Chairman of the Hometown Association (1)
There is no worse job in the entire martial world than being an innkeeper.
When a wandering hero arrives in a new village, where does he go first? Straight to the inn, naturally—the one place that solves both dinner and a bed for the night.
And while the hero is quietly minding his own business over a meal, some upstart Young Expert with no idea who he's dealing with just has to pick a fight. So the hero—who until this very moment has been feigning boredom at everything—proceeds to demonstrate his true colors so decisively that no revenge will ever be possible. And if a beauty whose heroic epithet happens to contain a "Hwa" or a "Bong" witnesses the scene and takes an interest, congratulations: a complete wuxia story, assembled and ready to run.
It doesn't even need to be the protagonist, for that matter. Back in Joseon we say even a dog goes unbothered while it eats, but in Murim, dogs, oxen, everyone and everything gets messed with over a meal.
There are those who strike precisely because a diner is defenseless, drunkards whose brawls boil up out of the ale, and more besides. Whatever the outcome, the inn ending up wrecked was practically a law of nature.
If the martial artist at least tossed the weeping innkeeper a handful of coin for repairs, that would be a mercy—but men who won't spare a second glance for the furniture they're shattering? What are the odds they'd show that kind of consideration?
The abandoned innkeeper patches up his broken tables and carries on, day after day. And yet inns keep flourishing all the same, for one simple reason.
The profit margins are just that good.
"You're truly going to run this inn?"
"You've already stamped the seal, and now you're worried about it?"
I said this while looking down at the stamp pressed into the deed of sale for the inn.
"Hahh. It sits in a residential quarter, so it'll keep rice in your bowls. Made a decent living right up until murim folk started running wild. But the ones you'd be dealing with are murim folk. If they keep coming back, there's not a thing you can do, is there?"
Innkeeper An wore an expression absolutely dripping with guilt, like a man who had just offloaded defective secondhand goods on an unsuspecting buyer.
"Don't worry yourself, Brother An Tae-won. I'll run it just fine."
I have it all planned out.
"Hahh. You said you were doing business in Yichang too, so I trusted you with it... Ah! That preparation you asked of me—it's all finished, by the way."
"Thank you for honoring such a difficult request."
"Thank me for what? I feel lighter than I have in months. Like I've shrugged a pack off my back."
An Tae-won smiled bitterly at me. His urge to cut ties and be done with it must have outweighed any guilt over selling damaged goods.
And I hadn't bought this trouble-ridden inn on a whim, either.
Before starting a business in Wuhan, groundwork was necessary—and the most essential ingredient was connections.
When you say connections, you mean school ties and blood ties. There's a reason they say that carrying the Zhuge surname in Wuhan gets you halfway to anything.
So what's a man without the Zhuge surname to do? Become a lay disciple of the Wudang Sect, the most powerful school in Hubei Province, or a disciple of a sect founded by a former lay disciple—that's how you forge school ties.
It wasn't for nothing that joining one of the great orthodox sects as a lay disciple cost a small fortune.
For a barbarian like me, with neither blood ties nor school ties, doing business in Wuhan was bound to invite trouble. Not a single tie to my name.
Attack that man's business, and you lose nothing—so where's the reason to hesitate? Does someone with neither tie, then, simply have no path at all?
No. In Wuhan, there was a play worth making.
"Boss, we're here!"
"A grand reopening? Didn't we just have one the other evening?"
"Uncle Tae-won! Feed us!"
The inn's doors swung open, and a dozen-odd Joseon folk poured inside.
"I sold the inn."
An Tae-won announced the fact flatly to the newcomers.
"What?"
"Boss! What are you saying?"
At his words, the Joseon folk crowded around him in alarm.
"I belong back in a kitchen with a ladle, not behind a counter. Running an inn is beyond me. Business is too damn hard."
"But still, Boss An—aren't you the one who leads the Joseon Hometown Association here in Wuhan? If you don't hold our community together, what are we supposed to do?"
"From today on, this young man here will be the head of the Joseon Hometown Association."
"A pleasure to meet you all. The name is Kang Yunho."
School ties, blood ties—and third, hometown ties. That was the connection I intended to wield.
First, I would invoke our shared homeland to win the favor of An Tae-won, head of Wuhan's Joseon Hometown Association. Then I would purchase a problem inn that nobody else would touch, build his trust, and succeed to his seat.
And just like that, I would be standing at the center of the human network of every Joseon expatriate in Wuhan.
"Who the hell is this kid? Chairman? This punk barely looks twenty and he's our leader?"
"A brat we've never laid eyes on is running the association? Boss, have you been drinking since noon?"
"I don't know where you learned to run your mouth like that, bonehead, but does the Joseon Hometown Association—bonded together by loyalty—look like a pack of fools to you?"
Granted, if a complete stranger suddenly strolled in claiming to be their leader, of course their faces would sour.
Most of the Joseon men standing before me were in their thirties and forties, calloused from years of hard, dangerous work. Meanwhile, I was a twenty-two-year-old who could pass for a fresh-faced young scholar.
But there was a fix for that too.
I gave An Tae-won a wordless nod, then squared my shoulders and puffed out my chest for a second round of introductions.
"Chairman Kang Yunho here has bought this inn. From today on, he's my boss as well."
"Chairman! We're in your hands from here on out!"
That's right. Pleasure's all mine.
I'd have believed them if they'd told me these people came not from Joseon but from that ninja village far to the east, the one where the village chief keeps changing every few years.
"No wonder! One look and I could tell! A man just dripping with noble bearing—exactly the talent to lead us!"
"Chairman Kang Yunho! Congratulations on your inauguration!"
"Please, guide and correct me however you see fit. I'm afraid I came without a proper gift for the reopening..."
"Just seeing the faces of the Joseon folk here in Wuhan is gift enough for me. There's a meal of banquet noodles ready, so eat your fill."
"Thank you!"
Most of the Joseon people in Wuhan were bottom-rung laborers. Not so different from what I'd been a mere two years ago.
When one of the rare few who could actually act as a patron shows up and offers to lead them, who's going to talk him out of it?
As we waited at the inn, the Joseon folk of Wuhan trickled in one by one at An Tae-won's summons.
"Mmmmmm. Now this is a proper broth! Authentic banquet noodles, simmered slow in dried anchovy stock!"
"Well, of course. Brother An has always been good with food."
Gathering the Joseon folk of Wuhan had been easy, too. Everyone was scraping by as it was, and when word went out that simply showing up meant a meal until your belly was full, nobody had a reason to refuse.
"Young Kang! No—Chairman Kang! Come over here! There are people I want you to meet!"
When you're handed a bowl of banquet noodles, paying your respects to the man of the house is simply good manners.
And since the new chairman was rumored to be a man of means—someone they might one day owe their living to—everyone lined up before me, falling over themselves to press their faces into my memory.
At this rate, I'll have met every Joseon soul in Wuhan.
"Chairman An!"
Three giants? Just as the new chairman's inauguration was going off without a hitch, three brutes appeared—each of them looking to be twice the size of an ordinary man in every direction.
"You made it. Pay your respects. This is Chairman Kang, newly installed as head of the Joseon Hometown Association. Chairman Kang—these boys here. Their father swears another mouth just grew onto them at the dinner table one day. Choi Ilgu, Igu, and Samgu. Three brothers."
"Kang Yunho. Good to meet you."
"...Boss An. To think you came to this because of us. We're truly sorry."
Are they ignoring me?
Not one of the three brothers so much as glanced my way. They bowed their heads deep toward An Tae-won, as though they couldn't bear to lift them.
An Tae-won, finding the mood awkward, gave a wry smile and began explaining what had happened.
"These three work the loading docks at the port under two black-path gangs—the Heukgong Sect and the Jeokgye Sect—gangs that skim the laborers' placement fees off the top."
"Boss! 'Work under' them? All we do is lend them some muscle when they pay us, that's all!"
The three protested as though the whole world had wronged them.
"Same damn thing! Anyway, these boys somehow managed to bring both gangs here at the exact same hour, and that's how the brawl started."
So that's how it all began.
"You mean to tell me black-path thugs are strutting around Wuhan—Wudang Sect and Zhuge Clan territory?"
"Every place has its blind spots, no matter whose shadow it sits in. Their strength isn't much, mind you. They've been killing each other off lately—down to a dozen-odd men apiece, I'd reckon. And they won't blink at murder to swallow a single small racket."
So mine wasn't even the classic clash of whales—just small fish brawling, and the shrimp's back got broken anyway.
An Tae-won added bitterly,
"Meaning if it weren't for this mess, Brother An would never have had to hand you his inn or the Joseon Hometown Association."
The eldest, the one called Choi Ilgu, said it while leveling a frosty stare at me.
"Ilgu!"
"Ah, so now you'll grant me the honor of eye contact. Allow me to introduce myself once more. Kang Yunho."
Stare all you like. I extended a hand to Choi Ilgu with my best customer-service smile.
"Ha!"
Choi Ilgu looked at me like I was something he'd scraped off his boot, then clamped my hand in a palm the size of a pot lid.
Trained in the martial arts, has he? That grip is no joke.
It was the kind of force that would have any ordinary man's face flushing crimson in a heartbeat, begging on hands and knees for release.
But here's the thing. The martial art you've trained and the martial art I've trained sit in a perfect hierarchy—and yours exists to serve mine.
"AAAARGH!"
The one screaming was Choi Ilgu.
"Big Brother!"
"Boss!"
"...Uuungh. You... you know martial arts?"
Clutching his blood-red hand, Choi Ilgu barely managed to hold his crumpling face together as he asked me.
"I happened to pick up a move or two."
"That did not look like 'a move or two.'"
Look at him. Run with black-path thugs long enough, and the moment you overpower him, his manners turn immaculate.
"Do you find me a little more believable as your chairman now?"
"......"
"Now that I've taken office as head of Wuhan's Joseon Hometown Association, I've been thinking of settling the grievances of our Joseon folk. Is there anything you'd care to request?"
"You... you mean you'd deal with the black-path bastards for us?"
"Ask me earnestly enough, and I may just step in."
I said it lightly, as though it were hardly any trouble at all.
"...Please, we beg you. Solve this, and we'll serve you for the rest of our lives as our elder brother—no, as our chairman!"
"Do you know how much those bastards have trampled on Joseon folk? Please! We're begging you!"
Good. In honor of my inauguration, let's put this strength to use.
"Where the hell have all those barbarian bastards gotten to?"
The lord of the Heukgong Sect—a small black-path gang of a dozen-odd men supplying dockhands at Wuhan Port—asked his underlings where the Joseon fellows, unseen for days, had gone.
"Word is they've gone over to the Jeokgye Sect, saying we've been skimming too deep into their placement fees lately."
"Damn black-haired barbarian bastards, worse than beasts! Even a beast knows a kindness done to it, but treat them well and they forget their place entirely."
"You rule a beast with the whip—that's how it's always been. Next time those barbarian bastards step out of line, I'll beat them black and blue with a club and teach them their manners!"
"If they resist, kill a few of them. Won't matter."
"You needn't even ask."
The Heukgong underling nodded along, wearing a crafty grin.
"Boss! The Jeokgye boys are lying in wait at that inn again, planning to jump our boys!"
"After getting worked over that badly last time, they're lying in wait again?"
"You know those big black-haired laborers who come running when there's coin? Heard one of them talking—they've scraped together every man they've got, swearing this time they'll have their revenge for certain."
"Ohhh, is that so? Then today's the day we settle this for good! Call in every last one of the boys!"
A small racket, supplying muscle to one corner of the port. However thin each gang's ranks, neither one had any intention of splitting that racket with the other.
Two black-path gangs, each with a second-rate lord and third-rate thugs for soldiers—their little war only grew bloodier.
The Heukgong lord gathered every last member of his gang and set out for the barbarian-run inn to settle it once and for all.
An inn run by barbarians was a battlefield beyond perfection.
Fight in the street and you draw every eye in the district; fight inside and no one outside learns a thing—and wrecking the place carries no consequences afterward.
Any other inn had some sect, some escort agency, or at the very least a merchant guild to answer for it. A barbarian-run inn had no such backing.
To the Heukgong lord, it seemed a fine idea to butcher the Jeokgye while he was at it—and take over the inn run by that barbarian bastard as a bonus.
"So the Jeokgye bastards were holed up in here!"
Half-fearing a blade to the throat the moment he stepped through, the lord had one of his men push the door open before striding into the inn.
Inside, no one was visible—no one but the Jeokgye.
"The Heukgong bastards who bolt with their tails tucked every single time we call them out—and now here you are, waiting for us?"
"We didn't call anyone, though?"
We only came because we heard you were the ones waiting? The instant suspicion brushed through the Heukgong lord's mind—
a voice sounded from directly overhead.
"Ilgu! Seal the doors!"
"Yes, sir!"
In a heartbeat, every exit in the inn and the stairway to the second floor were shut fast.
"What the—?"
A trap? The schemers—the other gang? But they look just as rattled as we are. Then who in the world—?
Identifying the man who had sprung the trap, however, was simple.
Because along with a cry of no discernible meaning that shook the entire inn to its rafters, a young man appeared on the third floor.
"WHOOOOOOAAAAAH!"
At the same moment, the Joseon folk packed the inn's second and third floors to bursting. The building had a classic layout, open straight through the center.
In an instant, the structure now had the Joseon folk on floors two and three looking down upon the black-path thugs who had tormented them for so long.
"Wh-why are barbarian bastards in here?!"
"What—what is the meaning of this!"
"Thank you all for your patience! Beginning now! With the red-hot welcome of the proud Joseon folk! Who have packed this inn to its rafters! Together with your thunderous roars! We hereby commeeeeence! The life-and-death showdown of the two sects!"
The inn, every exit sealed.
A battleground made for nothing but smashing and brawling.
And by one man's scheme, today it would become their Royal Rumble—a death ground from which only a single man would walk out alive.