“Father, did you call for me?”
An Hupyeong entered the main hall where the leader of the Shinhwa Gang conducted his affairs.
The leader of the Shinhwa Gang, An Cheonggwang.
He was a truly self-made figure, a man who had raised the Shinhwa Gang from an ordinary local sect into a great power known to everyone on the Evil Path.
His martial arts were profound, and his temperament was anything but ordinary. If anyone caused him harm, he would take revenge without fail, and he had the nerve not to blink even with a blade at his throat. On top of that, he possessed a desire for success stronger than anyone else’s.
There were two guests in the main hall, and when An Hupyeong realized who they were, he flinched in surprise.
Whenever his father’s legend was spoken of, two masters were always mentioned. The two leading figures who, together with his father, had made the Shinhwa Gang what it was today.
The Ran-Snake Sword and the Iron Cold Saber.
Had they not aided his father as if his affairs were their own, the Shinhwa Gang could never have grown this large. For that reason, his father treated them more preciously than family.
And as long as his father’s ambitions were still in progress, there would be no casting them aside after they had served their purpose.
They were two men whose faces were difficult to see under normal circumstances, yet now they were gathered in one place.
“I pay my respects to the elders.”
An Hupyeong greeted them politely.
The two masters nodded once, accepting his greeting with only their eyes. Of course, An Hupyeong was dissatisfied with that attitude.
‘No matter how young I am, I am still the Young Gang Leader in name.’
Since it had been so long, could they not at least ask whether he had been well?
It was not that he hated them; he hated his father. Those two masters had always been cold-hearted and wicked by nature.
But if his father cherished and trusted him, then for his father’s sake at least, they would not treat him so indifferently.
Just how displeased with him must his father usually be for them to disregard him like this?
An Cheonggwang asked abruptly.
“I hear you met the Cheonhwa Pavilion Mistress?”
“Yes, I am just returning from meeting her.”
“Why did you meet someone I summoned as a judge?”
“Is the Cheonhwa Pavilion Mistress not the owner of the most famous brothel in the Central Plains? She must surely be an extraordinary person, so I went to see her thinking there might be something I could learn.”
An Hupyeong thoroughly concealed his true feelings.
To be honest, he wanted to ask this.
Have you fallen for that woman? Is that why you summoned the owner of a mere brothel as a judge?
But if he did, given his father’s temperament, a thunderous rebuke would fall upon him. Moreover, if he said such a thing in the presence of the Ran-Snake Sword and the Iron Cold Saber, he might even be beaten to death.
“I heard that you changed the final judge to the Cheonhwa Pavilion Mistress at the last moment, Father.”
It would have been nice if he explained that he had changed it for such and such a reason.
“This is not something for you to concern yourself with.”
With answers like that, how could he not be suspicious and worried?
‘Not something for me to concern myself with? The wealth of our gang is at stake here. How is that yours alone, Father?’
At that moment, a subordinate entered and reported.
“They say one of the contestants in this tournament is from the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.”
An Cheonggwang’s expression immediately hardened. The Ran-Snake Sword and the Iron Cold Saber, who were with him, also looked at each other and exchanged glances.
“Is that certain?”
“We are currently verifying it through the Evil Path Alliance.”
“Report to me as soon as you find out.”
“Yes.”
The subordinate ran outside.
An Cheonggwang, who had been about to turn toward the Ran-Snake Sword and the Iron Cold Saber, also dismissed his son.
“You may go.”
An Hupyeong bowed politely and left, then turned back to look at his father from the doorway. His father was speaking with the two masters with grave expressions on their faces.
‘What is so serious?’
If it were a martial arts tournament, perhaps, but was this not a beauty contest?
What did it matter whether the contestant was from the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult or the daughter of a righteous faction hero? It was simply a tournament held for the entire martial world to enjoy.
When the decision to hold the tournament was first made, his father had said this.
—Through this tournament, there will be no one in the Central Plains who does not know the name of our gang.
If it became a tournament in which even the Demon Cult participated, would that not suit the purpose even better?
And yet the atmosphere surrounding it was not that of a festival.
‘Something I don’t know about is definitely happening.’
When he came out of the main hall, Sachu, who had been waiting there, relayed the news.
“Mr. Yong has arrived and gone to the Cheonhwa Pavilion Mistress.”
At the unexpected news, An Hupyeong was startled.
“Already? How?”
“The Gang Leader summoned him, so Mr. Yong was already here at the gang.”
Normally, Mr. Yong stayed outside. But his father had even called Mr. Yong to the gang? Now he was even more curious about what was going on.
“And yet he went without even seeing me?”
“You know Mr. Yong’s temperament, don’t you?”
Of course he knew it well. He was short-tempered and willful. He was truly uncontrollable, but at the very least, his skills were acknowledged by all.
The reason such a man was called “Mr.” was because he himself wanted to be addressed that way.
His father believed that Mr. Yong would one day cause a major incident and did not use him in important matters, and thanks to that, An Hupyeong had been able to join hands with him.
“You knew Mr. Yong was a difficult man to control.”
That was why he had said so many times that they should not call him.
An Hupyeong scowled and glared at Sachu.
“If you had done your job properly, there would have been no need to call him.”
Sachu did not make excuses and lowered his head. He knew well what kind of person An Hupyeong was. He was someone who took another’s excuses as a challenge. At times like this, it was best simply to keep one’s mouth shut.
An Hupyeong moved quickly. This was not the time to be harrying Sachu.
‘I have to see that hateful bastard get beaten down with my own eyes.’
Especially that fellow who was as handsome as a male courtesan! He was today’s target.
An Hupyeong strode toward the guest hall where the Cheonhwa Pavilion Mistress was staying.
* * *
The words Mr. Yong had heard most often were these:
Even for someone of the Evil Faction, isn’t this too much?
Those words contained his entire life.
He had committed deeds without hesitation that made even the average villain of the Evil Faction click his tongue.
And today, that Mr. Yong was angry.
Because the Gang Leader had summoned him, he had rushed to the Shinhwa Gang as if flying. He had come full of anticipation, wondering why he had been called, but two days had passed since his arrival, and he had still not seen the Gang Leader’s face even once.
Yet when he heard that the Gang Leader was meeting first with the Ran-Snake Sword and the Iron Cold Saber, who had arrived today, his anger burst forth.
“Leeches living off their old reputations!”
Once An Hupyeong ascended to the position of Gang Leader, he intended to deal with those two first. For that to happen, he had to carry out the task entrusted to him by the future Gang Leader.
Mr. Yong arrived at the guest hall where the Cheonhwa Pavilion Mistress was staying.
Sachu had told him to appropriately teach the best-looking one among the guards a lesson.
‘Consider yourself unlucky today.’
Because today, the standard for “appropriately” was likely to be somewhat extreme.
Mr. Yong slowly pushed open the door to the guest hall.
Then the scene inside unfolded before him.
The Extreme Evil Lesser Demon and the Cheonhwa Pavilion Mistress were sitting side by side drinking tea, and the Faceless Guests were scattered throughout the guest hall, resting.
The gazes of those inside all turned toward Mr. Yong at once.
Why was that? Truly, why was that?
Srrk, tak.
Mr. Yong closed the door again. He shut it quietly, like someone who had come to the wrong room.
After closing the door, Mr. Yong asked himself in front of it.
‘Why did I close the door?’
No one had drawn a weapon, and no one had even revealed killing intent. They had simply looked at him in an utterly peaceful atmosphere.
Unable to withstand those gazes, his hand had closed the door of its own accord.
‘Don’t tell me I was frightened? Impossible!’
It was the first time something like this had ever happened, so he was bewildered.
It was right then.
Puak!
A dagger pierced through the door and shot out.
The protruding dagger stopped right in front of his left eye, where he stood before the door. If it had come out even a little farther, it would have stabbed his eye.
Even as he looked at the blade of the dagger jutting out before his eyes, Mr. Yong did not step back. He had instinctively realized that it had not been an attack meant to kill him.
Puak!
Another dagger pierced through beside it. This time as well, it stopped precisely in front of his other eye.
Still, Mr. Yong did not step back.
Puak!
The dagger that pierced through next stopped in front of his throat, but Mr. Yong did not retreat.
Puak!
The next dagger that shot out stopped before his heart.
All four daggers were aimed at his vital points.
From the start, they had not intended to kill him. They had simply shown him, with perfect precision, that they were aiming at his vitals.
One might think it was nothing special for a martial artist to pierce a door with a dagger, but the technique displayed just now was no ordinary skill.
The daggers protruded without the slightest tilt, and they had accurately calculated the positions of his eyes and throat outside the door. What was astonishing was that the distance had been controlled exactly, close enough to touch but not quite.
Moreover, the problem was that it was not one person who had thrust in several daggers.
Each dagger was different.
There was no way one person would carry so many different daggers, which meant several people had each displayed a move in turn.
Could that be possible?
The fact that it looked as if one person had stabbed them in meant that their skills were both remarkably high and evenly matched.
Sssrk.
The daggers that had been jutting out withdrew inside all at once.
The slowly vanishing daggers seemed to be saying this:
If you want to live, leave.
Ordinarily, he would have smashed the door down and gone in at once.
How dare they do something like this to him? He would have twisted and broken the wrists of the ones who had stabbed out those daggers. Though he had been told merely to teach them a lesson, he would have wrecked them all.
That was the kind of man he was.
And yet his body would not move. He did not feel like it. But he could not simply turn away either.
Enduring humiliation? He had never done such a thing in his life.
If he just left, what would he say to the Young Gang Leader? What if rumors spread through the gang that he had grown frightened and turned away?
He should have left when his instincts first warned him.
His survival instinct could not overcome the life he had continued by habit.
He opened the door again and walked inside, shouting with great vigor.
“What kind of men wear face veils like girls?”
But at the scene inside, Mr. Yong flinched in surprise and his eyes widened.
Huh?
The people inside were not wearing face veils. Instead of veils, they were wearing pure white masks.
Creeeak.
The white mask closing the door behind him was smiling.
* * *
When An Hupyeong arrived at the guest hall, he expected to hear screams of agony, but it was unexpectedly quiet.
“Surely not? He didn’t kill him, did he?”
At An Hupyeong’s worried words, Sachu answered.
“In case something like that happened, I told him they were the Gang Leader’s guests.”
At that, An Hupyeong was relieved. Mr. Yong was willful, but he was afraid of his father.
An Hupyeong looked forward to it.
The sight of that guard sprawled face-first on the floor, his face swollen and his front teeth all broken.
‘You smiled so arrogantly, didn’t you? Let’s see if you can smile today.’
And he intended to personally tear off and rip apart that damned face veil of his. Unless Mr. Yong had already torn it off, that was.
Thus An Hupyeong opened the guest hall door and stepped inside.
“If you had arrived, you should have come to see me first……”
At that moment, An Hupyeong fell silent. Mr. Yong, whom he had naturally expected to be there, was not in the room.
The Cheonhwa Pavilion Mistress was drinking tea, and the Extreme Evil Lesser Demon, who had been looking out the window, turned to look this way. The rest of the Faceless Guests were scattered throughout the guest hall. Some were maintaining their weapons, some were sitting in chairs and resting, and some were folding clothes.
At the sight of them spending an utterly peaceful moment, An Hupyeong turned to Sachu and asked with his eyes.
‘What happened? You said Mr. Yong went here first.’
Sachu wore an expression that said he did not know either.
An Hupyeong turned his head again and asked the Cheonhwa Pavilion Mistress.
“Did anyone happen to come here?”
The Cheonhwa Pavilion Mistress shook her head.
“No, no one came.”
Right. If he had come, there was no way these bastards would be so perfectly fine.
An Hupyeong’s gaze turned toward the Extreme Evil Lesser Demon.
The man who had been standing by the window was now standing behind the Cheonhwa Pavilion Mistress, looking at him.
The other Faceless Guests were also looking at him. No one was smiling.
‘Mere guards, and yet!’
It displeased him greatly that they were staring so intently at him, the Young Gang Leader of the Shinhwa Gang.
Moreover, what lay in their eyes was neither respect nor fear. They were unpleasant gazes, as if they were looking at an animal trapped in a cage.
‘Where the hell did he go without smashing these things apart?’
Meanwhile, Sachu was examining the door.
When he had just entered, he had seen marks left on the door. So he examined the inside as well, and there were marks in the exact same places.
‘Traces of blades piercing through!’
When he realized they had not been there when he first came earlier, the downy hairs on his arms all stood on end.
‘No way. He came?’
He looked around. Not a single piece of furniture was broken. A fight had broken out with him, and yet the room was this intact?
Most decisively, not one person in this room was injured. There was not even a scratch.
And Mr. Yong was such a master.
But the reason his heart grew uneasy was the same.
There was no way that foul-tempered, impatient man would say he was going and then not come.
‘If, by any chance, these people killed Mr. Yong? Then the body?’
This was the Shinhwa Gang. It was hard to believe they had killed him without anyone getting hurt, but how had they disposed of the body?
At that moment, Sachu looked at the Faceless Guest standing near him.
The Faceless Guest was staring straight at him. The Faceless Guest standing behind him was looking at him with a similar gaze.
The instant he saw those strange eyes that could not be described, a chill ran through him, and he instinctively knew.
‘These crazy bastards killed Mr. Yong!’
At that moment, An Hupyeong walked toward him and said,
“What are you doing? Whenever you enter this room, you lose your senses.”
An Hupyeong left the room without even greeting the Cheonhwa Pavilion Mistress, and just as Sachu was about to follow him out—
The Extreme Evil Lesser Demon slowly raised his hand and made a shushing gesture.
At that sight, Sachu’s heart sank.
‘He realized that I realized.’
The next moment, the rest of the Faceless Guests all raised their fingers in one movement.
Shh!
All of them were looking at him and making shushing gestures. It was a terrifying and bizarre sight unlike anything he had ever seen in his life.
Just then, An Hupyeong shouted from behind him.
“If you can’t even win, then why aren’t you coming? What are you staring at?”
Sachu reflexively looked back at An Hupyeong, then turned his eyes back into the guest hall.
As if nothing had ever happened, those inside were drinking tea, folding clothes, yawning, and each attending to their own business.