A Soul-Infused Bluff
"Those bastards clearly cheated. There's no way I lose like that otherwise!"
A hulking martial artist of the Peng Clan was thrashing about the office, raising a storm.
Win and it's skill; lose and it's fraud—the classic lines of a gambler who'd already ruined himself.
"How do six pips come up all at once? Does that even make sense?!"
He was listing every dirty trick he'd suffered at the Mangeum Money House gambling floor, wheezing and snarling between breaths. Even after bellowing his lungs out, his fury still wasn't spent; he slammed a fist down on the office desk with a heavy thud.
Crack.
The desk—already patched together like a rag quilt—collapsed in a heap.
The Peng Clan man flinched and jerked his hand back at the sight.
"I—I didn't mean to do that."
"Oh, but you did. You'll be paying for it."
Jo Harang had smashed the thing a few times before, sure—but in situations like this, the one who lands the finishing blow always takes the bill.
"I barely tapped it!"
"As expected of a Hebei Peng Clan martial artist. What tremendous strength. Three silver coins will cover it."
I thrust out my palm in a clear hand it over gesture.
The excitement drained right out of him. He cleared his throat dryly and sidled out of my gaze.
"I don't have any money on me right now…"
"How is that possible? The Hebei Peng Clan is an extremely wealthy house."
They were among the richest families even in Beijing. Surely a blood relative standing in front of me would be well-off too.
"Because those Mangeum Money House dogs cleaned me out of everything I owned!"
He pounded the wreckage of the already-shattered desk and exploded in rage all over again.
So he was broke. We didn't take commissions without payment, and this didn't look like the kind of job that would stack up good karma either.
"My little sister—Peng Hwayeop—will cover everything."
Peng Hwayeop. Unlike this oversized child, she was a solid, clear-eyed woman who understood how the world worked, kept her word, and had a decent character. I still couldn't figure out why she was friends with someone as rotten as Dang Yeohye.
"Hmm. If she's the guarantor, then fine."
I withdrew the palm I'd been holding out in acceptance.
I'd just charge Peng Hwayeop double when I saw her later.
"My sister talks about you often."
"Oh? And what does she say?"
I'd caught that homosexual lecher for them and helped avenge their family. Surely it was nothing but praise. Ideally she'd been spreading word of our exploits all over the place.
"She says you handle whatever job you're given well… and that you like men."
The first half was more or less true. The second half I couldn't let slide.
"I like women, actually."
I was sure I'd explained that point clearly at the time. But people trust the behavior right in front of them more than a hundred words. Apparently Peng Hwayeop still held some strange misunderstanding about me.
"I get it, so let go. You're giving me the creeps."
I released the arm I'd seized for emphasis, letting it slip free.
He shuddered and stepped back several paces.
That stung a little.
"You do have… a bit of that vibe, though."
Jo Harang, who had always eyed my relationship with Ilhong with a certain look, cheerfully fanned the flames of the misunderstanding.
Instead of helping, she only made it worse.
"…"
And then Ilhong herself, carefully avoiding the desperate glance I shot her for backup.
Anyone else, fine—but not you.
"Anyway. What's the actual request? Prove it was a rigged game? Or go reclaim the money you lost?"
"No. Something more fundamental than that."
The money he'd lost wasn't small, he explained, but the deeper wound was to his pride. What he wanted, therefore, was no petty little job.
"Smash the Mangeum Money House gambling floor for me."
True to the fiery blood of the Hebei Peng Clan, he came at me with a scorching demand.
"Physically?"
"No. Then all anyone would say is that a Peng Clan martial artist lost at gambling and threw a tantrum."
He had a point. People would spread the story that he'd resorted to force because he couldn't win at the tables—ugly rumors everywhere. And the Murim was a world of lofty face where honor came before death itself. It could bring shame on the entire clan.
"Any method is fine. Expose them as a den of cheats and ruin them completely, or strip every last coin from them by some other means!"
He wanted them to feel the same financial damage and mental anguish he had suffered. In short: destroy one of Mangeum Money House's major cash cows—their gambling floor.
"…If we pull this off, my sister will be extremely pleased, won't she?"
Peng Hwayeop had recently realized Mangeum Money House was her father's enemy and had been sharpening her revenge. If I could help her land a real blow, I'd be doing her a favor with no strings attached—a kind of good deed in its own right.
"Client. What's your name?"
I decided to accept the commission and asked for his name.
"Peng Hogu."
"…You're joking, right?"
My new client carried a rather ominous name.
"Is there a problem? Getting startled by a person's name like that."
"No, nothing at all…"
It just seemed like the kind of destiny that should never go near a gambling table. But he was about to become my financier, so I kept that thought to myself.
"Very well, Client Peng Hogu."
"Just call me Senior Peng. You seem to know my sister, after all."
That suited me fine. Calling a paying client "Hogu" out loud felt a little too on the nose.
"Yes, Senior Peng. Please trust us and wait."
No advance payment, but I'd take the job on faith and trust in Peng Hwayeop. In the long run, the Hebei Peng Clan could become a premium client house.
"Before long, you'll hear some very interesting news about Mangeum Money House."
He'd said any means were acceptable. That left room to work.
Peng Hogu might have been an easy mark as a simple, straightforward Peng Clan martial artist—but I wasn't.
"Just as my sister said—you're full of confidence. Good. I'll trust you."
He clapped my shoulder a few times in affirmation.
Then he suddenly seemed to remember my alleged preferences, flinched, and snatched his hand away.
Honestly, that was a little hurtful.
Once the client stepped outside, Ilhong asked worriedly,
"Boss, do you know anything about gambling?"
Of course I did. Back when I worked at the detective agency, one of the places I had to visit as regularly as meals was Kangwon Land. Debtors and targets of investigation were always drifting into places like that, chasing a quick fortune.
"I know how the systems work, and how the flow goes."
People lived more or less the same everywhere. Even in different countries, gambling methods tended to share common ground. From Cheongjin's memories, they played with bone tiles, mahjong, dice, and the like here too—so it wasn't all that different.
"Sometimes I really wonder about your past, Boss. How does someone your age know this stuff?"
"Ah-ah. A man's past is not to be asked about."
I wagged a finger in absolute refusal.
Ilhong snorted that I was putting on airs.
"Anyway—Mangeum Money House. Do they actually run a rigged game?"
"Yes. They do."
Ilhong nodded with certainty. They gathered slick-handed operators and deliberately picked wealthy clients to skin. That was why the Haomu Gate people had never gone near the place.
"So that sucker really got taken."
"That's right."
I glanced toward the office entrance Peng Hogu had just left. Where my eyes had held mild contempt before, there was now a faint thread of pity.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Heavy blade-winds kept booming from the open ground in front of the office. Jo Harang and Peng Hogu were going at it. Both of them were saber users; the moment their eyes met, competitive fire flared and they charged out to fight without anyone needing to suggest it.
Idiots who knew nothing but fighting and martial arts.
"Boss, for reference—this is the main game they run at the Mangeum Money House gambling floor."
She held out three crude wooden dice she'd somehow carved herself, each face pitted with a different number of dots. They looked a bit like the juryeonggu dice people used to toss around in the Silla era.
"Six faces each. You put them in a cup, shake, put money down, and the higher roll wins."
Higher total better, then. Three dice, so six-six-six would be the top hand.
"Nice and simple."
"But Boss, what are you going to do with that knowledge? Their sleight of hand is going to be better than ours."
They're professional cheats, her eyes said. Can you really win?
I answered her question by silently looking at something that shimmered red in the air.
"Boss, why are you staring at empty space? Is something there?"
"There is something, yes."
There was a palm that could pass through any object and communicate with me.
What… are you looking at.
Now that longer communication was possible, Salsung seemed to have gotten even more insolent. Every time I saw it, the feeling was strange. Right now it was only a palm—but would a wrist and forearm start appearing later? If a mouth ever showed up, it would never shut up. Just thinking about it gave me a headache.
Why… planning to use me…?
The red aura twitched finely. Somehow it felt like snickering.
A gambling den was where human malice and greed whipped into their sharpest form. Once you got stained by that place, a person's mind went soft in no time. So the moment it sensed I might use it for a rigged game, Salsung waved its palm in welcome.
But I had seen far too many ruined people while working as a troubleshooter to fall the way that thing wanted.
"Ilhong, shake the dice for me."
At my words, Ilhong took out two cups, dropped the dice in, rattled them, and set them down with a clack.
"Think you can guess?"
"We'll see."
I tilted my head and looked at Salsung.
The palm slid between the two cups, then raised fingers several times to show me numbers. One of them must have come up six—it spread all five fingers, then lifted the index once more.
"Four, four, six. Right?"
Ilhong cocked her head, opened the cups—and her eyes went round.
"Y-you're right. How did you do that?"
She'd seen me do all sorts of things beyond my age before, but this time she was genuinely flustered and making a fuss.
"I cast a spell."
"What?"
"Asura Balbalta."
Geum Hwangdo, Geum Yado, and the whole Mangeum Money House pack. They'd walked right into it.
"Ilhong. Looks like we might just become filthy rich."
At that, Salsung twitched like a snake flicking its tongue, as if to say that's the spirit.
Hmm. Come to think of it, as long as that thing was around, any plan to strike it rich through cheating would have to be shelved. But at least I seemed to have found a way to clean out my sister's enemies.
On the outskirts of Mangeum Money House stood a three-story wooden building of uncommon size and grandeur.
A gambling hall packed with people drinking loudly, clacking bone tiles, and betting. In that place where someone's joy and someone's despair mixed without end, a middle-aged man with a striking goatee was silently flipping through ledgers.
"Peng Hogu, was it? We skinned him quite nicely."
To have fleeced a martial artist of the Hebei Peng Clan, no less. He gave the tip of his beard a long, self-satisfied tug.
The way the man had flushed red and purple, too conscious of his face to flip the table, and stomped out grinding his teeth—it had been hilarious. He'd screamed "fraud" at the top of his lungs yet never once proven it, and in the end he'd only earned mockery.
Ignorant types were always the easiest to handle.
"Another sucker walks in."
He watched a handsome young man in heroic garb step into the hall and let out a soft snort of laughter. At a glance, the youth looked like some green young master from one of Beijing's countless rich houses, blundering in without a clue. Those were always the easiest to clean out. The goateed overseer thought how pitiful it was and went back to flipping ledger pages, tallying numbers.
And then—
"Ohh!"
"That young fellow's incredible!"
"That's the fifth time already!"
At the shouts that someone had won again, the overseer's eyes snapped open. He lifted his head. A considerable pile of gold and silver was being scooped up by a young man whose presence now looked anything but meek.
"Then I'll take this, shall I? Like a gentleman."
The overseer's eyes narrowed to slits like a goat's.
Something was going very wrong.