Chapter 297. Bae Junho and the Killers of Salmak
He worked up his courage, disguised himself as an incense-bearing pilgrim, and entered Guangyou Temple.
He went as far as the Mahavira Hall, offered prayers, even made a donation, and then withdrew.
After entering and leaving without incident, he began visiting the temple almost every day.
He had heard that Yi Youngwoo was cultivating in the Mahavira Hall.
But Youngwoo was nowhere to be seen.
He went around the temple buildings, bowing before every Buddha image that came into view, while also checking beneath the eaves and behind the halls.
Still, he could not find him.
The easiest thing was simply to ask a monk.
The monk told him that Youngwoo was cultivating alone in a small meditation hall farther inside.
He added, however, that it was a place reserved for practice and earnestly asked ordinary visitors not to enter.
Only then did Youngwoo notice something strange.
Someone was looking for him.
He realized it belatedly, only after hearing his own name mentioned.
Perhaps it was more accurate to say that only then did he begin paying attention.
His cultivation was deepening, and at this point in his life there was nothing more important to him.
The intrusion irritated him.
He expanded his sense of qi.
The presence of the man disguised as a pilgrim immediately stood out.
There was something unsavory about him.
Youngwoo's brow furrowed on its own.
This was not the kind of man who came to a temple to pray.
A person could imitate the posture of worship.
He could imitate clasped hands.
He could imitate making a donation.
But the direction of the heart was harder to conceal.
The man was not looking at Buddhas.
He was looking at routes.
He was not looking at temple halls.
He was looking for openings.
The way he surveyed his surroundings carried both anxiety and apprehension.
Youngwoo had been told that human emotions had a shape to the way they flowed.
He was beginning to understand what that meant.
Strange.
The man entered the inn attached to the entrance near the temple gate.
No.
Youngwoo had not seen it.
He had felt it.
He could clearly sense the man entering the inn, climbing the stairs, and heading toward a room on the third floor.
Just as Youngwoo was about to withdraw the qi he had extended outward, he caught similar presences in the alleys, along the walls, and at several places around the temple grounds.
There were more than one or two.
Ten.
Twenty.
When he carefully felt them out, there were close to thirty.
They approached casually, like ordinary people, and drifted around the temple.
Youngwoo had paid them no attention before.
Pilgrims coming and going was nothing unusual at a temple.
But now that he looked closely, their movements all carried the same scent.
On the surface, they seemed to wander without purpose.
But one by one, each had a task.
One watched a passage.
Another observed the kitchen.
Another studied the path leading toward the meditation hall.
One shamelessly accepted the monks' kindness while probing them for details about the temple.
Another lingered near the well.
Someone else carefully examined the places beneath the wall where less snow had accumulated.
They were searching for something.
Testing the strengths and weaknesses of the place.
Thin lines, almost like strands of thread, appeared between walls and trees.
The cords were so fine they were nearly invisible to the naked eye.
Small objects were buried beneath the snow.
Youngwoo could faintly sense the sound of earth being scraped aside, snow being spread back over it, and palms pressing the surface flat.
Somewhere, he heard powder being mixed.
Elsewhere came the sound of liquid being poured from a bottle.
Amid the smells of incense and firewood, an extremely faint acrid odor mixed into the air.
Beneath the quiet daily life of the temple, killing intent was spreading in a thin layer.
Youngwoo realized that he was their target.
What they were doing was nothing new.
When words failed, people used violence.
When violence failed, they tried to kill the person and remove him altogether.
From beginning to end, it was always the same.
If he traced the matter back to its source, it would lead to Go Youngchang.
If he searched for the starting point, it would likely be a single sentence that had left the man's mouth.
Youngwoo was not particularly worried for himself.
What concerned him were the innocent monks who might get hurt.
A temple was not a battlefield.
The monks cooking in the kitchen, the novices sweeping the courtyard, the elderly pilgrims coming to pray—
none of them should be dragged into this.
His cultivation had been deepening.
Yet the world refused to leave even that brief stretch of peace alone.
At first, Youngwoo considered simply dealing with all of them at once.
If he cleared them out in one sweep, things would become quiet again.
Then another thought occurred to him.
A more amusing one.
He could follow them around and let them break themselves.
Make the man who set a trap begin doubting his own trap.
Make the man who handled poison begin fearing the poison on his own hands.
If he could make people who came to kill him spend less than a day before they started watching one another with suspicion, that too could become a form of cultivation.
Youngwoo quietly lowered his gaze.
They still had not found his location.
But Youngwoo was already identifying where they hid, whom they exchanged glances with, and which paths they watched.
They looked like professionals.
Yet something about them was awkward.
Their movements were discreet, and they were not bad at taking positions.
But they did not carry the deeply ingrained presence of seasoned martial artists.
They made a profession of killing people, but they were not masters of martial arts.
They were not men who trusted the blade.
They trusted poison, traps, numbers, and surprise attacks.
Their malice was strong.
Their killing intent was thick.
But they lacked the strength to support either one.
Stranger still was their vitality.
They were alive, yet their desire to live felt faint.
Men who had come to kill somehow carried the scent of death more strongly than life.
It was not the tautness of people planning for tomorrow.
It was the loose resignation of men who no longer cared if they ruined today.
Only then did Youngwoo begin to understand what they truly were.
These were not exceptional assassins.
They were people who had lost the road to ordinary life and now earned their meals through the deaths of others.
That made them more ominous.
A man who wants to live values his own life.
But one who abandoned life long ago can spend even his own cheaply.
Such a man will do anything.