There wasn’t a single ordinary traveler in the Seonyang Inn’s dining hall to match Kwak Yeon.
While the rough-faced n all turned to stare at him at once, Kwak Yeon calmly found an empty seat and sat.
“Sir, what can I get you?”
The errand boy scurried over to take his order.
“What do you recomnd?”
“Our cook does red-braised pork best.”
“Then I’ll have that. And I’d like to stay the night—do you have any rooms left?”
“As you can see, we’re packed today, so there are no guest rooms open. There is a detached quarter sitting empty, though...”
Kwak Yeon thought that would be better—quiet.
“Then I’ll rent the detached quarter.”
“Sir, that runs two taels of silver—it isn’t cheap. And for the detached we only take paynt up front...”
When the boy hesitated, eyeing him doubtfully, Kwak Yeon took three taels from his pouch and set them down.
“Will this cover breakfast tomorrow as well?”
The boy’s face lit.
“More than enough, sir.”
“Keep what’s left for your trouble, and please have two bath tubs filled.”
The bright face blood into a smile.
“I’ll have it ready while you dine. But... why two tubs...?”
The boy glanced him up and down, then nodded.
“Ah—you’re very particular about cleanliness.”
After days in the mountains, Kwak Yeon indeed looked thoroughly begrid.
‘Right. It’ll take two tubs to strip all this grit off. Hah.’
As the boy turned to go, sothing seed to occur to him; he edged back to whisper.
“Sir, this place is always like this. Don’t be startled.”
“...?”
“Those fellows are illicit salt rchants. The work they do makes them look a bit fearso, but they don’t start trouble.”
Just as the boy said, the salt rchants only showed interest in Kwak Yeon at first; soon they went back to their own talk.
From what he caught by ear, Seonyang County was a hub on the route that ran illicit salt from Zhejiang up to Lake Tai in Jiangxi.
That was why a large market town had sprung up so deep in the mountains.
Kwak Yeon had heard that skimming off the state monopoly and selling salt on the side yielded a rich margin.
He had also learned that even martial artists had plunged into the illicit salt trade and built sizable organizations.
‘So that’s why they’re all carrying weapons.’
After days without seeing a soul in the mountains, the salt rchants’ boisterous chatter was almost welco to him.
It even felt as if he were among them.
Their hearty talk—though half of it was naked cussing and abuse—kept him company while he finished his al in peace. Then he headed for the detached quarter the boy had ntioned.
The detached stood a little apart from the inn, a quiet, self-contained house.
When he opened the door, steam billowed out. The boy had drawn hot bathwater just as asked.
Kwak Yeon had set one foot into the thick steam when—
—Whiiik!
Sothing suddenly ca down at the back of his head from the doorway.
With no ti to draw, he raised the Cheonggang Sword, scabbard and all, to et it.
—KWAANG!
The force was like a mountain; it shoved Kwak Yeon back half a chi.
—Whip! Whip! Whip!
A flurry of gusts followed.
—Bang! Bang! Bang!
A trendous charge rode each blow, but Kwak Yeon took them all lightly and sprang back.
Then he smiled at the attacker in a crude face wrap.
“Brother, that’s enough.”
The masked man’s eyes twitched wide.
“Who are you calling brother?”
At the raspy voice, Kwak Yeon let out a thin laugh.
“If you’re going to play at being an assassin, change out of those stinking clothes first—and do your voice disguise properly.”
“Urgh!”
“And what is that sorry excuse for a mask? Don’t tell that... down below—that isn’t what I think it is, is it?”
“Hey! Not that! However rushed I was, how would I shove my drawers on my head?”
Flustered into answering, the intruder gave himself away.
“Fine, not drawers. In any case, take that thing off—its stink carries even here.”
“Damn!”
Only then did the intruder—Chwi Dugae—rip off the scrap of cloth he had thrown over his head.
He glanced at it sidelong.
On second thought, the look of the thing was suspect.
‘Is this really that...? No. Surely not.’
But if he undid the crude stitching and spread it, the size would be about right for that item.
He had bullied the Beggar Clan’s Seonyang “Eye”—a local overseer disciple—into fetching a face cover at once, and the man had produced this in less than half an incense stick.
Suddenly he recalled that overseer’s nervous eyes and trembling hands.
‘Ugh.’
Chwi Dugae, choking back the urge to retch, stuffed the “mask” behind his belt.
‘Curse those wretched beggars!’
He turned his anger onto the Dark Cavern Taoist standing before him.
After all, it was this man who had brought all this on.
“Brother Kwak, how did you know I was hiding here?”
From the way Kwak Yeon hadn’t drawn even under his surprise attack, and from the utter lack of surprise on his face, Chwi Dugae understood he’d been found out.
“...”
When Kwak Yeon hesitated, Chwi Dugae narrowed his eyes and pressed him.
“Don’t try so fool excuse about slling a beggar. You reek as much as I do right now.”
It was a fair question.
Even after he had driven the Beggar Clan’s top concealnt art, the Unchanging Thief Bowl Concealnt, to its height, he had judged it not enough to fool Kwak Yeon. So he had smothered his breathing with the Turtle-Breath thod as well.
The Dark Cavern Taoist should not have been able to tell he was there. Yet he had been exposed at once. It was deflating.
“As expected, I can’t fool Brother’s eye, a Sub-Branch Master of the Beggar Clan.”
Kwak Yeon nodded frankly and continued.
“But to be honest, guessing Brother would be hiding in the detached was only my rough estimate.”
Because he knew Kwak Yeon never spoke empty words when he wore that serious look, Chwi Dugae felt a bit consoled.
‘Right. Even a fierce dog won’t notice its bowl being stolen—how could he have pierced that concealnt?’
Taking comfort in that, Chwi Dugae asked:
“If you guessed I’d be hiding here, that ans you already knew I was in this town. How on earth...?”
Sober, Chwi Dugae had a keen head; at once he grasped the outline.
“The mont I stepped into the village I felt a blade-edge brush toward . There was no killing intent, and it sank into the crowd at once. I took it that I must have pricked the eye of so illicit salt hand. But I felt it again at the inn’s dining-room entrance. How many people with no hostility would keep trailing like that?”
“...!”
“So while I didn’t conclude it was you, I judged eight or nine out of ten it would be.”
Chwi Dugae spoke, aghast.
“More astonishing that you sensed in the street. Hiding one’s presence among people is what Beggar Clan beggars do best.”
He slit his eyes, studying Kwak Yeon, and asked on:
“Brother Kwak, when we parted at Agyang your perception wasn’t like this. Your force is different as well.”
“...”
“Speak plainly. What happened in the anti?”
Kwak Yeon wore a conceding look.
“I ca into the acquaintance of a certain eminent elder and learned one pursuit art. I promised that elder, so I can’t state the details.”
Since the Solitary Moon Illumines the Boundless Skill belonged to the secluded Moonlight Palace, he could not na it freely.
“But that’s not all. The thod you used to block my cudgel just now—you were showing it for the first ti.”
Thinking Chwi Dugae’s eye remarkable for recognizing the Falling Star Ten Thousand Changes at once, Kwak Yeon answered without hedging:
“That, too, I learned by a lucky encounter.”
Because the manuals of the Heavenly Saber belonged to a blood-soaked lineage, he could not speak of them; he truly felt sorry to Chwi Dugae.
“Fortune favored .”
As a Sub-Branch Master, well-versed in the martial world, how could Chwi Dugae fail to read the rest?
“Looks like fortune rolled to you in a whole vine this ti!”
His face brightened.
“Opportunities in our world never co as re luck. They co because you were fit to et them. In any case—congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
Chwi Dugae let out a soft sigh.
“You’re soaring while I stand still. As your dull older brother, I’m ashad.”
Even sworn brothers could not be without a warrior’s envy.
Kwak Yeon liked Chwi Dugae’s frank nature and took it no other way, but he disliked letting the air grow heavy, so he turned the topic.
“Then why did you do that, Brother? I thought you ant to give a start by hiding in the detached. I didn’t expect you to thump the back of my head out of nowhere.”
Seeing the man he took for Chwi Dugae ignore him in the street and not enter the dining hall, he had roughly guessed the intent.
Chwi Dugae said shalessly:
“I wanted to hit you once.”
“...Pardon?”
“If I didn’t jump you, how would I ever land a strike on you with my paltry skill? Hell, it seems even that little trick won’t do anymore...”
Kwak Yeon, dumbfounded, had to ask:
“Why did you want to hit ?”
“You really need to ask?”
At his counter-question, Kwak Yeon recalled their spar in the courtyard of the Guandi Shrine in Agyang.
“We agreed I’d buy drinks and you’d forget the discourtesy I showed in that bout, did we not?”
“Why bring that up again?”
Chwi Dugae spoke, irritated.
“As it is, my Master beat half to death over that.”
Kwak Yeon was more nonplussed.
A master who beat a disciple for losing a bout?
Moreover, that bout had been between the two of them; who could have known?
“How did the Clan Leader even learn of it?”
At Kwak Yeon’s baffled question, Chwi Dugae answered:
“Because I told him.”
“...?”
When Kwak Yeon stared blankly, Chwi Dugae went on as if it were soone else’s tale:
“I told Master every detail—how I never landed a single hit and only took blows. Then I said, why is the martial level of the world’s greatest Beggar Clan in such a state? Master reflected deeply, all right—only instead of teaching proper martial arts, he thrashed for insulting the Clan’s patriarchs.”
‘Good heavens.’
Astonished, Kwak Yeon clicked his tongue inwardly.
‘Frank is one thing...’
What master would let such a disciple pass? Frankly, it was strange he hadn’t been expelled on the spot.
He knew the Beggar Clan’s Clan Leader and this Sub-Branch Master had an unordinary bond, but the degree surpassed his imagination.
It even made him faintly worry about sending Gwaa into that master-disciple line.
At any rate, his present question was no nearer an answer, so he asked again:
“Then for what reason did you want to hit ?”
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