Volume 6 Chapter 11 – The Deepening Night

===================

Translated by Rain

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

===================

Luoyang Sword Family, Somewhere.

Having completed the conference, Emei Sect’s Abbess Chongmu boarded the carriage.

“Was the conference satisfactory?”

Although satisfaction was clearly displayed on her face, the deputy general director Buddhist nun verified once more.

“Yes, it was satisfactory.”

Only after checking her temperament, which could explode at any moment, as if tapping a stone bridge before crossing, did the deputy general director nun bring up the main topic.

“…If by any chance the Tea Fan Maidens made a childish choice despite risking the sacrifice of their families, what should we do?”

Although she had blustered to the other Buddhist nuns, anxiety remained in her heart.

“Those kids making such a foolish move?”

“…It would be good if I were just worrying in vain because I am foolish. But there is simply no way to know what kind of conversation is passing in the Eldest Young Master’s residence right now, is there?”

“It does not matter.”

Abbess Chongmu smiled, distorting her wrinkles.

“Ultimately, if we ruin the joint project of the Eldest Young Master and the Fourth Young Master, the Tea Fan Maidens will become a useless piece to them.”

“If so?!”

Abbess Chongmu cackled.

“If that happens, the Tea Fan Maidens will have no choice but to return to our Emei’s bosom in the end.”

And she would engrave an unforgettable lesson on those Tea Fan Maidens.

* * *

Luoyang Sword Family, Inner Courtyard.

All butlers of the Inner Courtyard live in the Inner Courtyard for their entire lives.

That was the reason why lodging pavilions existed on a large scale in the Inner Courtyard.

Deep night.

Even the moon, which was shining brightly, hid its face behind dark clouds.

A fourth-class butler was walking down a long corridor holding an oil lamp.

It was a day when work finished exceptionally late.

A cold wind brushed past the corridor of the darkness-submerged lodging, and the light of the oil lamp flickered anxiously.

The creaking noise of the wooden corridor every time he stepped on the floor was exceptionally grating.

Although it was a space where he had lived for a long time, today everything strangely grated on his nerves.

The end of the sharply bent corridor.

Beyond the paper window where the shadows of tree branches flickered anxiously.

The deep darkness seen through the crack of a lodging door left open by carelessness.

Feeling as if something was just staring at him, he hurried his steps.

It was probably because he was fatigued by consecutive heavy work for several days and his nerves were on edge as a result.

Even as he repeated that to himself, his hand grasping the lock upon arriving at his lodging was damp with cold sweat.

“…”

He looked around while turning the key, but there was no way anyone would be in the corridor at this midnight hour.

Opening the door carefully, he thrust the oil lamp in first to inspect the inside.

Relieved by the appearance of the room, which was just as usual, he quickly entered and locked the door by sliding the small latch.

Catching his breath for a moment, he felt drowsiness, which he had not noticed due to his tension, wash over him all at once.

Lying down on his bed without even organizing his clothes, he fell into a deep sleep, almost passing out before he could even blink a few times.

Just how much time had passed since he fell asleep?

“…?”

He gasped and opened his eyes wide for an unknown reason.

His eyeballs rolled here and there.

The oil lamp he had brought was already extinguished, and the room was dark.

The faint moonlight coming in from outside the window was illuminating the view inside the room.

The sound of his own violently beating heartbeat resounded so clearly through the noise unique to wooden pavilions creaking in the wind.

‘…Is it nothing?’

His heavy eyelids closed again.

‘I think I heard a sound like something falling.’

His memory returning to that point, he opened his eyes again.

What his gaze reached was the lodging door.

The small latch he had put up to lock the door lay fallen on the floor.

“…?”

He blinked his eyes a couple of times.

He had clearly locked the door.

No. Perhaps due to being too tired, he fell asleep without even locking the door properly.

Forcing his heavy body to rise to lock the door, he felt his throat tighten.

“…Uh?”

A noose was caught around his neck.

“Uh, uh?”

At that moment, the rope tightened and slammed him onto the floor without mercy.

Screaming something, he slipped his hand into the gap where the noose was tightening.

Although he blocked his neck from being strangled all at once, he could not stop the rope from dragging his body out to the corridor with terrifying force.

The door hit by his body, which was almost flung, opened roughly outward.

He was dragged ruthlessly, rubbing and bumping against the corridor with his back and face.

At the bent corridor, he collided with the opposite wall due to inertia, and when he was dragged down the stairs, his entire body felt like it was breaking.

Even though he wanted to scream, because of the noose ruthlessly strangling his neck, the only thing coming out of his mouth was a choking sound.

He was dragged like that for quite a while.

His body was forced onto a chair that was fixed to the floor.

Looking around hastily, his eyes grew so wide they seemed to tear.

With a burning bonfire behind their backs, people wearing white hoods surrounded him.

“Y-you guys are…?!”

He tried to shout something, but a gag was stuffed into his mouth, and though he tried to struggle, his body was already tightly bound with ropes.

They did not ask anything, nor did they press him for anything.

The person who stepped forward merely gouged out his left eyeball with a red-hot poker.

“Argh, arghhhhh!”

Spasms arose in his entire body, and blue veins stood out on his neck.

With the sound of searing flesh, acrid smoke rose.

A person wearing a white hood approached and removed his gag.

He wanted to say something.

However, under the excruciating pain running from his seared and ruptured eyeball, he merely let out groans and let blood-frothed saliva drool down.

The one in the middle of those wearing white hoods stepped forward.

“Now you are ready to have a conversation.”

Through the eyeholes of the white hood, an exceptionally cold gaze looked down on him.

“Tell me about the secret organization that exists within the Institution.”

“…!”

The fourth-class butler’s single remaining eye directed toward the waist of the person wearing the white hood.

There, six gold tassels were hung, reflecting the red light of the bonfire.

* * *

The Chief Manager’s Secretary reported.

“The operation to weed out the security secretary is proceeding smoothly.”

The darkness inside the pavilion was too deep for a single lamp to illuminate.

“Hurry. The given time is finite.”

In that darkness, the half-open eyes of the Inner Courtyard Chief Manager, who was sitting cross-legged, shone faintly.

“Yes, of course.”

Under normal circumstances, it was the Chief Manager’s Secretary who should have withdrawn after completing the report, but today he seemed to have something left to say.

“However…”

The half-open eyes of the Inner Courtyard Chief Manager directed toward the Chief Manager’s Secretary.

“Your mind looks exceptionally muddy today.”

The Chief Manager’s Secretary bowed his head.

“Is it alright to just watch the Eldest Young Master’s first move like this?”

“If we do not watch?”

Prostrating on the floor, the Chief Manager’s Secretary bowed his head even deeper.

“The movements of the Second Young Master’s camp are active to an unprecedented degree. The Third Young Master’s camp is also surely aiming for something. There is information that a former sect leader met Emei Sect’s Abbess Chongmu.”

“So?”

The Chief Manager’s Secretary sought guidance from the Inner Courtyard Chief Manager, who repeated question after question.

“We need guidelines for response.”

Looking quietly down at the back of the head of the Chief Manager’s Secretary, who was prostrated and bowing his head, the Inner Courtyard Chief Manager spoke.

“The position of Chief Manager’s Secretary is in a position like the chief disciple of the Inner Courtyard Chief Manager. It is a position that exists to fill the seat at any time if a mishap occurs to the Inner Courtyard Chief Manager.”

“…I keep it in mind.”

The Inner Courtyard Chief Manager clicked his tongue.

“But seeing the way you behave, it seems I must offer prayers so that the day I experience a mishap never comes.”

It was a harsh review.

Yet the Chief Manager’s Secretary merely bowed his head without even a speck of resentment.

“Please offer guidance to my foolish self…”

The Inner Courtyard Chief Manager uncrossed his legs and rose from his seat with difficulty.

His aged muscles had deteriorated, and his joints had already decayed long ago.

Even so, if there was anything supporting that skeleton, it was not thanks to a handful of internal energy.

It must be his loyalty bordering on madness toward the Luoyang Sword Family, to which he had dedicated over a hundred years.

“A thief who dares to treat the Main Family’s bank money as his own carelessly leaks the loan information of the Main Family’s legitimate son…”

Although he stayed in deep places for more than half of the day, how much information would there be in the family that someone like him did not know?

“At once-in-a-lifetime opportunity where ruining the Eldest Young Master’s first move can completely push him out of the succession struggle, the entire family is astir.”

A blatant sneer rose on the wrinkled face of the Inner Courtyard Chief Manager.

“And yet, is the conclusion of this matter still invisible to you?”

The Inner Courtyard Chief Manager was implying was clear.

“…Are you saying that the matter will ultimately unfold as the Eldest Young Master wishes?”

At the Chief Manager’s Secretary’s tone of speech, which was somewhat unconvincing, the Inner Courtyard Chief Manager withdrew the smile from his face.

“Foolish fellow.”

The Inner Courtyard Chief Manager said flatly.

“No one in the Main Family can win a battle of wits against the Eldest Young Master face-to-face.”

“…!”

“No. Not just the Main Family, but in the entire Central Plains Empire, there is no one who can dare to win a battle of brains against the Eldest Young Master. That was true ten years ago, and it is the same now.”

“Does that mean…”

Did it not sound like he meant the Eldest Young Master would ultimately emerge victorious?

The Inner Courtyard Chief Manager snorted at the sight of the Chief Manager’s Secretary swallowing his words while breaking into a cold sweat.

“What is the work we are currently carrying out?”

“We are removing the ‘rotten shells’ remaining deep inside the Institution.”

“Indeed.”

The Inner Courtyard Chief Manager smirked.

That smile, dimly visible in the darkness, felt almost grotesque.

“All of that could be started thanks to the Eldest Young Master.”

Punishing those who served the successor as they pleased was extremely troublesome.

For ultimately, one of those successors would become the Young Patriarch of the Luoyang Sword Family.

However, after the Eldest Young Master turned the Inner Courtyard upside down, the Inner Courtyard Chief Manager, who was reprimanded by the Elders’ Hall, obtained a justification.

“Thanks to that, we have now been able to reach the stage of removing those last shells.”

The Inner Courtyard Chief Manager raised his bony hand and tapped his temple.

“If you get caught in the Eldest Young Master’s battle of wits and respond head-on, what awaits you is nothing but endless hidden calculations.”

Did Yeon So-hyeon not evaluate the Inner Courtyard Chief Manager as someone who must be counted when discussing the mastermind of the Luoyang Sword Family?

“What the Eldest Young Master throws is not something to strike back, but merely to receive and utilize.”

The old monster’s eyes glinted in the lamplight.

“To target the Eldest Young Master who is already laying out the board, at the very end of the end—you must pierce in from outside the board, which was unexpected.”

The force felt from the bent, bony old man was to an unbelievable degree.

“…”

The Chief Manager’s Secretary forgot even to swallow dry saliva and received the teachings.

“Until then, you must remove all the rotten shells of the Institution.”

The old monster sat down cross-legged again.

“That is the guideline I hand down to the Institution.”

* * *

The night deepens further, and each calculation crosses in the darkness.

The alignment of the pieces is complete.

Now, what remains is merely for another match to unfold.