The Perfect Way to Seize Victory (1)
Restoring his body to perfect condition had been astonishing enough, but Na Cheon-lip, the Heaven-Earth Scholar, had even recovered some of his youth. He trembled all over.
"I am... truly sorry to you."
Na Cheon-lip could not bring himself to look Seok Geum-ryong in the eye.
Seok Geum-ryong was the descendant of Chilseonggun, Je Seong-cheon, and might as well have been his grandson. To Na Cheon-lip, he felt no different. Yet that only made it harder to bear the shame of receiving so much from a boy he thought of as a grandson while giving nothing in return.
"Heaven-Earth Scholar. You and I are not strangers. We're family, no different at all. Please don't say such hurtful things."
Seok Geum-ryong's words eased Na Cheon-lip's heart even further.
He meant every word.
Even just caring for the brutal life I lived in my last life was more than enough... I never got the chance to look after Heaven-Earth Scholar Na Cheon-lip.
When he had been Woo Do-min, the Gold-Selling Swordsman in his previous life, Na Cheon-lip had died alone and forgotten, and Woo Do-min had only learned of it when his body was collected. He silently vowed that he would never again feel such guilt or loneliness, and resolved to set right everything he had failed to accomplish, everything that had gone wrong in his former life.
"And this is only the beginning."
Seok Geum-ryong smiled brightly.
It was the kind of smile that struck fear into enemies and called forth wild cheers from allies alike, an enchanting smile with a demonic charm to it.
Why?
Because whenever Seok Geum-ryong wore that smile, it meant he had a vast and flawless plan in hand.
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"Lord. Red-Halberd Elder hasn't been seen for four full days now."
The chief steward of Hoho-gak, Xi'an's finest gambling house in Shaanxi, made his report with visible agitation.
In truth, it was news that scarcely made sense.
Of all people, the worst-and-best gambler in Xi'an just vanished without a word.
They had assumed that, given Red-Halberd Elder's age and the massive winnings he'd taken the previous day, he had simply taken a day or two off to enjoy himself.
But what happened?
Three days passed, then four, and he did not just fail to show up at the gambling tables, he vanished completely from the shabby inn where he always ate and slept, leaving the steward at a loss.
"What?! Why didn't you report this sooner?"
Hoho-gak's owner, Hong Hwa-hee, a woman in her mid-thirties, shot the steward a fierce glare and barked at him.
Formerly a courtesan in a pleasure house, she had written a legend of sheer willpower with her own hands and risen to become the owner of Hoho-gak. For that very reason, she allowed no slack in her affairs.
"S-sorry!"
"Red-Halberd Elder owes this house over two hundred gold ingots! Do you understand that or not?"
Hong Hwa-hee flew into a rage, her high, sharp voice ringing out.
Strictly speaking, Red-Halberd Elder's debt was mostly gambling debt, inflated many times over by absurd interest rates from the house's moneylending practices.
But neither Hong Hwa-hee nor the Cold Blood Sect behind her cared about that sort of thing.
Whatever the amount, they were confident they could squeeze every last drop from him and collect full payment even if it killed him.
"What's more, you said he recently won bags and bags of silver! You should have expected him to run with it!"
"I have nothing to say. It's just... since both you, Lord, and the Cold Blood Sect's leader trust Red-Halberd Elder, I thought he wouldn't run."
The steward claimed he had nothing to say, yet still managed to shift the blame onto others.
What he meant was that Red-Halberd Elder had been openly trusted and indulged by the two of them, so it was beyond his control.
"What?! So you're saying it's all my fault that Red-Halberd Elder ran?"
"That's not what I meant..."
The steward broke out in a cold sweat before Hong Hwa-hee's shrill outrage. At the same time, he regretted opening his mouth and setting off her stubborn anger in the first place.
"Steward! Lord!"
Just as he was caught in a hopeless trap, a voice came to his rescue.
Its owner was none other than the man known as Ghost Hand, famous among Hoho-gak's dealers for his skill.
"What now?!"
Under normal circumstances, Hong Hwa-hee would never have raised her voice at Ghost Hand, one of the pillars of Hoho-gak's gambling floor, but she was more furious than ever and did not bother to restrain herself.
"Red-Halberd Elder, that old man..."
"I'm already hearing that the old bastard hit me on the back of the head and ran in the dead of night!"
"No, that's not it..."
Ghost Hand had run all the way here, breathless and panting, and finally delivered the new report.
"Red-Halberd Elder has come back to the gambling floor."
"What?!"
"And he's brought several companions with him."
"Companions too?"
Hong Hwa-hee, the mistress of Hoho-gak, could not immediately make sense of the situation, and a sneer almost escaped her lips.
To her, Red-Halberd Elder was nothing more than one of the easiest fools Hoho-gak had ever secured, a fixed customer whom the Cold Blood Sect had deliberately kept around so they could strip him clean until the day he died of old age.
More than that, Red-Halberd Elder was the sort of inveterate gambler who could never turn his fortunes around, beyond reform, and there had been no reason to expect anything except that he would die unnoticed, with no family to claim him and no one the wiser.
So when she heard that he had appeared again with companions, it was only natural that she scoffed.
"What a fool of an old man."
"Maybe he suffered a stroke?"
The steward added his own comment, openly questioning whether Red-Halberd Elder was in his right mind.
"So why did that old man come back? And what are the Cold Blood Sect's enforcers doing?"
"That is... you'll need to see for yourself."
At Ghost Hand's insistence, the steward and Hong Hwa-hee, who had only stepped away from Hoho-gak temporarily, hurried up to the top floor, where the most expensive gambling was held.
The game Red-Halberd Elder had become obsessed with was a dice game in which three dice were rolled to produce the highest possible total, so they headed straight there.
"Huh?"
"How can the Cold Blood Sect's men..."
"All the enforcers who guard Hoho-gak's top floor have foamed at the mouth and collapsed!"
It was still too early to be shocked.
The black-road men from the Cold Blood Sect who guarded Hoho-gak had all been knocked senseless or killed outright, one after another.
In addition, several of Hoho-gak's hot-blooded employees were sprawled on the floor, drenched in blood.
"Ah, finally. You've come."
Meanwhile, Seok Geum-ryong let out a satisfied smile at last when the man he had been waiting for arrived.
Curiously, there was blood on his fist, but it was not his own. It belonged to the men of Hoho-gak and the Cold Blood Sect.
"Just who are you..."
Hong Hwa-hee raised her voice at Seok Geum-ryong, the man who had turned her livelihood, her fields, and her very breadbasket upside down.
She would have liked nothing more than to slap him across the face with all her fury behind it, but the moment their eyes met, she could not even entertain such insolent thoughts.
"I am Seok Geum-ryong, the fifth son of Seokga Manor."
"S-Seokga Manor? Seok Geum-ryong?"
However back alley a gambling house in Xi'an might be, Hong Hwa-hee could hardly be ignorant of Seokga Manor's reputation.
"Why would Seokga Manor be here..."
That the steward was also shocked was only natural.
Hoho-gak's operating principle was one of caution: never pick a fight with the orthodox schools, the unorthodox factions, or any group tied to a great power faction.
And now Hong Hwa-hee and Hoho-gak's people all had their pupils shaking at the appearance of Seokga Manor, the power that controlled Hebei, and, more specifically, its direct bloodline, the fifth young master Seok Geum-ryong.
"This gentleman here is family to me."
At their question, Seok Geum-ryong gestured to the Heaven-Earth Scholar Na Cheon-lip, who had accompanied him.
"Gah!"
"What the hell? Is that really that old man who looked like a corpse?"
"He doesn't look like the shabby Red-Halberd Elder at all. He looks like a Daoist who actually knows martial arts. An old Daoist, maybe."
In the span of just four days, Red-Halberd Elder had changed so completely that he seemed like a different person, and from Hong Hwa-hee down to the steward, the onlookers who had been watching the entire scene doubted their own eyes.
"And?"
While everyone else was focused on Red-Halberd Elder's transformation, only Hong Hwa-hee focused on Seok Geum-ryong.
She was a natural opportunist and a snob through and through.
If this goes well... I might be able to turn a real profit using that worthless Red-Halberd Elder as my capital.
Her opponent was Seokga Manor, and not just any branch of it, but a direct descendant at that.
If it had been anyone else, they would have wilted before that vast and fearsome reputation, but Hong Hwa-hee was different.
She was already dreaming of properly frying and stewing the young master of Seokga Manor, then pinning an enormous debt on the Seok family and collecting it later.
Her eyes were already burning as if she had never been angry at all.
"I hear that this gentleman here owes Hoho-gak a little money."
"Gentleman? Ah, yes. I did hear that Red-Halberd Elder once devoted himself to the Buddha's teaching."
The more Hong Hwa-hee stretched out her words, the clearer it became that she was turning something over in her head.
What she was thinking about was how much to demand for Red-Halberd Elder's body, or rather for his debt.
"In any case! Red-Halberd Elder has not only been properly cared for by this house, but we've also spared no expense to provide him with delightful gambling every single day. Just the price of that care alone would come to at least five hundred gold ingots!"
Oh, indeed.
Five hundred gold ingots. More than twice the original two hundred. Look at the nerve on her.
She was worthy of the legend she had become, rising from a courtesan in a pleasure house to the owner of a major gambling den in Xi'an.
How else could even the seasoned gamblers who knew Red-Halberd Elder's circumstances inside and out react with such astonishment?
"Five hundred gold ingots? Are you insane?"
That kind of absurd sum, wildly disproportionate for a mere gambling house, drew objections not only from Yeo Gwang-rae but even from Im So-gun.
"Hahaha, this is mad."
Na Cheon-lip, who himself had been so addicted to gambling that he had little room to talk, let out a laugh of pure disbelief.
"Hmph. So you fed him, housed him, and let him gamble to his heart's content... and you thought that came for free? Don't be ridiculous!"
"Listen here, Lord. Did I do that for free? I even took part in repairing Hoho-gak's building and fixing its outer walls. And wasn't I the one who personally built the four-horse carriage you ride in?"
If it had been the old days, when he had been slowly wasting away, perhaps Na Cheon-lip would not have known better. But now he had recovered his body to its peak condition, and the memories of those years were painfully vivid.
So he knew that five hundred gold ingots was utter nonsense.
"That work only reduced the debt to five hundred gold ingots. Have you been living with your eyes closed?"
But Hong Hwa-hee showed no sign of backing down.
She even pushed further.
"Anyway, five hundred gold ingots is cheap pocket change to Seokga Manor, isn't it? If you hand over the gold, we'll stop caring about where Red-Halberd Elder goes."
She claimed it was pocket change to Seokga Manor and that, if they paid the cheap little sum, the trouble would vanish.
Of course, Seok Geum-ryong was not about to follow such absurd nonsense.
Spending gold on the likes of you would be an utter waste.
Seok Geum-ryong honestly found it painful to part with even a single ingot.
So he made another proposal.
"Then let's settle this another way."
"How?"
"Hoho-gak has quite the reputation as Xi'an's finest gambling house."
"Mm-hm, and?"
At the compliment woven into Seok Geum-ryong's words, Hong Hwa-hee gave a deliberately coquettish smile.
It was almost a professional reflex, though inwardly her gaze sharpened as she looked at the young and handsome Seok Geum-ryong.
"Hoho-gak will stake this gentleman's debt and his freedom, and I'll stake five hundred gold ingots, no, seven hundred. Let's decide it by dice."