Anyway, we started asking around to find out where the carriage had gone.
“A big wagon pulled by three horses isn’t something you see every day. Horses are pretty expensive, after all.”
Three horses big enough to pull a wagon could buy you a small tile-roofed house.
So a horse-drawn wagon was actually something that really stood out.
“There’s no way the ones who attacked it wouldn’t know that. And this is a residential area. So of course they would have disguised themselves as merchants.”
“I think so too.”
There were only so many roads a wagon could take, so we focused on those routes and started asking people.
Thankfully, people answered me kindly.
“Now that you mention it, I do remember seeing a group of merchants pass through here back then.”
“Do you happen to know which merchant group they were from?”
“Let me think… Right, they were wearing the Oh Merchant Group crest.”
The Oh Merchant Group.
They were the biggest merchant group in all of Gansu.
Which meant either someone was using them as a front, or that group really was behind all this.
But I was leaning heavily toward the former.
The Oh Merchant Group had no reason to do something like this, and they weren’t that kind of outfit.
If we kept asking around, we’d eventually figure out when they dropped the disguise.
“Just to be sure, let me ask again—you’re certain?”
“Of course. I’ve lived here for decades. By the way, you’re a really handsome young man.”
“Hahaha, thank you.”
“You look exactly like Yun-seok.”
“Huh?”
“My wife’s son here. No, more like you resemble my own boy.”
“Oh, aren’t you hungry? I just made some dumplings, want a few?”
“Thank you.”
After I finished asking around and went back to our rendezvous point, Palgap was already there waiting.
“Young Master, did you manage to dig up anything?”
I nodded at Palgap’s question.
“Looks like they went that way.”
“But people just told you everything that easily?”
“Yeah. They were really nice. They even shared dumplings with me, see?”
Palgap shook his head as he stared at the dumpling in my hand.
“Knew it. This world is rotten, it is.”
“Huh? You saying this dumpling is rotten?”
“No, not that, no.”
While we were busy tracking the wagon’s whereabouts, a man walked up to us.
“Are you, by any chance, people sent by the highest one?”
A phrase that meant the Emperor, and the thick scent coming off him.
Eastern Depot, then.
Only eunuchs could join the Eastern Depot, and because of their… condition, they always carried sachets of incense to cover the smell of urine that leaked.
The fragrance coming off that man was the same scent I always smelled on the eunuchs in the imperial palace.
“And you are?”
“Ah, my apologies for startling you. I’m Cheong-gwan of the Eastern Depot, in charge of this region.”
“So you’re Lord Cheong-gwan.”
“Yes. Not long ago, I reported to my superiors that the Embroidered Guard warriors had gone missing, and I’ve been anxiously waiting since. Then I heard you were asking around about the carriage, so I hurried over.”
“I see. Still, I’m glad we were able to meet up faster than I expected.”
“Indeed. And as it happens, I’ve just figured out the place where the Embroidered Guard warriors are likely being held.”
“That’s very good news.”
We followed him.
It saved us a lot of trouble, but something about him still felt off.
Soon, we reached a mountain stronghold.
“There it is.”
We watched the stronghold from a distance. There were about ten men standing guard outside alone.
The foul aura coming off them was proof enough they were from the Unorthodox Sect.
“Do you know anything about what’s going on inside?”
“I couldn’t find out that much. But from what I’ve seen, I kept hearing children crying from inside. It looks like a place where they’re gathering kidnapped kids.”
“I see.”
Elder Bang nodded.
“Then the bastards kidnapping the children must have taken the Embroidered Guard as well.”
“What should we do?”
“What else? We go save them.”
At that, I countered.
“But isn’t it too reckless to just charge in when we know so little about their strength?”
Elder Bang nodded at my words.
“True, we don’t know the layout or the situation inside. In that case, we need someone who can tell us what it’s like in there.”
Elder Bang laid out the plan for us.
“First, I’ll lure some of the guards over here. When I give you the signal, you take them down.”
“Got it.”
“And you.”
Elder Bang turned to Cheong-gwan from the Eastern Depot.
“This could get dangerous, so you’d better keep yourself out of harm’s way.”
“It’s all right. I’ve learned martial arts too; I can at least protect myself.”
“Heh. If we fail, someone’s got to be left to report what happened, don’t you think?”
“…That’s true.”
“So go on, get somewhere safe.”
“Then I’ll do that. But how exactly are you planning to lure them out…?”
“Oh, I was thinking of grilling some meat.”
“Hm, that is a method, I suppose. Then I wish you success.”
With that, Cheong-gwan went down the mountain, and Elder Bang watched his back as he asked me,
“Phew, I’m hungry. Aren’t you?”
I couldn’t help but snort at his question.
“Yeah, I’m hungry too.”
“But you just had dumplings.”
“And didn’t you have one yourself, Elder?”
Elder Bang chuckled at my retort. Then he glanced around, pointed at a spot, and spoke to his attendant.
“Seok Baek. Get a charcoal fire going.”
“Yes, sir.”
The attendant immediately started lighting the charcoal, and when one of the escort guards saw that, they slipped off somewhere and soon came back with a deer.
Before long, the dressed venison was laid out on a grill over the coals.
“Sssssizzle.”
“You carry charcoal and a grill around even at a time like this?”
“Of course! Even if I can’t eat my vegetables, I have to have meat. Meat’s my favorite thing in the world. Meat!”
Oh, we’re the same then.
I quickly sat down in front of him and said,
“Exactly. Meat is truth, and a world without meat would be a miserable place.”
“Hahaha. Exactly.”
Once the meat was cooked to a nice point, Elder Bang fanned it so the wind carried the smell toward the stronghold.
“What are you doing?”
“What do you mean, what? I’m working hard on luring those bastards out.”
“Huh?”
“Sit down. Let’s eat the pieces that are done. If we cook them more, they’ll burn, and that actually makes it less effective.”
“That does make sense.”
Saying that, I sat down again and picked up a piece of meat.
“So you really meant to lure them out with the smell of grilled meat?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you were just trying to separate that Eastern Depot Cheong-gwan from us.”
Elder Bang grinned at my words.
“So you noticed too.”
“Yes. There were a few things that really didn’t sit right with me.”
There were two things I found strange.
First, that he claimed he heard children crying.
His internal strength was around second-rate at best.
At that level, even if he focused all his Qi into his hearing, it would be hard to catch sounds from that stronghold.
Second, he had the disgusting stink of the Unorthodox Sect on him.
“Suspicious, no doubt. But I knew there was something wrong with him the moment we checked that safe house.”
“What?”
“First off, the details in His Majesty’s letter were odd. The report said contact had been cut off for three days, and by the time we went, a bit more time had passed, but still not as long as a full month.”
I did the math in my head and nodded.
“But from what I saw in that safe house, it had been longer. The layer of dust in there was more than a month thick.”
I couldn’t help admiring that he could figure that out just from the dust.
“Then don’t tell me—he’s the one who tipped off the enemy about the Embroidered Guard safe house and let them stroll right in?”
“That’s my guess.”
I knew it!
“But can we really lure the enemy out just with this smell of meat?”
“There should be quite a lot of people staying in that stronghold. Ten guards outside means there are more than that inside.”
“Right.”
“I asked around earlier about how much and how often wagons were going up there. When I tallied it up, the number had been steadily decreasing.”
Elder Bang smiled thinly.
“Even if every wagon was full of food, the numbers still don’t add up. So do you really think those people are getting fed properly?”
“Yeah, when you put it that way.”
“This smell is probably driving them crazy. They still won’t come running right away, though. They aren’t completely brainless.”
“Huh?”
What is he even talking about?
“From what I see, they’re in a pretty desperate spot. Their superiors may have abandoned them. So to figure out why, they played their last card and kidnapped the Embroidered Guard.”
Elder Bang said, chewing on meat.
“Normally they wouldn’t even dare think of it, but having a turncoat on their side gave them the courage.”
“I see.”
“Leaving the safe house standing was to buy time and dig for information about the higher-ups.”
“If they’d burned it down, a much harsher investigation would’ve come crashing down on them right away.”
“Exactly. And if we manage to rescue even one of the Embroidered Guard, do you think that Cheong-gwan fellow will walk away unscathed?”
“Not a chance.”
“Which means this whole plan came from Cheong-gwan’s own head. In the end, that’s what’s going to drag him down.”
So we kept talking things over while tearing into the venison.
Eating it like this, it was actually pretty good.
Meat really does taste best grilled over charcoal.
After we’d eaten our fill, he spoke up.
“All right, shall we get moving?”
“Huh?”
“Where do you think that Cheong-gwan guy went? He obviously went to inform them about us. Then they’ll march their warriors out here. That’s when we make our move and rescue the captured Embroidered Guard.”
“Then this smell of roasting meat is…?”
“Yeah. It’s bait to lure them right here.”
Only then did I realize the true reason he’d grilled the meat.
Of course, filling our stomachs was a bonus.
Cheong-gwan had liked money for as long as he could remember.
When he heard he could make a lot of money, he volunteered to become a eunuch and entered the imperial palace as an attendant.
In time, he got the chance to join the Eastern Depot.
The Eastern Depot dealt in information.
And information always turned into money.
But he needed to avoid places with too many eyes, so he deliberately requested remote Gansu far from the palace—and from then on, this province was his playground.
He started selling the information he gathered to others and lining his pockets.
He amassed quite a fortune that way, until a problem finally came knocking.
Embroidered Guard warriors were dispatched to investigate a string of disappearances in northern Gansu.
And they uncovered Cheong-gwan’s corruption.
“How dare someone who serves as His Majesty’s eyes and ears chase personal profit! I will report this to the higher authorities without fail!”
He was in serious trouble.
At this rate, he would lose not only his hoarded fortune, but likely his life as well.
But he had no intention of dying quietly.
He decided to stab the Embroidered Guard in the back and immediately headed for the mountain stronghold suspected of kidnapping children.
He sold them information on the Embroidered Guard warriors.
They ambushed and captured the Embroidered Guard, then tried to pry information out of them. But the guards refused to talk.
It didn’t matter. If they died under torture, everything would end cleanly.
His corruption would vanish as if it had never happened.
“Besides, I already destroyed every document about me.”
But then—
Another problem appeared.
People started asking around about the carriage that had carried the Embroidered Guard to the stronghold that day.
As expected, they were agents sent by the Emperor, tracking the Embroidered Guard’s trail.
This was bad.
If they rescued the Embroidered Guard, his corruption would be exposed to the world as well.
So he approached them first.
Fortunately, they didn’t suspect him in the slightest, and even worried about his safety and told him to stay back when they moved to act.
It was an opportunity.
He secretly headed for the stronghold.
“What’s going on?”
The people in the stronghold saw his face often, so they didn’t try to stop him.
“We have an emergency. Where is the Chieftain?”
“Inside.”
“I need to see him right away.”
He met the Chieftain and explained everything from start to finish.
“So what you’re saying is, they’re trying to lure us out with the smell of grilled meat over there? Hahaha! Idiots.”
The Chieftain laughed at them, then ground his teeth.
“Still, it is a good tactic. Especially in our current situation.”
On orders from above, they’d been kidnapping children. But after delivering several batches, there had been no further word from their superiors.
The food supplies they’d been receiving had even been cut off.
Just as he was growing anxious, the Embroidered Guard showed up, and according to Cheong-gwan, they were connected to this whole situation.
So they’d snatched them and were beating the answers out of them.
They hadn’t opened their mouths yet, but that would change soon enough.
And now, in the middle of that, people who knew even more had shown up.
“In that case, it’s only polite we respond in kind.”
The Chieftain gave a slow, crooked smile.
“Boys. Grab your weapons.”
–TL Notes–
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