Chapter 311: The Fire in Chang’an (13)

To Qing, the idea that a notorious assassin organization—let alone a famous one—could persist was simply incomprehensible.

Not just any assassin organization—a famous assassin organization.

Truth be told, it wasn’t unheard of for governments to run unofficial assassination squads.

From the infamous assassins of ancient and medieval Middle Eastern history to the open, Cold War-era pissing contests between state-sponsored killers—not far off from Qing’s homeworld—there had always been rumors, theories, conspiracies or not, that such battles had continued even to this day.

But a private assassin syndicate?

And not only that—but one so well-known it made the ranks in ancient, backward, primitive Central Plains' assassin rankings like “Top Four” or “Top Five”?

To Qing, the only question was—how the hell do they deal with the grudges?

Surely not every assassination target was some random nobody. It wasn’t hard to imagine some ultra-master had a close friend among them.

And in a world where, statistically, anyone could meet any child within six degrees of separation, all it took was one misstep to wipe out your entire sect.

So how could a famous assassin syndicate still exist?

If someone from inside had heard Qing’s question, they’d probably answer like this:

It can’t.

How do they deal with the grudges?

They don’t.

Is there a way to avoid killing someone with powerful friends?

If there is, for god’s sake, let us know. You kill the wrong person and you get a cascade funeral-slaughter-genocide combo.

Human emotions are unpredictable. Loyalty forms between the noble and the lowborn.

If you kill anyone for money, eventually their pissed-off friends will come knocking.

Assassination syndicates had always disappeared for this very reason.

And now Salmak was suffering the same fate.

The Shadow Division of the Cheonma Divine Cult was made up of former assassins—and its elites never showed their faces before Qing.

Because they hadn’t lived righteously enough.

According to the Divine Cult’s doctrine, the former Heavenly Demon had been of ma—destruction and hatred, following the primordial evil, Angra Mainyu, the First True Demon.

But now, the new master had descended: the enlightened avatar of Ahura Mazda, the sun itself—heavenly, not demonic—who commanded that the world be conquered through good.

And doctrinal warriors of the cult had made it their life’s mission to spin doctrine exactly this way.

Thus, those who had sinned under the old law were left to yearn from afar, punished with the torment of never being able to serve their master directly.

On a related note, the real believers worked desperately to live righteously.

Today, for example, one picked up trash from the street.

“Who am I? A believer of the Heavenly Demon Supreme.”

They now helped struggling elders instead of spitting on them, intervened in street fights, aided orphans, widows, the disabled—doing their best to walk the path of virtue... and so on.

That’s why Qing had come to assume that the Salgasang Guild agents—likely defectors from the cult’s northern Divine City—were more intelligence operatives or infiltrators than assassins.

And now the real believers had been given the perfect opportunity to unleash their skills.

The enlightened one, the earthly avatar of Ahura Mazda, had personally commanded them to wipe out those assassin scumbags!

After all, no one knows the nature of assassins like assassins.

And now that they had lower-tier codes, maps of the lower infrastructure—even Salmak's blueprints—it all began.

Grain dealer Mr. Geum was dragged away mid-scoop.

Builder Mr. Wang was suddenly surrounded and escorted off by men with squared shoulders.

In one shop, strangers appeared, opened a hidden trapdoor even the owner didn’t know about, and went down en masse.

And so, Salmak’s remaining members were lucky just to be locked in basements—those dreadful places deprived of sunlight.

The rest, deemed trash disturbing the human world, had already received their sentence from the Heavenly Demon Supreme: death.

Meanwhile, Qing was basking in the sweet glow of karmic virtue.

As the final decision-maker, she got to share in the merit.

The people of Chang’an, blissfully unaware as their city’s garbage vanished overnight, were enjoying some of that merit too.

Really, the world itself was better for it.

****

“As of this moment, shut down the branch. Keep only the top-tier ledgers and rosters. Burn everything else.

Shit—who the hell did we piss off?”

Heuksal, head of Salmak’s Xi’an branch, ground his teeth.

Salmak’s history had always been one of annihilation.

They told recruits it was a noble tradition entwined with Zhongyuan’s history, but in truth, all they ever did was inherit a name someone else had survived under.

Technically, the current Salmak, under the Cheonsal leader, was just over thirty years old.

But while the history was short, the attempts to avoid obliteration were long:

Vertical cell structures.

Cipherbooks split between upper and lower ranks.

Strict separation of special- and regular-grade contracts...

Even new recruits were selected for having a reason to hate the world, and had loyalty hammered into them relentlessly.

Still, explosions always happen eventually.

A few years ago, they’d lost dozens of top assassins in Hubei.

Just when they started to breathe again, another disaster struck.

They knew immediately who betrayed them.

What they didn’t know was why.

At least, they told themselves, it was a mid-tier who’d flipped—somewhere around the diaphragm in their cell structure.

The top-tier operatives—the "head" of the organization—hadn’t been exposed.

But now, with the Hubei catastrophe and this latest one, they’d lost everything below the neck.

This generation’s Cheonsal leader would likely spend the rest of his days rebuilding Salmak, only to pass it off to the next.

In short:

Salmak was out of business for the next ten years, minimum.

****

Guild officer Cho Pyo-du, senior doctrinal warrior, dropped to his knees.

Then, with solemn expression, he drew his long dagger and held it inverted—just right for gutting himself.

“I have no excuse. Please allow me to atone with this worthless life.”

“No, no, put the dagger away.

Also, where the hell do you keep pulling those from?”

“Such mercy... such radiant, divine mercy it blinds me...”

“Okay, enough. So in the end, no dice?”

“Yes... We captured twenty-eight Salmak agents and interrogated them, but they were all bottom-rung nobodies with no clue about the core personnel... Khuh!”

Chodaeam’s tears dripped again.

“...Why are you crying?”

“Because I’m pathetic. To show the young lady such disgrace... for failing to uproot even this scum...”

He muttered afterward, a low, trembling vow:

Salmak... no, assassins... I will never forgive them. From this day forth, they will not live beneath the same sky as me...

The sheer venom in his voice was chilling.

Was failing to catch the master assassins really that much of a disgrace?

Then again, the Central Plains people were like that.

They held face and life at equal weight.

Qing shrugged it off.

Considering nearly thirty points of bad karma had dropped in just four days, it was probably the kind of noble, world-bettering hatred she could approve of.

“I have failed to aid in the grand endeavor. My shame is bottomless.

The pain—I feel as though my organs are rotting within me...”

“Eh, don’t beat yourself up. I had fun, thanks to you.”

Qing’s eyes sparkled bright and clear.

Together with Grandpa and his underlings, she’d raided two to three underground sites per day.

They’d missed the witnesses to the Jangheung Trading Company disaster—but boy, they’d cleared out a hell of a lot of trash.

“But still... Your noble mission—was it not to expose the vile crimes of that vicious woman from Jangheung Trading Company to the world? And now, because of our incompetence, that mission has been... Khuh! I must atone with my life—!”

As he whipped out another dagger, Qing cut him off.

“Okay, stop. Nothing’s been blocked.”

“Ah! Of course! You are radiant—no, I mean your wisdom is radiant. That kind of radiant.

Of course! How could I, this lowly creature, ever hope to measure your infinite power!”

“What is wrong with you? You think sucking up to me gets you something?”

This guy was ridiculous.

Well—whatever.

“There are no secrets in this world, right? The Four Knows?”

Heaven knows, Earth knows, you know, I know—therefore four knows.

A quote from Yang Zhen, a Han Dynasty official who rejected a bribe.

Which, in that chaotic era, made him an admirable human but a failed Zhongyuan citizen.

Anyway, the point: there are no real secrets in this world.

“Let’s break it down.

The embankment collapsed. Over three thousand dead.

Why did it collapse?

That woman from Jangheung Trading Company stole construction materials.

What do we do about her?

All the master carpenters who could testify have been assassinated.

So, we get the killers to testify instead. That’s it.”

“Yes, I hear your noble insight.”

“We all know who did it anyway.

Just keep a few assassins alive, have them say Jangheung hired them to kill the carpenters. Done.”

“But... wouldn’t that be false testimony?”

“Come on. Everyone knows it was Salmak.

Heaven knows, Earth knows. Why do we need the actual killer’s word for it?

In fact, let’s just make them play the role of carpenters while we’re at it.

We all know what that bitch from Jangheung did—who needs a real witness?”

In other words: fabricate the witness.

That heinous suggestion made Chodaeam shout before he could stop himself:

“Ooooh! Truly, the will of heaven!”

And so, in the center of Chang’an—on Chang’an Street itself—strange figures appeared on a platform.

For context, there’s a Chang’an Street in Beijing too.

The name “Chang’an” had become synonymous with peace and prosperity, so the street in front of Beijing’s Imperial Palace was also named that.

And the gate of Beijing’s palace—meant to bring peace to all under Heaven—is Tiananmen.

Which means nothing had ever not happened at Chang’an Street in Qing’s homeland.

Anyway, this wasn’t Beijing.

This was Chang’an’s Chang’an Street.

It was slightly past its prime, but once considered the heart of the world, it still bustled with heads upon heads—air and bodies in nearly equal measure.

There, in the center, a platform had been raised and strange-looking people stood atop it.

Their shirts were ripped off, their torsos exposed—some missing fingers, others with limbs wrapped in cloth or entirely absent below the elbow.

Naturally, crowds gathered.

But this time, even more came—because standing among them was none other than the unofficial most beautiful woman under heaven, Heavenly Flower Sword.

Even those who didn’t know her name were blinded—because under the sun, she was a second sun herself.

In no time, the crowd pressed so tightly together the air stank of human breath with every exhale.

Only then did Qing draw a breath.

Step One: Win over your audience.

“Everyone!

Isn’t this the very center of the Central Plains?

Not just any part of Chang’an—but Chang’an Street itself?”

“Correct!”

“Indeed! The center of all things!”

Qing began her oration—what the Grand Elder of the Tang family once called “Hell’s Jaw: the Deadliest Formless Art”—with a few warm-up lines.

As the political center shifted ever eastward—from Luoyang, to eventually Beijing—speaking of Chang’an as the heart of the world brought the crowd of Chang’an residents to a flush of civic pride.

So she started her poetic praise.

“People say Chang’an is a city of a thousand years.

What nonsense!

Isn’t it laughable ignorance to call it a thousand years, when it has lived and endured for two thousand?

Calling it only a thousand is an insult to its long, living history!”

“Correct!”

They say he who holds Chang’an, holds the world.

Eleven royal surnames had risen from its soil—truly a city of kings.

Qing, feeding lines compiled by Shadow Division agents about what Chang’an citizens love to hear, was now delivering them in flawless succession.

And as that pride boiled over, the heat of August began to shimmer off the pavement.

Finally, Qing got to the point.

“And so—to all the heroes here at the center of the world—I, Ximen Qing, the Heavenly Flower Sword, will now expose an unspeakably vile, abhorrent, monstrous evil!”