A Baby Cat Who Commands the Dog Clan - Chapter 62

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 62
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Hong Seol had barely managed to fall asleep before her eyes fluttered open again.
‘Is it morning now? Or evening?’
In the Earth Tunnel where light scarcely penetrated, there was no way to gauge the passage of time.
I could only tell that a day had passed by the arrival of barley porridge.
As I glanced around to estimate the time, I suddenly discovered marks carved into the wall.
‘These must be date markers, right?’
Yang Do Jin, the boy who had been here the longest, had apparently scratched marks into the earthen wall with a stone.
Yang Do Jin, who had carved those very marks, sat against the wall with a melancholy expression.
I tilted my head as I examined the wall.
‘Three X marks and one circle?’
The marks repeated in a regular pattern.
‘The last section has three X marks drawn in a row.’
If one mark was made each day, then today was the day a circle would be drawn.
My first circle day in this place.
“Um… what exactly do these marks mean?”
Hesitantly, I spoke to Yang Do Jin.
That was when it happened.
Suddenly, the children began pressing themselves flat against the wall.
“Someone’s coming!”
“It’s that day!”
They looked absolutely terrified.
“Why, why are you doing that?”
Confused, I turned to look behind me.
Screeeech.
The iron door, which had been firmly shut, opened with an ominous sound.
‘Is someone else being dragged in like I was?’
But what entered through the door was not a child with acupuncture points sealed.
Thud.
A foot clad in worn leather shoes stepped in first.
Then a burly arm suddenly thrust inside, thrashing through the air in all directions.
“Aahhh!”
“I’m scared!”
The children screamed and scattered, though there was nowhere to go with earthen walls blocking every direction.
The man’s grumbling voice echoed through the chamber.
“Damn it. It’s too dark to see properly.”
In that moment, something caught my eye—accustomed as it was to the darkness. A black feather tattoo inscribed on the man’s arm.
‘Could that be… the Black Eagle Gang…?’
The story Nam Goong Ui Gyeol had told me came flooding back.
The Black Eagle Gang—a massive criminal organization led by the master martial artist Dok Bi Jo.
The members of the Black Eagle Gang bore black feather tattoos on their arms, or so the rumors went.
‘So Dok Bi Jo has entered Hefei… but why would the Black Eagle Gang be after children?’
Hong Seol was surveying her surroundings, still unable to grasp the situation.
Whirrr!
A steel grappling hook flew through the air like a fishing line.
“Watch out!”
Yang Do Jin, who had remained silent until now, suddenly yanked Hong Seol toward the wall.
“Ah!”
The steel hook pierced the spot where Hong Seol had been standing moments before, then retracted with a scraping sound.
Screeeech.
A bone-chilling noise emanated from the hook dragging across the floor.
“W-what is this?”
Hong Seol trembled in shock.
Whirrr!
The steel hook flew through the air once more.
“Ahhh!”
This time, the hook succeeded in snagging the collar of a small girl’s garment at the back of her neck.
It was So Rang—the child Hong Seol had carried on that first day.
“No!”
Hong Seol had no chance to intervene.
“Damn it!”
Yang Do Jin, speaking with an unexpectedly crude curse for a child, bolted toward the door. But So Rang was already being dragged through the gap, disappearing from view.
The door slammed shut with a heavy thud.
Immediately after, the sound of a metal bar being secured echoed through the silent room.
“N-no! I don’t want this! Help me! Sister! Brother!”
So Rang’s anguished cries continued from beyond the door, growing fainter with each moment.
Reeling from the shock, Hong Seol spun around.
“W-what… what is all this?”
Deng Xiao Xiao spoke in a hollow voice.
“Every four days, someone with that steel hook comes and takes one of us.”
“B-but why…?”
“No one knows. But so far, not a single child has ever come back.”
“They must be using us as ingredients for some kind of medicine!”
It was Yang Do Jin—the orphan boy who had just saved Hong Seol—who leaped to his feet.
Tears streamed down his face as he burned with frustration at his inability to help So Rang.
“I told you already. The way they’re picking us off one by one isn’t to sell us to brothels or coal mines. It’s definitely for making some kind of sinister elixir!”
Hong Seol felt a chill run down her spine.
She was certain she had heard somewhere that incurable patients sometimes consumed children. And before that, she had heard that members of the Demonic Cult once crafted a medicine called the ‘Crimson Elixir’ from human fingernails and toenails.
The implications were too horrifying to contemplate.
“That’s just what you think. And even if it were true, what could you possibly do about it?”
The beggar boy flinched at Deng Xiao Xiao’s sharp words.
“Next time, will you go willingly?”
“Damn it, damn it!”
Unable to answer, the beggar boy wiped his tears away with his grimy hand.
“Just hold on a little longer. Soon the people from the Deng Family Estate will come looking for me, and you just need to survive until then.”
At Deng Xiao Xiao’s pragmatic words, Yang Do Jin lowered his head sadly.
“If only I had strength… I wouldn’t let those bastards get away with this…”
“But you don’t have that strength. So stop wasting time on useless thoughts and focus on staying alive.”
While the two bickered, Hong Seol stood frozen in shock.
‘Children dying here every four days…!’
If I waited here, eventually the people from the Deng Family Estate would come looking for Deng Xiao Xiao and rescue me.
But until then, I might have to witness the deaths of countless children.
That alone seemed unbearable.
Hong Seol spoke to the despondent beggar boy Yang Do Jin.
“Hey. Do you know how long the children who are taken away stay alive?”
Hong Seol drew in a sharp breath and continued in a trembling voice.
“How long do they have left?”
Deng Xiao Xiao immediately chided her.
“Good grief, how foolish! How would he possibly know that!”
Regardless, Hong Seol’s clear eyes were fixed directly on Yang Do Jin.
“You can know. Your ears are sharper than others, aren’t they?”
“What?”
Deng Xiao Xiao’s voice carried disbelief.
“You’re saying his ears are really sharper than normal?”
Deng Xiao Xiao looked at Yang Do Jin skeptically.
Then he gave a barely perceptible nod.
“Huh?”
Deng Xiao Xiao was startled by the unexpected affirmation. Yang Do Jin spoke weakly.
“I can hear everything. With my ears.”
Hong Seol fixed her gaze intently on Yang Do Jin.
“Then tell me. How long does So Rang, who was taken today, have left to live?”
“Usually about two days. After two days, the sounds stop.”
At those words, Deng Xiao Xiao’s mouth fell open.
“Wait, what kind of ears… No, Hong Seol, how did you even know that?”
Hong Seol quietly raised her finger and pointed to one spot. There, tied to the beggar boy’s waist, was a knot.
Deng Xiao Xiao’s eyes widened as she recognized the knot.
“One knot… a One-Knot Beggar!”
“He’s a disciple of the Beggar Sect. And he’s a One-Knot Beggar who earned that single knot only after three years of apprenticeship.”
I was grateful I had learned about the Beggar Sect beforehand from Nam Goong Ui Gyeol.
The fact that Yang Do Jin recognized Hong Seol as Nam Goong Ui Gyeol was largely due to his lack of preconceived notions about her.
Had he possessed even a modicum of knowledge about the Martial Arts World, he would never have imagined that such a young beggar could be Nam Goong Ui Gyeol.
Just as Deng Xiao Xiao had failed to.
Hong Seol continued speaking.
“I thought that as a disciple of the Beggar Sect—an organization that survives on information—she would naturally possess keen ears. Besides, this child….”
Hong Seol gazed at the beggar boy. His face was noticeably darker than the other children’s.
“She’s far more melancholic than the others. And I was convinced she intended to take us away and turn us into medicine.”
Hong Seol pressed on.
“I reasoned that such certainty could only come from hearing what’s actually happening with her own ears. The way she’s the first to notice whenever someone approaches—it all pointed to the same conclusion.”
“Hong Seol, you really… are something else! Are you truly not from a martial family?”
“Uh, um….”
At Deng Xiao Xiao’s exclamation, Hong Seol’s cheeks flushed momentarily.
Yet she could not afford to bask in such praise.
Even now, So Rang’s time continued to slip away in captivity.
“Yang Do Jin, you would know—is there a guard posted at the door?”
Yang Do Jin shook his head.
“No, there’s no guard stationed there. They seem confident we won’t be able to open this iron door.”
Hong Seol stared intently at the iron gate blocking their path.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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