SERIES: Return Of The Divine Thief
CHAPTER: 25
Late at night, as the Hour of the Rat deepened.
The main estate of the Yu family in Nannyeong was shrouded in deathly silence.
All the servants and family members had gone to bed, and the massive mansion crouched in the darkness.
But in one place, and one place only.
A single lamp glowed in a secret chamber, deep within the private quarters of the family head, Yu Geon.
It was a space of Yu Geon's own, a place forbidden even to his son, Yu Hosang.
The room contained nothing but the heavy scent of agarwood and a single letter resting on the desk.
Yu Geon checked the firmly shut door one last time, then inspected all the hidden mechanisms within the room.
It was a sacred ritual he never once skipped upon entering the chamber.
He sat down and picked up the ordinary letter that had been delivered to him earlier that day under the name of a ‘silk merchant from Hebei’.
—To Lord Yu.
I trust you have been well? The reason for this letter is none other than the poor weather in Hebei this year, which has made the supply of silk unstable. Please, until the next transaction……
On the surface, it was a perfectly ordinary and dreadfully dull business letter.
But Yu Geon was not reading the letter for its apparent meaning.
He unfolded a clean sheet of paper beside him and ground ink on the inkstone.
Then, he lifted his brush and wrote down the third character of the first line of the letter onto the paper.
[Ha]
He paused to catch his breath, then wrote the fifth character of the second line next to it.
[Buk]
His eyes were not reading the content of the letter, but were only ‘harvesting’ the characters according to a predetermined agreement.
The first character of the third line. The seventh character of the fourth line. The fourth character of the fifth line….
It was their own method of communication, established a hundred years ago when the Demonic Cult sowed their ‘seeds’ throughout the Central Plains.
The caretakers of the seeds never met face to face.
Nor did they interfere with one another.
Only once every six months.
They would only contact one another through this prearranged code, a way to also confirm each other's survival.
Each time the tip of Yu Geon's brush grazed the paper, the meaningless characters gathered to form sentences with new meaning.
His face was not that of the usual benevolent head of a merchant family.
Only the cold and ruthless face of an old snake possessed by fanaticism remained.
Finally, Yu Geon wrote the last character from the letter onto the paper.
On the new paper before him, a chilling message, completely different from the perfectly ordinary business letter, was now complete.
It was a reply from another ‘seed’ active in Hebei.
They highly praised the performance of the highly addictive fake medicine developed by the Yu family, a substance they called ‘Hyang’, and reported that they had finally secured a merchant guild to distribute the drug in Hebei.
“Ha, hahaha…!”
Yu Geon could not hide his satisfied laughter as he looked at the completed letter.
“Finally…!”
Although it had taken a full two years, exchanging letters once every six months, to bring this one operation to fruition, he was not the least bit impatient.
He could endure that much time for the sake of a perfect cover.
“Finally, in my generation, our power can extend beyond this Guangxi Province and reach even Hebei.”
He was filled with ecstasy, imagining the day his achievements would be recognized.
“When that day comes… even the Great One will highly acknowledge this achievement of mine.”
All these achievements would be dedicated to the Great One.
Yu Geon calmed his excitement, and in an instant, his ecstatic face turned reverent.
He carefully placed the decoded paper on an altar and knelt before it.
And, facing the emblem engraved with a black flame enshrined in the deepest part of the secret room, he clasped his hands and began to chant reverently.
It was their own prayer, passed down through generations of the ‘seed’ caretakers for a hundred years.
“We who were sown in darkness shall finally sprout.”
Pausing, Yu Geon bowed deeply and continued.
“On the day the Great One descends upon this land again.”
His voice trembled faintly with fanatical fervor.
“We shall take blood and despair as our fertilizer, and open for you the most magnificent path of flowers.”
Yes, the seeds had sprouted.
Now it was time to use the chaos and despair they had created as nutrients to complete the flower path for the Great One to walk upon.
It was then, as Yu Geon was lost in deep prayer.
From beyond the thick door of the secret room, the urgent voice of his steward could be faintly heard.
“Family Head! Family Head, are you in there! Something urgent has come up!”
Yu Geon's brow furrowed slightly with the irritation of one whose sacred ritual had been disturbed.
But he called out in the benevolent voice of the family head he usually affected.
“What is it? Wait a moment. I will be out soon.”
After finishing his reply, he picked up the paper he had just used to decode the message.
And he brought it over the flame of the lamp, silently burning it until it was a handful of ash.
Only after confirming that the paper had turned completely black and crumbled away did he reactivate the hidden mechanisms of the secret room, concealing its entrance behind the bookshelf of an ordinary study.
When he opened the study door and came out, the steward greeted him, drenched in a cold sweat and looking as if he might collapse at any moment.
“What is all this commotion about?”
Yu Geon's voice was calm, but it was tinged with the annoyance of having been interrupted.
The steward hastily bowed his head and reported.
“F-Family Head! Unidentified assailants are causing a disturbance at the estate's main gate!”
“Assailants?”
Yu Geon's brow narrowed.
How dare they cause a disturbance at the Yu family estate?
“Yes! Th-they call themselves… the ‘Murim Alliance’….”
“The Murim Alliance?”
Yu Geon couldn't believe his ears.
It was a name he had never heard in his life.
A dry laugh escaped him.
“Hah! The Murim Alliance.”
His voice was thick with derision.
“What a grandiose name. The ‘Murim Alliance,’ of all things. Do they plan to conquer the world? What back-alley gutter rats would dare spout such an arrogant name?”
He looked at the steward with eyes that found him utterly pathetic.
“So? You couldn't even handle a few madmen with a fancy name, so you came to find me while I was sleeping in the middle of the night?”
“N-no, that's not it!”
The steward's face turned deathly pale at Yu Geon's rebuke.
“Then what is the problem?”
“M-my apologies! However, their martial prowess… their martial prowess is unexpectedly strong! We tried to stop them with our guards, but in an instant…!”
“Stronger than expected, you say….”
The smile vanished from Yu Geon's lips.
‘Of all times.’
He let out a short sigh.
“I understand. Lead the way. Let's go have a look at the faces of these impudent ‘Murim Alliance’ nobodies.”
He walked slowly out from the darkness of the study.
* * *
At that moment, the area before the Yu family's main gate was already a scene of utter chaos.
One of the massive main gates had been shattered and torn from its hinges, and dozens of elite guards in the Yu family's uniform lay groaning on the ground.
In the center of this carnage, four shadows stood tall.
Cho Muryang, and at his side, Jo Yangtae and Heuk Cheolsan.
And the most incongruous of them all, Baekun, wearing a ghastly white jade mask.
“Y-You bastards!”
“How dare you, at the main gate of the family estate!”
The Yu family warriors, who had poured out from inside the residence upon hearing the emergency signal, surrounded them in layers, aghast at the unbelievable sight.
Who would dare attack the Yu family in Nannyeong?
“I told you. The Martial Alliance.”
It was an answer they had already heard, but no one believed it.
In reality, no such group as the Martial Alliance existed, nor was it ever likely to.
Yet, none of them dared to rush in recklessly.
They had clearly seen dozens of guards swept away like autumn leaves in the wind by just four men.
Just then, Yu Hosang, dressed in splendid silk clothes, pushed through the encirclement, his face contorted with fury.
The image of the scoundrel who had been receiving lavish treatment at the Heumju Merchant Guild just two days prior was nowhere to be seen.
His eyes were bloodshot at the fact that a place no different from his own home had been violated.
He roared at the men who had dared to invade their territory.
“Who the hell are you! Do you have any idea where you are, causing such a ruckus!”
At Yu Hosang’s shout, Jo Yangtae and Heuk Cheolsan tightened their grips on their heavy sword hilts.
Their gazes simultaneously turned to their Lodge Leader, Muryang, who was leading this entire affair.
Baekun, in his white jade mask, also waited silently for Muryang’s next command.
But Muryang didn't even spare a glance at Yu Hosang, who looked ready to pounce at any moment.
He was scanning the Yu family warriors surrounding them, one by one, with sharp, cold eyes.
‘More than I thought.’
Yu Hosang’s shouts didn’t even register in his ears.
His mind was filled with a single thought.
Who was the one who killed my senior brother in my past life?
The most likely candidate was the Yu family head, Yu Geon.
Given the Demonic Cult's nature of revering the strong, it was certain that the family head, the caretaker of the ‘seed,’ would be the strongest among them.
His senior brother from his past life must have fallen to that old serpent's venomous fangs.
‘But….’
Muryang would never overlook the slightest possibility of an ‘unexpected variable.’
His senior brother in his past life, though clumsy, was still a disciple of the Divine Thief.
The fact that he had died without even being able to flee meant his opponent had been overwhelmingly powerful.
That was why Muryang was meticulously checking every warrior in the encirclement—their flow of ki, their breathing, the look in their eyes—to see if a true master beyond his expectations was hiding among them.
‘Not him… Not him either….’
His senses spread out like a vast net, sweeping over the warriors.
But nothing was caught in his net.
Most were just well-trained guards, nothing more.
He could see no one who posed a threat to him or Baekun.
‘The family head, Yu Geon. As I thought, is he the only one?’
He knew the Yu family was a seed of the Demonic Cult, but he didn't know what kind of man Yu Geon was.
He had only ever encountered him through intelligence reports during the war against the Demonic Cult.
Just then, a stir rippled through the back of the surrounding Yu family warriors, and a resonant voice boomed out.
“We greet the Family Head!”
With that cry, the densely packed warriors parted, opening a path on either side.
And through that path, a middle-aged man with a benevolent yet expressionless face walked out slowly.
It was Yu Geon, the head of the Nannyeong Yu family.
The moment he appeared, a hollow, incredulous laugh escaped Muryang’s lips.
The laugh was quiet, but the emotion contained within it was so intense that even Baekun, standing beside him, flinched involuntarily.
“……So it was you.”
Muryang muttered under his breath, suppressing his boiling killing intent.
Though he looked a little younger, there was no way he could fail to recognize the face of the man who had taken his arm in his past life.
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