Monopolizing Fortunes (159)
Monopolizing Fortunes (159)
"What? You're not about to spout some nonsense about revenge, are you?"
"Not at all."
"Then why's your face look like a dog that needs to shit?"
"Those martial artists are demanding compensation."
"Huh? Compensation? What compensation?"
"They say their entertainment was ruined and their time was wasted...."
Wang Il-seok's face twisted in a flash.
"What kind of bullshit is that? What martial artist goes around demanding compensation from the Underworld over something like that! Are those bastards even really martial artists?"
They had only guessed they were martial artists because they were so strong; the men had never once said so themselves.
"So I got to thinking—maybe another Underworld outfit is coming after us? A martial artist making that kind of demand of the Underworld... it's cheap, isn't it?"
Whether they walked the dark path or the bright, martial artists were a breed who staked their lives on face. They would sooner bite off their own tongues and die than shake down the Underworld.
"The way they're acting, they're the Underworld through and through. So what do they want?"
"They told us to bring it ourselves."
"These sons of bitches! That's blatant provocation! Where are those bastards right now!"
"They should still be at the pleasure house."
"Round up the boys!"
Wang Il-seok, who had been shouting, shot Song Tae-sik a displeased look.
"What? Martial artists? You go somewhere, get your ass kicked, and suddenly everyone's a martial artist?"
"I—I'm sorry. The bastard was just so strong...."
"Fuck! You're the one who's weak! I'm the idiot who put a guy like you in the Branch Chief's seat. You, you little shit, go run a squad or something!"
The moment the Society Leader's order came down, fifty men were assembled in an instant despite the late hour.
When the full story of the incident got around, several of them openly sneered at Song Tae-sik.
Each man grabbed his tools, and the scene that greeted them when they arrived swaggering at the Hongrak First Pleasure House was different from usual.
The customers, of course, and even the courtesans and the steward were all out in the courtyard in front of the building.
Wang Il-seok went over to the steward, Yang Du-pyeong, and asked.
"What's going on here?"
Yang Du-pyeong quickly bent his waist. The man before him held three-tenths of Luoyang's nights as the Songrak Society Leader, so his back had no choice but to bend.
"Society Leader, you've come?"
Yang Du-pyeong looked at the fifty thugs who had come with Wang Il-seok and went on.
"There was no need for you to come in person like this."
"Did something happen in the meantime?"
"It seems Merchant Yu's nephew happened to be in Luoyang."
"Who is Merchant Yu's nephew?"
"You didn't know?"
'How the hell am I supposed to know the nephew of some Merchant Yu I don't even care about? This bastard, I oughta—'
His fist was creeping up on its own, itching to plant one on Yang Du-pyeong, whose face said he didn't know something he obviously should have, when a single name froze his body in place.
"Isn't it Yu Yeong-jeon, the Blue Wind Sword, a lay disciple of Mount Hua Sect?"
"M-Mount Hua Sect's lay disciple?"
"He's even received the sobriquet Blue Wind Sword from Mount Hua Sect, so he's no run-of-the-mill lay disciple."
Mount Hua Sect was in neighboring Shaanxi Province, but the prestige of the Nine Great Sects shook the four seas regardless of distance.
At the name Mount Hua Sect, which a mere Underworld thug was hardly worthy to let pass his lips, Wang Il-seok quietly lowered his hand.
"Then why is everyone outside?"
"Yu Yeong-jeon said innocent people could get hurt, so he told everyone to clear out. And Merchant Yu said he'd cover today's entire take. A big-hearted fellow, that one."
For the Hongrak First Pleasure House, it was business with nothing to lose either way.
"If Mount Hua Sect's lay disciple has stepped in, it'll be over in no time."
As he spoke, Wang Il-seok looked up at the pleasure house's second floor.
'This isn't going to splash back on us, is it?'
It wouldn't be a splash—it would be a roaring blaze. At the source of that blaze, the room from which all the courtesans and entertainers had been sent out had gone cold.
"Mount Hua Sect?"
He'd expected them to plant their faces on the table at the name, but the youngest one shot back with a bored look.
Thinking he might have misheard, he said it once more.
"That's right. I am Yu Yeong-jeon, the Blue Wind Sword, lay disciple of Mount Hua Sect."
"What's a Mount Hua Sect lay disciple doing here?"
The young man's tongue was painfully short. In thirty-four years of life, he had never been so dumbfounded.
"Surely you don't mean you've never heard of Mount Hua Sect?"
"I know it. Why wouldn't I know Mount Hua Sect, one of the Nine Great Sects? I'm asking why a lay disciple of such a great sect is here. Are all Mount Hua Sect disciples that stupid?"
The young woman burst out laughing—pfft! Her mutter of "There it is, his specialty of turning people inside out every time he opens his mouth" sounded like a jeering aside.
"You wretch! Are you truly asking because you don't know!"
"Fuck, what is this, some county magistrate's trial where your crime is what you confess? You've gotta say it for me to know."
"Did you scoundrels not assault my innocent uncle!"
Only then did the young man's face light up with an ah!
"That groper was your uncle?"
"A—a groper?"
"He felt up a decent woman's backside—is there a better title for him? Want me to call him by the longer name, 'a groper who's a fucking terrible judge of people'? Though I suppose having no eye for people runs in the family, since the nephew's the same way."
"You—you wretch! I meant to end this with a light admonishment as a man of the orthodox path, but that's no longer possible! State your affiliation at once!"
They carried weapons and had even taken down the thugs guarding the pleasure house, so they must have trained in martial arts.
He didn't think their martial arts amounted to much. No proper martial artist would ever shake down Underworld riffraff, after all.
"We don't have grand sobriquets like yours. We're just people who do merchant escort work."
"So you are martial artists, then."
The young man scratched his forehead with a troubled look.
"No, I mean, we've trained in martial arts, but we're not martial artists... and we've no intention of becoming martial artists... anyway, yeah, sure."
He'd never heard such a hollow answer, but one thing was clear: these were nobodies.
"If even now you beg my uncle's forgiveness on your knees and offer proper compensation, I may yet show magnanimity as a man of the orthodox path."
The young woman shot up from her seat.
"That's rich—a bumper crop of horseshit. Fuck!"
"F-fuck? A woman......"
"Woman what? Unless you're gonna cut off your dick and give it to me, don't run your mouth with 'woman this, woman that,' you groper's nephew."
The thread of patience he'd been clinging to snapped.
"If you would refuse the offered cup and drink the cup of punishment instead, then I will show you plainly the terror of Mount Hua Sect!"
It felt like an illusion. The woman who crossed the table in a single bound and erased the distance to Yu Yeong-jeon was fast as a ghost.
Even when her fully extended leg struck his chest, it didn't feel real. His body flew backward first, and the pain came late.
"Ugh!"
Yu Yeong-jeon flew with a short scream, smashed through the rear window, and fell from the second floor to the first.
Watching the window fragments fall with him, he cried, 'This is a dream!' Then he lost consciousness. This time, he would probably dream a different dream.
"Making a fuss over nothing, that worthless bastard."
Namgung Seol-rin turned around and asked the three people wearing baffled faces.
"What?"
Do Tong-dal spoke.
"No, I mean, sending him off so suddenly like that... he didn't die, did he?"
"Did you want to keep listening to that nonsense?"
"That's not it, but...."
"Don't worry. A Mount Hua Sect lay disciple won't die from something like that... right?"
Her voice lacked conviction. Won Dae-yeon let out a long sigh.
"Seeing you act first and think later, Protector Namgung's become a real Underworld type. Completely."
Namgung Seol-rin grinned as if she'd just been praised. Do Tong-dal said as he left the room.
"Seol-rin sowed the seeds and even tended them diligently, so let's go harvest now."
When they went down to the first-floor courtyard, people were buzzing. Yu Yeong-jeon had suddenly fallen from the second floor, so every kind of wild imagining was bound to take flight.
"Isn't he dead?"
"Call a physician first! Hurry!"
"Is that really Yu Yeong-jeon? They said he's a Mount Hua Sect lay disciple—a promising one at that."
Do Tong-dal's group stepped into the midst of that buzzing. Since it secretly weighed on his mind, he stole a glance at Yu Yeong-jeon through the gaps in the crowd.
He was slumped limp, but he was breathing and even twitched slightly.
'He won't die.'
Today's pleasure-house incident had created one more place to harvest. Of course, they couldn't handle everything at once, so he sought out the first harvest he had originally planned.
Thugs were recognizable at a glance anywhere. And with so many of them swarming together like that, there was no way he could miss them.
"They said he's a Mount Hua Sect disciple? That mess is supposed to be a Mount Hua Sect disciple!"
"W-well, I don't really...."
"Fuck! I thought we'd blow our noses without touching them, but if this goes wrong we're gonna get it dumped all over us!"
Do Tong-dal spotted the middle-aged man raising his voice at the pleasure-house steward. He was a rough-looking man with two scars on his cheek and a severed little finger.
Pressing the steward of the Luoyang First Pleasure House like that meant he was someone who could cut a fart or two even in the Underworld.
'If he dragged this many thugs out in the middle of the night....'
Do Tong-dal moved his steps toward the middle-aged man.
"I was going to come find you, but the Society Leader came in person."
The middle-aged man who had been shouting at the steward slowly turned his head toward Do Tong-dal.
The startled steward backpedaled awkwardly and whispered to the middle-aged man.
"Th-those are the ones."
That explanation was enough. When Song Tae-sik had said they were martial artists, he'd scoffed, but they had thrown a Mount Hua Sect lay disciple out a second-floor window.
That was proof enough that they were martial artists. A thug's back bends more readily than a willow branch before officials and martial artists.
"Oh my, so these are the heroes our boys so rudely crossed. Of course I, the Society Leader, had to come apologize in person. Heh heh!"
"You brought quite a lot of thugs along to apologize."
Wang Il-seok, stung, hurried to explain.
"When it comes to thugs apologizing, isn't more always better?"
He had fifty thugs. He was confident he could smash any Underworld outfit they went up against. But these were people who had thrown a Mount Hua Sect lay disciple off the second floor.
Their martial arts would be above the middle of the second rate, and they might even be first-rate masters. Against a master, fifty thugs were, in go terms, simply stones to be sacrificed.
"I like you—you seem like a man I can talk to. It's late today, so let's meet at the Songrak Society tomorrow."
"Wh-why at the Songrak Society...?"
Do Tong-dal's expression twisted in a flash.
"Are you saying you'll waste my time with pointless questions?"
"N-no, not at all! I'll have the place swept clean and wait for you!"
Do Tong-dal, who had been about to leave, stopped.
"Oh, right! Do you know Merchant Yu?"
"M-Merchant Yu? You mean that merchant who got into a dispute with your party today?"
Do Tong-dal simply nodded.
"I don't know him well. I've only vaguely heard that he runs a fairly large business in Luoyang. I truly have no acquaintance with him at all!"
He thought he might have seen him in passing, but a connection that slight could be ignored.
"A shame. He might have been of use to me."
Wang Il-seok grabbed the lifeline Do Tong-dal had thrown him without hesitation.
"Do you need information on this Merchant Yu? I'll find out everything by tomorrow!"
At last, a smile spread across Do Tong-dal's lips.
"I do think the Society Leader and I will get along. In this world, you see, there are cases where something seemed like a good connection but turned out to be a bad one, and cases where something seemed like a bad connection but led to a good one. I'd like our relationship to be the latter. Then, until tomorrow."
Do Tong-dal left the pleasure house, leaving behind only cryptic words that would tangle Wang Il-seok's head.
Wang Il-seok stared blankly at the street where Do Tong-dal had disappeared and muttered.
"I'm getting a distinct whiff of being played here, but...."
* * *
Do Tong-dal woke in an instant because of Baek So-gu, who had come over the wall and in through the window.
"Wash up a bit before you come around."
"A beggar stays true to his beggar nature. Let's go. Strategist Ha is waiting."
"The Three Beyond the World have to come too."
"That name's really stuck to your lips now, hasn't it?"
Do Tong-dal quietly woke the three of them and followed Baek So-gu into a shabby house. The Beggars' Sect had secret branches everywhere, and Luoyang was no exception.
"Young Master Do, it's been a while."
"Strategist Ha looks to be in good health as well."
Namgung Seol-rin spoke.
"You don't see anyone else, do you, Sis?"
She said that, but the two were glad enough to embrace. After brief greetings and a few words of catching up, Ha Su-ran brought up the business at hand.
"I've found out about the Revenge Society's predecessor."
* * *