By Zephyria 
Despite being a barren environment with sandy deserts to the north and sheer canyons to the west of the provincial capital of Gansu, Lanzhou County is a wealthy city overflowing with vitality. This is because it gains immense profits through the trade routes coming from the Western Regions. Not only Lanzhou, but other cities in Gansu also earned money from merchant groups flocking in from all over, as well as from tolls and commissions on goods sold.
“There are so many people.”
Entering a lively city that smelled of human habitation for the first time in a while, Gang Woong felt slightly excited.
The market was so crowded there was hardly room to step, and people of Western descent wearing Western clothing rather than Central Plains attire were not hard to find. Moreover, his eyes moved busily as he looked at the unfamiliar items spread out on the stalls.
“To think I have to find someone here; it’s like looking for a needle in a desert.”
However, the sound of Baek Ryeo-il clicking his tongue poured over him like cold water. Gang Woong blushed, feeling that he had acted too frivolously for a disciple of a Great Sect.
“I have a place to visit, so let’s each investigate separately and meet at that teahouse.”
“Ah!”
As Baek Ryeo-il spoke and vanished swiftly into the crowd, Gang Woong, flustered, hurried after him. Yak Seon’s servants and Peng Do-hwan had long since disappeared from sight, blocked by the surging crowd.
“Master!”
Despite Gang Woong’s call, Baek Ryeo-il continued to move forward with a firm stride.
‘…Why is he acting like this?’
His master was an arbitrary and unpredictable person who did as he pleased, but if one looked deeply, a basic pattern of behavior could be found. While spending time with Baek Ryeo-il, Gang Woong had internalized those subtle rules. Thanks to that, he could predict his master’s actions to some extent and could get along comfortably as long as he didn’t cross a certain line.
However, Gang Woong had felt great confusion over the past few days. At some point, his master had begun to act outside of his predictions. Just like right now.
Gang Woong barely managed to chase after his master, pushing through the crowds pressing in from all sides. His master, who usually slowed his pace or waited so that his young disciple could follow, had already drifted far ahead.
It was as if he were so deeply immersed in other thoughts that he had forgotten Gang Woong’s existence.
Even during the journey here, Gang Woong had been unable to relax. For some reason, Baek Ryeo-il’s mood was more subdued than usual.
He wondered if it was because they had lost track of the Poison Freak, but was that not a daily occurrence? Rather, since they had obtained a proper clue, the situation was better than other times, yet his displeasure seemed to deepen.
Or was it because of Young Master Peng?
Peng Do-hwan and Baek Ryeo-il had clashed significantly in the past, so there might be lingering resentment.
But Gang Woong soon shook his head. Baek Ryeo-il was the one who had chosen him as a companion, and there was no reason for him to accompany him while enduring such unpleasantness.
‘Then the only ones left are Yak Seon’s servants.’
Gang Woong himself was not entirely happy about their presence. Seeing them reminded him of Yak Seon, and thinking of Yak Seon naturally brought Seong Mu-yeon to mind.
Thinking about it, it seemed Baek Ryeo-il had always been glaring at the servants.
Gang Woong’s face clouded with worry.
‘What should I do if Master loses his self-control again?’
Baek Ryeo-il’s threshold was quite high. However, in certain areas, he would crumble completely over even a trivial matter. Such things had happened twice in the last two years, and Gang Woong was certain he would never forget those memories until the day he died.
The expression ‘losing self-control’ was merely a simplified term Gang Woong used out of respect for his master.
Baek Ryeo-il had quite literally gone berserk.
Once was when he encountered the pirates of the Dongjing Eighteen Fortresses, and another time was during a visit to Hangzhou, which, being a large city, had many groups with diverse characteristics. Among them was the leader of a group of seductive sorceresses who practiced evil sorcery at the Huachuan Tower, and she had set her sights on Baek Ryeo-il.
She was so persistent that despite several cold rejections, she eventually resorted to all sorts of wicked tricks to get her hands on him. In the end, only after an enraged Baek Ryeo-il half-destroyed the magnificent pavilions of the Huachuan Tower did the leader declare surrender, barely avoiding the total annihilation of her sect. Considering that ten of the Dongjing Eighteen Fortresses had been burned or sunk, leaving only eight barely surviving, it was a generous disposition. At least they hadn’t lost their lives.
Gang Woong finally managed to escape the crowd, but his master had already gone somewhere.
“…”
Gang Woong’s shoulders slumped. With no other choice but to wait at the teahouse where they agreed to meet, he retraced his steps.
Pushing through the crowd once more, Gang Woong found the teahouse. Only two servants, one large and one small, both wearing masks, were sitting at a tea table set out on the roadside. It seemed Peng Do-hwan had also left his seat to gather information.
‘Yak Seon’s servants are eating away at Master’s mental energy.’
An extremely sensitive Baek Ryeo-il could easily snap his thread of reason over a minor conflict. Is it not the duty of a true disciple to mediate before an unfortunate incident occurs?
He had to prevent the two from clashing with Baek Ryeo-il as much as possible. Once the mission was complete, they were people who would leave quickly.
Considering the relationship with Yak Seon, a precious treasure of the martial world, it had to end safely without any incident.
Vowing this, Gang Woong stepped toward the teahouse.
However, a strange sight caught his eye. The teahouse had placed its tea table toward a secluded alley, and some teenage youths were loitering around the servants. Judging by their slouching attitudes, they seemed to be local thugs.
Even in these streets filled with Westerners in bizarre attire, the masked servants were certainly conspicuous. The thugs stared openly, finding the servants curious, and when no reaction came back, they seemed to take them for easy targets and flicked sunflower seed shells at them.
Badger flinched and looked back at the thugs as if angry. Then, Owl grabbed his hand on the tea table to stop him.
“Leave it… they’ll lose interest and leave soon…”
To Gang Woong’s ears, which were heightened for hearing, it sounded as vivid as if they were speaking right next to him, but in reality, there was quite a distance between them.
Gang Woong hurried his pace, but it wasn’t easy as pedestrians suddenly popped out and frequently blocked his path.
Unfortunately, the thugs’ curiosity was not the kind to fade quickly; while Owl was distracted, they snatched a bundle and ran off into the alley, giggling.
Eventually, Badger leaped from his seat and dashed into the back alley in pursuit of the thugs.
The movement was so agile and efficient that Gang Woong’s eyes widened.
‘That person… did they learn martial arts?’
Since he had not yet reached a level where he could gauge another’s martial arts, he had to rely solely on appearance and intuition. The servants he had observed so far were regarded as ordinary civilians who had not learned martial arts. Not only himself, but Peng Do-hwan and Baek Ryeo-il had also treated them as ordinary people, so he had assumed as much.
But looking now, it seemed he had been mistaken.
Gang Woong hurriedly pushed through the people and ran toward the alley where they had disappeared. As expected, the thugs had not gone far and were facing off against Badger.
Though he had followed with the intention of protecting Badger, a momentary spark of curiosity led Gang Woong to hide around the corner and watch them without revealing himself.
“Wha-what? Why is he so fast?”
One of the thugs shouted in a flustered voice.
Gang Woong could only see Badger’s back, and he quietly raised and extended his hand. It was a silent command to hand over the bundle.
However, there were five thugs and only one Badger. Despite their obvious panic, the thugs, holding the numerical advantage, felt their pride wounded if they were to retreat, so they merely snorted.
“For a weirdo who walks around wearing a mask, your movements are quite decent, huh?”
It seemed these fellows had not heard of Yak Seon’s reputation.
The most prominent characteristic of Yak Seon, who had been famous as a renowned master for decades, was her servants. It was so famous in the martial world that even a three-year-old would know. Sects that did not want to fall out of favor with Yak Seon lived by the saying, ‘Do not touch Yak Seon’s servants,’ and such rumors had spread even to ordinary civilians.
Though they were on the outskirts, thugs like that had no interest in the news of the world and lived only thinking about how to swindle people, so their ignorance of the rumors was likely a big factor.
“Boss, it looks like there’s something expensive in the bundle! Look at those guys, doesn’t the material of their clothes look high-quality?”
“Let’s see.”
The thug grinned and unwrapped the cloth. However, his face distorted violently as he looked inside.
“It’s just trash!”
The thug picked up a dark-colored earthenware pot. It was a medicine pot used for decocting herbs. As the cloth unfolded, medicinal herbs, bandages, ointments, and other items of no value to them spilled onto the ground.
Badger flinched when the herbs fell to the ground and stepped toward them, appearing even more enraged.
“Damn it, I got my hopes up for nothing! You can have this crap that won’t even fetch money if sold!”
The thug, who had been excited at the thought of a windfall, became grumpy and threw the medicine pot aside. The pot flew in a straight line toward someone’s wall.
Reacting instinctively, Gang Woong leaped forward, but the moment he took his first step, he sighed, realizing he was too far to catch the pot.
Then, Badger’s figure vanished from his sight in a flash. Before he could even realize what had happened, Badger appeared in front of the wall, holding the medicine pot.