Chapter 274 — Back at the Inn
When Yeongu returned to the inn, he first asked for water to wash himself.
Then he called someone over and asked them to wash his bloodstained clothes.
"Soak them in cold water first, then wash them."
The attendant answered, but his face showed no sign that he had really taken it to heart.
He looked like the sort who would rub the cloth a few times and then say the stain would not come out.
Yeongu sighed.
"Ah, please do it properly."
The attendant who had first greeted him when he entered the inn was startled.
"Sir, where in the world did you go, and what did you do to come back covered in this much blood?"
"Exactly."
The attendant examined the clothes and grimaced.
"I will try, but this will be hard to clean."
"Soak it in cold water first. Blood will not come out in hot water."
"That works when there is only a little blood. This looks like it was dipped into a tub of blood and pulled back out. Did you go to a slaughterhouse or something?"
Yeongu looked down at his soaked sleeve.
"Exactly. It was more or less a slaughterhouse. Hiyu. This is what happens when someone does a job he is not skilled at."
The reason so much blood had gotten on him was that he was not used to that sort of fight.
It was different from fighting on a wide battlefield with a horse and spear.
Inside a narrow room, dozens of men had rushed in all at once, bodies had collided against bodies, and blades had moved at close range.
Blood had not merely splashed.
It looked as if he had been dipped in it.
If he had struck the vital points more cleverly, things might have been different.
But he had struck, stabbed, and cut with force, and whenever an artery opened, blood had sprayed like a fountain.
Even when he thought he had avoided it, the blood soaked into his clothes, and when he moved his feet, the blood on the floor splashed back up.
The attendant examined the clothes and asked with a show of concern.
"Are you hurt anywhere?"
"Fortunately."
"Is this pig's blood?"
"Ah, I do not know. Just do something about it."
When he stripped off one outer layer, even the inner clothes were soaked with blood.
The fortunate thing was that none of his own blood was mixed in.
That fact made him feel even more tired.
Yeongu handed over the clothes and said,
"Wash these, and bring washing water to that room."
The attendant looked troubled.
"When am I supposed to heat water now?"
"It does not need to be hot. Just not cold. Hurry."
The attendant kept grumbling.
He said the laundry would be difficult, that heating water would take time, that clothes like this would still show marks even after washing.
Unable to watch any longer, Yeongu handed him a few coins.
The attendant's face changed at once.
He cupped the coins in his palm and bowed deeply.
"Of course I will see to it properly."
A little later, a bathing tub was brought in.
The water was closer to lukewarm than warm.
Even that was something to be grateful for.
Yeongu stripped off the remaining clothes and stepped into the tub.
The moment his body sank into the water, the color began to cloud.
Blood, dust, and sweat all loosened at once.
He rubbed his forearm, then stopped.
"Huu."
A sigh came out on its own.
He should have done better.
He had thought he had explained things well.
He had thought he had persuaded him with words.
Yet he had not persuaded him at all.
Yeongu had not known that persuading a grown man was, in most cases, close to impossible.
He had needed to persuade someone, shake Yelü Zhangnu's mind, and plant a crack inside the Liao army camp.
What came back instead was bloodstained clothing and one tub of lukewarm water.
Wanyan Xiyin felt needlessly resentful.
Had he not assigned this matter, Yeongu would not have had to sneak back into an inn in this state.
Of course, in the end, Yeongu had said he would do it himself.
That was why it made him angrier.
If someone else had forced him into it, he could have cursed and been done with it.
But a task he had agreed to with his own mouth left the resentment circling inside himself.
Yeongu sank deeper into the water.
His back and shoulders began to ache late.
He had not been struck in many places, but the muscles he had used to collide, push, evade, and twist began announcing themselves one by one.
The water quickly grew filthy, and a faint smell of blood lingered in the room.
He closed his eyes and remained still for a long while.
Outside, the sounds of the inn continued.
Voices, bowls clattering, people eating, people drinking, people quietly passing along the rumors they had heard that day.
Among those rumors, there might already be a story about a blood-soaked Goryeo commander who had walked out of Yelü Zhangnu's estate.
Yeongu raised his hand from the water and rubbed his face.
The blood washed away.
The day did not.
After scrubbing himself hard and coming out, Yeongu found clothes laid out in the room.
They were not his clothes.
There was no way the laundry had been finished that quickly.
Yeongu shook the water from his damp hair and looked down at the clothes.
What is this?
He roughly wiped down the protective heart armor, put it on underneath, and picked up the new clothes.
They were martial clothes of a similar color.
The form was not very different either.
When he slipped his arms through the sleeves and tied the waist cord, they fit his body strangely well.
If he had not been caught and dragged to prison, he would have had spare clothes.
If he had moved according to his temper from the start, he would not have had his belongings taken.
He had tried to act like an unfamiliar person while clumsily imitating a spy, and thanks to that, even his clothes and baggage had been lost.
Things went wrong this way.
They went wrong that way too.
Yeongu shook one sleeve.
Did that fellow buy this?
Just then, there was a knock at the door.
"It is open. Come in."
Creak.
The wooden door opened.
Go Hoe-won and Okjeong entered.
Go Hoe-won looked Yeongu up and down.
"Did you bathe?"
"Yes. I was too filthy."
"You made quite a scene."
Yeongu smiled awkwardly.
"Did they say anything?"
"I said we had met at the inn today, and they did not seem especially suspicious."
"Heuheu. I apologize. I was worried that trouble might come to you, Master Go."
Go Hoe-won's face stiffened a little.
"There was an uproar."
Yeongu shook his head from side to side.
"They crammed dozens of men into that narrow room and pressed me. There was not even space to breathe. Those ignorant fools, pushing people like that."
Go Hoe-won said quietly,
"He knew you."
"He did not seem to."
"If he had not known, he would not have gathered that many martial men to capture one person."
Yeongu's eyes widened.
"Ah. That is true."
The possibility occurred to him that a report had gone up after he was caught in the prison earlier that day.
If Yelü Zhangnu had known who he was from the beginning, then the meeting place had been arranged as a trap from the start.
Go Hoe-won continued.
"And Goryeo Jungnangjang Lee Yeongu was more famous in this region than you thought."
"Pardon? That cannot be."
"They considered you one of the reasons the Jin army had become so strong."
"What did they say?"
"They said you were the very man who transformed the Jin army."
Yeongu smiled bitterly.
"They probably said 'that bastard,' did they not?"
He lifted both arms and looked at the sleeves.
"By any chance, these clothes..."
Okjeong answered.
"I bought them. I saw the attendant grumbling and thought leaving it to him might be troublesome."
Yeongu's face brightened.
"Ah, I cannot thank you enough."
Go Hoe-won looked toward where the bloodstained clothes had been taken.
"When clothes are soaked that badly, even washing them will not remove everything."
"Exactly. Usually I wear armor over them, so I did not know it was like this."
For a while, the three of them talked about the clothes.
It was a time of avoiding what had to be avoided.
There were things that had to be said, but none of them could be said immediately.
Okjeong asked first.
"Should you not eat something?"
Yeongu grimaced.
"Eyu. I saw too many filthy things. I feel sick. I do not think I can eat anything. Uwek."
Unlike on the battlefield, the feeling of filth was unusually strong.
It was because he had swung a blade inside a house where people lived.
The blood in the room, the fallen bodies, the shut door, the screams mingled with the sound of a birthday feast.
All of it belatedly turned his stomach.
Okjeong said carefully,
"You only ate a little earlier. Come with us. This place makes very good mutton noodle soup and steamed buns."
Yeongu looked back and forth between Go Hoe-won and Okjeong.
"Did the two of you not eat at the banquet?"
Go Hoe-won shook his head.
"How could we eat after such a disturbance?"
"It only happened inside the private chamber..."
"The sounds reached outside too. Everyone ran away. Let us go out first. There is also something I must tell you while we eat."
Yeongu narrowed his eyes.
"Is it about Balhae?"
When he felt burdened by people, that was not good, yet enemies worried him.
He feared that they might be trying to place a debt on him and later ask something of him.
"It is similar, but not that."
The three went out to the dining hall and took a seat in a private room.
The sun was setting.
Beyond the window, red light lay low over the road, and inside the inn, the voices of evening guests began to rise little by little.
Go Hoe-won called an attendant.
"Bring boiled mutton, mutton steamed buns, dried venison, and fire liquor first."
Boiled mutton was a dish in which boiled lamb was sliced and served in chunks.
Mutton steamed buns were buns filled with minced lamb.
The attendant bowed.
"Yes, understood."
Even as he answered, he glanced at Yeongu.
At noon, he had been an ordinary guest.
By evening, he was the man who had entrusted the inn with blood-soaked clothes.
Whatever had happened in between, the attendant did not ask further and withdrew carefully and politely