Why Is So Much Coming? (1)
Hwaum County.
“Come on, come on! Load it up!”
“Don’t let a single one fall! These are valuable goods!”
“We’re paying you handsomely, so not a damn thing can get damaged! Understood?”
“Don’t worry!”
Crates and bundles were piled high along the road leading up Mount Hua. Burly laborers hoisted enormous packs onto their backs one by one and began climbing the mountain with determined faces.
“Can we really get all this up today?”
“We look short on people.”
“Ugh. We were told it had to arrive today.”
The merchants, frantic to the point of forgetting their dignity, stamped their feet in anxiety.
“Is everything going well?”
“Young Guild Master!”
When Hwang Jong-ui approached and asked, they hurriedly bowed their heads.
After accepting their greetings lightly, Hwang Jong-ui looked over the mountain of cargo and asked, “How is it?”
“Everything’s been prepared. But getting the goods up the mountain isn’t easy.”
“We hired a large number of laborers, but there aren’t many who can carry loads all the way to Mount Hua’s summit. It takes a great deal of strength and stamina for this kind of work...”
“Hmm.”
Hwang Jong-ui stroked his chin as he studied the heap of supplies, and one of the merchants hesitantly asked, “Until now, Mount Hua’s people would come down and help move the goods once we brought them this far, but how come this time...”
“Tsk.”
Before he could even finish, Hwang Jong-ui narrowed his eyes and clicked his tongue. The merchant flinched and shrank his neck.
“That was Mount Hua Sect doing us a favor. What merchant guild would carry goods only halfway and then tell the buyer to haul them the rest of the way?”
“Th-that’s...”
“Even if that’s how it’s been until now, it can’t go on forever. Mount Hua’s people don’t have time to spare like they used to. They’re precious people, aren’t they?”
“R-right. Of course.”
When they first began trading, Mount Hua was a completely different sect from what it was now.
The merchants had seen the disciples of Mount Hua carrying goods for them all this time, which was why they could even bring up the matter now. If this had been their first trade, they would have been too overwhelmed to know what to do the moment the disciples of Mount Hua volunteered to help move the cargo.
Mount Hua’s stature keeps rising beyond anything I ever imagined.
The merchants, newly aware of it, looked up at Mount Hua again.
Who would have thought the sect that seemed on the verge of collapse would become this powerful in only a few years?
“I can see now just how remarkable Guild Master’s foresight really was.”
“Indeed.”
Hwang Jong-ui nodded, though a faint smile touched his lips.
Whether Father was simply extraordinary, or whether Mount Hua Divine Dragon was far more special than we realized, I’ll need to think on that a bit more.
Everyone else watched Mount Hua’s growth, but Hwang Jong-ui saw something else. Who could have imagined that the young little daoist temple he’d met years ago would shake the world this much?
My father’s true talent was his eye for people.
Hwang Jong-ui had only thought Chung Myung was unusual. He hadn’t realized he was exceptional.
Because his father had recognized that special quality and spared no expense investing in a Mount Hua that was practically falling apart, the Eunha Merchant Guild had reaped enormous profits.
The money they would earn from supplying the goods stacked here was already huge, but compared to what they made by taking part in trade led by Mount Hua, that was nothing more than a drop in the bucket.
“Listen carefully.”
“Yes, Young Guild Master.”
“From now on, do everything you can not to waste Mount Hua’s people’s time. Never get too used to favors. Asking for things from others under the name of friendship when you wouldn’t dare ask it of anyone else—that isn’t the way of a merchant.”
“I-I’ll keep that in mind, Young Guild Master.”
“Manager Yoo.”
“Yes!”
“Hire more laborers.”
“Pardon? But we’ve already brought in every suitable laborer from the surrounding area.”
“Send the laborers without loads up to the mountainside. They can take turns there and move the cargo upward from that point, can’t they?”
“Ah...! That would work.”
“Don’t think of it as a simple division into two groups. Check suitable places along the way and set up gathering points there. There will be many more occasions to move goods to Mount Hua in the future, so make arrangements that can be used continuously.”
“I’ll do as you command, Young Guild Master!”
Hwang Jong-ui nodded and added one more reminder.
“Be especially careful not to damage the goods. It looks like we’ll have to keep supplying things steadily throughout this sect-opening ceremony, so make sure nothing goes wrong.”
“Yes!”
“Get moving.”
Watching the manager dash off, Hwang Jong-ui smiled faintly.
Mount Hua’s rise.
There was nothing more gratifying, nothing more delightful.
In the past, the Eunha Merchant Guild had only supported Mount Hua in a quiet, almost furtive way. But now it was Mount Hua that depended on the Eunha Merchant Guild’s help.
To a merchant, profit came first and foremost, so there was no reason to feel the slightest discomfort over that fact. Still...
Other merchant houses will be scrambling to get a line into Mount Hua soon enough.
As if to prove it, he’d heard that Mount Hua Divine Dragon had handed the rights to the Yunnan tea trade in the direction of Beijing over to the Geum-seon Merchant Group.
Compared to the trades the Eunha Merchant Guild had already secured, that was still just a pittance, but if this kept going, there was no guarantee they wouldn’t be pushed back before long.
Friendship and business were separate matters. If the Eunha Merchant Guild wanted to remain Mount Hua’s primary trading partner, it would have to keep proving its value.
“The sect-opening ceremony will be the chance for that.”
Not only Mount Hua, but many of the most prestigious sects in Jianghu would be gathering there. There was no better stage than that to display the Eunha Merchant Guild’s strength.
And Mount Hua, through this, will further cement its place in the world.
Not under the old order established by someone else, the order of the Nine Great Sects, but under a new one built on the Heavenly Alliance.
“The wind is changing.”
Hwang Jong-ui murmured softly and turned his gaze east.
The wind was blowing toward Mount Hua. A great wind that had never blown there before.
Jianghu had been quiet.
It was always prone to stirring over one incident or another, but for the past few years... no, for at least more than a decade, nothing big enough to truly capture people’s interest had happened.
And yet, recently, one name had begun to shake the quiet Jianghu again and again.
- I heard Mount Hua beat Zhongnan?
- Mount Hua got the best results at the Heavenly Talents Competition.
- That Mount Hua even cut down Maninbang’s martial force? Does that even make sense?
- Mount Hua took down the Dae-byeol Bandit Band in the Green Forest! The Dae-byeol Bandit Band, of all people!
- M-Mount Hua beat Wudang in a spar! And Wudang sent out first-generation disciples while Mount Hua sent second-generation disciples! And that Mount Hua Divine Dragon even defeated one of Wudang’s elders!
Mount Hua, Mount Hua, Mount Hua.
Wherever you went, the name Mount Hua came up, and everywhere, people began talking about what Mount Hua had accomplished.
“At this rate, won’t Mount Hua Sect actually become the number one sect in the world?”
“Does that make any sense? And what about all those renowned sects above them?”
“Don’t be so sure! Who would’ve thought Mount Hua would be like this just a few years ago? If someone had said that only two years ago, that Mount Hua’s second-generation disciples would be able to spar against Wudang’s first-generation disciples, they’d have been beaten to a pulp!”
“...That’s true.”
“You never know. Really, you never know.”
All of the world’s attention focused on Mount Hua.
Some were excited by the name of a rising powerhouse climbing to heaven; some felt a strange stir of emotion at hearing a forgotten name again. And some were simply displeased by the appearance of a new force upsetting Jianghu’s balance.
But whatever feelings people held, no one could deny that the sect drawing the most attention now was Mount Hua.
Mount Hua might not have been the strongest sect in the world, but it was undeniably the sect attracting the most interest.
And then...
A piece of news arrived that drove the point home.
- Mount Hua has sent invitations to the sects of the world!
- Mount Hua is joining hands with the Tang Family, Beast Palace, and North Sea Ice Palace to create a new alliance called the Heavenly Alliance.
- A sect-opening ceremony will be held in Mount Hua, Shaanxi!
Those who first heard it only laughed it off.
But when they heard the same words a second and third time, and when even people who had seen the invitations with their own eyes began appearing, they could no longer dismiss it with a laugh.
“A new alliance? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Isn’t the Martial Alliance supposed to have stopped functioning already?”
“It’s not the Martial Alliance, it’s the Heavenly Alliance! It’s not the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Families banding together, but Mount Hua and the Tang Family joining hands with the sects beyond the borders, isn’t it?”
“H-has something like this ever happened before?”
“Never! Obviously not! They’ve never even allied with sects beyond the borders before, and Mount Hua was originally one of the Nine Great Sects, wasn’t it?”
“R-right.”
“It’s unheard of for the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Families to form separate alliances, too!”
“T-then what happens now?”
“How should I know!”
People didn’t even know how they were supposed to react.
Who could have imagined that the Tang Family, the ruler of Sichuan; the Beast Palace, lord of Yunnan; and the North Sea Ice Palace, king of the North Sea, would ally with Mount Hua Sect, the most famous sect in the world right now?
No one could even begin to guess what kind of shock this would send through Jianghu.
“Then does that mean they’re becoming enemies of the Nine Sects?”
“Nonsense, man! Just because they’ve formed an alliance, why would that make them enemies? It only means they’re no longer in the same camp.”
“B-but if that wasn’t the case, there’d be no need to form an alliance in the first place. Something about this feels strange.”
“Those sects together would be formidable, sure, but can they really compare to the Nine Great Sects? And as far as I know, Mount Hua also sent invitations to the Nine Great Sects. If they were going to be enemies, would they have invited them?”
“Even so...”
But most people could feel it.
This wasn’t something simple.
Will the Nine Great Sects just sit still?
Then does that mean the Tang Family is leaving the Five Great Families?
If two of the sects from the outlands are joining, what about the other two? The Potala Palace is so far away and doesn’t concern itself with Jianghu, so fine, but what about the South Sea Sun Palace?
Recent Jianghu had been like a still lake.
But Mount Hua kept hurling stones into that calm water, and the ripples only grew larger until they became waves.
“W-when is the sect-opening ceremony?”
“They say it’s at the end of this month.”
“The end of the month? That soon?”
“That’s right.”
“Th-this is no time to be standing around!”
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to Shaanxi!”
“Huh? Shaanxi?”
“It’s a sect-opening ceremony. They can’t possibly turn away people who come to watch, can they? This might become a historic moment. I’ve got to go and see it with my own eyes!”
“You’re going that far?”
“Don’t stop me! I’m going!”
The invitations had driven the final nail into Mount Hua’s already towering reputation.
Whether they were the sort to immediately start counting profits or not, everyone understood one thing clearly.
The balance of Jianghu was beginning to shift.
The order maintained after the brutal war with the Demonic Sect had begun to crack and sway.
Words, too, have momentum. News that had spread quietly all at once blazed up like a wildfire and soon became a storm, sweeping across the Central Plains.
No one could easily predict where the typhoon Mount Hua had set in motion would carry Jianghu next.