White Spirit Tree (5)
Leader of the Dragon Iron Union. Cheong Ya, the Black Steed Mad Wave Spear.
In Lanzhou he was known as a man who seldom found his match — a former wandering warrior who had climbed, by his own strength, to the seat he now held. With the King of Hell Stronghold as his base, he had bought up more than a dozen inns across the city and folded them into businesses under his banner. On the strength of that wealth he raised the White Horse Merchant Group, seized a monopoly on concessions from manor protection on down, and was driving hard to swell his power still further.
Then something came along that set his mouth watering. He flicked his tongue across dry lips and broke into a snickering laugh.
"The precious princess of the Jegal Clan must have been sore indeed. She let word slip our way, plain as day, that the White Spirit Tree had changed hands. Go skin one dull fool — that the idea?"
The man prostrate before him was the one who, not long ago, had partnered with Jegal Rin and bought up the White Spirit Tree stock. He had once kept a single brothel in a passable location. Helping Jegal Rin, he had lost everything.
"He brought useful news, so set him a table of wine and send him off. He's lost his whole fortune. His guts must be burning."
"The wine is already laid, Union Leader. Please take this humble servant in. I will serve you with my whole heart."
"Brothel Master Wang, who lost his entire fortune because of me, says he'll serve me?"
"Yes!!"
"Hahaha."
When Cheong Ya burst out laughing, the subordinates listening with him roared along. But the moment he cut the laugh short and hardened his face, the hall fell quiet again. He strode over and stood before the brothel master.
"Then go up to that man and lure the one they call Golden Manor's second son, and do it properly. After that, if you also manage to keep him stuck at the drinking table, I'll hand down a fine reward. Who knows? I might even give you back the brothel you lost."
"I will!!! I'll see it done and win the Union Leader's favor!!"
"Yeah, yeah. Get out."
A short while later, once the brothel master had been hauled away, Cheong Ya turned to his trusted man.
"When the time comes, erase him so neither rat nor bird knows. Leave him breathing and he'll only turn into a rotten tooth."
"Yes, Union Leader."
"Oh — and gather every scrap of information on that second son of Golden Manor, and be ready for anything. A hunt is only sweet when you put your full strength into the take."
Contrary to what was known, the place where Cheong Ya had been born and raised was a barren desert, and he came of a band of raiders with neither blood nor tears to spare. A vicious laugh filled the hall.
I had barely reached Lanzhou and taken a room at an inn when a fellow named Wang Baek came looking for me.
"So you're the one who attended the daughter of the Jegal Clan head?"
"Yes, Young Master. I am Wang Baek. It is an honor to meet the distinguished Young Master Geon."
"Ears everywhere, I see. You know who I am, and you've come calling when I've hardly arrived."
"The young lady sent me word and charged me most earnestly."
"Charged you?"
"Yes. She said to attend you well, and to offer whatever help I could."
"Hm... help. I'm hardly close enough to the young lady's people to be taking help from them."
"Hahaha. Is that so?"
Wang Baek's eyes darted. I turned the talk to keep time with him.
"I did hear she had a partner who settled the petty costs. So why come looking for me? To lay claim to the White Spirit Tree?"
"Never. How could I? I washed my hands of that affair long ago."
"Word is the young lady quit all of a sudden because her father so disliked her doing trade. Is that true?"
"Of course. It was rather bewildering, the way she dropped a matter already in motion so abruptly. But when I heard that you, Young Master, had purchased it anew, I cannot say how glad I was."
Jegal Rin, caught under my Soul-Enthralling Art, must have laid me out in fair detail by messenger bird. Her partner had no idea I already knew the whole truth, and was straining every inch of himself to deceive me. A villainess is a villainess. Not content with a chance to skin me and restore her funds, she had even sent word to her partner so she could grind me down more viciously still.
Obvious enough. She means to work the Dragon Iron Union through this partner and drop me into one more trap.
"Pardon? What do you mean by that?"
"I mean it's obvious why you came looking for me."
"......"
"Pour me wine, make yourself look good, then take on the little errands and scrape a few coins. That's the scheme, isn't it?"
"Aigoo, what a thing to say..."
"Save the modest act. Anyway, Lanzhou is new to me too, so I'll leave the small matters to you. Let the owners of the clinics, the martial halls, the inns, and the brothels around here know that I hold the entire White Spirit Tree stock. They can haggle the price after they've seen the warehouse. Drinking comes after that."
"Yes. I will move exactly as you've entrusted me."
Wang Baek wore a sinister smile. His face said it plain as day. This bastard doesn't know a thing about the White Spirit Tree. A naive mark.
The western outskirts of Lanzhou. A chilly warehouse, empty of any soul, was in the keeping of wanderers hired by Jegal Rin and a man who looked to be one of her own hands. They must have had word ahead of time. The moment they confirmed who I was, they took a written pledge that I had received the White Spirit Tree, then vanished like an outgoing tide.
I told Seol-ha to hold the place, then followed Wang Baek to the brothel he led me to. Those with an interest in the White Spirit Tree had gathered there, just as I had ordered. Sure enough, every last one of them asked to buy at a price far below what I had paid Jegal Rin, and after a long wrangle the gathering broke up.
When I put on a face suitably choked with rage, Wang Baek, who had been reading the room, opened his mouth with weight.
"Um... Young Master."
"Shut your mouth and get out. Can't you see what that Jegal Clan bitch just did to me? You knew too, didn't you? That the market price of the White Spirit Tree turned to shit because of that damned herb. You knew all of it and dumped the stock on me!!"
"Never. If I had known, I would have told you long ago!! I am someone who wants to help you however I can in what you're doing. Please believe me."
Voice and eyes full of trust, Wang Baek prostrated himself before me. When I stood a moment without a word, he quietly brought out what he really wanted.
"I was thinking I might introduce someone. Would that be all right?"
"Who?"
"The master who holds full rights over the land where the White Spirit Tree grows. Lord Cheong Ya, head of the Dragon Iron Union. With him, might you not recover at least a little of what you've lost?"
"Take the hit, negotiate with him, and cut the damage. That it?"
"If I spoke out of turn, I am sorry..."
I glared at him for a long while, then spoke.
"Bring him."
"Yes?"
"I said bring him. That Dragon Iron Union leader, or whatever he calls himself!!"
At my shout, Wang Baek hurried out of the room. I didn't miss the smile that flickered across his face as he went. Once he was gone, I sat back down and calmly drained a cup.
"Hmm. Not bad."
The time had come to twist the ending the ones who meant to skin me were waiting on.
Plunder isn't something the weak get to do.
The brothel where I sat grew strangely still. Drunks deep in their cups, courtesans tending them, clerks of the house carrying food — the noise of that whole crowd thinned, then vanished from around me, like birds scattering at the first sense of disaster.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Someone flung open the door of my room and burst in.
"You sent for me?"
Through the open door stood a man with a wolf's face. The guards ranked behind him had come with the stink of blood hidden under silk.
"You're the leader of the Dragon Iron Union?"
"The man called Cheong Ya."
At my reply, he grinned.
"Most men piss themselves at the sight of my face, yet the young master's nerve is bold enough. So the rumor is true — you recently smashed a few rather famous rising talents."
"We going to keep talking through the doorway? Ugly to look at, and it spoils the mood."
"We'll go in. You lot stay put."
Wang Baek, visible past his shoulder, remained outside with Cheong Ya's men. The door shut. Cheong Ya sat across from me, set the black spear from his hand beside the chair, and leaned back with arrogant ease.
"I heard the young master's situation on the way. I'll be direct. I want to buy that stock."
I smiled.
"Then this is simple."
"How much do you want?"
"About a cart of gold."
"What?"
Cheong Ya's face went murderous in an instant. Fair enough. A cart of gold trays came to roughly two coffers of gold — from the start a vast sum, four times what Jegal Rin had been swindled out of. I had named a staggering price, enough to buy a hundred fine horses in a single breath. Likely he could only produce it by putting up not just the funds he had fleeced from Jegal Rin, but every business he owned.
"Brothel Master Wang Baek told me you'd already grasped how things stand in Lanzhou and flown into a rage. Was he wrong?"
"Wang Baek's a shill you keep, I take it? Faithful little hunting dog. But I've got eyes and ears of my own."
"......"
"I already know the Stone Ridge Grass you scattered to fleece Jegal Rin can't stand in for the White Spirit Tree."
Cheong Ya's brow twitched. As it should. The effects of taking Stone Ridge Grass, and its side effects, had likely not been properly brought to light yet — the herb had only recently been found by Cheong Ya himself. However clever and vile Jegal Rin might be, she could not know everything that lay outside the books. I, on the other hand, am a demon well-read in a great many things about the future.
"This much is nothing. Hardly worth the surprise."
"It's about time word gets out that the Stone Ridge Grass you scattered has no effect, unlike the White Spirit Tree. Then the people looking for the White Spirit Tree will multiply again — and the only one holding the stock is me."
I drew a strip of White Spirit Tree bark from my robes and chewed it like dried beef.
"Savory. I'll be forgetting the local blights in no time."
"I don't know where you heard talk like that, but if I don't take that stock off your hands right now, you go home with nothing. There isn't a soul on this land who doesn't watch my mood. Don't want to cross me, and there won't be anyone to buy the White Spirit Tree from you. That's what it means."
"So now the threats come out in the open?"
"Golden Manor is a merchant house, not a martial house, isn't it? And without a proper cause, no one on Lanzhou soil would treat me lightly."
"Because you're the great master who has Lanzhou in his fist?"
"You know well."
When I held my silence, Cheong Ya lifted the wine bottle whole, drained it at a gulp, and added one more line.
"Let's see what happens from here."
"That's something you'd better start worrying about right now. You figured keeping me stuck here all this time was your idea, didn't you."
"What are you..."
"Which is easier to tidy up — you, buried deep in the inner quarters, working your men and kicking up noise all over Lanzhou? Or calling you here?"
"?!"
I drew the sword leaning beside me in a single instant.
A blaze of magnetic qi bloomed from the tip of my sword — and Cheong Ya's head left his neck in the same breath.
His mistake was only one. He had never once looked at himself, seated in this place, as the weaker man. I stepped past the man who had died without so much as a scream and called in the hands waiting outside.
"Hey. All of you, inside. It's over."
In a breath, Cheong Ya's voice spilled from my mouth.
Never realizing it was I who had called, they shuffled into the room.