The assassin was speechless for a moment.
Did he hear that right? The flirtatious lips that had just uttered "buttocks" curved into a smile.
"Write 'I'm a pathetic assassin' with your ass, and I'll let you live."
He hadn't misheard. The assassin shouted, his eyes bloodshot.
"Don't disrespect me like that, just kill me quickly!"
The reply came not from Namgung Soyo's mouth, but from behind her.
"Heh. An assassin talking about 'disrespect'? What a joke."
The man roughly grabbed the assassin's neck, yanking his face toward him. It was Namgung Soyo's carriage driver.
"Cut the crap and answer me. Who sent you after the young miss? Namgung Jeokmyeong?"
His stiff fingers pressed directly on the assassin's pressure points.
'This guy's no ordinary martial artist, either.'
Looks like I've stepped in deep shit. The assassin smirked.
"Threatening me like that won't work. There's a 'Gu' inside me. The second I say what you want, I'm dead."
"Gu?"
A 'Gu' is a parasite that lives inside a person. It can torture or kill its host if the owner commands it. They're difficult to acquire and control, so only the most ruthless sects use them.
The servant, angered by the nasty tactic, sighed as he turned to Namgung Soyo.
"Sigh... No matter how you slice it, we're screwed, young miss. Seriously screwed. Even with different mothers, who sends an assassin after a half-sibling they haven't seen since childhood? What kind of messed-up family is this?"
"Watch it, Seolyeong. He hasn't said Namgung Jeokmyeong's name yet."
Judging by their words, they seemed to suspect Namgung Jeokmyeong was the assassin's client.
Namgung Jeokmyeong.
He's the young master of the Namgung family, the best fighter of the three brothers, and a truly outstanding swordsman, even among the up-and-comers, because of his good character and reputation.
But that's all ancient history.
Now, Namgung Jeokmyeong is just a degenerate drunkard and womanizer.
'They suspect that guy?'
What a scumbag. But my mission was to kill Namgung Soyo, and I don't know who hired me.
"We need to get off this mountain before it gets any later, young miss. I'll take care of this. You should get in the carriage and rest."
"Hold your horses. A noblewoman always keeps her word, doesn't she?"
"That whole 'noble lady' act..."
Namgung Soyo, smiling faintly, met the assassin's eyes again.
"Buttocks."
That damned buttocks talk again...
"Did you forget? Write 'I'm a pathetic assassin' with your ass, and I'll let you live."
The assassin was completely thrown by her bizarre talk.
'What the hell is up with this woman?'
Did she learn to fight after being kicked out of her family? Who taught her? And how is she seeing so clearly when she's supposed to be blind?
No, maybe I've been wrong from the start. Is that even Namgung Soyo...?
Then, Namgung Soyo held up three fingers.
"Three."
Soon, the fingers were reduced to two.
"Two."
Finally, only the index finger remained.
"One."
'…Damn it!'
Is the will to live really this pathetic?
Succumbing to the threat, the assassin stood up and stuck his rear end out towards Namgung Soyo.
He gritted his teeth and, very slowly, started wiggling his butt. 'I'm a pathetic assassin.'
After all that, he tried to regain control of his face, put on a brave front, and turned to Namgung Soyo.
"Good enough?"
But the answer that came back was cold.
"Not good enough."
"…What?"
"No confidence. No pride. No accuracy. Too slow. Bad form."
Namgung Soyo, folding down her thumb, index finger, middle finger, ring finger, and little finger in order, had a serious expression.
"That's five strikes. I sentence you to be buried. Yeong-ah, dig a hole and bury this guy. Leave his head exposed so he can breathe."
Even with all her crazy talk, she can't even count.
It is five strikes.
Clearly five subpar, but...
"Sigh... I told you to leave it to me. Why do we have to dig a hole? Seriously, young miss..."
The servant grumbled, but he knelt down and started digging. The assassin's neck turned bright red from the humiliation.
"What the hell!"
His furious yell died in his throat. In an instant, he felt a sharp pain, as if his pressure points had been hit, and his body crumpled to the side.
'He hit my pressure points…'
The world instantly darkened.
.
.
.
"Heok!"
How much time had passed?
Regaining consciousness, the assassin struggled and tried to raise his body.
No, tried to raise it.
"Wh-what the…"
He wasn't imagining it; his vision was much lower.
He was speechless. Everything but his head was buried!
The assassin struggled with his limbs that wouldn't budge, then shouted, almost screaming.
"Wh-what the hell is this! I did what you said! How can you break your promise like that? Aren't you ashamed to use the Namgung name?!"
Thud, thud. The servant, tamping down the soil around his head with his toes, said in a voice dripping with annoyance.
"My ass. What promise do I need to keep with a killer like you? Only an idiot would trust you."
"Shut up! Just kill me!"
"You think I want you alive? The young miss showed you mercy, so be grateful and shut your trap."
The servant shoved a handful of dirt into his mouth. While the assassin was spitting it out, Namgung Soyo and the servant were already back at the carriage.
The assassin, licking his dry lips, screamed with all his might.
"Namgung Soyo! You'll regret leaving me alive!"
Turning her back to him, Namgung Soyo hummed, as if singing.
"One day, Emperor Wu of Liang bragged to Bodhidharma."
"You think you can get away from us? We're not just one, we're ten, a hundred! If you leave me alive, I'll tell everyone who you really are! The world's best assassin will come after you!"
Fear crept into his voice.
He couldn't properly put strength into his arms and legs, and no matter how much he struggled, he only lost energy. The soil that surrounded him, as hard as rock, did not budge. If left in the mountains like this, he would surely starve to death, buried in the ground.
"Since I became emperor, I've built temples, published Buddhist scriptures, and even helped out those lazy monks... Even Bodhidharma would have to admit I've done a lot of good, haven't I?"
Basically, if he couldn't escape, it'd be better to die by Namgung Soyo's sword.
"It won't just be you; your whole family will die, your relatives, your friends, even their servants – they'll all be slaughtered! Kill me, Namgung Soyo! If you leave, you'll be responsible for their deaths!"
"To this, Bodhidharma replied..."
The carriage door closed gently, and Namgung Soyo's voice disappeared into the mist. The assassin, breathing hard, cursed with bloodshot eyes, spitting blood.
"Just you wait, Namgung Soyo! I'll come back from hell to get you first!"
At that moment, the carriage door burst open.
He stared, tense and half-expecting it, as Namgung Soyo's small face peeked through the crack in the door.
"To this, Bodhidharma replied."
"..........."
"Bring back tanghulu."
And with that, the carriage slowly rolled down Cheonjusan Mountain.
As dusk fell.
Seolyeong, driving the horse and pulling his collar tighter, asked Namgung Soyo.
"Why did you spare that man?"
The answer came after a long while.
"Emperor Wu of Liang said..."
"Alright, alright. Stop changing the subject to Bodhidharma whenever you don't want to answer. I'm worried he'll crawl out of his grave and come after us."
Seolyeong shook his head at the soft laughter from behind.
Anyway, you can know the depths of the ocean, but Seolyeong could never figure out what Namgung Soyo – or rather, Yeoil – was thinking.
He served Yeoil as a master and followed her orders, but sometimes he really wondered what she was up to.
Like the day Yeoil suddenly announced she'd become 'Namgung Soyo'.
"This hazy mist reminds me of tanghulu, Yeong-ah. That strange, mysterious, sweet snack."
"Really? Now that you mention it, it was tanghulu that made us cross Cheonjusan Mountain a month ago. I never thought that one little snack would end up with me working as a servant for the Namgung family..."
Yeoil laughed again.
The memories were still fresh, as if it were yesterday, the colors still vivid in Yeoil's mind.
As Seolyeong said, it was just a month ago, crossing Cheonjusan Mountain for tanghulu, that she started this ridiculous charade of being the Namgung family's daughter.
'No. To be exact... It started about four years ago. When I betrayed Salmak, the assassin group that terrified Jungwon.’
