Chapter 386. The Pursuit — Suspicion
In the past, Go Youngchang would simply have told him to come inside.
He would have received him with the utmost courtesy.
Now the distance created by repeated refusals and distrust stood plainly in the space of a single threshold.
Youngwoo said,
"A young novice monk from Guangyou Temple is dead."
Go Youngchang's expression hardened.
"Oh. That is unfortunate."
"You met the boy yourself."
"Hm. Then it must be the young monk I saw when I came yesterday."
"That's right."
"But why are you telling me this?"
Youngwoo's gaze turned cold.
"Someone struck him in the back of the head with a club."
Go Youngchang looked shocked.
"Good heavens. How terrible."
"They say he had gone to an inn to buy rice balls and was on his way back."
"What kind of city have we become, if public order is this bad?"
"I'll give you one day. Find out exactly what happened and bring me the culprit."
Go Youngchang fell silent for a moment.
"I will look into it, but one day is rather short."
Youngwoo stared directly at him.
"It is more than enough time to prove your incompetence."
The atmosphere chilled merely from the change in tone.
Until that moment, they had at least been speaking with the outward forms of courtesy.
But the instant those last words fell, the air before the office seemed to freeze solid.
The soldiers guarding the entrance swallowed nervously.
Go Youngchang's direct subordinates, who had come out from inside, glanced uneasily at one another.
The doorway felt colder than the snow outside.
Go Youngchang's face stiffened.
The confusion he had covered with a smile showed through again.
Youngwoo was placing responsibility for the novice's death at his feet.
Youngwoo added quietly,
"A man who cannot uncover the death of one novice monk should be careful about claiming he can govern an entire city."
Go Youngchang had no answer.
Youngwoo did not wait.
He turned away.
As he took a step back, the soldiers blocking his path moved aside almost without thinking.
Then Youngwoo stopped and spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear.
"Was he killed because he refused an order from a man who wants to become the King of Liaoyang?"
Go Youngchang's face froze.
"What kind of outrageous accusation is that? Killed? Are you saying I killed him?"
"I suspect you."
Go Youngchang stared at him in disbelief, then burst out laughing.
"What exactly do you take me for?"
It felt like a denial meant to shut the matter down.
Youngwoo still did not know how far he could trust his own emotional certainty.
Even if his sense of qi now allowed him to perceive the currents of a person's mind, that was not evidence.
Perhaps it was only a stronger version of the vague impressions that had occasionally brushed past him in the past.
Perhaps it was simply an emotional bias with no solid foundation.
Yet since opening the middle dantian, he had begun to perceive people's hearts.
The difficulty was that it did not come as rational explanation.
It came as feeling.
Emotion.
Something he himself could not yet fully trust.
"In any case, I am asking you to investigate."
Go Youngchang raised an eyebrow.
"And because you call it a request, that settles everything?"
There it was.
Resistance.
A small eruption of the resentment he had been suppressing beneath Youngwoo's pressure.
Youngwoo spoke quietly.
"A person is dead."
"Commander Yi has killed so many people himself, and yet—"
Youngwoo's gaze turned cold.
He pressed the question back at him.
"So because I have killed men on a battlefield, you think people may be killed inside a peaceful city as well?"
Go Youngchang raised his voice.
"Why do you keep saying such absurd things?"
"I'll give you one day."
"And if I don't?"
"Things will become extremely difficult for you. You may look forward to it."
Go Youngchang's face twisted.
"What kind of person are you? Must everything be done by force?"
Youngwoo sighed and frowned.
"Do you truly not understand when I say I suspect you of killing him?"
"I told you I did not."
"Then prove it. I suspect you."
Go Youngchang clenched his teeth.
"Why would I kill an innocent novice monk?"
"He tried to stop you from meeting me. In the process, I believe he touched your reverse scale."
"Reverse scale? I have one of those?"
Youngwoo looked directly at him.
"The place that hurts you most is incompetence. More than being called greedy. More than being called cowardly. More even than being told you lack what it takes to become king. That one cuts deepest. If I remember correctly, the novice said something of the sort that day. That you were not a king, yet behaved like one."
Go Youngchang's eyes shook violently.
Had Youngwoo heard what had been said in the reception hall?
Impossible.
At times like this, denial was the safest course.
"Tens of thousands of words are spoken every day. How could I possibly remember every one of them?"
Youngwoo gave him a thin, unpleasant smile.
"You could not tolerate a child's insolence. So you told someone to deal with him. Someone lured him into the alley. He was struck in the back of the head. Then Gi Mincheol was told to notify Guangyou Temple. Gi Mincheol probably does not know the whole story. But he will know who gave the order."
"You're writing a novel now. A novel."
"This is no longer something that can be settled with words."
Go Youngchang's mouth tightened.
Youngwoo stepped closer.
"So stop standing there uselessly denying it. Move. Investigate. Arrest whoever did it. Then report back to me."
At the word uselessly, Go Youngchang's body stiffened.
His breath caught for the briefest instant.
His fingertips went rigid.
That reaction could not be hidden.
Only then did Youngwoo know for certain.
Go Youngchang's reverse scale was incompetence.