Episode 33. If You Interfere, You Die
Small Black Path gangs often hide among clusters of shops, but the Black Cat Gang wasn’t like that. Their compound sat a little away from the marketplace, like some high official’s mansion.
Staring at the front gate, I said to Shao Junpyeong,
“You wait here.”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we went in together? We’ll end up fighting anyway.”
I looked at him.
“If we go in together, like you said, your gang leader will just give the order to kill us both on the spot. And then even I can’t help it—I’d have to kill everyone who comes at me. Let me do it my way first. If I poke at his pride just right, I can drag him into a one-on-one. If that falls apart—or at the right moment—you step in. Got it?”
Junpyeong had already experienced my insults and provocations firsthand, so he had a rough idea of how I operated.
“I understand.”
He moved off toward the outer wall, and I strode straight to the main gate, big axe slung over my shoulder, and banged on it hard.
The thick wooden door thudded, and a small rectangular peephole slid open. A pair of eyes appeared.
“Who are you?”
“I’m Lee Jaha from Ilyang County.”
The man’s eyes scanned my face.
“And who the hell is Lee Jaha supposed to be?”
I sighed.
“Quit with the Q&A and open the gate before I smash it.”
“Dream on.”
He snorted, then yelled inward,
“Some cocky, rude little brat calling himself Lee Jaha from Ilyang is here—anyone know him?!”
I let out another sigh. As introductions went, it was accurate enough. But I didn’t have the patience to stand around and wait for them to open up.
Kicking off the ground, I vaulted up and landed lightly on top of the front gate.
The Black Cat Gang’s wide main yard spread out below me in one view.
Plenty rich, by the looks of it.
“Living nice, aren’t you. Must be nice…”
For a Black Path headquarters, the layout was way too refined. Then again, this was probably someone else’s house once. No surprise there.
With my big axe resting on my shoulder, I stood on the gate, drawing a chorus of shouts and scowls as people noticed me.
A shower of curses hit me—dog bastard, cow bastard, threats to break my bones or gut me on the spot.
Well, they’re Black Path. It’d be weirder if they were polite.
I let myself be thoroughly cussed out, then hopped down and walked right up the wide central path.
I grabbed a lone chair sitting off to the side, carried it to the very center of the yard, set it down, stuck the axe upright in front of it blade-first, and sat.
My expression. My presence. The way I’d strolled in with a massive axe and claimed the center like it was mine. That silence.
If all that hadn’t had an effect, the grunts glaring at me would’ve rushed me already.
Instead, while I silently met the eyes of the thugs around me, the executives started appearing one by one. They took up positions on the inner courtyard terrace, and the rank and file spread out, forming a loose encirclement.
The last to arrive, an old man, asked,
“You’re Lee Jaha from Ilyang?”
I looked at the geezer, who looked like he’d been rotting in the Black Path for decades, and nodded.
“That’s me.”
“Don’t tell me you came here alone?”
“Old man, I didn’t come to chat with you. Tell your rabbit to hop on out here.”
Right then, a calm voice came from inside.
“Who’s here, you say?”
“The one who killed the Golden Dragon Hall Master—Lee Jaha—has come in person.”
The executives parted to either side, and the gang leader wearing a rabbit mask walked out.
I took in his posture and presence first. Average build, nothing unusual in his aura.
Looking down at me, he asked,
“So you’re that waiter?”
In a contest of nerve, the proper Jianghu etiquette is to answer a question with a question.
“And you’re the slave rabbit owned by that senile bastard the Great Rakshasa, yes?”
“……”
“Or was it a rabbit slave? Either way.”
The executives’ eyes went round, and a heavy silence fell. I still couldn’t see the gang leader’s expression behind the mask.
Before he could pick a response, I continued,
“Sending assassins after me, when you’re just some two-bit country gang boss of a slave? If you bolted right now and ordered all these men to rush me, do you think you’d get away or not? You overreaching, pitch-black bunny bastard. Go on then, open that filthy mouth.”
Someone next to him muttered,
“Not your average lunatic, that one.”
I spoke clearly and slowly, putting weight into each word.
“Listen up, Black Cat Gang. If your leader steps up himself and fights me one-on-one, regardless of how strong he actually is, that at least makes him a halfway decent boss. But if he already has a sense of my skill and still orders you all to attack first, then he’s not a leader worth serving—just Black Path trash. A Black Path maggot. A Black Path coward…”
From his vantage on the wall, Shao shook his head.
“…the Great Rakshasa’s slave, all bluff and no substance, a useless rat hiding behind a mask, jerking you around on the flimsy authority of the Great Rakshasa’s so-called fearsome reputation. A pathetic excuse for a man.”
After that storm of abuse, a completely different kind of silence settled over the yard.
“……”
Several subordinates sneaked glances at the gang leader. Strip out the swearing, and I wasn’t wrong—and the mood was very much that they’d prefer their boss to handle this himself.
I held my hand out toward him.
“Don’t know what that silence means? A guy like that isn’t Black Path—he’s an idiot. Who says so? Lee Jaha of Ilyang. Sect master of the Hao Sect. A reclusive master in these parts with no equal in sight. You know that tired old cliché about the Jianghu being vast and full of masters? That’s about me. Keep it in mind.”
I finished and let out a low chuckle.
The gang leader finally spoke.
“Who are you to define the Black Path? Black Path means licking when you’re told to lick, attacking when you’re told to attack, barking when you’re told to bark.”
“That so?”
“That’s what the Black Path is.”
“Sounds like you had a bad childhood. The Great Rakshasa raised you like a dog, did he? No wonder you turned out like this.”
A few executives almost burst out laughing, then hurriedly schooled their faces when the leader swept his gaze over them. By the time his eyes made a pass, they were all stiff-faced again.
Watching this little theater, I shook my shoulders with laughter.
“See? That’s why the Jianghu’s hilarious. Your men can’t even laugh freely.”
In this world, laughing at the wrong thing can get you killed. There really is no place more ridiculous than the Jianghu.
The leader said,
“So, in short, you want a one-on-one. You really think a gang head is going to fall for such a cheap provocation? Clearly your thinking is as childish as your face. Your schemes as short as your wits. Must be the country-bumpkin waiter in you.”
Oho, listen to this guy try to rhyme.
He glanced around and saw that even his own men seemed to want him to step up and handle it himself. It made him want to sigh.
His eyes burned as he looked at me.
“Fine. I’ll give you your one-on-one.”
“Oh…?”
“But today, anyone who chooses wrong in predicting the winner dies here and now. If you believe I’ll lose, move behind the waiter. Waiter, this should make things more interesting, yes?”
He looked around.
“Don’t mind me. Move wherever you like. Worst case, you die. So what?”
No one moved. Yet.
It was natural to assume the Black Cat Gang leader would beat some Ilyang county waiter.
He sneered at me.
“This is your reality, boy. You see it?”
At that moment, a man jumped down from the wall and landed lightly in the yard.
All eyes turned his way, and little exclamations rose here and there.
“Ah.”
“Huh?”
Of course, it was the Golden Dragon Hall Master and future Hao Sect “Three-Hundred Cycles” himself, Shao Junpyeong.
At his unexpected appearance, the gang leader snorted.
“Hall Master Shao, how are you still alive? I distinctly told you to kill yourself if you failed. Did you beg for your life?”
Having just decided which way his life was headed, Shao answered calmly,
“Begging or not, I’ll handle my own life from now on, leader. Since when did we have such deep bonds and brotherhood that you keep telling me to die or not die at your whim? I don’t recall our relationship being that cozy.”
I cut in with a short comment,
“He’s not wrong.”
The leader’s gaze stabbed at me.
“Why did you spare him?”
I put his curiosity to rest.
“What, you think I’m you? Idiot. Junpyeong and I shared pork bones. Didn’t we?”
When I suddenly brought up pork bones and looked his way, he blinked and nodded with a slightly dazed expression.
“Ah, right.”
Shao turned, scanning the Black Cat Gang, and tried to flip the mood.
“Anyway… you two fight it out like men, one-on-one, and my fate will follow the result. Golden Dragon Hall, come over to my side. I’ll stake my life on the Hao Sect Master’s victory.”
Depending on how his men chose, Shao would know whether he’d lived right or not.
The leader said with a laugh,
“You really think anyone’s gonna move?”
Just then, a Golden Dragon Hall fighter spoke.
“Goodbye, leader. I’m heading over there.”
The young swordsman walked straight to Shao and asked,
“Hall Master, what happened to your face?”
Shao grinned.
“What do you think? I got beat.”
“As long as you’re alive, it’s fine. That beaten-up face is a welcome sight.”
The leader’s mood soured.
“So, just one.”
The moment he said it, another Golden Dragon Hall fighter spoke up.
“Make that two.”
He headed toward Shao, and then five or six more moved at once.
One of them drew his sword, but Shao stopped him.
“Put it away. I said one-on-one.”
“That so? Understood.”
Shao’s face stayed blank, but inside he was happy. Every subordinate who’d shared the name Golden Dragon Hall through thick and thin was coming to stand beside him without exception.
He called over to me, still seated in the chair.
“Sect master, you confident? If you lose, everyone in Golden Dragon Hall dies.”
“Confident about what?”
“Obviously…”
“Quit yapping.”
I got up, gripping my axe.
“The duel is between me and bunny boy. If anyone else interferes, that’s fine too. But I promise you this: anyone who cuts in—”
Before I even finished my sentence, something sliced through the air from my left, aimed right at my temple.
Whiiing!
I snapped my head back before I could even identify the projectile. A flash of metal screamed past my eyes and buried itself in the wall.
“……!”
Everyone fell silent, eyes wide. Someone had launched a sneak attack before the gang leader and I had even crossed blades. Even the Black Cat executives frowned and grumbled.
“What kind of cheap trick is this…”
“Who did that? No one told you to.”
With a sideways glance, I easily picked out the man whose large movement had given him away when he threw the hidden weapon.
I didn’t know whose orders he was following. Maybe he’d acted on his own.
In cases like this, even I was left with nothing to say but one thing.
I poured all my inner power into the big axe and hurled it like a thunderbolt at the man who’d thrown the dart.
WHOOMMMMM!
The man was hit dead-on. His body split violently down the middle, tearing apart left and right.
Blood geysered up as the axe tore through him and slammed into the wall with a deafening crash.
Acting on impulse, I’d used the new axe from Dragon-Head Forge just once and already parted ways with it. And just as I’d worried, the impact snapped the dragon-head handle off the blade where it struck the wall. The axe was in two pieces.
It didn’t bother me. The axe was only ever meant for setting the mood.
Staring at the shredded corpse, I said in a low voice,
“I said if you interfere, you die. Why are you all so casual about wasting your lives? This is what passes for the Black Path?”
As the mood sank into something heavy, Shao spoke in a grave tone.
“Don’t interfere again. Any of you. Executives too… Please.”
He knew better than anyone that I hadn’t been bluffing.
If no one stopped me at the right moment…
The entire Black Cat Gang might die here today.