Beijing Restored
Investment is the art of boldly reaching out and taking something into your arms the moment its value hits rock bottom.
There is risk, of course—but when that price soars, the fruit of the gamble is sweeter than honey.
And the man once known as Majungcheon, the four-knot disciple Park Chil, was now savoring that sweet fruit to the fullest.
It may have started as a mission, but he had recognized Dan Mujin's worth early on. Even after his own identity was exposed, Park Chil had kept looking ahead and extended a helping hand to the young man in every way he could.
And now, at last, the harvest seemed to be right before his eyes.
"I can't believe it. No one's stopping us at all."
"To think I'm really setting foot on the soil of the imperial capital..."
"How long has it been...? So the Sect Leader finally used his clout and settled this once and for all."
Like country bumpkins just arrived in the big city, the beggars kept swiveling their heads and letting out gasps of wonder.
Park Chil raised his voice in front of them.
"With all due respect, this matter has nothing to do with the Sect Leader. The one who petitioned His Majesty and obtained the imperial decree is... Young Hero Dan Mujin."
It hadn't even been the Dragon Head Sect Leader's order. This was entirely Dan Mujin's unilateral move. Having exchanged letters every time the Beggar Sect's intelligence network was needed, Park Chil knew that better than anyone.
"And before we establish a branch hall here, there is something we must do first."
He drew a single letter from his robes, and every eye turned toward him.
"What is it?"
At the question from the Beggar Sect elder Ilhogae, Park Chil pointed toward the Beijing residents who were staring at the beggars with open contempt.
"While the Beggar Sect was gone, there have been people who harassed beggars relentlessly. Public mockery. Beating children. Things that would have been unthinkable if a branch hall had still been here."
An angry murmur rose among the beggars.
"The rotten bastards."
"Openly persecuting people weaker than themselves..."
"The beggar's way has fallen into the dirt...!"
Some clenched their fists. Others swept the surroundings with fierce eyes. The Beggar Sect disciples made no secret of their fury at the news of open humiliation.
"Who the hell did that?"
At a disciple's question, Park Chil flourished the letter for all to see, as if he had been waiting for it.
"I have their names right here."
A list secured through Young Hero Dan Mujin.
"We'll make them pay."
"We need to let them know the Beggar Sect is back."
Before building a branch hall, they would restore the beggar's way and tear out the contempt that had taken root. Every beggar nodded. Then, as if they shared a single body, they surged into motion.
Their first destination was the Jang family's fabric shop, where the old man had been thrashing young beggars without mercy.
"W-what the hell do you think you're—!"
Startled Old Man Jang, out of habit, ordered his servants to swing clubs—but these were no ordinary beggars. They were Beggar Sect disciples trained in martial arts.
Crack.
The servants went flying like autumn leaves in a gale. The disciples tore down the shop's signboard and moved on without pause.
Next came Eom Baek's crew, who had colluded with the unorthodox path and tormented fellow beggars without end.
"Hey, why me?!"
Being beggars who had preyed on beggars made their crime all the heavier. After finishing with Eom Baek's gang, the disciples marched straight to the madam of Honghwaru, who had publicly insulted beggars for sport.
"Ugh... so it comes to this after all."
When more than a hundred beggars blocked her door and made business impossible, Madam Il-hye-hyang pressed her fingers to her brow in dismay. The look in her eyes said she had a great deal of injustice she wanted to air.
"Next is a place called the Mangeum Money House."
"Especially that salt-and-pepper-bearded bastard—find him first!"
Deliberately reeking of filth, the Beggar Sect disciples headed for the gambling floors of the Mangeum Money House. Guests pinched their noses and turned away the moment they arrived; the customers the house had barely clawed back after the rigged-gambling scandal fled all over again. The chief steward of the money house trembled so hard his beard shook as he exploded.
"You insane beggar bastards! As if Dan Mujin hasn't already driven me out of my mind—!"
He bellowed for the house's martial artists to drive the beggars out at once—but:
"Chief Steward, these are trained martial artists. Please think this through again."
No martial artist in his right mind wanted a head-on clash with the Beggar Sect, one of the Nine Great Sects.
"Grrraaah..."
In the end the steward, unable to bear the rage, clutched the back of his neck and collapsed.
In this fashion, making their return known wherever they went, the beggars finally turned toward the Eunseong Merchant Group. They had no intention of wrecking the place; they had simply come in a noisy throng to see the face of Young Hero Dan Mujin, the man who had secured the imperial decree.
Park Chil and Elder Ilhogae, however, had one additional purpose.
"Excuse me, Merchant Leader. Is there a Master Hwang here?"
Eun Hwaran, who had been scanning the sudden flood of beggars with startled eyes, answered in a daze.
"H-he left just a moment ago."
At her report that they had missed him by a hair, Park Chil and Ilhogae understood the situation at the same instant and cried out together.
"...That old bastard bolted again!"
Out of nowhere, I found myself stuck inside the detective agency.
I had been training in the merchant group's practice yard, but the old man teaching me martial arts had bolted straight here, so there hadn't been much choice.
"You got here late. Did you run into those fellows?"
Hwang Geolgae asked as he poured clear liquor into a teacup and knocked it back.
"Yeah, something like that."
"Those fellows" probably meant the Beggar Sect elders who had greeted me with bright faces. For people with real social standing inside the orthodox path, the old man sure tossed their titles around casually.
"They were ridiculously grateful."
I had just come back from being surrounded by Beggar Sect disciples and receiving heartfelt thanks. For all their meddling in every affair under the sun, the imperial palace was a realm even they couldn't touch. Thank you. Well done. The praise had poured out of them in turn, and listening to it had left my chest so tight it ached. The thought that giving up the gold had been the right call made something itch and swell large inside me.
"And they begged me to please bring Master back."
"Hmph. Not a chance in hell."
Hwang Geolgae snorted and jerked his head away. Truly a man of iron. Was he really trying to sever every worldly tie and ascend as an immortal? He looked for all the world like one of those genuine Daoists cultivating deep in the mountains.
"What a joke..."
"I can hear you, you brat."
"Hup."
Apparently what was supposed to stay in my head had slipped out of my mouth again. Hwang Geolgae fixed me with a look that promised a thrashing.
"Anyway, those Beggar Sect disciples are still camped out in front of the merchant group, waiting for you, Master."
"None of my business, brat."
Thanks to this whole affair, my identity—long hushed up among the high and mighty—seemed to have leaked out to some degree among the Beggar Sect as well. Of course, since the Dragon Head Sect Leader was officially in seclusion, my own position only felt about half-recognized. Still, the day would come when I received a Beggar Sect knot of my own.
"Your achievement in the Seongun Simbeop has risen quite a bit. That self-satisfaction of yours must have been working."
The more meritorious deeds you believed you had performed—the more good you felt you had done—the stronger the Cloud Star Heart Method's power became. The internal energy I had accumulated that way had now reached a volume that could honestly be called enormous.
"How much energy is piled up in your dantian?"
I circulated the Cloud Star Heart Method—said to have been transmitted by some mysterious Daoist of unknown origin—and a pale aura rose over my whole body.
"About fifty years' worth, I think."
"Heh-heh. Looks like you stuffed yourself with some kind of miracle pill."
Even a prodigy of a great clan, lavished with precious elixirs, wouldn't have this much internal energy at my age, Hwang Geolgae said with a dry laugh. Well—when someone offered me gold in solid lumps and I still fought back tears and gave it up, it was a decision the old me, Dan Wonjun the money-crazed ghost, could never have imagined.
"And yet I'm still only Peak Realm, Master. Please grant this unworthy disciple some insight toward the Transcendental Peak."
I bent at the waist and pleaded earnestly. This was the whole reason I had chased this cantankerous old man around, even driving Jo Harang out of the agency to do it. The realm of Transcendental Peak was so close I could almost brush it with my fingertips—and yet it kept shimmering just out of reach.
Back on that cliff in Liaoning Province, I had been blocked by the wall of Sword Force and nearly lost my own sister, helpless. Ever since, whenever a Transcendent Realm master appeared, I had been pushed back without even managing a proper fight. If I wanted to keep my head on my shoulders in this cutthroat Murim, I at least needed to be able to draw Sword Force or Saber Force.
"Insight, is it? Did you think that's something you can just hand over because you feel like it?"
"Ugh, but there's got to be a better method than slamming my head into the dirt."
Like in the early days of training, when he had made me walk myself half to death until I finally grasped what internal energy even was.
"Brat. Insight is just... something that comes rushing at you like fate, all of a sudden. A single offhand remark can make you vault clean over a wall."
Hwang Geolgae muttered some useless fatalism and put on the air of a profound Daoist.
"Isn't that a little too vague and cloudy?"
"Insight is originally the business of groping through murky clouds."
He chuckled keuk-keuk at my question and drained another cup.
"Not helpful at all."
Whack!
I took a solid hit on the crown of my head. Even though I had wrapped myself in internal energy in an instant, a shock of pain still punched straight through my body.
"Keep it inside your head, you brat."
My master clicked his tongue with a thoroughly fed-up expression. It wasn't as if he had only known me a day or two. Living in constant terror of every word that left my mouth was something I had decided to leave behind in my previous life.
"So there's no advice you're going to give me, then?"
"From Peak Realm on, you carve your own path. There's a limit to how much this old man can hold your hand."
He would spar with me anytime if it was about blade work steeped in killing intent—but when it came to climbing realms, I was on my own.
"You talk like you ever held my hand properly to begin with."
"...Now the brat is saying it out loud on purpose."
Damn. My private thoughts had leaked out again. Hwang Geolgae clenched his fist as if he meant to swing any second. Before the smack could land, I launched myself out of the agency in a hurry.
Shhk! Shhhk!
Under the moonlight, two blades cut through empty air.
Today Beijing had been thrown into an unseasonable uproar by the Beggar Sect's sudden invasion. But once night fell and the stars came out in thick clusters, the whole city sank into silence as if nothing had happened.
In that hush, words dwindled and thoughts ran deeper.
I was drilling the Chamgu Sword Art, catching Jo Harang's greatsaber as it came crashing down like a storm.
Clash-clash-clang!
A Transcendental Peak master was personally helping me raise my realm—I couldn't waste an opportunity like that. And yet, for some reason, even with a master's aid, my progress was going nowhere.
"Your tip is shaking, Mujin."
"No it isn't?"
I said it while checking the point of my sword, which had thrust out in a straight line and drawn back cleanly.
"I don't mean it's actually shaking. I mean your heart is."
Why did every master talk in that floating-clouds-and-mist way? She must have sensed the turmoil inside me. Figuring today's training was already a lost cause, I withdrew my sword with a dissatisfied face.
The moment it seemed practice was over, a set of footsteps approached as if they had been waiting for exactly that.
"Boss, I was gathering information around Beijing today. Do you know what happened?"
"What happened?"
Ilhong's voice sounded oddly bright.
"Everywhere I went, it was nothing but talk about the Beggar Sect and you, Boss. All over Beijing."
She was delighted on my behalf, saying it looked like I had finally gotten the fame I wanted.
"Oh? That so?"
"Yes. The praise was everywhere. Your reputation as the School-Wrecking Fiend had pretty much been wiped clean."
A mere troubleshooter bold enough to petition the Son of Heaven. This was definitely the Beggar Sect spreading flattering stories. They weren't just good at collecting intelligence—they were experts at manufacturing and spreading rumors with sheer numbers.
"I just petitioned so I could make a living."
I answered as if it were nothing. Word of my entry into the imperial palace would have reached Hwang Geolgae's ears too, and if I wanted to keep my skin intact in that situation, I had figured I needed to bring back some kind of gift.
"Even so, it isn't easy for an ordinary person to give up that much money and make that kind of choice."
And all I had really wanted was to pile up merit instead of money, stretch my lifespan, and stockpile internal energy. It had been a calculated choice of gains and losses—not the pure chivalry of some genuine hero out of a wuxia novel.
"Honestly, Boss, you always talk like that. Like you're some kind of hypocrite."
"Well, that's true to a point."
Hadn't I saved Ilhong as a bargain-bin investment and a merit-farming shuttle in the first place? And every time I rescued her, a fair amount of merit and internal energy really had stacked up.
"Oh, come on. You actually thought that?"
Ilhong stared at me with round eyes. Her face was pure disbelief.
"Did some kind of heart demon take hold of you? Why does everything in your head run that way? All this talk about having some scheme when you do good deeds..."
Jo Harang, who had been listening beside us, quietly nodded along this time, looking just as exasperated. She seemed to want Ilhong to land a solid hit for her.
"Suppose there's a hypocrite who hid a wicked heart his whole life and only ever did good deeds until the day he died. Would that person be a good man? Or a bad one?"
"..."
Ilhong's words left me silent for a moment. Someone who had lived believing himself a hypocrite—and yet, in the end, left nothing but a good influence on the world. Regardless of what was in his heart, the trajectory of that life would still have been a good man's.
"Hmm."
Ilhong, tossing me something to think about mid-training. Was I really that kind of good person? Moyong Cheongjin might be—but the human being named Dan Wonjun... No. Did the identity of Dan Wonjun even remain in me at all?
Belonging nowhere. Certain of nothing on either side.
"You look confused. Well—that expression included—all of it is still you, Boss."
That single line from Ilhong struck clean through my chest.
Right. So what if my head felt a little split? Everything in it was still me.
The obstacle that had always blocked the road to Transcendental Peak was the unity of the mind. Maybe I had just found the answer to that question—exactly as Hwang Geolgae had said, from a single offhand remark.
Yes. I was a greedy man who loved money. But at the same time, helping others, hearing their thanks, and being acknowledged for my worth made my heart race just as hard. It had always been that way, ever since I was a kid. That faint, swelling tremor in my chest—whatever it was.
I decided to stop denying it. The little light inside me I had dismissed as hypocrisy—I would accept it fully now.
Shhhhhh—
With that realization, the ordinary iron sword began to be wrapped in a hazy radiance that surpassed mere Sword Qi.
The iron blade no longer carried mere edge and intent.
An ethereal radiance beyond Sword Qi coiled around the steel—Geomgang, solid Sword Force, answering the unity of a heart no longer at war with itself.