Chapter 197. Because There Are Villains by My Side
There are several reasons why I suspect the White-Clad Scholar is Kwaedang’s Demon Gentleman.
The first is that he gifted me the Moon Shadow Heartless Art. What reason could he have had for giving me an ice art after meeting me only once?
In truth, his intent is unclear.
The Demon Gentleman likely investigated me as well before bringing the Moon Shadow Heartless Art to Murong Bai.
And what would an investigation turn up?
Most of the information gathered would have been that I had mercilessly beaten to death the leaders of the Black Path. The Black Ship Fortress Lord, the Great Rakshasa, Mr. Su, the Two-Dragon Old Lord, some of the Twelve Divine Generals, the Tyrant Sword Society Leader, and so on. In particular, men of leader rank had generally been beaten to death in brutal fashion.
In other words, I had been added to his roster of persons of interest.
Just like the Butcher or the Woodcutter.
Second, was the Moon Shadow Heartless Art a normal martial art?
No.
The book of the Moon Shadow Heartless Art describes a method of harvesting yin as a way to obtain extreme yin true qi. In other words, it is both a demonic art and an ice art that obtains extreme yin true qi by killing people. Our Mr. Murong, who had read that method several times, had been so wounded in spirit that he grew visibly haggard to my eyes.
At a glance, he had been on the verge of qi deviation. I still remember what Murong Bai said to me at the time.
“If the person who created this martial art is alive somewhere, I want to find him and kill him.”
Because the method of training written there showed not the slightest trace of mercy. In other words, that bastard Demon Gentleman had blackened Murong Bai’s heart with a single book, then passed it on to me as well.
But there is one thing the Demon Gentleman absolutely cannot know about me.
From the start, I possess the Heavenly Jade.
Meaning I have no need to accumulate extreme yin true qi through harvesting yin.
The reason the Demon Gentleman handed me the Moon Shadow Heartless Art may have been that, just as I had been active all this time by brutally killing the Black Path, he hoped for “the birth of another public enemy of murim.”
Just like what happened with the Butcher.
If, in truth, I did not have the Heavenly Jade.
If I were a bastard completely deranged by slaughter, revenge, or martial arts, then after obtaining the Moon Shadow Heartless Art, I would have continued an even more brutal massacre than now in order to cultivate the ice art.
Of course, given my disposition, my blade would have been aimed at the Black Path, but...
If I had gone around killing people every other day and extracting their essence to use as the foundation of the Moon Shadow Heartless Art, I would have been becoming the Mad Demon even faster than in my previous life.
One might say the Demon Gentleman’s hidden intent would have hit its mark.
So all these deductions begin from the fact that, in the first place, the reason the Demon Gentleman handed me the Moon Shadow Heartless Art was extremely unclear.
“Simply to compete with him in lightness skill?”
He is not that simple a bastard.
Once I firmed up my suspicion that the White-Clad Scholar was the Demon Gentleman, various questions also came to mind.
How on earth had he moved from the Demonic Path to the Orthodox Path in my previous life?
And how did he manage to never be exposed as the Evil Emperor, the identity the Murim Alliance was searching for?
Also, with what intent did he enter the Orthodox Path?
I was dying of curiosity.
At that moment, the Third Young Master’s guard was the first to appear at the entrance, having bought liquor and side dishes. I had been lost in thought all this time without even properly wiping the blood from my body, and I glared at the guard.
“...You’re here?”
“Yes, Gate Master. I will set the liquor and side dishes over here.”
“Do that.”
Still lost in thought, I continued glaring at the Third Young Master’s guard.
“A way to move from the Demonic Path to the Orthodox Path?”
In that instant, I felt as if goosebumps rose all over my body, and a low laugh slipped out of me on its own.
When I laughed by myself, the Third Young Master’s guard looked at me with startled eyes.
“Why are you laughing all of a sudden?”
“Because life suddenly seemed funny.”
“Yes.”
“What about you?”
“I do not know, since I have little to laugh about.”
“Noted.”
Because I know what happened in my previous life, I know the Butcher later becomes a public enemy of murim.
But I did not know that the Butcher had fellow disciples like this. Assuming they had all been alive, even if the Murim Alliance stepped in, capturing them would not have been easy.
If the Butcher, the Woodcutter, and the Fisherman joined forces, would not at least someone ranked among the Ten Great Masters of the Murim Alliance have had to personally lead his subordinates out?
But what would happen if the White-Clad Scholar personally brought the heads of such public enemies of murim and went to the Murim Alliance saying he wished to devote himself to them?
What I mean is...
If he had the merit of killing several public enemies of murim, it would be more than enough for him to enter the alliance.
The people of the world would see it as the appearance of a hero who had beaten public enemies of murim to death. And the very few who knew the circumstances would think of him as an unparalleled villain who had cut off his disciples’ heads to enter the Murim Alliance.
Of course, if things reached that point, even the very few who knew that would already have been killed by the White-Clad Scholar.
In any case, right now I am only in a situation where I suspect the White-Clad Scholar is the Demon Gentleman. That is why I also cannot reveal that the White-Clad Scholar later becomes the Evil Emperor.
I feel as though I have witnessed a vast evil of a different form from the Demonic Cult Leader. Strangely enough, if my prediction is correct, the White-Clad Scholar will become a man who lacks nothing when it comes to the nickname he will later obtain.
That is the Evil Emperor.
My heart and thoughts were truly tangled, but fortunately, there was liquor before my eyes.
The guard, who had neatly laid out the liquor and side dishes, said to me,
“Gate Master, please eat.”
I asked the guard in an ordinary tone.
“Poison?”
“There is none.”
“Why isn’t there?”
“I am not that brave and reckless a man.”
I nodded, then said to the guard,
“Confirm it with your own mouth.”
“Understood.”
The guard pulled out chopsticks and began examining the liquor and food.
Suddenly, this thought occurred to me.
When too many villains gather around you, you start to suspect that everyone surrounding you might be a villain.
That is me right now.
It is not easy to maintain the middle way between suspicion and a coldhearted mindset. In a way, the reason I harbor such feelings is probably also due to the White-Clad Scholar’s influence.
“This bastard is making life in the jianghu interesting.”
I chuckled to myself, then stood up to wash. I could endure the smell of blood to some extent now, but I absolutely could not bear the sticky feeling clinging to every corner of my body.
“I’m going to wash.”
“Yes.”
* * *
At the well behind the inn, I washed off the blood with a reverent heart. Only after washing away the blood can I wash my body. Only after washing my body can I scrub away the grime. In this way, there are many traces of blood on my body and in my heart.
When killing a worthy foe, Asurabalbalta; when washing off blood like now, peace like a river. Praying that I would not go mad even if the Demon Cult came after me, or if I were caught and tortured by the White-Clad Scholar, I scrubbed every inch of my body clean.
Rather than become a prisoner reeking of filth,
I imagined becoming a clean, clear, confident prisoner.
And scrubbed myself raw.
A thought suddenly came to me.
When things grew beyond control,
if a man called the Mad Demon went to the Murim Alliance and revealed that the bastard known as the White-Clad Scholar was actually the Evil Emperor, who would believe him?
No one would.
But if a man called a chivalrous hero went to the Murim Alliance and said the exact same thing, the weight of his words would be different.
Then perhaps the reason those called chivalrous heroes are strong
is because truth is contained in the words they speak.
If the truth held by a chivalrous hero is stronger than the martial arts of a man like the Mad Demon,
then that means truth is stronger than martial arts.
And so, as I reached the conclusion that if I wanted to clearly reveal some truth the people of the world did not want to believe, I myself had to live properly first, goosebumps rose over my skin even as I washed off the blood.
In my previous life, I had simply gone mad.
This time, I wondered if I might go mad trying to become a chivalrous hero. Telling myself not to let that happen, keeping myself on guard, I washed the blood away.
I am not a chivalrous hero.
When you think about it, those called chivalrous heroes are people who accomplish the things most people in the world find difficult, sometimes bothersome, and prefer to turn away from. Namely, things done for others rather than for themselves.
Thinking about it, there are no madmen quite like these people.
For the first time in my life, I came to inwardly respect those who had been called chivalrous heroes in the past. I did not respect them because they were strong; the mere fact that they had been chivalrous heroes was worthy of respect.
* * *
After changing into the clothes the Lust Demon had brought, I joined the drinking table. For a moment, Master Yukhap took out a silver needle and checked whether there was any poison in the food and wine.
As you can see, the three of us did not trust the Third Young Master’s guards at all.
Not killing someone immediately and continuing to be wary of them are entirely different things. A person can only be trusted after watching them over time.
In any case, each of us silently drank and picked at the side dishes while reviewing the fight in our own minds. The reason the Lust Demon and the Ghost Demon had gathered their belongings and joined me at the Thousand-Li Inn was because they had expected the master of those who had died here to be someone I could not handle alone.
You could tell just by looking at the Butcher and the Woodcutter.
In other words, the Lust Demon and the Ghost Demon did not want me to be defeated and killed by someone.
I knew how the two of them felt, so I had nothing in particular to say. A short while later, I spoke to the guard in charge of cleaning, who had returned after disposing of the Woodcutter’s corpse.
“Stop cleaning and come eat.”
“Understood. I’ll wash up first.”
A little while later, we sat around one table and drank in silence. The quiet continued for quite some time before the Lust Demon asked as if he were curious.
“If we’d chased after that fisherman bastard earlier, could we have caught him?”
Master Yukhap tilted his head.
“I think it would have been difficult. With the Sect Leader’s qinggong skills, you could have caught up, but it would have been hard to decide the match in a short time. He was the Woodcutter’s senior martial brother, after all. What do you think?”
I nodded in agreement as well.
“Right. Even if our qinggong skills were similar, he started running first…”
“It seems they have a master. What do you think about that?”
I told him only a suitable amount of information.
“Before the Butcher died, he confessed that he’d been tortured by his master. If the disciples are that insane, the master can’t be sane either.”
In truth, the bastard known as the White-Clad Scholar was not the kind of man who would rush here at once to take revenge just because a few of his disciples had died. In my estimation, he might have shut himself away to read books, gone into seclusion after becoming obsessed with tea ceremony, or be wandering around in search of other disciples. Or else, as I had known him in my previous life, he might be roaming around with the masters of Kwaedang, competing in qinggong matches…
In other words, he was the type to completely stop caring once something fell outside his interests.
More than that, I was curious about the Demon Cult’s circumstances, so I asked the guard.
“You.”
“Yes.”
“What’s your name?”
At my question, the Lust Demon and the Ghost Demon also glared at the guard. Did the guard know that his life might be taken not by me, but by these two villains?
He introduced himself in a polite tone.
“I have no surname. My name is Sambok, written with sam, the character for three, and bok, the character for belly. It means the third trusted aide.”
“Why is the third trusted aide here instead of accompanying the Third Young Master?”
“After I said one word to the Butcher, the Third Young Master struck me and I lost consciousness, didn’t I?”
“And?”
“I thought I was dead. When I woke up, I was simply dumbfounded.”
When I nodded, the Lust Demon sneered.
“What an incredible trusted aide.”
The Ghost Demon nodded as well.
“So he was a trusted aide who shouldn’t be hit.”
Pouring Sambok a cup of wine, I asked him to talk about the Demon Cult.
“Then let’s hear Sambok’s opinion as a drinking snack. Who do you think will become the Vice Cult Leader?”
Sambok accepted the wine and answered.
“Yes. First of all, the Cult Leader is known to have three sons in total.”
“And?”
“I do not know how many there really are. It concerns the Cult Leader’s private life, after all. I have heard there are more, but only three are mentioned in the line of succession. The families of the First Young Master and the Second Young Master are fighting not only over the position of Vice Cult Leader, but also over the vacant position of Left Envoy.”
“What about the Third Young Master?”
Sambok said with a smile.
“He had been trying to catch and kill the First Young Master and the Second Young Master.”
“How?”
Sambok spoke in an indifferent tone.
“I have not heard that much.”
“Why are they so desperate to devour their own brothers?”
Sambok answered with a surprised expression.
“…Is that not only natural? Several of the First Young Master’s half-brothers have already died at his hands. It is not only a succession struggle, but also a war of revenge between brothers. Of course, there is no proof that the First Young Master killed them himself. But everyone believes it. Since the Cult Leader does not interfere at all, it will continue until only one remains.”
I let out a brief sigh, then picked up the wine bottle and poured wine for the Lust Demon, the Ghost Demon, and Sambok.
Amid the peaceful sound of wine trickling into cups, intoxication was swelling up in full force.
“Take it. Drink. Let’s get drunk.”
I poured the wine down my throat with these bastards, then wiped my mouth.
It occurred to me anew that it was fortunate to have villains like the Lust Demon and the Ghost Demon on my side.
Because this was a story no one but villains could endure.
Just then, a creak sounded, and at the entrance of the Thousand-Li Inn appeared a man with a sealed jar of wine tucked under his arm, looking us over.
Fortunately, it was the Sword Demon, who made me feel as if an army of thousands and tens of thousands had arrived. It seemed he had come because the Lust Demon had reported to his master what had happened here.
I looked at the Sword Demon with a startled expression.
“Senior, you’ve come.”
“Master, you have arrived.”
The Sword Demon approached with an impassive expression and said to me,
“Sect Leader, I heard you’d opened a new inn, so I came to have a look.”
I had no choice but to rise and greet this guest.