Reaper of the Drifting Moon

“Fuck! Am I really his son? No other parent would treat their child like this.”

Bam!

Tang Ik-gi slammed his fist into a nearby tree. In his anger, he hit the tree without thinking, causing horrible pain to go through his wounds.

“Keuk!”

Tang Ik-gi groaned, his mouth wide open.

The pain was so intense tears began to well up in his eyes.

He squatted down, hoping for the pain to subside.

He felt aggrieved, frustrated and angry.

Tears began to stream down his face.

Tang Ik-gi lowered his head and wiped the tears away.

“Damn it!”

He looked around.

Luckily, no one was there.

He would have been extremely embarrassed if anyone had seen him.

Tang Ik-gi quickly composed himself and headed for the workshop.

Since the Cheolsan Workshop was located far away from their manor, his father, Tang Cheolsan, rarely visits unless there was a special occasion.

For Tang Ik-gi, the workshop was his only refuge.

As soon as Tang Ik-gi arrived at the Cheolsan Workshop, he immediately started giving out orders.

“Why is this place so dirty?”

“Why haven’t you organized the iron bars?”

Tang Ik-gi berated the craftsmen and apprentices.

“Yes! We will clean it up right away.”

“We apologize for our mistake.”

The craftsmen and apprentices quickly tidied up the workshop under Tang Ik-gi’s watchful eye.

Tang Ik-gi watched them with his arms crossed.

‘Worthless bastards!’

Tang Ik-gi cursed them in his mind.

It seemed like without him watching over them, the workshop wouldn’t function properly.

Later on, Tang Ik-gi noticed that one person was missing.

“Huh? Where did that guy go?”

“Who?”

“That brat, Do Yeonsan. Why can’t I see him?”

“He’s on vacation.”

“Vacation? But shouldn’t he be back by now?”

The sun had already set a long time ago.

At Cheolsan Workshop, vacations were only allowed from sunrise to sunset. Anything beyond that was not permitted.

The craftsman wore a perplexed expression as he spoke,

“Well, sometimes people return a little late, so if you wait a little longer, maybe—”

“Why would you show such consideration to an apprentice?”

“What?”

“He’s an apprentice, right? An apprentice, not a craftsman!”

“But his talent is exceptional, so–”

“Fuck! Talent, talent! That fucking talent! You’re so damn noisy. Enough. Call a few of the workers. I’ll go and fetch him myself.”

He needed something to vent his frustration. Otherwise, he felt like he would go crazy.

Tang Ik-gi immediately called a few martial artists and set out to find Do Yeonsan.

Finding Do Yeonsan’s house wasn’t difficult. He had already checked in advance.

“Do Yeonsan!”

Boom!

Tang Ik-gi kicked open the door to the hut.

He saw Do Yeonsan sitting huddled in one corner of the courtyard.

“Hey! You punk! Why haven’t you come back?!”

Even with Tang Ik-gi’s shouting, Do Yeonsan didn’t respond, enraging Tang Ik-gi even more.

“You–! Don’t human words mean anything to you?!”

Only then did Do Yeonsan raise his head and look at Tang Ik-gi.

Do Yeonsan’s eyes were unfocused.

The sight infuriated Tang Ik-gi even further.

“Look at this bastard pretending not to understand human speech.”

Whack!

He kicked Do Yeonsan in the face.

Do Yeonsan didn’t even scream and writhed on the ground.

“Why haven’t you come back? Do I look like a joke to you? Is that it?”

Puck! Pow!

Tang Ik-gi didn’t stop at just kicking Do Yeonsan. He even grabbed a nearby stick and struck him with it.

Do Yeonsan didn’t let out a single scream. He just let himself receive the blows like a beaten dog.

“You fucking bastard! You worthless piece of shit!”

In Tang Ik-gi’s eyes, Do Yeonsan’s figure mirrored his own, when he was beaten by his father without being able to fight back.

“You… young master. My fa… father… has d…died…”

Do Yeonsan opened his mouth to explain himself, But Tang Ik-gi did not allow him to make any excuses.

“Shut up! You asshole! You’re not even worth being called a dog.”

Puck! Puck!

There was madness in Tang Ik-gi’s eyes as he swung the stick.

It was then.

“Young Master!”

“Please stop!”

The subordinates who had been watching all this finally stepped forward to restrain him.

“What the fuck?”

“Oh, I think you should take a look inside.”

“What?”

“Something big has happened”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

Tang Ik-gi threw away the stick he was holding and peered inside the hut.

In an instant, the color drained from his face.

“What is this?”

“They’re Do Yeonsan’s parents.”

“I know! But why are they lying there, dead?”

Inside the hut, Do Yeonsan’s parents were lying on the floor, dead and covered in blood.

Tang Ik-gi might have been furious enough to the point of killing Do Yeonsan, but now that someone was actually dead in front of his eyes, he was suddenly filled with fear.

Tang Ik-gi’s subordinate examined the bodies and said,

“It seems like they was murdered.”

“By whom?”

“I don’t know.”

“Fuck!”

“It seems Do Yeonsan lost his mind after finding his parents’ bodies.”

“Well, why didn’t he say anything? Fucking hell!”

Tang Ik-gi knew that he was making a ridiculous excuse.

He was the one who resorted to violence before anyone could say anything. And even when Do Yeonsan had regained his senses halfway through and tried to say something, Tang Ik-gi was the one who prevented him from speaking by using violence.

There was no room for excuses. But Tang Ik-gi would never admit to his own fault.

“Take that guy away and shut his mouth.”

“What should we do with the bodies then?”

“Why are you asking me? Let that bastard figure it out.”

Tang Ik-gi yelled angrily,

He thought today was an unlucky day.

Nothing went right.

Even without this incident, his reputation was already bad, but if this became known, his reputation would plummet even further.

Above all, he was afraid of his father’s contemptuous gaze, filled with disdain.

“I can’t take this. Just set this place on fire.”

“What?”

“Set it on fire. That way, we can cremate the bodies and solve two problems at once.”

“But Do Yeonsan should take care of the bodies…”

“How can he handle them in that state? Do you think he’s capable of doing it?”

“N, No.”

“Then stop talking nonsense and set the house on fire. I’ll take full responsibility.”

“Yes!”

Tang Ik-gi’s subordinate replied weakly, and then set the hut on fire.

Do Yeonsan shed tears of blood as he watched his home be engulfed in flames.

“No–! This can’t be happening!”

He wanted to scream, but his vocal cords seemed to be affected by Tang Ik-gi’s beating, so no sound came out.

His family’s sanctuary, the house where they lived, was burning.

Inside were the bodies of her father and mother, burning together.

“No, no! You bastards!

He couldn’t even find a clue about his younger sibling’s whereabouts, and now everything was burning into ashes, disappearing before his eyes.

* * *

Pyo-wol raised his head and looked at the hills in the distance.

Black smoke was rising from the hill.

“Looks like there’s another fire.”

“Tch! The beggars must have set something on fire and caused a blaze.”

“If they wanted to burn something, they should have set the entire slum on fire. It seems like it will burn for a while and then die down.”

The people nearby commented one by one..

They were all locals in this place so they knew that the fire was coming from the slums.

They weren’t the slightest bit concerned with whatever happened in the slums.

They only looked at the faraway flames in anticipation, imagining that if the whole slum burned down, they could drive out the poor and build nice houses there.

Fortunately, the fire was quickly contained.

The black smoke that had been billowing from the fire had finally subsided.

People dispersed, saying it was a stroke of luck.

Pyo-wol also lost interest in the slums.

He didn’t pay much attention to matters unrelated to him.

He strolled along the shores of Lake Tai.

An endless expanse of the lake, dozens or hundreds of boats floating on it, and people laughing and talking with lively expressions.

All of that unfolded on the shores of Lake Tai. However, Pyo-wol didn’t spare a glance for those superficial appearances.

He hadn’t come to the shore of Lake Tai to leisurely enjoy the scenery.

What he was looking for was the branch of the Hao clan.

He had something to investigate.

In a bustling city like Lake Tai, there was bound to be a branch of the Hao clan. The only problem was, finding one of their branches was not an easy task.

Some branches are out in the open, while others are tightly hidden. And Lake Tai’s branch seemed to be the latter.

That’s why Pyo-wol had to go through quite a bit of trouble to find it. If Hong Yushin hadn’t told him how to find the Hao clan’s branches, Pyo-wol might have had to waste several more days trying to locate it.

The Hao clan’s Lake Tai branch was interestingly located in a slaughterhouse in the outskirts of Lake Tai. All the meat entering Taeho and the surrounding neighborhoods was slaughtered there

Just approaching the slaughterhouse brought a repulsive stench of blood, and because of that, ordinary people rarely ventured near it.

“Who goes there?”

As soon as Pyo-wol entered, the slaughterhouse’s butchers looked at him warily.

Pyo-wol completely looked out of place.

An old butcher approached Pyo-wol, holding a large knife used for slaughtering cows and pigs.

“We don’t sell meat directly to customers here. We only supply to shops and inns, so don’t waste your time and go back.”

“Is this the Hao clan’s Lake Tai Branch?”

“How do you know that?”

The old butcher’s expression changed.

Young butchers gathered around him.

As they gathered, the stench of blood became even stronger.

A normal person would feel overwhelmed just by the sight of them. Most of the people who had come to this place so far had looked intimidated, so all of the butchers thought that it would be the same this time.

Contrary to their expectations, however, Pyo-wol didn’t look intimidated at all.

The old master then quickly realized that the man in front of him was no ordinary person.

“Who are you? Not many people know that this is a branch of the Hao clan.”

“Pyo-wol!”

“Hmm… A familiar customer has come.”

The old butcher recognized Pyo-wol’s identity at once.

As he stretched out his hand, the surrounding butchers scattered.

The old butcher stuck the knife he was holding into the ground and spoke.

“I’m Seobok, the manager of the Hao clan’s Lake Tai Branch. It’s an honor to meet the famous Master Pyo.”

“I didn’t know that the Hao clan’s Lake Tai Branch was a slaughterhouse.”

“The Hao clan was originally created by the common people to protect and fend for themselves. Although we now use a lot of other disguises, in the past, there were quite a few branches in slaughterhouses like this one. This place is one of the oldest branches of Hao clan, so we simply use this one here.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Well, it’s not something outsiders can know. It’s not important either. Anyway, what brings Master Pyo here?”

“There’s only one reason for finding the Hao clan branch.”

“I asked a foolish question. Anyway, I have received orders from above to assist and cooperate with you in your task. What do you want to know?”

“Cheolsan Workshop.”

“Are you talking about the workshop operated by Master Tang Cheolsan? Could you tell me the reason why you want to know?”

“Do I have to tell you the reason in order to get information?”

“No, it’s not necessarily but… this old man has been too impolite.”

Seobok’s words were clouded, but then he sighed.

He had been ordered by his superior to cooperate with Pyo-wol unconditionally.

Furthermore, it was a direct order from the chief inspector, not anyone else.

No other member could disobey the orders of the chief inspector which is the head of the Hao clan.

“I apologize. This old man has become overly sensitive after the disappearance of the Chief Inspector.”

“Disappearance? Hong Yushin?”

“You didn’t know? We haven’t been able to contact him for the past four months. That’s why the Hao clan is in turmoil now.”

“Four months ago?”

“That’s right!”

It was around the time Pyo-wol left Runan and entered Tianzhongshan. So it must have been that time when Pyo-wol was organizing his thoughts on the mountain when Hong Yushin also disappeared.

“Did you find out why?”

“If we did, we wouldn’t have to worry so much about it like this. The main branch have sent an elite team to track down the whereabouts of chief inspector Hong, but so far, they’ve found nothing. He literally disappeared out of nowhere, without a trace.”

In order to find Hong Yushin, every member of the Hao clan was mobilized.

But there was no sign of Hong Yushin anywhere.