I clutched my head in both hands.
Things had gotten tangled.
Tangled up like a goddamn dog's mess.
Steward Choi had to be alive if we were going to latch onto Namgung Yeon or whoever.
If this old man died taking all the blame, the case would end right there.
The lone crime of a loyal but twisted servant.
It sounded plausible.
From the true culprit's point of view, it was the neatest possible ending, too.
Cutting off the tail.
The true culprit must have wanted exactly that, and Peng Mu-gwang had splendidly danced the blade dance to their tune.
“Damn it!”
Peng Mu-gwang suddenly pounced on the body.
His bear-like frame roughly rummaged through the blood-soaked body's robes.
Rrrip.
The clothes tore under his rough hands.
“It is not here!”
Peng Mu-gwang shouted with bloodshot eyes.
“Why is it not here?! The antidote! The antidote should be here, should it not?!”
He flailed his bloody empty hands in the air and ranted and raved.
Drops of blood flew everywhere.
“It should be in this guy's robes! The medicine to save my father!”
I clicked my tongue.
What a frustrating man.
If having his body move before his head is a sickness, then he's sick.
“Sir. How could it possibly be there?”
“What?”
“Who hands a precious antidote to a card they're going to throw away? We're lucky he wasn't carrying poison to kill himself.”
Peng Mu-gwang's face twisted.
Unable to contain his anger, he kicked at the air.
His kicks hit nothing and only stirred up dust.
That was when it happened.
Namgung Seol, who had been standing there with a deathly pale complexion, staggered.
“......Surely not.”
Her gaze was fixed on Steward Choi's head.
To be precise, she seemed to be looking not at that dead face, but at someone hiding behind it.
Fear and disbelief.
And deep despair were tangling together in her eyes.
“Miss?”
“No.”
Namgung Seol murmured softly.
“That cannot be. Elder Sister... Elder Sister Yeon would never.”
I quickly went over to her.
The only lead we could salvage right now was her memory.
“Miss. Pull yourself together. Did Steward Choi and you have any feud? Did he usually hate you, or speak ill of you?”
Namgung Seol shook her head with a dazed expression.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“There is no way.”
“You lived under one roof for over ten years. You might have clashed at least once.”
“Steward Choi was...... a man like a shadow.”
Namgung Seol's voice trembled.
“Elder Sister's shadow. He was always at her side or running her errands. The last time I properly met his eyes and spoke with him was... probably more than ten years ago.”
“......”
“I am saying he had absolutely no reason to bear a grudge against me.”
Got it.
I took the crumpled notebook out of my robes.
Scratch, scratch.
I roughly wrote in the corner of the notebook with the charcoal.
[ Suspect Two: Namgung Yeon ]
Murderous intent arising where there's no connection?
That makes no sense.
Steward Choi's last words.
That he hated Namgung Seol.
That was a bald-faced lie.
Then there was only one answer.
A shadow doesn't move on its own.
The body has to move for the shadow to move.
Namgung Yeon.
The elder sister Namgung Seol had most respected and followed.
A woman who might have sent her younger sister alone to Hebei at great peril and framed her for poisoning the Peng Clan Head.
Judging from Namgung Seol's expression, she seemed to suspect it too.
She just didn't want to admit it.
Because accepting that you've been betrayed by family you trusted must hurt more than being stabbed by a blade.
But there was no time to wallow in feelings.
Namgung Wi's guards were spreading killing intent as they tightened their encirclement.
The moment Peng Mu-gwang killed Steward Choi, we had become guys who'd barged into someone else's home and murdered a retainer.
We needed a justification.
A justification to survive even while holding the dead steward's head.
“We have to go.”
I said firmly.
Peng Mu-gwang looked at me, breathing raggedly.
“Where?”
“To the Clan Head.”
“You want to see Namgung Hyeon?”
“Yes. We have to show this head to the master of the Namgung Clan.”
Peng Mu-gwang's eyebrow twitched.
“Have you gone mad?”
“You're the one who already did something mad, Young Master.”
“......”
“So we have to keep pretending to be mad until the very end.”
I grabbed Steward Choi's topknot from where his head was rolling on the floor and handed it to Peng Mu-gwang.
“Take it.”
“......”
“It's the culprit you caught, sir.”
Peng Mu-gwang scrunched up his face, but he seemed to understand what I meant and silently took hold of the hair.
Drip, drip.
Blood dripped from the severed neck.
Peng Sa-ryang, who had folded his fan with an unreadable expression.
Namgung Seol, whose soul had left her.
And one waiter of the Heavenly Fragrance Pavilion.
For a procession headed to hell, it was quite a sight of a combination.
I looked at Namgung Seol.
“Miss Namgung. Please lead the way. Let's go see your father.”
Namgung Seol bit her lip.
Into her eyes, which had been wavering until a moment ago, venom slowly returned.
“......Follow me.”
***
The Azure Sky Hall of the Namgung Clan.
The enormous hall, with its layers of sky-blue roof tiles, gave off a lofty, blue pressure just like its name.
Along both sides of the long corridor leading to the main hall, hundreds of martial artists stood in rows.
Every one of their gazes was cold.
It was only natural.
An outsider walking into their inner chambers holding the steward's head, dripping with blood, no less—how could they possibly welcome that?
‘What a bloodcurdling atmosphere.’
I walked pretending to be calm, but cold sweat poured down my back.
Peng Mu-gwang took the lead, fuming.
Because of the head in his hand, he looked almost like a butcher at a slaughterhouse.
Peng Sa-ryang followed behind Peng Mu-gwang.
Peng Sa-ryang's eyes were moving nonstop.
The arrangement of the martial artists.
The positions of the Elders.
He seemed to be calculating an escape route.
But apparently no answer came no matter how he looked, because Peng Sa-ryang squeezed both eyes shut.
Namgung Seol seemed as if her soul had left her.
There was no strength at all in her steps.
The piercing stares of the Namgung Clan's martial artists poured down on us.
There was only one way to get out of here alive.
To wag my three-inch tongue well.
“Enter.”
A low voice rang out from inside.
The heavy door opened.
The inside of the Azure Sky Hall was far wider than it looked from outside.
The pillars were tall as if holding up the sky, and the marble spread across the floor coldly threw back the sound of our footsteps.
And at the end of it.
On a dizzyingly high dais, a man was seated.
The Clan Head of the Namgung Clan.
Namgung Hyeon.
The moment I saw him, I nearly forgot how to breathe.
He was simply sitting there, yet it felt as if an enormous mountain range were bearing down.
Sharply slanted eyes.
Hair at his temples gone white.
And above all, the chill energy swirling around him.
It was as if a single well-honed famous sword had been planted in the chair, rather than a person.
“You Peng Clan lot dare.”
Namgung Hyeon spoke.
His voice wasn't loud, but it made my knees go weak.
“Barge into someone else's inner chambers and spill blood?”
BOOM—!
When he slammed the armrest, the marble spread across the floor cracked open.
A shard that flew off landed all the way by my feet.
Killing intent.
Blatant murderous intent, wanting to wring Peng Mu-gwang's neck at any moment.
“Heuk......”
Namgung Seol, beside me, hunched her shoulders.
Fear of her father seemed to be engraved down to her bones.
Peng Sa-ryang's expression stiffened too.
It seemed taking the killing intent of a Clan Head of the Five Great Clans under Heaven head-on was too much for a strategist.
But Peng Mu-gwang was Peng Mu-gwang.
Whether he was dense, strong, or simply thoughtless.
He hoisted up the hand holding Steward Choi's head.
Drip, drip.
Blood fell to the floor.
“This guy is the culprit!”
Peng Mu-gwang's voice rang thunderously through the Azure Sky Hall.
“I have caught and brought the guy who poisoned my father and framed Miss Namgung! The Peng Clan repays kindness twofold and enmity tenfold. I have cut off the culprit's head and brought it, so please take a look!”
Then, as if to show off, he flung Steward Choi's head up onto the dais.
Roll, roll.
Steward Choi's head stopped at Namgung Hyeon's feet.
The dead eyes looked up at the Clan Head.
The assembly stirred.
The faces of the Namgung Clan's Elders and officers lined up there turned red and purple.
To throw a dead man's head before the Clan Head.
It was behavior that had wrapped up the rules of etiquette in lettuce and eaten them.
Namgung Hyeon's eyebrow twitched.
He looked down at the head at his feet for a moment, then glared at Peng Mu-gwang again.
“It is Steward Choi.”
“That is right!”
“Did you kill him?”
“He confessed his crime.”
“And so?”
“I executed him on the spot.”
He was so confident.
So confident that it made even me dizzy.
Namgung Hyeon's eyes narrowed.
“How arrogant.”
Crunch.
The sound of bones grinding together came from Namgung Hyeon's fist.
He was on the verge of exploding right now.
It was only natural.
A retainer he'd employed for over ten years in his own clan had been killed by an outsider.
And without his permission, no less.
This was a challenge to the authority of the Namgung Clan.
Even if he killed Peng Mu-gwang right here and now, by the ways of the martial world, there would be nothing strange about it.
But Namgung Hyeon couldn't kill Peng Mu-gwang.
If Steward Choi really was the culprit, then a retainer of the Namgung Clan had tried to kill Hebei Peng Clan Head Peng Jin-ak.
In that situation, to kill Peng Mu-gwang, the Peng Clan's heir, too?
From that day on, the Hebei Peng Clan and the Namgung Clan would be at all-out war.
The martial world would become a sea of blood.
Rational calculation and emotional rage were locked in a taut standoff on Namgung Hyeon's face.
“......Evidence?”
Namgung Hyeon asked, forcing down his anger.
“Not just talk of having heard a confession—produce evidence that this man is the culprit.”
His gaze sank cold.
“If you killed my retainer without a reason I can accept......”
Shiiing.
From somewhere, a sword hum rang out.
Namgung Hyeon hadn't even drawn his sword.
And yet the very air of the Azure Sky Hall was crying sharply.
“You will not leave here alive.”
An overwhelming presence.
Even Peng Mu-gwang, so confident until a moment ago, shut his mouth.
He opened and closed his mouth like a fish, then looked at Peng Sa-ryang beside him.
Hey, you talk.
That was exactly what his eyes said.
But even Peng Sa-ryang was breaking into a cold sweat.
This wasn't a board one strategist could get past with clever words.
It was a place where the leashes of clan and clan were at stake.
In the end, Peng Mu-gwang's gaze landed on me.
Hey.
You talk.
Damn it.
So it's my job after all.
I swallowed dryly and stepped forward.
I put a lot of strength into my thighs to hide my trembling legs.
“And who are you?”
Namgung Hyeon's gaze stabbed into me.
It was the look one gives a bug.
I tightened my stomach and said clearly.
“I'm Lee Gap-saeng, a waiter of the Heavenly Fragrance Pavilion, the finest inn in Hebei.”
“A waiter?”
“Yes.”
“This is no place for a lowly thing to cut in.”
With just one word, my neck went cold.
But if I backed down here, I'd really die.
I bowed my head, but I didn't step back.
“There's a truth that's visible even to a lowly guy's eyes, so I'd like to speak.”
The assembly stirred quietly.
Namgung Hyeon's eyebrow rose faintly.
I took a bundle of papers out of my robes.
It was evidence Peng Sa-ryang had secured in advance.
A letter found in Steward Choi's quarters.
A forgery imitating Namgung Seol's handwriting.
“This is a poison commission written imitating Miss Namgung's handwriting.”
I held up the letter.
“And this is Steward Choi's usual handwriting.”
I spread the two sheets of paper side by side.
“On the surface, he imitated Miss Namgung's handwriting. But he couldn't fake his habits. The points where the strokes bend, the thickness of the ink he loads, and the way he trails off the ends of the characters.”
I pointed to the ends of the characters with my finger.
“They're perfectly identical.”
“......”
“This was without a doubt written by Steward Choi.”
Peng Sa-ryang nodded beside me, lending strength to my words.
Namgung Hyeon's expression changed subtly.
It was the face of a man who had seen evidence hard to deny.
I went straight on to my next words.
“What's more, Purple Mist Orchid powder was found in Steward Choi's quarters.”
The assembly stirred.
Namgung Hyeon's eyes narrowed.
“Purple Mist Orchid?”
“Yes. The ingredient of the very poison that poisoned the Peng Clan Head.”
“Are you certain?”
“You can send someone to check right now.”
I caught my breath.
“If he really were an innocent man, how on earth would such a poison have turned up in his room?”
Namgung Hyeon looked down at me without a word.
A brief silence.
And then his lips slowly twisted.
“So he was a mad dog.”
He rested his chin on his hand and spat out coldly.
“A mad dog that bit its master.”
In that instant, a chill ran down my spine.
He's trying to cover up the case.
Namgung Hyeon was no fool.
There was no way he didn't know whose shadow Steward Choi was.
He was a retainer he'd employed for over ten years.
Namgung Hyeon, more than anyone else here, would know that Steward Choi was Namgung Yeon's right hand.
And yet right now he was turning Steward Choi into ‘a mad dog that bit its master.’
A mad dog.
A retainer who ran wild on his own.
A lone crime with no loyalty, no orders, and no one behind it.
It was the neatest way to wrap up the case without exposing the Namgung Clan's shame.
“It was my negligence for failing to manage him.”
Namgung Hyeon said coldly.
“If a dog I took in ran wild on its own and tried to harm a precious guest, then the fault is mine as well. The Namgung Clan will apologize to the Peng Clan and make due reparations.”
The end.
That was what the Clan Head was saying right now.
Be satisfied with this and withdraw.
Dig any further, and the Namgung Clan's swords will cut off your heads.
That unspoken warning pressed down on the Azure Sky Hall.
But it couldn't be allowed to end there.
Steward Choi hadn't had the antidote to save Peng Jin-ak.
Because no one would hand an antidote to a card they meant to throw away.
Then the antidote was still in the hands of its true owner.
I opened my mouth.
“No, Clan Head.”
Namgung Hyeon's eyebrow twitched.
“No?”
“Yes.”
I took a deep breath.
“Steward Choi isn't a mad dog.”
The air grew heavy.
Namgung Seol tugged lightly on my sleeve.
It was a signal to stop.
But I couldn't stop.
“That man was a loyal hound to the very moment he died.”
“......You talk a great deal.”
Namgung Hyeon's voice dropped.
It wasn't merely tinged with displeasure.
It carried killing intent.
Know your limits.
Do not cross that line.
Those unspoken words touched the nape of my neck like a blade.
My throat had gone bone-dry, but I didn't back away.
“You know it too, don't you, Clan Head?”
My voice echoed through the Azure Sky Hall.
“You there, waiter.”
Namgung Hyeon called in a low voice.
At that one word, my heart dropped.
“How would a guy like you, who only ever rolled noodles at an inn, know the heartlessness of the martial world?”
A cold light flashed deep in Namgung Hyeon's eyes.
“Sometimes covering things up is a greater virtue than the truth.”
It was killing intent.
A blatant threat that if I wagged my tongue any more, he'd rip it out.
I knew it too.
How dangerous what I was doing right now was.
My opponent was the Clan Head of the Namgung Clan.
And I was an inn waiter.
If he so much as twitched a finger, my head would become friends with Steward Choi's head rolling on the floor.
But I couldn't back down.
I glanced at Namgung Seol.
She stood there with a pale face.
A pitiful woman who had been branded a poisoner overnight and betrayed by the elder sister she trusted.
I couldn't just stand by and watch an innocent person be framed and die.
I'm a waiter.
A lowly guy.
But I'm not the kind of guy who pretends not to see even the truth right in front of his eyes.
“A shadow doesn't move on its own.”
My voice cracked a little.
“The body has to move for the shadow to move.”
Whummm—.
The air of the Azure Sky Hall vibrated.
Namgung Hyeon's fingers dug into the armrest of his chair.
There was the sound of hard wood being crushed.
Taking that pressure head-on, I continued.
“The person who could move Steward Choi.”
One step.
I moved forward, just a little.
“The person who could make him stake his life on a false confession.”
Everyone in the Azure Sky Hall held their breath.
“The master he tried to protect until the moment he died—there's only one such person in this Namgung Clan.”
Namgung Seol squeezed her eyes shut.
Peng Sa-ryang's lips stiffened.
I drew a breath.
And at last, I spoke the taboo.
“The person Steward Choi served his whole life.”
A blue murderous light flashed in Namgung Hyeon's eyes.
I didn't look away from those eyes.
“It's Miss Namgung Yeon.”