Baek Woo Jin returned to the guest room of the Tang Clan, which now felt almost like home.
He had wandered through a good portion of the Tang Clan’s interior, hoping to locate the Head Craftsman who was disguised as a maid. However, not even a glimpse of her could be found.
Left with no other choice, he stopped a passing maid and asked about her.
The response he received was unexpected.
“Oh, Mi Yeon? She said she wasn’t feeling well and decided to take a few days off.”
As he watched the maid bow politely and walk away, Baek Woo Jin sat down on the veranda of the guest room and went into deep thought.
“She took time off because she’s sick….”
That couldn’t be true.
If she really was the Head Craftsman, like Jeong Jong Gu had claimed, then her words couldn’t be taken at face value.
Could it be that she had fabricated an excuse to leave her post, perhaps to carry out some scheme or experiment?
As his thoughts reached that point, a vague sense of foreboding brushed lightly against the back of his neck.
The notion that he couldn’t afford to remain idle tightened around his chest like a vice.
Something’s happening.
Acting on mere instincts rarely led to good outcomes, but completely ignoring the occasional gut feeling often invited the worst possible consequences.
Now was the time to trust his intuition.
“Shhh.”
He inhaled deeply, let the air fill his lungs, then exhaled slowly.
“Hoo.”
The most critical thing to guard against when following one’s intuition was the heightened state of the body that came with it.
Baek Woo Jin took a deep breath, calmed his body, and cooled his mind. Just as he was about to quietly leave the guest room, it happened.
“U-Umm…”
A trembling voice came from beyond the paper door.
Hearing the voice, which sounded like it belonged to someone older, Baek Woo Jin turned back and slid the door open.
Slide!
Standing there was a middle-aged woman he had never seen before.
She trembled as if overwhelmed by fear and cast nervous glances down the long corridor behind her.
“I-it’s an honor to meet you.”
The middle-aged woman bowed her head.
“I… I serve Miss Tang Seon Yeong as her maid…”
Baek Woo Jin, who had been looking with cautious eyes and a suspicious expression at the unexpected visitor so late at night, suddenly brightened up.
“Ah! Did Miss Tang send you?”
His cheerful question seemed to catch the woman off guard. She shut her eyes tightly and shook her head, then collapsed to her knees with tears spilling down her face.
“……!”
Baek Woo Jin was momentarily taken aback. But it didn’t take him long to figure out the situation.
“…Did something happen to Miss Tang?”
The maid, struggling to suppress her rising emotions, nodded her head as tears continued to stream down her face.
“Miss Tang… she’s been missing since last night!”
His face hardened in an instant.
His blood ran cold.
“If the young lady hasn’t gone to see you, then there’s no reason she would leave her quarters. There’s nowhere within the Tang Clan that she would willingly go. The inner hall, which she always found stifling and confining, ironically became the only place where she could feel even remotely at ease.”
“I tried to seek help from the clan head… but he wouldn’t even grant me an audience.”
Beneath her grief burned a flicker of indignation. It was the anger of someone who resented a father who didn’t care about his daughter at all.
She was a prisoner within the Tang Clan. After learning of Tang Seon Yeong’s and the clan’s secrets, she became someone who couldn’t take a single step beyond the bounds imposed on her.
Despite the risks, she had made her way here. She knew Baek Woo Jin was the only person who could help find Tang Seon Yeong within the confines of the clan.
“Please, I beg you…! Find the young lady!”
As Baek Woo Jin bent down to lift the sobbing maid from the ground, a cold voice interrupted him.
“Stop right there.”
From the end of the dimly lit corridor, two men dressed in black uniforms embroidered with a fierce golden serpent strode toward them.
The sight of them caused the maid’s trembling to grow even more pronounced.
When the men finally reached them, one of them cast a frigid gaze at the maid and spoke coldly.
“You have broken the rules.”
“A-Ah…!”
The day she decided to stay by Tang Seon Yeong’s side, she had signed a single agreement.
To face death the moment she stepped outside the set boundaries.
The two men who appeared here were members of the Black Snake Unit, responsible for guarding the Inner Hall. At the same time, they were also messengers of death sent to take the maid’s life.
“For the crime of breaking the rules, your life will now be claimed.”
One of the men gripped a dagger in one hand, while the other reached out to drag the maid outside.
Just as his outstretched hand was about to grasp the maid’s collar, he suddenly experienced an overwhelming and vivid illusion brought on by the surge of killing intent.
In that illusion, the arm he had extended to grab her collar had been severed in one clean stroke and was now flopping on the ground.
“Huff, huff…!”
The man, known within the Black Snake Unit by the name Twenty-One, immediately recoiled his arm and started panting heavily. Though his arm remained unharmed, it throbbed with pain as if it had truly been severed.
“W-What are you doing?!”
Turning his head, he demanded an explanation from the source of the killing intent.
Naturally, that source was none other than Baek Woo Jin.
The Baek Woo Jin that the Black Snake Unit had observed until now was an unremarkable figure, a man who always seemed to be missing something essential.
He drank excessively every day, shamelessly flirted with maids who entered the guest room, and never showed any signs of training. While his refined appearance was acknowledged, many questioned whether the title of Divine Dragon truly suited such a man.
A true martial artist should carry an air of gravity, yet this man walked around grinning foolishly, enjoying himself while everyone else was busy, as if he had all the time in the world to himself. A slacker through and through.
And yet.
What is this suffocating pressure…?
It was the first time they had seen his face devoid of any hint of a smile. For the first time, they understood how he had managed to defeat Myeong Jin, the renowned prodigy of the Shaolin Temple, once hailed as the future of the righteous sects.
His true self was finally revealed.
“You shouldn’t lay a hand on my guest so carelessly.”
Gripping his arm in fear, Twenty-One hesitated, and the man standing beside him stepped forward in his place.
That man was Eighteen.
“This woman is a criminal who violated the Tang Clan’s rules. We have both the right and the duty to carry out her judgment.”
It was a reasonable and logical argument.
But it didn’t land.
“That’s not my problem.”
To someone enraged, such reasoning mattered little.
“There’s only one thing I care about.”
For the first time in days, Baek Woo Jin’s sword, which had remained sheathed, was drawn.
“If you lay a hand on my guest, it’s the same as laying a hand on me.”
And he added.
“And I’m not the type to let anyone who crosses me walk away unscathed.”
Even Eighteen, who had stepped forward with bold confidence, couldn’t help but feel tense now. He swallowed dryly and glanced at Twenty-One who stood beside him.
As it happened, Twenty-One was also sneaking a glance in his direction, and their eyes met.
Do we stand a chance…?
The level of the Jade-Faced Divine Dragon, as the world knew it, was said to be somewhere between the early and middle stages of the peak master realm.
The members of the Black Snake Unit, one of the Tang Clan’s elite units, had long since reached that level as well.
The two exchanged a wordless conversation through their eyes before turning back with determined expressions.
Eighteen spoke.
” Even with all the authority you have as the holder of the Tang Gold Badge, interfering in the internal affairs of the Tang Clan is crossing the line.”
So…
“If you don’t sheathe your sword and step back, I’ll consider you an enemy.”
Baek Woo Jin chuckled.
“I’ve already regarded you as enemies for quite some time.”
So, you haven’t done the same yet?
From the moment he heard from the maid that Tang Seon Yeong had disappeared, Baek Woo Jin had seen them as enemies.
And it wasn’t just them. He began to view the entire Tang Clan as a den of enemies.
Baek Woo Jin stepped forward. At the same moment, both men took a step back, creating distance as they unleashed a flurry of concealed weapons.
Their technique was befitting the Tang Clan’s elite warriors. Their warning about considering him an enemy wasn’t empty talk, as each projectile aimed precisely for vital points.
But it was all futile.
In the blink of an eye, Baek Woo Jin deflected the concealed weapons and closed the distance, leaving them no chance to retreat. He swung the flat of his blade across both men’s faces without hesitation.
“Gah!”
“Ugh!”
Several teeth flew through the air. The two men collapsed to the ground.
When they tried to quickly regain their footing, a shadow loomed over them.
Baek Woo Jin’s index finger pressed against their key acupoints. With their vital and pressure points suppressed, the two froze in place; they couldn’t even open their mouths.
“Don’t worry. I won’t kill you.”
Though they were enemies now, once he resolved the situation with Tang Seon Yeong, they would return to being his in-laws.
Even these insolent fellows could become valuable allies in time.
Leaving the incapacitated men behind, Baek Woo Jin approached the maid who was standing frozen in a corner of the corridor and helped her to her feet.
“Stay quietly in the room.”
“Y-Yes…”
After leaving her in the room, he stepped out of the guest hall. The two men who had been blocking the corridor were casually tossed to the far end.
Having sealed their acupoints quite deeply, he didn’t need to worry about them recovering anytime soon.
As soon as he exited the guest hall, two more members of the Black Snake Unit blocked his path.
“We heard some commotion inside the guest hall. What’s going on?”
Their tone brimmed with hostility. Seeing Baek Woo Jin emerge alone, they seemed to have a rough idea of what might have happened inside.
If that was the case, there was no need to engage in conversation.
This time, he didn’t even allow them the chance to step back. Moving with lightning speed, his hands struck out and sealed their acupoints just as he had done moments ago.
The men were caught off guard by the sudden attack and lost control of their bodies. Their faces twisted in shock and frustration.
Leaving them behind in a heap, Baek Woo Jin immediately activated the Night Curtain.
Now it’s time to end this quickly.
Maintaining the Night Curtain consumed more internal energy than expected.
With her captured, there was no time to waste. On top of that, in enemy territory, he needed the Night Curtain to guarantee even the slightest freedom of movement.
A growing unease gnawed at him. He couldn’t tell if it stemmed from his own impatience or if her situation was indeed worsening.
I won’t let this slide.
Baek Woo Jin’s figure cut through the night air.
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