The Black Road
"What the hell, you punk? Can't you understand a man when he's talking to you?"
When I didn't react at all, the thug only got bolder. He raised his voice and pushed himself up from his seat, coming at me.
The first thing I noticed was the broadsword at his waist, not the thick frame that wore it.
I set down my teacup and studied him with eyes gone cold.
His coarse features were flushed red with drink, and his dull eyes gleamed slickly under the light. For all the way he looked, as if he were built to work a man's body, the air around him was thin and shabby. He looked less like a fighter than the kind of man who lived by bullying others with his face alone.
He'd be perfect if he ran off to become a bandit somewhere.
His stride was uneven, and his movements left plenty of openings. If he'd truly learned footwork or body movement properly, he wouldn't have been walking so sloppily even drunk.
There were only two possibilities.
He was either a supreme expert of such a different level that I couldn't even tell, or he was just a pathetic fool drunk on courage.
No matter how I looked at him, he was the second kind.
As with most criminals who made their living in the martial world, men like him were usually blind in both eye and ear. You could talk until you were blue in the face, and they'd never understand a word.
There was only one way to open the ears of trash like this.
The man strode toward me without the slightest fear.
When he was still two steps beyond the reach of my blade, I reached out and took hold of the sabre leaning against my side.
I moved out from beside the table in one swift motion and took a long step forward. Closing the distance in a heartbeat, I drove the sabre forward with the scabbard still on it.
His reaction lagged by more than two beats. Before he could even get his hand on the hilt, the tip of my scabbard struck him square in the pit of the stomach.
"Gahhh!"
The man flew backward as if kicked. Crumpling under a plain thrust that wasn't even a proper technique, he rolled across the floor in an ugly heap, unable to match the size of his body with the strength in it.
The two men at the table by the back door sprang up. They started to draw their blades, then flinched when they saw my sabre in hand.
I looked at them calmly and jerked my chin toward the door.
"If you're going to swing blades around, take it outside. I don't feel like eating next to a corpse."
The two fools swallowed hard and stared at me, then looked down at the man sprawled on the floor. They exchanged glances, and after that both hands came away from their hilts.
For men who had scraped around at the bottom of life, it was one of the few sensible choices they could make.
The idiot clutching his throat and coughing like he couldn't breathe seemed to be the strongest of the three.
Whatever loyalty they had, the most important thing in the world was whether their own necks were still attached.
Keeping arms and legs intact, if possible, was clearly better for getting through life.
"Get lost."
The two idiots helped their companion and dragged him out.
I had expected at least the usual threat about how they'd get me later or whether I knew who they were—some cheap attempt to preserve their dignity. Instead, they didn't even bother to look back.
They seemed afraid that if they provoked me any further, I'd change my mind, draw my blade, and come after them.
I watched until the three fools disappeared onto the main street, then sat back down.
Two farmers who had finished their noodles kept stealing glances at me as they paid their bill and slipped out of the inn.
Gu-sam, who had taken refuge in the kitchen, brought the food out.
"Do you know who those men were?"
Gu-sam glanced around the inn. Even though I was the only customer left, he still didn't seem at ease, so he lowered his voice.
"They're just local punks."
"No one backing them?"
"They brag about being members of the Black Night Gang, but I don't think that's true. The people who come to collect protection money are someone else."
"How much do they take?"
"Half a tael of silver a month."
I was picking up a dumpling with my chopsticks when I set it back down on the plate.
I should've waited until I finished eating before asking. My appetite vanished all at once.
Half a tael of silver—five hundred wen, a whole sack of rice. A minor official's monthly pay. In the rates of the wandering martial world, it was enough only if you cut down a third-rate pugilist to earn it.
It was absolutely no small sum. Not for a shabby inn like this standing outside the prosperous part of town, anyway.
Damn it, really...
Shakedowns by underworld thugs were nothing new. But this was my hometown. Back there, no matter how poor people lived, none of them did this kind of filth.
My anger and irritation rose up like a case of qi deviation.
Maybe I should've just killed all three of them.
Too late, my killing intent had started to boil.
One look was enough to tell they were bastards. The sort of criminals who would never do a single good deed, no matter if they lived another hundred years.
"How big is the Black Night Gang?"
"I don't really know."
"Tell me what you do know."
Glancing toward the open door, Gu-sam said, "They do everything that makes money, as far as I know—gambling dens, taverns, even Yeomwangchae. And there are probably more than fifty of them if you count the whole gang."
"No other black-road groups around?"
"There are, but I think they either split off from the Black Night Gang or pay them protection money. I heard the gang leader used to be from the Chivalrous School. If you say the name Black Killing Sword, Jeok Chu-yeong, nobody in these parts doesn't know it."
"You know a lot for a kid. Are you sure this isn't a branch of the Haomu Sect?"
"Huh? No, sir."
Gu-sam shook his head, looking baffled.
"You pick things up when you work in an inn. Even if you don't want to hear it, you hear it. Once people have had a drink, their mouths get loose."
I had only asked as a joke. With this town having grown so much, there was no way a Haomu Sect inn would be this shabby.
Still, the cook's skills were decent enough.
I wondered if those idiots would come back with someone stronger for revenge. I was half expecting it, but nothing happened before I finished my meal and got up.
I strapped the sabre to my back, slung my bundle over my shoulder, paid for the food and two nights' lodging, and turned away. Gu-sam tilted his head.
"You're not going to your room?"
"I'm going to walk around town for a bit."
"Um, honored sir. If you don't mind, would you like me to show you around? I know this place inside and out."
Gu-sam looked up at me with bright, eager eyes.
It would be better than wandering around alone. If I didn't like him, I could just send him back to the inn.
"Lead the way."
"Just a moment. Let me go say something first."
Gu-sam hurried into the kitchen.
"Aren't you preparing for dinner service? Where are you off to?"
"The guest who's staying tonight wants to take a look around town."
"Hey, but still... what are you doing? Gu-sam, the guest is waiting. Hurry back!"
The cook, who'd been about to protest, changed his tune all at once. Gu-sam must have split the coin he got from me with him.
"This way, honored sir."
Delighted, Gu-sam ran back out and led me into the street.
Following Gu-sam into the back alleys, all the lively noise of the main street vanished at once.
Even though it was still bright afternoon, the place felt grim and deserted.
Most of the buildings along the lane had their doors shut. I figured they were gambling houses or taverns that only opened at night.
Men sitting idly at the entrances of suspicious inns and buildings, or loitering in the doorways, stared at me as I passed without interest. They all had the same greasy, street-corner faces.
Smaller than the man I had dropped at the inn, but every bit the criminal, ready to turn into a robber whenever the opportunity came.
After we entered the alley, Gu-sam shut his mouth and stayed close at my side.
I gave the men a quick sweep with my eyes, estimating their weapons and skill by sight.
As I walked, I kept thinking through how I would deal with them and escape if a fight broke out here, and then I stopped in the middle of the lane.
The five-story building Gu-sam had told me about stood at the far end of the alley. I could see two guards with swords at their waists.
Black Night Gang
Any closer and it would've started to become a nuisance. I had no intention of going inside anyway.
Even from a distance, the ridiculously tacky sign was easy to make out.
I let out a dry laugh. So this is what a black-road gang looks like.
I felt like I'd seen a hundred groups with the same name while wandering through the martial world. Illiterate fools who couldn't even finish reading the Thousand Character Classic could only wring out a name like that from their helpless little brains.
If the name meant their guts were black and they made their money at night, then in a way it was almost honest.
A black-road gang in my hometown...
And not a single local who knew me. At this rate, how was this any different from any other city in the Central Plains?
Shaking off the bleak feeling, I turned around. There were too many wolfish eyes around me to let myself wallow in sentiment.
I left the back alleys and returned to the ordinary people who worked hard and lived honestly day after day.
Gu-sam gave a relieved sigh.
"Aren't there any sects affiliated with the Martial Alliance here?"
The sects and clans that had joined the Martial Alliance liked to call themselves the righteous schools, but that didn't change the fact that they were still martial artists who reached for their blades the moment things went sour.
I had no reason to get entangled with them, but if there was anyone capable of pressing down on the heads of the evil and the underworld, it was the Martial Alliance.
"Not really. There is an escort agency, though."
"An escort agency?"
"Yes. You can see the northern foothills over there, right? That's it—the Yongcheon Escort Agency."
Following Gu-sam's pointing hand, I looked past the rooftops of the shops.
Far off, against the mountain backdrop, rose a cluster of tall buildings like a fortress tower.
"I heard the agency head there is a lay disciple of the Qingcheng Sect and an incredible master. They say one swing of his sword can split into six, and one punch can crack stone. Apparently it's some secret art of the Qingcheng Sect..."
Almost every large escort agency had the backing of a martial sect or government officials.
Most of them tied themselves to the major schools dominating the region. Shaolin in Henan. Wudang in Hubei. Huashan and Zhongnan in Shaanxi...
"That's a little surprising. This isn't Sichuan, and yet the master here is a disciple of Qingcheng Sect."
Gu-sam cleared up my doubt without any trouble.
"I only heard this from the adults, but apparently the escort agency was the first to come to this village after the famine and settle down here..."
He was so quick with words I was starting to wonder if he really was a Haomu Sect hand. Bringing him with me had been the right decision.
If I could find out the story behind how my hometown had become this way, even ten copper coins wouldn't be a waste.
Wherever you went in a big city, the entrenched powers already had their eyes open wide. Whether it was an escort agency or a sect, surviving while overcoming local prejudice and power struggles was no easy matter.
There were already surely escort agencies in Sichuan run by lay disciples of Qingcheng and Emei.
If you didn't have a backer strong enough to beat the established powers, then avoiding the struggle and carving out a new frontier was, in its own way, not a bad survival strategy.
The road coming in from the official road was narrow, but Seochon itself was broad. The soil was poor for farming, yet mountains surrounded it on all sides, and a stream ran right through the middle of town.
It was a decent place for a sect or clan to settle.
Wholesale merchants had followed the escort agency in, and shops that catered to the escorts soon sprang up in all directions.
Once the roads were widened, all sorts of aimless drifters with nowhere to go gathered here, each dreaming of a new life.
"Is that pleasure house also owned by the Black Night Gang?"
Of all the changes to my hometown, the most shocking was the splendid eight-story building that stood out unmistakably from the rest.
When I pointed at it, Gu-sam shook his head.
"No."
"No?"
"Yes. The guards over at Simhyangru are from the Yongcheon Escort Agency. The black-road fighters don't even go near the place. They'd never dare touch the Yongcheon Escort Agency."
"Oh?"
"Yes, really. Not just because the agency head is strong—its chief escorts are amazing masters too. Once, I heard about one chief escort who got into a dispute with a Black Night Gang member and took down five of them on his own."
It felt as though the Black Night Gang, a black-road faction, and the Yongcheon Escort Agency, which had ties to the Qingcheng Sect, were playing at being the righteous side in order to keep the balance of power in check.
"When people talk about Simhyangru, Ye-hyang is the one everyone knows. She's said to be an incredible beauty, and her pipa playing is supposedly unbelievable. The rumor's even spread to the capital, so county magistrates and other high officials drop by from time to time. But if you want to drink there, the minimum is two taels of silver. And if you want to see Ye-hyang, they say you need at least five taels..."
"Have you ever heard of a company called Jeongun Trading Company?"
"Jeongun Trading Company?"
Gu-sam, who had been chattering happily about Simhyangru like a street hawker, blinked in mild confusion.
"No. It's the first I'm hearing of it. Is it a new shop?"
"We can start looking now. Good work."
I gave him five copper coins as a tip and sent Gu-sam back to the inn first.
Then I headed toward the district packed with shops, looking for the broker named Yeon Jin-won, or maybe Jin Hyeon—whatever his name actually was—and for Jeongun Trading Company.