Chapter 333

News that the Sword Flower Pavilion had tried to frame Pyo Wol for raping a woman, only to have it backfire on them, quickly spread throughout Jiangsu Province.

Those who had witnessed the incident at the Inn boasted about it, and the Sword Flower Pavilion could not silence them.

In just one day, the Sword Flower Pavilion was thrown into internal strife.

Go Yeon-su destroyed Eum Yujeong’s Dantian and expelled her from the Sword Flower Pavilion. Eum Yujeong, whose hand had already been crushed by Pyo Wol, had no choice but to flee Tai Lake as if escaping.

After expelling his disciple, Go Yeon-su holed himself up in his residence and did not come out. Some said Go Yeon-su cried all day in his residence, while others gossiped that he had gone mad.

No one knew what the truth was, but one thing was certain.

The life of the Sword Flower Pavilion as a Jianghu sect was over.

While the fall of the Sword Flower Pavilion was surprising, what was more terrifying was the existence of Pyo Wol, the one who had caused it.

Any man would have had his life ruined if he had fallen into the trap set by Go Yeon-su. For the martial artists of Jianghu who valued honor, nothing was more terrifying than the stigma of being a Lecherous Demon.

But Pyo Wol had broken through Go Yeon-su and the Sword Flower Pavilion’s conspiracy head-on and proved his innocence. Not only that, he had delivered a thorough downfall to the Sword Flower Pavilion.

Pyo Wol’s boldness and cruelty instilled an even deeper fear in people. The perception that messing with Pyo Wol would ruin one’s life became ingrained in their minds.

The person most shocked by this incident was Tang Ikgi, the young master of the Iron Mountain Manor.

“Eum Yujeong was chased out like a mangy dog?”

Tang Ikgi wore an expression of disbelief.

To him, Eum Yujeong was a flower blooming in a high place, out of reach. Hearing that such a woman had been driven out by Pyo Wol made his heart pound uncontrollably.

“Damn it!”

Tang Ikgi paced his room all day.

No matter how much time passed, he couldn’t calm down, and his anxiety only grew.

“I can’t take this anymore.”

Unable to bear the pressure, Tang Ikgi went outside.

He hated the stuffiness of being inside the Manor, and he couldn’t go to Tai Lake, his usual haunt, for fear of running into Pyo Wol.

He eventually decided to go to the Iron Mountain Workshop.

It was a familiar place where he had grown up, and above all, there was a man named Do Yeon-san, a perfect target to vent his anger on.

He hadn’t even told his father, Tang Cheolsan, that he had imprisoned Do Yeon-san. He was afraid he might be punished.

‘It might be better to kill him and silence him on this occasion…’

If his father, Tang Cheolsan, found out that he had hidden the fact that Do Yeon-san’s parents were dead and had set fire to the house they lived in, he would surely be severely punished.

He thought it would be better to destroy the evidence before that happened.

‘Yes! That would be better.’

He wanted no more of this troublesome matter weighing on his mind.

Tang Ikgi headed to the workshop with a vicious heart.

As soon as he arrived at the workshop, a clerk greeted him.

“W-welcome, Young Master!”

But the clerk’s attitude was strange.

He was clearly flustered for some reason.

“Something’s happened.”

“What?”

Tang Ikgi’s face contorted at the sight of the startled clerk.

“What is it? What happened?”

“Well, that is…”

Smack!

A sudden surge of anger made Tang Ikgi slap the clerk across the face.

“Can’t you speak properly? What happened?”

“That is… Yeon-san has escaped.”

“What?”

Tang Ikgi blinked for a moment at the completely unexpected answer.

“We discovered this morning that he had escaped.”

“How? Wasn’t he locked up?”

“We definitely locked him in the warehouse. But he vanished without a trace.”

Thwack!

Tang Ikgi kicked the clerk.

The clerk was struck in the abdomen and rolled on the floor.

“You call that an explanation? You bastard! Vanished without a trace? Then why didn’t you report it? Huh!”

“That’s…”

“Fuck!”

Tang Ikgi repeatedly kicked the clerk, who couldn’t make a proper excuse.

The clerk didn’t dare to make an excuse and just took the beating. Tang Ikgi kicked the clerk for a long time, but his anger did not subside.

“What happened? Tell me the truth.”

“The truth is…”

Only then did the clerk begin to confess what had happened yesterday.

After hearing his whole story, Tang Ikgi looked dumbfounded.

“So you’re saying a man named Pyo Wol came, and he found out you had imprisoned Do Yeon-san?”

“Yes!”

“What did they talk about?”

“Well, they spoke in such a low voice, I couldn’t hear well…”

“You useless bastard! You call that an excuse?”

“I’m sorry.”

“So that bastard Pyo Wol let him escape?”

“That’s not it. He just said a few words and left. It was a long time after that Yeon-san escaped.”

“Fuck!”

Tang Ikgi slammed his fist on the table.

The clerk gulped as he watched the table break into two pieces and tumble to the floor.

He had a premonition that his own fate would soon be the same as the table’s. But fortunately, Tang Ikgi had no intention of using any more violence on him.

“So you’re tracking him now?”

“Yes!”

“You’d better find him. If you don’t, I’ll take your head first.”

“I-I will find him, even if I have to put in a request with the Hao Clan.”

“Fuck! Of all people, why did that bastard have to get involved…”

Tang Ikgi ground his teeth.

What bothered him most was Pyo Wol.

The fact that Pyo Wol, of all people, was involved in this matter made him deeply uneasy.

The fall of the Sword Flower Pavilion, which had boasted such immense power at Tai Lake, in a single day did not feel like someone else’s problem.

Watching Tang Ikgi’s body tremble, the clerk’s lips twitched. He wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come out.

Several items had disappeared from the warehouse where Do Yeon-san had been locked up. Among them were minerals imported from the Outer Regions.

‘I’d better not say anything.’

He felt that if he spoke up now, there wouldn’t be a bone left of him. So he kept his mouth shut.

＊＊＊

Do Yeon-san carefully lifted the straw mat.

The moment he confirmed the object covered by the mat, Do Yeon-san’s eyes became bloodshot.

“Keuk!”

He clamped a hand over his mouth.

The corpse, so bloated from the water that its original face was unrecognizable, was undoubtedly his younger sister.

Thick teardrops rolled down Do Yeon-san’s cheeks.

He thought all his tears had dried up, but there were still some left to shed.

Do Yeon-san caressed his sister’s face.

He couldn’t believe that his sister, who was prettier than a flower and brighter than the moon, was lying here as a cold corpse.

If this was a nightmare, he wanted to wake up from it quickly. But he knew better than anyone that this was not a dream.

“Who on earth?”

Do Yeon-san examined his sister’s body closely.

Just as Pyo Wol had said, the marks of torture were clearly visible on her body.

He didn’t know who it was, but it was clear they had violated his sister and then brutally tortured her. Her contorted face told of how much pain she must have been in.

After examining the body for a while, Do Yeon-san discovered a strange wound on his sister’s forearm.

At first glance, it looked like a meaningless cut. But upon closer inspection, the cuts combined to form a character.

“Cao?”

It was clear that someone had carved the character into her forearm with a sharp stone or piece of metal.

When she was alive, it would have looked like a simple wound, but after she stopped breathing and her body stiffened, the character became clearer.

It was a character completed by tearing at her own flesh in a life-or-death situation. It couldn’t be meaningless.

Someone’s face immediately came to mind.

“Jo Igwang!”

Do Yeon-san ground his teeth.

Tang Ikgi was a person with a very loose tongue.

He had an inferiority complex towards the prodigies of the Golden Sky Society. That was why, even as he desperately tried to join the Golden Sky Society, he always spoke ill of them.

He talked most about Jo Igwang.

He would say that although Jo Igwang appeared noble on the outside, his sexual tastes were filthy, and he always targeted young girls. He would boast that countless girls had their lives ruined or were killed because of him.

At the time, he thought it was nonsense.

He thought there was no reason for a scion of a prestigious family like Jo Igwang to do such a dirty thing. So he just thought Tang Ikgi was slandering Jo Igwang.

But now, seeing the character ‘Jo,’ he regretted not having paid attention back then.

If he had been just a little more careful, his sister would not have been kidnapped by Jo Igwang, and his mother and father would not have died at his hands.

Do Yeon-san had already concluded that Jo Igwang was the culprit.

He carefully lifted his sister’s body into his arms.

He couldn’t retrieve his parents’ bodies because of Tang Ikgi, but he wanted to bury his sister, at least, in a sunny place.

“Go in peace.”

When Do Yeon-san came out carrying his sister’s body, an official looked at him with a pitiful expression.

He often recovered bodies of drowning victims, but he had never seen a corpse as gruesome as Do Yeon-san’s sister.

He couldn’t even begin to imagine how devastated Do Yeon-san must be right now.

Usually, he would return a recovered body to the family after receiving a small bribe, but he couldn’t bring himself to make such a demand of Do Yeon-san.

The official stared blankly at Do Yeon-san’s retreating back as he carried his sister’s body away.

Do Yeon-san carried his sister’s body to a reed bed by the shore of Tai Lake.

Where the reed bed met the lake, there was a small boat. Do Yeon-san had prepared it beforehand, before retrieving his sister’s body.

Inside the boat were the items he had stolen from the Iron Mountain Workshop. Do Yeon-san laid his sister’s body on one side of the boat and began to row.

There were as many as forty-eight islands, large and small, in Tai Lake. Some were inhabited, but most were not.

The place Do Yeon-san was now rowing to was one of those.

An island in the deepest part of Tai Lake, too small for people to live on.

Do Yeon-san docked the boat there and unloaded his sister’s body and all the items he had brought.

The first thing he did was gather wood from the island. He built an altar with dry branches and placed his sister’s body on top. Then he lit it on fire.

The crimson flames quickly engulfed his sister’s body.

“Keuheuk! Keuheo-eong!”

Do Yeon-san prostrated himself on the ground and screamed.

He thought all his tears had dried up, but he was wrong.

The tears continued to flow until his sister’s body was completely burned, leaving only a few bones.

It was a long time after the fire went out that Do Yeon-san raised his head.

He was no longer crying.

His tears had truly all dried up.

He gathered his sister’s bones and ground them himself. He scattered the finely ground bone powder into Tai Lake.

“Please be reborn into a good family. Not a family with an incompetent older brother like me, but a place with a family that can protect you.”

Do Yeon-san turned away.

After cremating his sister, the first thing he did was build a furnace.

He stacked stones he had gathered himself and filled the gaps with mud from the water’s edge, and in this way, he built the furnace.

His fingernails broke and his hands bled from stacking stones and carrying mud, but Do Yeon-san did not let out a single groan.

By the time the sun set, the furnace was finally complete.

Do Yeon-san immediately put wood into the furnace and lit a fire. When the fire was strong enough, he threw the white charcoal he had brought from the Iron Mountain Workshop into the flames.

The white charcoal, manufactured with the Iron Mountain Workshop’s own Secret Transmission, had the effect of maximizing firepower.

As the white charcoal went in, white flames soared up.

Do Yeon-san threw the minerals he had secretly brought into the flames.

“I will never forgive you.”

A fire as hot as the flames in the furnace blazed in Do Yeon-san’s eyes.