Chapter 306: The Fire in Chang’an (8)

“You think Jangheung Trading Company’s just a hole-in-the-wall operation? You think they’d launch a whole project just to pocket a few measly gold bars? So what did they do? Cut corners, swapped out materials for cheap crap, stuffed it with rocks, called it a day.”

Qing’s eyes narrowed.

This fucker was just vomiting words at this point.

“Over two thousand people died in Naknyeong. Add the missing, and it’s more like three thousand. ‘Missing’? They’re not missing. They’re gone. Washed away with no body left to find.”

That wiped the smirk off the carpenter’s face.

“That... that was just bad luck. We did reinforce the main supports properly, you know. If it hadn’t rained like hell—”

“It wasn’t the rain. It was you people.”

“If only the plans hadn’t been so expensive—”

“Don’t blame the design. Be honest. Even if it had been cheap, you still would’ve used junk and pocketed the rest. How the hell was a flood supposed to hold back against a structure built out of greed?”

“Nnngh...”

“Tell me the truth. If the cost had been half, would you have built it by the book?”

“Urrgh...”

All he could manage was a pained groan.

Because he had no answer.

This whole the-design-was-too-expensive excuse was bullshit.

Those bastards would’ve stolen from it no matter what. If the cost had been low, they’d have skimmed even more off the top.

A downpour like that would’ve blown it open regardless.

“You don’t get to talk about your next life. Not after three thousand people died. You think there’s an afterlife for someone like you? Nah. You’re heading straight to hell, and you’ll stay there — diced up and screaming till the end of time.”

“Fucking hell...”

“So. Who gave the order? I heard some woman from Jangheung was in charge of the project. Was it her that told you to swap out materials?”

“Yeah. Her. We all had a bad feeling about it, but when someone that high up tells you to do something... You don’t say no. If you cross Jangheung on a job in Shaanxi, you can kiss your whole career goodbye.”

So that was it — just following orders.

But Qing saw his karma.

It was too thick for that.

He didn’t just follow orders.

And Qing was a carpenter’s apprentice herself — she’d heard things.

“I’ve done some carpentry work too, you know. Bet you siphoned off your own stash of supplies, didn’t you?”

“Heh... what carpenter doesn’t?”

“Right? The company skims their cut, the head carpenters skim theirs, and then every other asshole snatches a bit for themselves... What the hell did you even build that dam with? Mud pies?”

“...”

“And that’s why you ended up bleeding out in some shitty little backroom with no one coming to save you. You don’t even get to complain. You’re not some tragic victim — you’re just a guy who got exactly what was coming.”

“Ghh—fine, I’m scum, whatever, but... can I ask just one thing before I go? I stashed some gold and silver... At least let my wife and kids—”

Whatever he was about to say choked off into a sharp gkk.

That happens when someone plants a foot on your throat.

Qing raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, please. You think I’m here to take your dying wishes? Why the hell would I hand over blood money to the family of a murderer?”

His abdomen was buried under a sheet of ice — courtesy of Seol bastard — so he could only flail with his remaining arm.

Carpenters were strong, sure. Compression-trained muscle, solid like coiled steel.

But Qing was a top-tier martial artist.

His flailing was no more threatening than a puppy kicking in its sleep.

He thrashed harder, air vanishing by the second.

But Qing’s foot didn’t budge.

It sat there like a mountain, crushing the life out of him with quiet, relentless pressure.

And then — snap.

Like a thread cut clean.

All that frantic flailing collapsed in an instant. Gone.

A perfect little moment. That perfect instant when death lands, clean and real.

“Ugh. Waste of time. Hey, we got anyone else?”

“If an assassin already hit this place, it’s probably too late. They’re specialists at this kind of chase — and they know these hiding holes better than the fugitives do.”

Places like this were always linked to low-tier networks — haomen, black markets, gang routes.

And assassins? They knew those paths intimately.

A brothel might be safe from the public eye — but not from an assassin’s.

“Tch. Guess there’s nothing for it.”

Qing scratched the back of her head.

“I was gonna make a big fuss — spread the word, wreck their reputation. But with no witnesses left? Guess I’ll just snatch that girl from Jangheung, see if she’s got anyone else worth killing, then slice up her limbs and send them to the Naknyeong families as a gift.”

Because the best medicine is revenge.

Not healing — no. That doesn’t exist.

Grief never really heals.

But revenge? Revenge ties the knot. Lets you move forward. Gives shape to what was lost.

It’s not healing. But it’s something.

“If you’re serious about exposing Jangheung’s crimes, there’s still witnesses left.”

“Didn’t you say they’re all gonna die? No way we can track ‘em down before the assassins do.”

Seol bastard, of course, had an answer.

“Then catch the assassin. If he testifies he was hired, no one with a brain will believe this many carpenters just happened to die. Everyone’ll know there’s blood money behind it.”

“Damn! Look at you! I’m upgrading your title — you’re not just the top brain of Seoan, you’re wasted on this town. You need a bigger stage. The brightest mind in all Shaanxi!”

Qing officially raised his rank.

Seol bastard looked uncomfortable as hell.

“You really don’t need to say that. There are far smarter people than me. I’m just—please stop saying it.”

“He’s humble, too. Incredible.”

“You don’t listen to a single word, do you...”

“Anyway, how do we find the assassin?”

“That’s the easy part. They kill for money, right? So just follow the money. Track the payments, shake down the middlemen — we’ll find them. I’ll start poking around. Let’s head back for now.”

“You’re solid. Reliable. A goddamn rock.”

“Seriously. People like you...”

But his lips curled slightly at the edges.

Just a little.

And it wasn’t a bad look at all.

****

In the Central Plains, there’s no proverb about burning down your whole house just to kill a bedbug.

Because that one’s Korean.

There are several theories about where that particular saying came from.

One says a real man — driven to madness by the endless plague of biting bugs — finally lost it and torched his entire house just to be done with it. If you’ve ever lost sleep from an itch that wouldn’t stop, you might just understand the vibe.

Another theory traces it back to an old fumigation method. People used to burn strong-smelling herbs like hemp or duckweed to smoke the bedbugs out of their homes. And, well... in a house made of straw? One wrong spark, and whoosh. Your whole thatched-roof hut goes up like a bonfire.

Well.

In Chang’an, the fire had begun to spread.

Of course, Jangheung Trading Company wasn’t exactly bedbug-sized, and a major city like Seoan wouldn’t burn to ashes over a single spark.

But still — the spark born from the Naknyeong flood had jumped all the way here.

At first, Jangheung panicked. Their own guilty conscience flinched, so they torched a few engineers to cover their tracks.

But they failed to stamp out the embers. And now those embers were catching onto the assassins.

And so—

Righteous violence descends upon the hitmen!

Not that it needed to be righteous, really. These bastards murdered for money — any violence would do.

Calling them “assassins” was too generous.

After all, there were noble assassins in Central Plains history. That’s why they were sometimes referred to respectfully as salsu, executioners with honor. But those days were gone.

The modern world of assassination was divided into five major outfits:

Salcheonseong, Salmak, Salgok, Jarim, and Cheonsalmun.

Each dominated a region.

And of those, Salcheonseong had reigned supreme in both skill and price.

But recently, Salcheonseong just... vanished.

No warning, no scandal — just shuttered overnight.

People didn’t question it too hard. Assassination was always a risky business. It wasn’t rare for even big organizations to collapse without a trace.

Still, the whole underworld buzzed with gossip:

What happened to Salcheonseong? Who took them out? How? And why?

And the most burning question of all:

How is it that not a single member survived?

They were supposed to be elite — top-class killers. Surely someone made it out?

Mercenaries, warlords, even rival guilds were practically drooling to poach a survivor.

But what no one knew was this:

The infamous killers of Salcheonseong hadn’t been killed off.

They’d simply... switched careers.

There were no more shadows. No more blades in the night.

They now walked proudly under the sun, faces unmasked, basking in the new world led by the Heavenly Demon Supreme himself.

Thanks to him, they now had sunshine.

They had love. They made friends. Shared kindness with their neighbors. Some had even started families.

So this is what it means to be human, they thought, in blissful revelation.

And all this happiness?

All thanks to the divine grace of the Cheonma Supreme.

A faith worth dying for. A god worth killing for. A truth that would never be shaken.

Every single agent of the Shadow Division (former assassins) lived and breathed it:

Praise be to the Heavenly Demon.

Because when you’re taken in young and subjected to the Cheonma Cult’s brutally perfected indoctrination, your brain basically melts into place.

Without that conditioning, the moment they got sent into the Central Plains, these agents would’ve defected on the spot. So the Cult made sure that wasn’t an option.

And of course, assassins know assassins.

Which is why the Sun and Moon Courier Guild had already mapped out the location of every assassin agency in Seoan.

And so, by lunchtime the next day, Qing had a tidy little booklet listing every single hitman den in the city.

“Whoa, that was fast.”

“The courier guild already had it in their files.”

“Hhgh... huff... haaah...”

“Wait. Why would a courier guild have a hitman directory?”

“How would I know? When big business happens in a city, those kinds of people always show up first — trying to cut deals, offer services. Marketing, basically.”

“H-hahh... huff... hnhhh...”

“You didn’t get this by raiding the guild, did you?”

“You think they’d hand over records if we had? They only gave them up so easily because they’re confident they weren’t involved.”

“Hhh—ha—ah—hahhh—”

God. She eats like a fucking pervert.

Qing watched Seol Iri shovel spoon after spoon of boiling hot soup into her mouth. Inhale, exhale, slurp, sigh — a whole performance.

It wasn’t just soup. It was Osagang, snake stew.

Five different snakes, slow-simmered until rich and thick — a true delicacy.

And being a dish from Guangdong, it followed Guangdong rules:

Soup isn’t just soup. It’s half oil, half water, thickened with starch into something more lava than liquid.

And she’s not even letting it cool.

Is she human? That’s got to be some kind of circus act.

Sure, it probably wasn’t literally boiling oil anymore — it came straight from the stove, not a frying pan — but still. That kind of thick, oily broth was way hotter than boiling water.

Still, it’s not really Qing’s place to comment on someone else’s eating habits.

It’s not hurting anyone.

And hell, it was kinda fascinating to watch.

“So. We start tonight, yeah? Where should we begin?”

A city full of mercenaries who kill for cash?

It was like getting an unlimited buffet pass.

Free kills. No guilt. Total license to wreck.

Qing couldn’t stop herself — a little hum of joy escaped her lips.

Nonsense lyrics from nonexistent songs — future masterpieces from a people not yet born.

But this was the ancient Central Plains, where copyright didn’t exist.

And if it sounded good?

That was all that mattered.