Tang Yu-hyeon sat in an inn and threw back his liquor.
Beside him, a man with a blue bruise around his eye held his position with his head planted on the ground, hands clasped behind his back and his backside in the air.
"Hey."
"Yes! Hyung-nim!"
"Since when am I your Hyung-nim?"
"My apologies, Young Master!"
"Your form is collapsing."
"I will correct it!"
The man could not make a peep at Tang Yu-hyeon, who was far younger than he was.
It galled him, but the places Tang Yu-hyeon had hit him hurt far too much for defiance.
Rather than take that again, he would hold this humiliating posture.
"I am going to ask you a few things, so answer properly."
"Understood!"
"What is this talk of my borrowing money?"
"A month ago you ate and drank at our Hundred Flower Pavilion and did not settle the bill!"
"Is that not usually put on credit?"
"We thought so too. But you said you had truly, truly left your money behind, and we knew your name and your clan, so we let you go. And then you never paid and kept avoiding us!"
"That is not borrowing money, that is eating without paying."
"Well, that is true......."
And is that something to be proud of?
The man, answering in a voice that crawled ever smaller, suddenly raised his eyes.
"Excuse me?"
At that single word, the corners of the man's eyes slid back down.
"So after seven days and nights you came back and borrowed money from us."
At a story he had not expected, Tang Yu-hyeon set his cup down.
"Who did?"
"......."
"I did?"
"......Yes."
"Argh!"
Tang Yu-hyeon threw his head back and squeezed his eyes shut.
Holding in his anger made the back of his neck ache.
He grabbed the bottle and poured it straight into his mouth.
He felt he had to drink something or his insides would not settle.
'That crazy bastard.'
A son of the Tang Clan, going around borrowing money?
How did a bastard like this come out of my house?
Tang Yu-hyeon ran through the family tree.
Even allowing for the special circumstances of war, there had been no one who lived so recklessly.
'What exactly is his head made of?'
Hearing the story, he could guess what the boy had been thinking.
Put it on credit and word would reach the clan, so he wanted it hidden.
Trying to draw money out behind his parents' backs, failing, and then borrowing instead. The course of it was perfectly clear.
'And so is how stupid you are.'
That this trash, growing worse with every scene, was his descendant.
Tang Yu-hyeon clicked his tongue.
"So how much am I supposed to pay back?"
At the turn to money, color returned to the man's face.
"A thousand taels!"
"And the principal?"
"Fifty taels."
"Hey."
"Yes?"
"Take some more. You have it coming."
WHUMP! WHUMP!
Once again a savage sound rang through the inn, which had gone quiet as the grave.
"Haah."
Only after beating the man to pulp did Tang Yu-hyeon wipe the sweat from his brow as though refreshed.
"Serving lad."
"Y-yes!"
"For the food and for the damages. My apologies for disrupting your business."
When Tang Yu-hyeon held out several pieces of silver, the serving lad received them with both hands.
"N-not at all! Go safely!"
"Heave-ho."
Tang Yu-hyeon slung the man over his shoulder and headed for the Hundred Flower Pavilion.
***
The third floor of the Hundred Flower Pavilion.
The Pavilion Mistress' room.
The Mistress of the Hundred Flower Pavilion, Yeo Hong-ran, hummed to herself as she dressed her hair with an ornamental pin.
"Mistress! Something terrible has happened!"
"What is all this noise?"
"The second son of the Tang Clan has come!"
"What is so special about that? Squeeze money out of him or put him deeper in debt, do as you see fit."
"That is not it. He has come to our Hundred Flower Pavilion and is running wild!"
"What?"
"Everyone downstairs has been taken down!"
The hand tidying her hair stopped.
Everyone downstairs meant the guards stationed on the first floor.
All of them martial artists of at least first-rate.
Not men to be taken down easily.
'Could he have caught on?'
Yeo Hong-ran chewed her lip.
Drugging him with the soul-befuddling drug and skimming his money?
Mixing poison into the liquor to check its potency?
Swelling the interest like a rolling snowball?
Luring him with beauty to siphon off the Tang Clan's poisons and medicinal herbs?
'Did someone inform on us?'
Impossible. The Hundred Flower Pavilion was run so thoroughly.
Betrayal meant death.
Once a person set foot inside, the only way out was through dying.
Yeo Hong-ran deliberated a moment, then rose from her seat.
"I will go down myself."
Whatever had changed, she could not let those beneath her see her own agitation.
She descended the stairs with elegance.
The face feigning composure cracked one step from the bottom.
Below the stairs, where the first floor was clearly visible, Tang Yu-hyeon alone stood clean among martial artists beaten to a bloody pulp.
The guests had fled long ago.
FWEET!
The Pavilion Mistress whistled and gathered the martial artists from the other floors.
When Tang Yu-hyeon raised his head, Yeo Hong-ran struck out sharply.
"What discourtesy is this, Second Young Master?"
"Discourtesy? That was committed by you lot first, not by me."
A prick of guilt.
Yeo Hong-ran folded her arms and played innocent.
"I have no idea what you mean."
"If you want to hide it properly, do something about the twitch at your eyes first. And stop fiddling with your ring."
Whisk.
Yeo Hong-ran let her sleeve fall to cover her hand.
As if covering it made it untrue.
Tang Yu-hyeon let out a snort of laughter.
"That is not the issue here. Do you know how much you owe our Hundred Flower Pavilion? And I will most certainly be compensated for today's uproar as well!"
"Compensation? Ah. This?"
Tang Yu-hyeon lifted the man he had been holding by the collar.
He had apparently used neither hidden weapons nor poison and beaten him down with his fists alone, for the face was covered in bruises.
When she dropped her gaze at the wretched sight, she saw blood spattered here and there across the other fist.
"I did not know you had such strength in you, Second Young Master."
"I wonder just how far you underestimated me."
"It would have been fine if you had paid your debt with that ability sooner. Try asking at an escort agency. There may be a decent commission."
"Hahaha!"
At Yeo Hong-ran's words, the martial artists ringed protectively around her laughed loudly.
Commissions from escort agencies were what wanderers took.
Telling Tang Yu-hyeon, a son of a great clan, to take a personal commission rather than one through his family was as good as spitting on him.
"Your tongue runs long."
Thump.
Tang Yu-hyeon tossed the martial artist in his hand aside.
"If I have to pay compensation anyway, I may as well beat a few more."
At the arrogant tone, Yeo Hong-ran gave a snort.
"Teach him a lesson."
"Yes!"
With a rousing answer, dozens of grown men rushed him all at once.
"Bandits?"
At a glance it was low-ranking fighters mixed with mountain bandits.
Must you make it so obvious who has joined hands with whom?
"It seems that when I stay quiet, people sometimes forget I am of the Tang Clan."
Tang Yu-hyeon slid a hand into his sleeve.
His eyes narrowed as though sighting a target.
There was only one target.
The throats of the grown men.
A thread of energy stretched out from his fingertips.
He felt the poison needles inside his sleeve resonate with it.
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD!
Footsteps drew closer.
Not yet.
When they came a little closer.
When their weak points lay bare.
'Now!'
FWISSSSSH!
His outer robe flapped, and hundreds of needles sprayed out from within.
"Aack!"
"Aaaaargh!"
The men charging him clutched their throats and fell.
Poison needles lodged in the very same spot on every one of them, without a hair's breadth of deviation.
"Haah! Haah!"
What remained were Yeo Hong-ran at the very back and two guards.
At that overwhelming attainment, Yeo Hong-ran stepped backward.
'Tang Yu-hyeon was this outstanding?'
Then what had all of it been until now?
It was chilling.
SMASH—!
As she backed away, her hand caught an elegantly decorated vase and shattered it.
Along with it, Yeo Hong-ran's heart dropped.
Tang Yu-hyeon looked at her face gone white and smirked.
"Well. He did live rather squalidly."
He, of course, and not me.
"C-compose yourself, Young Master."
Yeo Hong-ran was panting.
He had loosed no killing intent and crushed no one under his energy, yet her expression was utterly terrified.
Over nothing more than her guards being taken by poison needles.
"Compose myself, nothing. Come down. We have things to talk about, do we not?"
"No! We do not! You may simply leave!"
"Why has your story changed again."
"I-I apologize."
"Keep your apology. You said you would collect the money I borrowed."
"I will not collect it! It is fine, so please just go!"
"You said you would collect it without fail. That is why I am asking. How much is it?"
"Zero taels!"
"Heh."
From a thousand taels to zero.
A staggering discount.
"That is generous of you."
"Thank you! I will live quietly from now on!"
Yeo Hong-ran bent deeply at the waist.
A little more and her chest would touch her knees.
Tang Yu-hyeon climbed the stairs with a spreading smile.
Step. Step.
As the footsteps drew closer, Yeo Hong-ran's eyes went round.
"Wh-why are you coming closer......?"
"That is that. This is not the only thing we have to talk about, is it?"
"How dare you approach the Mistress——!"
SPLAAASH!
The guard who rushed him fell in a fountain of blood.
The other died without so much as a sound, a throwing blade lodged in his throat.
"Nnnngh!"
Thump.
Yeo Hong-ran collapsed in an ungainly heap and trembled.
"I went back over my memories a little, and it turns out you have done quite a lot."
Tang Yu-hyeon unfolded his fingers one at a time.
"Siphoning off the Tang Clan's poisons and medicines, dosing me with the soul-befuddling drug, mixing poison into liquor to check its potency."
"......!"
"All things that are difficult to do alone."
With the light at his back, Tang Yu-hyeon looked down at her.
"Who is backing you, and how far the tangle goes. I find myself curious."
"Do you think I would tell you!"
"Keeping your mouth shut? That will not be a good choice."
A poison needle sprang up in his hand.
Every time Tang Yu-hyeon rolled it, a liquid of an unpleasant color welled up along it.
"I wonder how many you will hold out for."
SQUELCH.
The needle sank into the back of her hand.
In an instant the skin around it blackened and rotted.
"Aaaaaargh!"
"How far does the tangle go?"
"I-I know nothing. They only told me to lure you in and get the poisons out of you——!"
"Yes. And who told you?"
"Ugh......."
"Not talking? Then there is no help for it."
SQUELCH.
Once again the needle sank into the back of her hand.
A scream like a wail followed.
***
"Listen."
Tang Yu-hyeon shook Yeo Hong-ran's body.
"Nnnh......."
"There is still an account to settle, so come to your senses."
"The mountain keep where the valuables are, kh, hidden, I already told you......!"
"Ah. The Red Tiger Keep? What would I do knowing where a mountain keep is? However much wealth people like you scrape together, how much can it be?"
Anyone else hearing it would have been aghast, but to Tang Yu-hyeon, who had lived through the Sichuan Tang Clan's most glorious age, ordinary wealth was pocket change.
"Considering the harm you have done the Tang Clan, it cannot end with just this. There is a limit to how far selling out your colleagues can buy you, little one."
"Aah...... no, please...... have mercy......."
"You are begging the wrong one. Beg the gods, not me. Beg them to spare your life."
Tang Yu-hyeon wore a languid smile as he drew a neatly folded sheet of paper from his robes.
"Now. You know what this is?"
"......?"
"What? I thought you had done all sorts of things. How innocent. Then again, you have killed a great many."
At words that suited nothing at all, Yeo Hong-ran wheezed and only blinked.
Tang Yu-hyeon held the paper up before her eyes and tapped the right-hand corner.
"Your other hand is still whole, is it not? Press it."