Star Instructor, Master Baek

Constable Cheong Cheon’s mask only slipped for an instant, and it was slight enough that not many people would notice. However, it wasn’t enough to fool my eyes.

“What are you talking about?” he asked with his usual expressionless face.

I stared at him silently until he frowned and continued, “I asked what you were talking about. I don’t think you’re someone who could call me out specifically for no good reason… Wait, are you accusing me of being the culprit?”

He sighed softly and shook his head as if the very notion was absurd.

Unfortunately for him, I was also extremely confident in my own judgment, but I was still missing a few pieces of the puzzle and needed answers from him.

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“I’m sure you remember that Demonic Arts were involved in Old Man Heo’s death, right?” I abruptly changed the subject to catch him off guard.

“What?”

SUCCESS! I pressed on, saying, “The martial arts that the culprit used is the Blood Cult’s Blood Rain Demonic Art.”

“I though you previously said…that it was an unknown demonic art.”

“I hadn’t confirmed it yet back then, but now I have.”

“……” Cheong Cheon eyes trembled, and his pupils dilated. He may have been an expert at hiding his emotions, but he wasn’t good enough to suppress all of his natural instinctive reactions.

I placed my hands behind my back and leisurely said, “I’m sure you’ve heard many times that Demonic Arts are easy to master but damaging to health. Those who practice such arts either go crazy or die of qi deviation…”

“…Yes, I know that.”

“Fortunately, the Blood Cult did a lot of experimentation to minimize the side effects of the Blood Rain Demonic Art, so it’s one of the safer ones. As long as you don’t overdo it, you won’t go crazy or die.”

It goes without saying that I was the one who did those experiments.

“Why are you telling me that now…?”

“Because that is only true if you learned the complete Blood Rain Demonic Art. The one you have is a second-rate version. If you keep using it, you won’t live much longer.”

“……”

Constable Cheong Cheon didn’t say anything, but I could hear his breathing roughen and see the whites of his eyes turn red.

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“When someone who has practiced the Blood Rain Demonic Art experiences intense emotions, the whites of their eyes become bloodshot just like yours are right now.”

“…I haven’t slept well for days because of the investigation, so naturally, my eyes are red. You can’t use that as evidence against me.”

“Do you feel pain around the Capital Gate Meridians (京門穴)1 and suffer from indigestion every time you circulate your qi? Those are also common side effects of the Blood Rain Demonic Art.”

“……”

“Finally, your nerves are unusually sensitive to a variety of stimuli, to the point where you can only hide it by suppressing your emotions and staying expressionless.”

“I was born this way.”

“That’s a lie, you only became like this a few years ago.”

“…Did you run a background check on me?” Cheong Cheon frowned, clearly displeased.

I nodded. This morning, before heading to the precinct, I had gone to meet people who knew Constable Cheong Cheon since his youth.

“At first, I suspected the bodyguard. He’s a top-notch master, and he’s good at controlling his facial expressions due to his past as a wanderer. It’s also possible he had obtained the Blood Rain Demonic Art during his travels back then. However…”

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I shot a look of pity at Constable Cheong Cheon, who had stiffened up, and proceeded with my deduction, saying, “Most wanderers are experienced warriors and would not willingly learn a martial art that leads to self-destruction. Not to mention, the bodyguard has a wife and children.”

“……”

“Oh, need I add that the process of learning the Blood Rain Demonic Art is excruciatingly painful? Only really desperate people would try it. At the least, it would be impossible for the likes of the Madam and that spoiled brat of a son…”

I paused for a moment, blinked innocently at him, then asked, “But what about a talentless orphan boy who dreamed of becoming a military official?”

“……” Constable Cheong Cheon fell silent for a while, before finally opening his mouth and saying, “That’s just your hypothesis. If you’re going to accuse me of practicing demonic arts, then prove it.”

Well, I knew how to prove that he practiced the Blood Rain Demonic Art, but there was no need for me to reveal too many of my cards. Instead, I looked down at his feet.

“Your shoes.”

“……?”

“They’re burnt.”

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“……!!”

“Yesterday, when I asked you if you had come from the scene of the incident, you said no, right? In that case, why are your shoes burnt?”

“That’s because…”

Cheong Cheon attempted to make up an excuse, but I could sense his hesitation and interrupted, “Pfft, don’t give me that bullshit. You changed your clothes after killing Heo Il, but I guess you forgot about changing your shoes.”

Well, the burn traces on his shoes were so slight that most people would assume it was dirt, but not me.

Cheong Cheon glared at me and said through clenched teeth, “Do you think that’s enough evidence to convict me?”

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“Probably not, but I’m sure it’s enough to persuade the Murim Alliance into launching an investigation on you.”

“Ugh…”

It was my perfect victory.

“You wanted to cover up your crime and close the case quickly by killing Heo Il. Your impatience was your ruin.”

“Haa…” Cheong Cheon’s eyes quickly went from slightly bloodshot to completely red as his killing intent intensified. With a hoarse voice, he confessed, “You’re right, I killed him…”

Huh. I had braced myself for an attack, but it seems that it wasn’t necessary. He confessed much more readily than I had expected.

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“…But I only did it because he deserved to die.”

“Mmhmm.”

Although I agreed with Cheong Cheon’s assessment, I hardly felt that his sense of justice was enough to drive him to murder Old Man Heo. There had to be another reason.

“ I don’t think that’s all, right? What’s the other reason you did it?” I asked.

“Because he was my biological father.”

“What?”

Now that was a bolt out of the blue. It also contradicted his story about the orphanage, which I had already confirmed was true.

“I thought you were an orphan…”

“I am simply one of his abandoned bastard sons.”

Wait, didn’t Heo Il say something like, “Do you seriously think that it’s possible for a scoundrel who slept with prostitutes all the time to have only one child?”

Having given up on maintaining his expressionless mask, Cheong Cheon roared with laughter, “I was only sent to the orphanage after my mother’s death. There, I worked my ass off because my late mother always dreamed of me becoming a government official and living a good life paid for by the country. Unfortunately, I had neither the intelligence to pass the Imperial Exams nor the physical aptitude to join the military. Whenever I tried pulling an all-nighter to study, I’d suffer a nosebleed and collapse.”

“How did you get your hands on the Blood Rain Demonic Art?”

“…Once, when I visited my mother’s grave, a man in a black hooded cloak tossed me a martial arts manual and told me that if I learned it, I’d grow a lot stronger…”

I questioned Cheong Cheon about the black-hooded man, but he couldn’t remember any details about him, and he never saw the man again after that. He simply learned the martial art without knowing it was demonic arts, and when his health improved a few years later, he went and took the constable exam.

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It was around then that Cheong Cheon met Old Man Heo.

“One day, after becoming a constable, Old Man Heo approached me and said, ‘You look exactly like I did when I was young.’ At first, I thought he was trying to bribe me, but he then took out an old portrait of his younger self and showed it to me. When I saw that portrait, I… I felt like I was looking in the mirror.”

“……”

Old Man Heo then told Cheong Cheon that his mother had once worked as a maid in his mansion. However, when she got pregnant with him, Madam Son, Old Man Heo’s favorite mistress at the time, immediately threw her out of the house.

“He just stood on the sidelines and watched as everything happened, like he didn’t care about me or my mother at all. That’s why, when he said that I looked exactly like his younger self, when he smiled and hugged me tightly… All I could think about was killing him.”

“……” I quietly listened to Cheong Cheon’s tale. He needed an outlet to vent all of the resentment he’d accumulated over the years, and someone to pour out all his bottled up feelings on.

“Did you know that Old Man Heo suffered from dementia?”

“No. If he did, then it wasn’t obvious to most…”

“He’d sometimes just randomly space out. At first, it only happened rarely, but as time passed, the loss of his mental faculties became gradually more pronounced.”

“……”

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“Whenever he had free time, he’d summon me and tell me all kinds of stories. He would talk about the kind of environment he grew up in, how he succeeded, how many people he sent to their deaths, how many women he ruined… I JUST COULDN’T ACCEPT THAT MY BIOLOGICAL FATHER WAS A MAN WHO’D BRAG ABOUT SUCH DIRTY DEEDS LIKE HE WAS PROUD OF HIMSELF!”

DRIP.

Tears of blood streamed down Cheong Cheon’s face.

“And do you know what’s the worst part of it all? That man wrote my name in his will, saying that he would pass everything on to me.”

“…Are you saying that the will was with you all along?”

“……” Cheong Cheon finally fell silent.

Well, despite his long story and grievances, I still couldn’t fully comprehend why he murdered Old Man Heo, so I asked, “Why did you suddenly decide to kill him when you held back for so long? It’s not like you wouldn’t have eventually inherited his wealth.”

“I don’t care about money, I just don’t want people to know that he’s my father! And I absolutely hate it when people refer to that disgusting bastard as a good man!”

“Uhh…”

If that’s his motive, then he can’t be dissuaded. To make things worse, his demonic art amplifies his emotions. I’ll need to be careful.

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“…That’s all I have to say.” Having spilled out everything he had been keeping to himself, Cheong Cheon looked positively relieved.

I cautiously asked, “Anyway, what are you going to do now? Are you going to turn yourself in, or…”

Before I could finish speaking, Cheong Cheon drew his sword and swung it at me.

SWOOSH!

I backed off in a hurry, but the tip of his blade brushed across my ear. The red-eyed Cheong Cheon then charged at me, howling like a beast, “No one must know that he is my biological father!”

“Wait, at least let me finish my sentence…” I began, however, Cheong Cheon continued attacking me as if he could no longer hear me.

Damn it, the Blood Rain Demonic Art is a martial art that temporarily draws out one’s physical potential and enhances one’s qi. However, if something sounds too good to be true, then it probably is. After all, if there were no side effects, then the Blood Rain Demonic Art would not be called a Demonic Art.

What the Blood Rain Demonic Art truly does is consume the practitioner’s life force, causing them to age rapidly and fall sick easily. In other words, it’s a martial art that exchanges one’s life for power.

“ARGHHHHHH!”

Judging by his strength, speed, and endurance, the current Cheong Cheon was comparable to a first-class master. On the other hand, I had not yet reached the two-star level of Heaven Defying Divine Art, which would allow me to utilize the qi stored inside my qi center.

Well, if I try really hard, I can do it…but I won’t be able to avoid suffering from side effects later. Besides, I don’t think I need qi to deal with this guy.

Cheong Cheon seemed to have learned swordsmanship, but to me, who was familiar with all of the Blood Rain Demonic Art’s techniques, he might as well have been floundering around blindly.

SWOOSH! WHOOSH!

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Within a few moves, I had already grasped the essence of Cheong Cheon’s swordsmanship. I took advantage of a brief opening to slip in close to him, then sealed several of his meridians.

TAP TAP TAP!

“……!!” Cheong Cheon instantly froze in his movements.

Meanwhile, I took advantage of his momentum and threw him to the ground.

CRASH!

I climbed onto Cheong Cheon’s fallen body, pinned down his arms with my knees, and tightened my hands around his neck. He squirmed around desperately, but couldn’t escape from my firm grasp.

“Just…kill me…already!”

“Calm down,” I said, slightly loosening my grip on his neck.

Tears of blood streamed down his face as he pleaded, “All I did was kill trash that deserved to die, but now the world will remember me as the man who murdered his father! I’d rather die than let that happen! I don’t have much longer to live because of the demonic art, anyway…”

“Don’t jump to conclusions. I’m not going to report you to the government.”

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“…What?” Shocked, Cheong Cheon stopped struggling.

I slowly let go of him and stood up. When I did, Cheong Cheon also staggered to his feet, gingerly touched his reddened neck, and asked, “You’re not going to…report me?”

“Well, it depends on what you do next.”

“…Eh?”

I belonged neither to the Murim Alliance nor the corrupt Orthodox Sects, so I had no reason to give a crap about the murders of people who deserved to die. Even pondering what to eat for my next meal was more interesting to me than those types of people.

“I can pretend not to know anything…”

“Why…?” Cheong Cheon asked, not sensing the obvious change in my tone due to his panic.

“And I can help you get rid of the side effects of the Blood Rain Demonic Art. You won’t be able to recover the life force that you’ve already lost, but we can minimize the detrimental effects from now on.”

“E-Ehh??”

As a former martial arts instructor of the Blood Cult, I was familiar with all of the cult’s martial arts. Naturally, I also knew how to deal with idiots who fucked up and went into qi deviation. Of course, I wasn’t going to do it for free.

I grinned and offered Cheong Cheon a deal, “However…since the inheritance is useless to you, why don’t you give it to me instead?”

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1. Capital Gate Meridians (京門穴): The acupuncture points at the tips of the bottommost ribs.