he had to do lay here as well.

“So much to do.”

He stroked Baembaem tenderly.

Raise Qinghai Trading into the Three Great Houses. Deal with Tang Seoak. Build ties with Black Ghost. And also—

Find every last one who laid a hand on my guide.

Drowsiness tugged. He let it take him.

Morning would come early, and there was work to do.

Footnotes:

• “Rabid Tiger” vs “Beast-Faced Tiger” — Evolving epithets for Peng Munhyeong: the former used by unorthodox enemies after his ruthless justice, the latter a later, rougher sobriquet reflecting his fearsome reputation. 
• “Government–Jianghu Noninterference” — The unwritten pact: officials do not tangle with sect affairs; martial artists do not publicly shame officials. Peng’s violation marked him for retribution. 
• “천년뇌각망 (Millennium Thunder-Horned Python)” — The spirit serpent Baembaem; “horns” (각) symbolize maturation as it begins to externalize electrical power rather than merely absorbing it.