Monopolizing Fortunes (107)
xml
Monopolizing Fortunes (107)
"Ah, of course I don't mean you should actually become a eunuch. Did you think I might really have you castrated?"
Only then did Do Tong-dal let out a relieved sigh and speak.
"Would there really be any need for that? Just taking a quick look would be fine."
The answer was already decided, so going all the way to the Forbidden City to meet the First Prince and Second Prince was a waste of time.
But that was Do Tong-dal's thinking, and Yang Su-pan and Jeon Su-bang were desperate.
"Look them over carefully, very carefully. You absolutely must not miss a single thing."
"Understood. When will I be going in?"
Jeon Su-bang answered.
"The groundwork will be finished in three days, so you may enter then."
'Damn! Now I've ended up having to become a eunuch, of all things.'
If the First Prince later ascended to the throne, Jeon Su-bang's power would remain solid, so it would do Do Tong-dal no harm.
With the officials—who could be called the Underworld's greatest obstacle—removed, unifying the night of the Central Plains would be no trouble at all.
'Heh heh heh... This is how I get one big step closer to becoming the emperor of the night.'
Now all that remained was a lifetime of ease and luxury.
That night, Do Tong-dal took a room at the finest inn in Beijing.
"His Excellency must have taken quite a liking to you. He got you a room that costs three nyang a night."
"If he hadn't liked me, would he have spared my head?"
Yang Su-pan shrugged and said.
"Who wouldn't like you?"
"Plenty of people."
"Well, enemies would, I suppose. But as an ally, you're more dependable than anyone."
"Why are you talking me up like this? It's making me dizzy."
"Because it's true. Nothing much should happen until His Excellency summons you, so feel free to enjoy the sights of Beijing."
As he left, Yang Su-pan also casually let him know about the best pleasure house in Beijing.
The thought 'Shall I go check out a Beijing pleasure house?' briefly crossed his mind, but he soon put out the light and lay down.
Even if he dragged his tired body there, he wouldn't be able to drink properly, and going alone was no fun anyway.
"I'll have to drag Censor Yang along. Surely he won't make me pay for the drinks?"
With pleasant thoughts, he headed straight for dreamland. But his dream of being surrounded by courtesans and having a good time did not last long.
Killing intent that made his skin sting kicked the haunches of Do Tong-dal, who was wandering in his dream.
Do Tong-dal's eyes flew open, and he saw a sword blade slashing down toward his neck. Instinct made him roll first.
Thwack!
The sword bit into the bed, scattering the cotton stuffing in all directions. Do Tong-dal scrambled to his feet and leaped back, avoiding the sword swung at his neck.
But then he felt sharp energy from behind as well. A blade grazed past the shoulder of Do Tong-dal as he frantically changed direction.
He ducked his waist to avoid a knife thrust at his chest, and a sword drove in under his chin.
The attack, which had anticipated his movements, was utterly impossible to avoid.
The thought 'Is this how I die?' flashed through his mind, but the sword stopped just below his chin. The chill of the steel ran along his jaw and made the fine hairs all over his body stand on end.
"They said your martial arts were decent. The report wasn't wrong."
As the sword tapped against his chin, Do Tong-dal slowly straightened his back. From behind, someone rested a blade on Do Tong-dal's shoulder.
Only after fully straightening his back could Do Tong-dal see the man before him. Because the man wore a headwrap that revealed only his eyes, his features were impossible to make out, but his voice made it clear he was middle-aged.
"You didn't expect to stay safe after disrupting our operation like that, did you?"
Do Tong-dal stared blankly at the masked man's eyes, then pointed to a chair in the middle of the room.
"May I sit? I got a little dizzy from suddenly moving right after waking up."
The cloth over the masked man's mouth fluttered.
"Soon you'll be able to get into a coffin in a very comfortable position."
Whether the masked man talked about death or not, Do Tong-dal moved toward the chair. The sword and blade quivered, but they did not attack Do Tong-dal.
With the two weapons still at his chin and shoulder, Do Tong-dal sat in the chair and even poured himself some water and drank it.
"It's a bit uncomfortable having blades following me around. How about you put them away now?"
"What?"
"You're not going to kill me."
The masked man glanced at the bed.
"If you'd been even a little slower to dodge, it wouldn't have been the bed that got cut—it would have been your neck."
"If you were going to kill me, you wouldn't be standing here running your mouth."
"Conversation with a man about to die is one of my amusements."
"Is the mask one of your amusements too? With martial arts like yours, you must have been confident enough to kill me. Hiding your faces from a corpse is ridiculous, isn't it?"
"I don't like blood splattering on my face."
"Trying to scare me with a shabby excuse like that is already too late."
Tap tap!
The sword struck his chin.
"If you keep getting on my nerves, you'll die right now."
"Are you confident you can handle the aftermath?"
"What aftermath could there be from killing a thug like you?"
"The story changes if the highest power in the nation is standing behind that thug. You chased me all the way to Beijing, so you must know that."
"A martial artist doesn't care about officials. No one will even know who killed you."
"Is that so? Let's suppose I die here. Of course, that won't happen, but imagining is free. First, the Embroidered Uniform Guard will step in. Since the mission I took on was so important, they might even deploy the Eastern Depot. Pointing out a suspect wouldn't be that hard. There's no way I could have been killed by some other Underworld thug with my martial arts. So there's only one place that holds a grudge against me."
"Even if the Embroidered Uniform Guard and the Eastern Depot fly and crawl, they won't catch us."
"That's your hope. And of course, even if that hope were dramatically realized, what you're plotting in the martial world would be pushed back for a long time. It might even be shattered to pieces."
"......"
"If dying alone could secure the peace of the martial world... still, I don't want to die. So let's compromise here, as you originally came to do."
"Compromise?"
"We just pretend not to know each other and go our separate ways. You avoid danger, and I avoid trouble."
"So we're only worth the trouble to you."
"Of course, if I fought properly, I'd have to risk my life. But why would an Underworld thug fight to the death against a hidden faction of the martial world? Right?"
"You run your mouth like that, yet you disrupted our work quite thoroughly."
"You investigated, so you must know. It just happened that way by chance. If I'd really set my mind to digging into you, even if I couldn't reach the roots, the trunk would have been exposed."
"You're a man who believes in himself too much."
"It's certain that humility isn't one of my virtues."
The sword under his chin lowered and stopped in front of his left chest. The masked man's killing intent deepened as well. With killing intent like that, killing Do Tong-dal would not have been strange at all.
"I hate arrogant bastards like you who don't know their place."
Thunk!
The sword pierced his chest. Sharp pain shot through him, but the wound was not deep enough for the sword to reach his heart.
As the sword moved downward, the trail of pain lengthened.
"I call people who borrow authority and mistake it for their own strength vermin."
The sword stopped beside his navel. The blood flowing from the wound was soaking his pants.
"Don't forget that promise—that you will never disrupt our operation again. If you cross me even once, I won't end it with just a light beating."
Do Tong-dal stared up at the masked man.
"You should answer."
Do Tong-dal smiled a twisted smile.
"It was a good deal."
"I don't like this bastard to the very end."
The two masked men vanished as quickly as they had appeared. Do Tong-dal let out a long breath and first examined his wound.
It had bled a lot, but only the flesh was damaged, so it was not a serious injury. Still, it would leave a scar.
Do Tong-dal woke a sleeping employee and had him fetch a physician. As befitted the finest inn in Beijing, the physician was brought even though it was dawn.
The middle-aged physician, far slower than the physician in black, took a full half shichen to finish the treatment.
When he changed his clothes and lay down on the bed, the wound ached. Curling up like a shrimp lessened the pain a little.
"Bastards who don't even know the basics of a deal."
He could understand attacking him and putting a sword to him. But forcing him while inflicting a wound like this was intimidation, not a deal.
"Backing down after taking this isn't in my nature."
But in a case like this, there could be no proper compromise. There were only two paths: simply forget it, or fight to the death.
After pondering for a long while, Do Tong-dal decided to think comfortably. There was no need to decide right now.
Whether he showed the mercy of forgetting the wound they gave his body, or exploded according to his temper, it was something he could decide later.
'I'll have to go to the pleasure house tomorrow and lift my spirits.'
* * *
"You're not going?"
"It's not that I won't go; I can't. I have truly important business today."
Do Tong-dal glared at Yang Su-pan with half-lidded eyes.
"Then what about tomorrow?"
"Well... these days are so turbulent day by day that I can't really make any promises."
"Are you saying that because you don't want to pay for the drinks?"
Yang Su-pan jumped.
"How much could drinks cost that I'd be stingy about it?"
He seemed sincere, so Do Tong-dal decided to let it go.
"Don't be like that. Let's drink our fill without a care once this job is over."
"Forget it. I'll go alone. If you don't come, it's only your loss, Censor Yang."
'With the skill of ten gapja of pleasure-house Internal Energy, I'll have a great time!'
Do Tong-dal headed for the Beijing Premier Pleasure House, said to be the finest in Beijing. Beijing was certainly far larger and more prosperous than Hangzhou.
Even if Hangzhou was called a city of pleasure, it clearly still lagged behind Beijing in scale and splendor.
"Hmm. It's a bit far, but taking over Beijing's night next wouldn't be bad either."
He was walking along, entertaining various fantasies by himself, when he saw people gathered in a murmuring crowd.
"You dare say that molesting a woman on the main street was a good deed?!"
"If I did wrong, what are you going to do about it?"
"If you don't apologize right now, you... ugh!"
The sound of a blow and a scream came at the same time. Since ancient times, the best sights have been fires and fights.
Do Tong-dal looked over the shoulders of the gathered people at where the fight was taking place. In truth, calling it a fight was generous.
A young man who looked about twenty was being beaten one-sidedly by a burly man in his late twenties.
On one side, a woman was shouting, 'Please save him!' but no one stepped forward.
'If you butt into other people's business for no reason, you'll only get a bad outcome.' That was the common thought, and in a way it could even be called wise.
From the look of it, the burly man had molested the woman, and the young man had tried to stop him, which had started the trouble. But even Do Tong-dal could not become just one more among so many bystanders.
'Though it is a bit of a bother.'
Do Tong-dal took off his shoe and hurled it at the burly man. Though it was only a shoe, a shoe thrown with internal power carried force that ordinary fists could not compare to.
The shoe struck the burly man square on the jaw just as he was about to throw a punch.
Thwack!
"Ugh!"
Struck by the shoe, the burly man staggered and then crumpled to the ground. Do Tong-dal pushed through the crowd and went hopping on one foot to retrieve his shoe.
"Why did my shoe fly all the way over here?"
Do Tong-dal calmly put his shoe back on and slipped out through the ring of onlookers as if nothing had happened.
"Stop right there!"
The young man came chasing after Do Tong-dal with blood dripping from his nose.
"Why?"
"Tell me who you are and where you live."
Do Tong-dal looked the young man up and down. Though he was a mess from being beaten, he could not hide the noble air that naturally emanated from him.
On top of that, his clothes, made of the finest silk from head to toe, showed that the young man's family was wealthy.
'A fellow who's spent his whole life ordering others around with his finger.'
Given even his way of speaking, that was an unmistakable conclusion.
"What are you going to do, knowing that?"
"If one has received a kindness, repaying it is the duty of a gentleman."
"What kindness? My shoe just happened to fly off and hit that thug over there."
"Hah! Who do you take for a fool? You knocked down a burly man with nothing more than a thrown shoe, so you must be no ordinary person. Hurry and reveal your identity."
"You're a funny one."
"Wh... what did you say?"
"Judging by your clothes, your bearing, and your way of speaking, you're surely the son of a powerful family."
"Wh... what of it?"
"I've never seen a descendant of the powerful who wasn't a piece of trash."
* * *