Chapter 50 - He, No, She

The delicate fragrance of tea filled the Medicine Hall’s inner room, as subtle as the medicinal scent that permeated the hall itself. The quiet sound of someone swallowing tea broke the stillness.

Four cups sat on a round table to one side of the room, but only one person did much drinking. The other three simply listened to him speak.

Namgung Byeok continued his account, pausing between remarks to sip his tea. By the time the bottom of his cup was nearly bare, he had said everything he had come to say.

After hearing him out, Tang Wu drained his now completely cold tea in one gulp and asked frostily, "When do we leave?"

Tea trickled into Tang Wu’s empty cup as Namgung Byeok refilled it.

"You should leave today."

At the words “leave today,” Tang Hwa, another of those seated in the room, looked up at him in surprise. She seemed to have something to say, but lowered her head again without a word. She knew all too well that her wishes would make no difference.

Dong Bongsu, on the other hand, remained composed despite the stream of startling revelations from Namgung Byeok. He had already suspected most of what he was hearing. The only things he had not known were that the force surrounding the Namgung Clan was Heavenly Demon Castle, and the plan Namgung Bang had proposed.

Above all, he maintained that composure because it was what Tang Wu wanted to see. Surely the “once-in-an-age genius Tang Sam, blessed with the Body of No Meridians” whom Tang Wu imagined would not be easily shaken by any crisis. So Dong Bongsu was playing the part. As it happened, that performance was close enough to his true nature that nothing about it seemed out of place.

Tang Wu rose. Dong Bongsu knew he intended to leave immediately. Another unpleasant creak sounded as Dong Bongsu stood up after him.

Looking up at them, Namgung Byeok took a sip of tea before speaking.

"Please take Hye with you when you go."

Tang Wu stopped turning toward the door and turned back to Namgung Byeok.

"Why?"

"I don’t want her to see us fighting that bastard."

Both Tang Wu and Dong Bongsu knew exactly whom he meant.

"Is that the only reason?"

"I’m afraid I might... that the Namgung Clan might not hold out for even ten days."

The time Tang Wu would need to return with reinforcements, if this undertaking succeeded. The ten days Namgung Byeok spoke of must have meant those ten days and nights.

"You damned fool. Do you think I’d let you do that? Do you have any idea how much your father would give me hell after I died? Here you are, my own nephew, with the Soul-Chasing Poison Hand for an uncle, cursing me to suffer that fate in the afterlife. Bah! Tsk, tsk."

With that outburst, far coarser than befitted a revered elder of the martial world, Tang Wu strode out of the inner room. Tang Hwa followed him out of the Medicine Hall. Namgung Byeok glanced at their retreating backs, then drank his tea with a bitter smile.

Namgung Byeok’s lack of confidence told Dong Bongsu that the situation was far more serious and urgent than he had imagined.

He thought as he walked toward the door, arranging what Namgung Byeok had just told them in his mind and analyzing it. In that brief span, he identified several major flaws in the plan.

First, Namgung Byeok was gravely mistaken about the “intruder” responsible for the Three Sacred Lights and the blood-and-bone inscription. He had said he intended to make use of that intruder.

The intruder, the intruder, the intruder...

His repeated references to the intruder made it clear how much the matter occupied his thoughts. But the crucial fact was that this intruder was nowhere near skilled enough to serve the purpose this plan required.

Because the intruder was Dong Bongsu himself.

The Three Sacred Lights had nothing to do with his internal power. They were merely an automatic response to leveling up, yet Namgung Byeok was using them alone to gauge the “intruder’s” martial prowess.

'Namgung Byeok’s first fatal mistake is overestimating me. And...'

There was something else that bothered him.

Could Do Heo-ok and the force behind him—whether or not that force was Heavenly Demon Castle, as Namgung Byeok claimed—really have failed to anticipate such a simple approach?

Taking the possibilities to their extreme, the Namgung Clan could mobilize every boat in the estate, abandon it altogether, and flee onto Soho Lake. In that case, even if Heavenly Demon Castle seized the estate, pursuing the fleeing clan members would be difficult when it could not easily procure boats.

Do Heo-ok had probably included that among the possible outcomes. If so, the encirclement would naturally be much wider and more heavily reinforced. It would certainly not be confined to the mouth of the So River, as Namgung Bang and Namgung Byeok expected.

Of course, Namgung Bang’s prediction made sense by the standards of common sense. But common sense had already been shattered the moment Heavenly Demon Castle attacked the Namgung Clan out of nowhere.

Defying common sense, defying common sense, defying common sense...

Dong Bongsu repeated the words to himself. He believed the enemy must have used a method that defied common sense to blockade the waterways as well.

There were several ways they could have defied common sense here, but wasn’t one of them the most effective?

Dong Bongsu thought of one highly efficient way the enemy could cover the entire So River and Soho Lake, and considered it as a possibility. If his hypothesis was correct, Namgung Byeok’s plan could never succeed.

A probability of zero, and one of even 0.000...0001.

Something, and nothing.

The two were utterly different. The plan Namgung Byeok had just proposed could have arisen even if Do Heo-ok’s own plan had proceeded normally. It had nothing whatsoever to do with any disruption caused by the failure of the enemy’s original plan.

'His second mistake is underestimating Do Heo-ok and the enemy forces.'

In short, Namgung Byeok’s plan was fundamentally flawed from its very premises.

A plan built on two false premises was unlikely to work. That was Dong Bongsu’s assessment.

Having reached that conclusion, he finally arrived at the entrance to the Medicine Hall, opened the door, and stepped outside.

There was no way for him to change Namgung Byeok’s plan anyway. To do so, he would have to commit the insanity of revealing that he was the “intruder.”

That left him no choice but to improvise his way through this crisis, just as he had resolved earlier.

As Dong Bongsu stepped outside and closed the door, he thought once more:

'Still, there is a chance of getting out alive.'

His very existence had already sent ripples through the zero probability the enemy had created. He had already put one crack, however small, in their plan. That alone meant the probability was no longer zero.

Now, would he live or die? It was a fifty-fifty contest.

Of that, he was certain.

SLURP.

Namgung Byeok continued drinking tea alone for quite some time after Dong Bongsu left. By the time he emerged from the Medicine Hall’s inner room, the nearly full moon was already high in the sky.

What did death and moonlight have in common?

When the time came, they visited everyone in the world equally.

Like the shadow of death that followed everyone under heaven however desperately they tried to escape it, the moonlight illuminating the Namgung Clan naturally shone brightly upon other places as well.

The summit of Rising Dragon Mountain.

Here, too, the moon shed its light in full. Two figures stood bathed in its rays, their long shadows stretching out behind them.

The first to speak was Paga Hyeol, the black-clad man wearing a bored expression. With his arms folded, he watched the distant Namgung estate, never looking away even as he spoke.

"Shifting Shadow—or should I call you Do Heo-ok now? Well, it hardly matters. Shall we hear your excuses, then?"

Beside him stood the handsome Do Heo-ok. So much blood had soaked his blue robes that they had long since lost their original color. By now, they had turned so black that they were almost indistinguishable from Paga Hyeol’s clothing. His appearance alone was enough to suggest how bitterly he had struggled throughout the day. Most of that blood belonged to other people, however.

Do Heo-ok spoke with his gaze likewise fixed on the Namgung estate.

"Ash Shadow, you make it sound as though I’ve failed."

"Are you saying you haven’t? Four Shadows died with little to show for it, even if they were Outer Shadows rather than Core Shadows. And the very fact that you’re standing beside me flapping your mouth means the First Stratagem has already failed. The First Stratagem only had a chance of succeeding while you were a hero who could become a rallying point for the Orthodox Faction. Now you look like some neighborhood dog trampled by village brats, and all you do is run your mouth. That alone means the First Stratagem is finished."

Do Heo-ok chuckled at Paga Hyeol’s rather loose manner of speaking.

"You’re only half right. Yes, the key to the First Stratagem is for me to become a hero of the Orthodox Faction. But standing here in this state doesn’t mean I can’t still become one."

At those words, Paga Hyeol, who had been gazing languidly at the Namgung estate, turned his head to look at Do Heo-ok.