Apricot Tiger Inn.
While Jangho and the Gang of Ruffians were being killed, Gi Daehyo and Gi Manji were investigating the eastern road outside Soaring Sun City, the place where Machil's body had first been discovered.
Following behind them, a city official had also come along.
"Is this the place?"
"Yes, Lord."
"Were you the one who found the body?"
"Yes. I was the first to discover Machil, buried in the tall grass over there."
The official answered Gi Daehyo's question, bowing so low his head nearly touched the ground.
"Hmm."
Gi Daehyo began to inspect every corner of the site, working under the assumption that the death was a murder, not an accident or a disappearance.
It was a stretch of open road where the city walls ended and the fields began, nothing special.
The tall grass beside the road could have been considered peculiar, but to Gi Daehyo, who had spent decades in the Murim, it did not seem particularly strange or special. Bodies were dumped in places like this all the time.
The first thing he checked for was a sign of struggle.
If there had been a fight, the grass would have been trampled, or the dirt would have been disturbed.
However, no matter where he looked---front, back, left, right---the ground told him nothing.
The grass where the body had been found was already flattened and disturbed, but that was because of the men who had dug it up, not because of any struggle.
In a normal murder, a body found in the open would usually show some sign of how it got there.
But there was nothing.
The possibility of a robbery gone wrong was dismissed at a glance.
'Then, could they have been killed elsewhere and moved here?'
With a frown.
Gi Daehyo paced the road and examined the surroundings.
The eastern road was the main route out of Soaring Sun City toward the Danri Family estate and the smaller villages beyond.
It was a typical country road.
There was a tea house a short distance back, and a few scattered farmhouses in the distance.
From the tea house, one could clearly see a good stretch of the road.
Likewise, from the road, anyone walking along it could have been easily spotted.
As a result, the possibility of an ambush by strangers was also eliminated.
If the culprit had been a stranger, there would have been a witness, whether it was a traveler or a farmer.
The possibilities of a robbery and a random attack were gone.
Next, the possibility of a dispute among acquaintances also vanished.
Machil had no known enemies in the city. He was disliked, but not hated. He was an armory hand, a servant, a man who spent his wages on food and drink.
Without a motive, a murder made no sense.
The next possibility was a debt, or a gambling dispute, or some other hidden vice.
But according to what Gi Manji had already gathered, Machil had no debts and no vices beyond food and drink.
This possibility was also instantly dismissed.
According to the official, no one had reported Machil missing until three days after he disappeared, and no one had seen him after he left the Apricot Tiger Inn.
With that, the possibilities of robbery, random attack, and personal grudge were completely eliminated.
The only remaining possibility was that someone had followed him from the city, waited for the right moment, and killed him on the open road.
If the Suicide Plague was truly a series of murders, the culprit must have done the same thing to Machil.
Gi Daehyo clasped his hands behind his back and approached the spot where the body had been found.
The grass had been trampled flat by the men who had dug the body up.
Swish.
With a single sweep of his hand, Gi Daehyo pushed the grass aside and knelt down to examine the ground beneath.
There was nothing under the grass. No footprints, no dropped items, no marks of a struggle.
"Hmm."
Seeing it, he was convinced something was wrong.
Unlike the other disappearances, Machil's body had been left in the open, but there was still no trace of the killer.
The problem was...
There was also no trace of the victim's final moments.
"Look here."
"Yes, Lord."
At Gi Daehyo's call, the official quickly approached and answered.
"When the body was found, was there any sign of how it had been killed?"
"No, Lord. There were no wounds on the body, and no blood on the ground. The body was just... there."
Gi Daehyo already knew this fact, but he asked again just to confirm.
He meticulously examined the ground once more.
It looked difficult to even find a single dropped coin in the dirt.
He could find no trace of how Machil had died.
'Does this mean... that the recent series of disappearances and deaths are really entirely unrelated to any known method?'
For a moment, he thought so, but he soon shook his head.
It did not make sense.
What kind of death leaves no wound and no blood?
Even if such a thing existed, a death should show some sign of how it happened, but the victims of the Suicide Plague were found in perfect condition, as if they had simply stopped living.
That meant the method was selective, and he had never heard of or seen such a method.
It was absurd.
The conclusion was that it was not a plague.
Gi Daehyo once again leaned toward the murder theory and examined the ground.
If there was someone who had mastered a martial art to the point of killing without leaving a trace, could they not have done this? He had never seen or heard of such a master, but he thought it was possible.
After all, the Jianghu was full of extraordinary people and strange occurrences that defied imagination.
Compared to the other cases, where the victims were found in locked rooms with no sign of entry, this one seemed more plausible.
At the very least, the killer could have followed Machil from the city and waited for the right moment to strike. If one could kill without leaving a wound, they could certainly do it here.
Between no possibility and a slight possibility, Gi Daehyo's reasoning naturally leaped to the latter.
"Was anyone else seen on the road when Machil disappeared? Was there perhaps a witness?"
Gi Daehyo asked, predicting that there would have been none.
If there had been a witness, the investigation would already have a lead.
But his prediction was immediately proven wrong.
"Yes, there was one. A tea house owner, a short distance back, said he saw Machil leave the Apricot Tiger Inn around midday and walk east along this road."
"Who else?"
Gi Daehyo was not disappointed and continued to question the official.
"The tea house owner also said he saw a shabbily dressed man following Machil a short while later. He thought it was a beggar or a servant."
"A shabbily dressed man? Who was it?"
Gi Daehyo was taken aback. This was the first solid lead he had gotten in the entire investigation.
The official shook his head.
"The owner could not identify him. He only said the man was a stablehand."
The reason the official specified 'a stablehand' was that the tea house owner had seen the man leading a horse earlier in the day.
If he just said a shabbily dressed man, there would be dozens in Soaring Sun alone.
However, if one specified a stablehand leading a horse, it could only be the mute Ma-ah-sam.
"A stablehand? From the Danri Family? Who is that? Was there someone with that name in the family?"
Gi Daehyo did not know who So-sam was.
No matter how much of a celebrity So-sam was in Soaring Sun, the difference in their statuses was too great.
It would have been stranger if Gi Daehyo did know So-sam.
That was why he was asking Gi Manji.
"Father, that person is one of the family's stablehands."
"A stablehand? Why would someone like that be following Machil at that hour?"
"Would it not be for the same reason as Machil?"
The same reason as Machil?
Ah.
For food and drink.
Gi Daehyo's gaze immediately turned to the official.
The official at once shook his head in confusion.
"No, Lord. Machil went to the Apricot Tiger Inn alone. There was no stablehand with him."
"Is that so? Then go and bring the tea house owner."
No sooner had the official said yes than he brought the tea house owner over.
The tea house owner had been in the middle of serving a customer and was dragged over without knowing why.
While he was tidying his disheveled clothes, Gi Daehyo began his questions.
"On the day Machil disappeared, were you working at your tea house?"
"Yes."
"What did you see?"
"I saw Machil walk past my tea house a little after midday. He was coming from the Apricot Tiger Inn, heading east along the road."
"Did you see anyone following him?"
"Ah, yes. A short while later, a shabbily dressed man walked past, leading a horse. He was going the same direction."
Gi Daehyo's eyes narrowed.
"Can you describe this man?"
"He was tall, thin, and looked like he had been eating poorly for a long time. He had a shaggy appearance, like a stablehand who had been working all day. I thought he was one of the Danri Family's servants."
"A Danri Family servant? Did you recognize him?"
"Not exactly, but I have seen him before. He walks the horses along this road every morning and evening. The white one. The blood-sweating horse."
The blood-sweating horse.
There was only one horse of that description in all of Soaring Sun.
It was Yeoro.
The beloved horse of the Danri Family Head, Danri Cheonwoo.
And the only person who could handle Yeoro was the mute stablehand.
So-sam.
Gi Daehyo's face darkened.
"Was the shabbily dressed man the same person who walks the blood-sweating horse?"
"I believe so, Lord. I have seen him many times."
"Did he see you?"
"No. He walked past my tea house without looking in my direction."
"What time was this?"
"Around the Hour of the Monkey."
The Hour of the Monkey. Mid-afternoon.
Machil had left the Apricot Tiger Inn a little after midday. So-sam had followed him within the next hour.
Gi Daehyo glanced at Gi Manji.
The two of them now had a suspect.
A stablehand.
The mute.
The fool.
But Gi Daehyo was not convinced.
The stablehand was a cripple. A mute. A man who could barely lift a saddle.
How could a man like that kill an armory hand with no wound, no blood, and no sign of a struggle?
It did not make sense.
But the lead was there, and Gi Daehyo was not the kind of man to ignore a lead.
"Thank you for your cooperation. Manji, let us be on our way."
"Yes, Father. Where are we headed next?"
"Back to the Danri Family. We need to speak with the stablehand."
The two used their Lightness Skill and vanished from the eastern road in an instant.
Watching them leave, the tea house owner shook his head and went back to his customers.
The official, who was watching their departing figures, then muttered as if tossing out a stray thought.
"Come to think of it, there was one more special thing. That stablehand is a mute, but he's not stupid. Every morning and evening, he walks that horse past here without a single word. But his eyes... there's something off about them. Like looking at a deep well."
The official shook his head, as if to clear the thought.
Whoever the man was, he would surely be questioned tonight.
The eastern road quickly returned to being an empty stretch of country road, just as it had always been.