Hand in Hand
Even people who were timid and foolish could, once in a lifetime, become wise.
Jin Seok-man was one of them.
The moment he went into the side room, shut the door, and sat down, his face turned pale blue and he started rattling off everything no one had even asked him, all in a rush.
He seemed to have decided that if he was going to have to talk anyway, he might as well get hit one fewer time.
"It's money! Money."
"What money?"
"There's a lot of money in Black Night Gang. A very great deal..."
Jin Seok-man was poor. He had somehow landed a job at the brewery, but it barely kept him fed. Back in his hometown of Yulgwang-ri, he still had old parents depending on him.
"I haven't even married yet."
Looking at that face, I would have thought no woman in her right mind would come near him, but that wasn't the case.
"I have a sweetheart back home. We've known each other since we were children and promised our future to each other..."
Her family already treated him as half a son-in-law. To become a real one, he needed money.
Her house was poor too, and they were drowning in debt.
If they couldn't pay it off by the end of the year, she was going to be sold as a concubine to an old rich man in some distant village.
It was the sort of situation that could make any man lose his head.
He couldn't possibly keep his mind on work. He had been burning with desperation to scrape together money any way he could, but the only place he could really count on was the gambling halls.
Without even the luck of a beginner, he had blown every last coin he had saved at bone tiles and dice.
Then he had thrown in the Elysian King's Treasury too and gone back in, only to become a debtor with no way out.
The reason Jin Seok-man had been surrounded by black road thugs and forced to dig with a shovel on the mountain the first day he came home was because he had failed to pay the interest and had settled the debt with his body.
He couldn't borrow any more money, which meant he couldn't even enter the gambling dens now.
Half out of his mind, he had been dragging a cart and delivering liquor when he heard something that caught his ear.
As expected of a black road faction that controlled the back alleys of Seochon, Black Night Gang ran a great many businesses.
They said they collected money every half month, and the amount was over a hundred taels of silver. Judging from what Black Night Gang members bragged about, the wealth piled up in their vault was even greater.
Listening quietly, it was ridiculous enough to make my jaw ache.
"So you thought you'd rob Black Night Gang?"
Jin Seok-man nodded with grave determination.
"I can't just let that wretched old bastard take my sweetheart from me, can I? And I don't want to spend the rest of my life hauling wine jars around and living like trash. If a man is born male, he ought to stake his fate on a single wager at least once."
Won Seo-gang snorted with interest.
"You've got guts for a dreamer. But what exactly were you planning to do? Are you perhaps a disciple of the Divine Thief?"
"What's a Divine Thief?"
"A legendary bandit. They say there wasn't a wall he couldn't scale, nothing he couldn't steal. No one knows whether he's dead or alive now."
With a long sigh, Jin Seok-man's shoulders slumped.
"Hoo... If I had that kind of skill, do you think I'd be living my life pulling carts?"
"Then can you handle a blade? Ever killed a man?"
"...No. I haven't."
"Then how were you planning to take on Black Night Gang alone?"
"By hiring martial artists."
"Do you know any swordsmen?"
"No. But I heard that if you go to the Ruffian Inn over there, you can hire blades-for-hire."
It was as good as saying he planned to shove his arms and legs into the mouths of starving dogs. Instead of Won Seo-gang, who had gone speechless, I spoke up.
"That face sketch you drew earlier. That was Jeok Chu-yeong, wasn't it? Did you know that?"
"...Who?"
"You don't know Jeok Chu-yeong? He's the leader of Black Night Gang you're salivating over."
Jin Seok-man's mouth fell open.
"That martial artist back then... was Jeok Chu-yeong?"
"You've never seen him while going in and out of Black Night Gang?"
"The only places I've carried my cart into were the kitchen and the warehouse. The Green Dragon Hall where the leader lives is the deepest place inside Black Night Gang. I wouldn't dare go anywhere near it."
Won Seo-gang gave a razor-edged snort.
"Hmph. Green Dragon Hall? For a scrap of black road filth, that's one hell of a grand name for a hall. Does he think he's the lord of the Wulin or something?"
I studied Jin Seok-man's face carefully.
I looked more closely than I had while watching him at any gambling table, and there wasn't the slightest hint of awkwardness or pretense.
He really didn't seem to know that the man he had seen was Jeok Chu-yeong.
"So the last time you saw him was really seven years ago? Not once since then in Black Night Gang? If you're trying to use me to get inside Black Night Gang..."
Jin Seok-man panicked and waved both hands.
"No, no. Do I look that smart? You showed me the face sketch, and it just made old memories come back, so I told the truth. To think that was the Black Night Gang leader... Could it be that Heaven has sent the two of you down to help me?"
He was pleading desperately when something seemed to dawn on him, and he looked back and forth between me and Won Seo-gang with startled eyes.
"Say we hire martial artists. How are we supposed to infiltrate Black Night Gang's interior? Don't tell me we're going to hide in wine jars and go in like that?"
Jin Seok-man thumped his chest with spirited confidence.
"Leave that to me. I paid close attention while making liquor deliveries to Black Night Gang. I know the interior layout, the passageways, the blind spots where lantern light doesn't reach, the locations and numbers of the guards, even the shift changes."
"Do you have a map of the interior?"
"If I made something like that and got caught, I'd be dead. I packed it all away right here."
Jin Seok-man tapped his own head with a finger.
Looking at him then, he wasn't entirely stupid.
If he had clumsily left behind some map and it were taken from him by the others, he would become useless and be killed on the spot.
We left Jin Seok-man in the room and stepped out into the corridor. Won Seo-gang chuckled softly and stroked his chin.
"Looks like the three of us are going to be crossing the Black Night Gang wall hand in hand."
Jin Seok-man needed Black Night Gang's money, I needed to meet Black Night Gang leader Jeok Chu-yeong and settle things, and Won Seo-gang wanted the head of Pan Ho-yang, who was hiding under Black Night Gang's protection.
Our purposes were different, but the direction was the same.
Was there no other way to meet Jeok Chu-yeong?
If we barged in through the front gate with our heads held high, it was obvious we'd never even see the tip of his nose before dying in a bloody mess.
And if he had been living in seclusion for the past two years, then ambushing him the moment he went out was impossible too.
Even going through the Haomu Sect probably wouldn't work. If the matter of what happened to the Seochon residents seven years ago came up, it would only make him more wary. He might even send his men or an assassin after me to cover up the stain.
Martial artists were, by nature, people who could never understand a good warning. Among them, black road types were the darkest inside and the most twisted in the head.
Jeok Chu-yeong may have a respectable face, but he was the boss of black road thugs. We would have to smack him once before he started speaking sense.
Like proper martial artists, we'd have to climb over the wall and settle it with blades.
"He doesn't sound like he's lying. What do you think?"
"He's a fairly straightforward fellow. I can't trust everything he says, but it's useful enough."
Won Seo-gang nodded and then stared at me.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Isn't this all a bit strange? I've been trying to talk you into climbing the Black Night Gang wall with me, and you refused flat out. But now even Brother Jeong looks like he has no choice but to wear a mask."
"You never know what's around the next bend in life. But why are you suddenly calling me Brother Jeong?"
When I tilted my head, Won Seo-gang smiled faintly.
"You've been calling me Brother Won, so I thought I'd return the favor. Calling you great hero is a little awkward, isn't it? You haven't exactly made your name as a chivalrous swordsman, so it makes me itch a bit."
"Call me whatever's comfortable."
There wouldn't be any real problem with us addressing each other like brothers. Won Seo-gang wasn't the sort to look down on me or try anything sneaky.
Thinking about infiltrating Black Night Gang was honestly a little daunting. It was a relief, at least, that I wouldn't be alone.
"Will it be enough with just the two of us?"
For Jin Seok-man, who had lived in the countryside and only ever butchered the occasional chicken, it was enough to guide us along the route into Black Night Gang and explain the layout inside.
The fighting would be mine and Won Seo-gang's job.
"It'll be hard. Even leaving out the Black Night Gang underlings, the officers all know how to use a blade properly. The three men directly beneath the leader are especially not to be taken lightly. I checked through the Haomu Sect, and they're said to be men who followed Jeok Chu-yeong from Hunan. If even his subordinates are that level, then his own martial skill is bound to be formidable. The two of us won't be enough."
Then there was only one method.
"We'll have to gather people quietly."
"Exactly. Martial artists who are hungry, diligent, and fearless."
"If we drag in random riffraff, they'd be worse than useless."
"Don't worry. My eye for people is better than my martial skill. Bastards who'll stab us in the back have 'bastard' written all over their faces. In any case, I already have a few experts I'm in contact with."
"Who?"
"Nothing's settled yet. I'll tell you once it's done."
Maybe because things were going well, Won Seo-gang looked quite pleased.
"What about that monk who's staying in the annex? He's an incredible expert. Didn't he even take down Tang Do-hun last time?"
Without the slightest hesitation, Won Seo-gang shook his head.
"Forget that bald monk. What good is skill if you can't tell where he'll leap next? He isn't the kind of man who moves for money either. Let's not rush and instead gather the right people slowly. The Black Night Gang leader is holed up deep inside their den, and Pan Ho-yang should be staying there until the end of the year too."
All at once, I remembered meeting Pan Ho-yang at the black market.
Should I tell him about that or not?
If I brought it up, I'd have to explain why I had gone to the black market in the first place. And if spiritual herbs came up, he'd figure out that I was training an internal energy method.
I couldn't brush off something Do Goeng-il had sternly warned me never to tell anyone about.
Won Seo-gang was trustworthy, but I had no desire to test that trust for no reason.
"...Is Pan Ho-yang still at Black Night Gang?"
Won Seo-gang's eyes grew intent to the point of pain.
"He is. I checked last night too. Tsk. To have him right in front of me and still only be able to watch..."
"That wooden sword you used during our spar in the annex."
"Is it still hanging on your sword rack?"
"No, that's not what I mean. You said you made it for teaching someone, didn't you? Was it for Ye-hyang?"
Won Seo-gang, who had been wondering what I was talking about, answered calmly.
"So you were on escort duty. I guess you saw Ye-hyang's sword."
"The blade pattern looked familiar."
"At the Madam's request, I ended up taking on one disciple, though it wasn't exactly in the cards for me. That was all."
Hong-hui had chosen Won Seo-gang as the martial arts teacher for her successor. That meant Won Seo-gang was no ordinary guest.
Come to think of it, he had never once called himself a guest either.
In Won Seo-gang's quarters, dozens of wooden Maitreya statues he had carved himself were lined up on display. That meant he had not merely stayed one or two days at the Haomu Sect's Seochon branch.
"Let's wet our throats and go over it again. See if that bastard lied about anything."
Back in the room, the atmosphere had grown much softer as I drank with Jin Seok-man.
I got him drunk and then checked once more the things I'd just heard.
Even while his tongue was tangled and he was rambling, blowing off steam and bemoaning his fate, the information Jin Seok-man gave was the same as when he was sober.
We left the passed-out Jin Seok-man lying in the guest room and asked the Haomu Sect to put a tail on him from that day on.
I also obtained information on the Black Killing Sword, Jeok Chu-yeong.
Since he was the head of the black road faction rooted in the same Seochon, the Haomu Sect had already investigated him thoroughly years ago.
There was no record of Jeok Chu-yeong before the age of twenty. No one knew where he had been born or which sect he had come from.
Like an awl driven through a pocket, he had suddenly appeared in Hunan, the stronghold of the heterodox schools, leading his three subordinates, and chopped down black road experts with famous epithets.
He had pushed up into Jiangxi, gathered strength, settled there for a time, and then, for no apparent reason, drifted into Seochon, where Yongcheon Escort Agency had set up.
No one could say who those men with blades at their waists were who had seized the reservoir and stolen the land.
Jeok Chu-yeong and his subordinates all used swords.
It was possible his subordinates had disguised themselves to look like different black road men, or it was possible they really were from another black road faction.
As for the fate of the hometown people who had disappeared in the wagon Jeok Chu-yeong prepared, even the Haomu Sect could not uncover it in the end.
None of the Yulgwang-ri villagers knew either. Seochon was surrounded by mountains and had little interaction with other villages, so that made sense.
The Haomu Sect's Seochon branch was only established three years after Yongcheon Escort Agency moved in.
No matter how capable the Haomu Sect was, there was no way they could dig up events from before then.
*
I threw myself back into martial training.
After all the twists and turns, I had finally found Jeok Chu-yeong. If he was a better martial artist than me, then when the blades came out it wouldn't be him opening his mouth under pressure, but me.
I had to grow as strong as possible before entering Black Night Gang.
I needed to avoid being dealt with in vain by that bastard's hands. I needed to find out where he had taken the Seochon residents.
Once I had Jeok Chu-yeong as a clear target, my fighting spirit flared. Aside from the time spent eating, using the latrine, sleeping, and circulating my breath, I never let go of my long saber.
The amount of internal energy supporting my forms increased little by little. My body was moving the same as before, but maybe it was just my mood, because my senses felt a little sharper.
Every ten days, I replenished the internal energy I'd burned through with a fifth of a pill and kept pressing onward.
The cicadas that had cried day and night gradually quieted, and the mornings and evenings grew cool.
The heat of midday finally eased, so I no longer had to flee into the mountains to avoid the burning sun.
Over the yellowing rice fields, dragonflies flew in swarms, and the hills and plains began to take on a touch of autumn color.
Summer passed and autumn came, but Do Goeng-il did not return.
Could that old man have died somewhere in a guest house...
A supreme expert capable of using not only extraordinary swordsmanship but also internal energy and Shifting Shapes and Swapping Positions wasn't likely to be taken down that easily.
Had he gone deep into the mountains to search for spiritual herbs?
There were tigers and bears in the mountains. He might have tried to pick a spiritual herb growing on a cliff and fallen to his death.
I had just begun imagining Do Goeng-il, fatally wounded, entering a cave and leaving behind a secret manual for some future successor before breathing his last, when I sensed movement beyond the wall.
When I opened the gate, Do Goeng-il, whom I hadn't seen in a long while, held out his hand without even a greeting.
"I need to confirm your progress."
He took my wrist and poured his energy into me. After checking my dantian and meridians, a strange light came into his eyes.
"It seems you haven't been slacking. You've trained enough to circulate your breath to this degree, and yet your dantian is still full. Where did you get the elixir you ate?"
"I did a job and got a root."
"What kind of job did you do to be given spiritual herbs?"
"I did some work for the Haomu Sect."
"The Haomu Sect? Tsk tsk. They're trying to hook you, that's what this is."
For once, Do Goeng-il seemed to grasp the matter immediately. It seemed he too had once dealt with the Haomu Sect.
"How's my progress?"
Do Goeng-il stroked his white beard like a Daoist immortal, sank into thought for a moment, and then spoke.
"Starting tomorrow, I will teach you the latter eighteen forms of the Thousand Steel Saber Technique."