Even If Caught in the Tiger's Den
What the hell kind of situation was this?
The unfamiliar woman's voice was demanding an explanation.
At that, the old man waved a dismissive hand, trying to brush the whole thing off as nothing important.
"Just a brat I picked up on the road. Pay him no mind."
"More accurately, a brat you kidnapped off the road! Get your story straight!"
I immediately corrected the old man's nonsense. He turned toward me with a scowl, the character for "river" carving itself between his brows.
Thwack!
A sharp flick of the finger cracked against my forehead. It hurt so badly my mouth fell open and I couldn't form a single word for a while.
One finger, and my whole skull was ringing.
"Shit, that hurts!"
"Pipe down."
The old man reached to seal my mute point again, intent on shutting my mouth. But I could see a seething red aura quietly interfering with the pressure-point strike.
"This is a struggle for freedom and survival! I will never stop!"
I thrashed on his shoulder like a caterpillar as I shouted.
"One more word and I'll kill you right here."
"……."
What kind of society let someone declare they were going to kill a child that casually?
I was so dumbfounded I shut my mouth for a moment.
Not because I was scared. Absolutely not.
"Elder, kill a child? What on earth have you been saying this whole time?"
A woman spoke up in my defense, her voice like rolling jade beads.
She was the first person with a shred of common sense I'd met since arriving in this world.
I twisted my stiff neck as best I could to look at the owner of that voice—
And a gasp slipped out of me before I could stop it.
Whoa.
Her face was as fine as her heart. Skin like white jade, elegant features, a straight nose and full lips that set the whole picture off. A genuine beauty.
And look at that silk robe, gleaming like black pearls and embroidered with golden thread. You could feel the wealth rolling off her.
After staring at nothing but grimy Central Plains folk day after day, laying eyes on a beauty dressed to the nines felt like someone had scrubbed the dirt from my vision.
"Old man, what's this lady's name?"
I tapped the old man's shoulder with my chin as I asked.
"……Merchant Leader Eun Hwaran. She inherited the trading company from that rascal Eun Jincheong and runs it now. Didn't I tell you to keep quiet?"
He shot me a sour look, but with Merchant Leader Eun Hwaran standing right there, he didn't dare unleash any killing intent.
"Name's Dan Mujin, pretty noona."
To inherit an estate and a business this size at her age…
I needed to get on her good side. I offered a friendly greeting to the pureblood heiress in front of me.
"Ah… right."
She looked mildly put off by a child's utterly unfiltered greeting.
Flustered, was she? Fair enough.
But give it a few more meetings and before you know it we'd be calling each other noona and little brother…
"Wait—Mujin, you said? You're that kid?"
She suddenly asked, looking startled as she turned my name over in her mind.
That kid? The way she said it, she already knew who I was.
I scratched my cheek, wondering what that was about—when a familiar face jumped out at me from among the people preparing for a caravan escort.
"Hey! Those ugly grown-ups from last time!"
At my pointing finger, the two third-rank escort guards flinched as if they'd hiccupped.
Only then did I understand where I was.
The sun dipped low, and a round moon rose into the night sky.
Elder Hwang listened to the chirping of insects in the grass and gazed up at the stars studding the dark.
With nightfall, the constellations revealed themselves one by one. The Seven Primordial Star Lords glittered more brightly than usual tonight.
And among them, the hundred and eight baleful stars said to seal the beings that once threw the world into chaos—
The most ominous of them all, the Heavenly Killing Star, had lost its light and turned a dull, dead black.
"……Then what in heaven's name is this brat?"
His head was a tangle of questions.
To clear things up a little, Elder Hwang took another long pull from a bottle of Shaoxing wine he'd quietly lifted from the storehouse.
"Ahhh."
He'd been brooding so long that more than ten empty bottles already littered the ground around him.
Jerky for a side dish, chewed all day while he drank—the scene looked like one long, solitary drinking session.
"Damn, that's a lot of booze."
The tightly bound little beggar muttered beside him, looking thoroughly fed up.
Fearless little bastard, through and through.
Pop—
Elder Hwang, face flushed and fuzzy, cracked open yet another bottle. A soft fruit fragrance tickled his nose.
Ordinarily one or two bottles was enough. At this rate, he was working through the second-longest deliberation of his life.
The first, for the record, had been the day he abandoned a certain guild and devoted himself to the Daoist path.
Coming to the imperial capital of Beijing, Elder Hwang had been concealing a knotted sash at his waist. He quietly drew it out now and looked at it.
"Why did you feed those beggars?"
That was the question that had kept him stewing. What possible gain was there in helping a bunch of powerless kids?
"Feed them? We helped each other."
See, that was the thing—there had never been a beggar like this one in Beijing. The rest of them were trapped in a vicious cycle of encouraging evil and punishing good, busy exploiting one another.
If only there had been even a single Beggar Sect branch around to set their code of honor straight…
"You were the strongest one there. If you'd just collected tribute like any other boss, you wouldn't have needed to beg at all."
At that, the boy calling himself Dan Mujin snorted.
"I'd rather shake down some nouveau riche. Those half-starved kids? I'm not a beast, old man."
"……Hmm."
So he claimed to be a human being with compassion—unlike those cold-hearted merchants of the capital.
Elder Hwang listened and found himself at a complete loss. Was this truly something that should come out of the Heavenly Killing Star's mouth?
After that answer, Elder Hwang sank into a long silence. The only sound that broke it was the soft stroke of his hand through his graying beard.
Primordial Heavenly Lord… what am I supposed to do?
He knew there would be no answer, but he looked up at the night sky anyway.
The wicked must be cut down. Especially a terrifying murderer wearing the skin of a man.
But this child was different.
He had committed no sin of his own making.
Far from amassing a karmic debt of slaughter, he had rescued homeless little beggars and piled up good deeds instead.
Was rooting out such a boy truly the path that would save the world?
"Ugh… I need a clearer head…"
Out of habit, he closed his fingers around the neck of a wine bottle.
As the endless deliberation dragged on, Dan Mujin heaved a deep sigh beside him and spoke up.
"Damn it, pour me one too."
"……Have you lost your mind?"
"Lost my mind? My guts are burning over here, not knowing if I live or die."
No rest for the wicked in this life, he said—he just wanted a drink to soothe his sour stomach.
Apparently he'd figured out what Elder Hwang was agonizing over.
"Why not try begging for your life?"
"Whatever I say, it won't matter. I know that now. Your kind takes one look at the Heavenly Killing Star and stamps a death sentence on it first thing—without even giving it a chance to explain."
Dan Mujin muttered that he'd learned that lesson the hard way on some cliffside.
"……."
Was that so.
A brand seared on without even a chance to speak.
If someone who had transcended the world's chains had, even once, tried to guide him onto the right path… would something have been different?
Elder Hwang lifted his head without a word. Tonight, seven stars shone wrapped in white light.
And within his dantian rested the mysterious power of those stars.
Was this coincidence?
Or inevitability, the working of cause and effect?
"If you won't give me wine, at least hand over the leftover jerky. Even a dead ghost looks better with some color in its cheeks."
Whatever he'd been through, the little brat was half resigned, acting like he didn't care either way.
The cool night air seeped into Elder Hwang's lungs. Having made up his mind at last, he lowered his gaze again.
"You will live."
"……Huh."
His eyes met Dan Mujin's—who was half-crouched, hand stretched toward the wine.
Caught in the act, the boy smoothly withdrew his hand. The ropes that had been bound so tightly around him were already half undone.
"Ahem. You could've said so earlier."
"……You little brat, when did you untie the ropes?"
"Just a minor trick of the trade. Nothing special."
He waved it off as if it were nothing, then crawled right back into the bindings.
"Hah."
What kind of kid knew how to slip ropes? Just what was this boy?
A hollow laugh forced its way past Elder Hwang's lips.
Already, he was starting to regret his decision.
Looks like I wasn't dying right this second after all.
The old man's face was exactly like an orphanage director who'd been about to thrash a kid and then gone soft and set the switch down.
"Whew. Alive for now, then."
I let out a breath of pure relief, hand to my chest.
Earlier he'd been grilling me about the little kids, and somewhere in there his mind must have changed.
I'd only fed a bunch of underlings to grow my influence and hold territory—and that had saved my life. You never know with this world.
"This old man has business that will keep him at this trading company for a while."
Elder Hwang stood with his hands clasped behind his back, staring up at the stars, clearly deep in thought.
Was I finally free of this old geezer's kidnapping scheme?
"So you will prepare to stay here as well."
Damn it. Apparently not.
The road to freedom still stretched a long way ahead.
"Don't get the wrong idea. I have not fully dropped my guard."
Elder Hwang snorted as if he'd read every thought in my head, and went on.
"Did you think I would simply let the Heavenly Killing Star roam free without any measures? This old man will be watching you for some time."
A life under surveillance—and for past crimes I'd never even committed.
"No, I'm telling you, my head is fine."
I chewed on the leftover jerky he'd left behind and spoke as if the whole thing were deeply unfair.
"Fine… Have you truly never felt 'that thing' sleeping inside your body?"
Elder Hwang's face grew suddenly grave as he pointed near the Baihui point on the crown of my head.
At the mention of it again, that familiar blood-red mist—visible only to my eyes—began to crawl up over my skin.
"……What's supposed to be in here?"
Why was this old man looking so scary all of a sudden?
Was there something in me besides this crimson fog?
I flinched and patted myself down. Soft skin was all I could feel.
"You don't know, then. Lately, have you found yourself getting worked up more often? Has your speech grown rougher?"
"Wait—how did you know that?"
Uncanny. I slapped my knee and admitted it.
I'd always been a little rough around the edges, sure, but not so much that I'd casually mouth off to someone threatening to kill me.
"Without your realizing it, you were slowly being eaten away. By the baleful star inside you."
So this old man really had seen something in me.
My personality changing like clothes soaked through by a fine rain… The thought left a nasty taste in my mouth.
"So this old man will teach you a method to suppress it."
Well, if he was offering a way to stop it, maybe he wasn't entirely a bad person.
Even if he did have priors for assault, harassment, and kidnapping.
"So does that make us master and disciple now?"
"No. Let's call it the relationship between a man who might die and the man who might kill him."
"……."
Cold. Ice cold.
I could feel him putting distance between us because there was no guarantee the Heavenly Killing Star in me would stay under control.
Either way, it looked like I'd be stuck living here for a while, dragged along by this old man's circumstances.
Still, it had to beat sleeping on the freezing street.
I looked around at the vast estate and the elegant halls rising among it, and asked,
"So, uh—are room and board included?"
"This old man himself sleeps on bare stone. Room and board, he says."
What kind of martial master lived like a beggar?
I stared at the eccentric old man in front of me, completely unable to understand him.
"I'll put in a word with Merchant Leader Eun Hwaran… but you'll have to figure out your own livelihood."
Elder Hwang grumbled that a brat who'd already kept his life and was about to learn how to suppress murderous intent sure wanted a lot of extras.
"Oh! Guanxi!"
I crowed with a bright face. At last I could make use of the Central Plains' famous human network—guanxi.
I hadn't realized how precious a job that could feed you really was. Everything in this age was barren and cutthroat.
"My thanks, great hero."
I clumsily imitated the fist salute street martial artists used.
"……That's not a fist salute, you fool. That's the mourning bow."
Apparently I'd also clenched my fist the wrong way and ended up in a posture of condolence.
As long as the meaning got across.
I shrugged.
Eun Hwaran was mid-sip of her Longjing tea when a guest appeared like a ghost, and her eyebrows twitched.
"Find that little brat a job."
She'd been drinking tea with Chief Steward Jin, discussing how to revive their silkworm business now that it was in crisis—when a job request dropped out of the sky.
Only one person in the entire trading company spoke to her with such complete lack of reservation.
Ah—come to think of it, there was one more now: that cheeky little kid who'd called her "noona."
"……Elder Hwang, a job?"
She soothed her startled insides with tea as she asked.
"In a few days you're selecting laborers, are you not? Have him do odd jobs, feed him, and put a roof over his head."
"That brat" could only mean the little beggar the Elder had dragged in while muttering about killing him.
"But Elder, nepotism is out of the question. As per my late father's promise, Eunseong's examinations must be conducted fairly…"
"Then let him take the exam fairly."
She'd worried how he would react to a refusal, but Elder Hwang accepted it surprisingly easily, saying he couldn't very well leave the other applicants feeling cheated.
Still, the examination to enter Eunseong—one of the Ten Great Trading Companies under heaven—was infamous for its difficulty.
"Can that child pass? Even grown men struggle with it."
"See for yourself."
Elder Hwang grinned as if there were nothing to worry about.
A few days later, on the day of the examination—
At the training grounds where laborers were being selected, Merchant Leader Eun Hwaran witnessed something astonishing.
"Whoa!"
"Good heavens, that tiny thing…!"
"The strength of a giant, that one!"
The same cheeky little kid who had called her "noona" was hoisting a full six heavy sacks of rice into the air.