WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Murim in my Hometown ◈
Chapter 29: Grudges
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Within a family, the family head's command took precedence over everything. Within a sect, it was the Sect Master's command.
Only after Dang Hyeseo produced the Sect Master's Command Token and gave her order did the Detoxification Hall members kneel on one knee and acknowledge it.
“By your command!”
The senior detoxification hall member standing at the front did not bow. Nor did he sheathe his drawn sword.
He bit his lip as he looked at the fallen deputy hall master, then suddenly lunged forward. His sword was aimed at Dang Hyeseo.
As though she had been waiting for it, Dang Hyeseo instantly drew her sword.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
In just five exchanges, she slashed another traitor across the shoulder and kicked him in the lower abdomen.
Urk!
Almost at the same time, a hidden weapon thrown by her subordinate struck the senior member in the back.
“Bind the traitors!”
The Detoxification Hall members rushed in and took the senior member and deputy hall master into custody.
They gagged them, twisted their arms behind their backs, bound their wrists, then wrapped rope tightly around their bodies and legs.
They worked together seamlessly, as though this was far from their first time.
Dang Dohun could not resist at all, even with his eyes wide open. The hidden weapon that struck him was likely coated in paralytic poison.
Once every traitor had been subdued, Dang Seyeong let out a relieved sigh. Gyeongjae approached and gently embraced her.
Dang Hyeseo sheathed her sword and stood before the two of them.
“Seyeong, sister. Brother-in-law. Let's return to Sichuan together.”
“To Sichuan?”
Still in Gyeongjae's embrace, Dang Seyeong looked up at him. Gyeongjae stared at Dang Hyeseo with a stiff expression.
“...Can we?”
“The Sect Master has decided to recognize your marriage. You helped expose the Tang Clan's traitors.”
Having received a definite answer, the young couple's faces brightened.
“Let's go back now. To Sichuan.”
“Yes. Let's go home.”
Having finished binding the prisoners, the Detoxification Hall members put on gloves and entered the forest to retrieve the hidden weapons Dang Dohun had scattered.
Gyeongjae, Dang Seyeong, and Dang Hyeseo's subordinate cut branches with their swords and made stretchers.
While everyone busied themselves, Dang Hyeseo came over to me.
“Is it over?”
“It has to be.”
Dang Hyeseo fixed her cold gaze on the wandering martial artist standing there awkwardly.
Of the three wandering martial artists hired from the Wandering Swordsman Inn, two had been struck by poisoned hidden weapons and died in the melee. Yet one had somehow survived.
The middle-aged wandering martial artist Won Seogang called Brother Dong.
Dang Hyeseo watched him for a moment, then drew her sword again. It was the expected course of events. He had become entangled in Tang Clan affairs and witnessed their disgrace, so it would be difficult to let him live.
That was the fate of wandering martial artists hired with money. Bitter as it was, it was not my place to interfere.
“W-wait. I risked my life fighting, and this is how you treat me?”
“I don't expect you to understand.”
As Dang Hyeseo took a step forward, the wandering martial artist gritted his teeth and gripped his sword hilt. But he only trembled and could not bring himself to draw his sword.
Dang Hyeseo had subdued the senior Detoxification Hall member without difficulty. The wandering martial artist must have sensed that the moment he drew his sword, he would die.
He backed away and looked around. After glancing at me, he addressed Won Seogang.
“Hero Won. Is there no way for me to live?”
I expected Won Seogang to turn away, but he said something unexpected.
“Are you willing to do anything?”
“Huh? Y-yes. I'll do anything! Just leave it to me!”
“Then join the Hao clan. You can live if you do.”
The wandering martial artist's eyes widened.
“The Hao clan? You were a Hao clan member?”
“I have one foot in it.”
“Ah, I understand. I'll join the Hao clan. I look forward to working with you.”
Once the wandering martial artist had grabbed onto his lifeline, Dang Hyeseo asked, “Will the Hao clan vouch for this person?”
“I'll mediate it. Go to Seochon and speak with the branch chief. Hero Jeong and I are witnesses as well, so it won't make much difference if there is one more.”
“Is this person capable of keeping his mouth shut?”
“He will be. If not while alive, then in death. I guarantee that.”
Terrified, the wandering martial artist desperately defended himself.
“My mouth is heavy. Heavy as Mount Tai. Maybe it's because I'm getting old, but I can't see at night anymore, and my memory is poor. I don't even know what I saw. I don't know where this is or who I am...”
Dang Hyeseo sheathed her sword.
“Let's speak at the Hao clan branch.”
Watching this, I could not help feeling as though it concerned me personally.
That wandering martial artist's fate was exactly like mine after I had heard the Pavilion Master and Yi Yunjae's secret.
If he ever misspoke even once, he would immediately be found dead in some back alley, along with all the others who had heard the leaked information, like good friends.
From Dang Hyeseo's perspective, killing him would have been easy and certain, so it was somewhat surprising that she stepped back.
The cooperation between the Tang Clan and Hao clan seemed far closer than I had thought.
Why had Won Seogang saved that wandering martial artist when they did not even seem close? He could suffer for it if things went wrong.
Once the Detoxification Hall members had gathered all the hidden weapons, they assembled in one place. They loaded the two bound traitors onto stretchers and returned to the inn together.
After an eventful night in which I had experienced both the Tang Clan's hidden weapon arts, which I had only heard about in rumors, and their unexpectedly flexible attitude, dawn arrived.
Skipping breakfast, we hurried into the carriage and retraced the road we had taken the day before.
When we reached the gorge where we had exterminated the bandits, a foul stench pierced my nose beneath the scorching sunlight.
Flies buzzed like a swarm of bees, and wolves with their noses buried in corpses, greedily tearing at the flesh, raised their heads at the sound of the carriage.
They stared at us and licked their bloodstained muzzles with their long tongues.
Their blatant hunger made my hand go to my long saber without thinking. I wanted to set them all ablaze, but dealing with beasts would only waste time.
I sat in the carriage with my arms folded, and before long we escaped those hellish mountains and reached the main road.
After pressing onward without rest, we returned to my beloved home village of Seochon in the early afternoon.
Since the job we had been hired for was over, I stopped by Simhyang Pavilion briefly before heading straight home.
It was an empty house, and I had only been gone for one night, yet seeing it again filled my chest with aching happiness.
I set down my long saber and bundle, then lay flat on the wooden floor. A pleasant breeze brought a hazy drowsiness over me.
The distant rustling of the bamboo grove felt faint and nostalgic, as though it were beckoning from beyond my memories. In the warmth of a dream, I made my resolve once more.
I would not leave my hometown again...
The Tang Clan members shut themselves away in the annex. Two days later, a Tang Clan reinforcement party that had departed from Sichuan arrived at Simhyang Pavilion.
* * *
“Dang Dohun. Where is the Iron Armguard you stole?”
At the Inner Hall Elder's question, Dang Dohun, who was tied to a chair, answered calmly.
“I sold it.”
Dang Dohun looked haggard after going several days without washing.
Tang Clan members were known for their brutal methods, so one might expect them to start by pulling out fingernails and branding with hot irons. Yet there were no signs of torture at all.
Those who specialized in poison had far more effective methods.
A truth serum made by mixing opium with Mind-Confusing Powder. One bottle was enough to open any mouth in the world.
So Dang Dohun's answer was probably true.
The elder asked in disbelief, “Sold it? One of the Tang Clan's Three Great Divine Weapons? What an ungrateful bastard.”
“Ha ha ha ha!”
Dang Dohun burst into mad laughter. He laughed for so long that the underground interrogation chamber rang with it, then glared at the elder with unfocused eyes.
“You bestow something I never wanted at your own convenience, then call it a favor. How very Tang Clan of you.”
“Have you forgotten that you are also a member of the Tang Clan?”
“I am not a Dang. My father was a Cho. I am Cho Dohun as well.”
“Your father received the Dang surname through the Tang Clan's grace. And your mother is a daughter of the Tang Clan. How can you deny your bloodline?”
Dang Dohun's bloodshot eyes widened.
“I hate the Tang Clan. I hated being despised as a branch family member, and suffering from having to consume horrific poisons from the age of seven in order to build poison resistance. I hated its suffocatingly closed family customs... I preferred my father's family. The Cho Family Clinic, settled in a quiet country village. It was the only way out of the terrifying and ruthless Dang Family.”
As though something had occurred to him, the elder frowned.
“The sweet smell of medicinal herbs being boiled was wonderful. Every time I visited during the holidays, I realized it more deeply. I was better suited to medicines that saved people than poisons that killed them...”
Killing intent gradually filled Dang Dohun's voice.
“That ended when I was around twelve. Everyone in my father's family was suddenly massacred. It was said to be the work of a gang of robbers, but I later learned the truth. The murderer was a member of the Tang Clan. My grandfather had developed a prescription for a virulent illness, and that was the problem. The previous Sect Master happened to discover that it halved the effectiveness of the Eight Great Poisons, so he took action in a hurry. Very hurriedly. Hooooo.”
After releasing a long sigh that seemed to collapse his whole body, Dang Dohun continued.
“They could have simply warned him not to make it, but they killed every last one of them instead. They must have panicked badly. Poison is the Tang Clan's power, after all. They must have thought it dangerous if the information leaked, even by the slightest chance. That was when I decided to take revenge on the Tang Clan... That was why I joined the Detoxification Hall, which specializes in antidotes...”
The elder, who had listened in silence, finally spoke.
“Who did you sell the Iron Armguard to?”
“I don't know. I handed it to a broker at the Black Market, so find out for yourself. Heh heh heh.”
“If the Iron Armguard falls into the hands of the wrong person, a great disaster could befall the Tang Clan. Do you think your remaining family will be safe?”
With a detached expression, Dang Dohun shook his head.
“I merely did as I was taught. Repay kindness twice over, and grudges tenfold. I repaid the Tang Clan's kindness twice over while working in the Detoxification Hall. Now it is time to repay my grudges tenfold...”
Dang Hyeseo watched the interrogation from behind with a troubled expression.
Traitors could arise in any family or sect. It was as inevitable as weeds growing in a field.
She had seen traitors rooted out many times since childhood, but this was the first time a figure as important as a deputy hall master had been involved.
Dang Dohun came from a branch family, but his talent for hidden weapon arts and poison arts had been highly regarded, and he had been exceptionally elevated to a high position.
He was mild-tempered and did not mistreat those beneath him, so he was well liked and had many followers.
No one could say how many more traitors and followers had cooperated with Dang Dohun.
If they were arrested rashly, blood relatives might end up killing one another in Chengdu.
When Dang Dohun framed Dang Seyeong for stealing the Iron Armguard and left Sichuan with a pursuit party, they had decided to use that against him.
They would capture him after he had traveled far from the Tang Clan.
They could not trust their fellow Tang Clan members, so Dang Hyeseo had brought only one subordinate and borrowed the Hao clan's strength.
She had hoped otherwise, but Dang Dohun really was a traitor.
Once this fact became known, the Tang Clan would be struck by even greater shock and turmoil than what Dang Hyeseo had experienced.
They would have to report it to the Sect Master, but officially, Dang Dohun would be recorded as having died while carrying out an external mission.
The Detoxification Hall members present would be reeducated in the Tang Clan's dungeon until the situation settled down.
The whereabouts of the Iron Armguard remained unknown, but fortunately, no other lethal poisons or hidden weapons had been leaked.
Without poison and hidden weapons to install inside it, the Iron Armguard was nothing more than a cumbersome shield strapped to one's arm.
After the interrogation, the elder and Dang Hyeseo went upstairs. When they emerged, a waiting Tang Clan member ran over.
“Elder. A carrier pigeon has arrived from the main sect.”
The elder accepted the small tube and checked its contents. His expression darkened.
“What is it?”
“They say that while inspecting the inventory in the storehouse, they discovered that some poisons were missing from the Myriad Poisons Hall.”
“Could they be lethal poisons?”
The elder stroked his beard with an uneasy expression.
“Immortal-Extinguishing Poison and Gentleman-Dissolving Powder.”
Dang Hyeseo looked confused.
“Aren't they both Inner-Power-Dispersing Poisons? What about the other poisons?”
“Fortunately, nothing else was leaked. Security around the storehouse is exceptionally tight, so it seems they took whatever they could get their hands on...”
They had stolen Inner-Power-Dispersing Poison merely because it was relatively easy to take? That made no sense.
Immortal-Extinguishing Poison and Gentleman-Dissolving Powder were counted among the Eight Great Poisons, but neither was poisonous by itself.
True to the name Inner-Power-Dispersing Poison, they merely prevented one from raising internal energy and scattered it.
To ordinary people of the martial world without internal energy, they were even more harmless than the Lime Powder Jeong Daecheon had scattered a few days ago.
Martial artists were as numerous as grains of sand along a riverbank, but extremely few had properly mastered an Internal Energy Method.
There were only a handful of absolute masters who could blend profound internal energy into their forms and surpass human limits.
Among all those deadly poisons, someone had taken only Inner-Power-Dispersing Poison...
As Dang Hyeseo followed the cause and effect to its logical conclusion, she suddenly shuddered.
Someone was targeting an absolute master. With Tang Clan poison and weapons.
The thought of someone fighting an absolute master with Immortal-Extinguishing Poison and Gentleman-Dissolving Powder installed in an Iron Armguard made her vision swim.
The sect leaders of the Nine Sects, the Leader of the Martial Arts Alliance, the heads of the other Five Great Families...
Whoever it was, if they were ambushed with Inner-Power-Dispersing Poison and the Tang Clan was identified as the culprit, the entire sect might be caught up in a bloodbath.
In the worst case, they could be declared public enemies of the martial world.
The Nine Sects and great families already regarded the Tang Clan with discomfort. Even if the Tang Clan said its proprietary weapons had been stolen, they would not miss the chance to launch a punitive expedition.
Dang Hyeseo had thought the matter would be settled once they caught Dang Dohun.
It had been a foolish misconception.
This was only the beginning.
* * *
Before returning to Sichuan, Dang Hyeseo came to find me.
“About that Seven-Step Soul-Severing Powder...”
I felt a pang of guilt. Was she going to call me out for falsely claiming to possess a Tang Clan lethal poison?
“It is indeed a poison refined into powder form, but it is pale yellow, not white. Keep that in mind.”
“...You called me here to tell me that?”
“Everything should be clear. It only fooled them because it was night. In daylight, it would not have worked at all. See you around.”
We would probably never see each other again. The Tang Clan would be in disarray for some time as they searched for further traitors and the stolen Iron Armguard.
Of course, that had nothing to do with me.
In return for killing bandits and surviving a deadly storm of hidden weapons, I received ten taels of silver.
Four taels had been added as a bonus on top of two days' wages, so the Tang Clan was not particularly stingy.
“By the way, what is an Iron Armguard?”
Won Seogang tilted his head as he poured tea.
“I don't know. It seems to be some device made by the Tang Clan, but I have never seen one myself. There are not even proper rumors about it, so I suppose anyone who saw one never had time to tell others about the experience.”
They probably killed them all. Dead people could not talk.
“Why did you save that wandering martial artist called Brother Dong? It could cause trouble for you later.”
“You mean Dong Hosak? That fellow is rather useful. It would have been a waste for him to be killed to silence him.”
“What is he good at?”
“Climbing over walls. He claims to be a master thief who has never encountered a wall he could not cross.”
“A thief?”
“Aren't all martial artists like that? I saw him before. He really can get over walls like a snake. Apparently, he once boldly tried to rob the Namgung Family, got slashed across the face, barely survived, and became a wandering martial artist. I had been considering winning him over anyway, but since he came under the Hao clan's protection, it was as though I got the result without lifting a finger.”
“You want to rob the Black Night Gang?”
Won Seogang smiled strangely.
“If he returned alive after entering the Namgung Family, infiltrating the Black Night Gang will be nothing to him. If it was a lie, he will pay the price there.”
Of course. There was no way Won Seogang would risk danger to save an unfamiliar wandering martial artist out of sympathy.
After speaking with Won Seogang briefly in the annex, I returned home.
I was leisurely chewing jerky while watching the sunset when someone began pounding on the front gate. When I went outside, it was Gusam.
“Didn't I tell you there was no need to make deliveries today?”
“Hero! Hero! It's urgent! Please open the gate!”
“If you need to shit, go to the mountain.”
“That’s not it! Someone is looking for you! They came to the inn and even showed us a facial composite!”
My ears perked up. When I opened the gate, Gusam rushed inside. He must have run here in a great hurry, because he was gasping heavily.
“Someone is looking for me?”
“An old man who looks like a Taoist priest... Huff, huff. He came to the inn, ordered food, and showed us a facial composite while asking whether we had seen this person. And would you believe it? It had your face right on it, Hero.”
“So?”
“I said I didn't know who it was. Then I pretended to do something else, slipped away, and ran here as fast as I could.”
“I knew it.”
That was not me speaking. Someone pushed open the half-open gate and entered.
It was a white-haired old man dressed in white Taoist robes.
“Eek!”
Gusam recoiled in fright and fell onto his backside.
The old man stared intently at my face.
“The face is roughly right.”
“Who are you?”
Whether I was wary or not, the old man only said what he wanted to say.
“You learned saber techniques from a one-armed man in Hangzhou, didn't you?”
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