Chapter 9
Hunger
In all his forty-five years of life, he had never once seen a person eat that much food.
He was certain that even his father, who had passed this inn down to him, and his grandfather, who had first opened it, had never witnessed such a sight.
As if there really were a demon inside his stomach, that slender young man had eaten more by himself than an entire group of laborer guests—and even now, he was still eating.
The first thing the innkeeper said to the trembling waiter was this.
“Money? You took payment in advance, right?”
He smacked the backs of the two waiters’ heads as they stared at him in bewilderment.
Then, lowering his voice in case anyone heard, he hissed.
“You damned bastards…! You picked today of all days to ruin my inn…!”
The junior waiter clutched the back of his head and whimpered, also lowering his voice.
“No, sir, owner…! I’m telling you, that man was strange from the moment he first came in…!”
“You lunatic…! Then all the more reason you should’ve taken payment up front…!”
When the innkeeper raised his hand again, the senior waiter hurriedly cut in.
“Sir, that’s not what he means. He isn’t just strange. There’s something eerie about him…!”
“Eerie…?”
The innkeeper’s thick jowls twitched.
“Is he a martial artist?”
If he was a martial artist, then caution was always the right answer.
Martial artists and inns.
For some unknown reason, whenever those two elements came together, it was like pouring oil onto a fire.
Even the Luoyang Inn Association called it the “inn effect” and advised all members to be especially careful.
Wasn’t that why his own father had lost an arm?
“No, sir. It isn’t that…!”
The innkeeper frowned.
“Then is he the son of some high-ranking official?”
Children of high-ranking officials were easy to distinguish by their clothing and behavior, but when trouble broke out, they brought even greater disaster.
Hadn’t his own grandfather gotten into a dispute with the child of a high-ranking official, been beaten at the government office, and died after the wounds festered?
“No, it didn’t seem to be that either.”
The junior waiter, who knew by heart the faces of the high officials’ children famous for causing trouble in Luoyang, shook his head.
“Then what the hell is he…?!”
The waiter cried out in a low, almost spasmodic voice.
“I’m telling you, he’s a demon…! Didn’t I tell you…?! The demon that lives in that cursed place…!”
“You cowards are making a fuss over nothing…”
The two waiters waved their hands frantically.
“No, sir, you only say that because you don’t know…!”
By then, the innkeeper could no longer simply scold them.
Clicking his tongue, he strode up the remaining stairs.
“I’ll go see for myself.”
“Sir, please be careful…!”
“Sir…!”
They worried, but no one stopped him.
‘Come to think of it, this is strange.’
They had tried to speak quietly among themselves, but there was no way the scrawny man sitting with his back turned over there had failed to hear them.
That man, dressed like a shabby scholar, seemed unaware that the innkeeper was approaching. He simply had his head lowered, busy devouring the food.
Had the creaking of the floorboards ever sounded this irritating with each step?
For some reason, the innkeeper wiped the cold sweat running down his face with his sleeve and tugged at the collar of his clothes, which felt as though it were choking him.
“Ahem! Ahem!”
He stopped four or five steps behind the man and coughed, but the other party showed no reaction whatsoever.
“Owner, you need to go a little closer…!”
“Be careful…!”
‘Damn bastards, talking like it isn’t their problem.’
For some reason, he did not want to take even one more step closer, but he drew upon the experience and grit he had built over thirty-five years.
Each step felt like an eternity, but in the end, he managed to stand right behind the scholar.
And even then, the scholar did not spare him so much as a glance.
He swallowed dryly.
“E-excuse me…”
As he glanced sideways at the scholar, his eyes widened.
The scholar was not even using chopsticks. He was picking up the food with both hands and stuffing it into his mouth.
For a moment, the innkeeper could not say a word. Then he wiped his sweat-soaked palms on his pants.
Before he knew it, his entire body was drenched in cold sweat.
But what did it mean to run a business in the heart of vast Luoyang?
Even after seeing what had happened to his grandfather and father, he had kept this inn going until now.
“Excuse me, young master…”
But why did his voice sound as faint as a mosquito?
He tried to clear his throat.
And then—
“…This isn’t it. This isn’t enough. This isn’t what I need. This isn’t it. This isn’t enough…”
A chill shot through the innkeeper’s entire body.
The inn was clearly filled with the sound of that man greedily devouring food, and he himself was watching him shove food into his mouth without pause.
Then who was making that endless whispering sound?
“…This isn’t enough. This isn’t what I need…”
And when he listened closely to that whisper, there was something fundamentally unlike a human voice about it…
At that moment, the scholar’s hand suddenly stopped.
“…!!”
Then the scholar’s head slowly began to turn toward the innkeeper.
The innkeeper’s pupils had already gone unfocused, and his legs trembled as though they might give out at any moment.
He wanted to scream, but his body had already slipped beyond his control.
While he stood there, unable to do anything, the scholar looked at him.
Then his mouth opened.
“I’ve eaten enough. How much is it in total?”
“Uh… uh, wha…?”
The pale-faced scholar wiped the sauce smeared around his mouth with his sleeve and asked again.
“Aren’t you the innkeeper?”
The innkeeper answered reflexively.
“Y-yes, sir.”
The scholar nodded and rose from his seat.
His clothes were filthy with spilled food and sauce, but he paid it no mind.
Calmly taking out his money pouch, he asked once more.
“I asked how much.”
A short while after the scholar left, the waiters carried the unconscious innkeeper on their backs and ran through the night streets of Luoyang in search of a physician.
It is said that none of the waiters tried to stop the innkeeper when he woke the next day and spent a fortune holding a grand exorcism ritual.
***
“Strange. How strange.”
The scholar who had left the inn, Yeon Sohyeon, repeated those words to himself.
As a test, he had tried eating at the inn until he reached his limit, but no matter how much he ate, no feeling of fullness ever came.
Moreover, after eating such a ridiculous amount, he should at least have vomited.
Yet whatever he shoved in simply went in as it was.
The food that passed down his throat felt as though it vanished somewhere.
Deep in his heart, he felt a certain conviction.
No matter how much of “this kind of thing” he ate, his hunger would never disappear.
He shook his head.
Then what exactly was he supposed to eat?
At that moment, the tip of his nose turned toward somewhere.
“A smell…”
It was an unbearably fragrant scent, one he had never smelled before.
A truly “delicious” scent.
A scent that stirred his hunger.
‘What smell is this…?’
Regardless of his doubts, he was drawn by instinct.
His steps led him toward the dark back alleys of Luoyang.
And his figure was swallowed by the alley’s darkness and disappeared.
***
Luoyang, an ancient and venerable metropolis.
Though it had been swept up in the flames of war countless times through many dynasties, it still stood firm as one of the great cities representing the Central Plains.
As befitted a metropolis boasting a population in the millions, it also contained an enormous pleasure district.
Despite the late hour, brilliant oil lamps colored the streets in dazzling hues, making one forget the night of Luoyang.
But where there is bright light, deep darkness follows.
Behind that beautiful pleasure district lay an equally ugly and twisted order.
Among the many such orders, one could name the Gold Leech—also called the Golden Order—a major figure of the underworld.
And now, even in this filthy, damp back alley, the order created by the Golden Order was turning steadily.
“Strip him too and shake out everything he has.”
“Yes, brother!”
Whether it was misfortune or simply reaping what he had sown, a middle-aged man who had squandered his fortune after getting involved in gambling tried to offer a feeble resistance.
“This bastard…?!”
“Beat him down!”
Naturally, what came back to him was a harsh pounding from the thugs’ fists.
A short while later, aside from the fact that he was still breathing, the middle-aged man looked no different from a lump of minced meat.
“Found it, brother!”
In the end, one of the thugs found a wooden tablet hidden inside the middle-aged man’s underwear and held it up.
A household registration tablet—in other words, proof of identity.
The fact that they had taken an identity document containing his address, family details, and everything else meant they intended to take everything from him.
His small shop, his wife, his children—
“No… please…”
Despair settled thickly over the face of the middle-aged man, who looked like a mass of minced meat.
By contrast, cruel smiles deepened on the thugs’ faces.
Desperate people fell for rigged gambling day after day without even realizing it, and those foolish victims were then disposed of to increase their wealth.
That was one side of the hidden order known as the Golden Order.
“You thought you could cheat the elder out of his money and still walk around Luoyang unharmed?”
Of course, even including the man called “brother,” none of the thugs here were direct subordinates of the Golden Order. They had never even seen his face.
They belonged merely to one of the groups outsourced by the Golden Order.
But so long as they carried the name of that order on their backs, at least in this back alley, they were kings.
“No, please, sirs…”
It was then.
“A whistle?”
It was the sound of a whistle with a strange melody.
At times, it seemed mournful; at times, desperate. Just when it seemed cheerful, it became despairing.
If one had to describe it, one might say it was imbued with madness.
“What bastard is that?!”
The thug who had been gleefully holding the middle-aged man’s registration tablet shouted in a booming voice.
Normally, his companions would have enjoyed seeing that loud voice intimidate someone.
Yet for some reason, compared to that thin whistle, his shout sounded weak.
The thug threw the tablet aside and drew his weapon.
“What bastard is screwing around?! Come out right now!”
Then the others also raised their weapons in a frenzy and shouted in every direction.
“You wanna die?!”
“Who’s playing games?!”
“You son of a—!”
At that moment, the man they called brother barked in a low voice.
“…Everyone, shut up!”
At the sound of his voice, which at least retained some composure, the other thugs closed their mouths.
“Shut up and stay still…!”
Anxiety flickered in his eyes.
His underlings were not simply overreacting.
Even he himself had nearly failed to endure the whistle and almost shouted along with them.
Whoever it was, the ability to shake a person’s mind with nothing but a whistle was already an enormous warning sign.
He cupped his fist in the most respectful manner he could and addressed the surroundings.
“I do not know which path this senior walks, but do you have business with us?”
No sooner had his words ended than, as if by magic, the whistling stopped.