Green Jade Plaque
The words Buying the Dip burrowed deep into Hwa Yeonseol's mind and lodged themselves there.
For a woman born and raised a merchant, they were words she could never let pass by.
The foundation of all commerce was simple: buy low, sell high. And there were, broadly speaking, three ways to do it.
The first was exploiting price differences between regions. It ranged from the humble peddler hauling a bundle on his back all the way up to massive trade caravans crossing beyond the frontier.
The second was adding craft to raw materials and selling them at a premium — brewing liquor, forging swords, weaving cloth.
And then there was the last one: finding value no one else had yet discovered. The earlier, the better. Most of the great fortunes renowned across the realm were built on exactly that method.
Hwa Yeonseol's eyes gleamed as she looked at Jin Seongun. The fact that they could shine even in a situation like this proved she was, indeed, a merchant to her bones.
Jin Seongun met that gleam and cleared his throat awkwardly. No wonder it felt familiar — it was the exact same look Elder Hyeon Un of the Wudang Sect wore whenever he gazed at him.
"Ahem. I am not an object, little hero."
"Hahaha, I'm just saying that's what it means."
Seo Yugyeom laughed as if thoroughly entertained. To everyone else, Jin Seongun was a dry, unremarkable sort of man, but to Seo Yugyeom he was the funniest person in the world.
Hwa Yeonseol watched him with faint surprise. It was a laugh she had never once seen back in her days at the Hwaun Merchant Group.
Before long, the three of them settled around the table. And at some point, Jang Hong — who had slunk quietly down from the second floor — slipped naturally into the last empty seat.
Jin Seongun and Seo Yugyeom spared him only a glance and offered no objection. After all, Jang Hong had staked his life on this situation too.
Hwa Yeonseol spoke.
"I am Hwa Yeonseol, head of the Hwaun Merchant Group. And Yugyeom's older sister, once upon a time..."
Her tone toward Jin Seongun shifted into formal speech. Jin Seongun, who had never once cared how others addressed him, simply nodded.
"I'm Jin Seongun. Waiter and owner of Seongun Inn in Yichang."
Hwa Yeonseol's eyes went as wide as saucers. She had assumed his innkeeper manner came naturally to him, but never imagined he actually ran an inn.
"For the record, I'm a cook."
"Weren't you an assassin a moment ago?"
"Former assassin, current cook."
"..."
Hwa Yeonseol felt a faint wave of dizziness. On one side, a waiter who could cut down dozens of warriors with a single sweep of his blade; on the other, a cook out of Salmak, the assassins' guild. She had no idea what kind of combination this was supposed to be — but in truth, it pleased her. If he lived as an ordinary waiter, chances were the world hadn't yet grasped his true worth.
Of course, the Wudang Sect, the Tang Family, the Seomun Clan, and the Seok Family Estate were all circling Jin Seongun like hawks, but she had no way of knowing that.
Hwa Yeonseol made up her mind for good. Her feelings toward Seo Yugyeom were a matter to sort out later. If the Hwaun Merchant Group — if she — wanted to survive, she had no choice but to stand with Jin Seongun.
Whether he would even help her, and whether his help would actually improve matters, she couldn't say. But precisely because this was, quite literally, the only path left, she had no choice but to stake everything on it.
"Saryeonggeuk will use this incident as his excuse to summon the Thousand Poisons Alliance's warriors here to Deokyang."
Hwa Yeonseol was certain of it. He had spoken before about wanting to bring in the alliance's elite forces. At the time, he'd seemed to hold off out of deference to the objections of the Twilight Pavilion and Blue Night Valley leaders — but this incident would be the decisive trigger.
Jin Seongun nodded calmly. Hwa Yeonseol, thrown off by how dry his reaction was, grew a little flustered.
"That's it?"
"What would you have me do if they're coming?"
Hwa Yeonseol's eyes narrowed. After studying Jin Seongun for a long moment, she arrived at a conclusion.
He isn't afraid of the Thousand Poisons Alliance.
It wasn't bravado — he genuinely seemed incapable of feeling fear itself. While Hwa Yeonseol was quietly reeling from that realization, Seo Yugyeom spoke up beside her.
"The alliance coming here doesn't just mean their fighting force gets stronger."
"Why do you say that?"
"The Thousand Poisons Alliance fights dirty. It's going to be an exhausting war."
Seo Yugyeom then launched into a lengthy explanation of the alliance's methods, complete with example after example — but boiled down, it went something like this:
The Thousand Poisons Alliance is not a group that fights with force alone.
The thing to remember was that their opponents were the giants of Sichuan — the Tang Family, Mount Emei, Qingcheng, and the rest. Judged on pure martial strength alone, the alliance surviving against them was impossible. Yet survive it did.
It had chosen the methods available only to the unorthodox: harassing everything around it, mobilizing every filthy and loathsome trick in existence. To the orthodox factions, that made the alliance less terrifying than relentlessly, endlessly bothersome.
"They might, say, hunt down the owner of the Deokyang Inn here in town. Or if it looks like they might actually lose, they'd burn Deokyang itself to the ground. They have to demonstrate that what they can't keep, no one else gets to have — that's how you make an example of someone."
Jin Seongun let out a small sigh. Why did the Black factions have to be so endlessly distasteful in everything they did? Probably because his identity was that of a waiter. Waiters and the Black factions were, by nature, natural enemies.
After a moment's thought, Jin Seongun turned to Jang Hong, who had spent the entire conversation with his mouth shut and his eyeballs rolling frantically in their sockets.
"Wh-what is it, Great Hero?"
At some point, Jang Hong had adopted the speech of a thoroughly loyal retainer. This was Jang Hong's secret to survival.
"May I ask a favor of you?"
Jang Hong flinched hard. Hadn't it been one of Jin Seongun's "favors" that had him guide them to the Four Dragons Casino last time, nearly costing him his neck?
"You're about to make me do something dangerous again, aren't you."
Jang Hong's eyes brimmed with wariness. Jin Seongun said, matter-of-fact:
"Quite the opposite. It'll be the safest errand of your life."
"...What is it?"
"Take this and go to Chengdu."
Jin Seongun drew a small jade plaque from his breast and handed it over. The moment Jang Hong saw it, his eyes bulged.
The character Tang was engraved on the jade. The Tang dynasty had long since vanished into the back pages of history, so in this day and age, that character could mean only one thing: the Sichuan Tang Family.
Many named the Sichuan Tang Family the most feared power in the realm. Even counting the Demonic Cult and the unorthodox factions, plenty of people still answered with the Tang Family.
The reason was brutally simple: they were, at heart, filthy and savage. There was a time they'd been called quasi-orthodox, so faint was their righteous coloring — and especially for those born and raised in Sichuan, the fear of the Tang Family ran bone-deep.
Jang Hong's hands trembled violently.
"Y-you want me to go to the Tang Family?"
"Go, tell them the situation as it stands, and they'll handle the rest. I understand being nervous, but in my experience, the Tang Family is a rather gracious lot."
Seo Yugyeom added from beside him:
"...That's only true when it's you, you know."
That said, Seo Yugyeom agreed that asking for the Tang Family's help was the most rational move available. Jang Hong stuffed the jade plaque into his breast with trembling hands.
He had two choices: refuse, or head for the Tang Family. He could also pretend to head there and bolt halfway — but that option was struck off immediately, since it meant making enemies of the Thousand Poisons Alliance, the Tang Family, the Hwaun Merchant Group, and both Jin Seongun and Seo Yugyeom at once. The worst possible play.
After a long stretch of agonizing, Jang Hong heaved a great sigh.
"...I'll be off, then. Just hand me one nyang of silver and I'll ride there and back."
Jin Seongun passed him the silver. Seo Yugyeom looked distinctly uneasy about handing money to a pickpocket, but there was no better option at the moment.
"Touching money does soothe my conscience a little, actually."
Seo Yugyeom's unease grew a little deeper.
Jang Hong rode straight for Chengdu without a moment's delay. It wasn't far from Deokyang.
Chengdu was a city on an entirely different scale from Deokyang. The streets were far wider, the buildings packed that much denser, and the crowds thronged as though every soul under heaven had gathered in one place.
For a moment, Jang Hong's soul left his body — but with a weighty mission entrusted to him, he pulled himself together quickly.
Finding the Tang Family was no difficulty at all.
"Where might the Tang Family be?"
Every soul in Chengdu could answer that question. Though, it must be said, they all answered and then fled from Jang Hong as if he carried the plague.
And so Jang Hong arrived at the Tang Family estate. He held their jade plaque in his hand, but truthfully, he had never once felt certain on the entire ride there.
Would the Tang Family really move?
Would they stir for a single individual — not for some vast financial interest or an alliance between great powers, but for one young man barely into his twenties?
The moment the Tang Family's main gate came into view, Jang Hong dismounted at once. There was still a fair distance to go, but he wanted, above all else, to avoid provoking their temper.
Leading his horse, he approached the gate — and two pairs of green eyes turned toward him.
In that instant, Jang Hong felt as if daggers had flown and buried themselves in his flesh; the hair stood on end across his whole body.
The gatekeepers of the Tang Family were merely looking at him. But the family's reputation and the terror of the Sichuan people were enough to make even a simple gaze feel like a murderous blade.
"Where do you come from?"
One of the gatekeepers asked in a flat, uninflected tone.
"I, I, I'm Jang Hong, from Deokyang. The man I serve — no, that is, I don't exactly serve him, but anyway, there's this young man whose honored name is..."
Jang Hong babbled incoherently for a while. The gatekeeper clicked his tongue.
"Aigoo. Just the point, if you please."
"My apologies!"
Jang Hong bowed deeply. The gatekeeper watched him with faint amusement. He knew people feared the Tang Family excessively, but the man before him seemed to be genuinely timid.
"Th-this is..."
Jang Hong carefully produced the jade plaque from his breast and held it out. The gatekeeper took it with an indifferent hand — then, recognizing what it was, stiffened in shock.
The Tang Family issued gratitude plaques — grace plaques — of many different grades to those who had earned their gratitude. They ranked favors by their weight. Naturally, the grade of the plaque determined whom the bearer could meet, and what reward the family would owe them.
The Green Jade Plaque he had just been handed was the highest grade of all. It granted an audience with the Family Head himself, and the Tang Family would repay the debt it represented before any other business whatsoever.
Only a handful of people alive held a Green Jade Plaque — three or four, perhaps. And among them, only one was young.
"Could it be... sent by Great Hero Jin?"
Jang Hong's eyes went wide as saucers. Great Hero Jin could only mean Jin Seongun.
"Y-yes, yes, that's right!"
"Ho! Sending someone in his place rather than coming himself — something serious must have happened."
With that, the gatekeeper seized Jang Hong firmly by the arm and hauled him inside. Whether "hauled" was the right word was debatable; "dragged" fit better. Like a puppet made of paper, Jang Hong offered no resistance whatsoever, flapping limply as he was sucked into the Tang Family estate.
.
.
.
Jang Hong felt as though he had climbed some towering mountain. In a word: he could barely breathe.
"Explain."
A deep, weighty voice settled over the room like a low fog. It was a vast chamber. Jang Hong stood stiffly in the center like a man awaiting sentence, while a ring of middle-aged elders, fierce green-eyed warriors, and one young woman surrounded him, glaring.
The elders were the Family Head and the clan's senior retainers. The warriors were the heads of its military divisions. And the young woman was the Young Clan Head herself, Tang Soyeon.
Sweat poured down Jang Hong as he absorbed, with his entire body, the dagger-like weight of their stares.
"Th-the thing is... recently, Great Hero Jin came to Deokyang, and I happened to be picking his pocket when..."
The moment the words left his mouth, Jang Hong nearly stopped breathing. He had been so nervous he'd confessed to something that never even needed mentioning.
The young woman shot to her feet and declared that they should kill the wretch on the spot. Just as Jang Hong flattened himself to the floor, the middle-aged man seated in the place of highest honor rebuked her.
"The story first."
The master of the Tang Family — the Poison King, Tang Taewon. One of the most dangerous men alive, he fixed Jang Hong with a steady stare and continued.
"Begin with the substance of the matter."
"Y-yes, sir!"
What followed was a remarkably lucid account, astonishingly free of excess. It is said that people pushed to the extreme edge of danger summon strange new abilities — and in twenty-seven years of life, today was the finest day of Jang Hong's career as a speaker.
When he finished, a heavy silence fell over the chamber. Jang Hong simply hunched his shoulders and awaited their verdict.
He expected nothing, of course. A power of the Tang Family's stature would hardly move for something so small — all the less so because it meant clashing head-on with the Thousand Poisons Alliance, the unchallenged overlord of Sichuan's underworld.
The Poison King rose from his seat. His frame was small, but his presence was vast enough to fill the entire chamber and still have room left over.
Then, calmly, he addressed them all.
"Everyone, make your preparations."
Right up to that moment, Jang Hong had not understood what decision the Poison King had made. Only with the Poison King's next words did he finally grasp what kind of creature's pouch he had tried to pickpocket.
"If it comes to it, we will wage all-out war on the Thousand Poisons Alliance."
Gratitude and grudges repaid tenfold.
That was the Sichuan Tang Family.