Blood is Thicker Than Water (3)
“The smell is foul.”
“That’s how it is in places where beggars live, isn’t it?”
Well, it wasn’t as if those fellows bathed every day. I wrinkled my nose at the stench that reminded me of the homeless at Seoul Station’s Line 1 and stepped into their territory.
As expected, countless eyes turned toward me and Lim Ha-jin. The way they kept licking me over with their gazes felt like I had arrived at immigration inspection. Were they sizing up how to fleece me? With Lim Ha-jin standing beside me in Hainan Sect robes, they were probably just trying to figure out who I was.
I spoke to Lim Ha-jin, who was glancing around with a slightly tense expression.
“Young Hero Lim. Do you know how to make contact with the Beggars’ Union? I heard a special method is required.”
“How did you…”
“Hye-ryeong told me.”
Throwing Hye-ryeong under the bus left a bad taste, but if I wanted to solve the problem smoothly, it was better not to worry about trivial matters.
“Let’s go right away.”
“Yes.”
We ignored the beggars’ stares and moved deeper inside. In the original novel, contacting the Beggars’ Union required a special method.
“First, we need to find the Tobanok…”
Lim Ha-jin looked around for the residence of the branch leader who oversaw the beggars in this village. But there was no way we would find the Tobanok in such a shallow area.
“We’ll have to go deeper.”
Before that, these fellows might summon the Beggars’ Union beggars, but judging by how they were only sneaking glances while pretending to mind their own business, they had no intention of approaching first. Beggars were the type to slack off unless fire was literally at their feet.
We continued walking deeper without a word. Perhaps because the village was quite large, the beggar settlement was expansive, and we had to spend one daegyeong after another just walking.
“It’s well hidden. It seems we’ll have to keep wandering.”
“No. I think we’ve found it.”
“Pardon?”
I pointed in one direction so the surprised Lim Ha-jin could confirm the Tobanok. A roughly built earthen structure tucked between the haphazard shacks. It was hard to distinguish at a glance, but it was the only relatively clean building in this filthy slum.
It was probably the branch leader’s residence, so whether on bamboo slips or paper, records would be stored there, and they wouldn’t want to dirty those records.
“Young Hero has a keen eye. This Lim is impressed.”
“We won’t know for certain whether the branch leader is actually there until we go, so let’s head over.”
Together with Lim Ha-jin, who looked at me with eyes full of respect, I stepped straight inside. The beggars’ gazes grew more intense. Until now they had only been glancing while pretending otherwise, but now they were openly staring. Lim Ha-jin let out an awkward cough, clearly uncomfortable, but beggars were among the most shameless people in the world. They paid no heed to his reaction and kept stealing looks.
“Young Hero Lim. This is the house.”
“It’s certainly different from the surrounding homes.”
From afar they looked similar, but this earthen house had an oddly clean surroundings. I folded my arms and stared at the curtain that served as a door. The moment we lifted it without permission, the beggars might swarm us. There was no reason to make enemies of the orthodox Beggars’ Union, so the proper method was wiser here.
“Young Hero Lim.”
“Yes. One may rest briefly while passing through, but one may not stay long.”
The password exchange was answered from beyond the curtain. Along with bustling sounds came a stench that stung my nose. Did the Beggars’ Union choose their branch leaders by smell? Holding my breath, the curtain was pushed aside and a beggar with flaring nostrils appeared.
“Who goes there?”
“Ah, I am Lim Ha-jin, first disciple of the Hainan Sect.”
“Ah, the Storm Blade. I am Wang Jeong. As you can see, a third-generation disciple. What brings you here?”
“It would be better to talk inside…”
“These fellows are all my subordinates anyway, so don’t worry about it.”
Well, that made sense. Being the Beggars’ Union branch leader meant he was also the local boss. Lim Ha-jin nodded after belatedly realizing this and opened his mouth.
“Do you know of the Hong Family Inn?”
“Of course I do. Wasn’t he a good man who gave generously to beggars? It’s a shame what happened.”
A bitter smile hung on his face. The man must have had a decent reputation even among beggars.
“We would like information about him.”
“Hmm… Come inside.”
We followed him into the building. Inside was relatively organized compared to the surroundings. Of course, “relatively organized” in a beggar’s den only meant it had been a while since the last cleaning. The beggar boss, whose name I didn’t know, walked to his desk with his hands behind his back, plopped down on the chair, rested his chin on his hand, and spoke.
“What’s your reason for wanting information about the Hong Family Inn?”
“That is…”
Lim Ha-jin explained everything we had seen and experienced so far, step by step—from the ruined Hong Family Inn to the eldest son drawing a hidden weapon during his duel with his father, and his mysterious disappearance. After hearing the full story, the beggar scratched the side of his head with a finger and replied.
“What will you pay as compensation?”
Compensation. Just how valuable was information about the Hong Family Inn’s eldest son and owner? While I was gauging the value, Lim Ha-jin pulled out a money pouch from his robes. So he intended to pay with money.
“How much will suffice?”
“What use does a beggar have for money? Information is better than coin.”
Information. It would be better for me to step in here. Lim Ha-jin wasn’t used to this kind of negotiation, so he might end up paying far more than the information was worth. I placed a hand on Lim Ha-jin’s shoulder and stepped forward. Seeing my face beneath the bamboo hat, the beggar’s eyes widened.
“A Westerner…?”
“Never seen one before?”
“You even speak the Central Plains tongue?”
“Is it that surprising?”
“Wouldn’t it be stranger not to be surprised? A Westerner fluent in our language coming this deep into the Central Plains is truly rare.”
Well, seeing Westerners in the Central Plains wasn’t common. Especially genuine Europeans like me. Meeting his gaze, I asked.
“Information about the Hong Family Inn shouldn’t be that expensive. What kind of information do you want? No, there’s something I should ask first.”
I paused briefly to gauge the situation. Whether because he was a beggar or because he thought he might extract important information from a Westerner’s mouth, his eyes had sharpened. Time to roll the dice. I spoke leisurely.
“Has a messenger from the Hainan Sect arrived at the Wuxia Alliance Headquarters?”
“How would I know something like that?”
Was he pretending not to know, or did he really not know? I decided to probe a little further.
“The Demonic Cult attacked the Hainan Sect.”
“…That much has already reached our information network, though it’s late.”
He snorted as if to say I was offering such trivial information as payment. Smirking at his reaction, I delivered the finishing blow.
“What about the information that they used Thunder Bombs?”
I took out a Thunder Bomb from my robes and placed it on the desk—the one I had extinguished with water. Wang Jeong snatched it up with a startled expression, examined it from every angle, and shouted.
“The Thunder Bombs have returned!?”
“If not, what else would this be? With the Hainan Sect’s first disciple as a witness right beside me, the information should be reliable, no?”
“I distinctly heard that the manufacturing method and everything else was burned decades ago…!”
“If some are still intact, that means more existed somewhere. Is this enough as payment for the information?”
“More than enough! Let’s see… information about Iron Hero…”
Wang Jeong rummaged through a neatly organized shelf that didn’t suit a beggar and pulled out a book. The cover bore the elegant characters “Iron Hero.”
“Iron Hero was a renowned expert even in Wuchang. Yet at a fairly young age he retired from the jianghu and opened an inn in Wuchang. I don’t know the reason, but most people assumed he wanted to settle down after marriage… but it seems there was another reason.”
“Another reason?”
“A martial artist in his prime suddenly retires from the martial world? That’s never an ordinary matter.”
Only the sound of pages turning filled the room. He flipped to roughly the middle of the book and pointed at the center of the left page.
“Even back then, many voiced their doubts. Still, because he was such a devoted husband, people accepted it. They were an extremely affectionate couple.”
A family man, then. Well, plenty of people changed once they had a family, so it wasn’t strange that many didn’t find it suspicious.
“Up to that point, there was no problem. But about fifteen years after the eldest son was born, things started to go strange.”
“Strange, you say.”
Had something happened between Iron Hero and his eldest son?
“Around the time the eldest reached the age of fifteen, he began to go astray. He caused trouble while drinking, hung around with local thugs. Iron Hero tried to discipline him strictly, but the boy wouldn’t listen at all.”
“Wasn’t that just a normal rebellious phase?”
“It was closer to being a scoundrel. No, he was a scoundrel through and through. But then he said something strange. He supposedly confronted his father, demanding to know why he wouldn’t teach him martial arts. Then one day he disappeared. Because of that incident, Iron Hero’s wife took to her bed and eventually passed away. From then on, the Hong Family Inn was run by Iron Hero and the second son—until that scoundrel returned after five years and challenged his father to a duel.”
“Five years is quite a long time, but isn’t it far too short to defeat someone of Iron Hero’s level?”
Not as extreme as my own coin-like realm surge in two years, but I at least possessed enough talent that the enemy leader would have found it a waste to kill me. I had accumulated real combat experience through over a hundred battles in a place where mistakes meant death. Yet a scoundrel grows strong enough in five years to defeat a master? Was this a wuxia novel? Ah, right—it was a wuxia novel.
“Indeed.”
“Then how did he win?”
“All we know is the result. They dueled in secret, just the two of them.”
“Hah.”
In the end, the clue lay with Iron Hero, who was on his deathbed.
“Do you know where that eldest son is now?”
“He should be with a group called the Black Snake Gang.”
“The unorthodox faction?”
“Correct. Troublesome fellows.”
His failure to raise his son had come back in the worst possible way. The son had even committed patricide.
“Any other information?”
“This is all we have for now. Investigating family matters… the situation isn’t ideal. It feels wrong to dig into the background of Lord Hong, who was so generous to beggars.”
“Young Hero Lim. Let’s go. This much information is sufficient.”
“If you need information again, come by anytime.”
“We’ve roughly grasped the thread, so we might meet again.”
“What?”
I gave no further answer and left the slum with Lim Ha-jin. Once we were out, Lim Ha-jin cautiously asked me.
“What clue have you grasped exactly?”
“The reason Iron Hero never taught his eldest son martial arts. That’s the core of this incident.”
“…Ah! I see!”
Lim Ha-jin looked at me with admiring eyes, as if he understood. …Could this guy really become the sect leader? He seemed far too slow on the uptake in this area. Still, as long as his character and skills were good, that was enough. Political acumen could be developed later. After all, the Hainan Sect leader rarely needed to leave the island anyway.
Regardless, the secret of this incident lay with Iron Hero and the Seven Saber Way. I headed toward the clinic where Iron Hero was staying, pondering how to handle this matter while carrying evidence that would support my hypothesis—to meet Ma-ryang, who would have it.