Looking for the Gentleman from the West in Beijing
"Ugh!"
Jo Gwak jerked awake with a strangled groan.
As soon as he opened his eyes, a man was looking down at him with a sullen expression.
"You awake?"
His mind was fogged over. Slowly, he lifted a hand and touched his head, only to feel a throbbing pain flaring beneath his fingers.
It even felt a little swollen.
"You all right? Sorry. I did try to go easy on you, but you were weaker than I expected...."
The man muttered something that was hard to make out.
Easy? What was supposed to be easy about that?
Suppressing the pain, Jo Gwak tried to piece together what had happened.
'L-let's think.'
Suppressing the pain, Jo Gwak tried to piece together what had happened.
He had come at the order of the district branch chief to find the Hebei Paeng Clan's wastrel.
He had asked that man about Black Lotus.
And the answer he got in return was a crazy claim that it had all been a joke.
He'd been so furious he'd thrown a punch.
And after that....
Nothing. Only pain remained.
"Is the spot I hit feeling any better?"
Only then did he properly grasp the situation.
"Ah, n-no, w-wait a moment. Y-you hit me?"
Polite speech had come out of him on instinct.
Neither he nor the other man seemed to notice the change.
The man shrugged.
"You were the one who rushed me first, weren't you? I just defended myself. If you're going to say I hit you, that's a little unfair."
"W-well, yes, but...."
It was true that Jo Gwak had thrown the first punch.
But the man was completely unharmed, while Jo Gwak had been knocked out cold for a moment.
That was when he understood.
This bastard had baited him.
"Damn it... you're more cunning than I thought."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
At Jo Gwak's grumbling, the man only smiled in complete ease.
"So? How exactly did you find out about that?"
Jo Gwak couldn't help asking again.
How had this wastrel known information that only someone at the level of Beijing's Haomen branch chief ought to know...?
The man answered without a trace of concern.
"Well, I did used to be the young master of the Hebei Paeng Clan."
"Ah...."
Behind the nickname "the Paeng Clan's wastrel" was, without question, the name "young master of the Hebei Paeng Clan."
Thinking of it that way—
It wasn't strange at all for that man to know the old pact between Haomen and the Paeng Clan.
Damn it.
"So what was the reason for all this commotion?"
Grinding his teeth, Jo Gwak asked, and the man replied calmly.
"Hmm. I wanted to make a request."
For a second, Jo Gwak wasn't sure his ears had worked right.
That wastrel bastard had just said he wanted to make a "request"?
"Then why don't you just come through the proper channels?"
Even if Haomen was an underworld organization, it still had its procedures and rules.
Even if the leader of the Alliance itself came, if he wanted a request handled, he had to at least show his face.
"This is more convenient."
He said it with the most natural confidence in the world.
So naturally, in fact, that Jo Gwak was left speechless for a moment.
The man kept looking down at him, still wearing that infuriating smile.
It was really, really irritating.
* * *
"What... the hell?"
The man asked with a dumbfounded face, and I answered with perfect calm.
"A guy like me has a hard time even getting into Haomen."
Haomen screened its clients.
They lived behind a wall called discipline.
So a wastrel who had been driven out of the Hebei Paeng Clan could never become a proper client.
Then what?
There was only one option: ignore the procedure.
...Good thing I studied the setting book so hard back when I had the chance.
Honestly, I hadn't been sure this would work.
If Haomen hadn't reacted, I was fully prepared to stir up a much bigger mess before the day was over.
If they still didn't show up today... I was half ready to set fire to Haomen's secret vault.
Fortunately, it hadn't come to that.
"That still doesn't mean this is acceptable."
The man glared, thrusting the shabby Black Lotus token at me.
"What's the important part?"
As long as the end result was achieved, who cared which road had been taken to get there?
I had caused this mess to find Haomen, and now Haomen had come to me on its own. I'd call that a complete success.
"You're completely insane."
The man clicked his tongue as if exhausted by my attitude.
He probably thought I was shameless, rude, and completely lacking in conscience.
Instead of answering, I just shrugged.
"So, what's your name?"
"Jo Gwak. Just call me however you want."
"Hmm, Brother Jo. So—I'd like you to decide quickly whether you're taking the request or not."
"Of course I won't—"
Jo Gwak started to refuse without the slightest hesitation, but then his eyes met my fist as I casually lifted it.
Persuasion takes time, but fists are fast.
And right now there was only me, Jo Gwak, and a servant standing off to the side and watching nervously in the tavern.
There was nowhere to ask for help.
No one who would help, either.
Jo Gwak's throat bobbed.
He was, quite simply, trapped.
* * *
Damn it, I walked right into a trap!
Jo Gwak cursed himself out in his head.
Everything I knew about the Hebei Paeng Clan's wastrel was total garbage!
What kind of man was the Paeng Clan's wastrel, according to Haomen and everyone else in the world?
A drunken fool who wallowed in wine,
a useless disgrace who only knew how to run wild and, without a shred of self-awareness, overreached himself against the clan head before falling from grace.
His abilities were trash, his reputation even worse.
That was the "Hebei Paeng Clan's wastrel" the world knew: Paeng Yeohun.
But.
Damn it!
The man in front of him had dropped Jo Gwak—who fancied himself at least somewhat capable in a fight—with a single blow.
And he was supposed to be a man whose dantian had been ruined.
How the hell does that make any sense?
Of course it was impossible.
What if his dantian is actually fine? No—what if everything about him was fake from the beginning?
His imagination chased its own tail.
Then he shook his head hard.
No, that's not what matters right now.
What mattered now wasn't the truth.
It was how to handle the current situation wisely.
Who am I? I'm Jo Gwak of Haomen. I've clawed my way up from the bottom. You think I'm going to dance to that bastard's tune?
Once he steeled himself, the cold sweat running down his back gradually began to dry.
Jo Gwak slowly raised his head.
"...All right. I'll at least hear you out."
There was a barely suppressed edge of anger in his voice.
"I won't ask you to do anything difficult. And who knows? Maybe it ends up being beneficial for you too, Brother Jo."
"Beneficial, my ass... get to the point already."
At Paeng Yeohun's teasing, Jo Gwak snapped back gruffly.
"I'm looking for someone."
"Someone?"
For the scale of trouble he'd caused, it was a surprisingly modest request.
"Be more specific. Is it a man? A woman? A child? Or an adult?"
"I don't know. Could be a man, could be a woman, could be an old man, or could be a little child."
"...?"
Jo Gwak's brow twitched.
At that utterly meaningless answer, his expression darkened instantly.
"What the hell are you talking about? You're looking for a person, and yet they could be any age or sex?"
"Well, that's how it goes."
Paeng Yeohun tilted his head and answered with complete ease.
Has this bastard lost his mind?
Was this what someone looked like when they came to make a request?
However you looked at it, it seemed no different from mockery.
"If you don't even know what the person you're looking for looks like, there's no way we can find them, no matter how much money you offer."
Jo Gwak forced down his anger and gave the only sensible answer left to him.
"Well... I don't really know what that person looks like right now either."
The height of irresponsibility.
Jo Gwak's reason was beginning to boil over all over again.
Calm down... calm down.
He took one deep breath, then another.
When he finally finished, he spoke again in a carefully controlled voice.
"Enough jokes. At the very least, tell me the sex properly. Is it a man? A woman?"
"That, I don't really know either."
Once again, Paeng Yeohun gave him a stupid answer.
"S-so what you're saying is, you want to make a request, but you don't even know what you're trying to find?"
Without realizing it, Jo Gwak's voice began to rise.
"That's about right. I'm sure it's a person, but I don't know the details."
Paeng Yeohun shrugged, looking as though he'd accurately guessed Jo Gwak's meaning and found nothing strange about it at all.
Snap!
The last thread of Jo Gwak's patience broke.
"You bastard!"
Bang!
Jo Gwak slammed his hand down on the table so hard the teacups rattled.
The tavern froze in an instant.
"Do you seriously think that makes any sense?"
Jo Gwak could no longer hold it in.
His buried anger burst out like an explosion.
"I was willing to let your nonsense about ignoring procedure slide if you meant to come in quietly, but this—"
The outrage of dragging Haomen into it by brandishing Black Lotus, a pact known to only a tiny handful of people.
For Haomen, which valued rules and procedure above all else, it was not something that could be ignored.
Still, it had been a stunt pulled by a wastrel cast out of the Paeng Clan.
And if he kept digging in his heels, there was always the possibility of causing trouble with the Paeng Clan itself.
So Jo Gwak had been trying to let it go, if possible.
"And I was willing to let you getting the drop on me slide too!"
He had also been willing to overlook the attack on himself.
"No, but that was because you came at me first...."
Paeng Yeohun tried to offer a careful rebuttal, but Jo Gwak had no intention of listening to any of it.
"Shut your mouth!"
Grinding his teeth, Jo Gwak swept a hand through the air.
He had no interest in excuses from the start.
"You want me to find someone when you don't even know who they are? And you call that a request? You're messing with me!"
His bloodshot eyes bore into Paeng Yeohun.
Paeng Yeohun let out a short sigh, as though he'd expected this reaction, and spoke.
"I'm being serious. I have no intention of humiliating you."
That calm voice only irritated Jo Gwak more.
How was that any different from saying he was seriously messing with him?
"Fine. If Young Master Paeng is truly serious, then I'll accept the request for one gold ingot."
One gold ingot.
In this world, a simple missing-person request would usually cost one or two silver coins at most,
so this was outrageous extortion.
Besides, there was no way a wastrel who'd been driven out of his clan had a gold ingot to begin with.
In effect, Jo Gwak was wrapping up a refusal to take the job in a polished, plausible package.
"All right."
Only, contrary to his expectation that the amount would make Paeng Yeohun panic and flail, Yeohun answered with complete calm and began rummaging in his clothes.
"...Huh?"
For a moment, Jo Gwak seriously doubted his ears.
"One gold ingot. You said I could just pay that, didn't you?"
"You're actually... saying you'll pay it?"
"Of course."
As soon as he finished speaking, gold flashed at Paeng Yeohun's fingertips.
He casually pulled out a small gold bar and dropped it with a soft clink into Jo Gwak's palm.
"Huh?"
Staring at the gold ingot sitting in his hand, Jo Gwak blinked like an idiot.
He twisted it around, brought it close to his eyes,
and even bit it lightly, thinking it might be fake.
Of course, the instant his teeth touched the gold, he realized that had been a stupid thing to do.
...It's real.
The weight of the metal, the slight bite mark left behind.
It was clearly genuine.
"This is... ridiculous."
Without meaning to, Jo Gwak muttered to himself.
It was common knowledge throughout the Central Plains that Paeng Yeohun had been cast out of the Hebei Paeng Clan.
And yet that bastard had just casually produced a gold ingot.
...Wait. This bastard. Could it be that he's really...?
A chill crawled down Jo Gwak's spine.
The moment the gold ingot appeared, one possibility surfaced in his mind.
The same possibility he'd thought of briefly and then pushed aside a moment ago.
And at that very moment, Paeng Yeohun smiled faintly and asked,
"Can I take it you're willing to accept the request now?"
Paeng Yeohun asked with a slight smile.
Jo Gwak was left speechless, like a man who'd swallowed a mouthful of honey and couldn't say a word.