Chapter 129

The masked person appeared somewhat flustered but responded calmly. Standing in place, he took a horse stance and extended both hands simultaneously.

Two streams of long needles were launched.

One bounced off the soft sword, but the other embedded itself in Zhuge Yan’s neck.

Thud!

Zhuge Yan grabbed her neck and staggered before falling to her knees.

Shin Yung caught Zhuge Yan. Zhuge Yan retched and vomited blood.

“I heard everything. No… that can’t be. Brother Gwon couldn’t have tried to kill me!”

“Young Lady, please don’t speak!”

Retch, retch.

Bright red blood gushed from Zhuge Yan’s mouth like a spring.

“I thought it was an opportunity… I could have been recognized… Brother and I could have…”

Zhuge Yan’s eyes had already lost focus, with no concentration in her pupils.

“Young Lady—!”

The masked person tried to move to finish the job.

But suddenly a long shadow fell into the cave. The masked person was startled and turned around.

Jin Ja-gang, who they thought had gone down to the village, had returned.

Jin Ja-gang was carrying a sack full of grass, which he scattered toward the entrance.

Then he trampled it with his feet.

Crunch, crunch.

Starting from the entrance and moving inward, he continued scattering the grass-like stems from the sack and trampling them.

The masked person was startled and had no choice but to retreat backward.

Jin Ja-gang wouldn’t be doing this for no reason!

When a person sees someone doing something incomprehensible, questions naturally arise. When questions arise, suspicion follows, and when suspicion arises, one hesitates to act.

The masked person felt alarmed and heightened his vigilance.

However, Jin Ja-gang was even leisurely.

Crunch crunch.

Jin Ja-gang scattered the grass-like stems on the ground and trampled them while asking.

“Who ordered you to do this?”

The masked person naturally wouldn’t answer. No, he was holding his breath because he thought poison had been scattered throughout the cave. Even if he wanted to answer, he couldn’t.

Jin Ja-gang spoke as if he knew.

“You must be short of breath. How long do you think you can hold your breath?”

A flash of tension crossed the masked person’s eyes.

As Jin Ja-gang said, the masked person was gradually running out of breath.

He knows I’m holding my breath! Was he waiting with a trap set from the beginning?

Even now, killing Zhuge Yan and Shin Yung, who still couldn’t move properly, was something he could sufficiently accomplish. However, clearing away Jin Ja-gang who was blocking the cave was another matter entirely.

The masked person turned his body toward the inner part of the cave. Whatever happened, he had to complete his mission first.

Shin Yung didn’t remain still.

“Uaaaah!”

Shin Yung flew forward and thrust his sword.

However, the masked person’s mission wasn’t someone like Shin Yung.

The target was Zhuge Yan.

The masked person kicked away Shin Yung who was charging with his body and flew to stab Zhuge Yan’s solar plexus with a long needle.

The long needle penetrated her heart.

However, Zhuge Yan’s heart had already stopped beating and wasn’t moving. She had died before that. The masked person confirmed Zhuge Yan’s death and quickly got up.

He moved toward the entrance and faced off with Jin Ja-gang. Jin Ja-gang was waiting with a sword in hand.

The masked person was short of breath.

Having squeezed out almost all the air remaining in his lungs, his head was dizzy. His limbs had become heavy. He needed to breathe, but if he did, he would be poisoned by the toxic energy spread throughout the cave.

But suddenly he realized that Jin Ja-gang and Shin Yung were speaking and breathing without any problems.

The masked person wondered whether he should breathe, half-believing and half-doubting.

At that moment, Jin Ja-gang attacked with his sword. It was a simple technique cutting from top to bottom in one stroke, so the masked person bent his waist backward to avoid it.

However, his movements were definitely sluggish due to being short of breath.

Slash!

The mask along with his clothes was slightly cut vertically. Part of his face was revealed as the mask was cut.

The masked person covered his face while hastily inhaling.

“Hup!”

At that moment, his nose stung and became so sour that tears came to his eyes.

His breath was completely blocked.

Drip.

A nosebleed burst out. His throat stung and he broke out in cold sweat.

He was poisoned. Despite being so careful, just from trying to breathe once!

“Don’t kill Jin Ja-gang… that’s an order from above.”

Therefore, he had to escape without killing, just shaking him off.

The masked person pulled out several short needles the length of two finger joints and threw them consecutively.

Ping ping!

They were paralysis needles, not lethal poison.

Paralysis needles embedded themselves throughout Jin Ja-gang’s body. Even one would be enough to paralyze him completely, but five shots hit. They all hit as thrown, which was confusing even for the masked person.

Seeing Jin Ja-gang stiffen and stagger, the masked person leaped. He wanted to get outside quickly. His lungs felt like they were burning from lack of air.

The moment the masked person passed by the staggering Jin Ja-gang, Jin Ja-gang swung his sword. The masked person’s side spurted blood.

“Kheuk!”

Startled, he screamed and inhaled, making his head dizzy. His nose area became hot as a nosebleed flowed down, and his throat became scratchy.

Why was Jin Ja-gang, who should be paralyzed and unable to move, swinging a sword!

He gave up holding his breath, but his breathing was blocked and he couldn’t breathe properly anyway. With insufficient breathing, his body stiffened and his movements slowed. As the masked person rolled on the ground, Jin Ja-gang chased and consecutively cut his knees and heels.

The masked person realized that Jin Ja-gang was deliberately cutting his legs.

To prevent him from escaping – that surely meant if he was caught, they would torture him to find out who was behind this.

The masked person rolled on the ground even with his feet cut.

Clang! Clang!

Jin Ja-gang’s sword continued to strike the ground following him. The masked person’s eyes stung and teared up from the crushed grass on the ground. It became even harder to breathe than before.

“You can’t escape.”

Grind.

The masked person knelt and half-rose while grinding his teeth.

“It won’t go… cough cough, as you want.”

Without any room for consideration, the masked person took out a poison pill from his chest and bit it. Jin Ja-gang struck the masked person’s wrist with his sword, but it was already too late.

Bubble bubble, the masked person’s face melted away. It was a horrific suicide poison that even Jin Ja-gang was seeing for the first time.

The masked person died kneeling with his face melted.

Jin Ja-gang sighed and pulled out the needles embedded in his body.

The deception of creating smoke with pinellia stems to disguise it as if poison had been scattered was effective. The masked person must have had to hold his breath thinking it was poison.

The grass he had just scattered and trampled were roots of sedum and narcissus. When the smell touches the nose in the air, it causes bleeding. There are no other effects that actually work on the body, but the masked person wouldn’t have thought so.

He would have had to continuously hold his breath to prevent poisoning. Thanks to this, he succeeded in psychologically cornering the masked person.

However, he ultimately failed to capture him.

He hadn’t expected him to commit suicide in such a severe manner.

Jin Ja-gang searched through the masked person’s clothes. His face had melted beyond recognition anyway, and there was nothing on his body that could prove his identity.

Instead, there were poisons the masked person had been using. Jin Ja-gang collected and kept the poison needles and poison powders wrapped in oil paper.

“Young Lady… Young Lady…”

Jin Ja-gang turned his head at Shin Yung’s tearful voice.

Shin Yung was crying while holding Zhuge Yan’s corpse.

Though he could have blamed Jin Ja-gang for why he let Zhuge Yan die, why he used them as bait, Shin Yung didn’t do so.

He knew this was the best option because it would have been difficult to face the assassin with their condition, let alone Jin Ja-gang’s state.

Jin Ja-gang also didn’t offer useless comfort.

Until just moments ago, these people and himself had been enemies.

They fought, and she died.

“I’ve been with the young lady since I was four years old.”

Shin Yung, who had been quietly sobbing for a while, suddenly spoke.

“Except for my personal training time, I stayed by the young lady’s side every moment she ate and slept.”

Jin Ja-gang silently listened to Shin Yung’s words.

“I knew well that as a vassal family of the Zhuge family, this was my given fate, but… when I was young, I hated so much that my life was bound to one person. That’s how I spent my childhood.”

Shin Yung let out a quiet sigh.

“But watching one person for over twenty years, I became accustomed to everything about the young lady. The young lady’s habits and way of speaking, her actions… even the expressions she made when angry or happy. Do you understand what that means?”

Jin Ja-gang answered for the first time.

“I don’t understand.”

“It was an incredible wonder. Another person had become much more familiar to me than myself. A being more precious than my own life had appeared.”

Shin Yung looked back at Jin Ja-gang. Bloody tears were flowing from Shin Yung’s eyes.

“Now that being is dead. It means nothing to you, but to me it was like the entire world.”

Shin Yung’s eyes contained anger, sadness, and emptiness all at once.

Shin Yung said.

“How… have you been fighting against such people? Those who dare to attack the Zhuge family.”

“Strictly speaking, I haven’t been fighting until now. But I will fight soon. And I will kill them.”

Shin Yung struggled to lift Zhuge Yan’s corpse and stand up. His shoulder was broken and he was still poisoned.

Yet he gritted his teeth and stood up.

Shin Yung faced Jin Ja-gang while holding Zhuge Yan. He didn’t have the strength left to fight Jin Ja-gang. If Jin Ja-gang didn’t step aside, Shin Yung wouldn’t be able to pass in any way.

But Shin Yung squeezed out all his strength to say.

“I won’t give testimony that could help your innocence when I return to the main family. I won’t say that an assassin took the Young Lady’s life either.”

Shin Yung continued as if vomiting blood.

“That way we’ll learn what intentions those who tried to kill the Young Lady had for doing such things. Those bastards need to believe their scheme succeeded for them to reveal themselves.”

Hearing those words, Jin Ja-gang immediately stepped aside.

“That’s what I wanted.”

Shin Yung began walking. Then he briefly stopped while passing Jin Ja-gang.

“The young lady of the Zhuge family is dead. The price will be more severe than you can imagine.”

Jin Ja-gang accepted it calmly.

“I’ll bear it.”

“Do you think one individual can withstand the Zhuge family’s anger?”

“If I fail and die along the way, that will be my limit. Then my path of revenge would have ended there anyway.”

Hearing Jin Ja-gang’s words, Shin Yung’s expression became strangely distorted.

“Just how far do you plan to drive yourself?”

Jin Ja-gang seemed to think for a moment, then answered.

“You said that person is the pavilion master of Azure Dragon Great Sword Pavilion in charge of the Huguang Province Martial Arts Alliance branch. At least until I get there.”

“Huguang Province… will you be able to reach there alive?”

Shin Yung paused briefly, then swallowed blood and spoke again.

“If… you face the Zhuge family and stand at a crossroads of life and death, the only way to survive is to remember the Fish-Form Taiji. The life gate of the inner trigram is in the death gate, and the death gate is within the scene gate.”

Jin Ja-gang memorized Shin Yung’s words. Since he had said it, it must have meaning.

“Live.”

Shin Yung spat out the words as if chewing them.

“Survive. And definitely take revenge and expose those bastards to the world. If heaven permits, I too will be able to witness that moment together.”

Shin Yung struggled to take one step at a time and left the cave.

Jin Ja-gang quietly watched Shin Yung’s retreating figure.

That dignity.

Perhaps the image of the orthodox faction that Jin Ja-gang had been thinking of was what Shin Yung was showing.

However, Jin Ja-gang had never met an orthodox faction person like Shin Yung until now. And rather, he might now have to fight against such people.

Even then, would he be able to act without hesitation…

Jin Ja-gang took a long deep breath.

Despite his best efforts, Zhuge Yan’s death ultimately meant Jin Ja-gang had fallen into a trap.