Chapter 335
The serving boy stared at Hu Gae in disbelief after his out-of-nowhere curse.
“Sir, why are you suddenly swearing at me?”
“How am I supposed not to swear in a situation like this?”
“What situation?”
“...!”
Hu Gae could hardly admit that he had cursed simply because the only food they served was plain noodles.
So he found something else to pick at.
“Don’t you think you’re lacking some of the basics as a serving boy? Customers come in and find you sprawled out asleep, then when they call you over, you take your sweet time getting here. How do you expect to stay in business like that? All your customers will end up going somewhere else.”
“Then you should do that too, sir.”
“Huh?”
“If you dislike our restaurant that much, I’m saying you should go eat somewhere else. How could a mere serving boy like me dare keep a customer from leaving?”
“...!”
Only then did Hu Gae remember that this was the only guesthouse restaurant in all of Baotou City.
That was why this serving boy could afford to be so lazy and indifferent.
Hu Gae quickly looked toward Kwak Yeon and Taoist Cheongmu.
He immediately read the iron determination in both men’s eyes.
Neither had the slightest intention of leaving.
Kwak, of course, had someone he needed to meet here.
Cheongmu, on the other hand, had found something fascinating to watch.
And the man providing that entertainment...
...was Hu Gae himself.
Damn it!
Hu Gae gave a bitter smile and turned back to the serving boy.
“Three bowls of plain noodles.”
“I’ll bring them right out.”
“...!”
As the serving boy turned away after taking the order, Hu Gae caught the faint smile of victory creeping onto his lips.
“Hey!”
The serving boy turned back.
Every trace of amusement had vanished from his face.
“Is there something else you need, sir?”
“Bring us a bottle of liquor too.”
The serving boy dipped his head.
“I’ll bring you the most expensive—and the cheapest—strong liquor our restaurant has.”
And with that, he walked away, neatly informing them that just as the restaurant served only one dish, it stocked only one kind of liquor.
One dish and one liquor. They sure have an easy time running this place.
Hu Gae clicked his tongue inwardly, then looked at Kwak.
“Brother Kwak, I ordered that liquor because I need it for something.”
“Brother, you can just drink it.”
“I’m serious.”
“Understood.”
“...?”
Hu Gae stared at Kwak for a moment, then slowly shook his head.
More importantly, who the hell is supposed to be waiting here?
The only other people inside the guesthouse restaurant were two men dressed as military officers, sitting before empty cups and killing time with nothing better to do.
A little while later, the serving boy brought over three bowls of plain noodles and a bottle of strong liquor.
Hu Gae picked up the bottle and headed toward the two officers.
CLUNK!
When he set the bottle down on their table, both young officers looked up at him at once.
The officer sitting across from Hu Gae asked,
“What is it?”
“What else? Seeing two fine young officers like yourselves reminded me of a younger brother of mine who’s having a rough time in the military. Thought I’d buy you a drink.”
Hu Gae spoke with easy familiarity as he slid himself into a chair.
“Your younger brother serves in the military?”
Hu Gae nodded.
“I come from a big family. I’ve got younger brothers scattered just about everywhere.”
That was not technically a lie. Members of the Beggar Clan regarded one another as brothers of a single family.
And with nearly a hundred thousand such brothers, there were few places where Hu Gae could not claim to have one.
“Which military command does your brother serve under?”
“He’s with the Yunnan Regional Military Command under the Left Chief Military Commission. I’ve got another in the Nanjing Imperial Guard under the Central Chief Military Commission.”
“You have two younger brothers serving in the army?”
“Come to think of it, I’ve got another with the Shaanxi Regional Military Command under the Rear Chief Military Commission.”
As Hu Gae rattled off the exact names of the commands his supposed brothers served under, the suspicion in the two officers’ eyes faded.
The structure of the military bureaucracy was not something a man could reproduce that precisely after merely overhearing a few names somewhere.
“Well now. Three men from one family serving the realm? Yours must be a family of uncommon loyalty.”
“Kind of you to say so. Here—let me thank you for the compliment with a drink.”
Having smoothly manufactured an excuse to offer them liquor, Hu Gae picked up the bottle.
GLUG, GLUG!
He filled the officers’ bone-dry cups, then continued.
“Thanks to my brothers, I know how hard young officers like you serve despite the miserable pay, all out of loyalty to His Majesty the Emperor.”
The puzzled looks in the two officers’ eyes gradually brightened.
They had been wasting away their youth at a bleak frontier posting, bored out of their minds even tonight.
Now someone was giving them free liquor and praising them besides.
Why would they refuse?
After trading drinks with the two officers for a couple of rounds, Hu Gae casually slipped in a question.
“Officer Hwang, by the way, has something happened with the army lately? I hear troops have been moving out in large numbers.”
“How did you know that?”
“What’s so remarkable about knowing something like that?”
GLUG.
Hu Gae poured more liquor into Officer Hwang’s cup.
“Anyone with ears can hear about it.”
The reason Hu Gae had approached these two officers in the first place was because he had wondered why the open ground that had previously been packed with military tents now stood empty.
Few things drew the Beggar Clan’s attention as sharply as troop movements.
Where armies moved, vast quantities of supplies and money moved with them.
And if matters went wrong, war might break out and leave countless children orphaned.
As Hu Gae, Sub-Branch Master of the Beggar Clan, he could hardly ignore the movement of an army.
“Has the Northern Yuan been making trouble again?”
Officer Hwang shook his head at Hu Gae’s probing question.
“There are no particular signs of war along the northern frontier. That’s why half the troops stationed here have been ordered back into the Central Plains.”
“They’re sending frontier troops back into the Central Plains? Has there been a rebellion?”
In any age, recalling troops stationed on the border to defend against foreign enemies was no minor decision.
It meant the situation inside the realm was dire enough to justify the risk.
“Not a rebellion. From what I’ve heard, some kind of serious trouble has broken out in the martial world.”
“...?”
Hu Gae flinched.
“Martial artists beating each other bloody is nothing new. There are government troops stationed throughout the prefectures and counties. Are they really mobilizing the army over something like that?”
“I’m told this disturbance among the martial artists is unusually severe and has spread across the entire country. It seems the various military commissions are drawing troops from their commands and keeping them ready in case anything happens.”
“Tell me more. Just how much trouble have these martial artists stirred up for even the imperial court to be on edge?”
GLUG...
Officer Go, who had quietly listened to the conversation until now, poured himself another drink and tossed out the answer almost casually.
“I heard something from a fellow of mine serving as an adjutant at the General’s Headquarters. Apparently the Martial Alliance and the Demonic Eight Divisions are going at each other in one hell of a fight.”
A short while later, Hu Gae returned to his companions’ table and looked at Kwak.
“You heard that?”
Kwak nodded.
“I did.”
“Looks like the Martial Alliance finally launched its campaign against the Demonic Eight Divisions.”
“The agreed deadline has already passed. The Alliance Leader probably couldn’t hold off the orthodox martial artists’ demands any longer.”
Hu Gae nodded.
“That’s true, but the campaign against the Demonic Eight Divisions seems to have started quite a bit sooner than we expected.”
“...?”
“The soldiers here have already been redeployed, haven’t they? Armies are slow by nature when it comes to making decisions about moving entire units.”
Kwak had already been troubled by the fact that the campaign against the Demonic Eight Divisions seemed to have begun earlier than expected.
“We’ll have to hurry even more on our way back to the Martial Alliance...”
Hu Gae let the sentence trail off as he looked around inside and outside the restaurant.
He was checking whether the person Kwak had arranged to meet had arrived.
“Brother, you can stop looking around now.”
“Hm?”
When Hu Gae looked over, Kwak quietly said,
“I’ve already received word from that person.”
“Oh? You have?”
Hu Gae assumed Kwak must have received a transmitted voice from the person he was supposed to meet.
It must have happened while Hu Gae was talking with the officers.
“Brother, we have no reason to stay here any longer. Let’s go.”
“Gladly!”
Hu Gae nodded at once, then reached for his bowl of plain noodles.
“But before that, let me finish these noodles... Huh?”
He froze when he saw that his bowl was empty.
When he had picked up the liquor bottle and left the table, the bowl had most definitely been filled with steaming plain noodles.
“Why... is this empty?”
Hu Gae muttered the question in utter disbelief.
Taoist Cheongmu, seated beside him, promptly answered.
“Big Beggar, it’s empty because I ate it.”
“Why did Taoist Cheongmu eat mine...?”
“You went over there to drink with those soldiers, so I thought you didn’t want it.”
“...”
“I didn’t particularly want to eat that much either. Master taught me that you shouldn’t waste food, so I forced myself to finish it.”
Damn it!
Seeing Hu Gae’s face twist, Kwak hurriedly spoke.
“Brother, I’ll call the serving boy and order you another bowl.”
“Forget it.”
Hu Gae shook his head and rose from his seat.
“You must be dying to meet that person as soon as possible. How could I sit around ordering another meal and waiting for it?”
Besides, the serving boy here was impossibly slow.
*****
SWISH!
“GAAAH!”
Taoist Hyeonam’s Heaven-Overturning Slanting Sword cut through the last demon still resisting, splitting his body diagonally into upper and lower halves.
SLIDE—
THUD!
With that demon’s death, Sword Demon Valley fell silent.
The Martial Alliance campaign force had finally seized the Gathering Demons Division’s headquarters.
Yet Taoist Hyeonam felt no relief at all.
Unease smothered any joy of victory.
The resistance at the Gathering Demons Division headquarters had been far too weak.
They had suffered repeated ambushes on the way to Sword Demon Valley, each one erupting into a fierce battle.
By the time they reached the valley, Hyeonam had prepared himself for a brutal struggle against the Gathering Demons Division’s leadership, who he expected to fight to the death.
Instead, Sword Demon Valley had fallen with startling ease.
The massive fortress and its moat had caused the Martial Alliance campaign force considerable trouble at first.
But once the advance detachment used the cover of night to breach one section of the fortress and open the gates, the tide of battle rapidly turned in the Martial Alliance’s favor.
“Taoist Hyeonam! Their main hall is empty!”
Peng Seong-u, commander of the Hebei Peng Family contingent that had entered Sword Demon Valley with the advance detachment, emerged from the Gathering Demons Division’s main hall as he shouted.
A moment later, the wavering torchlight revealed him fully.
His entire body was drenched in blood, and three severed heads of demons hung from his waist.
He looked less like an expert of the orthodox martial world than a fiend straight out of hell.
Under the torchlight, Peng Seong-u lifted the three heads and continued angrily.
“These three are the only demons here whose names I’ve even heard before. The rest were nothing but worthless rabble.”
Peng Seong-u had volunteered for the advance detachment in hopes of distinguishing himself during the campaign and strengthening his standing within the Hebei Peng Family.
Instead, all he had gained were the heads of three barely known demons, leaving him thoroughly enraged.
“Taoist Hyeonam, it seems the Gathering Demons Division’s leaders abandoned their headquarters and fled long ago.”
As though picking up where Peng Seong-u left off, Elder Yue Yeong-bo of the Shandong Yue Family emerged from another building and called out.
“This building appears to have been their library pavilion. Secret martial manuals are scattered everywhere. They must have decided to retreat in a great hurry and fled.”
One after another, the Unit Leaders from the advance detachment who had gone to search the Gathering Demons Division’s buildings returned.
Every report was the same.
The buildings were empty.
And the clues proving that the Gathering Demons Division had abandoned its headquarters in Sword Demon Valley and fled only continued to pile up.