Beware of Children and Old Men
A wild rumor was making the rounds: that an escort of the Eunseong Escort Agency had gotten thoroughly thrashed by some little brat.
“Ahem.”
“Madam, that is…”
Under Eun Hwaran’s interrogation, the escorts didn’t know where to put themselves.
They had hoped it was just idle gossip, but it seemed the story was true after all.
Lounging sideways in the chair of the merchant master’s office, Eun Hwaran wore an expression of pure disbelief.
Grown men. And not just any grown men—third-rank escorts who had passed a rigorous entrance exam.
Beaten by a mere child?
“That little kid. Did he happen to have a knotted sash around his waist?”
If it had been a beggar of the Beggar Sect, it would have made a certain amount of sense. Ragged as they looked, those people still trained in martial arts.
Though after a certain incident, they had been banned from entering the imperial capital.
“No, ma’am. He wasn’t a martial artist.”
“We didn’t sense any inner energy either. He fought like a wild animal.”
The two escorts, Yang Jo and Yang Wi, rubbed their swollen, fist-shaped cheeks and their kicked backsides as they spoke.
Testimony that the boy was nothing more than an ordinary commoner who had never learned martial arts.
“Then why did you get beaten…?”
Eun Hwaran’s look said it all: You’re martial artists, aren’t you?
With nothing to say for themselves, Yang Jo and Yang Wi quietly avoided her sharp, axe-blade eyes.
At the sight, Merchant Master Eun Hwaran pressed her folding fan hard against her throbbing forehead.
“Haa. As if I don’t already have enough headaches with the silk business foundering.”
She gazed out the window at the mulberry fields and let out a soft sigh.
They said a beauty’s sigh could topple a kingdom. For a moment the escorts forgot their own predicament and simply thought how lovely Eun Hwaran looked even when lost in worry.
“What are you two grinning about? Both of you are getting a pay cut.”
“Huk!”
“That can’t be…”
The sheepish smiles vanished; their faces turned the color of dirt.
Their wages were already meager enough. Now even that would be halved for a while.
“Madam, I have a wife and children to feed…”
“You don’t. And you’re both getting house arrest on top of it.”
“Keuk.”
It didn’t work. She already knew everything.
Yang Jo and Yang Wi hung their heads, faces dark with gloom.
“Pulling a stunt like that against a beggar… You should count yourselves lucky this is all you’re getting.”
In truth, a simple pay cut was too light. They had tarnished the agency’s name; a proper disciplinary hearing would have been the right course.
But with escort jobs scarce lately and income drying up, she decided to leave it at a few days of enforced rest.
“Heh heh. Sounds like an interesting story.”
A weathered old voice suddenly cut into the conversation.
Without so much as a whisper of presence, a middle-aged man had appeared behind them. He lifted a gourd flask of cloudy rice wine with a look of keen interest and took a long pull.
“So you got yourselves beaten by some little beggar brat and came crawling back?”
His robe was old and tattered, and he reeked of cheap liquor. At a glance he looked like any common drunk, yet the moment he appeared everyone shot to their feet and bowed with the utmost respect.
“We greet Elder Hwang.”
After the previous merchant master, Eun Jincheong, had died a sudden and inexplicable death, this mysterious Taoist had appeared at the merchant group one day out of nowhere.
He stroked his half-grown beard—the sort of beard a man grows when he half-heartedly pretends to pursue immortality—and wiped the greasy pork fat from the corner of his mouth. Apparently the man who claimed a cultivator should avoid food touched by fire had still eaten the Dongpo pork served for lunch.
“But Elder, what brings you here?”
Eun Hwaran asked, puzzled.
He looked like a fraudulent, red-nosed Taoist, yet this man could actually project sword qi. When the merchant group had fallen into crisis, he had volunteered his help, claiming he had made a promise to her late father. A truly grateful benefactor.
“Never mind this old man. Tell me more about that brat from earlier.”
He seemed thoroughly intrigued by the little beggar who had flattened the escorts.
Elder Hwang waved a hand, urging them to continue.
“Yes, go on and finish.”
Eun Hwaran, curiosity piqued as well, rested her chin in both hands and nodded for them to proceed.
So the two escorts stammered out the tale of the street brawl.
“He was no ordinary kid.”
“A little runt the size of a mouse, and he was swinging around monstrous strength!”
Hard to believe, they said, but it had felt like grappling with an enraged bull. Yang Jo and Yang Wi reenacted the scene with lively gestures of hands and feet.
No matter how many times they knocked him down, the beggar brat would pop back up like a hopping vampire and come at them again.
At first their trained martial arts had let them hit without being hit. Then, at some point, a killing aura had exploded from him and his movements had completely changed.
“After that he came at us like a rabid dog.”
“I was so startled… His punches suddenly got vicious. Dodging them was pure hell.”
They had started taking hits one or two at a time, the tide of the fight turning against them, until finally it was they who went flying. The escorts recounted it all with lingering disbelief.
“Could he have trained in external martial arts?”
At the merchant master’s question both escorts shook their heads at once.
“He was a scrawny little thing with no sign of training, Madam.”
External arts always left visible marks on the body.
But the boy’s skin had been soft, and he had looked like some pampered young master who had never known a day of hardship.
That appearance had made Yang Jo and Yang Wi drop their guard completely.
“Urgh.”
The places they had been hit still ached; the escorts kept rubbing their faces.
“Well now?”
Elder Hwang, who had been casually snacking on the office refreshments without permission, suddenly narrowed his eyes.
Then he seized Yang Jo’s complaining jaw in a firm grip.
“…Mph, Elder?”
“You little punk. You said the brat never learned martial arts?”
“Yes, sir. It’s the truth.”
Both escorts looked thoroughly aggrieved. It did not seem to be a lie.
“When you fought him, did you use the Eight Cleaving Fist?”
“Eh? How did you know that, Elder…?”
The escort answered with a puzzled face.
How indeed.
“The handprints on your cheeks. Those are the marks of the Eight Cleaving Fist.”
“…?!”
The form that used the back muscles to whip a bent knee into a strike—the Bear Waist technique. Crude and clumsy, yet the welt on the cheek was unmistakably the trail of the Eight Cleaving Fist.
Elder Hwang had watched Eun Jincheong practice it years ago; he was quite certain.
“…Well, I’ll be damned. You’re saying the little bastard stole the art in that short a time?”
He examined the bruises and let out a small sound of admiration. The more the boy had punched, the more he had moved beyond mere imitation and begun to grasp the subtle principles themselves.
The Eight Cleaving Fist was only a basic art taught to escorts, yet it was hardly something a complete outsider could casually copy.
Especially not some street beggar brat.
“Heh heh…”
No one had taught him. He had simply mixed hands and feet, taken a beating with his whole body, and naturally absorbed the art.
An uncommon martial talent. Every so often a born prodigy like that appeared.
“Where is the brat?”
Elder Hwang grinned and asked for the boy’s whereabouts.
The escorts passed on what they had heard from merchants: that the kid had nested somewhere near the southern gate.
“Elder Hwang, just leave it to us. We’ll send someone to fetch him… Ah.”
Thinking a master of his caliber need not move for something so minor, Eun Hwaran started to call a subordinate.
But when she turned her head, Elder Hwang was already gone from his seat—as if he had never been there at all.
A truly elusive Taoist.
“Father… where on earth did you make a connection with someone like that…?”
Eun Hwaran sat back down and scratched her cheek in mild embarrassment.
Dan Mujin clutched the two money pouches the escorts had dropped and asked,
“What is this?”
“Money pouches!”
The victor claims the spoils. That was both a natural right and common sense in the Murim.
“And what can you do with this?”
“We can eat meat dumplings!”
The kids, black eyes swollen purple, grinned ear to ear as they shouted.
They must have been thinking of the meat dumplings they had only been able to watch from afar, swallowing spit, before some other gang had ruined their chance to eat them.
“Out of the question!”
But Dan Mujin—who had just flattened two third-class martial artists and ascended as the God of Beggars—would have none of it.
“Your dreams are too small! A real man must have great ambition! Today, every one of us gets one dumpling… and Dongpo pork on top of it!”
“Woooaaah—!”
That legendary Dongpo pork, long-braised in a sweet glaze until it melted like snow the moment it hit the tongue.
A luxury they had never once tasted. Naturally the children’s reaction was explosive.
“Dan Mujin! Dan Mujin! Dan Mujin!”
Dan Mujin’s crew cheered with faces full of emotion. Flushed with excitement, they chanted their boss’s name without pause.
Every time Dan Mujin spoke, the beggar den heaved like a feast day.
“Whoa… what the…”
Ilhong, who had run off earlier and only just rejoined them, stared blankly at the raucous scene for a moment.
Beggar gangs were not usually like this.
Normally a strong boss simply exploited the weaker kids; he never divided the take fairly.
“He’s a pretty weird guy.”
That was Ilhong’s brief assessment of Dan Mujin.
Wasn’t it human nature that the moment someone got even a scrap of power, they couldn’t wait to swing it around?
Having suffered a terrible misfortune because of exactly that, Ilhong found Dan Mujin a strange breed of freak.
“And what was it he said again…”
Why were orphans with nothing biting each other, Dan Mujin had shouted. If they were going to do that, better to join forces and rob the rich instead.
True trickle-down economics started by gutting the capitalists, or something like that.
It had been nonsense. But the idea of the lower classes banding together was something Ilhong could get behind.
The place Ilhong had once belonged to had been founded on that very principle.
“I wonder if the first sect master Father told me about felt like this.”
Ilhong muttered with a bitter face.
In any case, thanks to these eccentricities the children’s loyalty was sky-high.
And word had spread that if you came here you wouldn’t go hungry; lately the number of hopeful recruits had swelled considerably.
“Let’s go! We’ll kick open the inn door and order our food like we own the place!”
By now Dan Mujin’s confidence had swollen to match the weight of the money pouches.
A person always stood taller and spoke louder the heavier their wallet felt.
He boldly ordered the advance toward the inn.
“Boss! But won’t the innkeeper just throw us out?”
What innkeeper would welcome a pack of filthy beggars into his shop?
“One of us, maybe. But ten of us showing up at once? You think he’ll still dare raise a club?”
Numbers were power, and a way to pressure the other side.
Even the shop owners who normally drove beggars out as dirty would have no choice but to serve them this time.
“Yeah! Together we’re strong!”
“Link arms, everyone!”
“Who would dare thrash us?!”
The brats had learned that if they followed Dan Mujin’s words, dumplings would appear even in their sleep.
They let out joyful whoops and rose in a swarm like a hive of bees.
Who would have imagined the day would come when, instead of thin gruel, they would eat proper Dongpo pork at an inn?
“…How long has it been since I’ve had real delicacies.”
The dishes a cook would carefully prepare.
Ilhong discovered that even they had grown a little excited right along with the others.
There was a strange power in Dan Mujin’s words and actions that drew people in. And on top of that, they had just confirmed the martial strength that could take down two third-class fighters.
“Maybe I should stick around and get a little friendlier.”
Better to cling to that man than hang around some half-baked place. It might even prove useful for what came later. Ilhong’s eyes curved like a cat’s.
“What are you doing just standing there?”
Then Dan Mujin casually clapped a hand down on the shoulder of the daydreaming Ilhong.
“Eep.”
The sudden physical contact wrung a strange little sound out of Ilhong.
“Stop making weird noises and come on. You fought too, so you’ve got the right to eat.”
He didn’t seem to have noticed, though. With a face that said I’ve seen every kind of weirdo now, Dan Mujin headed for the inn with the kids.
“…I thought I was found out.”
The voice shrank to the size of an ant.
It felt like losing ten years of life. Ilhong let out a sigh of relief at Dan Mujin’s indifference.
The chapter on strategic attack in The Art of War said something like this.
Build hatred toward the enemy, and reward them with the spoils they seize.
Then the army’s fighting spirit will pierce the heavens.
“Meat dumplings! Dongpo pork!”
“Scattered we are weak, but together we are strong!”
“Waaah!”
And the words of the military classic proved absolutely true.
The brats marched down the alley with chests puffed out, roaring at the top of their lungs, morale at a hundred.
In many ways it reminded me of my stormy days at the orphanage.
Back then too, after a big fight with the bastards who picked on orphans, we would head to the snack shop to buy something delicious.
“Boss, how much is in the pouches?”
Ohchil sidled up, eyes sparkling.
“Thirty copper coins. Four silver.”
“Whoa. I guess working for an escort agency really does pay well.”
No kidding.
For us to scrape together that much would take weeks of desperate begging.
To them it was probably just an ordinary week’s wages. That was the price tag on people who, even as third-class, had sensed the existence of qi and learned martial arts.
A gap no amount of begging could close. As expected, a man needed skills.
“But even with all that money, the one who won in the end was still you, Boss.”
“Well, they were guys who’d trained formally. They were different, all right.”
I had almost lost.
What good was strength and a tough body? They slipped and dodged every which way so I couldn’t land a clean hit.
But I kept charging in, taking hits until I was half dead, and the Heavenly Killing Star inside me woke up. After that the whole situation flipped.
Killing intent that swallowed half my reason. A destructive force settled into my fingertips, and the speed of my punches doubled.
Then even my chaotic flailing began to carry systematic form and subtle principle.
Just like the movements of those escorts who had been pounding me senseless.
Tst-tst-tst—
And speaking of it, the Heavenly Killing Star came wriggling out again.
It poked and prodded me as I led the kids along like the Pied Piper.
I could feel its anger: I went to the trouble of keeping you alive and you’re playing alley-boss?
I get it, so go back inside already.
Winning against the escorts was a relief, but the sensation of my reason being steadily eaten by killing intent still gave me chills.
And if the occasional flashes of rage I still felt were a side effect, things were starting to look dangerous.
Poke-poke-poke!
Suddenly the red energy went into a fit and urgently pointed somewhere.
“Boss, some old geezer is coming this way.”
From the alley opposite the one Ohchil indicated, an old man of unknown identity came strolling toward us.
Slap. Slap.
Clothes as shabby as any beggar’s. A gourd flask dangled from his waist, sloshing with liquor.
This place we had nested in was filthy and reeked of refuse; normally no one ever came near.
“Boss, just leave a geezer like that to us. We’ll drive him off.”
Emboldened by recent winning streaks, Ohchil was about to step forward with swagger, but I held him back for the moment.
“Don’t drop your guard just because of how he looks. That’s a bad habit of yours.”
You know the saying. In the martial world they always tell you to watch out for kids and old men most of all.
Just in case, I’d try chasing him off with my mouth before using any force.
“Old man, looks like you took a wrong turn. Head back the way you came.”
I flapped a hand toward the mouth of the alley, telling him to get lost.
But at my eviction order the old man only grinned wider and stroked his beard.
“Heh heh. Just like the escorts said—pretty face, all right. You’re the one called Mujin, aren’t you?”
Oh, for fuck’s sake. How the hell did this old man know my name?
He had to be with those escorts.
“Kids! Encirclement Formation!”