Monopolizing Fortunes (68)
Monopolizing Fortunes (68)
The outcome was as plain as watching fire. With Do Tong-dal there—someone who could read that fight clearly—not a single Red Wind Sword Sect disciple would survive, and at most they would click their tongues over a few scratches and return to Hangzhou.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
When three pillars shattered in the middle of the fighting, part of the building finally collapsed in on itself.
Three figures burst out of the billowing dust, and the ferocity of their exchange had not lessened in the slightest.
Not only the building but the marble floor cracked and broke apart, leaving the training hall in ruins. Do Tong-dal muttered.
"If you burn through all your strength now, you might have a hard time when you fight later."
Of Do Tong-dal's words, only the phrase "when you fight later" reached Hwang Tae-gun's ears. He swallowed repeatedly, but no matter how he tried to think of something to say that would dampen Do Tong-dal's fighting spirit, nothing came to mind.
"I knew it. I told you this wasn't a match that'd end within one ke."
Do Tong-dal shouted "Stop!" but the three, absorbed in the fight, did not hear him.
Do Tong-dal strode over, flicked a broken piece of marble up with his toe, then kicked it into the middle of the three-way clash wreathed in white light.
It was the first time he had learned that something kicked with a foot could fly that fast.
CLANG!
Namgung Seol-rin's sword, which had struck the marble fragment, came to a halt. In that interval, Won Dae-yeon's dagger was laid against her throat. And in that opening, Jang Yu-seom's blade touched Won Dae-yeon's side.
The match stopped in that position.
"This doesn't count."
"This shouldn't count."
The same words burst from Won Dae-yeon and Namgung Seol-rin at once. Jang Yu-seom acknowledged it with a nod as well.
Namgung Seol-rin's sharp eyes turned to Do Tong-dal.
"What do you think you're doing, cutting in like that?"
"One ke has passed."
"You could have been hurt!"
"You're not amateurs. Something like that wasn't going to hurt you. You've all warmed up now, so let's get back to why we came. Let's go in."
Do Tong-dal turned around and stopped with a flinch. The reception hall where they had been was now collapsed from the match.
"We'll have to talk somewhere else......"
"Please come this way."
Hwang Tae-gun quickly led the four of them to another hall on the left. Disciples who had rushed out, startled by the sounds of the fight, stared at the collapsed hall with stunned expressions.
Seated facing the four, Hwang Tae-gun's manner grew even more deferential. The shock of confirming something with his own eyes was inevitably different from vaguely knowing it.
"Now let's talk about this fight between our Red Tiger Society and the Red Wind Sword Sect."
Hwang Tae-gun spoke at once.
"We made a grave mistake."
"Sect Leader."
"Yes."
"A mistake is stepping on someone's foot at the market, or asking for pork belly and being served five-layer pork belly instead. Can you call it a mistake when a Red Wind Sword Sect disciple came to Hangzhou and killed three members of the Red Tiger Society?"
"Those men had already been expelled from the sect......"
Do Tong-dal's cold voice cut Hwang Tae-gun off.
"Are you testing whether I'm an idiot or not?"
"Ah...... no, how could that be?"
"Among the three you killed was a close friend of mine."
"I...... I apologize."
"Under normal circumstances, the Sect Leader wouldn't have needed to apologize. The fight would have broken out earlier, and we wouldn't have had a chance to talk."
If not for Hwang Tae-gun's sharp eyes and extraordinary memory, the Red Wind Sword Sect would already have become a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
"I consider it extremely fortunate."
"We came here intending to annihilate the Red Wind Sword Sect."
Cold sweat ran down Hwang Tae-gun's spine.
"So can we simply turn around and leave after hearing an apology?"
"O...... of course, the Red Wind Sword Sect will make a proper gesture of atonement."
"Let's hear the specifics."
"Pardon?"
"That gesture of atonement."
"That is......"
"Shall I give you time to think?"
"I would be grateful if you did."
"Then think."
Do Tong-dal's party closed their mouths and stared blankly at Hwang Tae-gun. He had expected them to give him three or four days to think, but they were giving him time to think right now.
With four people staring straight at him, there was no way his mind could work.
"I...... if there is something you want, please say so."
It was better to pass the ball to Do Tong-dal. Do Tong-dal's answer came immediately.
"Three thousand nyang of silver."
"P-pardon? Th...... three thousand nyang?"
"One Red Tiger Society member's life is a thousand nyang. Do you think that's expensive?"
"Ah...... no, it's not that, but...... Understood."
Thirty percent of the Red Wind Sword Sect's wealth would be gone, but that was better than total ruin.
"And......"
As expected, there was more he wanted.
"From today, the Red Wind Sword Sect must grant everything the Red Tiger Society wants."
"Everything, you say......"
"To put it simply, you can think of yourselves as a branch of the Red Tiger Society."
"What? The Red Wind Sword Sect is to become a mere branch of an underworld group?"
"The Red Tiger Society must seem laughable to you."
"How could that be!"
With Won Dae-yeon, who could trouble even the Ten Greatest Masters Under Heaven, and two masters whose martial arts rivaled the elders of the Nine Great Sects, plus Do Tong-dal himself, saying they were laughable was absurd.
If those four founded a sect in the martial world, they could swallow an entire province.
"Think of it positively. Even if we are an underworld group, we're a fairly decent one. Most of the time, you can remain the Red Wind Sword Sect just as you are now. You'll only need to change your signboard when we need it."
"Ch...... change our signboard?"
"That's all that needs to change—your mindset, Sect Leader. At times like that, you're simply an Underworld branch chief. Fair enough, isn't it?"
It was absolutely not decent. Three thousand nyang of silver and being reduced to an underworld branch!
"It seems like reasonable terms. If there is nothing further."
Hwang Tae-gun forced the words out as though they cost him blood.
"Not reasonable—merciful."
"Thank you."
Even if his pride crawled in the dirt, staying alive mattered more. Life was more important than pride. That was exactly why Hwang Tae-gun belonged to the unorthodox path.
"It seems our business here is finished. I thought we'd be having ourselves a proper bloodbath..."
Do Tong-dal, who had kept their hearts pounding to the very end, rose.
"Deliver the three thousand nyang to Red Tiger Society headquarters within three days. Ah! And......"
Do Tong-dal lowered his voice as if sharing something confidential.
"It is a secret that Won Dae-yeon is with our Red Tiger Society. Of course, I am sure you understand that much."
"I will carry it to my grave."
He had no intention of revealing it. Do Tong-dal left behind a soulless invitation to "drop by Hangzhou sometime" and departed. Once the four disappeared from sight, the strength drained from his legs and he leaned his back against the main gate.
"Sect Leader."
Hwang Tae-gun was startled. Baek Jong-yeon, who had called him, was also startled and flinched back.
"What's wrong?"
Hwang Tae-gun's face was pale, and he was even sweating coldly.
"What is the true identity of those people who came from the Red Tiger Society?"
"Do you want to know?"
"Yes."
"If you learn that, I'll have to kill you."
"Better not to know, then."
Judging by how quickly he changed sides, Baek Jong-yeon was unorthodox to the bone as well.
"And have the three thousand nyang ready within two days."
"Pardon? You mean three thousand nyang of silver?"
"They gave us three days, but let's send it quickly and be done with it. Tell Physician Jang to bring me a Calming Heart Pill."
The footsteps of Do Tong-dal's party, who had shaved about ten years off Baek Jong-yeon's life, were light.
"It seems to have been resolved well."
Jang Yu-seom agreed with Do Tong-dal's words.
"No one died, so it was resolved well."
"It's thanks to the three of you setting the stage so well."
"Setting the stage......?"
"That match was to show the Sect Leader your martial arts, wasn't it? Breaking the building too was a really good choice. The Sect Leader must have been terrified."
"Ah! Yes...... well, something like that."
"Why is your reaction...... Did you actually fight for real?"
"......."
"You people were seriously fighting in that situation! This is why I shouldn't go around with people who are crazy about martial arts!"
* * *
Do Tong-dal woke abruptly from sleep. Then he sat bolt upright.
"Huh? I know where that Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King is."
It wasn't that he had dreamed anything in particular. He had simply woken up, and the four words "Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King" had suddenly come to mind—a memory from his previous life had surfaced.
It was an incident that had occurred in the martial world, which he had no interest in, but it had been such a massive bloodbath that he remembered it.
The number of people who died because of the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King that appeared in the martial world reached five hundred. He remembered laughing when he heard about it, calling them lunatics.
So many people dying over a single wild ginseng root. That was what he had thought at the time. The anticlimactic conclusion of the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King incident, which had caused such a great bloodbath, had made Do Tong-dal roar with laughter.
The person who possessed the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King fell off a cliff, and so no one was able to obtain it.
The martial artists searched the river from its main channel to every tributary for even a corpse, but never found one.
But that corpse turned up in Sohyeon Lake in Jigang County, a place no one had expected.
Around that time, torrential rain had caused the river to flood all the way to Sohyeon Lake, and the corpse had been carried there.
Unaware of that, they had only been searching the river, so there was no way they could have found it. The person who pulled the corpse from Sohyeon Lake was an old fisherman.
—Huh? That ginseng's in my belly.
That was what the old fisherman said to the martial artists who came looking after belatedly learning the truth. So for a while, the phrase "Huh? That whatsit's in my belly" had been popular.
The bloodbath in which five hundred martial artists died came to a close by raising an old man's chances of a long and healthy life.
"Wouldn't it be better for one of the Protectors to raise their Internal Energy than for some old man to take it as a tonic? It'd be fine to split it evenly too. Should I give some to Cheol-hyeon as well?"
Finding the old fisherman at Sohyeon Lake wouldn't be too difficult. The problem was that he had no way to explain to the people around him how he knew to look for the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King.
If he started with, "In my previous life...," the physician in black would surely come running.
Then one thing suddenly came to mind.
* * *
"You know I've a divine sense, Brother."
Wang Chil agreed with Do Tong-dal's question.
"That's right. You definitely have a divine sense."
Jang Yu-seom nodded as well.
"I've also heard that Coordinator Do has a divine sense."
Namgung Seol-rin wore a dumbfounded expression.
"Are you seriously taking Tong-dal's words at face value? You believe him when he says he saw where the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King is in a dream?"
"Yeah. I believe him. Have you ever lost out by trusting Tong-dal?"
When Jang Yu-seom answered "No," Won Dae-yeon chimed in with "There's no way you'd lose out."
Namgung Seol-rin said to Do Tong-dal.
"You might as well become a cult leader."
"Good idea."
"Good idea, my ass! At a critical time like this, you're going to leave Hangzhou over some ridiculous dream?"
"It is a critical time. But the plan is set up perfectly enough to run without me."
"So you're really going to go get the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King? You didn't show it, but aren't you just tempted by it? They say it raises your Internal Energy enormously."
"It's not for me to eat."
"Then?"
"It's a spiritual medicine that raises Internal Energy, so wouldn't it be better for you or Cheol-hyeon, or for Jang Yu-seom or Won Dae-yeon over there? Something like that should go to a martial artist. What use would a thug like me have for it?"
Everyone looked at Do Tong-dal with dumbfounded faces. Even Wang Chil, who didn't know the first thing about martial arts, looked at him that way.
"Why?"
Namgung Seol-rin spoke.
"You practice martial arts too."
"For a thug, martial arts at my level is more than enough. Getting any stronger than this would be a waste."
"Puhahaha—!"
Won Dae-yeon suddenly burst into laughter. Jang Yu-seom laughed along with him.
"These people. When I joke to make them laugh, they make the mood icy, but when I'm being serious, why are they laughing?"
"I suppose that's just like Coordinator Do. I don't understand how someone so free of greed ended up as an Underworld thug."
"Indeed."
Do Tong-dal grumbled.
"How greedy do you think I'm? You just watched me squeeze three thousand nyang out of the Red Wind Sword Sect. Anyway, I am going to find the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King, so please hold things down for a while."
Namgung Seol-rin spoke up immediately.
"I'm going too."
"There's so much to do here......!"
"You idiot! Do you have any idea how many martial artists are chasing the Ten-Thousand-Year Ginseng King? If you get swept up in that crowd alone, you could die without anyone knowing!"
* * *