The Reformed Genius of the Sichuan Tang Clan - Chapter 15

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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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Episode 15
“Dang Yu-hyeon…?”
“That’s right. It’s me.”
At the confident reply, the frown between Ro Sam-ho’s brows deepened.
It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Dang Yu-hyeon.
He had slipped into Baek-hwa Tower in disguise as a common man, eating and drinking his fill while the young master caroused there.
But it was strange for Dang Yu-hyeon to seek him out personally.
Even if the Jeokho Bandits and Baek-hwa Tower had joined hands, it was the Tower’s work to manipulate him and squeeze money from him.
‘Could the Baek-hwa Tower master be cutting ties now?’
Trying to sever the connection after all this time?
If the Dang Clan attacked, the Jeokho Bandits—mere upstarts compared to Baek-hwa Tower, which had grown entrenched in Sacheon’s underworld alongside its female alliance—would be swept away without resistance.
‘How dare she betray me!?’
His insides churned.
But he couldn’t show it.
Ro Sam-ho masked his true feelings with a cunning smile.
“What brings a young master to this humble place?”
“I’ve come to collect something owed to me.”
“Collect, you say?”
“Money. Medicine. And an account ledger.”
Has this fool of a young master lost his mind from too much of that drug?
We’re the ones supposed to be collecting.
“You lot arbitrarily demanded a thousand taels. Since someone already refused to pay, I’ve come here myself to settle the matter.”
“Why would you seek that from us, young master?”
“Talking back?”
Dang Yu-hyeon tilted his head, blinking his eyes slowly.
Tsk.
At the audacity—the sheer loss of fear—Ro Sam-ho’s teeth clenched.
‘Calm yourself. Not yet. You must wait.’
Though he ached to kill this worm on the spot, the time wasn’t right.
It was more profitable to keep Dang Yu-hyeon alive and squeeze him dry.
‘I should ask the Baek-hwa Tower master if she can use something stronger next time. The weak stuff lets him snap awake like this and do reckless things. If he were fully drugged, he’d be useless as a corpse.’
He couldn’t get anything out of him that way.
“I’m afraid the young master is mistaken, but we have none of what you seek. If you need funds, I’d suggest looking elsewhere.”
The bandits around him snickered at the tone of addressing a worthless brat.
“Chief, why not lend him about five hundred taels? He’s a young master of the Dang Clan, after all!”
“Right! Right!”
“If we don’t even lend that much, the Jeokho Bandits’ reputation will take a hit. Hehehehe.”
As Dang Yu-hyeon simply listened, as if waiting for more, the bandits grew more excited.
“Quiet! What are you doing making such a racket in front of our guest!”
Only when Ro Sam-ho’s ears rang did he silence the bandits.
His expression held the smug pride of commanding loyal men, yet contempt flickered beneath.
“I’m not sure it will satisfy the young master, but we can certainly lend five hundred taels. As for interest, we’ll handle that ourselves. Just make sure to repay it in good time.”
“You lot are playing around.”
“Pardon?”
At the flat tone, the crack in Ro Sam-ho’s softly smiling face widened.
“In the old days, men like you wouldn’t have dared to lift your heads. Now that I’m listening quietly, you think you’re something.”
Crunch.
Dang Yu-hyeon twisted his stiff neck side to side.
“That’s why people should stick to their nature.”
In an instant, even the faint smile vanished.
His twisted mouth was sharp as a beast’s.
“You.”
“Yes?”
“Eyes down.”
Smack!
Dang Yu-hyeon flew forward, driving his knee up into Ro Sam-ho’s jaw.
“Guh!”
Then he seized the bandit chief’s head and wrenched his face downward.

Crack!
The knee strike caved in his nose.
“Gaaahhh! You bastard!”
Ro Sam-ho seized the blade he’d propped beside him and swung it in vicious arcs.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Blade Aura streaked left and right.
By the speed and force, he was early in the Pinnacle realm.
An ordinary first-rate fighter wouldn’t get a hand in against him.
‘But I know how to beat him.’
Dang Yu-hyeon twisted at the waist to slip the strikes, then channeled Internal Force into a sweeping kick at his ribs.
“Nngh—!”
The sheer, devastating power erupting from such a small frame sent Ro Sam-ho staggering backward.
Whoosh!
Another blade swing—same result.
Dang Yu-hyeon sidestepped the attacks with ease and exploited every opening.
Ribs. Arm. Leg.
After the same sequence repeated again and again, the confidence drained from his face, replaced by panic.
‘I can’t win alone!’
There was no path to victory in sight.
He couldn’t simply position his men like spectators and launch a one-sided assault as he usually did.
To survive, he’d have to swallow his pride and call them in.
“You dogs—! Why aren’t you attacking? What are you—”
Thud!
A dull impact cut off his words mid-sentence.
Thud!
“Oof!”
Thud!
“Urgh!”
The underlings who’d lined up before Ro Sam-ho dropped like leaves before a gale.
“Haven’t you heard? Never take a Martial Artist from the Dang Clan lightly.”
Whistle-crack!
“Ahhh!”
A Flying Blade materialized from nowhere and embedded itself in his right shoulder.
Ro Sam-ho clutched the wound in shock.
When he tried to wrench the Flying Blade out, blood came pouring forth.
“Our gaze. Our breath. Our hand movements, our footfalls. Every little gesture.”
The words came soft as song, but Ro Sam-ho couldn’t free the blade—he could only gasp in ragged, panicked breaths.
It wasn’t shock at the unexpected attack.
His limbs had grown sluggish, his strength draining away.
“If you don’t watch every detail, you never know when I’ll release poison where. Just like now—like how I’ve poisoned the air itself.”
Huff… huff…
Small pellets of toxin that burned away when they touched air.
Dang Yu-hyeon had released them the moment he’d faced Ro Sam-ho.
Silently. Unnoticed.
So he would absorb it gradually, inevitably.
Colorless and odorless, it was all the more lethal—yet to someone who’d spent a lifetime with poison, it was child’s play.
Even in this diminished body, falling so far short of what he once was.
Dang Yu-hyeon approached with a faint smile, drawing close.
“Tell me, friend—how many fingers do you have?”
“What?”
“How many?”
When his unblinking gaze bore down like a guillotine, Ro Sam-ho forgot his arrogance entirely and whispered his answer.
“T-ten, sir. I have ten.”
“Good. I’ll ask you ten questions. For every one you can’t answer, you lose one.”
Dang Yu-hyeon held his hand flat and made a cutting motion.
“Y-yes, sir!”
‘Force. Now that works.’
‘This is why people say to do as the old masters did.’
‘How convenient.’
Dang Yu-hyeon shoved Ro Sam-ho backward and crouched down to meet his eyes.
“Money. Medicine. Account ledger. I need these three things—where are they?”
“Th-that is, we don’t have much of——”
Crack!
In an instant, his thumb fell away.
“Ahhh!”
Ro Sam-ho, paralyzed by the Paralysis Poison, couldn’t even grasp at his severed finger—only gagged and wheezed.
“Does that get the wheels turning? Still haven’t grasped the situation?”
“Ugh! No, I——!”
“I’ll ask again. Money. Medicine. Ledger. Where are they?”
“B-beneath where I was sitting, sir!”
Dang Yu-hyeon gestured with a nod toward a single ornate chair that stood out starkly in the bandit hideout, which was otherwise lined with animal hides and crude weaponry.
“That one?”
“Yes, sir!”
“I’ll give you the Antidote. Bring it here.”
“Y-yes, yes!”
Dang Yu-hyeon fished a single pill from a small vial and tossed it into Ro Sam-ho’s mouth.
Ro Sam-ho chewed and swallowed it frantically, as though it were a pill of immortality.
“Why aren’t you moving faster? Can’t that much antidote do its job?”
‘Am I a member of the Dang Clan?’
The thought ran through his mind, but he lacked the courage to voice it aloud.
Ro Sam-ho staggered to his feet and hauled up the chair.
In a pit roughly knee-deep on an adult man lay stacked crates of medicine and gold ingots, a chest containing the ledger stored separately, and other treasures.
“Should I bring everything up, sir?”
“Just the ledger.”
“Yes, sir!”
As Ro Sam-ho retrieved the ledger, Dang Yu-hyeon studied the hollow space beneath the chair, his brow rising slightly.
Stashing gold ingots or keeping the ledger in a chest for security—none of that seemed strange.
But those two long wooden planks hanging vertically on the wall… something about them felt off.
As though a sword had once hung there.
‘Suspicious.’
Both Yeo Hong-ran, who had tried to block his path to Gwol-weol Tower, and the Jeokho Bandits, whom Baek-hwa Tower had kept under its watch.
Dang Yu-hyeon narrowed his thoughts to the most plausible possibility, then gestured with his hand.
“Here it is!”
Ro Sam-ho presented a lacquered chest to Dang Yu-hyeon.
The hinges creaked open to reveal neatly organized ledger pages and accounts within.
One look was enough to tell this wasn’t his handiwork.
“Finance handled by proxy, brains handled by proxy. What exactly are you capable of?”
……
“Lost your tongue now? Or don’t feel like speaking? If it’s the latter, I can arrange for you to never speak again.”
“No, sir! Not at all, sir! Please, spare my life!”
“Pathetic wretch.”
Dang Yu-hyeon clicked his tongue and pulled out the ledger, flipping through its pages.
The entire contents amounted to little more than bribes paid to courtesans and pleasure houses throughout Sacheon, and records of weapons entrusted to Gwol-weol Tower.
‘Weapons, that is.’
As scattered clues came together, the picture crystallized.
Gwol-weol Tower, seeking to expand its influence across Sacheon, had allied itself with other pleasure houses that possessed some cunning, while entrusting more delicate affairs to the hideout—whose brute strength exceeded its tactical wit.
For instance, when acquiring something precious, routing it elsewhere first was safer than bringing it directly into one’s hands.
Much like the Wol-yeong Sword they had obtained through some means and channeled through the Jeokho Bandits so as to leave no trace back to themselves.
‘I’ll need confirmation, but I’m certain of it.’
The Wol-yeong Sword appeared in neither Dang Yu-hyeon’s own memories nor in Bi-dong’s recollection—it alone stood apart from all the other weapons.
“The Master of Baek-hwa Tower operates much the same way. You’ve more backing than I expected.”
“……!”
“No brains in your head, so you’re useful for carrying filth, are you?”
The way he spoke, tilting his head slightly, was unmistakably mocking.
For all that Ro Sam-ho’s pride stung at being called nothing more than a chess piece, he could mount no protest.
Fear of Dang Yu-hyeon had already taken root deep within him.
“I see now. For a hideout this young, the growth has been remarkably swift. The Dang Clan’s lack of interference makes sense too.”
Even in decline, the Dang Clan was the one supreme power in Sacheon.
There was nowhere in the region that didn’t feel the weight of their influence.
Yet even the Dang Clan does not involve itself in the hidden dealings of the underworld.
One might think that a prestigious clan with clear grievances should not quibble over such matters, but it goes against the Way.
And if they deliberately chose to bury something, there would be no way for the Dang Clan to uncover it.
Just as they had failed to sense anything amiss while the Jeokho Bandits operated openly in Sacheon.
Leaving such people unchecked was no different from letting a disease fester through Sacheon and into all of Jungwon.
“I meant to kill you once you’d outlived your usefulness, but living seems a crueler fate for you than death.”
Dang Yu-hyeon flicked the Account Ledger with his finger.
“Make sure this reaches those men who asked you to watch their backs. I wonder what their reactions will be when they discover they’re not the only ones you’ve been loyal to.”
Ro Sam-ho’s face went ashen.
This ledger was the only thing that had passed through his hands alone, untouched by any other’s interference.
It was a record of the wealth he had discreetly funneled into various organizations of some repute in Sacheon to nurture the Jeokho Bandits in peace—and a calculation of what he would later receive in return.
“No, please! If you do this, I’m truly finished!”
“When was that ever a concern of mine?”
“If you’re going to leak the ledger, just kill me now, I beg you!”
“Why would I?”
Crack.
Dang Yu-hyeon tilted his head, lifting only the corner of his mouth.
“Hiccup.”
At a sight that might have crawled from some ghost story, Ro Sam-ho flinched.
“There’s no need to rush. Your turn will come. Until then, wait quietly.”
Dang Yu-hyeon straightened his head and drew a sheet of paper from his sleeve.
It was the same quality as the one he had given to Yeo Hong-ran.
“Fortunate that the thumb on the other hand still remains.”
Crack.
“Aaaaaahhhhh!”
Dang Yu-hyeon wrenched Ro Sam-ho’s arm, coating it in blood and forcing a thumbprint onto the paper.
He paid no heed to the screams that formed a kind of backdrop to the moment.
“You look too dim for explanations to matter.”
Dang Yu-hyeon rolled the paper into a scroll and tucked it into his sleeve.
“Consider this the price for ever daring to lay hands on the Dang Clan.”
“Ugh… ugh…”
No answer came but gasping.
“If you want to live, run hard. Before I find you again, your generous sponsors will be trying to kill you themselves.”
As if his quiet words were a signal, Ro Sam-ho’s body went limp.
Sacheon Dang Clan: Genius Reformed
Author |
Lee Il-yeong
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(주) Samyang C&C
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Without written permission from (주) Samyang C&C – Dream Books, no part of this book may be used in any form or by any means.

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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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