Accumulate Good Deeds
The Central Plains are cruel to the weak.
The beast-hearted bastards of the unorthodox factions fleeced the common folk every other day, while the hypocritical righteous sects skimmed a cut of their income under the noble-sounding name of "protection fees."
A place where the weak get their noses cut off with their eyes wide open—the Jianghu of the Murim.
That was why the Haoman had been founded in the first place: so that the people at the very bottom could band together and protect one another.
The Haoman disciples had meant to pool their strength, block the exploitation of the entrenched powers, and advance their own rights. Thanks to a first Gate Lord with exceptional talent for the work, they also began to excel at processing and selling information. Before long they had grown into a secretive intelligence organization that did not lag behind even the Beggar Sect.
Then, for reasons of their own, certain masters threw their support behind the Gate. The Haoman spread its wings and expanded at a breathtaking pace.
But success brought side effects.
The original purpose of mutual protection was left behind somewhere along the road. Before anyone noticed, the Haoman had grown blind with greed and become exactly the kind of vested interest it had once guarded against.
Branch halls shed one another's blood over rights and profits; some even forgot their founding ideals and sucked the marrow from people of the same low class. As the bloodshed between disciples and the bitter disputes dragged on, the second Gate Lord, Hong Gak-jan, finally drew his blade.
What he called for was a return to the starting point—a revival of the first Gate Lord's original intent.
Yet there was something even he had overlooked: once a man has tasted money, going back is nearly impossible.
The demon called greed scatters a person's mind. Even the richest tycoons of the age still claw after one more coin. Put simply, people might never have known what they lacked—but take something away after giving it, and the uproar only grows worse.
Resentment against the Gate Lord's one-sided decree piled higher among the disciples. On the day someone finally stirred them into open revolt, the second Gate Lord became the "previous" Gate Lord.
"Which is how I got to be Gate Lord of the Haoman, I suppose."
Heuk Jin-jo, the new Gate Lord, slowly ran his hand across the paulownia desk that Hong Gak-jan had once used.
How much effort had he poured into seizing this very office?
An ordinary Haoman disciple could thrash and claw his way up only as high as vice Gate Lord. So he had licked the feet of the Gate Lord's family like a dog—Hong Gak-jan himself, and that insufferable little prodigy who supposedly knew every scrap of knowledge under heaven.
He had waited patiently for his moment, and in the end he had succeeded in purging "most" of the Gate Lord's household. Wealth, power, the entire Haoman—everything had fallen into his hands.
There had been just one problem in that otherwise successful usurpation.
"Gate Lord Heuk Jin-jo, I ask only out of caution… You are keeping the official seal of the Haoman safe, are you not?"
The hereditary sacred treasure of the Haoman—the seal that was the very symbol of the Gate Lord—had been carried off by one little brat.
Heuk Jin-jo stared in silence at the woman who had asked about the seal: Il-hye-hyang, madam of the Honghwaru and head of the Sinbigak.
"Of course."
"Then might I see it once? As you know, it is an object of the utmost importance to the sect."
"It is important. Which is why I have it locked away in a place no one else knows."
In the Murim, if you possessed useful skills and abundant assets yet lacked strength, you were simply eaten. That was the fate of a toothless tiger. Whether martial artist or martial sect, true independence required personal force that others would not dare to touch lightly.
For the Haoman, that force had been the mysterious masters known as the Upper Spirit and the Lower Spirit. Bound by some unknown pact with the first Gate Lord, they would grant any request so long as the seal was presented. Without the seal, no amount of effort could compel them.
That was why he felt so uneasy. If that runaway brat somehow found the two of them and asked them for revenge…
"Is that so? A strange rumor has been circulating inside the Haoman that the seal's whereabouts cannot be confirmed… so I thought I would check."
Il-hye-hyang spoke with eyes that curved like a fox that had caught a scent. This was exactly the ground Heuk Jin-jo stood on—soft, unstable soil. The people around him were filled with the thought, If that bastard can be Gate Lord, why not me?
That was why he needed the seal more than anyone—the jade seal that had once granted legitimacy in the Three Kingdoms era.
"Ah, speaking of rumors, I heard an interesting one myself recently… They say you have a child you are hiding?"
The expression on Il-hye-hyang's face, which had been playing the century-old fox, crumpled in an instant.
"That is a fabrication cooked up by those little beggar brats…! It is absolutely untrue!"
She leaped as if someone had struck a reverse scale.
"Hmm. A fabrication, is it? I hear the time you spend with the head of the Shadow Pavilion has increased quite a bit lately."
Because the Haoman operated as a cell-based organization handling secret intelligence, close relationships between pavilion heads were forbidden. Discovery meant surrendering one's post.
"…You seem to have misunderstood something. In any case, I am relieved to hear the seal is safe. I shall take my leave."
The madam of the Honghwaru hurried out of the office with flustered steps. Fortunately she had managed to turn the subject and slip past the crisis. In a way, that was the power of information.
Yet as long as he refused to produce the sacred treasure, the suspicious gazes fixed on him would only grow sharper with time. Therefore he had to recover the seal the previous Gate Lord had held—no matter what.
"Where are you, you little brat…"
A genius who never forgot anything he read, who had completed the Haoman's succession training faster than anyone and been called the Gate's living library. In the end, though, he was still only a greenhorn short on real experience in the jianghu.
Heuk Jin-jo had been certain the boy would be found quickly and had scattered men everywhere—yet there was still no word. With that tiny body he could not have gone far.
Clink, clink.
Heuk Jin-jo toyed with the short dagger he had once driven into the previous Gate Lord, rolling it across the desk.
There had been a time when the boy had called him "Uncle Jin-jo" and he had pretended to be affectionate. His iron rule, however, was never to leave a future threat alive under any circumstances.
"Hurry up and follow your father, you little shit."
He had no intention of repeating the previous Gate Lord's mistake. Gripping the dagger, he let a cold smile settle across his face.
Orphanage kids share one particular trait.
With no one they can truly call family, they form ferocious bonds with one another. So if a fellow orphan comes back after getting beaten somewhere? That day becomes a war. Under my leadership we would all go wide-eyed and charge out together.
"Eom Baek, you son of a bitch!"
The kids I had met in the beggar den were not quite that close, but they were still the ones I had fed and raised for a while. Right now they were also walking, talking bundles of good merit—and then that bastard Eom Baek had barged in and started wrecking the place.
Snorting rage through my nose like a bellows, I sprinted the familiar alleys in a single breath. When I sent internal energy through the tips of my feet and unfolded the Seonpungbo, my body shot forward in a long, stretching line. Getting beaten half to death while learning the technique had been worth it; the scenery whipped past as if I were riding a bicycle.
A sour stench stabbed my nostrils. Vomit left by drunks, dried and crusted everywhere. The shadowed zone of a society that had never heard of public safety.
"Aaaagh!"
"You fucking Eom Baek bastard! This is our turf!"
There, big strong beggars were using sheer force to crush beggars smaller and weaker than themselves.
"Clear out, you brats!"
"Begging around here again? You must be dying to get yourselves killed!"
My kids rolled across the dirt and charged in screaming, but they were being overwhelmed one-sidedly by Eom Baek's crew, whose frames were nearly adult-sized.
Dragon Head Sect Leader Hwang Geolgae had declared that brats fight brats and adults fight adults—that was a beggar's code. And yet fully grown bastards were swarming in packs to thrash children?
The code of the jianghu… no, the code of beggars had just hit the dirt.
"You motherless bastards—!"
I unleashed a thunderous roar powered by three solid years of internal energy. The sudden intrusion and the eardrum-shattering shout froze the brawl of children mid-swing.
"The fuck are you supposed to be?"
An irritated question flew at me—Eom Baek's crew trying to figure out who I was. The answer came instead from my own kids, who had recognized my face.
"…Huh? It's the Boss—the one that pervert old man dragged off!"
"How'd he get back? Did he escape?"
"Anyway, the Boss is here… so you guys are fucked now!"
Yes. I had returned to the beggar den.
Color flooded back into the children's faces. The mere appearance of this body flipped the atmosphere of the battlefield in an instant.
"Pretty face, and they call him Boss…? So you're that famous Dan Mujin brat?"
The voice was thick with rage. A big thug with a protruding belly and a snake tattoo glared at me.
"And looking at that cock-faced mug of yours, you must be Eom Baek."
If this had been Earth, the phrase "tattooed pork broth" would have leaped out unbidden. Eom Baek the Kingpin bristled at the provocation and fixed me with a look that wanted me dead.
"You son of a bitch… I'll specially break all four of your limbs myself."
After that, he promised, he would smash my pretty face and sell me off to some deviant.
"But Boss, is it really okay for a martial artist to cripple civilian brats?"
One of Eom Baek's underlings asked the question. As I had learned from the way those two third-class escorts had once felt ashamed, a martial artist fighting commoners was considered a loss of face on the level of falling off a horse.
"Heh heh. Who cares? These little shits are all going to end up cripples who can't even talk properly anyway."
Eom Baek, however, was not the type to care about such things. His tadpole-like belly fat jiggled as he boldly swore he would smash every last one of us.
"Come on, then."
I spread the internal energy raised by the Seongun Simbeop through my entire body. Pure, fierce power pulsed hard and raced out along every meridian.
"Get him!"
Eom Baek and his crew charged in a roaring mass. Bastards who would not lift a finger to help pitiful orphan kids, yet were desperate to tear into them for profit—human-adjacent trash.
I planted both feet firmly in the ground and settled into the stance of the Baekgyeol Singwon—the Hundred Knots Divine Fist—learned while being beaten until I bled.
"Hoo."
Time for judgment.
A fight between a boy of his own age and young men a full head taller.
At first Ohchil thought he might be seeing things.
Thud!
"Ghk!"
Crack!
"Ack!"
A young boy who had not even reached the age of schooling. Yet when his powered hands and feet crossed paths, it was Eom Baek's crew who went flying with short screams.
Dan Mujin's form shot forward like a rain of arrows the moment his toes kicked off the ground. A small but solid fist smashed into the face of one of Eom Baek's men with a meaty thwack. The man's nose collapsed and he toppled straight back.
"Fuck! What the hell is with this brat!"
"What kind of movement is that…!"
Shouts thick with shock. A beggar built like an adult swung the club in his hand with brutal force. Instead of dodging, Dan Mujin boldly closed in, bumped the grip aside with his shoulder, and flashed a lightning-fast punch with his right hand.
"Ghk!"
The club-wielder's jaw snapped sideways. Another beggar crumpled with a short groan.
Dan Mujin moved like a swallow skimming water. His fists sliced the air with lively precision; his legs danced intricate steps that slipped through every gap in the enemy's guard.
Thud! Thud! Thwack!
One moment he was raining punches from above; the next he had dropped low and swept the ground with a kick. He used a fallen enemy's back as a springboard, vaulted over, and drove a clean finishing kick home.
"Third form! Whirling Ring Kick!"
It was a continuous barrage like a windmill. Under the endless hail of fists and feet the beggars lost their senses and went flying one after another. Every time the wet smack of fist meeting flesh rang out, another charging beggar screamed.
Papapak!
A strike to the shoulder became a knee; the knee became a lightning-fast kick before anyone could blink. Both legs raced across the battlefield as if gliding; both arms poured out unbroken combinations.
"What in the world…"
Ohchil and the children, watching the entire spectacle from right in front of them, could not close their mouths for a long time. In the past he had simply bulldozed forward with raw strength and toughness; now his movement was completely transformed. He deflected attacks with the least possible force and motion, then drove counterstrikes home like an awl.
The children had seen "certain beings" fight this way on the streets before.
"…It's martial arts!"
Ohchil cried out in awe.
Eom Baek's crew went flying the moment hands or feet so much as touched them. Even at short range the air cracked and the sound of a leather drum being beaten rang out. Their own punches followed almost the same motions, yet the results were worlds apart—proof that internal energy was involved.
Had he found some fortuitous encounter and come back? The children watched the fight with their mouths hanging open in perfect "whoa" shapes.
"You cowardly bastard! A martial artist butting into a beggar brawl!"
Having realized the truth, Eom Baek roared at the top of his lungs that this violated the code.
"Bullshit! That's your line, you fucker?!"
Dan Mujin roared right back without yielding an inch. The internal-energy-laden shout made Eom Baek's beggars flinch and tremble. Small as he was, the aura he carried was that of a mountain lord.
"That's it! Eom Baek, you're getting a beating!"
His fists were crying out to thrash that bastard. The moment Dan Mujin closed the distance with ghostly footwork, Eom Baek jerked in shock and flung a punch. He had learned some crude martial arts and put real force into it, yet—perhaps because Dan Mujin had been beaten so thoroughly by Old Man Hwang—the attack looked ridiculously slow.
Tak, tak!
He caught the incoming wrist, twisted it, and drove a straight fist into the now-exposed face.
"Keok!"
The man's head snapped back, spraying a thin thread of nosebleed, then rolled forward again. His face was a mess of blood and rage. An adult's killing-intent-laced punch came crashing down toward Dan Mujin's crown.
A trajectory he had grown familiar with from endless beatings. Dan Mujin tilted his head a paper's width aside, then put his whole waist into a fist that shot upward like a cannonball. Eom Baek sucked in a startled breath and threw up a hasty guard—only for Dan Mujin's fist to twist its path like a snake and smash into his jaw.
Crack!
"Ghk?!"
His jaws snapped shut and both feet lifted a full four cun off the ground. That uncanny motion was the fourth form of the Hundred Knots Divine Fist: Whirling Ring Fist. A technique he had learned by being struck with it dozens of times by Hwang Geolgae himself. Without the durability of the Heavenly Killing Star he would have had his brain scrambled into idiocy long ago.
"Grrk."
Eom Baek sprayed twin fountains of noseblood and toppled right where he stood. He crashed down in a cloud of dust right in front of the underlings who had been trailing him.
Thud.
He had put on such airs that Dan Mujin had expected real strength—yet he was nothing more than a dime-a-dozen third-class fighter. Of course, even that level had been enough to reign as a terror among civilian children.
"H-he… Eom Baek the Kingpin…!"
The biggest, most fear-ruling figure of the pack had fallen so emptily that the shock hit his crew hard. Their morale snapped clean in two.
"Hiiik!"
When their eyes met Dan Mujin's cold glare, their bodies shrank of their own accord. With Eom Baek down in less than the time it takes to point ten fingers, the much smaller boy's presence alone was enough to make the whole crew dissolve on its own.
"Uwaaaah!"
"What kind of monster brat is that!"
"R-run!"
As always, they were lightning-fast when it came to running away. Like the ebbing tide they sprinted down the alley and vanished. And, also as always, they abandoned their own without a second thought.
"These bastards—leaving him and bolting again."
Thus the kingpin named Eom Baek was abandoned by everyone. That was what happened when you failed to stockpile goodwill in ordinary times. On this side, even if some old master suddenly appeared, the kids would still come running.
"Yeah! See? When the Boss shows up we win!"
"Wooooah!"
The children of Mujin's crew, black eyes swollen, raised a victorious cheer that echoed through the beggar den in one corner of Beijing.
"Boss! What the hell happened to you all this time!"
Ohchil darted over, grabbed his shoulders, and demanded answers.
"A lot of things happened."
Explaining it would have been endlessly complicated. Would they even believe him if he told them?
"Boss, that was martial arts, right?"
"How'd you get so strong? What's the secret?"
The children bombarded the returning hero with questions.
"Accumulate good deeds."
He had only answered the question they asked, yet the strangely enlightened reply made the kids tilt their heads in confusion.
"Good deeds? Like… being nice?"
"We don't even have food right now—what are you talking about?"
"Boss got weird."
Well, they had a point. You needed something to give before you could give it away. Smart kids—no wonder they had followed him.
That was what Dan Mujin thought.
"Hey, where's Ilhong?"
One face was missing, just as the escorts had said.
"That bastard sold him off to some shady black-path guy."
Ohchil pointed at the fallen Eom Baek as he spoke.
"…Why?"
Chasing him out of the territory would have been enough—why take him away?
"Dunno. Seemed like he was only grabbing the good-looking kids."
Ohchil shrugged, then added that now that he looked, the Boss himself had a face that could get him dragged off too.
"Shit."
What was it? Had they realized the usefulness of pretty flower beggars who could rake in money? Or had they simply sold a handsome face to some deviant?
Whatever. If he had been taken, they would just bring him back.
"All right. I'll fetch him real quick."
An orphan who had wandered the streets begging, only to be snatched by some filthy deviant. Truly a pitiful kid. And how much good merit would saving a kid like that pile up?
"Boss, but do you even know where he is?"
Ohchil, who had only watched the capture, asked the question.
"The guy who handed him over is right here, isn't he?"
I packed internal energy into my palm and smacked the cheek of the soundly unconscious Eom Baek.
Slap!
It was a clumsy imitation of the forehead flicks Hwang Geolgae always launched.
"Ke—keok. W-what the h-hell…"
Eom Baek jolted awake as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water on him while he slept. The effect was excellent.
"Hey. Guide me. To the kid who got taken."
I shoved my fist right in front of his face as I spoke. When he looked around, every last underling who had abandoned him was long gone.
"…F-fine."
His hesitation did not last long.
The entire world was pitch-black.
For a moment Ilhong thought he might be dead, but that was not the case. The places Eom Baek's men had beaten him while dragging him here still throbbed.
They had probably just covered his eyes with some rag. He wriggled his body like a caterpillar and confirmed that both arms and legs were bound with something like rope.
This much I can undo easily.
An ordinary child would have despaired right there, but Ilhong was the extraordinary little genius who had absorbed every scrap of Haoman education.
Thump.
He immediately pressed both elbows tight against his torso. When he thrust both arms straight forward, a gap opened between the ropes. He rubbed his palms together rapidly, slipped one hand free, and finally removed the blindfold that had stolen his vision.
"Huh."
It was a shabby warehouse-like place. And he was not the only one who had been brought here.
About thirty children lay scattered throughout the warehouse, bound as tightly as he had been. They all shared similar traits: small frames, ages close to his own, pale skin, and the look of children who had never known real hardship. It was the landscape of someone randomly snatching kids of similar appearance while searching for a particular person.
"Don't tell me…"
A thought naturally crossed Ilhong's mind. The someone those people were frantically hunting with men everywhere was probably—
"…me?"
A gut feeling of I'm screwed settled over him.