Sprinkle the Salt
Winter had withdrawn, and a full, ripe spring wrapped itself around Beijing.
Unlike the outskirts, where every foul smell under the sun mixed together, the heart of the capital carried the clean scent of grass and a warm, gentle breeze.
The new office was a small but antique two-story wooden building with a modest little garden of its own.
We sat clustered under the yuzu tree in the courtyard, each of us unpacking the food we had brought.
For the record, today my birthday had passed, and by Korean standards I had reached the age of adulthood.
Of course, in this world it was the age when a family would start arranging a match and quietly push you toward setting up a household. None of our office staff came from proper families, though, so that particular worry had nothing to do with us.
Somehow knowing it was my birthday, Cheonhwaru had sent a gift—Ju Wolay’s handmade lunchbox, something even the filthy-rich tycoons of the capital had never once received.
The pork marinated in that sweet seasoning was an absolute rice thief; every mouthful of rice vanished without resistance. The crisp vegetables, still fragrant with spring, were every bit as perfect. I kept murmuring the word delicious as I thoroughly savored both taste and aroma.
“Boss… is it really that good…?”
A slightly complicated voice drifted from beside me. Still chewing, I turned and found Ilhong watching the movement of my chopsticks with an unreadable expression.
Come to think of it, she would be of age soon herself. Only one year younger than me.
“Right? We’re staring daggers and he’s still packing it away just fine.”
Jo Harang sat with her arms folded, a dry little laugh escaping her as I kept my head buried in the box.
“It’s going down just fine, and it tastes amazing. What more do you want?”
At my completely unbothered reply, both Ilhong’s and Jo Harang’s eyebrows twitched in perfect unison.
High-quality ingredients prepared with genuine care by someone who knew how to cook—of course it was going to taste good.
“What? Want a bite too? Say ‘ahh.’”
I lifted a piece of smoked fish from the elegant wooden lunchbox and held it out. The box itself was a masterpiece of consideration: heated stones nestled inside kept every dish warm.
Ever since we had become neighbors, Ju Wolay had taken to bringing these delicious things over from time to time. I was grateful every single occasion.
“…There’s no way I’d eat something that woman made.”
Ilhong stubbornly refused the sacred offering of meat, even while chewing on a dry, crumbly mantou.
“Why not? She said she wanted to do this for free because I helped her last time. Saves on food expenses. Win-win.”
Buying land and a building in the imperial capital meant paying a mountain of tax to the court. When a martial artist had the gall to plant roots in the very heart of Beijing, the official in charge had looked thoroughly displeased and tried to gouge me for an outrageous sum. The moment I produced the Imperial Jade Token given by the Noble Consort, he nearly jumped out of his skin and cut the price in half. Of course he couldn’t simply reduce the tax owed to the imperial household, so the shortfall had come out of his own pocket. Serves him right for trying that petty territorial nonsense.
“Boss, a woman of Ju Wolay’s caliber carefully packing a lunchbox for you… you seriously don’t understand what’s inside it?”
Ilhong narrowed her eyes, clearly frustrated on my behalf.
“She’s right. Even for you, this is next-level denseness. You know that?”
Both of them insisted there had to be some hidden ulterior motive and that I ought to catch on already. Funny how they only ever got along this well when it came to this sort of thing. They seemed to regard Ju Wolay with considerable wariness, claiming she was slowly “taming” my stomach first.
I chewed the fish Ilhong had refused and spoke around it.
“I know what it means. She has romantic feelings for me, right?”
The courtyard fell dead silent. The mantou slipped from Ilhong’s hand with a soft thud. Jo Harang’s mouth fell slightly open.
For a moment both employees looked like they had swallowed glue.
“Y-you knew?”
“Really…?”
I nodded while crunching through a mouthful of vibrant, still-crisp vegetables.
“Yeah, I know. How could I not? She confessed to me not long ago.”
The words hit them like a blast of polar wind. Ilhong’s pupils trembled. Jo Harang swallowed hard and stared straight through me.
I scratched my cheek and continued in the same casual tone.
“But I turned her down for the time being. I’ve got some pretty serious circumstances of my own.”
“……”
Why had Moyong Cheon been so eager to cut me off as his son? Because keeping me close was “too dangerous—you never know when I might explode.” The fated weight of the Heavenly Killing Star and the coming storms of the murim would almost certainly drag anyone deeply involved with me into danger as well.
Still, even if it had been for Ju Wolay’s own safety, looking back I couldn’t help feeling I had done something truly regrettable.
Perhaps that was why, after that devoted rejection, my inner energy had exploded upward until nearly a hundred years’ worth of pure, refined qi filled me to the brim. Thanks to that, the moon energy I had casually acquired at the Emei Sect had been pushed so far back by the star energy that it was barely visible anymore. Once it had been a fierce, temperamental force that announced its presence loudly inside my dantian; now it felt like it had been thoroughly bullied into submission by sheer overwhelming quantity.
“Hmm. So she got rejected. That person.”
Ilhong tried to keep her expression neutral, but the corners of her mouth twitched ever so slightly. She looked a little smug and a little pleased at the same time. Watching her from the side was oddly entertaining.
“Mujin, my appetite just came back. Give me one bite.”
A moment ago she had sworn she couldn’t eat it. Now Jo Harang was eyeing my lunchbox with sparkling eyes, claiming training had made her hungry.
“…May I have some as well, Boss?”
Ilhong hesitated, then carefully asked.
Come to think of it, she had originally been a young lady from a good family who enjoyed fine cuisine. Becoming my employee had let her taste good food again, only for the office’s finances to snatch it away once more. It must have felt like having something given and then taken back.
“It was three portions to begin with. Eat as much as you want.”
Truly transparent creatures. I snorted and set my chopsticks down. My stomach was already half full anyway, and Ju Wolay knew my appetite; she had packed generously from the start, clearly intending for it to be shared.
The moment I held out the still-warm lunchbox, their eyes lit up and they dove in.
“Th-thank you.”
“Whoa, thanks for the meal!”
The next morning.
“Anyway…”
I took a bite of the “handmade” mantou Ilhong had prepared and stared at the completely motionless entrance of the office. She had tried to make the dense flour taste better by stuffing seasoned vegetables inside, turning it into something like a sandwich. If Ju Wolay’s lunchbox had reminded me of the abundance of my previous life in Korea, Ilhong’s tasted like the rough alley days of being a beggar.
“We really need to start making money soon.”
I chewed the steamed flour dough and considered why clients had stopped coming. Even after the grand reopening, the money had dried up for more than half a month already. At the old office we had gotten at least two or three visitors a month.
“At this rate, making a living is going to be impossible.”
Maybe old clients were still showing up at the previous location and leaving empty-handed. I had left a notice there explaining the expansion and giving directions to the new office, but it clearly hadn’t worked. I never expected business to dry up this completely.
Perhaps people assumed prices had gone up after the move to the city center and felt a little intimidated.
“Or maybe someone vandalized the sign directing people here?”
Malicious sabotage was also possible. I had made my share of enemies through various commissions. Fellow troubleshooters in particular were supposedly treating me like some alien presence and freezing me out. I was just starting to wonder whether I should go back to the old place and check what was going on when—
The office door suddenly flew open with a violent bang.
I brightened, thinking a client had finally arrived, only to freeze solid at the unexpected appearance of the visitors.
Piercing blue eyes, skin as white as if frost had settled on it, high noses and sharp features—and both of them covered in fresh red bloodstains.
Anyone who had spent their entire life looking only at people of the Central Plains would have screamed on pure reflex.
“Eek! Ghosts!”
“R-Red-Haired Devils?! No, are they Semu people?”
Their reactions were textbook for Central Plains folk seeing foreigners for the first time. I raised an eyebrow and clicked my tongue.
“Ilhong, Harang, that kind of fucking racist talk isn’t a good look.”
The visitors were Westerners with the unmistakable golden hair and blue eyes you only ever saw in foreign films. Whether my staff’s reaction had soured their mood or not, their expressions were far from pleasant. I tried opening with a polite “How may I help you?”
The man in silver martial robes, still dripping blood, grumbled something.
“Your old office was a complete mess. Some lowlifes had taken up residence, or something of the sort?”
So that was how they had ended up covered in blood on the way here.
No wonder clients had stopped coming. Those bastards must have torn down the notice and driven away anyone who showed up like usual.
“That must have been quite the ordeal. Please, take a seat. I’ll bring you some warm tea.”
I guided the two martial artists—who were quietly radiating a chilly aura—toward the client seats. The man raised an eyebrow slightly, apparently surprised that I showed no shock at all at having Westerners right in front of me and treated them with complete naturalness the entire time.
“You greet us rather calmly. I expected at least one round of shrieking about ghosts. Are you suppressing your surprise because you’re a first-class troubleshooter?”
The woman added, her face already weary of the discrimination and “Semu” treatment of the Central Plains. After being treated like some freakish existence and even forced into a fight, her emotions were clearly running high.
Perhaps because I had only ever seen the same kind of faces for so long, my gaze lingered for a moment on the exotic, almost mystical beauty of the woman.
“Ghosts? Hardly. To my eyes you look like nothing more than a handsome couple.”
I delivered the reception line smoothly and set steaming cups of tea in front of the man and woman. Golden hair that caught the sunlight, tall and slender builds—they possessed an elegance that reminded me of Western actors. Their bloodstained martial robes were of excellent quality, their weapons first-rate, and even their skin glowed with the look of people who had been well-fed and well-raised. Children of some powerful house, I estimated.
Okay. These were clients who meant money.
“There he goes again. He’s started.”
“Ugh, Boss…”
My subordinates whispered behind me that I was already trying to charm another woman, completely glossing over their earlier rudeness while I assessed profitability. I felt deeply wronged. When exactly had I ever gone around seducing women? Not once across my entire previous life.
“…Hmph. Your mouth is smooth enough. But I find it hard to trust the words of people from the Central Plains so easily.”
She had clearly suffered quite a bit on the way here. Any statement from a Central Plains native was met first with a snort of disbelief.
“Come now, little sister. Look carefully into that man’s eyes. To me they seem quite sincere.”
The older brother, however, appeared to have a good eye. The woman looked briefly flustered, then quietly drained her teacup as if avoiding my gaze.
At any rate, the “Semu people / Red-Haired Devil” nonsense seemed to have been somewhat smoothed over.
“So then, where might our guests have come from?”
I swirled my teacup and asked for their identities first.
“The North Sea Ice Palace!”
The woman answered sharply.
“We have come as representatives of the Palace Lord of the North Sea Ice Palace. To hire you, to be precise.”
The man laid out their purpose more calmly.
“Ah, so you’re from the North Sea Ice Palace?”
I answered as if I knew exactly what that meant, then quietly edged over to Ilhong and tugged her arm.
“Hey, give me a briefing on the North Sea Ice Palace.”
I had seen the name in passing in wuxia novels, but there was no guarantee this world’s version was the same. When I quietly asked what kind of place it was, Ilhong immediately poured out everything she had learned in the Haomu Gate as if she had been waiting for the cue.
“They’re an unorthodox force based in the northern snow mountains. The environment is harsh, but they have many disciples of outstanding martial skill and considerable influence in the region.”
She added various other miscellaneous details. In short, they were a major organization of the north—and exactly the big spenders I had been waiting for.
“Looks like I’ve gotten famous. Clients coming all the way from that far away…”
Even from beyond the borders, no less.
“Even so, rumors from Beijing shouldn’t reach that far… Could the Beggar Sect disciples have whispered something to them, Boss?”
A plausible suggestion. I nodded, rubbed my hands together, and returned to them.
“Well then, welcome, prospective clients. What commission brings you to our humble office?”
They replied that the full details could only be explained once we reached the North Sea Ice Palace, and sketched only the broad outline for now. For certain reasons they needed to obtain something overflowing with Yeolyanggi, but—just as it had been in the southern wilds—a spirit beast that was no easy opponent was blocking the way.
“White-Furred Snake King? Ilhong, what’s that?”
“I’m not sure either. It’s a spirit beast that lives at the far edge of the north…”
She scratched her cheek, admitting she didn’t know. I decided to hear more of the story.
“So what you’re saying is, you need experts strong enough to take down that spirit beast?”
“Precisely. We are in desperate need of your help.”
The man nodded. They had apparently heard the rumors that I, together with Dang Yeohye, had slain the Human-Faced Spider in the southern wilds. Or perhaps a Beggar Sect disciple had mentioned it while promoting me.
“Understood, clients. However, given the high level of danger, the deposit alone is going to be quite substantial. Do you have a figure in mind?”
At that moment both the blond man and the woman’s expressions stiffened slightly. The woman who had been so confident until a moment ago hesitated before speaking.
“That’s… well…”
“At present we are unable to pay such a sum.”
The man finished for her. From their brief explanation, the family was currently short on funds and could not afford the proper fee for a Transcendental Peak Realm martial artist.
“Ilhong, sprinkle some salt. Looks like the clients are leaving.”
I pointed at the freeloaders trying to get a free ride and said exactly that.