WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 38: In April, All the Flowers of the World Have Faded (9)
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“Ptooey.”
Seo Muryang spat on the floor.
“Ptooey. Ptooey.”
Nothing even came up, but he kept spitting anyway.
“...Fuck.”
A habit he had picked up after that day.
His mouth kept feeling as if it was full of dog-shit taste, and every time it did, he spat.
“Because of that filthy lunatic...”
Seo Muryang was not like other people.
He thought so himself, and other people thought so too.
He had hated filth since he was young. Among people who might or might not bathe once every few months, he alone washed every single day. And he did not just wash. He mixed in ash from burned pine needles.
He would look at the others who did not wash and sneer to himself.
After coming of age, once his martial arts reached a certain level, he slowly came to realize something.
If he bathed in water mixed with human blood instead of pine-needle ash, it felt even better. He did have to rinse himself once more with clean water afterward, but even that only added to the refreshing feeling.
Only then did Seo Muryang finally feel at peace.
There were, of course, people who bathed every day.
But even among them, very few washed with pine-needle ash mixed into the water, and people who bathed in human blood were all but nonexistent.
Seo Muryang was that special.
And then some filthy bastard too dirty to use even as bathwater had stuffed dog shit into his mouth?
“Ptooey.”
Even after several days.
No, the more time passed, the more the anger kept boiling up.
But what angered him even more was that even with his pent-up fury piling higher and higher, he still had to keep running around busy and unable to blow off steam.
“Those vermin have made me work far too hard.”
Still, the work had been worth doing.
“Yi Yubaek won the admiration of Guangdong’s martial artists at the Buddha’s Birthday boat outing. He even made an impression on the Governor-General of Liangguang.”
Information he had only managed to piece together after nearly ten days of nonstop running around.
“If the mood was that favorable, then I also have to consider the possibility that the Governor-General of Liangguang gave him some great gift. Say, a commander tally. It seems far-fetched, but I still have to account for the worst-case scenario.”
Seo Muryang bared a grin with his thin red lips.
“If things go well, Heavenly Road Mountain may get swept away. No matter how many new experts they brought in, they’ll have a hard time if Yi Yubaek has built up that much influence. They’re in a truly desperate crisis.”
His red tongue slid over his lips.
“This time, Heavenly Road Mountain won’t be able to refuse my proposal either. If they can’t kill Yi Yubaek, then they’ll be the ones who die.”
Seo Muryang read through the letters piled on the desk one by one, then tossed them into the brazier and burned them.
The connections he had secured in Danzhou and Bulsan.
The Black Path people in Shinheung County he could command.
And lastly, if support from Heavenly Road Mountain was added too...
“Yi Yubaek. No matter how crafty that bastard is, this time I can trap him for good and kill him.”
Seo Muryang sat thinking for a moment, then Hang Inwoo came to mind.
“Hang Inwoo. As long as I’m careful around that sharp-witted little vermin...”
His eyes narrowed.
Then narrowed again.
Clap!
He slapped his hands together once and rose to his feet.
“Good. I’ve worked too much. Worked too hard. My pent-up rage is overflowing. It’s been a while since it’s boiled this badly. So shall I go vent some of it for the first time in a while?”
The Golden Powder Gang was a Black Path faction that had its hands in every business in Shinheung County involving money and women.
Seo Muryang was its gang leader.
The representative of Shinheung County’s Black Path, the biggest moneyed backer among them, and a man who had direct or indirect ties to nearly every Black Path group.
The night in Shinheung County belonged to him.
And Cheongun Pavilion, the biggest and gaudiest pleasure house of them all, belonged to him as well.
“Gang Leader, you’ve arrived!”
“Gang Leader!”
“We pay our respects, Gang Leader.”
“Welcome, Gang Leader.”
It had been nearly two years since he last visited Cheongun Pavilion, but even though he had dropped in without any warning, everyone from the lowest server to the guards and even the courtesans lowered their heads and showed him extreme deference.
Seo Muryang strode forward as if that were only natural.
The master of Cheongun Pavilion hurried over with that old, weakened body of his and attached himself to Seo Muryang’s side.
“Gang Leader. Is there anything you require?”
“Prepare one of the girls. Choran, was it? I hear she’s pretty these days. Her.”
“...Yes. She’s the most sought-after girl in Cheongun Pavilion these days.”
“Good. Bring her.”
The master of Cheongun Pavilion rolled his eyes uneasily.
“Gang Leader, the thing is... Choran is off today...”
Tap.
Seo Muryang’s long, thin fingertip lightly tapped the back of the pavilion master’s neck, right where the artery ran.
“So?”
“...It may take a little longer than usual, but I’ll prepare her and bring her as quickly as possible.”
“You should.”
Tap tap.
Seo Muryang lightly tapped the pavilion master’s artery again as he walked past.
Face gone chalk-white, the master of Cheongun Pavilion staggered back down the stairs.
* * *
Top floor of Cheongun Pavilion.
The moment she entered, Choran quietly lowered her head.
This was the first time she had ever faced him directly, but she had heard more than enough stories.
He only came to Cheongun Pavilion once every year or two at most, but on any day he came, someone always ended up badly hurt. If luck was poor, several people died.
‘Today, that just happened to be me.’
Her legs were trembling so hard it was difficult to stay standing, but Choran did not resent it.
If it was something that was going to happen to someone anyway, then that someone could just as easily be her.
“So delicate. Looks like it’d be satisfying to snap.”
Even though she heard the voice, Choran did not lift her head.
If she ever had to attend him,
never meet his eyes.
Keep her mouth shut except to answer what he asked.
She was only following the rules she had heard since childhood.
‘Ah. But... Eun-yeong.’
Choran’s heart lurched.
‘Eun-yeong mustn’t find out.’
Her heart lurched harder and harder.
“Are you that scared?”
At the voice that came to her, Choran kept her head bowed and took one deep breath.
Then she broke one of the rules the older girls had taught her since she was young.
“Forgive me, Gang Leader, but I hope you will at least leave my face unharmed. My face is the most precious property in this Cheongun Pavilion that you own, so please...”
“...”
No reply came back.
Choran trembled with her head lowered.
Hellish time passed.
“Sure. That sounds like it’d be more fun.”
Footsteps came striding closer.
And then.
Craaaack!
“Ugh...”
A fist buried itself in her lower abdomen.
“Don’t worry. I’ll handle you nice and gently. Gently. So you won’t break. Nice and long. Slowly.”
Thud!
Thud!
From the top floor of Cheongun Pavilion came loud sounds of something being beaten.
Each time another chilling noise rose from above, the master of Cheongun Pavilion and the courtesans waiting on the floor below flinched and hunched their shoulders.
* * *
“Please spare me.”
The man spoke while hanging upside down from a tree, eyes covered, hands tied behind his back, legs bound.
“I don’t know who you are, but please spare me.”
Even though no answer came, he kept begging.
“Whether you’re human or a ghost, it was all my fault. It’s my fault. I’ll live properly from now on. Please, just spare my life.”
Eun-yeong stared fixedly at the man from right in front of him.
Dawn was beginning to break.
She glanced once toward the brightening sky, then took in the man one last time.
The man who had slapped a server across the face and poured liquor over a courtesan’s head while saying that this was why servers stayed servers and courtesans stayed courtesans.
‘It’d be simple to kill him...’
Even while thinking that, Eun-yeong kept looking at him for a moment, then suddenly turned her back.
If she tied him up like this and left, some woodcutter or herb gatherer would find him and save him. She knew that well from past experience.
“Please spare me...”
Behind Eun-yeong as she headed back down the mountain, the man who had never once seen even her shadow kept trembling and begging.
“It’s complicated.”
Eun-yeong felt stifled as she descended the mountain.
Her life had originally been simple.
Obey.
Kill.
A life made of only those two things.
But after meeting Choran, one more thing had been added.
Cherish.
A feeling she had never experienced in her life before. Things she had never done before.
Still, up to there, it had been all right.
Before, she obeyed orders and killed. Now, because she cherished someone, it was enough to kill in their place.
It was only unfamiliar. It was not complicated.
But after meeting Yi Yubaek, something else had been added to her world.
Frighten.
Yi Yubaek had quietly helped Choran and Eun-yeong a great deal.
And Eun-yeong was also secretly a little afraid of Yi Yubaek.
So when Yi Yubaek told her not to kill people, she found another method.
Frighten.
Now Eun-yeong frightened people in place of killing them, because she cherished someone.
Even that alone was an enormous challenge for Eun-yeong.
But not long ago, something else happened that she had also done for the first time in her life.
‘Help...?’
It was the day of the boat outing.
No one had told Eun-yeong to do it, but she had thrown a foothold out for Yeon Sowol. So he could step on it and cross over the water.
And because of that, at last, she had been able to see Yeon Sowol standing alone on the boat.
That strange feeling she had felt then.
That unnameable feeling, as if her heart had gone light and her blood had turned warm.
Now her world had become fairly full.
Cherish. Frighten. Help...
“It’s complicated.”
But at the corner of Eun-yeong’s mouth hung the faintest trace of a smile.
Eun-yeong lightly sprang up and arrived at Cheongun Pavilion.
Creeeak.
The moment she opened the door and stepped inside, she realized something was wrong.
“Everyone’s still awake?”
Because it was a place that worked through the night, normally at this hour everyone would be getting ready for bed.
But for some reason, today she could feel signs of wakefulness everywhere.
And that was not all.
“They’re anxious. Why?”
Eun-yeong’s qi sense was sharp, and she recognized it immediately. The finely trembling currents of natural energy. All throughout Cheongun Pavilion, anxious hearts were rushing about in confusion.
“Sister Choran.”
Eun-yeong frowned and started up the stairs.
For now, she meant to see Choran first and ask what was going on.
But then,
“E-Eun-yeong? Choran just went to sleep. She was very tired today, so don’t wake her.”
Other courtesans stopped Eun-yeong in front of Choran’s room.
Eun-yeong stared at the white paper pasted over the sliding door.
“Eun-yeong. Choran is...”
“Blood smell.”
“Huh...?”
“Strong.”
Slip.
Eun-yeong’s hand slid free of the courtesans’ grasp as though slipping through water. It did not even look as if she had used much strength.
“E-Eun-yeong!”
Rattle!
Eun-yeong shoved open the sliding door and stepped inside.
“Oh, uh? Eun-yeong, you’re here? I was just about to go to sleep.”
Eun-yeong looked at Choran, who was awkwardly hauling herself upright.
Her face was smooth and pale even after she had removed her makeup.
She stood there in a clumsy posture as if sleepy.
She looked a little rumpled, but otherwise fine.
Sniff.
But after twitching her nose once, Eun-yeong’s gaze settled on Choran’s lower abdomen.
“Blood smell.”
“Hm? Ah. I’m on my period.”
“No. That one.”
“Uh...?”
Eun-yeong asked,
“Who?”
“Huh?”
“Seo Muryang?”
“...!”
“So it is.”
Eun-yeong’s nose was filled with the reek of blood.
It smelled different from menstrual blood.
The smell of stagnant blood forced out by injury.
And yet Choran was desperately trying to hide her wound.
As far as Eun-yeong knew, there was only one person feared enough by the people of Cheongun Pavilion to cause this kind of reaction.
Seo Muryang.
The moment Choran reacted to that name, suspicion became certainty.
“Sister. Rest and recover. I’ll go out for a bit.”
Whirl!
Eun-yeong turned her back.
“Eun-yeong!”
Though staggering, Choran practically threw herself forward and wrapped her arms around Eun-yeong’s waist.
The violent movement started the bleeding again, and her skirt turned wet and red.
Even so, Choran paid it no mind. She sounded like she was begging.
“Eun-yeong. Don’t do this. Please? Don’t.”
“...”
“I lived, didn’t I? I’m fine. Hurt? Time will heal it. So don’t go. Please?”
“...”
“You’ll die! You’ll die! It’s Seo Muryang, understand? Just live with me. Stay with me and keep protecting me. Please? That’s enough. That’s much better, isn’t it? Please?”
After a long silence,
Eun-yeong spoke.
“Protect...?” She paused. “I don’t really know about that.”
“Eun-yeong!”
“Sister.”
Eun-yeong spoke. Unlike usual. At length.
“The day Sister saved me. The day I woke up here. Eating the food Sister gave me. Wearing the clothes Sister put on me. Living here. I thought. Ah. From now on, I should kill for Sister.”
“Don’t.”
“But that’s the only thing I can do. How can I not? I’m alive.”
“Then don’t live! Just stay here with me and live as if you were dead. Please?”
“...I wasn’t made that way.”
“People aren’t made...!”
“Yes. People are born.”
At that clear tone, so unlike her usual self, Choran flinched.
Eun-yeong was looking at Choran with black eyes without a single ripple in them.
“Then.”
After a short, sticky silence,
“I was born this way.”
Slip.
Eun-yeong slipped Choran’s hands off her body.
“I’ll be back.”
Rattle.
She opened the window, then leaped out and vanished.
“Eun-yeong! Eun-yeong!”
Choran clung to the window, but Eun-yeong was already gone from sight, running across the rooftops.
“Eun-yeong! Ugh. Cough! Cough!”
After forcing a scream from her battered body, Choran coughed up blood and collapsed. Her skirt was already completely red.
“Choran! Choran! Have you lost your mind? At this rate you’ll die.”
“Sister. Sister...”
Choran let out shallow breaths as she spoke.
“Young Master Yeon. Find Young Master Yeon...”
“Huh?”
“There’s no one else... I can ask... except Young Master Yeon... Please go and ask him to save Eun-yeong... Please...”
“...I’ll go. You get hold of yourself first. All right?”
“Eun-yeong... Please...”
The courtesan ground her teeth.
Leaving Choran in the care of the others, she ran out of the pleasure house.
Fortunately, someone on the morning street had seen Yeon Sowol, so she was able to run straight there.
* * *
At that moment, Yeon Sowol was chatting with Jo Manseok.
When he explained what the Heat Cauldron Sect had done and the kind of things the bandits of Cheonro Mountain Stronghold were doing, Jo Manseok was deeply shocked.
“Can people really do things that horrible to other people? Good heavens...”
A world without the internet and without video.
An age where half the rumors drifting through the streets were lies and the other half exaggerations.
Wise people had the sense not to believe every wild story they heard, but to sift through them.
But the world was often more vicious than any rumor.
Jo Manseok had known the Heat Cauldron Sect existed,
and he had known there was something rotten about that sect, but not that it was to that degree.
He had known the Cheonro Mountain Stronghold existed,
and he had known that stronghold was vicious, but again, not that it was to that degree.
Jo Manseok spent a while in fear, then suddenly realized that he had a story of his own to tell too.
“Did you know?”
“What is it?”
“The Pure Breeze Young Lord.”
“Ah. Yes. Mo Cheong.”
“From what I hear around my street, it seems he’s found a sweetheart.”
“What?!”
What was that supposed to mean? Mo Cheong had found a sweetheart? Mo Cheong?
“I’m not sure, but they say he’s been different lately. He keeps spacing out and sighing every so often.”
“Hmm. Isn’t that a bit weak as evidence?”
“I saw it myself. He was picking out pretty flowers and drying them. He came to my shop, bought a wooden frame and hanji paper, and tucked the flowers between them.”
“...That could just be for his own collection, couldn’t it?”
“True. But he also bought a scent pouch.”
“Mo Cheong bought a scent pouch?”
“Yes. He even asked me to match it to a fragrance women like. And he said the silk for the pouch should be fabric women would like too.”
“Good heavens...!”
A mischievous smile hung at the corner of Yeon Sowol’s mouth.
This was information with real value.
The kind of information he could use to mercilessly tease his closest friend.
“Thank you, sir.”
“It’s nothing. Payment for the story.”
Jo Manseok had sold out customer information without the slightest guilt.
This truly was the Jianghu.
“Young Master Yeon!”
Just then a courtesan, hair disheveled, came running into the shop.
“Young Master Yeon, please save Eun-yeong. Eun-yeong went alone to kill Seo Muryang... To the Golden Powder Gang. Eun-yeong must be at the Golden Powder Gang by now.”
Yeon Sowol’s eyes widened.
‘Miss Eun-yeong is going to kill Seo Muryang?’
Eun-yeong was strong.
But she was still only at the level of second-rate.
Seo Muryang, on the other hand, was a first-rate expert who used qi arts.
“Please. Please, I’m begging you. I know this is shameless. I know how ridiculous it sounds to ask you to fight Seo Muryang for courtesans like us.”
The courtesan dropped to her knees on the floor and bowed her head.
“But... but there’s nowhere else to ask. If this goes on, Eun-yeong will die, and Choran will die too. They’re all like my own little sisters... The only expert who has formed a good bond with women like us is Young Master Yeon, so even knowing it was wrong, I came here. Please. Please, I’m begging you. I’ll remember this kindness for the rest of my life.”
Thud!
The courtesan slammed her fine, soft forehead loudly against the ground.
Yeon Sowol thought.
‘Can I kill Seo Muryang? If I join forces with Miss Eun-yeong?’
...It was possible.
Because he could handle martial force now.
He still was not skilled at using it, but blocking the Finger Flicking Art was more than within his ability.
If he blocked the Finger Flicking Art and Eun-yeong shook Seo Muryang up, then a chance to get close would definitely come.
And if he got close enough,
‘I can kill him.’
But the battlefield would be the Golden Powder Gang.
The middle of enemy territory.
Meaning it would not be one against one.
Could he really kill Seo Muryang even there?
‘Or I might be the one who dies...’
And even if he somehow managed to kill Seo Muryang, what came after would be an even bigger headache.
If Seo Muryang died like that, every Black Path faction would rise up.
It might even completely ruin the board Yi Yubaek had been setting up.
But then what.
Was he supposed to just let Eun-yeong die?
‘That’s nonsense...’
He could not do this.
He could not do that either.
A tangled state of mind.
“Young Master Yeon...”
The courtesan’s voice had already gone hoarse in that short span.
There was no time.
Eun-yeong might already have met Seo Muryang...
“...”
In the end, Yeon Sowol made his choice.
Step.
He laid a hand on the hilt of the Demon-Severing Sword hanging inside his robe.
He gave Jo Manseok a look of farewell, passed right by the courtesan, and headed for the shop entrance.
“Young... Master Yeon?”
As despair twisted the courtesan’s face, Yeon Sowol spoke.
“Go to Windflow Martial Academy.”
“...What?”
“Go there and tell my father. Yeon Sowol...”
Hooooo.
Smoke scattered thickly from his lips.
A nutty scent like roasted Job’s tears.
“...has killed Seo Muryang.”
He owed Eun-yeong a debt,
and he had a score to settle with Seo Muryang.
Whoosh!
Yeon Sowol lowered his stance and kicked off the ground.
His body flew pale through the air.
Tap!
He stepped onto a rooftop and leaned forward like a bird.
Tap tap!
He stretched away in long bounds. Robe flaring, almost flying, toward the Golden Powder Gang.
Footnotes:
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