When he came out of the hall, the empty plain that had filled the view was gone; the landscape had changed at some point without his noticing.

It was quiet enough, but not far off he could hear the noise people make.

Seo Woojin turned and looked back at the hall.

‘They never showed the formation’s full strength, I’d guess.’

Thinking back on it now, it had been set at exactly what he could handle.

Maybe Woon Taeryun had had him measured correctly all along.

Seo Woojin let out a small sigh and turned away.

Far off, he could see Woon Seorin waiting for him.

Her face gave nothing away. But it failed to hide the worry she had put behind it.

A short laugh escaped Seo Woojin as he walked over to her.

“Have you been waiting long?”

“How did it go? Did you talk with my father properly?”

Seo Woojin scratched his cheek and played it straight-faced.

“Who knows. I came out of there alive, so I suppose it went well enough.”

Woon Seorin furrowed her brow.

“I’m not in the mood for games.”

Seo Woojin cleared his throat for no reason and answered briefly.

“He agreed to acknowledge my freedom. And to let me make the Four Black Dragons wholly mine. And…”

Woon Seorin’s eyes tightened, and she swallowed.

“And?”

“Before that.”

Seo Woojin looked at her steadily, his face serious.

Just as she was about to show her discomfort.

“One question.”

“…What is it?”

“The price you paid Clan Head Woon for borrowing the Woon Clan’s warriors.”

“…”

“The heads of the merchant companies who had to suffer for it, and their families.”

The tension that had been plain on her a moment earlier went cold.

“What is it you want to ask?”

“Where are they?”

“I couldn’t say. I don’t know what you’re driving at. Didn’t my father already tell you?”

Seo Woojin nodded.

“I heard that where a threat didn’t take, the head of the company was killed in a staged accident, and that his family lost everything and ended up on the street.”

“Then you already have your answer, don’t you?”

A short laugh escaped Seo Woojin.

“Because there’s no chance you’d do that.”

“…!!”

“Because you wouldn’t turn your back on them that carelessly.”

“What would you know…!!”

“I don’t. What you think about as you go through your life. What kind of person you are. What you’re after. I don’t know any of it.”

That was true.

He really did know nothing about her.

But.

“But I know one thing. Your ability.”

“…?”

“With your ability, three days would have been enough to clear away three merchant companies, wouldn’t it? So if it took five, that means you needed the extra time to take responsibility for them.”

He knew her ability.

He knew the faces the Four Black Dragons wore when they followed her.

He knew what had been in her when she saved the Baek Clan and never said a word about it.

And so.

He was certain.

That even if she had made innocent victims, she would not have turned away from what she owed them.

Something wavered in Woon Seorin’s eyes.

The faint tremor in her lips looked like shock. No — at a glance, it looked like someone holding back tears.

Woon Seorin turned sharply away.

“I sent them to other regions. I’m supporting them until they can stand on their own again. With Cheongeum’s reach they’ll be able to rebuild. Though of course… they’ll have to give up the names they used before.”

Having said it, she started to walk on.

But Seo Woojin caught her wrist.

Woon Seorin looked back at him, startled.

Seo Woojin smiled gently and said,

“You haven’t heard it yet. What I got.”

“…”

“I told you before I went in. That I’d have to take the Military Advisor.”

Woon Seorin’s eyes went wide.

Had she not believed it at all? She looked more shocked than he had expected.

“Stop dealing with Clan Head Woon and paying him in pieces of your soul. From now on, I’ll be the one paying that price.”

For an instant her eyes went damp. As though the burden she had carried alone all that time had finally been set down.

Seo Woojin grinned and drew her forward by the wrist.

“Let’s go now. Home.”

The warmth of him coming through her wrist. She followed with a dazed look on her face.

How far did they go like that?

Before long Woon Seorin came back to herself.

“Hup—!”

Woon Seorin let out a shout of effort.

Shhk—! Thwack!

“Gurk!”

Her foot caught Seo Woojin in the backside.

Seo Woojin jumped and spun to look at her.

“What…?”

Woon Seorin’s eyebrows had shot up at the ends.

“Am I an object? Take me, take what?! Who said you could have me?!”

“N-no…! That isn’t what I meant…!”

Woon Seorin swung her arm and shook his hand off.

“The nerve of it, really. You couldn’t have done a thing without me.”

“Ah. Well, that isn’t entirely wrong, but…”

“Be quiet!”

Woon Seorin snorted and walked straight past him.

Seo Woojin only stood there staring after her, dumbfounded — and then Woon Seorin stopped.

And without turning around, she called out.

“Are you going to stand there looking stupid all day? I still haven’t heard what price you paid for everything you got.”

“Ah, ah! C-coming! I’ll give you the details on the way.”

“Hmph!”

Only then did Woon Seorin start walking again.

Seo Woojin, cowed for no good reason, had no choice but to trail along behind her.

Which was why he did not see it.

The clear, beautiful smile at her mouth.

It was an entirely ordinary day.

As always, a great many drinkers came, and the drinkers were drunk again on the beauty and the artistry of White Blossom Hall’s courtesans.

Because the women did not sell their bodies, most of its guests were respectable men.

It was that kind of night — beautiful music and low laughter filling White Blossom Hall.

On that entirely ordinary day.

A man died in White Blossom Hall.

The government sent men.

A man had died; it was the natural next step.

Baekwha, Hall Mistress of White Blossom Hall, at this point still expected it would come to nothing serious.

That the dead man had lost his life to some chronic illness or other.

But the investigation found otherwise.

The cause of death was poisoning.

Someone had used poison to kill him.

What had been a simple accident had become, in the end, a criminal case.

White Blossom Hall had to close its doors and submit in good faith to the government’s investigation.

Even then, Baekwha could not feel it.

That an unseen net of malice was slowly closing on White Blossom Hall’s throat.

The poison had been smeared on the wine cup.

The courtesan who had handed over that cup became the likeliest suspect.

She was a child White Blossom Hall had taken in young. They had taught her the arts and the manners, and she had been out in front of guests for barely a month.

Baekwha could not let that child go.

So she had to step forward herself.

“That child has been a courtesan only a short while. Even if there is venom in a girl that young, she could never be hard enough to take a man’s life.”

The magistrate of Qiantang County had come out in person to investigate the case.

He wore an open sneer as he asked her,

“Then will you come in her place, Hall Mistress? A man is dead. Which means someone has to answer for it in the end.”

Baekwha nodded.

“The accident happened in a pleasure house I run. So the answering should fall to me as well.”

The magistrate smiled, satisfied, and signaled to the constables he had brought.

They bound her as though they had been waiting for it.

“Hall Mistress!”

“Big sister!”

The courtesans called out to her, but Baekwha did not turn her eyes once.

She only looked at the one courtesan standing frozen, unable to move either way.

“The house is yours while I’m gone. And just in case — never tell Young Master Yoo. He has nothing to do with us, and we can’t bring trouble down on him.”

“B-but…”

The courtesan tried to say something, but the magistrate was faster.

“Take her away!”

The day after the incident.

Baekwha was dragged to the prison of the Qiantang County office.

White Blossom Hall’s ordeal did not end there.

Baekwha, who had thought she would be out quickly since she had done nothing, was still inside on the third day.

All that while the hall could not open its doors, and an ugly rumor went around the streets of Hangzhou.

[A man died at White Blossom Hall. The killer is a courtesan. He turned down her feelings, so she took it badly and did it out of spite. So much for all those lofty airs — in the end the women of White Blossom Hall are nothing but common courtesans.]

The rumor spread past anyone’s control.

“Big sister. Are we just going to sit here? What if we asked Young Master Yoo for help—”

One of the courtesans had brought it up.

The courtesan who had been given Baekwha’s last instruction.

Aengwha, White Blossom Hall’s second, pressed her forehead as though it ached.

“You heard it yourself. Big sister Baekwha said never to tell Young Master Yoo.”

“And so we fold our hands and wait? Tomorrow is the day the payments come due. Our funds have been seized. The bills for the liquor and the food are one thing, but tomorrow we won’t even have the money to buy our girls a meal.”

Aengwha let out a deep sigh.

She drew a small coin purse from inside her robe and handed it to the woman who had kept complaining.

“This will hold us three days. Let’s just get that far. Big sister will find a way, I’m sure of it.”

But they did not last three days. They did not last the hour.

BOOOOM—!!

White Blossom Hall’s front gate burst apart with a roar.

Courtesans and staff came pouring out into the courtyard, startled.

Aengwha among them.

“What on earth…”

A body of men came in without hesitating.

They fell into two lines to either side.

And then a man came in behind them.

“That’s…!”

She knew the face.

He was the one who had thrown a fit in White Blossom Hall a while back; there was no mistaking him.

Gok Taejun, Young Clan Head of the Tyrant Blade Gok Clan.

He came through the ranked warriors with an imposing stride.

Wearing a mean little smile, he looked the place over.

Aengwha swallowed and made herself ask.

“Wh-what is this about.”

Gok Taejun’s eyes came to her.

“Hmph. You’re the one in charge here, girl?”

It was a coarse way to speak, but she was in no position to answer it.

“Yes. I’m in charge for now.”

“Hmph. Good.”

He pulled a sheaf of papers from his robe and spread it open.

On them were the goods White Blossom Hall had bought recently, and the sums.

Exactly half a year’s worth.

“White Blossom Hall settles its payments every half year, I see. And as it happens, tomorrow is the day.”

Nobody would have questioned White Blossom Hall’s credit.

It had never once put off a payment.

And since liquor came in on all different schedules depending on how long it had aged, it was customary to settle by the quarter or by the half year.

So White Blossom Hall contracted for everything it bought in half-year terms.

“Wh-what does that have to do with the Young Clan Head? We have a brokers’ guild we’ve dealt with all along.”

There were merchants who handled goods for others and took a commission for it.

They were called brokers, and an organization of brokers was called a brokers’ guild.

That was why Aengwha had not been greatly worried about tomorrow.

The belief that men they had dealt with for years would understand their situation.

That belief collapsed into nothing.

“I went to that guild and bought up every one of the notes. Girl. Can you guess what that means?”

“Th-that can’t be…!”

As though he were enjoying her panic.

Gok Taejun’s mean little smile twisted further.

“Settle the payment. Now.”

“B-but right now we—!”

“Ahh. I have no interest in your situation. Just understand this much. Either the payment now, or you hand this house over.”

A filthy delight swirled in Gok Taejun’s eyes.

“Don’t worry. I’ll keep every one of you on as courtesans. A different kind of courtesan than before, of course. Heh heh heh.”

With no one the wiser.

Over White Blossom Hall, storm clouds thick with malice had begun to gather.

The date of the death match was set.

In the meantime, Seo Woojin and the Four Black Dragons had to submit to training from the Crazed Fiend that was closer to abuse.

Yoo Geonwoo refused, and Song Biryeong made him take part anyway.

And so, having endured one hellish day after another.

The long-awaited day dawned.

The Four Black Dragons, who up to the day before had been wailing that this would kill them, had turned into something else entirely.

They were grave, and they looked on edge.

Against any threat that might come, they stayed at Seo Woojin’s side at all times.

Seo Woojin gave an awkward smile and looked at Woon Seorin.

“Is all this necessary? There’s been no move out of them so far, which suggests they’re simply trusting Lady Cheon.”

Woon Seorin gave him a sidelong look and scolded him.

“And if they get you, who answers for it? Understand this. Asking my father for the Four Black Dragons and for me is no different from saying you’ll answer for us. It means that if something happens to you, our position becomes difficult too.”

Seo Woojin let out a small sigh.

“Haha… that’s a weight on my shoulders.”

Song Biryeong let out a short laugh and put her weight behind what Woon Seorin had said.

“Hmph. You took us as you pleased, so you can carry that much. And like Rin said, we aren’t objects.”

Seo Woojin was already feeling worn out.

He barely swallowed another sigh and changed the subject.

“Where’s the Elder?”

“He said there was no reason for him to show his face where the dark path’s senior figures gather, so he’d be sleeping in the Dark Bamboo Court. He also warned that if you lose, he’ll pull your head off.”

“H-haha… I wonder if he knows what a death match means.”

In the end Seo Woojin sighed again and moved off listlessly.

“Let’s go… I want this finished so I can get some rest.”

Defeat did not enter his mind at all.

That ease must have carried, because a faint smile touched the mouths of Woon Seorin and the Four Black Dragons alike.

Today would be the day the dark path’s history turned.

And just as they were about to head out.

“Urgent report!”

A warrior came in at a rush.

Beside him stood a young-looking woman.

“What is it?”

Bae Seokjin asked, but it was someone else who spoke first.

“Sowha…?”

Yoo Geonwoo’s voice, startled.

The woman called Sowha seemed to notice him only then, and her face crumpled at once.

“Y-Young Master Yoo…”

“What’s happened? Why are you here…?”

Flump.

Sowha dropped where she stood.

And she bowed her head to the floor and cried out.

“Young Master Yoo—!! Please! Please, our White Blossom Hall—! Save big sister Baekwha…! Please…”

Her small, hitching sobs filled the room.

And at the same moment.

An ice-cold killing intent poured off Yoo Geonwoo and froze the air in the room.

A cold so vicious that it swallowed even the sound of her weeping.

(End of Chapter 48)