I Don't Need the Wudang Sect
“Tch!”
Having come down from Mount Wudang, Ja Gangcheon kicked the dirt in frustration. Cheongu, standing beside him, spoke up.
“That’s not how you do it.”
“Do what?”
Cheongu turned and looked back toward Mount Wudang. At the foot of the mountain, a Wudang disciple was faintly visible.
“Huuup!”
Drawing a deep breath, Cheongu bellowed toward the mountain.
“Hey! You big-nosed bastards! You throw away heaven’s own bonds and still dare call yourselves Taoist masters? Of course the Beggars’ Guild has the real chivalry, and Shaolin has the real justice! With hearts that rotten and mouths that only shit words, go be outhouse ghosts!”
“Cheongu…”
Ja Gangcheon stared at him, stunned.
“That’s how you do it. Want to try?”
“Uh… I think that guy heard us.”
“Huh?”
Cheongu had the distinct, uneasy impression that the Wudang disciple’s eyes had just glinted.
“M-maybe we should just go?”
“Pfft.”
At the sight of Cheongu suddenly flustered, Ja Gangcheon let out a short laugh. His heart was still heavy, but thanks to Cheongu, the weight had eased, if only a little.
“Huu. Yeah. I’m fine.”
As Ja Gangcheon forced himself to settle, Cheongu said,
“You don’t have to pretend you’re fine. When the pirates had us, I tried that every day. It never helped much.”
“But if I just break down crying, it’s embarrassing.”
“Sometimes that helps too.”
Mount Wudang still loomed not far away. Looking back at the mountain he had climbed full of hope made the bitter, aching feeling surge up again.
“Tch. I don’t want to cry over people like that.”
Honestly, it hurt far too much. So he shouted on purpose, loud and clear.
“I don’t need the Wudang Sect! Father! I’ll be the filial son—just forget about Wudang!”
Listening beside him, Cheongu finally understood why Ja Gangcheon was truly in pain.
It’s because of his father.
How heartbroken would his father be if he ever learned of this?
That was why Ja Gangcheon was so downcast.
“Cheongu! I hate it here now! Let’s leave, quick!”
“All right! Then how about we head for the Northern Heavenly Castle this time?”
Cheongu named the next destination, but Ja Gangcheon shook his head.
“No. Let’s not go there either.”
“Why not?”
“It’ll be the same. This time Father will be the problem.”
Ja Gangcheon had no desire to go seeking out the same humiliation all over again.
“You said we have to save your parents. Are you giving up?”
“I can’t do that. Let’s go to Jinhaepo.”
“Go back?”
“Yeah. At the harbor there are people who build ships. I’ll do it myself. I don’t need anyone’s help.”
His face already held the look of a man who had made up his mind.
“Fine. If that’s where you want to go, we go.”
The two of them turned and retraced the road they had come by.
At Gyounam’s Jinhaepo, a fairly large trading market had grown up around the harbor. Not every resident of Gyounam, however, could make use of that market.
What the native folk of Gyounam mostly used was the southern market, where daily necessities changed hands.
At the far end of the southern market, where small shops stood in rows, there was an old manor. Thanks to careful upkeep, the weathered walls had gathered the years into something almost graceful.
Donghae Merchant Guild.
It was the pride of the southern market—a place that had begun as a brewery and grown into the trading house it was now.
Counting from the brewery days, three generations had done business on that same ground. After the current guild master inherited it, he threw his weight behind trade. The results had finally brought them to the brink of entering the central market—until his sudden disappearance brought even their existing foundations crashing down.
He had returned in dramatic fashion two months ago, but the problems that had erupted in his absence were still nearly impossible to put right.
Even so, they still had hope.
“Trade in Donghae Wine is recovering quickly. All the stock that was out on the market has been sold through, and orders are stacking up.”
The old chief steward, having regained his health, let out a sigh of relief. The master of the Donghae Merchant Guild, however, did not look the least bit eased.
“We have to bring back our people who were sold off all over the country first. Some of them we can’t even get word of.”
The pirates had sold off twenty members of the Donghae Merchant Guild alone. Fortunately they had the ledgers, so they had been able to make inquiries—yet only eight had come home.
“Guild Master. If our house falls, we won’t even have the coin left to buy our people back.”
Guild members were not the sort of thing you got back with a polite request. Three times what had been paid was the lowest those buyers would name.
“For the time being, please remain at the guild. You’ve been away from your seat far too long.”
Until now the guild master had gone about negotiating the return of his people in person. As a result, he had not been able to look after the guild itself.
“On top of that, flies have started swarming the brewery.”
“Flies?”
“The Uirim-dang scum are demanding half the shares.”
Wherever money gathered, it was always the same.
Especially a pot of honey whose owner had gone missing—flies were bound to come.
“It seems the brewery’s headman walked into a trap. While you were gone, Guild Master, a fight started at an inn, and out of nowhere they demanded compensation for a silk robe that had food on it. They named an absurd sum and said if he didn’t pay by the deadline, they would kidnap him and make him brew wine for them.”
A classic back-alley thug’s game.
And the ones who played that game best in Gyounam were the Black Society known as Uirim-dang.
“I went and met with them. They said if we hand over half the brewery’s shares, they’ll let it go.”
“Haa. However hard-pressed we may be, are we to be ignored even by a back-alley Black Society?”
“Isn’t this whole trade full of wolves and jackals? When you’re wounded and down, being torn apart is the natural order of things.”
Some said the merchant world was more ruthless than the murim itself.
“If we lose the brewery, our guild is finished.”
“I suppose I ought to meet them myself—”
That was when it happened.
“Guild Master! The Uirim-dang scum are running wild at the brewery!”
The guild master bolted straight out of the compound.
An old shop that stood hard against the guild grounds.
The signboard of the brewery that had been the very symbol of the Donghae Merchant Guild lay split in two and cast on the ground.
Even after they had built the guild headquarters to honor the history of the Donghae Brewery, this place had still kept its post.
Clang!
A jar full of wine was hurled out of the shop.
A thick fragrance of liquor spread in an instant, and people came flocking.
“What in the world do you think you’re doing!”
At the guild master’s roar, five burly men all turned their heads at once.
“Oho. So the guild master finally shows himself.”
“That’s right. I am Jo Pilseong, master of the Donghae Merchant Guild. If you have something to say, say it to me.”
He was short and slender of build, but his presence did not yield an inch to the ruffians.
Uirim-dang, however, was no ordinary Black Society. With a powerful backer behind them, they acted without the slightest hesitation.
“This place has the southern market’s own laws. Uirim-dang has no business here—so why are you running wild?”
Even Black Societies had their territories.
In truth the southern market was not a place where great sums of money moved, and Uirim-dang, which already held the central market, had never bothered to look at it twice.
“One of your men at the guild owes me a debt, and he doesn’t seem inclined to pay it. Will the guild master settle it in his place?”
“You said it was the price of silk, did you? Tell me how much.”
“A thousand taels of silver.”
“You mad dogs!”
A thousand taels of silver was enough to build a small manor or a three-story inn.
To call that the price of a single silk robe meant money had never been the real aim.
“What is it you want?”
“Didn’t I say money? If you truly have none, then hand that underling over to me.”
“You mean you want the man? How dare you—”
Clang!
The Uirim-dang men drew their blades as one.
At that murderous air, even the onlookers took a step back.
The squad leader among them wore a full sneer as he walked up to Jo Pilseong.
“Keep resisting and you’ll only suffer for it. You should never have caught our eye in the first place—now that you have, think about keeping your life and running.”
“I already died once out on the sea. Do you think threats like that will work on me?”
Jo Pilseong took a step forward instead.
Watching a man who would not flinch even before drawn steel, the squad leader’s face flushed red.
Unable to back down before his men and the crowd, he steeled himself for something vicious.
“A dog that won’t listen doesn’t need both ears.”
Whish!
The squad leader swung for Jo Pilseong’s ear. Unlike the other thugs, this one had at least handled a blade before.
The onlookers gasped and sucked in their breath—
Jo Pilseong squeezed his eyes shut against the blade rushing in.
Thud!
Against the crushing sense of death that had seized his heart, there was no impact at all. When he carefully opened his eyes, he saw a blade stopped right in front of his face.
And the squad leader who had swung it was flying backward as if a typhoon had caught him.
Only then did Jo Pilseong see the figure who had seized the squad leader’s wrist and hurled him away.
“Ah—Benefactor, why are you…?”
“Uncle Guild Master, why do you keep trying to get yourself killed?”
The one who had appeared was Ja Gangcheon. Behind him stood Cheongu, glancing down at the man on the ground.
“Looks like the debt you owe your benefactor just got a little larger, Guild Master.”
“So it has. I’m glad you’ve returned safely.”
As Jo Pilseong’s expression grew complicated, Ja Gangcheon asked,
“So who are those people? They seem a lot like the pirates.”
“They’re called Uirim-dang—the Black Society that holds Gyounam.”
“Black Society?”
Ja Gangcheon searched his memory for a moment. He was fairly sure he had heard the phrase before.
“Ah! I remember! The mosquito-snouted, rat-eyed, shit-eating bastards?”
The Black Society men who had just been called bastards glared and closed in.
“Huh? Mother said they were cowards who tuck their tails the moment a murim martial artist shows up.”
“You little whelp, running your mouth so freely.”
An Uirim-dang man with a knife scar across his face took another step forward, growling.
Crack!
The man’s body lifted into the air. By the time he hit the ground, his ankle was twisted the wrong way around.
Shing!
At the sight, every Uirim-dang man raised his blade.
That was when—
“Stop!”
It was the squad leader who had been thrown back first.
“We withdraw for today.”
Having tasted it himself, he had realized they could not handle Ja Gangcheon.
Supporting their fallen comrade, they left hostile looks for Ja Gangcheon and pulled back.
Ja Gangcheon considered stopping them, then let them go for now—he wanted the full story first.
If it’s a Black Society, I can always catch them later.
Once things had settled, Jo Pilseong led Ja Gangcheon into the guild.
“I’m ashamed to have shown you such a pathetic sight.”
Having been threatened only moments before, Jo Pilseong’s voice was still high with leftover heat.
“It’s nothing. More importantly, please look after my carriage first.”
“Yes, of course. And—did your journey go well?”
“No. It didn’t. More importantly, I need a place to stay for a while. If there’s a decent inn, introduce me.”
“If it’s rooms you need, we have them at the guild as well. I will make you as comfortable as I can—please stay with us. If I put my benefactor up at an inn, people will curse my name.”
Ja Gangcheon saw no reason to refuse the kindness. For storing the carriage, the guild was far more convenient than any inn.
“Thank you. Then I’ll impose on you for a while.”
“You could stay a lifetime. Think nothing of it.”
While they talked, Ja Gangcheon first made sure the carriage was being moved inside the guild compound.
“I’ll see that no one comes near it for the time being.”
While the goods were being carried into the deepest part of the inner warehouse, Jo Pilseong prepared a room for Ja Gangcheon.
“This way, if you please.”
Jo Pilseong guided him to a pavilion near the warehouse.
It had been prepared for guests from the start, clean enough that one could have lain down on the bed at once.
Beside the large bed stood a round table, just the right size for four people to sit around.
The whole place was neat rather than lavish, and for Ja Gangcheon, who had lived on a deserted island, even this was more than enough.
“Cheongu, stay by your benefactor’s side.”
“Yes, Guild Master.”
Saying he would prepare tea and refreshments, the guild master left the room. Then Cheongu rose from his seat.
“Where are you going?”
“We’ve been away a long time. I should at least make a basic report. And aren’t you curious why Uirim-dang was running wild?”
“I am.”
“I’ll go find out and come back.”
Cheongu knew exactly what Ja Gangcheon wanted.