An Opportunity for Connections
“….”
“….”
“….”
I was, as anyone could tell, a greenhorn in the jianghu.
No matter how smoothly I tried to carry myself, in the endless situations the martial world threw at me I was still nothing more than a wet-behind-the-ears child. That was why the most rational method I had devised to cut down on mistakes was simple: recall the people I had met so far who were most likely to act with cold reason, and imitate them as closely as I could.
The nearest examples that came to mind were Eun Seollyeong, So Yeomgyo, and Jegal Sea. A little further out stood Moyong Ryu and Yun Hyeon of the Namgung Family—and, awkward as it was to count an enemy among them, even Jeokmaryeong of the Heavenly Demon Cult.
From etiquette to the thick of battle, I would try to picture how they would move in a given moment and then follow their thinking and their actions. But I could swear that in this particular instant, even they would have been at a loss to predict what came next.
I looked over the three men watching me.
Whatever else was true, one thing was certain.
Judging by their clothes and the pressure rolling off them, none of them were ordinary people.
Do not act rashly.
Mumyeong’s advice cut in.
Do you remember? In a way, this may be another chance—however small—to shore up one of the three greatest weak points you still carry as Host.
…Hmm.
Back when I had first set foot in the jianghu, Mumyeong and I had spoken of this. He had numbered, on one hand, the three areas in which I lagged most desperately behind other martial artists—problems that needed urgent fixing.
First and foremost, he had named strength.
Second, experience.
Third, people.
That third category split again into two. One was the web of jianghu connections that would root me and hold me steady. The other was the kind of force that could curl around me like a second skin and keep me safe. And right now, Mumyeong saw this moment as a chance to reinforce that third pillar.
Fair enough. An opening where three people this different all gather in one place doesn’t come around often.
I studied the men in front of me again, carefully.
Beside a giant who had to stand eight—no, nine—chi tall and who kept his silence, a small old man with a long pipe clenched in his teeth sat with one leg crossed over the other, endlessly puffing out smoke and stroking his white beard.
A hot-blooded-looking man with reddish skin, dressed in golden martial robes, wore a sour expression as if he were angry and kept tipping back a wine flask.
A middle-aged man with graying hair stood with his arms folded, surveying the room.
I hesitated, then opened my mouth.
“So, in other words—”
As if they had been waiting for exactly that, the three men all spoke at once.
“Oh.”
The old man said.
“Go on, then.”
The gray-haired man said.
“Speak freely. We’re listening.”
Last of all, the man in the golden robes said,
“And for the record, just ignore whatever Seom Jin-yeong spouted a moment ago. There’s an old saying that the cuttlefish brings shame on the whole fish market—and that fits. Of all the armed escort outfits, Seom Jin-yeong’s is the smallest of the small.”
The force behind his words felt ready to crush the inn flat.
They had all rushed to speak, then seemed to notice it at the same time. They looked at one another, shut their mouths, and began to laugh, a little embarrassed.
“Heh heh.”
“Hmph hmph.”
“Ha ha.”
The white-bearded old man with the pipe knocked the ash from the spent bowl against the floor, then let out a big, rolling laugh.
“Honestly. I hurried over the moment I heard Talhonseonma had been smashed to pieces, and still I find this… I never imagined the boy would be quite this popular.”
“Ah, so Elder Hwanggeumseong thought the same? How curious. So did I. This is getting a little awkward! Wahaha!”
The gray-haired middle-aged man seated across from me burst into a warm, good-natured guffaw.
The old man they had called Elder Hwanggeumseong laughed for a long while—then, all at once, the laughter cut off cold.
“Hrm. And you came streaking in like lightning because you’ve got your own designs as well, I take it? Master of the Baekho Armed Escort of the Four Divine Flags—Sa Ga-jun.”
The gray-haired middle-aged man, Sa Ga-jun, stopped laughing too.
“Of course. In the world of commerce I can’t even reach the tip of Elder Hwanggeumseong’s toe. But in the escort world I’m still one of the four heads, more or less. If I were soft as tofu, I would have lost this whole stretch of road long ago to—”
Sa Ga-jun pointed at the man in the golden robes beside him.
“—that thick-skulled rock-head over there, Hyeonmu, Lee Ga-ju-bu.”
“Watch your mouth, Sa Ga-jun.”
The man in the golden robes they had called rock-head Hyeonmu frowned and poured himself another drink.
“And even if your mouth is crooked, get the words straight. I’m already first in revenue. Which is why—”
Lee Ga-ju-bu quietly held a cup out toward me, as naturally as breathing.
“You there, friend. I hear this is your first time in the jianghu. I understand. Take this cup, and why don’t you and I start with a proper bow of respect? Even I still don’t know half of what there is to know about this world. We bow, we get friendly—then we take our time talking and building a bond…”
—Tak.
Sa Ga-jun caught Lee Ga-ju-bu’s wrist.
“What the hell do you think you’re trying to pull, you bastard?”
—Tremble…
Caught in Sa Ga-jun’s grip, Lee Ga-ju-bu’s arm began to turn blue as the blood failed to pass.
Hyeonmu Lee Ga-ju-bu looked down without expression at the hand of Baekho Sa Ga-jun locked around his wrist.
“You’re the one who should watch where you’re grabbing. Even between friends, seizing a martial artist’s wrist is rude.”
Sa Ga-jun’s face was just as blank.
“Put the cup down. Right now. What kind of cheap trick is this?”
“Sa Ga-jun. Is this bastard giving me orders?”
Sa Ga-jun clenched his teeth.
“I’m being polite, so show some professional ethics. Even if the prize is nothing, you start from equal ground. Don’t you know that?”
The friendly middle-aged face that had been laughing with Hwanggeumseong only moments before was gone without a trace. What remained was a frost-sharp expression that looked ready to cut a man’s throat as casually as reaping reeds.
Hyeonmu’s face began to flush with temper.
—Crack.
The porcelain cup in his hand started to fracture with a faint web of lines.
Hyeonmu Lee Ga-ju-bu spoke.
“Anyone else who tried to grab my wrist would have had that hand crushed on the spot. I’m only letting it go because we’re old friends of the balls-and-brothers variety. You know that, right? White Tiger or whatever—stop acting like a damn house cat and let go before I kill you.”
“Stop advertising that you’re the rock-head even your master gave up on, and you put the cup down and quit the games. Three years ago you sweet-talked Ilcheongsanghyeon—the escort I’d already marked—into a last-minute contract and stole him right out from under me. I still remember, you tear-you-apart son of a bitch.”
Sparks leapt between their stares.
See one, know ten—it was plain the two of them had been bitter rivals for a long time.
The wrist locked between them began to shake.
Inner force gathered.
Neither yielded an inch.
Then—
—Tak.
Every current in the room snapped.
Their argument stopped.
Both pairs of eyes turned toward Hwanggeumseong.
—Tak. Tak. Tak. Tak.
Hwanggeumseong had turned his pipe over and was tapping the ash out onto the floor against the edge of the table. He shifted the stem to the side of his mouth, packed in a fresh pinch of leaf, and struck a flint.
—Click, click, hisss—
Acrid smoke billowed out in a pale cloud.
“Listen here. Masters of the Four Divine Flags’ armed escorts—Baekho. Hyeonmu.”
“Elder?”
“As master of the Janggang Merchant Union, I, Hwanggeumseong, would like a word with you two young men.”
The heat between them drained away. They looked at each other.
“….”
Their eyes fell.
Through the smoke, Hwanggeumseong’s eyes blinked once, quietly, and he murmured,
“Those armed-escort masters of yours still have the underground tournament running, and the rankings from first through fifth haven’t even been decided. There should be plenty left to feast on. For this old man’s sake, couldn’t you yield just this once?”
“…!”
Baekho Sa Ga-jun and Hyeonmu Lee Ga-ju-bu both stiffened.
Hwanggeumseong drew on his pipe, exhaled, and went on.
“If you’ll yield for a tired old man, I’ll see to a little financial support. I do hold the purse strings of the Yangtze, after all. Money is one thing I still have to spare.”
“Elder.”
Baekho Sa Ga-jun’s face showed clear discomfort.
The air that had been so warm and friendly at the start was gone; a sharp early-winter frost seemed to settle over the table.
“My knees ache, frankly. I don’t have the leisure to sit through the whole tournament. I need to be on my way soon, so I was only going to float a simple guard contract at this young man—if he accepts, fine; if not, so be it—and be on my road. But that’s not how it is with you, is it? Do you really need to hang your whole neck on this one youth?”
“Heh heh. Elder Hwanggeumseong does like his jokes.”
Hyeonmu Lee Ga-ju-bu pushed up the sleeve of his golden martial robe, took a fresh cup, poured, and drank. The hot-tempered red skin scored with scars made it easy to guess he had weathered his own share of storms.
Wine ran down the line of his throat.
“From where I sit, I can’t for the life of me figure out by what trick an elder who only ever looks at bulk goods managed to spot a jewel in our escort market and get greedy for it….”
Hyeonmu’s eyes flashed, cold and bleak.
“But when you turn to men who have lived their whole lives by appraising this very field and say, ‘This persimmon is too astringent, so I’ll eat it for you—you go look for something else,’ well. We find that a little hard to swallow.”
“Elder Hwanggeumseong—Lee Ga-ju-bu does have a habit of speaking a touch roughly. Allow me to put our position more clearly.”
The middle-aged man with the ash-gray hair, Baekho Sa Ga-jun, spoke from beside him in a calm voice.
“First of all, this is our territory. We devote ourselves to selecting the best possible escorts and wringing every last drop of ability out of them. That is how we command higher prices when we supply force to those who need it. And right now, with war-clouds gathering so suddenly among the Five Great Families—where the jianghu’s money flows thickest—we of the Four Divine Flags, the four great armed escorts, are on edge as well.”
“…!”
That last remark was more than enough to make my eyes, which had been listening half in detachment until now, fly wide open.
“In particular, the Moyong and Hwangbo Families—though the first son Moyong Jinryong and the third son Moyong Ryu are both at Cheonsubaekryeonsa and cannot fight an open war—seem to be pushing their subordinates into proxy battles to expand their influence. The third son, Moyong Ryu, has been acting even more emotionally of late for some reason…. Rumor has it it has something to do with some injustice done to his half-brother, the fourth son and bastard Moyong Bi, who is also training at Cheonsubaekryeonsa. Though honestly, it is hard to believe a man of true blood would go that far for a mere illegitimate child…. Only he would know the full story.”
“….”
My breath locked tight in my chest.
I swallowed.
But I could not show any reaction at all.
There was no Moyong Bi in this seat.
In this seat there was only Biryu, fourth-rank of the Blood Death Sect.
—Squeak.
…?
Mumyeong turned his gaze from the shadows toward a far corner.
In that corner sat a single rat with glowing red eyes.
Foam flecked its muzzle.
The rat began to slam its head into the wall.
A moment later its skull shattered to pieces, and it died by its own doing.
Well now.
For a long time, Mumyeong simply stared at the pulverized remains of the rat.