Chief Manager Jang
Chief Manager Jang.
Dang Taesan's eyes blazed fiercely as he looked at Jin Seongun.
As the Grand Elder of the Tang Clan, he had seen and weathered more than his share of prodigies.
From those who now held the positions of Clan Head, sect leader, and alliance chief in this era, down to the rising young masters like Tang Soyeon who bore the star names of Dragon and Phoenix.
Dang Taesan himself, of course, had been counted among the Tang Clan's finest talents long before he ever earned the title of Poison Lord.
But Jin Seongun was different. The audacious warrior who had cleaved the Vice Alliance Leader of the Thousand Poisons Alliance in two with a single stroke and yet stood there, calm as still water, was of a fundamentally different quality from everyone who had ever been called a genius.
A being that exists outside the bounds of common sense.
That was the verdict Dang Taesan reached in his heart.
Among the countless prodigies and marvels he had witnessed, there were those who quite literally shattered convention and norm alike — and in this era, such beings numbered no more than five at most.
Just as Dang Taesan's deep green eyes began to burn with a mingling of admiration, greed, curiosity, and longing, Jin Seongun, sensing that gaze, turned his head and met it.
"……"
An awkward silence settled over them for a moment.
For his part, Jin Seongun had no way of knowing why the man was looking at him with such eyes.
So he considered the matter briefly, then spoke.
"It's finished."
"……I know."
Dang Taesan let out a hollow laugh.
He had just killed the Vice Alliance Leader of the Thousand Poisons Alliance at barely twenty years of age, and this was what he had to say about it.
It was absurd — and yet, at the same time, a worry crept in. What if some fox-like old schemers, men who knew nothing of the boy's indifference to the world of martial politics, coaxed him away and took him for themselves?
Say, that old man Hyeon Un, for instance.
The Wudang elder Hyeon Un sat at the very top of Dang Taesan's watch list. The way that wine-loving, magic-trick-obsessed old coot had planted himself in Yichang said enough on its own.
While Dang Taesan was quietly spinning scheme after scheme in his head, Seo Yugyeom came into view in the distance, making his way back.
He was drenched head to toe in blood, and both Jin Seongun and Dang Taesan's faces flickered with alarm for an instant.
Seo Yugyeom walked up to them and broke into an easy grin.
"Looks like you're done here too."
Jin Seongun relaxed at once.
Seo Yugyeom seemed no different from his usual self.
"How was it?"
What level had Blue Night Valley actually been at? Had his killing intent flared out of control at any point during the fight? Jin Seongun packed several questions into a single breath.
Seo Yugyeom answered with a shrug.
"Blue Night Valley's gone. A bunch of amateurs playing at being assassins."
Coming from a man who had been a special-grade assassin of Salmak, he meant it with complete sincerity.
In a fight between assassins and assassins, numbers hardly mattered in the first place. Against foes of that caliber, he'd have been confident even if two or three times a hundred had come at him instead of one.
"I'm hungry."
Seo Yugyeom rubbed his stomach.
Jin Seongun nodded as well. The Merchant King's Black Wolf Saber Technique demanded that every sense in the body be honed as fine as a needle, and the mental strain was considerable.
"Better to eat out tonight, I'd say. It's been a trying day."
"You get tired too?"
"I'm talking about Master Seo."
"I haven't even used half my strength yet."
"Neither have I."
The two of them postured back and forth — though in one case, it wasn't posturing at all.
Before long, the pair had launched into a heated debate over what one ought to eat on a day like this.
Watching them, Dang Taesan was on the verge of bursting from swallowing too much hot air.
Those two are certainly no ordinary men either. If I could take both of them as sons-in-law……
For a moment, Dang Taesan's eyes softened. He pictured the Sichuan Tang Clan dominating the martial world twenty years from now. There was no rapture in this world to compare.
Meanwhile, the two had finally settled on a steaming bowl of noodles and were setting off somewhere.
Dang Taesan hurriedly grabbed them.
"Wait! Where do you two think you're going! The noodles can wait."
"Is there someone else left to fight?"
So saying, Jin Seongun glanced down at a blade lying fallen on the ground — looking for all the world as if he meant to pick up anything at all that could be lifted — and Dang Taesan hastily added,
"It's not that. Surely every matter in this world deserves a proper ending, no? I mean Hwaun Merchant Group."
"Ah."
Jin Seongun nodded as if only now remembering, and they made their way into the inn. The moment they stepped inside, Hwa Yeonseol shot up from her seat, her face taut with tension.
Blood had bitten into her pale lips. She had been forced to leave her own battle in the hands of others and could do nothing but pray — that alone must have been its own torment.
Her defeat, her helplessness, her gnawing anxiety were all laid bare on her face, so Jin Seongun spoke with a deliberately even gentleness.
"Now it's your battle, my lady."
Before the enemy had come, Jin Seongun had told her that once their fight was over, hers would begin.
She would have to right a merchant group collapsing from within, all while withstanding the pressure bearing down on it from without.
That was not something Jin Seongun or Seo Yugyeom could do for her. It was hers alone to bear, as the master of Hwaun Merchant Group.
But the words meant that both the Thousand Poisons Alliance and Deokyang's Black Dao had been dealt with — and at that, she collapsed to the floor where she stood.
Jin Seongun watched her for a moment, then offered a rare bit of self-praise.
"A good thing I mopped the floor this morning."
A floor cleaner than most people's dining tables. That was what the inn Jin Seongun kept was.
The Golden Flower Pavilion of Hwaun Merchant Group.
Jin Seongun, Seo Yugyeom, Hwa Yeonseol, and Dang Taesan sat around a low table.
Hwa Yeonseol had offered Dang Taesan the seat of honor, but he refused it, saying that a guest could hardly play the host in another man's house.
Only after her maid set out a fragrant tea and withdrew did the conversation truly begin.
"Hwaun Merchant Group's future……"
"The Thousand Poisons Alliance — our Tang Clan will……"
The talk was, broadly speaking, of the road ahead for Hwaun Merchant Group and for all of Sichuan, and naturally it was Hwa Yeonseol and Dang Taesan who carried it.
Jin Seongun picked at a few of the confections that had come with the tea, then slid deep into his chair and slipped into a brief meditation.
Running a mere inn already came with its share of headaches; the management of a merchant group this size made his head throb just to listen to.
Still, he reckoned the lessons might prove useful someday, so he kept one ear open as he nibbled……
This is a little tiring.
The conversation drifted further and further away.
Or rather, it was Jin Seongun's consciousness that was drifting away.
The other three talked at length, then — as if by some silent agreement — their voices dwindled.
Before long, all three pairs of eyes turned to the same spot. Jin Seongun's head was nodding.
The three of them found themselves thinking, once again, that he really was only human. He was always so dry and unflappable that one had assumed fatigue simply didn't touch him.
To be sure, Jin Seongun's body remained hale and vigorous. It was only that a man who had lived his whole life as a humble inn waiter found the talk of alliances and merchant groups more tedious and draining than any battle.
Once again, Jin Seongun was just an ordinary man of barely twenty.
.
.
.
So as not to wake him, the three carried on their meeting in murmurs.
No hostility or killing intent ever rose to fill the air, and so nothing stirred Jin Seongun's senses.
Near the end of their talk, Dang Taesan spoke in a quiet but resolute voice.
"Hwaun Merchant Group will have the Tang Clan's protection. On one condition — through Seongun Inn."
What those words meant was plain.
Going forward, the Tang Clan would shield both Deokyang and Hwaun Merchant Group. But the bond between the merchant group and the clan would be maintained only through Seongun Inn.
Which meant, inevitably, that a handsome stream of profit and privilege would pass through the inn's hands.
Jin Seongun would grow rich simply sitting still and breathing.
Hwa Yeonseol, for her part, agreed without a moment's hesitation. She had wondered all through the meeting why Dang Taesan's manner was so imperious — and now she understood that it had all been building toward exactly this.
Setting aside the plain fact that the Tang Clan's protection was advantageous under any arrangement, as a merchant she fully intended to pay Jin Seongun and Seo Yugyeom a fitting price for what they had done.
"It shall be as you say."
"The details will be conveyed through the Chief Manager once I've returned to the clan."
And so, in the span of a single nap, Jin Seongun had become the connecting thread between one of the Ten Great Merchant Groups and one of the Five Great Clans.
Ordinary talk followed afterward. Hwa Yeonseol, Seo Yugyeom, and Dang Taesan all shared a common tie to Sichuan, so the conversation flowed easily.
How much time had passed, then?
"……"
Jin Seongun's eyes snapped open.
The Yeowol Mind Art had carried his breathing and circulation along on its own while he slept, and his head was perfectly clear.
"You do sleep soundly, don't you."
Jin Seongun did not answer Dang Taesan's remark.
He simply stared at the door.
Only then did Dang Taesan grasp what it meant for Jin Seongun to wake so abruptly, out of nowhere.
A moment later, the maid's voice carried in from beyond the door.
"M-Mistress. A distinguished guest has arrived."
Hwa Yeonseol frowned.
What guest, however distinguished, could matter more than the three men sitting before her this very moment?
Just as she began to tactfully defer the meeting, Dang Taesan shook his head at her.
Hwa Yeonseol was no fool either; a flicker of surprise crossed her face before she rose from her seat.
"One moment, please."
Having begged their indulgence, she moved toward the door.
While Seo Yugyeom and Dang Taesan merely watched, Jin Seongun rose from his seat and walked alongside her.
A gesture that looked for all the world like a guard shielding her.
Hwa Yeonseol found it curious, but she did not ask.
She opened the door herself, revealing her tense-faced maid and a middle-aged man.
The man was quite short, with a hard-set face. His clothes were neat and clean but otherwise unremarkable — nothing about them spoke of wealth.
Yet the piercing light in his two eyes burned deeper and brighter than that of any martial artist in the room.
Hwa Yeonseol, Dang Taesan, and Seo Yugyeom all recognized the face at once — and all three went stiff with shock.
"Chief Manager Jang — surely not."
Chief Manager Jang.
There was no shortage of men surnamed Jang holding the post of chief manager here and there across the land — but in the world of commerce, the name pointed to exactly one man.
Mangeum Manor, the greatest merchant estate under heaven.
It could truly be said that every major artery of gold in the world flowed through Mangeum Manor.
Rumor had it thick and strong that not only the great merchant groups, but the martial clans, the sects, the landed magnates, the Black Dao, the Green Forest brigands — even the Imperial Palace and the Demonic Cult — were all entwined in its web.
The second man of that Mangeum Manor, and the sole friend of the Manor Lord himself, was Chief Manager Jang Jihyeon.
Chief Manager Jang gave an awkward smile.
"Haha, I should have come to pay my respects far sooner. I'm late, aren't I? I can only imagine how much you have endured, Mistress."
"N-no, not at all."
Hwa Yeonseol waved her hands in flustered protest.
Chief Manager Jang's gaze drifted naturally into the office behind her.
"Ah, and the Grand Elder is here as well. And two more gallant gentlemen besides. If it's no trouble, may I step in for a word?"
Hwa Yeonseol looked to Dang Taesan in uncertainty — his word carried the most weight in this company, after all.
"Heh. Do come in, Chief Manager Jang."
Dang Taesan nodded with a benevolent smile.
Before long, all five of them — Seo Yugyeom and Jin Seongun included — were seated around the low table.
No sooner had Chief Manager Jang taken his seat than he came straight to the point.
"I apologize that we could not lend our aid sooner. As you well know, Mistress, that is simply the way of things among merchants."
Hwa Yeonseol nodded with a bitter smile. Had their positions been reversed, she could not have leapt to another's aid either.
"In exchange, I've brought something. A modest gift from Mangeum Manor. Thank you for enduring so much for so long, Mistress."
Chief Manager Jang smiled warmly, drew a single document from his robe, and laid it on the table.
At the sight of it, Hwa Yeonseol's eyes went round as saucers.
It stated that the entirety of the Pear Blossom Medical Clinic's shares would be transferred to Hwaun Merchant Group.
This was no modest gift. The Pear Blossom Medical Clinic ranked among the ten greatest medical institutions under heaven.
In effect, the man was offering to hand over an enormous, fully functioning business to Hwaun Merchant Group — outright, and without asking a single thing in return.
"H-how can we possibly accept such a thing……"
Hwa Yeonseol's words stumbled. Dang Taesan and Seo Yugyeom were every bit as astonished.
Only Jin Seongun kept staring steadily at Chief Manager Jang. The man caught that gaze, met it with a smile, and continued.
"We hear Deokyang has no proper medical institution to speak of. Beyond any matter of commerce between merchant groups, this is the heartfelt wish of the Manor Lord — that the lives of ordinary folk might grow a little better. Please accept it graciously."
Hwa Yeonseol's expression turned grave. Fortune that arrives unbidden, far outside the bounds of sense, startles a person by its very nature.
Meanwhile, Dang Taesan asked,
"Chief Manager Jang — I hear the herb gatherers of the Pear Blossom Clinic are exceptionally skilled. Is it true?"
"Hahaha, is there any doubt? They are herb gatherers raised and trained by Mangeum Manor itself."
Nothing more needed to be said.
Herb gatherers trained directly by Mangeum Manor. That fact explained everything.
Dang Taesan's eyes gleamed. Poison and medicine were, after all, a hair's breadth apart. The finest herb gatherers could, in other words, become the finest poison gatherers.
Chief Manager Jang wore a genial smile as he went on.
"I swear to you — Mangeum Manor will never demand anything of Hwaun Merchant Group in return for the Pear Blossom Clinic. I stake the very name of Mangeum Manor on it here, before the venerable Poison Lord himself. Please, accept it with an easy heart."
Hwa Yeonseol found herself nodding before she knew it.
In the grueling road ahead for Hwaun Merchant Group, the clinic's immense power to generate cash would be a tremendous help.
The Pear Blossom Medical Clinic kept well over a hundred physicians on its rolls. And if the clinic itself relocated here to Deokyang, money and people would naturally begin flowing in from every corner of the realm.
It would prove especially advantageous in her dealings with the Tang Clan, who dealt in poisons day in and day out.
Just as Hwa Yeonseol, half entranced, reached for her seal to stamp the document, Jin Seongun asked in his trademark flat tone,
"You know, you seem to have known everything already. Saryeonggeuk only died just now."
He thought back to the advice the Merchant King had given him before he came to Deokyang. Never trust a merchant easily.
Because of that, he had been a little suspicious of Hwa Yeonseol at first — but nothing had come of it. And just as he was letting his guard down, a merchant of Mangeum Manor had appeared out of the blue.
A truly remarkable coincidence. Given that the Merchant King had been the very first Lord of that very Mangeum Manor.
Chief Manager Jang looked at Jin Seongun for a moment — and then smiled warmly.
But to Jin Seongun's eyes, the man did not appear to be smiling at all.