Kicking Down the Gate
Huangdao, Shandong Province.
North of Gyounam, Huangdao boasted a harbor larger than even Jinhaepo. Because trade there was tied directly to the imperial court, however, free market dealing gave way to bulk deliveries and scheduled commerce. As a result, the market as a whole never outgrew Gyounam.
Naturally, the unorthodox factions and underworld societies of Huangdao had long eyed Gyounam with hungry ambition—but the Ghost-Face Twin Killers had stood in the way, and no one had dared move lightly.
Then the Black Ship Sect, rooted in Huangdao, learned that the one who had slain the Ghost-Face Twin Killers was barely mid-teens, and that the killing had taken place underwater. They decided he was a rival they could afford to test.
This is actually an opportunity.
And when the madams of the pleasure houses asked for help, the Black Ship Sect sent its martial artists without hesitation.
Everything went as planned, right up through the point where those martial artists easily held off the underworld society known as the Sea Dragon Gang.
What no one had planned for was the sudden arrival of the boy who had finished the Ghost-Face Twin Killers.
“I’ll go in alone.”
Leaving Cheongu, who had guided him this far, at a safe distance, Ja Gangcheon walked up to the Black Ship Sect by himself.
“What business do you have here?”
Of the two gatekeepers, the older man stepped forward to block his path.
Ja Gangcheon did not bother answering. His eyes settled on the firmly shut doors—and then, unbidden, one of his mother’s old heroic tales from Guigokdo rose in his mind.
I tracked those bastards back to their main hall and kicked the doors clean off their hinges!
It was the story of how she had wiped out the Northern Falling Cloud Sect for insulting her.
Remembering that, Ja Gangcheon opened the gate not with his hands, but with his foot.
BOOM!
One of the heavy panels tore free with a thunderous crash and went skidding across the ground.
“You little—!”
The reaction was instant. The nearer gatekeeper lunged for Ja Gangcheon’s collar while noise erupted inside the compound and disciples poured toward the entrance.
Ja Gangcheon caught the reaching hand, yanked, and drove his shoulder into the off-balance body. The impact lifted the man clean off his feet and dropped him hard onto the fallen door.
With a sharp leap, Ja Gangcheon soared over them and landed in the center of the Black Ship Sect’s training yard, stomping down with crushing force.
CRASH!
The blue stone paving shattered under the shock of that foot technique, exploding outward in a spray of powdered rock.
To everyone who witnessed it, the world seemed to flip. Thought itself froze.
Shock. Screams.
Only when the dust began to settle did a voice cut through that they could actually understand.
“Everyone stand down!”
A man in his late fifties stepped forward, a long black beard hanging to his chest. He wore expensive silk patterned in red and even a Daoist cap in an attempt at dignity—but the slanted eyes and downturned mouth did nothing to inspire trust. He looked every bit the upstart flaunting his wealth as he spoke with forced composure.
“Who are you, to come to the Black Ship Sect and cause such a disturbance?”
“I killed the Ghost-Face Twin Killers.”
Tension flickered across the Black Ship Sect Leader’s face. After the martial skill he had just witnessed, the claim did not sound like a lie.
Ja Gangcheon paid the reaction no mind and delivered the words he had prepared.
“Stay out of what happens in Gyounam.”
The Sect Leader looked him over, mind racing.
“The Gyounam market is a little large for one man to swallow alone, don’t you think? If you were willing to assist our Black Ship Sect instead, we would make sure your share was more than generous.”
He did not mean a word of it. He was only buying time and feeling out his opponent.
While he stalled, his sharp-eyed vice leader scanned the surroundings of the compound.
“There is no negotiation. Break the warning, and every last one of you dies.”
As Ja Gangcheon spoke, the vice leader finished his sweep and gave a small nod.
He has no companions.
Receiving that message by voice transmission, the Black Ship Sect Leader’s mouth curved into a smile.
“You came here alone?”
The polite veneer vanished; a thin, ugly smile hooked the corner of his lips.
“In the jianghu, inexperience is the greatest crime of all. Thanks to that, you’ve saved me the trouble of hunting you down myself. I’ll take your head cleanly.”
The sudden shift in atmosphere did not rattle Ja Gangcheon in the least.
This was never going to end with words.
Capable fighters were already moving into position around him. Their intent was clear enough from that alone.
“There’s no ocean here. I’m curious how you plan to face us.”
Looking at the boy’s age, the death of the Ghost-Face Twin Killers only made more sense.
Just how strong is his water technique…?
Remarkable as that was, walking into the Black Ship Sect alone still crossed a line by a wide margin.
All the better. Dispose of him now, and the Gyounam market is ours.
Smiling, the Black Ship Sect Leader delivered his judgment with the force of a magistrate handing down a sentence.
“Kill him. Make him pay for daring to look down on the Black Ship Sect and throwing his life away on such arrogance.”
At the command, the Black Ship disciples raised their weapons as one and charged—
WHOOSH!
Like a meteor streaking across the night sky, Ja Gangcheon’s body left a long afterimage as it rose in a beautiful arc.
At the peak of that curve, as he began to descend, the Black Ship Sect Leader clearly saw the boy’s expressionless face.
Sensing danger, he raised his treasured sword and hoped Ja Gangcheon would simply impale himself on the point as he came in. The afterimage slipped past the tip like a shadow.
In a feat of near-impossible balance, Ja Gangcheon rode the edge of the blade along the right side of the man’s neck—and vanished from the Sect Leader’s sight for a single instant. Still, the man trusted his experience and swept the sword through empty air.
SWISH!
A sharp rush of wind—but nothing touched his hands.
I’m finished.
Below the path of the blade, lower still, stood Ja Gangcheon with that same indifferent look.
It felt like a death god coiled in a jar, looking up at him in mockery.
Then that death god’s face surged upward.
In the instant the chill ran through his entire body—
BOOM!
The bad premonition was not wrong.
A fist drove into his side, crushing ribs and tearing through the organs beneath.
The wound was already mortal, but Ja Gangcheon showed no mercy. Into the body twisted by agony, he drove another fist.
Straight into the solar plexus.
BOOM!
The breath that caught in the man’s throat snuffed out his life in a single stroke.
Blood poured from the caved-in chest as if lava were flooding from a volcano.
Everyone held their breath.
The Black Ship Sect was a school ruled by strength, not character. The Sect Leader’s power had been absolute—and that absolute figure had fallen as if it were nothing.
Not everyone stayed silent, however.
“Die!”
The vice leader and several others, enraged by their master’s death, threw themselves forward.
But Ja Gangcheon was not a man who would fall to blind, mindless steel.
Seven men charged. Ja Gangcheon moved seven times.
The gap was simply overwhelming.
He felt not the slightest threat from weapons thick with killing intent. Compared to the sea that had once raged with typhoons around him, their blades were no more dangerous than stones swirling underwater.
Master, how strong will my martial arts be once I reach the mainland?
He had asked that question once.
His parents had given the same answer.
The jianghu has masters as countless as grains of sand.
The sand is an exaggeration—but even the greatest under heaven cannot afford arrogance there.
Even so, Ja Gangcheon had not been afraid.
I can’t wait!
That had been his reply.
Because martial arts were play to me.
But after arriving on the mainland, he had learned two things.
Martial arts were not something one trained for fun—
and his own skill sat at an extremely high level.
The unique environment of Guigokdo, the manuals left by a hundred masters, the precious medicines and unstinting teaching of devoted parents—all of it had produced a result that defied common sense.
And today, Ja Gangcheon had seen the dark side of martial power.
If I ever meet a master I can’t beat, I’ll end up just like that.
Looking at the disciples frozen by their leader’s death, a bitter feeling settled over him.
I don’t want to end up like that.
In the very moment his overwhelming martial might seized the entire yard, Ja Gangcheon understood the destiny of every person of the murim: to grow without end.
As if to prove it, until the instant he turned and left, the disciples of the Black Ship Sect only held their breath and watched him go.
Gyounam underwent a great change.
When word of the Black Ship Sect Leader’s death reached them, the pleasure houses tucked their tails between their legs.
Take the valuables—but leave the people.
They accepted the Sea Dragon Gang’s terms.
And the Sea Dragon Gang, without delay, declared its own dissolution.
What remained was the Sea Dragon Labor Office—the very name they had used before becoming a gang.
More than a hundred members shrank to twenty. They surrendered their monopoly on distribution through the southern market, and their profit ventures vanished with it. Yet So Yeondok felt not the slightest regret.
He sent those leaving the Sea Dragon Gang off with generous severance, and those who stayed took pride in place of wealth.
“He kept every word he said.”
Ja Gangcheon found So Yeondok’s conduct deeply interesting. Decisions may have been hard, but once made, his actions never hesitated. Body and heart moved as one.
Different from righteousness, too.
If Jinmyeong of the Wudang Sect had taught him righteousness, So Yeondok had shown him conviction.
There was still one matter to settle, however.
So Yeondok spoke to the subordinates who had chosen to remain.
“It took far too long for us to come back. Many people helped us along the way, and above all, our benefactor faced the Black Ship Sect alone. We will not waste the chance he won for us. We will not waver.”
In the old days, as an underworld society, they had allowed themselves to stray. No longer.
“We no longer have to live each day as if it might be our last, hearts clenched tight. Let’s sleep easy, the way ordinary people do—looking forward to what tomorrow holds.”
Those words stirred something in his men. That kind of ease was something the underworld could never own.
“And if our past still tries to drag us down—I’ll bear all of it. The reason I remain as director is so that, one day, I can shoulder that past and settle it. Until we’ve built a solid foundation, I only ask that you follow me.”
“Yes, Director!”
The ringing answer swelled in So Yeondok’s chest until it almost hurt.
“This is our second chance. We will not let it go.”
They began a day unlike any before.
With the underworld gone, Gyounam felt a little unsettled.
Merchants welcomed the change outwardly, yet half-doubted it would last.
Doing business without paying protection money—at least in Gyounam, that had never happened.
If there was no protection tax, there were tribute fees. If not those, then “donations.” The names changed, but someone always claimed the territory and extracted a price.
It was a vice so common to large markets that no one believed the new rule would hold for long.
Still, the merchants had reason to celebrate.
At least it’s better than Uirim Hall.
Those people had squeezed so mercilessly that simply having them gone already made it easier to breathe. And once the vicious dark-market schemes that had haunted everyone’s backs vanished as well, the whole mood of Gyounam brightened.
The more they felt that change, the more attention turned to the young master who had appeared out of nowhere.
Ja Gangcheon, was it?
They say he’s the backer of the East Sea Merchant Guild?
He handled the Ghost-Face Twin Killers and the Black Ship Sect at that age? That doesn’t make sense. Could he have used some kind of rejuvenation art?
Just as Ja Gangcheon’s name began to circulate through the market—
“Heheh.”
—Ja Gangcheon was sitting with Cheongu, eating candied sweets. The sugar pulled a loose, happy smile onto his face, and the merchants simply could not believe this was the young master of the rumors.
“Thank you.”
Even the polite little bow was pure fifteen-year-old boy. He was large for his age, but more often than not his manner felt younger still.
Other people’s opinions did not matter to him. Ja Gangcheon simply enjoyed wandering a market that had been cleaned up.
“Benefactor!”
Someone came running, calling his name. Seeing the man’s frantic face, Ja Gangcheon set down his sweets and asked at once,
“What’s wrong?”
The runner was a middle-aged laborer who did odd jobs for the East Sea Merchant Guild.
“Benefactor! We found him!”
“Found him? Found who?”
The man swallowed a breath and rushed on.
“The shipwright, sir! We finally found him!”
A gift for chivalry, perhaps?
The news he had been waiting for so desperately had arrived.