TSBIRBV Ch 231

Chapter 231. Biheeyeon (1)

“There was an assassination attempt on Lord Gong’s life during the night.”

At Jinyeong’s words, Yegyeol, who had been stroking Baembaem in a corner of the room, lifted his head. Jinyeong avoided meeting the gaze of Yegyeol, whose eyes lit up as though in astonishment.

Just last night, after the attack on the annex of Cheonghyeongjeon, a fire broke out that burned half the building. Haryang had let the annex burn, the reason being that his cherished disciple had inhaled smoke and fainted.

The real issue lay in Yegyeol’s entry into Taehyangjeon.

Taehyangjeon, where the cult leader decided everything from the public movements of Ilwol Shingyo to its most private matters, was utterly inviolable, unlike the inner residence of Cheonghyeongjeon. For the beloved of the Cheonma to set foot there was an event so rare it could be counted on one hand in the long history of Ilwol Shingyo.

Yegyeol, who had crossed that threshold cradled in the Cheonma’s arms, could hardly imagine how great a commotion his arrival had caused.

Recalling the storm of protests and voices he had heard before coming to Taehyangjeon, Jinyeong stifled a sigh.

“As Lord ordered beforehand, we had placed a decoy in his stead, and thus Lord Gong still draws breath.”

Haryang asked, as though indifferent to whether the Gong clan head lived or died.

“And the interrogation of those captured?”

As if awaiting the moment, Samrang, who had been standing by, reported.

“At the hour of the Rabbit (between 5 and 7 a.m.), they went into convulsions and were dead before the hour of the Dragon (7 to 9 a.m.). It appears they were poisoned with a toxin that had a short incubation, then sent to carry out their mission.”

“Were any traces left on the bodies?”

“Before that, there is something else I must report.”

Samrang’s eyes gleamed.

“According to the testimony of Muyoungdae, who were guarding Cheonghyeongjeon, one of the assailants who set the fire broke through the encirclement and rushed toward the annex. The rest threw away their lives to hold back Muyoungdae’s pursuit.”

Even if they had deliberately left a gap, it was no small matter that someone had pierced through the shadows guarding the Cheonma at such close range.

“It seems they mobilized a formidable master.”

If the enemy wielded great martial prowess, that only made them easier to track down. One had only to verify how many among the heads of the Mado Six Families still retained warriors who had attained such a realm.

Those who erased every trace from their clothing to their weapons had left flaws in the scheme they thought flawless.

“That is not all.”

Samrang paused for a moment.

“It was not fire they set. The instant he reached the annex, his body exploded, igniting the blaze.”

Haryang pressed his lips shut.

“All the rest died of self-poisoning, but that one… it is my judgment he was already dead.”

Muyoungdae had gathered what remained of the body blown to pieces, and Samrang had examined it closely afterward.

In her opinion, the focus should not be on the slain men in black, but on the one who succeeded in setting fire to the annex. Or rather, on that single corpse.

Though it seemed they had meant to burn the evidence, even from what little was left Samrang had gleaned many clues:

Skin soaked in strange chemicals and rotted, hair discolored, eyebrows and lashes melted away, nails blackened—

It was undoubtedly a ghoul (jiangshi).

“Was there anyone who clearly witnessed its movements?”

Like a colossal gatekeeper, Hongyeo finally opened his mouth.

“At first it was mingled among the attackers, and their garb was the same. For that reason, Muyoungdae on guard at the time noticed nothing strange. But when it struck, the blades that touched its flesh skidded aside as if scraping stone. Its speed was tremendous, yet its joints scarcely moved, and like a man driven mad by raging demonic power, it hurled itself straight at the annex.”

Yegyeol realized, for the first time since meeting Hongyeo, that he was capable of speaking at such length.

“Did you also feel no incongruity?”

After some hesitation, Hongyeo answered.

“…Its chest did not rise and fall.”

If alive, one must needs breathe, yet from the ghoul no such sign could be read.

That Hongyeo perceived even such an awkward detail in the dark of night spoke to his keen eye.

“This makes the second time…”

Haryang muttered quietly.

This was already the second appearance of a ghoul. The first had been during the Qinghai attack. Now, since they had even appeared within the Demonic Cult itself, it was beyond doubt that remnants of the Demon Physician, or someone who had inherited his research, was moving in the shadows.

“I thought I had eradicated all of the Demon Physician’s disciples and every creation born of his hand… Was it not enough to destroy merely two clans?”

With Haryang’s murmur, the air in the room inverted at once. Though the chill scraped at their very skin, Jinyeong and Samrang strove to maintain calm.

Then, a guileless voice cleaved the tension.

“It’s really strange, isn’t it? Am I the only one who thinks so?”

Watching the flow of events while petting Baembaem, Yegyeol suddenly spoke.

“I don’t know the doctrines in detail, but in Ilwol Shingyo, isn’t the Cheonma supposed to be like a god? Then what kind of believer tries to attack their god?”

“Strictly speaking, they do not serve the Cheonma himself. They worship the power that the Cheonma embodies.”

Though the question had been aimed at Samrang, it was Haryang who answered. Perhaps judging that Yegyeol might also be affected, the murderous air around him eased somewhat.

“Oh… Then they could choose to serve another god instead?”

Yegyeol nodded earnestly as he spoke to Haryang, seeming wholly unaffected.

Samrang and Jinyeong exchanged glances, something strange glinting in their eyes.

“Master Mun does not seem to believe this is merely the last struggle of the Mado Six Families.”

At Samrang’s remark, Yegyeol shrugged.

“For a desperate struggle, it feels a little bland.”

Jinyeong’s expression turned subtle.

Bland, he said. Only someone who had blown the roof off the main building of Cheonghyeongjeon could call such a thing bland. For those men had dared to violate the Cheonma’s dwelling. Cheonghyeongjeon was not a place any could enter at will.

If Taehyangjeon was the site where the Cheonma carried out the most public of duties, then Cheonghyeongjeon was where his most private life was housed. Even partners formally wedded to the Cheonma, children, or disciples had at times been denied entry there.

“They rammed a ghoul primed to explode not into men but into a building. After causing all that chaos, what they achieved was… killing a prisoner already captured, already condemned. Doesn’t that weigh on your mind?”

Yegyeol wrinkled his nose slightly as he added this. Absorbed in thought, he had almost slipped into speaking impudently before his Senior Brother.

Indeed, if their true aim was Haryang’s life, they would never have dispatched such meager assassins. This recalled what Haryang had hinted to Yegyeol the night before.

It was a stratagem to feint east while striking west.

“Perhaps the late Lord of the Gong clan knew something vital, and they wished to prevent him from telling you, Senior Brother…”

It was common knowledge that the Mado Six Families feared the Cheonma. Though they had not shown open hostility, it was an open secret nonetheless.

But to set fire to Cheonghyeongjeon merely to conceal such a thing?

“You are right. We captured Lord Gong because we suspected he had harbored one of the Demon Physician’s disciples. The assault in Qinghai was also pinned on him.”

Yegyeol blinked. The assassins who had approached the carriage when he was alone with his Senior Brother in Qinghai had not been aiming for Haryang but for him.

And now, to hear that none other than his Senior Brother—so virtuous and upright that none could rival him—had promptly shifted the blame onto a political enemy?

This… this is kind of moving.

Yegyeol was touched. Until now, he had thought his Senior Brother was far too naive, someone who would cause grave trouble if left on his own.

The kind of man who would buy from an old classmate hawking worthless products, or be tricked by a scammer at Gangnam Station claiming to be lost, even board a van at their beckoning. Or who might sign onto a distant fishing vessel because they promised three meals a day.

As he ran through the endless possibilities, he shuddered, resolving to keep a close eye on him. He even thought it fortunate that it was he who had crossed into Murim, rather than Haryang who had entered modern Korea.

If it had been the other way around, Yegyeol would have had to rewrite the record of his overprotective guiding as an esper.

Come to think of it, he became the leader of the Demonic Cult without me around…

He had worried his Senior Brother was too kind for his own good, but seeing that he had become one of the most formidable villains in all the Central Plains proved that humans truly were creatures capable of growth.

Sensing Yegyeol’s gaze, Haryang glanced at him. Yegyeol grinned as if it were nothing, and Haryang’s lips softened in turn.

Then he turned back to Samrang and Jinyeong.

“I have secured the method for creating Asura Blood Ghouls. I have the list of ingredients arranged—track those who have purchased them.”

When he had gone with Yegyeol to Hangzhou, Haryang had dealt with Jinpal and disposed of all his goods. But he still remembered the method of producing the Asura Blood Ghoul that he had learned from Jinpal.

Above all, among the living, it was not the Demon Physician’s disciples or comrades but Je Haryang himself who had spent the longest time in that laboratory. Once given a few fragments, reconstructing the entire picture around him was no impossible task.

It was not as though Jinpal had inherited all his master’s research, nor was it likely that the hidden enemy behind the Gong clan head had fully secured the method for crafting ghouls. Haryang had already destroyed and burned most of it.

Yet there would still be overlapping elements.

On that point, Haryang intended to wager.

“Shall we mobilize Muwoldang?”

“No. This time we will use Qinghai Trading Company.”

Haryang shook his head.

Though he had turned Muwoldang upside down several times after placing Samrang at its head, it was still a spy network directly tied to the cult. Its movements would easily reach the ears of the Mado Six Families.

The roots of the families stretched deep and wide, interwoven with the very history of Ilwol Shingyo.

In times like these, it was fortunate that the Qinghai Trading Company existed. Ranked among the three great merchant guilds of the Central Plains in terms of wealth, its influence across the trading world was immense.

Nor was that all. Though he did not say it aloud for Yegyeol to hear, Haryang also possessed the Black Spot—eyes that oversaw every trade flowing through both the bright and the shadowed sides of the Central Plains.

“Yes.”

“Muwoldang… Let them investigate Lord Gong’s death. However they try to connect it to the Cheonghyeongjeon incident, they will find no evidence and struggle for it.”

Haryang expressed his regret beforehand with a voice full of mock sympathy.

Samrang bared her teeth in a smile.

“They will be delighted indeed.”