Chapter 109

Over the winter, many changes had occurred in Chengdu.

One of them was the construction of new mansions in the slums. The previous year, the slums had suffered a great fire.

Many homes burned down, turning to ash. The poor did not have the means to rebuild their houses. They sold their homes for a pittance and left, and in their place, the wealthy of Chengdu moved in.

They completely razed the ash-covered slums and built large mansions. The number of large mansions grew one by one, quickly encroaching upon the slums and transforming the area into a high-class residential district.

People envied the newly established high-class residential district, calling it Shincheon-ro (New Heaven Road).

Most of those who owned a residence on Shincheon-ro were influential figures in Chengdu. Among them were owners of large trading companies, as well as those who ran escort agencies or martial arts academies.

Thus, Shincheon-ro became a city for the haves.

As a place where Chengdu’s influential figures gathered, the security of Shincheon-ro was tight. Martial artists stood guard on every alley, making it impossible for anyone of uncertain identity to even enter Shincheon-ro.

For the people of Chengdu, entering the residential district of Shincheon-ro became a dream. In particular, merchants who had recently amassed great wealth and powerful figures lined up to get into Shincheon-ro. But the number of mansions was limited.

There were many who wanted to buy, but none who wanted to sell. As a result, the prices of the mansions in Shincheon-ro skyrocketed.

Even within Shincheon-ro, there was one mansion that was the object of everyone’s envy. It was the grand mansion located in the very center of Shincheon-ro.

Among the luxurious mansions on Shincheon-ro, this one, which boasted a particularly large scale and high walls, was reminiscent of a fortress.

Seeing the red pine trees visible over the mansion’s walls, people called it Red Pine Manor.

Publicly, the owner of Red Pine Manor was known to be Jo Chi-yang, the owner of the Joga Trading Company. However, he only visited Red Pine Manor occasionally and did not reside there. So people thought of Red Pine Manor as merely Jo Chi-yang’s villa. But the true owner of Red Pine Manor was someone else.

Creeak!

The massive gate of Red Pine Manor opened, and a young man walked inside.

The man, whose strikingly pale face stood out even in the darkness, was none other than Pyo Wol.

As Pyo Wol entered, someone rushed out from inside the mansion.

He was a sharp-featured man in his early fifties, dressed in a blue silk robe.

As soon as he saw Pyo Wol, he bowed his head deeply.

Pyo Wol nodded and walked past the man. The man then hurriedly followed behind Pyo Wol.

Pyo Wol strode through Red Pine Manor as if it were his own home, and the middle-aged man followed with the utmost politeness, as if he were Pyo Wol’s attendant.

The middle-aged man’s name was Go Hong-seo.

Pyo Wol called him Go Chonggwan.

Go Chonggwan was a man of few words.

The fact that he did not say a single word while following Pyo Wol showed just how taciturn he was.

Go Chonggwan couldn’t help but be taciturn.

His tongue had been cut out from the root.

He hadn’t always been without a tongue. It was Gu Ju-yang, the former Unit Leader of the Bloody Shadows Guild, who had cut out Go Chonggwan’s tongue.

Gu Ju-yang was a cruel man.

Apart from the Bloody Shadows Guild, he operated another organization.

People commonly believed that assassins accepted commissions and gathered information themselves. This wasn’t wrong, but it only applied to small-scale assassin groups or assassins who worked alone.

To further expand the Bloody Shadows Guild, Gu Ju-yang gathered individuals to systematically support the assassins and created an organization.

Their mission was to gather information and track the movements of targets.

To maintain secrecy, Gu Ju-yang cut out all their tongues. That was the reason Go Chonggwan’s tongue had been cut out.

Seven years ago, the Bloody Shadows Guild fell, but the organization Gu Ju-yang had created survived. And they waited for someone related to the Bloody Shadows Guild to call upon them again someday.

In a way, they were no different from the legacy Gu Ju-yang had left behind.

The booklet Gu Ju-yang left behind contained all their personal details, and last winter, Pyo Wol took them in.

It wasn’t that he particularly intended to carry on the will of the Bloody Shadows Guild.

He had no intention of accepting assassination requests, nor did he wish to kill for a price.

It was simply that in the process of dealing with what Gu Ju-yang had left behind, he had ended up taking them in as well.

Although seven years had passed, their loyalty to Gu Ju-yang remained unchanged. They could have scattered after the Bloody Shadows Guild was annihilated, but the fact that they remained and carried on their legacy proved their loyalty.

At the center of it all was Go Chonggwan.

Go Chonggwan, who had been loyal to Gu Ju-yang since he was young, now shifted his loyalty to Pyo Wol.

It was a way of thinking that an ordinary person could never understand.

Pyo Wol entrusted the management of Red Pine Manor to Go Chonggwan.

Everyone who worked at Red Pine Manor was a person Go Chonggwan had brought with him. Even today, they were scattered throughout Chengdu, gathering information for Pyo Wol.

That was their way of life, and they knew no other.

Pyo Wol neither stopped them nor particularly supported them. Nevertheless, they worked enthusiastically for their new master.

Go Chonggwan led Pyo Wol to the largest room in Red Pine Manor.

It was a room that felt desolate, without a single piece of common furniture or decoration.

As Pyo Wol sat at the table in the center of the room, Go Chonggwan handed him a piece of paper he had prepared in advance.

The paper contained the information that the members of Red Pine Manor had gathered so far.

Information such as which trading company in Chengdu had earned how much money, the movements of the escort agencies, and which martial arts academy had welcomed an outstanding disciple was written in dense detail.

All of it was information that the members of Red Pine Manor had obtained by running around on foot.

Compared to the information network of the Hao Clan, which spanned all under heaven, it was severely lacking, but at least in Chengdu and Sichuan Province, their intelligence capabilities were by no means inferior.

Go Chonggwan looked at Pyo Wol with an extremely polite attitude.

Pyo Wol nodded.

“Good work. This was a great help.”

For a moment, Go Chonggwan smiled as if he were pleased.

Gu Ju-yang had raised Go Chonggwan like a dog.

A hunting dog that feels joy only when it receives its master’s praise.

Go Chonggwan had accepted Pyo Wol as his new master, and the new master’s praise revitalized his life.

[I will serve you with even greater devotion.]

In his joy, he wrote on a piece of paper and showed it to Pyo Wol.

Pyo Wol nodded.

Among the members of Red Pine Manor, Go Chonggwan was the only one who could see the whole picture. The other members of the manor only knew fragmented pieces of information; he was the only one who drew and understood the overall picture.

Go Chonggwan considered this a privilege, and for that reason, he worked even more enthusiastically.

Having been brainwashed by Gu Ju-yang from a young age, his way of thinking had been altered.

Go Chonggwan looked at Pyo Wol with eyes full of anticipation. He was expecting Pyo Wol to give some kind of order.

“A man named Ximen Pyeong has entered Chengdu. Find out the purpose of his visit.”

At Pyo Wol’s command, Go Chonggwan smiled brightly and nodded.

The sight of a man over fifty smiling so innocently was somehow eerie.

After Go Chonggwan left, Pyo Wol remained alone in the room.

A large, empty room.

The vast space, large enough to practice martial arts, was Pyo Wol’s second den.

Here, Pyo Wol spent most of his time honing his martial arts and killing methods.

The walls and pillars bore the clear marks of Pyo Wol’s martial arts training.

By absorbing Gu Ju-yang’s legacy, Pyo Wol was able to establish his own territory in Chengdu.

Pyo Wol engaged in no external activities whatsoever.

He put Su-hyang of the Celestial Fragrance Pavilion and Go Chonggwan of Red Pine Manor at the forefront, thoroughly concealing his own existence.

Because of this, even Hong Yushin, the Surveillance Chief of the Hao Clan, thought that Pyo Wol had left Chengdu and set up a nest elsewhere.

Hong Yushin mobilized all the Hao Clan members in Chengdu to inquire about Pyo Wol’s whereabouts. But he could not find Pyo Wol, who was holed up in Red Pine Manor, practicing only martial arts.

The disappearance of the slums was a major blow to the Hao Clan.

Due to the nature of the Hao Clan, the poor had served as their informants.

Because of the great fire last year, the poor were driven out of Chengdu, which inevitably created a large hole in their information network within the city.

Go Chonggwan and Su-hyang also played a part in this.

They used everything they had to thoroughly erase Pyo Wol’s traces.

Thus, Pyo Wol became a non-existent person in Chengdu.

Some might find it suffocating to hide in the shadows like this, but Pyo Wol was more at ease living with his presence concealed.

He had no desire to gain fame, nor did he wish to enjoy wealth and glory.

He just wanted to continue living as he was now.

Pyo Wol’s gaze suddenly turned to a book lying on the desk.

It was a book that Go Chonggwan had obtained.

It was a book in which the principles of the Disguise Technique were written.

One of the best things about having Go Chonggwan at his command was that he could easily obtain such books.

While it was not easy to obtain martial arts manuals containing the secret transmissions of each sect, books related to various miscellaneous arts and Music Chess Calligraphy Painting could be easily acquired.

Throughout the winter, Go Chonggwan obtained and offered numerous books to Pyo Wol, and Pyo Wol devoured them all.

Thanks to this, Pyo Wol’s knowledge increased by a breakthrough.

Pyo Wol calmly read the book containing the principles of the Disguise Technique.

Flip! Flip, flip!

The sound of Pyo Wol turning the pages echoed in the quiet room.

It was around the time the morning dawn broke that Pyo Wol closed the book.

The principles were similar to the Cha-geom he had learned in the underground cavern of the past. The only difference was that the study was a bit more profound and subdivided.

Pyo Wol tried performing the Disguise Technique as a test.

Tuduk! Tududuk!

The muscles of his face moved slightly, changing its shape.

It wasn’t a big change. It was just a subtle alteration. Yet, the overall atmosphere of his face changed noticeably.

He slightly lowered the corners of his eyes and made his nose blunter. His impression changed to that of a somewhat simple-looking person.

Pyo Wol left Red Pine Manor in that disguised state.

As the day brightened, quite a few people were passing by on the streets. But none of them paid any attention to Pyo Wol.

Pyo Wol’s original face was so beautiful that it always drew people’s attention. Because of that, there were many restrictions on his actions.

The reason Pyo Wol had specifically sought out and learned from a book on the Disguise Technique was to free himself from people’s gazes.

Pyo Wol walked freely through the streets of Chengdu.

Suddenly, his eyes gleamed.

He had seen a familiar face.

A middle-aged scholar with a stylishly grown beard. In his hand was a folding fan with a splendid painting on it.

‘Yoo Shinpoong!’

He was none other than the Shadowless Hermit, Yoo Shinpoong.

Yoo Shinpoong, who had entered Chengdu last year, had for some reason not left and stayed behind. And he had been inquiring about Pyo Wol’s whereabouts.

But after last autumn, Pyo Wol had completely vanished from Chengdu, and Yoo Shinpoong had lost his target.

Yoo Shinpoong had done his utmost to find Pyo Wol. But with his limited information network, it was impossible to find Pyo Wol, who had concealed his presence.

Yoo Shinpoong eventually gave up on finding Pyo Wol. He thought that Pyo Wol had left Chengdu. So he too had planned to leave Sichuan Province, but as fate would have it, a tremendous amount of snow fell that winter.

All the roads leading outside were blocked by snow, forcing him to spend the winter in Chengdu. That was the reason Yoo Shinpoong was still staying in Chengdu.

Perhaps because he had suffered a lot mentally, Yoo Shinpoong’s face looked very haggard. In fact, his mind and body were currently in a very exhausted state.

He had boldly sent his niece out of Sichuan Province and remained alone, but he had failed to produce any results.

In the end, having wasted the winter away, his heart was incredibly heavy.

“Hah!”

Yoo Shinpoong let out a sigh without realizing it.

Pyo Wol was right beside him, but he did not recognize him.

Pyo Wol quietly watched Yoo Shinpoong.

Through Go Chonggwan, Pyo Wol received reports on Yoo Shinpoong’s every move.

He knew why he was looking for him, and also why he was wary of him.

By observing Yoo Shinpoong in turn, Pyo Wol came to learn. How diverse human psychology is, and how much a person with a strong sense of chivalry can endure when they set a goal.

Without knowing it, Yoo Shinpoong had become an excellent teaching material for Pyo Wol. By observing his actions, Pyo Wol came to understand the underlying psychology of martial artists from the Orthodox Faction.

Yoo Shinpoong would never know, not even in his wildest dreams, that he was being observed by Pyo Wol. Pyo Wol, for his part, had no intention of stepping forward to reveal it.

It was then.

Clip-clop!

With the vigorous sound of horse hooves, a large carriage came rushing in the direction of Pyo Wol and Yoo Shinpoong.

The carriage stopped precisely in front of Yoo Shinpoong.

“Hm?”

The moment Yoo Shinpoong looked on with a puzzled expression, someone jumped out from inside the carriage.

“Uncle!”

The woman who threw herself into Yoo Shinpoong’s arms with a loud cry was none other than Lee Soha, who had left Chengdu last year.

“What, Soha! How are you here?”

Yoo Shinpoong’s eyes widened in surprise. Lee Soha then lifted her head and said,

“You didn’t come, so I came back.”

“Hah!”

“I’m so glad you’re safe.”

Tears welled up in Lee Soha’s eyes.

After leaving Yoo Shinpoong alone and returning to her family home, she hadn’t been able to sleep peacefully for a single day.

If she had her way, she would have returned to Chengdu immediately, but the heavy snow blocked the roads, and she had to wait until spring.

As soon as she heard the news that the road to Chengdu was open, she departed for Chengdu right away.

“You didn’t come all this dangerous way alone, did you?”

“I came with a friend.”

“A friend?”

Yoo Shinpoong looked at the carriage with a puzzled expression.

At that moment, a woman in light travel attire got out of the carriage.

She was a rare beauty who, due to her cold atmosphere, was reminiscent of an Ice Flower.

The woman greeted Yoo Shinpoong with a Fist-Palm Salute.

“Junior Won Gayoung greets the Great Hero, Shadowless Hermit Yoo Shinpoong.”

“Won Gayoung? Hah! Then, is Miss the Hwan-geom Seon-ja?”

A look of astonishment appeared on Yoo Shinpoong’s face.