- Return and the Returning Soldiers (Part II)
The disturbance in the middle of the official road quickly spread through the entire county of Saneum.
By the time the county magistrate arrived in haste, the White Dragon Unit had already begun their meal prepared for a hundred men.
His face carried anger, but beneath it lay something sharper — fear.
His soldiers were scattered on the ground, beaten senseless, and one of his civil aides knelt nearby, swallowing blood.
Yet he dared not vent his outrage.
A Jiedushi Grand General outranked any local administrator, and the Northern Expeditionary Army had just returned victorious after crushing Gateklip’s forces.
A mere county magistrate was in no position to challenge them.
Yi Hui rose as soon as he heard the man approaching.
He did not question him.
He did not ask for explanation.
He simply stepped forward and struck.
The magistrate’s fine robes twisted with the impact.
His heavy body staggered, then another blow landed, followed by a kick that drove the air from his lungs.
He collapsed.
The White Dragon soldiers watched in silence.
No one intervened.
The magistrate was hauled up and bound to a tree, his arms pulled high, gasping for breath.
Yi Hui returned to his meal and, without even looking up, asked:
“What are these?”
He meant the county soldiers.
“They are… county troops,” the magistrate replied between breaths.
“Not bandits?”
The question was short, but its weight was unmistakable.
The magistrate hesitated, calculating.
He needed to escape this moment alive.
“They are county soldiers, though… perhaps poorly trained and having committed mistakes.”
His tone faltered.
Yi Hui’s eyes cooled.
He rose again, took up a wooden staff, and struck.
The magistrate’s backside split under the blow; blood seeped through torn cloth.
“Your tone,” Yi Hui said quietly.
There was no wild rage on his face.
Only a terrible calm — the calm of a man who had just come from the front.
Months of endurance.
Buried comrades.
Elite soldiers lost in mud and blood.
And here, in the rear, men wearing the state’s insignia robbed travelers on the imperial road.
This was not indiscipline.
It was rot.
“Why are they like this?” Yi Hui continued.
“Swaggering like street thugs. Useless in a fight. Insolent in manner. Robbing passersby under official colors?”
The magistrate pressed his forehead to the ground.
“The fault is mine.”
“That’s the answer I wanted.”
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Yi Hui swallowed another mouthful of rice.
“So what will you do?”
“I will retrain them—”
The kick came before the sentence finished.
The magistrate’s head snapped back.
“Disband them. These aren’t regular troops, are they?”
Silence answered.
They were the magistrate’s private retainers — ruffians brought from his native region when he took office.
In uniform, they patrolled; in practice, they extorted and plundered.
Black troops in all but name.
“When I investigate and find even one listed as regular,” Yi Hui said evenly, “I’ll take your head first.”
The magistrate slammed his forehead into the dust.
“They will be disbanded.”
From that moment, everything changed.
The so-called black troops ran like whipped dogs.
They erected tents, scrubbed armor, washed banners, fetched hay for horses.
No one attempted escape.
They had seen Yi Hui’s eyes.
He had felled thirty men bare-handed.
He had not drawn his blade.
He moved into their ranks and dropped them one by one.
His fists were precise.
His kicks were low and fast.
Each throw and break was clean, without excess motion.
There was fury in him, yes — but his lines were flawless.
That was what terrified them.
Grand General Jin Mugwang said nothing.
He remained mounted, gazing toward the distant sky.
He knew what Yi Hui had lost.
Nearly three hundred elite cavalry.
They were not ordinary soldiers.
They had trained together, ridden together, fought in five-man cells that moved as one breath.
In most wars, cavalry survived.
This time they had not.
They had fought on flanks and rear lines, cutting retreat paths, taking the brunt of desperate resistance.
They had paid for victory in blood.
So Sam was left behind with a torn shoulder.
Park Cheon-gyun and Jeong Hyeon would never return.
The White Dragon Unit’s silence was not pride — it was weight.
And when that weight saw corruption in the rear, it struck.
When they finally mounted and resumed their march, Yi Hui rode at the front.
For a brief instant, something glimmered at the edge of his eye.
So-un saw it.
Not quite a tear —
more like the reflection of those who had ridden ahead and would never ride back.
The White Dragon Unit moved once more along the official road.
Toward the Imperial Capital.
Behind them, Saneum County exhaled.
- return to capital
After that, the journey home grew unexpectedly smooth.
They said rumors ran faster than horses, and it proved true. Wherever the Northern Expeditionary Army passed, magistrates and prefects came out in person to receive them. The towns were hastily arranged to appear orderly and spotless, as though no injustice had ever taken place there. Meals were prepared in advance, laundry basins filled, and fresh hay stacked high for the horses before a single request was made.
Even when they entered inhabited towns, the White Dragon Cavalry insisted on pitching their own tents. It was no burden—they could raise and dismantle camp with swift efficiency—but now the local garrisons were ordered to do it for them. Soldiers from each county set up the tents, fed the horses, fetched water, washed clothes, and prepared food. None of it could replace the comrades they had lost, yet it granted them something else: a quiet span of rest within a still, heavy grief.
The enormous spoils sent ahead to the capital, along with the stories carried by soldiers’ tongues, had elevated the Northern Army’s reputation. The brutal discipline they had displayed along the road was enough to make local officials tremble. The title of Jiedushi alone placed Jin Muguang far above county magistrates and prefects; victory had only widened that distance.
Had they known the road would unfold like this, perhaps Sosam would have followed despite his wounded arm.
Some regions prepared welcoming crowds. Others set up full banquets along the official road, awaiting their arrival. Yet Yi Hui forbade the men from entering villages alone. They would eat well, drink well, rest properly—and move on. The capital drew nearer with every measured mile.
Just Before Entering the Imperial Capital — The Grain of the Wind
Though they had not yet left the main road, the texture of the air changed.
As villages thickened along the roadside, the eyes of the people changed with them. It was not curiosity. It was not fear. It was avoidance.
When the White Dragon Cavalry passed, people lowered their heads. Yet the gesture did not carry reverence. There was calculation in it—a stiffness, as though they were already standing elsewhere and merely observing the form of courtesy.
Jin Muguang said nothing. He sat his horse and looked only ahead, his gaze fixed toward the capital.
But Yi Hui felt it.
Something was subtly misaligned.
The insolence of the black-uniformed troops earlier had not been simple ignorance. They had not failed to recognize the banner—they had chosen to ignore it. No one could mistake what it meant for a victorious army to return from the frontier. The reason they dared to speak casually was because, somewhere, they believed that power had already shifted.
From where had that belief come?
At an inn far back along the road, a merchant had once let slip a careless remark:
“They say the Northern Army has been summoned to the capital.”
“Not exactly to be rewarded… perhaps to be examined.”
Examined.
The word lingered.
The greater the merit, the heavier the examination. Too great a victory could turn into suspicion.
The triumph at Harlan had been immense. The single line in the report—Gatelip escaped—might be read in ways unknown within the capital’s walls.
Yi Hui glanced back.
A hundred riders. That was all.
If the Emperor had already decided to strike them down, these numbers would not suffice. Whether bringing only a single intact company of the White Dragon Cavalry had been wise—there was no longer any way to judge.
Jin Muguang still appeared half-asleep in the saddle. Yi Hui knew better. He always looked that way—until the moment he chose to act.
In the distance, the gate came into view.
The entrance to the Imperial City.
The banners above the walls fluttered in the wind. Their color seemed unfamiliar. Not welcoming—watchful.
By the roadside, a former black-troop soldier muttered quietly to a companion:
“They won’t last long.”
The words did not reach the White Dragon Cavalry.
But the wind carried them.
In the capital, calculations might already be underway.
After war ends, the blade is used twice.
Once against the enemy.
And then—against the one who earned too much glory.
The White Dragon Cavalry continued forward in a straight line.
Yet the sky above them hung heavier than any battlefield.