A Certain Innkeeper

Prologue.

It was over.

Wiping the flecks of blood from his face, the man looked around.

Nothing moved. Nothing lived.

Mountains of corpses, a sea of blood — and at the very heart of it, the man stood alone.

Slowly, he lowered his sword.

Squelch. Squelch.

With every step he took, the dark crimson liquid soaked into the soles of his shoes.

A final curse, spat out by someone at the very edge of death, still rang in his ears.

'You monster…!'

The man stopped walking. Then he gave a dry snort of a laugh.

It wasn't wrong.

Mangryang — the Fiendish Specter, deadliest assassin of the Heavenly Demon Cult. That was the name the world called him.

He slowly bowed his head. His face gazed back up at him from a puddle pooled at his feet, and a pair of strangely scarlet eyes met his own.

Staring into those red eyes, a crushing weariness washed over him. The stench of blood, the feeling of cutting down human beings — he was sick of all of it.

Mangryang looked down at the sword in his hand. Murky blood dripped from the ragged blade, its edge worn away as if all its teeth had fallen out.

Drip-drip. Drip.

The sound of blood soaking into the ground was like the sound of rain.

No — it was rain.

Mangryang opened his eyes.

The iron reek of blood was gone. In its place drifted the musty scent of old wood and water, the particular smell of an inn. Outside, rain was falling.

With a groan he pushed himself upright and drained the water jug at his bedside. The sensation of lukewarm liquid sliding down his throat brought him back to reality.

He took in his surroundings slowly. A floor polished to a shine without a speck of dust. Simple, spare furniture. There was not a single bloodstain in the space he had spent the past dozen-odd years sweeping and scrubbing every single day.

Only then, reassured, did he rub a hand over his bristly face.

Weather like this called for hot soup — it would sell well today. He'd best prepare more broth for the somyeon than usual, he thought, and headed for the storeroom, tallying what ingredients he'd need as he went.

In the courtyard, his face looked up at him from a rain puddle.

It was not red.

The eyes reflected in the water were an ordinary brown.

1. A Certain Innkeeper

Few tables in the taverns and inns of the Jianghu survive intact.

Because the food was too salty. Because the other party made eye contact. Because their own mood was foul and the other fellow happened to be smiling. Most guests drew blades over reasons that trivial.

But the Sowol Inn was different.

Far from broken furniture, it was rare to hear so much as a raised voice there — for one reason alone. The innkeeper cut an unforgettable figure.

"One bowl of somyeon over here!"

"C-comin' right up… hic!"

A towering bulk of a man. A knife scar stark across his left eye. The backs of his hands laced with blade wounds. Guests who came face to face with an innkeeper who had clearly known his share of killing quietly ate their meals and left.

And yet there was one thing even such an innkeeper could not handle.

"Waaah… huaaah…!"

"All right, all right. Come here."

Sighing, Sowol scooped up the squalling infant into his arms.

One measly month. In that sliver of time, he felt he had sweated more than he had in the entire fifty years before it.

The real problem was that the chief culprit behind this situation hadn't shown so much as the tip of his nose since.

"Beopgong, you bastard, when exactly are you planning to come back…?"

Sowol muttered under his breath, resentful. Just then, a carrier pigeon fluttered in through the window — the letter he had been waiting for.

He tore it open at once, and a handwriting he knew all too well met his eyes. As he read down the page, Sowol's face twisted.

…That lunatic of a monk.

The crumpled letter trembled in Sowol's fist. He wanted to hurl curses at the sacred mountain of Shaolin itself, but even that was a luxury he couldn't afford — you can't go raising your voice with a squirming bundle of blood and flesh in your arms.

Shoulders slumped, Sowol found himself wondering how on earth things had come to this.

It had started, you see, one month earlier, when Beopgong came looking for him.

"Aaah, now that's good drink!"

Sowol shot a sidelong glare at Beopgong, who had barged in uninvited and claimed the best seat in the house. The man had shown up just as closing time rolled around, and he'd already polished off two jars of wine.

"Pace yourself. What kind of monk drinks like that?"

"Can't touch a drop up on the sacred mountain, so a man's got to enjoy it while the chance lasts. I'm an elder, you know — I have to set an example for my disciples."

"An example? Shave your head first, then talk."

Sowol snorted and sat down across from him, and Beopgong filled his cup.

"Business going well?"

"Getting by. We're not starving, anyway."

The two of them clinked cups with a chuckle.

They'd met in their early twenties, and now they were fifty. Sowol had grown wrinkled and gray in patches, but Beopgong hadn't changed a hair since the day they first met — not in looks, not in temperament.

And not in sense, either.

"Hey. I've got a favor to ask."

"What favor?"

"Take care of a child for me."

Sowol frowned and fired back at the nonsense.

"Take care of what?"

"A child. A newborn."

"…Beopgong. Have you finally lost your mind?"

Sowol set his cup down, dead serious, but Beopgong paid him no mind and got to the point.

"A survivor of the Demon Cult died giving birth in the Alliance's underground prison. And then His Eminence told me to take the child in."

"Your master said that?"

"So I need somewhere to leave the baby."

"Then take it to Shaolin."

"Would've done that if it were a boy. It's a girl."

Sowol's expression turned grave.

Beopgong's master was a high monk of the previous generation — former abbot of Shaolin, and holder of the seat of Wulin Alliance Leader. A man so perceptive that rumors said he could read the will of heaven. If a man like that had taken an interest in the child, it was no ordinary infant.

But that was Beopgong's affair. It was no reason for Sowol to have a baby dumped in his lap.

He waved a hand.

"I hear you, fine, but look somewhere else. You've got plenty of people around you. Why come to me?"

"It's a child His Eminence has his eye on. The moment anyone takes her in, they'll start scheming how to use her. The great sects especially — can't trust them an inch."

"And the Demon Cult lot are fine, are they?"

"You're better than they are, at least."

"Don't be absurd. What lunatic hands a newborn to a fifty-year-old bachelor? Not me. I won't take her."

He was still blowing a raspberries at the idea when a strange thought suddenly struck him.

"Hold on. Don't tell me that bundle you brought in earlier—!"

Sowol shot to his feet and dashed toward the bundle Beopgong had carried in with him.

Exactly as he'd feared.

A baby. A newborn, barely a month old, lay tucked inside the wrappings.

"You lunatic! Who treats a newborn like a piece of luggage?!"

"See? Told you you were the right man for this. You're the only one who'd think of the baby first."

Suppressing the urge to smash his fist into the back of Beopgong's skull, Sowol lifted the infant out of the bundle. Thankfully, she was fast asleep.

"You insane bastard, take her back! Right now!"

"You'd turn a newborn out into this freezing winter? Just one month. Mind her for one month."

"And do you actually intend to come back for her when the month is up?"

Scowling, Sowol glared him down — and Beopgong, sensing trouble, smoothly changed the subject.

"By the way — the girl's mother. They called her 83-ho. She seemed to know you, from what I heard."

At the familiar designation, Sowol froze.

"…83-ho? She's… dead?"

"Yeah. I saw to the body myself."

"…"

Mouth half-open, Sowol pressed a hand to his aching forehead. He looked down quietly at the baby's sleeping face. Now that he thought about it — yes, there was something of her mother in that face.

"Who was the father?"

"No idea. She never said, right up to the end."

While Sowol stood wavering, Beopgong slid a gold ingot onto the table.

"Raising a child costs a fair bit, they say. Leave the money here and go."

Sowol's brow knotted.

Far too large a sum to be pulled out on the spot. He'd brought it prepared. The bastard had come planning to dump the baby on him from the start, without so much as a by-your-leave.

"Waaaah!"

"Oh — she's awake. Ugh, that smell. I'd say she's filled her diaper. Go wash her."

Pinching his nose shut, Beopgong rose slyly from his seat and bolted out of the inn before Sowol could so much as grab him.

"Diaper? Sniff, sniff — how am I supposed to— Beopgong! HEY, YOU CRAZY MONK!"

Sowol gave chase, bellowing, but Beopgong had already vanished over the hill.

"Waaah… waaaah!"

Left alone with a newborn who'd soiled herself, Sowol wanted nothing more than to hunt Beopgong down and beat him into the dirt.

"That dog of a monk. Next time he shows his face, I'll blast his dantian apart."

He spat out the words, then took a long, deep breath.

Beating Beopgong black and blue could wait. First things first — the baby needed washing.

…But how, exactly, did one wash a baby?

Perplexity bloomed across Sowol's face.