Chapter 164: Wildfire (1)
Translator: bjgoofy
Here I'd barely managed to get as far as a hug, a bit of hand-holding at most, and meanwhile there was Wisdom Dragon, telling me he'd already emptied a whole jar of rouge from all that kissing. Kissing until his lips chapped... no, thanks to my eco-friendly rouge, his lips hadn't chapped in the slightest, however much he kissed.
An unbearable flush of irritation rose up inside me, but I forced an awkward smile and answered his question.
"Ahaha…. There was quite a lot of it, so you must have used it all up already? Th-that, well, it requires pearl, you see. Once I'm back home with my clan, I'll make a fresh batch and send it to you by courier."
"Ah, there's no need to go to such lengths."
"Hm? It's no trouble at all. It's not as if it's all that difficult…."
"No, that isn't what I meant. As it happens, I'd been planning to visit the Tang Family once this matter was settled anyway, so once we've wrapped things up here, might we travel along with you?"
I'd taken it for a polite refusal at first, but no, Wisdom Dragon was saying he wanted to follow me back to the Tang Family.
His words really did make me think the man was incorrigible.
I figured he must be carrying on like this out of pure restlessness, suffering withdrawal symptoms from going without a kiss.
'Has it been that long since he ran out of rouge? Is he really that desperate? Why is it that lately everyone I run into is so pent up?'
But sensing eyes on me from over his shoulder, I looked past Wisdom Dragon, and there were Fist Dragon and Sword Dragon, my hyung-nims, who had drawn near at some point, nodding along.
Puzzled by the sight of the two of them, I tilted my head and asked.
"You two as well?"
"That's right."
"Then of course we're coming along too."
Judging by the way even Sound Phoenix and Bow Phoenix behind them were looking over my way, it seemed every last one of them meant to come along.
'We're not exactly close enough for me to be inviting them home, are we?'
I mean, sure, I addressed them as hyung-nims, but that was just a social courtesy.
Just as I was thinking we really weren't on close enough terms for house invitations, Sword Dragon hyung-nim smiled and spoke.
"Wisdom Dragon needs his treatment; only then will Sound Phoenix be able to rest easy, after all."
"Ahh. Right. There was that."
Come to think of it, hadn't Grandfather, the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons of the Tang Family, said Wisdom Dragon needed further treatment?
I recalled Grandfather, the Man of Ten Thousand Poisons, saying that treating mercury poisoning had to be carried out over a long stretch of time.
Right down to his telling Wisdom Dragon to come back and see him later.
It also occurred to me that Peng hyung-nim and his group, recuperating at the Beast Palace in Yunnan, might be about ready to get up and about by now.
They'd said they would come to the Tang Family once they'd recovered, so bringing Wisdom Dragon's party along and letting the two groups meet didn't seem like a bad idea at all.
I remembered how, when we'd first met, Wisdom Dragon had kept fretting over Peng hyung-nim and his group.
"Very well, then. Let's do that."
"Thank you for permitting us to accompany you, Young Hero Soryong."
Wisdom Dragon looked delighted now that I'd granted them leave to come along.
Just then, I caught sight of Murim Alliance warriors stepping off the ship moored behind him, one after another.
'Oh, right, I ought to meet whoever's in charge.'
"By the way, who is in charge of this whole affair?"
The sight of the Murim Alliance warriors had reminded me I needed to meet the person in charge.
Because Wisdom Dragon had launched straight into talk of lipstick the moment we'd greeted one another, the matter had slipped back a step, but meeting the person in charge of this affair should have come first.
After all, I needed to give the person in charge the detailed account I hadn't managed to fit into my letter, and there were other things to go over besides: guiding them to the mountain stronghold, what to do with the goods left inside, and so on.
At that, Wisdom Dragon smiled and answered.
"Ah, the one in charge of this affair is me."
"What? You, Wisdom Dragon?"
There had to be no end of high-ranking figures in the Murim Alliance, so the news that Wisdom Dragon had taken charge of this matter set my head tilting.
Busy as they might be on account of the Blood Cult, I'd heard the Murim Alliance had a Strategist and no fewer than two Vice Strategists.
However renowned Wisdom Dragon's cleverness might be, that still made three men whose whole job was using their heads, so it struck me as strange that Wisdom Dragon, who held no post at all in the Murim Alliance, had ended up the one in charge.
And so Wisdom Dragon explained how he'd come to be in charge of the matter.
"The Strategist is at present occupied with the envoy sent down from the imperial court, and as for the Vice Strategists, one is directing the deployment and the other the supply lines, so not one of them could leave his post."
"Ahh, so that was the situation."
"Yes. So whenever something like this comes up, it falls to one of my own Zhuge Family, who have served as the Alliance's Strategists for generations, to step in and lend a hand. As it happened, I was the one present at the Alliance, so the task came to me.
"It's nothing more than cleaning up the aftermath, after all."
I'd been wondering how someone without any post, like Wisdom Dragon, had become the one in charge, and who would have guessed there was a rule like that behind it.
I felt relieved that I'd be handling this together with Wisdom Dragon rather than some stranger, but the mention of an official having come down from the authorities raised a question, and I put it to him.
"Ah. That works out nicely, then.
"In any case, an envoy from the imperial court, you say. I'd been told there was a policy of Non-Interference in Martial Affairs, and yet things like this still happen?"
Going by the talk of an envoy sent from the imperial court, it seemed that troublemaking princess's lie had taken nicely.
But since the rule was Non-Interference in Martial Affairs, I'd asked whether this was even permitted, and at my question, Wisdom Dragon curled his lips into a sly smile and answered.
"On hearing that the princess had been attacked, the imperial household designated the Blood Cult an Evil Cult and strictly forbade the common people from following it, on the grounds that it was Deceiving the World and Misleading the People, plunging the populace into ruin."
"Oh-ho…. So there was a way like that?"
Under Non-Interference in Martial Affairs, the authorities couldn't meddle in the affairs of the martial world, but if it was a religion, that was a different story altogether.
If they defined the Blood Cult not as a martial faction but as a religion and set about suppressing it as one, that fell within the imperial household's authority, and no one could utter a word against it.
It looked as though the Blood Cult bastards were in for a serious world of grief.
When I returned a sly look of my own, Wisdom Dragon gestured toward the ship he'd come on and said,
"This is bound to run long, so shall we step inside to talk over the rest? I expect I'll need to hear what you have to say and beg your help besides, Young Hero Soryong."
"Understood. Then, if you'll excuse me."
When I nodded, he led me along and showed me aboard his ship.
***
-Trickle.
Led into what looked to be Wisdom Dragon's cabin, I stepped inside to be met by stacks of documents and the scent of tea.
When I took the chair Wisdom Dragon offered, Sound Phoenix poured the tea and pressed it on us.
"Here, please drink, both of you."
"Thank you, Sound Phoenix."
I was the sort who preferred cold water to hot tea, but even so, I'd learned the proper way to drink it from Hwa-eun back during my time at the Tang Family.
As I was savoring the aroma of the tea, Wisdom Dragon's voice reached me.
"In any case, to think a bed bug could grow so large, large enough to do a person harm. When we saw the letter you sent, and the dried bed bug along with it, everyone at the Alliance was aghast."
Even as I'd sent the letter off, I'd suspected ordinary folk wouldn't believe such a thing so easily.
Seeing is believing.
A single glimpse was worth more than a hundred accounts, which was exactly why I'd captured two bed bugs alive, had them stuffed, and sent them to the Alliance as proof, and from what I was hearing now, the ploy had worked splendidly.
Going by how they'd dispatched an investigation team in such a flurry, at any rate.
"But to think you handled the whole thing single-handedly, Young Hero Soryong; it left me feeling it was a great mercy indeed. Ah, and the Alliance Leader asked me to pass along his thanks."
"No need for thanks. I only did what had to be done."
At Wisdom Dragon's praise, I gave an awkward smile, brought the tea to my lips, then drew it away again and asked.
Praise was all well and good, but it was time we got down to business in earnest.
First, the Blood Replenishing Pills.
"In any case, we ought to see to what's still left undone. Have you decided what's to be done with the great stock of Blood Replenishing Pills sitting in the mountain stronghold?"
"Yes. The Alliance says it will buy the whole lot. As it happens, with the fighting against the Blood Cult under way, they were sorely in need of Blood Replenishing Pills, so they counted it a stroke of luck."
I'd made the offer figuring I could probably sell them to the Murim Alliance, given the timing.
And sure enough, back came the answer that the Alliance would buy every last one of the Blood Replenishing Pills.
The reason I'd thought to sell them to the Murim Alliance was that I'd remembered choking down a fair number of Blood Replenishing Pills myself, back when a Blood Cult elder had drained me of my blood.
For that very reason, it had struck me that for a Murim Alliance in the thick of fighting the Blood Cult, the more Blood Replenishing Pills they had on hand, the better.
'Seems I've got a bit of a knack for business too?'
Among those of us who raise creatures, when somebody takes the whole batch off your hands in one go, we say they've cleared you out, and here the Murim Alliance was clearing out the entire stock of Blood Replenishing Pills.
And for anyone who clears you out like that, throwing in a little something extra is practically the unwritten rule.
So I decided to do them a good turn.
"In that case, go ahead and load up the Blood Replenishing Pills first, and as for the sum, please settle it with my father-in-law, the family head."
"Oh, would that be all right?"
"Yes. There's no room to load them onto our ship anyway, and the Alliance must be pressed for time."
"Understood, Young Hero. The Alliance thanks you again."
The Blood Replenishing Pills, the bulkiest item of all, were dealt with for the moment, and as for the valuables left behind in the mountain stronghold, I'd already handed over about half to Yi Chae.
I'd given it as alms because a third or so of the village had burned down and any number of people had died.
Of course, I hadn't forgotten to add a few words of caution as I handed it over.
There's no such thing as a free lunch in this world, after all.
「"This isn't being handed to you for nothing."
"Th-then, what is it?"
"First, from this day forward you are never to harm another soul. Should so much as a whisper reach me that you've hurt someone, you'll not escape the wrath of my children. Is that understood?"
"Yes, of, of course, sir."
"And I've heard that all manner of rumors from across the land drift into the Three Gorges of the Yangtze. Is that so?"
"Yes, that's right, Lord Soryong."
"Then gather up the rumors I'm after, for me."
"Which sort?"
"Rumors of venomous creatures and poisonous insects."」
A word of caution in service of my hobby, that is.
The rest I'd tucked away as a slush fund, so I decided to finish off the two issues that remained.
"What have you decided to do with the mountain stronghold? And the bed bugs that are left?"
Left as it was, some other lot might come along and seize the place, so the mountain stronghold absolutely had to be cleared out.
And we needed to settle precisely what was to be done about the bed bugs up in the mountains.
They'd all die off within a year regardless, but even so, someone might wander in and end up dead, so a guard at the very least would have to be posted.
At this, Wisdom Dragon smiled and answered.
"I mean to deal with both at once."
"Both at once?"
I tilted my head, wondering what exactly he meant to handle in one go, and then his lips parted and out came something I was sure I'd misheard.
"I intend to set the mountain ablaze."
"What? You mean to start a wildfire?"
Startled at the sheer scale of setting fire to a whole mountain, I blinked, and he went on.
"Burn the stronghold and the mountain both, and there'll be no need to fret over bandits or bed bugs ever again."
'So this is what Central Plains scale looks like? Torching a whole mountain?'
Hearing him speak of setting a mountain alight without the slightest hesitation, it dawned on me: come to think of it, the Zhuge Family came of a line of arsonists.
'They burned plenty at Red Cliffs, didn't they? Blood really does tell, every time.' [TL Note: A nod to the Battle of Red Cliffs, where the Zhuge clan's celebrated ancestor Zhuge Liang turned the tide with a great fire attack on the enemy fleet.]
***
As the saying goes, even thieving comes easiest to the one who's done it before.
And a household that had set fires before set this one exceedingly well.
When Wisdom Dragon said he'd set a fire, I'd assumed he meant to just torch the place any old way.
But no. He meticulously marked out zones, sent Sword Dragon and the warriors to cut down the trees and grass along the perimeter so the flames couldn't spread, and saw to all manner of groundwork besides.
And was that the whole of it?
He even reasoned that Bow Phoenix, being an archer, was sensitive to the wind, and so sent her up to the mountain's summit day after day to read the winds for several days running.
A household that had done this before really was something else.
"We'll burn only this mountain and its immediate surroundings. If what you say is true, Young Hero Soryong, then the creatures couldn't have crossed water; so from this waterway here, and beyond this valley there, the bed bugs won't have been able to pass.
"Which is why we've already felled every tree in the area around it."
Wisdom Dragon explained, his eyes on a map he'd drawn of the surrounding terrain.
The fire would be set at four points around the perimeter, taking the mountain with the stronghold on it as the center, and then the flames, meeting at the summit, would blaze away before dying out naturally of their own accord, so went his explanation.
'So even arson has its own realm of artistry.'
The final inspection was complete.
I nodded at Wisdom Dragon's words and said,
"Understood. Let's proceed, then."
"Bow Phoenix, the signal arrow."
"Got it."
At Wisdom Dragon's request, Bow Phoenix took up an enormous bow and drew the string taut toward the sky.
-Creak.
-Wheeeee.
The signal arrow loosed toward the mountain's summit.
The cry pealing out from the signal arrow filled the sky, and then, a moment later...
Smoke went curling up from four directions.
After about fifteen minutes had passed, the great mountain itself began to blaze fiercely, as though the whole of it had turned to kindling.
It was fierce enough that, watching from atop the ship far off as we were, I half fancied I could feel the heat.
I was watching the colossal blaze when it happened.
From our ship alongside came Seol noona's voice.
"Hwayang!?"
When I turned my head, Hwayang had crawled out of the cabin and was clinging to the ship's railing, mouth hanging open, staring blankly toward the burning mountain.
And at the sight, a thought flashed through me all at once.
'Wait, hold on? Isn't this the perfect chance to push Hwayang to its Adult Form?'
Not long ago I'd fed it a fair amount of fire and still it hadn't reached its Adult Form, but with an entire wildfire to draw on, surely Hwayang would make the leap.
If what it truly needed was a great fire, then there'd never be another chance like this one.
Quick as I could, I crossed over to our ship by Qinggong and asked Hwayang, its eyes brimming with the flickering flames,
"Food?"
And at that, Hwayang looked at me, and its head slowly dipped in a nod.
Cradling Hwayang in my arms, I swiftly unleashed my Qinggong and shot toward the blazing mountain.
*****
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