By Zephyria Sixth Young Master (5)
He put on a woeful face for all to see.
“If I fail again today, I’ll surely face a severe scolding… What should I do?”
“Oh, dear…”
The cook felt sorry for the young boy. He seemed to ponder for a moment, then tapped him as if he had made up his mind.
“Ask her.”
He gestured with his eyes to one side. There, a girl was sweeping the floor.
“She helps with odd jobs in the kitchen, and her name is Suran. It’s not certain, but I’ve seen her talking to the Elder’s guard from time to time.”
Suran, sensing the gaze upon her, looked up and met Gang Woong’s eyes. Then, she hurriedly disappeared behind the wall.
‘…Does she know something?’
He had already interviewed her once with Seong Mu-yeon, but he remembered that there was nothing special about her then.
“I’ll come back for the tea later.”
Gang Woong cautiously followed her. Suran was squatting in the backyard of the kitchen, breathing heavily as if startled.
“Excuse me…”
As Gang Woong spoke carefully, Suran picked up her broom. Her excessive wariness made Gang Woong stop, unable to approach further.
“Don’t be afraid. I just wanted to ask you a few questions…”
“I told you before, I don’t know anything.”
Gang Woong quietly stepped back, worried that he might scare her into hiding.
Returning to the detached room, he told Seong Mu-yeon what had just happened, and his face lit up.
“Well done! This is enough. We need to investigate this Suran.”
“Hehe.”
A little later, Baek Ryeo-il also returned. He had apparently visited the Haoh Gate and the Beggars’ Union branch offices to gather information about Luzhu.
“Did you find anything out?”
“About Luzhu, he’s running an illegal gambling den. Not only that, but he’s also running a loan shark business targeting the gamblers, raking in money hand over fist.”
“I wondered where he spent the Gold Coins… He must have been gambling…”
It was utterly pathetic.
“If he ran away because of debt, it would have been difficult for him to show his face carelessly. Luzhu has a wide network in this area, so if he’s hiding somewhere, there must be someone helping him.”
And currently, there were no other clues besides the girl Suran, so they decided to investigate her surroundings. However, even after Baek Ryeo-il followed her for several days in disguise, she only went between her house and the tavern. She didn’t even have any friends she met separately.
She would often run away in a hurry if she ran into Seong Mu-yeon and his party at the tavern, which only deepened their suspicion of her.
“We can’t interrogate her without any solid evidence. She definitely knows something…”
Seong Mu-yeon fell into thought.
“Should we try to scare her a little?”
“What, are they calling me again?”
The noble Young master sitting in the detached room had once again summoned the workers to the room. With everyone busy preparing for business, the vacancies caused grumbling.
“……”
Suran anxiously rolled her eyes.
As before, people were called into the detached room one by one and returned before a quarter of an hour had passed.
“What did they ask this time?”
Someone asked the person who had returned from the detached room, and Suran perked up her ears.
“The same as before. When was the last time I saw the Sixth Young Master, things like that.”
“Ah. A grown adult will surely return on his own when the time comes. The higher-ups really have nothing to do.”
As the afternoon began and customers started to crowd in, it was Suran’s turn. She was called away in the middle of preparing ingredients. Her heart pounded as she wiped her hands and climbed the stairs.
The hallway in front of the detached room was quiet because no one passed by, so it seemed like her own heartbeat was audible.
“You rat-like bastard! Where the hell did you hide!”
Suran flinched at the rough shout from inside the detached room. The voice seemed to belong to the tall, rough-looking martial artist who was guarding the noble Young master.
Her already tense heart was pounding like crazy, but Suran didn’t know where she got the courage, but she muffled her footsteps and approached the door, pressing her ear close. The sound of conversation flowed out through the crack in the door.
“I tried to handle things as discreetly as possible, but it seems I can’t. Even if it gets a little rough, I have no choice but to release people to search.”
The sweet voice that said that was the noble Young master’s.
“To make us go through so much trouble, I won’t let him off easy if I catch him. I’m going to tear him to pieces!”
Thump!
Suran, startled by the sound of the desk being slammed, jumped and fell on her backside. The tall guard who served the noble Young master was large and seemed to have high-level martial arts at a glance. If she were caught by such a person…
Suran was terrified, but she slowly got up. She took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
The inside became quiet, and soon a beautiful voice replied.
“Come in.”
An ominous energy lingered inside the detached room. Suran tried to appear calm, and the noble Young master didn’t seem to notice anything strange as he asked a few questions. As the people who had gone in before had said, they were similar questions to before. However, the atmosphere was subdued, as if both the noble Young master and the guards were in a bad mood.
Fortunately, the young martial artist she had spoken to in the backyard before didn’t seem to be aware of her either. It seemed that, like he had said back then, he was simply probing any random worker passing by.
Once the perfunctory questions were over, Suran was able to leave the detached room. The noble Young master told her who to send in next, and Suran relayed the message as is.
‘Hoo…’
Her relief was short-lived, as she couldn’t forget the unusually tense atmosphere in the detached room. They had been moving quietly for some reason until now, but they could draw their swords at any moment.
Suran fidgeted, and eventually went to the cook.
“Um… Oh, I’m not feeling well today, so can I go home early?”
“What? We’re short-handed, how can you leave in the middle of the busiest time!”
“I’m sorry…”
Leaving the tavern, she didn’t go straight home but wandered the streets. After wandering around this alley and that alley for a while, she cautiously headed towards the nearby forest.
Undeterred by the cold wind of the winter forest, she went deeper into the woods. Her constant glances around showed that she was extremely wary.
The place where Suran stopped after a long time was a dilapidated shack. It was an abandoned house that had been abandoned for a long time and couldn’t even serve as a roof.
Suran opened her mouth in a small voice.
“Gyeom…”
When there was no answer, she raised her voice a little.
“Bang Gyeom…”
Creak.
The half-broken door of the shack, which seemed uninhabited, opened slightly with a sound. After confirming the person through the gap, a man cautiously came out.
“I told you not to come all the way here.”
He scolded Suran in a low voice, but there was a hint of welcome in his tone.
“It was urgent, I couldn’t help it. A noble Young master came to the tavern and is looking for you, and that person.”
Bang Gyeom’s face turned pale.
“What? Is that really true?”
“Run away quickly. I know I shouldn’t have come, but I thought I should let you know. They said they won’t let you off easy if they catch you.”
Suran took out a small bundle from her arms.
“Here, I’ve prepared some travel expenses and other things in case of times like this. Take it.”
Bang Gyeom took the bundle with a painful expression.
“…Thank you. Be careful too. No, don’t go to the tavern for a while.”
“Don’t worry about me. I guess we won’t be able to see each other again?”
When Suran asked hesitantly, Bang Gyeom replied in a cracking voice after a long time.
“Probably.”
“……”
The two couldn’t look at each other and lowered their heads solemnly.
Eventually, without either of them saying anything, they hugged each other tightly.
Meanwhile, Seong Mu-yeon, who was hiding in the tree and watching them, wanted to close his eyes.
‘Unnecessarily sentimental and noisy.’
“That person seems to be a subordinate of the Sixth Young Master, right? He really didn’t go far.”
Gang Woong whispered. Seong Mu-yeon also nodded.
“I knew there would be someone helping him.”
They had hidden themselves and followed Suran when she left the tavern. As a result, they had finally found the place where the Sixth Young Master was hiding.
Suran was an ordinary commoner who had not learned martial arts, so they were worried that she might get caught up in it, so they waited for a while until she left.
And.
Bang-!
Baek Ryeo-il kicked down the door. The wooden door, which was already decaying, shattered into pieces and scattered.
Inside the shack, two men were in the midst of preparing to escape.
“Sixth Young Master! I’ll take care of this, so please escape!”
Bang Gyeom shouted as he quickly drew his sword upon discovering the intruders. There were holes all over the old shack, so there were many places to escape besides the door. While Bang Gyeom blocked Baek Ryeo-il, the other man jumped through a hole.
But Seong Mu-yeon was standing in front of it. He had blocked the escape route in advance.
“…Brother?”
He narrowed his eyes at the sight of his brother, whom he hadn’t seen in a long time.
The proud and arrogant Sixth Young Master was nowhere to be seen, and he looked like a common vagrant that could be seen on the streets, as if he had suffered a lot. His silk clothes were tattered and dirty, turning into rags.
“You, you’re?”
Seong Mu-jae was startled to see his younger brother. But soon he pushed him away and ran. Seong Mu-yeon left Seong Mu-jae alone. Instead, Gang Woong, who had been waiting in advance, pounced on the Sixth Young Master.