A Ten Thousand Gold Bounty
The man was already a dead man walking. Between his terminal illness, the way he’d crippled himself, and selling out his own customers, even if Cheong let him go he wouldn’t have lasted long. Wang Scar knew that too, but an immediate threat always took priority. That was why Cheong had deliberately acted even more viciously. It was a clear warning: if he insisted on struggling despite already being a corpse, she would make his end far more horrific.
“That young man—”
“Shut your mouth! You bastard, a registered member of the Black Guild daring to leak customer information—urk!”
Someone tried to silence Wang Scar. Cheong, having already confirmed his sins, yanked out her hairpin and hurled it. A first-class warrior of the black market clutched his throat and collapsed. The Iljeo Samjak was a third-rate throwing skill that flew only in straight lines with no technique whatsoever. Yet when paired with strength beyond human limits and internal energy poured into the throw, no ordinary human body could possibly withstand it.
“Anyone else feel like running their mouth? If you’ve got eyes, you can see how many pins I have left in my hair, can’t you?”
It wasn’t uncommon for women to use iron hairpins as hidden weapons. But never in anyone’s life had they heard of a hairpin piercing straight through a man’s neck and coming out the other side.
Two peak-level experts among the black market warriors exchanged glances. One of them finally spoke.
“...Do you have any further business with the black market?”
“None. If that idiot hadn’t interrupted, I would have finished and left ages ago.”
Cheong pointed at the fallen warrior. The black market expert lowered his voice to a growl.
“The Black Guild will remember this. A bounty of one thousand gold will drive every assassin in the world mad—hell, even people who aren’t assassins will lose their minds. We’ll see how long you last. Eon Yeonyeong, was it? The ruined Jinju Eon Clan’s bloodline will be severed.”
With that, he ordered them to leave. The rest of the black market warriors followed with obvious relief in their eyes.
They had no confidence they could win a fight, and she clearly wasn’t the type to listen to reason. Even if they somehow won, the Black Guild wasn’t a martial organization; every peak expert was a precious asset. The losses would outweigh any gain. Therefore, if they weren’t going to fight anyway, issuing a grave warning and departing looked far more dignified than standing around like fools watching her rampage.
After that, Cheong learned the location of the Banja Fist Sect and retrieved her hairpin. Only then did Gyeon Po-hui come scampering over.
“Sworn sister, are you all right?”
“Yeah.”
“So what do we do now? A thousand-gold bounty is no joke…”
“Well, once I kill a few assassins they’ll realize how precious their lives are and back off. Just to be safe, you should head back to the Seolga Trading Company, sworn sister.”
“Can’t I stay with you? I’m a peak expert now too.”
“Then what about the old man’s grandson? Tell whoever you run into—either of them—that the boy was purchased by the Daebyeol Gate on Daebyeol Mountain. Tsk. Those righteous-faction bastards buying slaves. Still, at least he won’t suffer much since they’re from the righteous path.”
Since the boy knew how to work iron, they must have bought him intending to raise him as a future iron master for their sect. And now that they planned to visit either the Jegal or Tang clans—or both—things should proceed smoothly from here.
“What about you, sworn sister?”
“I’ll lie low for a couple of months, then head to Kaifeng in time for the Grand Murim Tournament. It would be best to report this to Master as well. I’ll ask you to handle that.”
“It’s because I’m too weak to be of any help…”
Cheong flashed a grin.
“Isn’t this helping? What else would count as help? Do we need to stand back-to-back carving a bloody path through enemies to be useful? If you’re not there in the mornings I have to dress and wash by myself. Ugh, just thinking about it is annoying.”
“...Yeah.”
Cheong kept smiling and held out her hand. Gyeon Po-hui grabbed it with a tearful expression.
“No, why are you holding my hand? I’m asking for the face veil. The face veil.”
“Ah, right.”
Receiving the veil, Cheong leaped lightly into the air. Using the half-gravity steps of the Moon Maiden’s Stroll, she bounded up, stepping on the poles of the night market’s temporary stalls before soaring away with the Thousand-Mile Flight. Its speed was so great that even masters of light footwork would struggle to keep up. It was an escape technique even Seomun Su-rin had acknowledged. If Cheong truly decided to run, only a handful of people in the world could possibly catch her.
Of course, it was only a handful. It didn’t mean none.
“That vicious wench, how are her legs so fast? Let’s see… that looks like Thousand-Mile Flight. Oho, a quick-footed girl who’s already outstanding at lightness skill. If she has any dexterity at all, she’d be perfect!”
A beauty recognizable at a single glance.
The previous incident involving the Black Heaven Society’s departure had set the entire underworld ablaze. The Black Heaven Society was a notoriously vicious human trafficking ring. They possessed both the skill and the ruthlessness to kidnap people across the Central Plains, and they even had connections in the Western Regions capable of importing precious red-haired foreign slaves. They were the genuine article.
Yet suddenly they had announced they would now live virtuously and withdrew from the business entirely. The problem was that they had slaughtered every broker, warehouse keeper, trainer, and related worker before leaving. Not only that, they had massacred the workers’ entire families, hung their corpses in the streets, and carved the words “human trafficker” into their flesh.
As a result, no one mourned them. People simply spat and threw stones, saying they had died well. Because of that miserable end, businesses were closing down one after another and not a single newcomer dared enter the industry.
The Black Guild had taken a serious blow. It wasn’t merely an organization that ran black markets and took commissions. Every unspeakable transaction in the Central Plains went through the Black Guild. The black markets were only one part of it; every illegal merchant operating in every city belonged to the Black Guild.
Thus, when the entire slave-trading industry had its families wiped out together, it meant the deaths of countless Black Guild members. The previous Guild Master had flown into a rage but ultimately failed to catch the Black Heaven Society’s tail. All that remained was a near-certain suspicion that it had been a front for the Demonic Cult.
Yet they could not move against the Demonic Cult on suspicion alone. In an atmosphere where the public said the world’s bastards had died well, any furious criticism was pointless. People would simply think the Demonic Cult had done a good deed for once. Besides, if the Demonic Cult was truly involved, the Black Guild would be annihilated. Had they not left deep scars on the righteous murim across four Righteous-Demonic Wars despite suffering only defeats?
A war between the Demonic Cult and a shady alliance of illegal merchants could not even be conceived. No matter how much money they offered, who would answer the call to fight the Demonic Cult for pay? In the end, they had no choice but to swallow their helpless fury.
Then a new problem erupted. In the Henan branch of the black market, an illegal merchant had been brutally murdered in public. To be precise, it was less murder and more an act that made death seem preferable.
The Black Guild Master, Jang Eun-chae, clutched his head.
“Why! Why! Why! Why the hell is this happening to me!”
“The dissatisfaction among the merchants is no small matter. They are even forming their own organization to protect themselves. We executed the ringleader, but at this rate it is only a matter of time before the rest begin to defect.”
“Fuck… We haven’t even finished cleaning up the mess those Black Heaven Society bastards left behind.”
“We should post a bounty. Without showing the world what happens to those who touch the Black Guild—”
“Five hundred gold.”
Jang Eun-chae cut the chief steward off. The steward frowned.
“Pardon? Only five hundred gold? In that case—”
“Her name was Eon Yeonyeong, yes? Five hundred gold for the corpse. Ten thousand gold if brought in alive and intact. Two thousand gold deducted per missing limb, so tell them to bring her with all parts attached if possible.”
Jang Eun-chae’s eyes gleamed with chilling malice.
“This time I will show the entire world exactly what happens when you touch the Black Guild. Human pigs are not the exclusive property of the Empress Dowager.”
The Empress Dowager, who proudly ranked among China’s Four Great Evil Women, had earned her place through her cruel disposition and creative tortures. Turning someone into a human pig was a horrific act strictly forbidden throughout the Central Plains’ long history. It was a truly vicious grudge.
They were too afraid to touch the Demonic Cult. While their insides burned with rage, someone had conveniently slapped them across the face, so all that fury now had a perfect target.
“Besides, the Black Guild needs to show the merchants some action to calm them down anyway. In a way, this is perfect timing.”
Jang Eun-chae laughed coldly.
But would it truly go as planned?
The Black Guild had placed a bounty on Eon Yeonyeong.
Many people at the black market had seen Cheong. When asked what she looked like, every single one gave the same useless answers: pretty, very pretty, truly pretty.
“No, I’m asking how her eyes, nose, and mouth are shaped!”
“Uh… Her eyes are large and clear, beautiful. Her nose is straight and flawless, beautiful. Her mouth is small and red—”
“Beautiful?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Ugh. Next!”
Everyone was the same. Ask them to describe the features separately and they said beautiful. Ask for special characteristics and they said beautiful. Ask for her overall impression and they said beautiful again. The people listening grew desperately curious what kind of beauty could inspire such answers.
So the black market mobilized every painter they could find to create a portrait. Yet everyone complained that the drawings failed to capture her. Even in Cheong’s own hometown, portraits based solely on verbal testimony without any visual reference had low reliability. How much worse would it be in the Central Plains?
Eventually they produced one that was “somewhat similar,” and the hellish process of copying it by hand began. Of course, printing existed. The Central Plains was the birthplace of printing technology, after all.
After a man named Pil Seung—whose very name meant “must win”—commercialized clay printing, the Central Plains had reigned as the supreme nation of printing. There was strong suspicion they had also created the first metal movable type, but the Cultural Revolution and the To Law Investigation left not a single piece of physical evidence, so the claim was never recognized. Thanks to that, the honor passed to the Korean people.
Surprisingly, both the Cultural Revolution and the To Law Investigation were achievements accomplished by a single individual. Because of this, even in modern times he ranked as the figure most respected by the Chinese people. First place always belonged to living power, so the dead could not infringe upon it; thus he was the de facto number one.
Even with such advanced printing techniques, they were still primitive compared to modern standards. The portrait was too delicate for woodblock printing. They copied it by hand and distributed the results, but the quantity was woefully insufficient. To make matters worse, the bounty hunters and assassins tore the portraits off the walls to keep for themselves so they alone could claim the reward.
In the end, only the news of the bounty spread far and wide.
The extremely beautiful top-class beauty of the Central Plains, Eon Yeonyeong of the Jinju Eon Clan (maiden status unknown). Ten thousand gold for live capture!
And as a result—
“My, my. This tea has a rather bitter, poisonous aroma, doesn’t it? Sinpa, have I done something to offend you?”
Eon Yeonyeong said, sipping the tea. The old woman who had been about to place her next stone on the baduk board paused, withdrawing her elegant hand.
“...What did you say?”
Eon Yeonyeong rolled the liquid around her tongue, tasting it, then swallowed.
“Mmm. This is Meng Hun Xiang. Goodness, am I some kind of elephant? Isn’t this enough to sleep for fifty years?”
In the language of the Central Plains, elephants were called “great elephants.” Among the demonic heads that gangho people referred to as the Minor Demonic Faction, a colossal demonic head of the highest order grew furious.
“What bitch dares…!”
She gathered every soul in the manor and made them all contemplate the truth together. Water and fire always knew the answer, so it did not take long for the culprit to confess his crime.
“I-I have committed a mortal sin. I was blinded by money and—”
“Money? Did someone commission an assassination?”
“The Black Guild has placed a bounty… the amount is a full ten thousand gold…”
Sinpa turned to look at Eon Yeonyeong.
“You wench. What scheme did you pull on the Black Guild?”
“Scheme, you say. I’ve done so many things I genuinely can’t guess which one. Perhaps I underestimated the Black Guild. How surprising that those insignificant creatures managed to identify me. Excuse me, Mister Failed Assassin? Was it definitely me?”
“She is Eon Yeonyeong of the Jinju Eon Clan, and her characteristic is a beauty you recognize at a single glance…”
Sinpa snorted.
“Hmph. A long tail is bound to be caught, as they say. I told you over and over to at least wear a human-skin mask.”
“Oh my. I am already wearing a human disguise. What difference would another layer make? It seems I truly underestimated the Black Guild’s paltry intelligence.”
“Then what will you do?”
“I only spared him because the ingredients were convenient to obtain, but it feels wrong to leave a buzzing fly that doesn’t know its place. Oh dear, how troublesome~”
Eon Yeonyeong continued speaking with her signature gentle, elegant smile.
“First, as a warning, let us clean up everything in sight. Would you help me, Sinpa? It has been a while. You should enjoy your hobby as well, shouldn’t you?”