The Cart Rolls On - 2
How do the people of Sichuan regard the Sichuan nangin?
It varies from person to person, of course, but the baseline is this: they acknowledge the nangin’s abilities while finding their antics utterly detestable. The moment something rubs them the wrong way they issue challenge letters and proceed to smash every sect inside Sichuan Province, so one has little choice but to respect their strength.
When the process of those challenges feels fishy, people denounce them for using sorcery or underhanded tricks. Yet keep hearing those same accusations long enough and a few souls inevitably start to wonder.
Just what is this “sorcery” the Sichuan nangin are supposed to use?
‘The Sichuan nangin are lawless brutes whose martial arts are weak, yet they deploy mysterious, unfathomable sorcery that makes them a nightmare to face.’
That is the evaluation every Sichuanese has heard until their ears are raw. Anyone living in the province has seen nangin swaggering about in their usual lawless fashion and has occasionally watched them display their martial arts. But as for the nangin’s sorcery, there were only thick clouds of rumor and nothing more. Nangin do not actually practice sorcery, so how could there ever be an eyewitness? Still, the rumors kept swirling, and those who burned with curiosity about the true nature of that sorcery had no intention of missing their chance to see it with their own eyes.
People who feared the nangin yet hungered to witness their sorcery.
Truly, moths blinded by curiosity came flocking to the crossroads in front of Hwanggeumga.
“You bastards! What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
“This is the front of the great Golden Family that runs the Golden Merchant Group! Disperse at once!”
The gatekeepers stormed out foaming at the mouth, but—
“Did you rent the whole street or something? Quit making noise and get lost.”
These were people who had swallowed their fear and gathered precisely because they wanted to see the true face of a nangin’s sorcery. And now, at the historic moment when that sorcery was about to be revealed, a bunch of gatekeepers showed up to spoil the fun? Of course the looks they received were anything but friendly.
Even those who had simply been drawn by a flashy flyer and the promise of some bizarre nangin antics as a way to kill time had still come here to see something. Interlopers were equally unwelcome to them.
Faced with the hostile stares of the massive crowd, the gatekeepers dared not force the issue. They bit their lips and sprinted back inside Hwanggeumga.
I needed to start before the gatekeepers returned with orders from the higher-ups to interfere.
Clap. Clap.
I clapped my hands and gathered every eye.
Honestly I had wanted to write “Sichuan nangin’s magic performance” on the flyers, but casually using the character for “demon” in Sichuan was a good way to make the Nine Great Sects light up like hunting dogs and come after me. So I compromised with “sorcery.”
First, inject the setup. Ideally this would wrap in a single go, but there was no telling how Hwanggeumga would react, and Go Bu-rin was an idiot who might do something pointless…
If I piled on too many weird details the message I needed to deliver to Hwanggeumga might get muddied.
“Heh heh. This one is a nangin who borrows the power of the ghost Jeon-gwi that dwells in the Saw-Corpse Hell to perform sorcery.”
The Saw-Corpse Hell is the Buddhist hell where those who cause commercial troubles receive their punishment. I was basically telling Go Bu-rin that the reaper who would turn his life into hell had arrived, so if he didn’t want to suffer he should surrender fast and spit out my money.
“Realize the greatness of the power of Lord Jeon-gwi who hails from the Saw-Corpse Hell, you foolish masses!! Behold!! Tremble and marvel!!”
I struck a “Long live the sun” pose, let out a suitably maniacal laugh, and checked the reaction. The crowd stirred, looking faintly spooked by my performance.
Setup complete. Now it was time to offer the interest that would overcome their fear. These people had come with light hearts hoping for a free spectacle; they had not come to get cursed by some weird nangin or harassed by Hwanggeumga.
The moment the interest faded they would melt away like the tide.
“You!”
I swept a finger through the air and the people around me flinched and stepped back. The one I pointed at was a young child who looked a little frightened.
I had been rolling around the Sichuan underworld for a full seven years. Whenever I needed to deliver a challenge letter or draw a crowd I would buy kids snacks and give them simple jobs. Spending time with them like that had produced a handful of familiar faces, and among those faces were a few who accepted private commissions.
In kid society, just making contact with a nangin and scoring free snacks was enough material for a heroic tale.
This one was a shill I had recruited in an alley on the way over. The fee was a portion of the taffy and sticky-rice cakes I had prepared as today’s free gifts, to be handed over after the job was done.
Judging by the way he had packed rice balls and dumplings, he planned to snack while watching the show, then afterward stick a piece of taffy in his mouth, duck into the back alleys, flash the snacks he got from me, brag about today’s adventure, and claim the throne of alley king. Or maybe not. Who knows.
The boy clearly had not expected to perform his mission in the middle of a crowd of hundreds; he stood rigid as a board. Did he think seizing the alley throne would be that easy?
My usual harmless face had suddenly turned into that of an evil cultist, and the kid’s face had gone pale with fright.
“Heh heh heh. Lord Jeon-gwi is fond of little children. Other ghosts enjoy the screams of children as they chew them up starting from the toes, but Lord Jeon-gwi… He is whispering that I should bestow food upon you.”
The moment the taffy landed in his hands, sanity returned and he nodded.
“Offer coin to Lord Jeon-gwi!”
The boy pulled out the copper coin I had given him in the alley and handed it over.
“Th-that…”
“You villain! Robbing a child of his coin?!”
Adults who had been about to raise their voices in condemnation suddenly shut their mouths.
I had rolled up my sleeves. The crowd seemed to think I was preparing to use my hands freely before resorting to violence. They had jumped to the conclusion that it was a threat.
That had not been my intention at all.
I finished rolling the sleeves neatly and spread both hands wide. My real purpose was simply to clear the dangling fabric so my wrists were fully visible. The crowd was perfectly capable of suspecting I had something hidden up a sleeve; better to eliminate the possibility in advance.
“From time to time foolish people deny Lord Jeon-gwi’s power and call it mere trickery. Heh heh… Behold. The power of Lord Jeon-gwi!”
Ah!
The coin vanished from my hand. People pointed at my right hand with eyes bulging. Others rubbed their eyes, wondering if they had seen wrong.
“The coin this child just offered has been accepted by Lord Jeon-gwi! Ohhh…! I can feel Lord Jeon-gwi’s satisfaction…! Child! Fortune smiles on you today! Lord Jeon-gwi has granted you a reward!”
I slowly extended my empty hand so everyone could confirm there was nothing in it, then gave a little shake of the left. A silver coin now rested in the previously empty palm.
“No way!”
“Money appeared from an empty hand!”
“Sorcery! It’s sorceryyyy!”
The sight of a copper coin transforming into silver had clearly stoked their greed; the heat in the crowd’s eyes changed.
A copper coin turned into silver? Of course their eyes would roll back in their heads.
Gambling sleight of hand is simply a branch of magic. Hiding cards so no one notices, switching them, manipulating through psychology—if the audience never catches it, it is magic; if the gambling table never catches it, it is cheating technique.
Gambling in this Murim Cheonha differs from the modern world in one important respect. Modern gambling is dominated by cards, whereas here yabawi, dice, golpae and many other forms all flourish as mainstream. That means far more techniques can be adapted into magic.
I, Ho Cheon-an. In the art of gambling there is no higher realm; I am the greatest under heaven. Equals may exist, but no one surpasses me.
Which also means that, limited to techniques used in gambling, I am the greatest magician under heaven.
No modern person is unaware that magic is built from sleight of hand, blind spots of vision, and psychological tricks. Yet even knowing that, it remains wondrous. Magic is wondrous no matter how many times you see it. The head understands, yet the eyes still insist something vanished—how could it not be wondrous? And when it is not on a screen but right in front of your face, the wonder multiplies several times over.
Even modern people, drowning in endless entertainment and fully aware that magic is nothing but technique and psychology, still go crazy for it.
So what happens when people with none of that knowledge watch a nangin famous for sorcery perform such magic—and the skill is the greatest under heaven?
How wondrous would the crowds of the Central Plains Murim find it?
Who on earth is doing something this bizarre?
That was Yeo Il-ye’s impression after receiving a strangely compelling flyer whose sentences somehow lodged themselves in the mind. When she stepped out the main gate she found people gathered like clouds.
“I’ve never seen sorcery like that in my life!”
“They said nangin use sorcery—turns out it was true!”
Even while using the harsh word “sorcery,” the crowd chattered with faces full of excitement and anticipation. Yeo Il-ye frowned.
Sorcery?
The moment that word reached her ears, a disciple of the Diancang Sect could not simply let it pass.
People using sorcery… Nangin? What were the nangin up to this time?
She drew up her internal energy to sharpen her eyesight and, through a gap in the crowd, caught a familiar figure.
“…Benefactor?”
“Heh heh, everyone look. What is the golpae in my hand?”
“The Flute!”
Shouts rose from every direction. Yeo Il-ye scowled at the tile painted with two large red dots. What was so fascinating about a golpae that this many people were watching it? And what exactly was her Benefactor doing right now?
A female nangin standing behind him tossed taffy toward those who had reacted most enthusiastically. Only then did Yeo Il-ye understand why the crowd was so feverishly excited.
‘They’re just here for free snacks?’
Even so, the atmosphere was far too heated for that alone. Yeo Il-ye grew worried for Ho Cheon-an’s safety. Of all places, why was he doing this right in front of Hwanggeumga?
‘With Benefactor’s strength he would never suffer humiliation… but wasn’t he concealing his identity?’
In Yeo Il-ye’s mind the nameless benefactor Ho Cheon-an was a peerless master hiding his power—a martial artist of such distant heights that a single word from him could open the door to the Super-Peak Realm and multiply one’s internal energy several times over.
She could not picture him losing to any of Hwanggeumga’s martial artists, yet concealing one’s realm always carried the risk of unfortunate complications. Yeo Il-ye decided to confirm what Ho Cheon-an was doing and, if anything happened, to intervene according to how events unfolded.
Tap-tap.
She lightly employed lightness skill and landed on the roof of the nearest house facing Ho Cheon-an. The crowd’s bodies and heads had hidden him and the tiles; now both were clear at a glance.
The distance was considerable, yet to the eyes of a supreme expert it was no farther than arm’s length.
“I will place this Flute right in the middle of this stack of golpae.”
Ho Cheon-an showed the crowd the tile half-inserted into the thick stack, then pushed it fully in and set the entire stack on the table without doing anything else.
“Now then. If the Flute rises to the very top just like this, even you ignorant masses will have no choice but to acknowledge Lord Jeon-gwi’s unfathomable power.”
“That’s impossible! How can a tile mixed into the middle rise to the top when you haven’t done a thing?!”
“That’s right! That’s right!”
“Hahahahaha! Exactly the reaction I wanted! Your foolishness has angered Lord Jeon-gwi!”
Was this some kind of farce? Yeo Il-ye thought so. In her days of prowling Sichuan Province looking for chances to catch nangin, she had seen circus troupes and shell-game hustlers often enough. At first they had been interesting, but once a Peak expert like her sharpened her eyesight every trick was laid bare under the sun.
With that in mind she had been staring holes through Ho Cheon-an, yet she had not even seen a hint of sleight of hand. Therefore it could only be a comedy meant to draw laughs.
The pacing and presentation resembled a circus act, yet there was no way he could switch tiles while doing absolutely nothing.
Ho Cheon-an flipped the topmost golpae.
Yeo Il-ye doubted her own eyes.
“The Flute! It’s the Flute!”
“How is this possible?!”
The tile painted with two red dots now sat on top.
Ho Cheon-an flipped the remaining tiles one by one and laid them out. All thirty-one other tiles lay side by side. People who had suspected multiple Flute tiles surged forward to check.
“Impossible! There weren’t several Flutes mixed in!”
‘Was I tricked?’
Or had he truly employed some mysterious art? Curiosity stirred in Yeo Il-ye. Was this genuine sleight of hand, or some bizarre technique that defied common sense?
‘Not a Murim master but an immortal?’
Her internal evaluation of Ho Cheon-an leaped upward once more. She poured internal energy into her eyes to the absolute limit and concentrated. If even now, with eyesight sharp enough to catch every mote of dust in the air, she still detected no sign, then it had to be considered Taoist magic.
“The principles of all creation no longer apply to these golpae that already carry Lord Jeon-gwi’s power! Hahahahaha!”
Laughing, Ho Cheon-an gathered the tiles again and placed the Flute on top. He flipped it once to show the Flute, set the reversed tile on the table, and when he flipped the second tile—
“No!”
“How is it the Flute again?!”
It was too early to be surprised. After the second tile was laid down and the third was flipped, another Flute appeared. The fourth and fifth tiles laid on the table were also Flutes. By the time thirty-one tiles covered the table and only the last one remained in Ho Cheon-an’s hand, the surroundings had fallen deathly silent.
“Hahahahaha!”
The final tile was also a Flute.
“This can’t be!”
“How can the Flute keep moving like that?!”
“Hahahaha! Did I not tell you? Lord Jeon-gwi’s power denies the principles of all creation.”
Ho Cheon-an gathered the tiles once more and began flipping the frontmost tile over and over. Nothing was mixed in; the tiles were simply being turned, yet their faces kept changing.
“Huuuuhhh!!”
“Primordial Heavenly Venerable!”
Yeo Il-ye herself was thrown into confusion. It looked like sleight of hand… so why could she not catch it? Was it because this was genuine immortal arts? His hand movements were fast for an ordinary person, yet to the eyes of a Super-Peak expert they were as slow as a turtle crawling.
At the Super-Peak level one can heighten mental power and stretch the timeline of perception. Actual time does not slow, but with eyesight that far surpasses commoners she had invested every stretched moment into watching Ho Cheon-an’s hands—and still failed to grasp the method.
‘As expected, Benefactor possesses divine skill whose depths a commoner like me cannot dare to measure!’
The “Ho Cheon-an is an immortal” theory was discarded inside Yeo Il-ye’s mind, yet the elevated evaluation showed no sign of dropping.
Only after watching two of Ho Cheon-an’s sorceries did Yeo Il-ye finally understand why the crowd was so excited. Divine skill—no, sorcery—that even a Super-Peak expert’s eyesight could not penetrate was unfolding right before them; how could anyone remain calm?
Yeo Il-ye would have liked to keep watching the performance, but now was the time to move.
Inside Hwanggeumga the movements of experts had been detected.
‘Better that I step in and settle this smoothly.’
A direct clash with Hwanggeumga’s experts would only enlarge the affair.
She could not know what intention had driven Benefactor to stage this, yet from the surrounding reaction it was clear he had already achieved more than enough. Closing the curtain at this point would be the path that best served her benefactor.
Six Harmonies Sound Transmission.
If ordinary sound transmission is a technique that copies sound waves with internal energy, Six Harmonies Sound Transmission creates sound and voice solely through the resonance of internal energy.
The Six Harmonies Sound Transmission that thundered across the front of Hwanggeumga was Yeo Il-ye’s warning to the estate’s experts.
It meant that Yeo Il-ye of the Later Ten Heroes would settle this stage, so they were not to interfere.