Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 108

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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 108

Jang Man-dok had been troubled since earlier and now made his way to the stern of the ship. The third daughter had emerged from the cabin storage—but could it be that only she and that uncle of hers were aboard?
It occurred to Jang Man-dok that there might well be other children being trafficked as well.
When Jang Man-dok reached for the door to the cabin storage, the ship’s guard rushed toward him in alarm.
“You can’t go in there!”
Jang Man-dok ignored the protest and opened the door.
The distinctive reek of mildew from a place untouched by sunlight rolled over him.
“I told you, you can’t go down there!”
The guard, attempting to block Jang Man-dok with aggressive zeal, had his face smashed against the doorframe and lost consciousness.
Jang Man-dok descended the wooden stairs slowly.
“So-man, is that you?”
A man sitting atop a wooden crate sprang to his feet at the sight of Jang Man-dok.
“Who are you?”
Jang Man-dok, of course, offered no reply.
As he surveyed the space, his face grew increasingly rigid.
The cabin storage was filled with children.
Roughly twenty of them, ranging from five to ten years old, huddled trembling in the corners of the hold.
Children being sold.
“Get up there! Now!”
The man watching over the children approached with a vicious expression.
Jang Man-dok felt an urgent need to speak, to ask where these children had been taken from and where they were being sold to. But instead of words, his fist shot forward.
He’d only meant to knock the man unconscious.
Only that.
But his hand suddenly poured force into the blow when he saw them—in the left corner of the cabin, among the coils of rope and buckets and accumulated debris.
Two children’s corpses lay there.
The pale skin, the foam at the corners of their mouths—the sight of the two dead children ignited a killing rage in Jang Man-dok.
Even Jang Man-dok himself did not understand why he was so lenient with children, he who was Murim’s greatest villain.
Perhaps it stemmed from childhood memories of his friend Yeon Geum-hong, or perhaps it was simply how he was made.
In any case, children should not die like that.
Death ought to be a punishment for one’s deeds, yet children had scarcely been given time enough to act in their own lives.
Such a child’s death could only ever be the fault of adults.
Jang Man-dok’s footsteps turned toward the deck.
He had to find whoever was responsible for the deaths of those two children.

And he would deliver fitting retribution.

***

The Jekmeumscho field was not far from where they were.
Man Wang-chil, who had revealed the location of the field, was now sinking into a pit of merciless agony at Do Pyeong-su’s hands in the forest—his vital acupoint sealed so he could not even cry out, the Fen Gen Zhao Gu technique applied, twisting bone and flesh until death would eventually come.
“Don’t worry. It won’t last longer than one double hour.”
Geom U-bin silently approved of Man Wang-chil’s being dealt with.
“But who is this Ji Cheol-seok that the masters are searching for so intently?”
“It’s a rather sordid tale. Thirty years ago, there was a Gansal incident in Beokcheon County, Sichuan. Rumors circulated back then that Man-dok was the culprit in that affair.”
“What?”
“Of course it was a baseless false accusation. Man-dok may be a villain, but Gansal? If he’d done something like that, he’d be dead before any of us were.”
“But how did he come to bear such a false accusation?”
“That was Ji Cheol-seok’s doing. It was when our Hyeolpung Saja were at the height of our notoriety in Murim…….”
Seo Seok-san corrected himself.
“Our dark fame, rather.”
“Same thing. In any case, crying children would fall silent at the mere mention of our name.”
“Like smallpox and plague. Ha! But why did this Ji Cheol-seok frame your Jang to begin with?”
“We still don’t know, even now thirty years on. Two months later we caught the real culprit, but even he spoke the name Ji Cheol-seok—said that man had ordered him to pose as Man-dok.”
Seo Seok-san continued his explanation.
“During those two months before the real culprit was caught, Sichuan became a veritable caldron of terror. Man-dok went tearing through all of Sichuan hunting the criminal……. Ah! Plenty of innocent people were arrested too. The merchants and traders wouldn’t venture outside their homes because of it, and the economy of Sichuan came to a halt for a time. After that, even the whisper of the name ‘Tyrant’s Sovereign’ was enough to send both children and adults into convulsions. Even now, there are still people in Sichuan who believe Man-dok was the culprit in that Gansal case.”
“Master Jang has every right to be aggrieved. It does seem… perhaps a touch excessive in how it was handled.”
“That’s true enough, but the situation was rather more complicated than that.”
“There was another problem?”
“Yes—the victim was male.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The person struck by Gansal.”
“Ah!”
Geom U-bin nodded vigorously, as if the meaning had become clear.
“Master Jang… I can imagine his anger was considerable.”
As they spoke, they reached the location Man Wang-chil had indicated—a basin surrounded by cliffs, with terrain so treacherous that even hunters and herb gatherers rarely ventured there.
“We’re drawing close. I can smell the Jekmeumscho.”
Geom U-bin caught the same acrid, vinegary scent that struck the nostrils—sharp and pungent.
They climbed another half-league up the mountain before the terrain abruptly steepened into a rocky slope.
In the hollow basin ringed by sheer cliff faces, a field of Jekmeumscho stretched before them.
Far below, figures labored among the plants—so distant they appeared as ants, moving with sluggish, listless motions.
According to Man Wang-chil, these workers had once made their home in the village near the harbor.
They had traded with visiting merchants at the wharf and farmed the surrounding land—until Dongyeong Suechae became their nightmare.
Dongyeong Suechae had seized people from the harbor villages near Dongyeong Canal and forced them to labor in these Jekmeumscho fields.
After the first few attempts at escape ended in recapture or fatal falls, hope of flight had died among them entirely.
They were bound to this place—destined only to wither away, poisoned slowly by the toxins rising from the fields themselves.
“You should wait here, brother. We’ll handle this and return.”
Seo Seok-san knew the scene below would not be pleasant and hoped Geom U-bin would not follow. To his relief, Geom U-bin simply nodded.
Seo Seok-san and Do Pyeong-su descended the cliff face like birds taking flight.
Though hidden by vegetation from view, both men had already marked the positions of the hidden sentries stationed throughout the basin.
With a sweep of their hands, three or four of Dongyeong Suechae’s lackeys crossed into the underworld.
Geom U-bin remained above, watching as Do Pyeong-su and Seo Seok-san finished their work.
“Easy enough, isn’t it, U-bin?”
He was a Murim martial artist as much as they were, and living in the Murim, blood would inevitably stain his hands one day.
He did not relish the killing—and yet how long could he remain hidden behind Bloodwind Four Lions? What else was he doing now but skulking beneath the masters’ robes and feigning virtue?
It was he, not the two masters, who had conceived the idea of rescuing these people. Yet it was they, not he, who wielded the blade.
They were committing necessary killings that served his purpose, bearing that weight for him.
“Would I have done better to come alone?”
Smoke began to rise from the Jekmeumscho field mere moments after the two men descended.
“Everyone move north!”
Do Pyeong-su’s shout carried clear, and soon the workers began shuffling northward.
To Geom U-bin, they resembled ants fleeing a burning nest.
He too shifted his position northward.
Along one side of the basin, a fissure ran between two rocks—wide enough for two people to pass through abreast.
Watching the figures emerge through the haze of smoke, his heart grew heavy.
These people were crawling out as if from the underworld itself, yet their faces bore no smile of deliverance.
Their skin was ashen, their eyes yellowed, their bodies drained of all strength.
“Brother, do you have a plan for them?”
At Seo Seok-san’s question, Geom U-bin withdrew brush and paper from his pack.
“We’ll send them to Oseong Jang-won first.”
“But we can’t possibly accommodate so many people…”
“We’ll shelter them for now and establish them in Hangju. Those who wish may return to their homes afterward.”
“You mean the harbor at Dongyeong Canal?”
“Dongyeong Suechae has left it in ruins. Once they’re gone, the village can rebuild as it was.”
Among the three hundred, Geom U-bin identified one person who remained relatively intact.
The middle-aged man was gaunt and worn, yet his eyes still held a spark of clarity and intelligence.
“Can you read and write?”
“Yes. I worked as a teacher.”
“Good. I’ll give you directions for where you can all stay for now. Take this letter to Oseong Jang-won.”
Oseong Jang-won’s name was known throughout all of Zhejiang Province and beyond Hangju itself.
“Oseong Jang-won? Then… are you three perhaps the Hangju Oseong?”
“We are.”
“Goodness! We’re being saved by nobles! Everyone! These are the Hangju Oseong who came from Hangju! You all know of them!”
A considerable murmur rippled through the poisoned workers.
Someone among the crowd spoke up.
“How should we make our way to Hangju from here?”
Looking at the state those people were in, it seemed a fair number wouldn’t survive the journey.
“I’ll have a boat brought for you. Set your mind at ease.”

***

Yeon Geum-hong arrived at Haenyeong Port earlier than expected.
She’d assumed that if she secured an inn and rested at leisure, Geom U-bin and the other Bloodwind Four Lions would arrive—but instead she heard news she hadn’t anticipated.
“Is it true that bandits seized the Suyong-ho as it was coming upriver along the Jeondan?”
“No, not bandits. They say six or so passengers were the ones who took it.”
“What? I heard a single man slaughtered them all. The boat sank.”
The Suyong-ho was the vessel they’d traveled on.
Yeon Geum-hong went to the men drinking and talking, and learned the location where the boat had gone down.
All three men told different stories, but the region where the boat sank was roughly the same across their accounts.
‘So they haven’t even left the Jeondan River yet?’
She’d thought the only remarkable thing about this journey would be herself, but the situation unfolding seemed to make her the most ordinary of all.
“An accident was bound to happen.”
Having pushed her Lightness Technique to its peak, it took her no more than a double hour to reach the location the men had mentioned.
As she scanned the surroundings and climbed perhaps three hundred yards upriver, the boat finally came into view.
The vessel sitting still along the riverbank didn’t look sunken as the men had said, yet something was clearly amiss.
It was the hour when darkness began to gather, and not a single light shone from the boat.
Yeon Geum-hong hurried toward it.
The moment she stepped onto the deck, she could tell there wasn’t a single living soul aboard.
Living, that is.
She easily found two corpses on the deck.
A furrow deepened between her brows as she examined them.
“This is Man-dok’s handiwork.”
The traces of Jang Man-dok’s Dokmuun Jangbeop were left plainly across their chests. The dead didn’t end at those two on the deck.
On her way to the stern, she found three more bodies, and in the storage cabin of the aft cabin, two more corpses lay.
“What in the world has that bastard Man-dok done? Where are my brother and the other two?”
It made no sense whatsoever. Yeon Geum-hong climbed back onto the deck.
There were seven bodies total, and the traces of those who had left the boat and fled the riverbank became apparent.
Just as she was about to pursue those traces, she noticed a distant mountain peak suddenly blazing bright.
‘A forest fire? Of all times?’
After a moment’s deliberation, instead of pursuing the traces of the people, Yeon Geum-hong threw herself toward where the fire burned.
Unless Geom U-bin’s group had captured those people, tracking the traces seemed unlikely to lead her to them.
It was far more probable that she’d find a clue in this forest fire that had erupted at such an opportune moment. Such sudden fires were not common accidents.
While Yeon Geum-hong ran toward the fire, Seo Seok-san and Do Pyeong-su were in the midst of uprooting and hurling trees.
The flames burned fiercely, but they posed little true threat to them.
As Do Pyeong-su wrenched up a burnable tree, he spotted a suspicious door.

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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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