Double the Profit
"That Mujin kid must be wavering right about now."
In a ragged, threadbare robe, his hair matted with grease, a penniless old beggar muttered to himself as he clutched a wine jar loaded on a cart.
Greed was one of the Ten Evils named by the Buddhist path—the root that led straight into the heart-demon. The foul qi that clung to money had, from ages past, always drawn blood and claimed countless lives. Even the cleverest man grew dull before gold; his inner hungers stirred and rose.
And the malevolent star would slip into the cracks of Dan Mujin's mind the moment a vast reward left him soft.
"When the demon crooks its finger—what choice will the boy make?"
People changed when sudden fortune fell into their laps. Hidden natures came crawling out. That was why Hwang Geolgae had not stopped Eun Hwaran, head of the merchant group, when she summoned the boy to offer a monetary reward. It might poison his training in the Seongun Simbeop—but it was also a fine chance to take the measure of his vessel.
"A kind of test, then."
Beggars clung to coin like nothing else. Drop a lump of yellow gold under their noses and how many would keep their heads? Their eyes would roll white. Keeping a calm heart would be nearly impossible—and that would hand the Heavenly Killing Star its opening.
Even so, Hwang Geolgae found himself hoping, deep down, that Dan Mujin would overcome it. To defy a fate heaven itself had laid upon you, you needed will and spirit to match.
Gulp, gulp.
He scooped a ladle of Shaohong wine and drank without a word. The boy must not go blind for the profit before his eyes and commit the folly of the mantis that never sees the oriole behind it.
"Tch. That brat keeps giving me more to worry about every day."
No matter how much he drank, the fretting and the worry would not lift. So he simply lifted his gaze to the malevolent stars glittering across the night sky in their various colors. For a long while the old man fixed his eyes on the most ominous light among them—the Heavenly Killing Star.
Two small gold ingots, pure and yellow as egg yolk.
Their golden radiance seemed to suck my consciousness straight in. Those little things, no bigger than quail eggs, were worth decades of a silk reeler's wages. Even allowing for how pitiful a reeler's base pay was, this was money ordinary commoners almost never got to touch.
How much did I make selling silkworm cocoons back on Earth?
About a hundred thousand won. A fortune to an orphanage kid—enough for a snack-shop feast. But here?
One click of information, and pure gold had landed in my hands. Even on Earth that was real money—far too large and far too dangerous for a silk-reeling brat to be holding.
A thousand stray thoughts crashed through my head as I glanced at Merchant Head Eun Hwaran. Was I even allowed to take this?
"Don't refuse it. The Eunseong always repays a debt of kindness."
She hid her mouth behind her fan and smiled with her eyes. So she really meant to give it. The Eunseong Merchant Group was strapped for cash—they needed every coin—but that was their problem. Payment still had to be made. That was the stubborn backbone of her stance.
In that case, I wasn't about to be coy.
"Ahem. You really shouldn't have…"
Grinning like an idiot, I grabbed for them. The instant my fingertips met the gold, a thrill ran through my whole body. Small, but heavy. Yeah—this was the troubleshooter life.
With real money in hand, strength flooded into my shoulders on its own. What should I do with it first? March into the Jang family's fabric shop swinging my staff and strut around like I owned the place. Then slap a wad of cash across the face of every innkeeper who'd looked down on a beggar, and taste every delicacy Beijing had to offer.
"Heh heh."
Making money had never been this easy. The beggar days of laughing and crying over a single copper, the silk-reeler days of grinding from before dawn—they all suddenly felt pathetic. With this, I could eat full and sleep warm for a good long while.
The world really did look better once you had money. Having it after having nothing felt this good.
And just as I moved to tuck the glittering gold ingots into my robe—
A crushing pain wrenched through my dantian.
"Ugh!"
Agony tore through every meridian. My eyes, blurred by gold, snapped wide open. A grain of demon-suppressing true qi went berserk, thrashing as if to sound an alarm. Thanks to that, my mind cleared as if ice water had been dumped over my head—and a heartbeat later I saw something that left me cold.
What the hell is this…
A thick, ominous blood-red mist had filled the merchant head's office without my noticing. And the aura of the Heavenly Killing Star was dragging my arm toward the gold. Crimson things seethed over my whole body, like a venomous snake flicking its tongue before a meal.
Oh, for fuck's sake.
The sight made my hair stand on end. Blinded by the gold in front of me, I hadn't seen any of it. That thing had been working me. Without the Seongun Simbeop jarring me awake, I would have taken exactly the step the Heavenly Killing Star wanted.
I'd thought recent training had quieted it for a while. No—it had been watching every moment for my spirit to rot. Tenacious. Poisonous. And I couldn't even tear it out of me.
The second I truly felt that fact, the greed that had filled my head drained away clean.
Right. What good were gold and jewels if I lost my mind and became a slaughterer?
"Noona."
Seeing breeds desire. If it wasn't in my hand, there was no test to fail and no temptation to fall for. I wasn't walking into the Heavenly Killing Star's game. I was cutting its schemes off at the root.
"I'm grateful—but I'll return these."
I slid the gold ingots back toward her as I spoke. Staying alive came first.
"…What? Are you serious?"
Eun Hwaran's large eyes flicked wide; she clearly hadn't expected that.
"Yes. You said the group's situation isn't good. You were even dealing with debt collectors… Use it for that."
The Heavenly Killing Star's revival meant the death of the person called me. I still didn't have enough achievement in the Seongun Simbeop to swallow this whole. Sweat seemed to run from my eyes. Someday I would seize demon-suppressing power strong enough to beat every trick that cursed star threw at me.
"Are you truly all right with that?"
The black-haired beauty still looked thoroughly startled, as if this possibility had never crossed her mind. I nodded.
"Yes, Noona. Instead—pile me high with meat dumplings."
Fresh-steamed ones, a mountain of them, to soothe my sour stomach. And while I was at it, I'd stuff myself on the Dongpo pork I'd missed last time until I burst.
"Oh—and can the merchant group hire more kids like me?"
Thinking of Dongpo pork had reminded me. This wasn't a wish for personal gain, so the Heavenly Killing Star wouldn't find a crack. The little ones who had followed me calling me boss—I needed to bring them in while I had the chance.
"…"
At my request, Eun Hwaran looked faintly dazed. Maybe a beggar-turned-silk-reeler sticking his nose into other people's business had simply left her speechless.
"…How many little ones?"
"About ten."
She would arrange proper work for them. Handouts with no return only killed a person's ability to stand on their own. Better to give them jobs and pay them fairly.
Then Eun Hwaran snapped shut the fan that had been hiding half her face. On her revealed lips sat a smile full of fond approval.
There was a saying: see gold as stone. Treat yellow gold like ordinary rock—put righteousness before wealth.
As a great merchant's daughter and the heir to a trading house, Eun Hwaran had watched every kind of human being with her own two eyes. Even so, she had never once met anyone who actually lived those words.
People who refused gold because they didn't know its value? Sure—a child from some backwater of the Central Plains might. But this boy had known the worth of those gold ingots to the last decimal. The moment he saw them, his eyes had gone round.
And still he had yielded them out of consideration for the merchant group's situation—so she could hire more wandering swordsmen and put the money toward escort work. What kind of enlightened high monk's compassion was that, in a child so young?
Old Master Hwang's training method, which held itself aloof from material things—honestly, she had thought no child could keep up with it. But this one might be different. The old master really did know how to read people.
"Noona, you've been quiet for a while. Are you all right?"
She had lived her whole life by calculation, connections, and arithmetic. The fact that she had treated him warmly only because he was Old Master Hwang's disciple and because he possessed useful sericulture knowledge suddenly felt a little shameful.
"From now on, just call me Noona."
Eun Hwaran tapped her cheek lightly with the folded fan as she said it. Perhaps she had finally met a child she could simply grow close to—no gains and losses required.
"Yes, Noona."
A sharp, eager, gifted boy. Eun Hwaran smiled, genuine goodwill in it, and opened a drawer to hand him a piece of candied fruit.
"Oh—jackpot."
Those unintelligible sounds that sometimes popped out of him. Having starved before, the boy never refused food; it went straight into his mouth. Before she knew it, Eun Hwaran was wearing the same fond expression the ladies had worn during the silk-reeler examinations.
"Have this too, Mujin."
He looked so happy eating that she passed him her own share of snacks as well. Dan Mujin chewed away with gusto.
As she had said before—the Eunseong Merchant Group always repaid a debt of kindness. He wouldn't accept material reward, following his master's way? Then she would simply pour intangible help on him instead.
She had no family left. Only an older brother she had cut ties with. But today, it seemed she had gained a little brother she could be close to—and a sturdy backer at the same time.
"Heh heh."
Chin in both hands, the woman watched Dan Mujin with bright interest. Without even knowing it, he had won a favor from Eun Hwaran that no young master could have bought with ten thousand gold.
In the pale pre-dawn, a full moon hung far off, staining the night sky a soft red. In a silence so deep not even the insects sang, I let out a slowed breath.
The rite of treating the human body as a small universe and circulating once through the heavens—the Small Heavenly Circuit.
"Hoo—"
Hwang Geolgae had said it before: the standard for good deeds rested entirely with oneself. And today I had shown kindness to people in dire straits. I had dragged a collapsing sericulture trade up by the scruff of its neck and secured countless jobs along with it. On top of that, I had come home after yielding even the gold Eun Hwaran offered.
For a miser like me, there was no greater act of virtue.
So I had real confidence in what I was about to attempt.
Radiant Tathagata Buddha, come forth; Sunlight and Moonlight, take command…
The power of the Starfall Heart Method is to refine the energy of the stars into pure, orthodox true force.
True qi that usually flowed like a quiet stream now roared through the Eight Extraordinary Meridians like a raging river, driven by the vast merit of good deeds.
Ssssss—!
Sensing something amiss in that advance, the aura of the Heavenly Killing Star flared blood-red and went fully on guard. The condensed true qi surged all the way to the Baihui point at the crown of my head.
BOOM—!
It shot upward and struck the "something" at the Baihui. My body jerked and bounced. The image of the malevolent star lodged in my mind swam into view. It was not as solid as before. Whether from the good deeds or not, its outer shell had weakened.
Then the power of the Seongun Simbeop smashed that shrunken star again like a siege ram.
BOOM—!
My body heaved a second time. Fine shards of the malevolent star flaked away from its rim—and to my astonishment, the power of the Seongun Simbeop absorbed every last scrap and made it its own.
I had truly succeeded in stealing the power of a star.
Ssssss—!
Only then did the Heavenly Killing Star's aura come to its senses and thrash wildly, as if this could not be allowed. It looked so much like a new-rich miser who'd just been robbed that I almost laughed.
But the stolen star-force was already gathered and drawn into my dantian.
"Hup!"
I felt the strands of true qi winding thicker and thicker inside the dantian, like thread spinning onto a reel. The pure power of the Seongun Simbeop was growing in real time. The Heavenly Killing Star, furious at even a speck of its star-force being taken, stabbed my skin over and over like mad.
After that I kept circulating, reciting the formula Hwang Geolgae had taught me.
Holy spirits unite as one… a thousand streams of qi break the world… what pierces the ages is nothing but an upright heart-will…
Cold sweat soaked my whole body. By the time dawn and morning were hard to tell apart, I finally finished the Small Heavenly Circuit, uncrossed my legs, and sprang to my feet.
Breath longer and heavier. Senses expanded. Monstrous strength welling at my fingertips and toes.
My eyes met those of Hwang Geolgae, who had been standing guard. He looked thoroughly startled by something.
"…Huh. So it actually works?"
When the whole process was done, the grain of true qi that had been the size of a millet seed had swollen to the size of a pea.
Whump! Whump!
I threw a test punch and the air cracked with a bright, popping sound. No forms—just true qi fired outward—and already my movement felt completely different from before.
"Like I've taken a spirit medicine."
Not that I'd ever actually taken one.
Power rolled through my whole body. The abundant qi of nature pressed close. In a way, this was a stroke of fortune. To turn the malevolent star that wanted to devour me and snatch its power for myself—wasn't that a free double profit?
"That is the power of the Seongun Simbeop you once doubted was a peerless art."
Hwang Geolgae laughed heh-heh, as if to say, finally getting it? Then, estimating the true force that had gathered into my body, he added that it was roughly three years' worth of cultivation.
"So this… is my power?"
I clenched both fists tight, feeling a grip that could crush stone. True qi that used to dry up after a few uses now left me room to spare even when I pushed it through my toes and out through my fists.
"Heh heh heh."
Power ordinary martial artists spent three full years of daily breathing exercises to gather—I had forged in a single day. This was the difference of a rank. The beggar brat who'd been groaning at the bottom was finally standing upright in this world that respected only the strong.
Having traded gold for vast power, I looked down on the world with arrogant eyes.
And at the sight of me thoroughly drunk on strength, Hwang Geolgae snorted with open scorn from the side.
"What's so funny… old man?"
Crack!
The base of a gourd bottle slammed down on the crown of my head.
"Ow, fuck!"
Pain drilled into my skull. I screamed and rolled across the ground. One strike, and the pea-sized true qi's little lordling had his airs wiped clean away.
"You're really full of shit."
Hwang Geolgae shook his head slowly from side to side.