I watched Warrior Jin Yeong grow smaller in the distance.
It honestly wasn’t that surprising that Chu Il-gong had hired an assassin. The moment he found out Poet Song Rok was taking part in the competition, I’d already figured there was a good chance he’d try to get rid of him.
So right now, Poet Song Rok and his family were staying in this temporary lodging.
Warriors from the Eunpoong Division were stationed here as well, so they should be well protected.
Poet Song Rok’s wife spent the whole day doing paid needlework, and when I saw that, I decided that once this is over, I’m going to work Poet Song Rok a lot harder.
What actually surprised me was something else.
There were people taking assassination contracts near the imperial palace.
Well, no matter how many Imperial Guards, Embroidered Guard, or Eastern Depot agents you have, you can’t control everyone.
In that case, while we’re at it…
“Warrior Jin Yeong!”
I called out and ran over to him.
“Hm? Why are you calling me?”
“How about you work with me on something?”
.
.
.
That night.
I was walking through the market streets with Poet Song Rok.
“Thank you for your hard work today.”
“Not at all.”
“So, how did it feel? People were praising the poem you wrote nonstop.”
At my words, Poet Song Rok awkwardly scratched the back of his neck.
“I–it felt… good.”
His face turned red.
“I never knew people’s recognition could feel this good. Somehow, I even felt like I could understand why that guy did what he did.”
“That, you absolutely cannot.”
“Pardon?”
“Stealing someone else’s poem is a crime, plain and simple. And you’re trying to understand a criminal? Aren’t you a little too nice?”
“Ah, d-does it sound like that?”
“So, do you still want to die?”
At my question, he flinched and turned his head away.
“A-at that time, I was foolish.”
He admitted his mistake so readily that I couldn’t help but smirk.
There were a few reasons I’d brought Poet Song Rok out to the streets like this, but first and foremost, it was to lure out the assassin.
Chu Il-gong must be desperate to get Poet Song Rok killed as quickly as possible.
Right now Poet Song Rok had no idea he was the target of a contract killing.
As far as he knew, I’d brought him out to buy him good writing tools for the upcoming rounds.
“How about this inkstone? Seems decent, doesn’t it?”
“I’m more than grateful.”
“I think a weasel-hair brush will suit you.”
We bought an inkstone, brushes, and a few other things from the Sebin Merchant Group’s shop, then started heading back toward the temporary lodging.
— Be careful. The guy is closing in.
Escort Guard Jin Yu’s Voice Transmission reached me.
Finally.
I walked with my qi perception raised, and soon I could feel killing intent.
Then—
Swoosh!
A single throwing knife flew toward Poet Song Rok.
If there hadn’t been people around, the assassin probably would have rushed in directly, but since there were several people next to us, including me, they’d gone with a thrown blade instead.
The knife flew straight for Poet Song Rok’s neck.
Tak!
But the knife slammed into a shield. It was the shield held by the Embroidered Guard expert who’d been following us while pretending to be my bodyguard.
The small black shield was the type strapped to the forearm, and with a simple movement it unfolded into a full shield in an instant.
That shield was also a symbol of the Embroidered Guard.
They often used it when they wanted to reveal their identity, and right now he was very deliberately showing it off.
“Thanks to Poet Chu Il-gong’s cooperation, we’ll finally be able to wipe out the assassins in Beijing!”
I deliberately shouted at the top of my lungs.
“Assassins! After them!”
Warrior Jin Yeong led the other Embroidered Guard experts and rushed off in pursuit.
They were going to chase that assassin and then intentionally let them slip away.
That assassin would become a crucial lead to wipe out the assassin network in Beijing in one swoop.
And at this distance, the assassin definitely would have heard what I said.
That Poet Chu Il-gong had “cooperated.”
Someone who stays in Beijing like this is confident in their craft, and at the same time, has a lot of pride.
Would someone like that just sit there quietly after being “played” this badly? No way. They’ll definitely go looking for Chu Il-gong.
I know how those types operate. They don’t just walk up and say, “You die,” and swing a blade.
They slowly strangle you.
Real scum. Absolutely.
But since the target is Chu Il-gong, I don’t really care.
He’ll feel his blood dry up day by day, but that’s his own fault.
I do plan to make sure he doesn’t die, though. If he dies, he can’t pay for what he did.
I lowered my head and looked at Song Rok, who was sprawled on the ground.
“Are you all right?”
“W-w-what was t-that just now?”
“Oh, this?”
I picked up the knife that had bounced off the shield earlier and answered in a dry voice.
“It’s proof that an assassin just came by to kill you, Poet Song.”
“A-a-an assassin, to kill m-me, you mean me?”
“Yes.”
“Why me? I don’t have grudges with anyone…”
He was stammering pretty badly, clearly shaken, so I explained.
“I only just heard myself. A man named Chu Il-gong apparently hired an assassin to kill you.”
“What?”
He tilted his head in confusion.
“But Young Merchant Lord, didn’t you just say it was Poet Chu Il-gong’s cooperation?”
“That?”
I chuckled and leaned down to whisper quietly.
“I lied.”
“Pardon?”
“I said it as a lie. To confuse the assassins. And if we do it this way, they won’t think it’s a trap and try to come after you again.”
“Ah…”
I held my hand out to him.
“Stand up. The ground’s cold.”
“Y-yes…”
He got to his feet, and I brushed the dirt off his clothes.
“Are you all right?”
“Y-yes.”
He said he was fine, but his face was still pale.
He must have been really shocked.
Well, for an ordinary person, this reaction is perfectly normal.
“Take a few deep breaths. It’ll help you calm down.”
At my words, Poet Song Rok took several deep breaths.
Once he’d calmed down a little, he asked me,
“So you’re saying Chu Il-gong hired an assassin to kill me?”
“Yes.”
I continued,
“You saw it today, didn’t you? To people who don’t know the full story, your poem sounds like Chu Il-gong’s poem. So before the truth comes out and he’s humiliated, he wanted to kill you and…”
“He wanted to steal my poem again.”
The poison started filling his eyes, which had just begun to settle down.
Bringing Poet Song Rok out and exposing him to the assassin had also been for this.
Even if I wanted to really work him hard after this was over, there was something in the way.
He didn’t have any bite.
You could say it another way—he was just too nice. And someone that nice is exactly the type who ends up making their family suffer.
And this whole incident was also supposed to be his personal revenge.
After everything that happened to him, he should have been boiling with fury, but he was still just… nice.
You could tell from how he’d tried to commit suicide.
Honestly, it’s the kind of temperament I don’t like. Why try to kill yourself? Spend that time sharpening your knife for revenge instead.
Anyway, that kind of mindset makes it hard to get proper revenge.
There’s a good chance he’ll end up facing Chu Il-gong in the final round. If he gets overwhelmed by Chu Il-gong’s momentum then, he won’t be able to show his full ability.
So I asked in a slightly cold voice,
“So. How about now? Do you still want to die?”
Just earlier, he’d flinched and admitted that he’d been foolish.
But now that he’d found his resolve, even his voice had changed.
“Until I bury that bastard socially, there’s no way I’m dying.”
A very satisfying answer.
The second day of the imperial poetry competition dawned.
When Chu Il-gong arrived at the venue, his close friends greeted him with cheers.
“I hope your name rises even higher today! Hahaha!”
“Your victory is as good as in the bag already!”
“We’ll be cheering you on.”
But today, they noticed that Chu Il-gong seemed a little off.
“What’s wrong, though?”
“Hm?”
“You seem nervous today.”
At those words, Chu Il-gong let out an awkward laugh.
“N-nervous? Not at all. Ha ha ha.”
But cold sweat was running down his back and forehead.
That morning.
He’d woken up to find a knife stuck in the pillow next to his head.
A piece of paper had been pierced along with it, and on it were the words: [The price for deceiving me is death].
He had no idea what was going on.
‘Did someone… hire an assassin to kill me? Damn it!’
He racked his brain trying to figure out who would have hired someone to kill him, but there were so many people he’d deceived that he couldn’t even begin to guess.
The competition began.
Group after group went up and showed off their skills, and out of every four people, two were eliminated.
Then—
“The theme for this round is ‘mirror’ and ‘flower.’”
Once the theme was announced and about fifteen minutes had passed, the reciters started reading the poems aloud.
“The mirror my beloved left behind…”
The moment he heard that poem, Chu Il-gong’s eyes flew wide open.
He recognized it as Poet Song Rok’s poem—the very one he’d ordered the assassination for.
‘He’s alive? Damn it! Those problem-solvers are useless trash!’
As the audience listened to Song Rok’s poem, they couldn’t help but exclaim.
“Oh! As expected of the Graceful Verse Wanderer!”
“What a beautiful poem!”
“The beauty of his verse has reached another level today.”
And then…
From the waiting seats, the other poets were all staring at him.
Their gazes were full of doubt.
The poem being recited right now was clearly Graceful Verse Wanderer Chu Il-gong’s poem, so why was Chu Il-gong sitting down here?
Then whose poem was that?
That’s what their eyes were asking.
Yesterday, by chance, Song Rok and Chu Il-gong had gone up to the stage at the same time, so people hadn’t noticed. But today that hadn’t happened, so the poets were starting to question things.
Without even realizing it, Chu Il-gong blurted out an excuse.
“I don’t know who it is, but they must admire me a great deal.”
“…”
But their doubts didn’t go away, and their suspicion quietly began to grow larger and larger.
Just like that, the second day of the poetry competition came to an end.
Naturally, Poet Song Rok kept up his winning streak, and Chu Il-gong also managed to survive the day.
According to Poet Song, every poem Chu Il-gong had submitted so far was something he himself had written.
“He changed the theme slightly on a few of them, that’s all.”
Meanwhile, people started to question how someone had managed to write poems so similar to, no, even better than Chu Il-gong’s, even though Chu Il-gong hadn’t gone up on stage that day.
Just as planned.
And tonight, the rumor will spread all through Beijing’s marketplaces.
By the way, when I saw Chu Il-gong’s face today, he looked pretty uneasy. I guess an assassin really did pay him a visit last night.
Warrior Jin Yeong was busy moving around, working to completely wipe out that assassin group.
From what I overheard, he was planning to cast a Heaven-and-Earth Net.
A Heaven-and-Earth Net based on the imperial palace’s tracking technique… I’m honestly a little curious.
“Young Master.”
At that moment, Palgap came in with a slightly flustered expression.
“What is it?”
“It’s those five guards. It seems they ran away.”
“…”
I lost my words for a moment, but quickly regained my composure.
“Explain it in detail.”
“They ate lunch, but sometime around two in the afternoon, no one saw them again.”
“Ha ha ha.”
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Wow. Impressive guards. I really didn’t expect them to desert.”
“Eh, come on. Young Master, surely you expected this as well, didn’t you?”
“Well, it’s not like I never considered it. I just thought the odds were extremely low.”
I asked Palgap,
“So, did they pack their bags?”
At my question, Palgap nodded. Of course, otherwise we wouldn’t call it desertion.
I rose from my seat.
“Let’s go. To their quarters.”
“Yes.”
A short while later, we arrived at the guards’ lodgings. Out front, Branch Chief Eun was standing there looking panicked.
“My apologies. I should have watched them more closely…”
“It’s fine. How are you supposed to stop guards who are determined to run?”
“I truly am sorry.”
“It’s fine. Go take care of your work.”
Then I turned to the warrior in front.
“The room those deserters were using, where is it?”
“Ah! This way!”
I followed the warrior to the room and then told him to wait outside for a bit.
“Geumryeong.”
“Kui?”
“Come out.”
At my call, Geumryeong poked its head out from my sleeve.
“Think you can find the owner of this bedding?”
“Kui? Kui?”
“You want to know if I’m paying in silver? You won’t work without silver… fine. I’ll pay. I will.”
“Kui.”
“You want the silver up front? Seriously…”
Since when did it start demanding advance payment?
I shook my head, took out a silver tael, and held it out. Geumryeong’s eyes gleamed, and it promptly gulped it down.
Then it slipped out of my sleeve, rolled all over the bedding a few times, and suddenly sprang up.
A heartbeat later, it shot out the window like an arrow.
By the time I’d silently counted to about one hundred fifty, Geumryeong came flying back.
“Escort Guard Seo Wu, Escort Guard Jin Yu. Let’s go bring them back.”
“Yes.”
“We’ll carry out your order.”
Leaving the rest to Palgap and the other guards, I launched myself after Geumryeong.
I didn’t know how long we ran like that.
After running with lightness skill for about fifteen minutes, I felt a familiar presence.
Soon, I saw five guards with packs on their backs.
They were burning their lightness skill hard, running as if someone might chase them at any moment.
As if Chu Il-gong wasn’t already giving me enough of a headache, now my guards had to act up too?
Well, everyone has a plan.
At least until they get punched in the face. (TL Note: Ah, yes, a quote from the trascendent fighter, Mike Tyson)
If someone gives you a chance, you should be grateful.
Even so, I’m going to give them another chance.
Since it’s their second one, they can’t complain if they get punched once each first.
–TL Notes–
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