The Legend of Red Cloud - Chapter 101

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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 101. The Mysterious Black-Robed Figure
Ryu, who had been absorbed in Wind Practice, opened his eyes and ceased his training at the arrival of Yucheon Chu-hon, who burst in with a rough energy.
“That damned fool! I wondered why he was running his mouth so freely. Turns out the thief and the true culprit have nothing to do with each other!”
“What are you talking about…?”
Yucheon Chu-hon answered Yun Yeo-ok, who glanced at Ryu before speaking.
“I asked Nam On why he was being so leisurely about the report, and he said it’s unrelated! And when I asked about the missing items, those fools at Munchang Residence were equally indifferent about it.”
At Yucheon Chu-hon’s frustrated response, Yun Yeo-ok turned to look at Ryu.
But Ryu, whom she expected to be disheartened, wore a composed expression.
“You’re… all right?”
Ryu answered Yun Yeo-ok’s concerned question.
“I suspected as much.”
“Huh? What do you mean by that…?”
Yucheon Chu-hon’s face was filled with bewilderment as he struggled to finish his sentence.
Ryu answered his question.
“If the true culprit were involved, Munchang Residence wouldn’t have remained this quiet.”
“Then why did you ask us to pursue the criminal…?”
“I don’t believe in coincidence. So even if it seems unrelated, I had no intention of letting a theft that occurred around the same time pass by unexamined.”
“But they’ve already concluded there’s no connection…”
“They may have their reasons for that judgment, but I can’t accept a conclusion without actually capturing the thief and verifying it myself.”
Yucheon Chu-hon fell silent at Ryu’s words.
Not because Ryu’s argument was sound, but because he had nothing else to say when the man simply thought that way.
But Yun Yeo-ok was gazing at Ryu with eyes that sparkled like stars.
It was simply that he, unlike everyone else, could see possibility even in a negation—and that impressed her.
Catching a glimpse of her, Yucheon Chu-hon subtly shook his head.
‘She’d probably call him magnificent even if he ate dung.’
Whether or not she knew what Yucheon Chu-hon was thinking, Yun Yeo-ok simply gazed at Ryu as he sat by the window as usual, looking out into the distance, her smile playing at the corners of her lips.
***
Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi returned after four days.
Until then, the other tracking specialists of Cheonmyeong Namun had found no trace of the true culprit.
And Yucheon Chu-hon, who had merely been pressing his subordinates the whole time, fared no better.
In that situation, Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi, upon his return, spoke.
“I found the painting.”
At Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi’s words, Ryu shot up from his seat as if about to dash off immediately.
“Where?”
“I confirmed a black market dealer who claimed to have seen someone trying to sell a similar painting in a place called Pyeong-do, not far from here.”
“You didn’t confirm the person selling it?”
“The merchant promised to find a buyer and arranged to return in a few days.”
“Then let’s go.”
Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi guided Ryu, who left without hesitation, out of Munchang Residence.
It was fortunate timing—Yun Yeo-ok had just stepped out to fetch food, so no one stood in their way.
When Yun Yeo-ok returned to the guest quarters carrying a tray of food, her expression hardened at the sight of Ryu nowhere to be found.
When she smiled, it was imperceptible, but now that her face had frozen cold, a sharp, almost savage aura rippled across her features.
Though Yun Yeo-ok searched the entire guest quarters with that icy expression, she found no trace of Ryu.
Yucheon Chu-hon approached her.
“What are you looking for?”
“That bastard.”
“That bastard… who might that be?”
“My husband!”
At Yun Yeo-ok’s sharp voice, her pitch rising at the end, Yucheon Chu-hon quickly sensed that her mood was poor and hastily bowed.
“I’ll search for him.”
Yucheon Chu-hon moved urgently and returned shortly after.
“He’s gone outside.”
“Outside? Where outside?”
“He didn’t say where he was going before he left, but… he went with Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi.”
Before Yucheon Chu-hon could finish, Yun Yeo-ok had vanished.
The Lightweight Skill she deployed was so swift that even Yucheon Chu-hon, standing atop Yeongha Baekwi, could scarcely follow it with his eyes.
***
Pyeong-do was an even smaller rural village than Haenam or Sijeon.
It was odd that a thief would come to such a place to trade a stolen painting.
As if sensing Ryu’s thought, Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi offered an explanation.
“The larger the city, the more eyes watching, isn’t that so? Even though this is a small backwater, there are quite a few fences operating in the underground—people who know the business well.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Of course, in a few years this place will change too. The fences will move elsewhere. It’s the nature of their trade—they can’t stay in one place for long.”
Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi nodded at Jeok Sa’s words and guided him toward an old bookshop visible at the edge of the village.
“That bookshop there is the place I mentioned.”
“They trade stolen paintings there?”
“It looks like an ordinary used bookshop, but the main items handled are paintings, calligraphy, and poetry—the three refined arts. Of course, most of it is black market goods.”
“If it’s a place with that kind of reputation, shouldn’t it have been shut down already?”
“On the contrary, it’s left alone precisely because of its notoriety.”
“What do you mean?”
Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi answered Jeok Sa’s question, his head tilted in puzzlement.
“By leaving it untouched, we can put it to use when we truly need it. Like now, for instance.”
“So you’re saying you knowingly tolerate the trading of black market goods there?”
“Just as the world works, fences will always exist. If you eliminate every one you see, they’ll only hide deeper, and when you actually need to find something, you won’t be able to. That’s what leaving them visible prevents.”
“You mean to say you deliberately keep them in plain sight?”
“Exactly. Rather than eliminating all of them, we prune the numbers and concentrate them in a few locations. When we need to find something, it makes the work far easier.”
He found it strange that they didn’t pursue a policy of stamping out the root of the problem entirely, making black market dealings impossible.
But he had no intention of blaming them outright for it.
People thought differently, and Haenam’s circumstances could be quite different from what he expected.
In any case, Jeok Sa settled into an inn overlooking the bookshop together with Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi.
Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi paid for the lodging on behalf of Jeok Sa, who happened to be short on funds.
What was amusing was that Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi didn’t mind the expense at all.
He believed there was nothing grudging about giving to someone who truly appreciated his worth.
***
After a day and a half of searching for the missing Jeok Sa yielded no results, Yun Yeo-ok made her decision and ventured into the mountain forest where the yin energy was strongest, deep in the dead of night.
There, finding the place where the yin energy was most concentrated, she began weaving complex spirit seals with her hands and chanting words that made no sense to mortal ears.
She continued thus for a long time.
Whoosh.
A cool wind swept through, and a bluish mist began to coalesce in the forest, gradually taking on the shape of a human form.
With each passing moment, Yun Yeo-ok’s murmuring grew faster and higher in pitch.
She persisted for yet longer still.
With sweat streaming down her forehead from such intense effort, her hands moved with lightning speed, a series of spirit seals flowing forth like ripples—and in that moment.
Crack.
One hand pointing to heaven, the other to earth, Yun Yeo-ok’s voice emerged from her lips like the cry of a ghost.
“Manifest. Kun-gui!”
Responding to her cry, the bluish mist that had taken on human form blazed with a dark luminescence, then solidified into the shape of an actual being.
A face drained of all blood, lips red as if about to weep crimson, eyes entirely black with no whites visible.
At first glance, this was no mortal—and this creature bowed its head toward Yun Yeo-ok.
“Kun-gui greets the Divine Woman.”
At the weighty, subterranean tone of the voice, Yun Yeo-ok steadied herself, pushing aside her exhaustion, and spoke.
“There is one you must find. Follow me.”
With those words left behind, Yun Yeo-ok vanished using her Lightweight Skill, and Kun-gui followed like a shadow.
***
The wait for Jeok Sa and Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi was not long.
The signal they had agreed upon in advance came from the fence operating at the bookshop.
The moment that signal came, Jeok Sa and Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi pursued the man who emerged from the bookshop.
This followed Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi’s reasoning that if they moved against him at the shop itself, they would lose the cooperation of the fences forever.
The thieves must not discover that the fences were leaking information to the outside.
For this reason, Jeok Sa and Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi decided to strike only after the man had completely left Pyeong-do, and they followed in his footsteps as he walked with purpose.
Just as the man exited the Sijeon market district and turned into a desolate alley.
Thud!
With an unsettling sound, the man entering the alley staggered and collapsed.
A black-robed middle-aged man emerged from the darkness, catching him as he fell.
Hoisting the unconscious man onto his back, the black-robed middle-aged man began to run.
Unable to act quickly enough due to the distance, Jeok Sa and Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi gave chase to the black-robed man.
But only for a moment—the instant the black-robed man began using his Lightweight Skill, the gap between them widened in seconds.
Seeing how matters stood, Jeok Sa stopped running.
Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi watched him in bewilderment as Jeok Sa halted his steps, when continuing the pursuit with his Lightweight Skill was the very least they should do.
“Why are you stopping?”
“Keep pursuing him. I’ll wait here.”
“What? Why would you—?”
“I need to look into something here.”
Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi hesitated at Ryu’s words for a moment, but when he saw the Black-robed Middle-aged Man already disappearing into the distance, he worried he might lose sight of him and took off in pursuit.
The instant Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi vanished from view, Ryu finally gave way to ragged breathing, heaving for air.
He couldn’t let Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi know that, contrary to the rumors, he had no secret technique to compensate for the inner power he’d lost.
If he did, he’d lose any chance of cooperation.
The man was helping him precisely because of the rumor that he’d defeated Yucheon Chu-hon, who had his name on the rolls of Yeongha Baekwi.
Just days ago, Yucheon Chu-hon himself had come and spread word that Cheonmyeong Namun was desperate to recruit him.
That was how Ryu had understood why Nam On and Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi—both sent from Cheonmyeong Namun—showed him such favor.
But if they learned the truth…
Nam On would be one thing, but Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi would abandon him without hesitation.
A Food Guest with official standing in an organization had no reason to help someone Cheonmyeong Namun had no use for.
Ryu kept the secret knowing exactly this.
Yet even as he struggled to catch his breath, someone came at him without warning.
Clang.
Sensing something bearing down on him, Ryu drew his blade to block—and found the Black-robed Middle-aged Man standing before his eyes, the very man Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi had chased.
With Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi draped across his shoulder.
Yet the Black-robed Middle-aged Man’s movements remained light and swift.
With that dizzying speed, he turned his attention back to Ryu.
Against such an opponent, Ryu met him with Tasaha, the same technique that had stopped the initial ambush.
Metal rang out in a cacophony, dozens of exchanges flashing past in an instant.
The weight of the man’s attack caught Ryu off guard, sharpening his focus, and the Black-robed Middle-aged Man studied him anew.
“So you’re a former master of Haedong-gwi—is that it? Impressive, to maintain this level even without your inner power.”
Startled that his opponent knew so much about him, Ryu demanded an answer.
“Who are you?”
“If I meant to tell you, I wouldn’t be going to all this trouble. Besides, that annoying little pest will be back soon enough, so I’d better finish this.”
As the words left his mouth, the man’s hand extended like a striking viper, a blade’s edge whistling through the air.
Clang.
When his attack met resistance once more, the man’s eyes narrowed.
“Blocking the Hidden Slash without even an ounce of inner power?”
Whether in shock or frustration, the man’s voice carried both—and he finally lowered Gyeongcheon Chu-gwi from his shoulder, gripping his sword with both hands.
Seeing this shift, Ryu understood the man meant to fight in earnest, and he readied himself.
Blade held low, eyes half-lidded, gaze angled toward the middle-aged man.
By taking this stance alone, Ryu’s sword gained a thousand paths to strike.
The man’s eyes flashed with recognition.
“Decent form. But that’s the end of it.”
With those words, the man’s body surged forward like a storm.
Not just his blade, but the man himself came barreling down, and Ryu drew a breath, sweeping his sword up to meet him.

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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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