Cheonsangru -1
“Hoo...”
The only training I could comfortably manage inside the Imperial Palace was qi circulation. As a result, I spent every spare moment doing nothing but circulating my energy. After grinding away at it so relentlessly, I finally finished sorting out the residual medicinal energies that had been lingering in my body as latent power.
Qi circulation and breath regulation were the absolute basics for any martial artist, so it was easy to grow careless if you didn’t pay attention. Once I came to my senses, I realized that ever since I had grasped the Spiral Formula, I had become completely absorbed in unfolding sword forms and unraveling their principles—leaving the digestion of elixirs as an afterthought.
Treating it like overdue homework, I kept refining the leftover medicinal energy until, at last, results appeared.
After finishing a simple bare-handed calisthenics session and washing up, the palace maids brought breakfast. It was only plain noodles and dumplings, yet the depth of the broth and the savory burst of juices when I bit into the filling were nothing like what I usually ate.
After that I met Hyeok Gi-rin for tea. Apparently the problem had been the way our closeness was being displayed in the palace; once I stopped emphasizing our relationship, she returned to the same Hyeok Gi-rin I had always known. She seemed to be enjoying palace life quite a bit—her complexion was bright.
“Tch.”
Today I had planned to tell Hyeok Gi-rin what those two eunuchs, Du-jak and Hwi-gyeong, had been up to. No matter how you looked at it, inviting the Emperor’s guest to sneak out of the palace for a brothel and gambling den was a complete abandonment of their duties as eunuchs.
But when I saw her face today, she was savoring a rare moment of peace. Even if the strict family atmosphere made friendships a bit awkward, the palace was still her true home. There was a comfort that only “home” could give.
There was no need to spoil her mood by bringing up those two.
I had refused them firmly yesterday, so they should have come to their senses by now.
Or so I thought.
“Help us!”
The moment they saw my face, both of them bowed their heads.
“What... what’s going on with you two?”
Du-jak’s expression was a little ambiguous, but Hwi-gyeong’s face was pure desperation. If that look was an act, he could probably land the post of Director of the Eastern Depot without any trouble.
“Do you remember, at our first meeting, you said I resembled someone?”
“Huh? Yes, I did.”
“My real name is Sama Hwi-gyeong!”
Ah. So that was why he had looked familiar—I must have been thinking of Sama Yeom. Once I heard the surname Sama and looked at him again, the resemblance was strong enough that they could have been brothers.
I had already roughly guessed they were using aliases. Still, I widened my eyes and pretended to be shocked.
“That’s truly surprising! But why the false names?”
Why suddenly reveal the aliases to me?
“Well... because we heard you were quite the gambler!”
“...Excuse me? Could you explain that in a way that actually makes sense—”
“Help us! You’re the only hope left for me and Lord Du-jak!”
Sama Hwi-gyeong clung to my pant leg and refused to let go. Calming the completely panicked man and getting the full story out of him took a considerable amount of time.
“...So you’re saying you put your hands on the gold that Prefect Sama Yeom sent from the Golden Family, and then lost it all at a gambling den?”
Du-jak and Hwi-gyeong both hung their heads.
Was this even real? The situation was so absurd that I first questioned whether it was true. More than anything, Du-jak didn’t seem genuinely serious despite how grave the mess was. He was just putting on a moderately serious face.
“...How much did you touch?”
“Five hundred gold taels!”
At the unreal sum I instinctively checked Du-jak’s reaction. How could anyone keep that attitude after losing five hundred gold pieces? Strictly speaking, the money Sama Yeom had sent was tribute from the Prefect of Sichuan. Prefects only needed to meet the tax quota and forward it to the center, after all.
There were more than enough clues that the Sama family was a powerhouse in court. First there was Sama Yeom, who had known Hyeok Gi-rin since childhood. The fact that he could freely meet a young princess already proved the Sama clan was a great house with deep ties to the imperial family.
And now a current palace eunuch from that same Sama family was trembling in fear.
Laying hands on the Emperor’s tribute was that serious a crime.
So what the hell was Du-jak’s background that he could be this lacking in crisis awareness?
Sensing the suspicion in my gaze, Sama Hwi-gyeong pulled my ear close.
“Lord Du-jak is of noble blood.”
So he was imperial family? If he was a prince, that carefree attitude suddenly made sense. One of the wastrel royals...
Right. To commit the insane act of touching the Emperor’s tribute, you needed at least imperial blood for the story to hold water. The way the palace maids of Gungcheong Hall had fawned over him also made sense. Even for a eunuch it had seemed excessive, but if he was royalty, that was a different matter.
“Please, just think of it as saving one man’s life and help us! You’re our only hope!”
Sama Hwi-gyeong had committed a capital crime that could cost him his head and bring disaster on his entire clan, but a wastrel prince... well, he might get off with a light punishment.
I had thought something was off from the moment they suddenly acted friendly and invited me to a place called Cheonsangru. That must have been where they lost the five hundred gold taels.
While I was lost in thought, Sama Hwi-gyeong kept talking.
“If it were simply money, I could somehow make it up with the family’s power. But we also smuggled out a treasure listed on the tribute inventory—the Five Treasure Chicken. If I don’t recover the actual item and return it to the storehouse, I’m a dead man!”
“Hah.”
I understood the situation.
I thought of Sama Yeom while organizing my thoughts. It wasn’t as if I had zero intention of helping Sama Hwi-gyeong. I owed Sama Yeom in various ways, and the man was such a slippery eel that putting a leash on him through his relative didn’t sound bad. They had brought this on themselves, but I couldn’t just watch someone die either. If they had any sense of shame, they would make my stay in the palace convenient.
“Are you certain there will be no trouble if we leave the palace? It’s not as if the two of you are the Director of the Eastern Depot or the Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.”
“Ahem. No need to worry on that score. If the fact that you left the palace is discovered, we will be the ones who lose our heads! Once they grab your collar, we’ll all be dragged in together.”
“Well, that makes sense.”
Exactly the answer I had expected. I nodded. Yes, just as predicted.
“I understand that the two of you wish to hire me as a gambler. However, I have conditions of my own.”
The two exchanged glances. When Du-jak nodded, Sama Hwi-gyeong asked,
“Very well, what are your conditions?”
“Collateral. I need a treasure whose value cannot be casually measured.”
“...What?”
Their faces flooded with panic at the completely unexpected demand.
“Erm... look here, we will prepare the stakes ourselves. Five hundred gold taels is no small sum, but I can somehow arrange it...”
“Hahaha! Of course you’ll prepare the stakes. What I’m talking about isn’t the gambling money. I’m talking about the collateral you must give me if you want me to work with you.”
I smiled brightly.
“How am I supposed to trust the words of two men so addicted to gambling that they laid hands on His Majesty’s tribute and then leave the palace with you? Even loan sharks refuse to lend to gambling addicts.”
As if a gambling addict could ever be trustworthy, you pair of idiots.
“If you want me to leave the imperial city with you, bring me collateral that makes me feel I can actually trust you.”
Looking at the two of them standing there with their mouths hanging open, I smiled again.
“If you don’t like it, don’t come.”
Luoyang.
The capital was the gathering place of every culture under heaven. Having flourished for long ages as the seat of the empire, Luoyang drew in the goods and customs of the entire realm. Some survived, some were discarded, and the city’s culture grew ever more brilliant and profound—far beyond what any provincial place could match.
So there was no need to explain how splendid and refined the capital’s nightlife would be.
The brothels operating in Luoyang alone numbered in the hundreds.
And among them, the one everyone acknowledged as the finest was Cheonsangru.
That very Cheonsangru was now wrapped in a quiet tension.
“Brother, so what kind of guy is this target supposed to be?”
“Stop the useless talk. Review the plan one more time. These are people who can take our heads without the slightest trouble if we make a real mistake.”
“Tch.”
Hak-jo scolded his fellow gambler and swallowed dryly as he recalled three days earlier. Eastern Depot agents had suddenly stormed his house and dragged him to Cheonsangru.
They had been taken down to the second basement level—a special gambling hall so exclusive that even high officials rarely gained membership. Waiting there were the most renowned gamblers in all of Luoyang.
You will gamble against a single target inside Cheonsangru. Understood?
The forcibly gathered gamblers had listened with fear and resentment, but soon their eyes filled with anticipation and zeal.
It was a five-hundred-gold-tael table. And they would get to run an operation on the famous second basement of Cheonsangru.
The generous pay was more than enough to whet any gambler’s appetite.
“Preparations are perfect, I trust?”
“Heh. You yourself saw what kind of preparations we made.”
They had gathered only the absolute best among Luoyang’s already elite gamblers. Then they had coordinated every detail of the entire hall solely to take down one man. From the obvious stagecraft between the gamblers to a complete redesign of the floor layout for their schemes—everything had been arranged.
More than a hundred people, from waiters to professional gamblers, had laid the board just to deceive a single person.
“The target will arrive soon.”
“Everyone, ready yourselves.”
The second basement of Cheonsangru began to bustle.
At that same hour, Ho Cheon-an, Yu Gyeong, and Sama Gyeong-hwi stopped by the Yongsang Inn before arriving at Cheonsangru. The moment Ho Cheon-an stepped into the second basement and swept his gaze across the floor, he turned a thoroughly displeased look on the two men behind him.
“You two got thoroughly played for suckers.”
“Hahaha. That’s exactly why I invited you to my seat, hahaha.”
Madness colored Yu Gyeong’s laughter.
Yu Gyeong—the man who had been told by the gambling-mad Ho Cheon-an that he couldn’t work with gambling addicts and had been forced to put up collateral!
Watching Ho Cheon-an click his tongue and treat him like a pathetic fool made Yu Gyeong’s blood reverse direction, yet he had no choice but to swallow the humiliation if he wanted to plant the man who had told him “if you don’t like it, don’t come” at this table.
The two of them had been forced to hand over treasures tied to their true identities as collateral and had begged and pleaded until they finally dragged Ho Cheon-an out of the palace.
“From now on, the two of you should stay away from gambling dens and just drink. I’ve been in and out of more than a few high-stakes tables, but I’ve never seen a board this hopeless.”
Grind.
“Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! I’ll trust only you!”
Watching Yu Gyeong seethe with poison after Ho Cheon-an’s barb, Sama Gyeong-hwi—still disguised as Sama Hwi-gyeong—hastily stuffed gold ingots and gold pieces into Ho Cheon-an’s arms.
The gamblers of Cheonsangru swallowed dryly as they watched Ho Cheon-an grumble and take his seat.
Hak-jo put himself in the other man’s shoes.
If it were me, I would never sit there.
The setup was that the two men had racked up a five-hundred-gold-tael debt at the gambling house and had the Five Treasure Chicken taken from them. Cheonsangru had promised to return the treasure if they repaid the five hundred gold taels through gambling—only at Cheonsangru.
Any real gambler would have run screaming the moment he heard those terms.
It was a board that reeked of the house’s fierce determination to catch one sucker and milk him long-term. You could still sit down if the pay was fat enough.
Having to win five hundred gold taels at the table... an almost impossible condition, yet maybe, over a long stretch of play, it could somehow be done.
If it were ordinary gambling, that is.
But the second basement of Cheonsangru right now was designed so blatantly to fleece a mark that no gambler could fail to notice. Plenty of people were enjoying various games, yet the only empty seat was at the Golpae table—exactly one chair.
Even a non-gambler could tell it had been built for a three-against-one fleecing.
And yet Ho Cheon-an simply sat down.
Gulp.
We’ve already been crushed in momentum.
It was a five-hundred-gold-tael table. Even professional gamblers who had spent decades in the trade had never seen or heard of such a sum.
Even the gamblers who had completed every preparation and had the entire house working together to clean out one man were struggling to hide their tension.
And yet—
How in the world...
Mild irritation. A short grumble.
Those were the only emotions that could be read from Ho Cheon-an.
How was it possible? Even knowing the entire gambling house was after the gold he carried, he showed not the slightest ripple of unease.
Hak-jo and the two gamblers who had taken seats with him were already overwhelmed by Ho Cheon-an’s sheer boldness.
“Well? Aren’t we starting?”
Hak-jo swallowed dryly and nodded.
“Then let’s begin the game.”
A gambling table created with the full cooperation of Cheonsangru, the finest gamblers of Luoyang, and the support of the Eastern Depot—all for the sole purpose of taking down Ho Cheon-an.
The Golpae tiles were shuffled, and the game began.