The Battle of the Century
Paeng Hwayeop of the Hebei Paeng Family.
Unlike Dang Yeohye, he was a mountain of a man built like a bear, and both his personality and manner of speech were thoroughly polite.
That said, the commissions he entrusted me with were bizarre beyond all reason—personality aside.
“Hup! Haap!”
Through the wide-open front door of the office, I could see Ilhong training in the front yard in light clothes.
Under the blazing sun she was pouring out a stream of sweat, working to raise her martial realm. Looks like she’d gained some kind of insight after that life-or-death scrap with the Ghost-Faced Guest last time.
“Ilhong, you’re suddenly going all out, huh.”
I sat in a chair, soaking up the sunlight and enjoying the leisure of watching a martial artist train.
“I’ve always… hup! trained hard, Boss!”
Ilhong shouted between ragged breaths.
From upper left to lower right, a clean diagonal slash. The Beggar Sect’s Gyuji Sword Art that Hwang Geolgae had taught her unfolded at her fingertips.
“True enough, but you seem especially fired up these days.”
Normally when we had no clients she’d sit around drinking tea and spacing out with me. Lately her will was burning like a torch.
“Well, I’ve only ever been on the receiving end… I can’t become a burden to the work we do.”
She said it with a rather grim expression.
“Hey, who called you a burden?”
“My own conscience…”
No one had said a word, but that was how she felt herself. She used to burn with the desire to exploit anything and everything she could get her hands on. She’d definitely softened up lately.
“All right, looks good. Keep at it.”
“Yes, Boss!”
I’d handed her a spiritual pill and last job’s pay, and suddenly the kid was sharp as a tack. Praise and rewards really do make even whales dance. Dan Mujin-style personnel management was shining even here. She’d grow into an even more loyal, capable subordinate. If she could bloom all the way up to Haomu Gate Master, that’d be even better.
“Haap!”
This time it looked like fist training—she sheathed the thin sword and scattered ferocious palm strikes in every direction. Just watching felt wrong, and she was so endearing I stepped into the yard to spar with her.
Of course I didn’t beat the lessons into her body the way a certain someone would; I just played opponent.
Thud-thud-thud!
Ilhong’s fists cut the air. The killing intent in her strikes was so faint it was practically nonexistent, which made reading the trajectories oddly difficult. When I used Peak-realm eyesight to deflect the incoming fists like water, she only grew more motivated and charged harder.
The grimy little alley kid from back then had somehow grown this far—into a First-class martial artist.
Only after we crossed hands did I understand why she’d been grumbling all this time. And as we kept trading blows, a strange sensation reached my fingertips. The brat was gathering not only internal energy but yang energy into every form and blasting it out through her fists.
“Ilhong, why is your body packed full of yang energy?”
“Ah, that… Last time the Ghost-Faced Guest used some weird technique on me and I ended up like this.”
The bastard hadn’t even realized he was facing a girl in men’s clothes and had rashly used some “pluck-yang, nourish-yang” nonsense, only to absorb yin energy instead and spit out his own yang. Completely against her will, Ilhong had absorbed a massive amount of ownerless yang energy through her meridians.
“That guy must’ve been completely baffled.”
His yang energy hadn’t been sucked out—it had been forcibly expelled.
“Yeah, he was really shocked.”
No wonder he’d looked so wronged right up until his head was about to come off.
“Anyway, I’m trying to combine this with the spiritual-pill energy that’s melted into my blood vessels and absorb it. I’m burning off the excess yang energy like this until the balance returns. When that moment comes I should be able to push a little closer to Peak. Master Hwang Geolgae gave me that advice.”
“Well I’ll be damned. Some people just succeed no matter what they try.”
Unlike me, who gets a fist flying at my face the second I go ask about anything, she was growing in a textbook, smooth fashion. So that old bastard Hwang Geolgae knew how to teach this kind of training too.
“Well, this is also an investment.”
Some Beggar King once said that if you give, it all comes back around. Lately I’d been doing good deeds and receiving internal energy and lifespan in return, so I could relate more than a little.
“All right. I’ll push and pull for you.”
Neither of us was an official disciple, but we’d still shared hardships under the same master—so we were something like martial brother and sister. We joined forces and threw ourselves into training in the office yard for a good while, endlessly exchanging fist strikes, staff swings, and sword forms, polishing each other.
Of course there was also a bit of spectacle and advertising mixed in. For several days we swept the ground with footwork and body techniques, flourished our blades, and showed off our martial prowess under the interested gazes of the whole neighborhood.
“Why isn’t a single client showing up?”
We trained and trained again, honing our skills for all the locals to see, yet no clients felt like coming.
“I feel like just spreading the rumor that we took down the Ghost-Faced Guest.”
“You want to spread that the Hebei Paeng Family got wrecked by a cut-sleeve? Leave me out of that one.”
She said the Hebei Paeng Family would explode in rage over the disgrace. Making a name in Beijing was harder than expected.
“Tch.”
Back where I used to live, you slipped a little money to a promo agency, ran ads hard, and clients came looking for you on their own. Here you had to spread word of mouth one person at a time—it wasn’t easy at all. Thanks to that, the current reality was nearly a week with zero clients and nothing but flies buzzing around.
Jingle-jingle.
Then the entrance bell rang, announcing the long-awaited arrival of a client. Ilhong and I practically teleported to the doorway with welcome greetings.
“Oh my, Client! Welcome—”
But just as I was about to bow, a familiar face appeared.
“What, brat—you again?”
The little Zhang Clan kid who’d been getting beaten up and shaken down for money at the academy. True to a family that had planted roots in Beijing, he was supposedly rolling in wealth. That same kid had come back to our office.
“Big bro! We’re in real trouble this time!”
Apparently something huge had gone down at the academy.
“So basically, after the troubleshooter you brought last time got wrecked, the other kid snitched to his parents…”
Up until now it had clearly been a scrap between kids with fat allowances. Now the parents knew and had stepped in, so it was escalating into a clash between families.
“Yeah, so those bad kids’ parents and my parents are both furious to the tips of their hair…”
And the kid who’d led the bullying and violence just happened to be from the Ha Clan, a family that maintained something like a bitter rivalry with the Zhang Clan in political circles. Once the two family heads heard the news they immediately flew into a rage they couldn’t contain, and the whole thing snowballed—that was the explanation from the brat standing in front of me. It had turned into a matter of pride between two families that couldn’t back down, or something like that.
“So the other side hired a proper vagabond?”
“Right, right. Last time it was a Second-class troubleshooter, so this time it’ll probably be higher.”
It was a little strange for anyone stronger than that to step into a minor family spat like this.
“But why come looking for me? You could’ve just gone to the Vagabond Association and hired a proper one.”
“But big bro, you’re super strong. I’ve never seen a Second-class martial artist get beaten that badly.”
Among the people he’d seen, I was the strongest.
“You little punk, at least you’ve got an eye for talent.”
I’d accepted the job without much thought at first, but the situation kept growing. Two pride-wounded families hiring martial artists to settle things. Back where I lived, hiring proxies to beat each other up and then declaring the winner “justice” would’ve gotten you labeled a lunatic. But in this Murim world where the law didn’t reach evenly and might made right, it was surprisingly common. That was why the vagabonds around here never ran out of work.
“Boss, the Ha Clan also wields pretty serious influence in the imperial capital. What if we stick our noses in and it blows up?”
“Ilhong, are we in any position to be picky about that right now?”
The matter had already grown plenty big. And no matter how much influence they threw around, could it possibly exceed the Third Princess or the Second Prince? Besides, I’d already beaten down both the Embroidered Uniform Guard and a eunuch at the same time—there wasn’t much left for me to be afraid of. Of course, that was partly thanks to Cheon Su-gong cleaning up afterward.
“Things have gotten bigger, so this time your allowance alone won’t cut it. You understand that, right, Zhang brat?”
“…Of course, big bro. This time it’s money Father himself gave me to hire someone with.”
He cracked open a money pouch stuffed with coins that his father had promised if the job succeeded. Compared to the few silver coins I’d seen last time, it was a whole different spectacle. The scale really was different when a high-ranking person did the hiring—the pay grade jumped a level.
“Boss, what are you going to do if the other side brings out a stronger expert than expected?”
“I’ll still win.”
A petty squabble that started from kids fighting—at most they’d field a First-class nobody.
“If the opponent is First-class, you step up and take them.”
“…Should I? Good chance to polish what I’ve been training.”
With the ample internal energy from the spiritual pill in her dantian plus the yang energy she’d gained this time, Ilhong seemed to have grown quite a bit more confident against fellow First-class fighters.
“Then let’s go make some pocket money.”
It was a huge sum for us, but for successful Beijing family heads it was probably just pocket change. Ilhong and I cracked our shoulders and followed the brat out the office door.
The place we headed for was the Golden Dragon Academy in the heart of Beijing.
It was an academy where a renowned scholar of imperial lineage taught, and apparently the place where the educational fever and helicopter parenting of Beijing parents with children burned the hottest.
“That sniveling brat was the one who dragged an adult into a children’s fight first! How dare you blame my innocent child!”
“Ha! Innocent? He led the bullying and tormented our poor boy without end! I even hear he extorted money!”
“That’s all one-sided claims from Family Head Zhang! My child clearly said he never did any such thing!”
The moment we arrived, the two family heads were already roaring at each other at the top of their lungs. The veins standing out on their necks made it clear that the time for reconciliation or mediation had long passed. So it was up to us troubleshooters to step in and settle the matter.
“Father!”
The Zhang Clan brat who’d hired us and brought us to the scene dashed toward his parents. The Zhang family head immediately cried “My baby!” and swept the bullied child into a protective embrace.
“You bastard! Who is that fellow?! Did you hire another martial artist?!”
The opposing family head glared back and forth between the little client and me, then bellowed while glaring daggers. The Ha Clan’s son chimed in, pointing at me and confirming I was the same guy who’d threatened him last time.
“I’m not a hired martial artist. Name’s Dan Mujin—this kid’s uncle. His uncle.”
He’d simply had a scary uncle among his relatives. So when he heard the kid was getting beaten, he’d stepped in. That was all.
“He said Dan! That’s a different surname!”
The opposing brat jumped up and down. Crap, I hadn’t thought of that. My head had been too full of making a name for myself.
“Uh… it’s a… child out of wedlock kind of thing. Yeah, yeah.”
I tried the excuse, but it was already too late. The Ha Clan people stared with faces full of distrust, while the Zhang family wife shot her husband a piercing look as if she’d just misunderstood something. The client’s father waved his hands frantically, insisting this was the first he’d ever heard of it.
“Huh? I know that man…!”
Just then the opposing wife took one look at my face and shrieked in shock. She covered her mouth and looked me up and down.
How the hell did that woman know the face of a detective-agency boss tucked away in a Beijing corner?
“That handsome young man—I’m sure I saw him last week at the Gaoan tea house…”
Damn it all. Ilhong and I immediately covered our faces with our sleeves. This was exactly why we should’ve worn human-skin masks even if it cost money and effort.
“Wife, what are you talking about? Last week you said you were taking the child out for a tour… A tea house in Gaoan?”
Apparently she’d snuck off to the tea house without telling her husband. Mid-sentence she went “Hup!” and hastily shut her mouth.
“Oh ho ho… What am I even saying? I must have been mistaken.”
She casually stepped back and waved both hands as if it had all been a misunderstanding. Of all the women who could have been at that tea house, it had to be a parent who sent her kid to a famous Beijing academy. Still, I supposed I should count myself lucky—judging by her frantic excuses, it looked like we’d slide past without anyone getting hurt. Best I kept my own mouth shut too.
“Anyway, you bastard! A full-grown adult wandering among little children and stirring up trouble! And you still call yourself a troubleshooter?!”
Suddenly the Ha family head pointed at me and started laying into me. Your own son started the trouble, buddy. I just stepped in to solve it.
“I hear you also took down the Second-class troubleshooter we hired last time to respond! So this time we put in a request with the Vagabond Association outright!”
He’d put up a fairly large sum to invite a true expert. He was going to take me down for sticking my nose into a children’s fight and restore justice, or whatever. Coming out of the mouth of the parent of the kid who’d led a group bullying, that sure was something.
“You’ll regret meddling in this affair, troubleshooter.”
I wondered what kind of expert he’d brought to be so confident. I shrugged as if to say, come and get me.
Then, with heavy thud-thud footsteps, a single vagabond approached the scene. I snorted, curious who the unlucky vagabond was that was about to face a Peak martial artist without even knowing why.
But far off, at the sight of the massive great saber bobbing in time with the footsteps and that familiar silhouette, my eyes flew wide open.
“Huh? What are you doing here…?”