NABC Book 6: Chapter 11
Book 6: Chapter 11
Book 6: Chapter 11
Somewhere in the Luoyang Sword House.
The Grand Preceptor of Emei Sect, having finished the meeting, boarded the carriage.
“Was the meeting satisfactory?”
The Deputy Chief Nun asked again, even though satisfaction was clearly evident in her expression.
“Yes, it was satisfactory.”
The Deputy Chief Nun always checked the temperament that could explode at any moment, like testing a stone bridge, before bringing up the main topic.
“...What if Daseollang makes a childish choice at the cost of their families’ sacrifice?”
She had spoken loudly to the other nuns, but inwardly, a sense of unease remained.
“You think those girls will do something so foolish?”
“...I hope it’s just my foolishness leading to needless worry. But we have no way of knowing what conversation is taking place in the Eldest Young Master’s residence right now.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
The Grand Preceptor smiled, wrinkling her face.
“In the end, if we shatter the Eldest Young Master and 4th Young Master’s joint venture, Daseollang becomes a dispensable horse to them.”
“Then?!”
The Grand Preceptor chuckled.
“In that case, Daseollang will have no choice but to return to the bosom of our Emei Sect.”
And she would teach Daseollang an unforgettable lesson.
***
Inner Courtyard of the Luoyang Sword House.
All butlers of the Inner Courtyard live their entire lives there.
That was the reason for the large-scale existence of pavilions for lodging in the Inner Courtyard.
Deep night.
Even the radiantly shining moon had hidden its face behind thick clouds.
A fourth-grade butler was walking a long corridor, holding a lantern.
It was an exceptionally late-ending work day.
A cold wind blew through the corridor of the lodging, engulfed in darkness, and the lantern light flickered unsteadily.
The creaking noise of the wooden corridor with each step on the floor was particularly grating.
It was a space he had lived in for a long time, but today, everything seemed strangely irritating.
The end of the abruptly bent corridor.
The shadow of tree branches wavering uneasily beyond the door screen.
The deep darkness visible through the carelessly opened crack of a lodging door.
Feeling as if something was just staring at him, he hastened his steps.
It must be due to the fatigue from several days of continuous heavy work and the resulting frayed nerves.
Even while repeating that to himself, his hand grabbing the lock of his lodging was damp with cold sweat.
“...”
While turning the key, he looked around, but there was no one in the late-night corridor.
He carefully opened the door, first inserting the lantern to scan the interior.
Relieved by the familiar sight of the room, he quickly entered and locked the door with a small latch.
After briefly catching his breath, he felt the drowsiness he had been unaware of due to the tension suddenly overwhelming him.
Without even organizing his clothes, he lay down on the bed and fell into a deep sleep, almost fainting, before he could blink a few times.
How long had he been asleep?
“...?”
For an unknown reason, he swallowed and opened his eyes wide.
His eyeballs darted back and forth.
The lantern he had brought was already extinguished, and the room was dark.
The faint moonlight from outside illuminated the interior of the room.
The sound of his roughly beating heart was too clearly audible, piercing through the creaking noise peculiar to the wooden pavilion in the wind.
‘...Is it nothing?’
His heavy eyelids began to close again.
‘I thought I heard something falling.’
With that memory resurfacing, he opened his eyes again.
His gaze fell upon the door of his lodging.
The small latch he had set to lock the door had fallen to the floor.
“...?”
He blinked a few times.
“The position of Chief Secretary is like the Chief Elder of the Inner Courtyard’s chief disciple. If something happens to the Chief Elder, it’s a position that exists to fill that role at any time.”
“...I keep that in mind.”
The Chief Elder clicked his tongue.
“But looking at your behavior, it seems I should pray that the day I meet with misfortune never comes.”
It was a harsh evaluation.
But the Chief Secretary merely bowed his head without a hint of resentment.
“Please instruct this incompetent one...”
The Chief Elder unfolded his cross-legged position and laboriously rose from his seat.
His aged muscles had atrophied, and his joints had long been rusted.
Nevertheless, if there was something sustaining that skeleton, it wasn’t thanks to a handful of inner energy.
It was probably the almost mad loyalty he had devoted to the Luoyang Sword House for over a hundred years.
“A thief who dares to consider the main family’s Armory Director’s money as his own is carelessly leaking the main family’s legitimate son’s loan information...”
Even though he spent more than half a day in seclusion, how much information in the family would he not know?
“The entire family is in an uproar over the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to completely push the Eldest Young Master out of the succession struggle if his first move fails.”
A blatant sneer rose on the Chief Elder’s face, full of wrinkles.
“Even so, are you saying you can’t see the end of this matter?”
The Chief Elder’s implication was clear.
“...Are you saying things will eventually unfold as the Eldest Young Master wants?”
At the Chief Secretary’s unconvinced tone, the Chief Elder erased the mirth from his face.
“Foolish bastard.”
The Chief Elder spoke decisively.
“No one in the main family can win against the Eldest Young Master in a direct battle of wits.”
“...!”
“No. Not just the main family, but in the entire Central Plains, there’s no one who can dare to win against that Eldest Young Master in a battle of minds. That was true ten years ago, and it’s still true now.”
“Those words...”
Don’t they sound like the Eldest Young Master will ultimately be victorious?
The Chief Elder snorted at the sight of the Chief Secretary swallowing his words while breaking out in cold sweat.
“What is it that we’re doing right now?”
“We’re removing the ‘rotten shells’ remaining deep within the Inner Courtyard.”
“Indeed.”
The Chief Elder grinned.
That smile, faintly visible in the darkness, felt eerie.
“All of that was possible to begin thanks to the Eldest Young Master.”
Punishing those who arbitrarily served the successors was extraordinarily difficult.
Because in the end, one of those successors would become the Lesser Family Head of the Luoyang Sword House.
However, after the Eldest Young Master turned the Inner Courtyard upside down, the Chief Elder, who had been reprimanded by the Elder Council, gained justification.
“Thanks to that, we’ve now reached the stage of removing that final shell.”
The Chief Elder raised his bony hand and tapped his own temple.
“If you get caught up in the Eldest Young Master’s battle of wits and try to directly respond, all that awaits is an endless scheme.”
Didn’t Yeon So-hyeon evaluate the Chief Elder as someone who must be mentioned when discussing the power behind the scenes in the Luoyang Sword House?
“What the Eldest Young Master throws, you don’t hit back, but receive and utilize.”
The old monster’s eyeballs glimmered in the lamplight.
“If you want to target the Eldest Young Master who has already set the stage, you must stab and enter from outside the stage, at the very, very end, in a way he couldn’t even anticipate.”
It was hard to believe the imposing air emanating from the stooped, gaunt old man.
“...”
What could he possibly say?
The Chief Secretary received the instruction, forgetting to even swallow his dry saliva.
“Until then, you must remove all the rotten shells of the Inner Courtyard.”
The old monster sat back down in a cross-legged position.
“That is the guideline I give to the Inner Courtyard.”
***
The night deepens further, and calculations intersect in the darkness.
The arrangement of the pieces is complete.
All that remains is for another great game to unfold.