Chapter 630

I’d let my guard down the moment I covered my face with the mask. That was my mistake.

Should I have stamped my feet and clapped like everyone else?

The thought came too late. Yohi was still looking straight at me.

Still, it shouldn’t be a problem. All I’d done was stand there awkwardly without joining in.

The chances of the Yao people’s great chieftain—the star of this splendid victory parade—showing any further interest in me were close to zero.

“You there.”

“……”

I said close to zero. Not zero.

Damn it. She really is calling me.

Yohi was looking straight at me, so I cautiously turned around, just in case.

“Yes. You who just turned around.”

Fortunately, I wasn’t the only one who had turned. Yohi’s sudden call had the whole marketplace murmuring and swiveling their heads like meerkats.

“The person in the tiger mask.”

I swept my eyes over the crowd. There were a dozen or so people in cool-looking tiger masks, including me. Those were reassuring odds.

Good thing I’d bought a tiger mask. Not that I’d paid for it.

“The man standing seven cheok¹ tall, wearing a tiger mask, who just made eye contact with me. That’s enough. Come forward.”

The tiger-mask stock crashed as soon as she added gender and height to the description. My odds of winning had shot up so fast I could feel sweat gathering on my forehead.

I ducked my head to avoid Yohi’s gaze and swiftly, discreetly crossed my legs. Then I tucked my Black Anaconda neatly between them and looked up.

Yohi’s gaze had gone flat.

“……”

“……”

The procession had stopped. The cheers were gone.

In the suffocating silence, with Yohi and countless others staring at me, I straightened my tightly pressed legs and spoke with all the gravity I could muster.

“Um. Did you call me?”

“……”

“……”

No one answered. They just looked from my masked face to my lower body and back again.

Shit. I should’ve just stepped forward when she first called me.

A leader needed many qualities. A keen eye was one of them.

“I had a strange feeling the moment I saw you.”

Once the procession celebrating the beast subjugation had ended, Yohi had sent an attendant to summon me privately. Now she went on in a languid voice.

“What should I call it? Out of all those people, you were the only one who seemed out of place.”

Beside her, the great chieftain of the Yi people, who had been popping fruit into his mouth nonstop, grinned broadly and chimed in.

“She’s right. Standing there like a block of wood all by yourself, you were hard to miss.”

He was a plump, middle-aged man who hardly looked like a warrior. He waved a hand wet with fruit juice in greeting.

“And you’re still wearing that mask. Rude fellow. I don’t know who you are, but I expect you already know me. I’m Heugung, leader of the Yi people.”

Heugung. The name meant Black Bear.

That explained the bear he’d ridden in the procession. Apparently, keeping a pet beast named after yourself was the thing to do around here.

What am I supposed to say?

Now that it had come to this, I’d planned to remove my mask and reveal who I was. That was why I hadn’t slipped away earlier. But Yohi was far more perceptive than I’d expected.

“You can leave it on, Jin Taekyung of the Jin Family of Taiyuan.”

“Hmm?”

“What?”

I was surprised twice over: first that Yohi, who had only just arrived, knew exactly who I was, and then that Heugung, a fellow great chieftain, was even more shocked than I was.

At the sight of Heugung and me both freezing for a moment, Yohi let out a quiet laugh.

“Why are you so surprised? I already heard the Palace Lord let a group of Han Chinese from the Murim Alliance into the Inner Palace.”

Heugung tilted his head.

“Han Chinese from the Murim Alliance? Really? I hadn’t heard.”

“That’s because you’re a foolish bear. Of course, I find that charming about you.”

Even the Skeleton King could have spotted the lip service in that last remark. Heugung grinned happily.

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course. Don’t forget that I’ve always been in love with you.”

Her voice and gaze were alluring. Her pale, flawless fingers—so white and unblemished it was hard to believe she was from Nanman—stroked his pockmarked cheek. Bliss spread across Heugung’s face.

“Ahh. My dear.”

If someone asked me to describe the sight in three words, I’d have an answer ready.

Ugh. Fucking hell…

A potbellied man in his fifties was melting like butter under the touch of a beautiful woman in her twenties.

People said love knew no age or borders. Watching this, I thought we ought to invent some.

Not that this was real love.

Now I could see why the Yi people’s power was falling like a stock headed for delisting—and how the Yao people had grown so strong.

Still… they’re different, but there’s a resemblance.

I was thinking of someone in particular when Yohi glanced at me and stroked Heugung’s shoulder.

“But, oppa²…”

“O-oppa²?”

I’d heard that line a few times in the daily dramas my mother liked to watch.

Don’t call me Manager. Call me Oppa².

Yohi knew exactly what a troublesome middle-aged man wanted to hear. As Heugung looked ready to die of happiness, she continued gently.

“Would you step outside for a moment? There’s something important I want to ask this Han Chinese man.”

“Hmm? Of course. Of course I will! Anything you want!”

“Thank you, oppa². I’ll see you later.”

“Ooh. Oooooh!”

Heugung left the tent red-faced and snorting with excitement. Yohi gave a quiet laugh, leaned back against the silk bedding, and muttered, “Moron.”

I’d expected something like that, but not quite this much. I scratched my chin, and she lifted one corner of her mouth.

“What? Too obvious?”

When someone was this direct, it made things easier. After a moment’s thought, I answered honestly.

“Well, you’re not wrong.”

“You don’t seem surprised. I suppose you’d already figured it out. I thought you were only good at martial arts, but you’re quicker to catch on than I expected.”

“People like you are rare, but not unheard of. Murim has plenty who aren’t the same inside as they appear on the outside.”

“Really? I suppose the Central Plains must be very large. A bitch like me is rare in Nanman. Oh, is that girl who came with you the same sort? I think I heard her name was… Ju Hwaran?”

I stared at Yohi instead of answering. Her smile deepened.

“All right. I take it back. From your expression, I’d say I shouldn’t have said that.”

I didn’t know what expression I’d made. Probably not a friendly one. I could just feel it.

An odd feeling stirred in me. I made myself speak evenly.

“Watch what you say next time. She’s a member of the Fire Dragon Pavilion who trusted me enough to follow me all the way to Nanman.”

“Oh? Just a subordinate you care about?”

“I don’t really divide people into superiors and subordinates… but think what you want.”

“I appreciate you putting it that way. I happen to have quite a vivid imagination.”

Yohi let out an enigmatic laugh, apparently imagining something, then continued.

“You were staring at me earlier, so I got the wrong idea. I thought you might have fallen for me at first sight.”

“As if. I don’t go falling for just anyone.”

“Then why were you looking at me like that? Did Heugung, that fucking moron, look pathetic to you?”

“No. You reminded me of someone I’d seen before.”

Interest lit her eyes.

“Who? A woman?”

“A woman, yes. You wouldn’t know her even if I told you.”

In truth, she was closer to a monster than a woman. The person Yohi had reminded me of was the Southern Heaven Demon Empress.

The people of Dark Heaven were monsters for whom distinctions between men and women meant nothing. Fanatics who worshipped the Lord of Heaven.

“Hmm. A woman… Do we look that much alike?”

“A little. But you’re fundamentally different.”

“How can you be sure? I could be her.”

She looked mischievous, but I’d already checked with Qi Sense just in case. There was no mistaking one for the other.

Like I said, the two of them were fundamentally different.

Yohi’s looks and manner were bewitching. The Southern Heaven Demon Empress possessed a magical power that could beguile people—and I didn’t just mean her looks.

It was the way she carried herself.

There was something distinctive about her: beautiful, yet so natural you never thought to question it. Even I hadn’t sensed the danger in her beauty or her manner until after she’d fooled me completely in Hubei Province.

“Either way, you’re different.”

“Hmm. That’s no fun. Whoever she is, she must be important.”

“She is. And even more dangerous.”

“Dark Heaven. It’s Dark Heaven, isn’t it?”

Yohi was quick. She already knew why I’d come tens of thousands of li³ from the Central Plains to Nanman, and what I was here to do.

“I’m sorry to tell you, but none of the four great chieftains want to join the alliance. No one except the Palace Lord.”

“What about you?”

“Me? I don’t care either way. Whatever losses the Nanman Beast Palace suffers, I want the Yao people to bring the four great tribes under us.”

“That’s what you want. The other tribal chiefs…”

“Some of them want something else, of course. But most want their own tribes to grow stronger. On that much, I’m certain. If their people shed blood for nothing in the Central Plains, their power here in Nanman will naturally shrink.”

I remembered what the Beast Miao King had told me in the Inner Palace. He was the Palace Lord of the Nanman Beast Palace, and one of the Ten Kings recognized even in the Central Plains. In the end, though, he was also the Miao great chieftain.

If the chiefs who held sway over Nanman’s many parts thought like Yohi, then Yayul Mok was right. The Nanman Beast Palace joining the Murim Alliance was all but impossible.

Fuck, these negotiations are a nightmare.

I hadn’t come to Nanman as a diplomat, but this situation was still as good as a failure before it had even begun.

Yohi looked amused by my reaction.

“I’m sorry, but that’s reality. Ah, of course, there’s at least one person you might have a chance of persuading. He leads a tribe large enough to rank among the four great tribes, and he’s so stupid that it’s hard to believe.”

I knew who she meant. I let out a sigh.

“Heugung?”

Yohi burst out laughing.

“Yes, that fucking moron. He can’t do a thing with me and that old man Baeksang keeping him firmly under our thumbs anyway.”

“……”

He was still the great chieftain of a huge tribe that raised plenty of bears. Did she really have to treat him like that? Just thinking about him made my heart sink.

And if I actually had a chance of persuading him, she wouldn’t be telling me so helpfully.

Heugung was a puppet, grinning away without realizing Baeksang and Yohi were pulling his strings.

Is she messing with me?

I frowned at Yohi. Outside the tent, people began moving about, and a voice reached us.

“Yohi. Are you in there?”

Cold and dry. It was Baeksang.