Chapter 3
After immersing myself in water after so long, it felt as if all the fatigue I’d been carrying had finally washed away. I tightened the clothes the innkeeper had prepared for me and opened the door. Because the Jin Sword Sect had stormed through here and caused a scene, the innkeeper was busy cleaning up the area.
Creak.
When I opened the door to the room, the wide window caught my eye first. It held the view outside like a landscape painting.
“Sahyeong. Can we lower our arms now?”
“Hold them up properly.”
I heard the voice of my junior disciple, Baek Muheun. When I turned to look, the five junior disciples had their arms pressed tightly against their ears. They’d never been this foolish in my memories of the past. Maybe time had softened my recollection of them.
“How can you not recognize Sahyeong’s face?”
“It’s awkward for me to say this, but even the family head wouldn’t have recognized you like this.”
After saying that, Baek Muheun quickly looked away. Seeing that, I couldn’t help letting out a sigh. I turned around and left the room.
“Sahyeong. Where are you going?”
“Back.”
“Back where?”
Baek Muheun and the others followed me out of the room and stuck close behind me.
“If I’m going somewhere, where else would I be going? Obviously back to the Baek family.”
“But what about the Mount Hwa Sect? Did you get driven out after all? What did I tell you? I told you, Sahyeong, you’re too lazy.”
“Baek Muheun...”
“Was I wrong?”
At his words, I only turned my head and looked at him. Baek Muheun had always been an upright, stubborn sort. I wanted to say he was the same as ever, but in truth, this was the first time I’d seen him like this. In my previous life, by the time I was truly expelled by Mount Hwa, he was already dead.
“Who told you to lower your arms?”
“Huh? What do you mean...?”
Thwack!
“Agh!”
My fist dropped onto Baek Muheun’s head, and he clutched at it with a pained expression. The other junior disciples flinched at the sight.
I shot them a brief sideways glance, then turned and set off toward the Baek residence. As expected, the junior disciples began trailing after me in a line. I walked for quite a while without saying a word. Eventually, Baek Muheun slowly moved up beside me.
“Sahyeong. So you really did... leave Mount Hwa?”
“I left on my own feet.”
“What?”
Baek Muheun’s face twisted. Then the veins in his neck stood out as he started to rail at me.
“What did you say? You weren’t expelled, you left on your own?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you even hear yourself? It’s Mount Hwa! Mount Hwa, the sect every swordsman in the world dreams of joining! And you’re telling me you walked out of there on your own two feet? Do you honestly think that makes any sense?”
“Why wouldn’t it?”
Baek Muheun didn’t even seem interested in listening to me. He grabbed my wrist and spun me around.
“What are you doing?”
“We’re going back! To Mount Hwa!”
“I’m not going back to Mount Hwa, Muheun.”
“What do you mean you’re not going back? It’s Mount Hwa! Do you know how much the family is counting on you? Do you know what kind of treatment we’re enduring just to hold on?”
At Baek Muheun’s scream-like outburst, Sa Sobaek, who had been following behind us, grabbed his shoulder.
“Muheun Sahyeong. Please stop. Sahyeong Baek Mugeuk must have had his reasons...”
“Shut up, Sobaek! Do you even know what kind of situation the Baek family is in right now?”
“Calm down, Muheun.”
“Sahyeong, how could you... again this time, again! How could you come back so easily after giving up on everything like this? I’m ashamed that you’re my Sahyeong!”
With a cold expression, Baek Muheun turned and stalked off in the opposite direction from the Baek residence. Sa Sobaek gave the other three junior disciples a look, silently telling them to go after Baek Muheun.
“Mugeuk Sahyeong. Please don’t take Muheun Sahyeong’s words too much to heart. He speaks that way because he cares so deeply about the family.”
“...”
As I walked toward the Baek residence again, Sa Sobaek followed behind me without another word. I didn’t think Baek Muheun meant any malice by it either. In the past, I had been lazy to that degree, taken everything I had for granted, and been too quick to give up on anything. But this time, I had returned to the Baek family so I wouldn’t give up.
“Sobaek.”
“Yes, Sahyeong.”
“Jungseong Inn is an inn under the Baek family’s protection, is it not?”
“...Yes, that’s right.”
At my question, Sa Sobaek’s expression darkened. But I didn’t stop.
“Then why did no one do anything after the innkeeper was attacked?”
“That is...”
Sa Sobaek began to stammer. I watched him and kept walking at an even pace. I gave him time, but he still couldn’t answer clearly.
In truth, I didn’t need Sa Sobaek’s answer. The reason I had raced here nonstop from Mount Hwa was because I needed to resolve the problem with the Jin Sword Sect.
The Baek family and the Jin Sword Sect.
Both sects were fairly powerful within Jiangxi. Of course, compared to the entirety of the central plains, they were only mid-sized factions. But because of Jiangxi’s special position, those two sects came to represent the Orthodox faction in the Jiangxi martial world.
Jiangxi was a borderland between the Orthodox and Unorthodox factions. That was why there were no truly great sects there, and why smaller and mid-sized factions kept rising and falling as they fought over power and profit. Among them, the Baek family was an old house rooted in Jiangxi long ago by my great-grandfather, Baek Ja-gang, while the Jin Sword Sect, by contrast, was a newly risen family that had been around for less than twenty years.
The problem had occurred when I was still serving as a disciple of Mount Hwa in my previous life. Baek Hwang, the former head of the Baek family and my grandfather, suddenly lost consciousness and collapsed one day. He was over seventy by then, so it might not have seemed all that strange if he’d been an ordinary old man.
But Baek Hwang was not ordinary. He was the only one in Jiangxi among the Top 100 Masters of the Murim, though he stood near the bottom of that list. That was why his collapse, with no warning at all, had been such a bizarre thing. The Baek family summoned every capable physician in Jiangxi to treat him, but their diagnoses were all the same.
“Given Baek Hwang’s age...”
“It seems the elder has already lived out his allotted span. In fact, it is only because he is such a formidable master that he has survived this long at all.”
How much time had passed after they sought out those physicians? By then, the news that Baek Hwang, one of Jiangxi’s Top 100 Masters, had fallen unconscious had already spread like wildfire. And not long after that, they came.
The Jin Sword Sect.
The sect master, Jin Myeong-o, and his chief administrator shoved a promissory note in front of my father, Baek Mu, the family head.
“This is money that your late father, Baek Hwang, borrowed from the Jin Sword Sect.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve heard nothing of this.”
“The handwriting and signature on this note are the elder Baek Hwang’s. If you don’t believe it, bring in an appraiser.”
My father immediately summoned a handwriting expert. But the expert’s words were like a bolt from the blue for the Baek family.
“After comparing the handwriting and signature, this promissory note appears to bear Elder Baek Hwang’s own hand.”
“Nonsense! My father was not the sort to leave a debt to anyone!”
“I can only judge what I see...”
“Family Head Baek, don’t waste our time.”
The amount written on the note was thirty guan in gold coin strings. It was more than all the Baek family’s assets put together. And so the Baek family sold off nearly all the land they had, while also surrendering most of their earnings to the Jin Sword Sect.
The problem was that even then, it still wasn’t enough.
“Sahyeong! What are you thinking so hard about? We’re here.”
At Sa Sobaek’s words, I raised my head. Lost in thought as I walked, I had arrived at the main gate of the Baek residence before I knew it. The Baek residence. As expected, it was nothing like the place I remembered.
Originally, the Baek family had been a fairly respected house in Jiangxi, and many warriors admired my grandfather, the Top 100 Master, so the estate had always drawn a steady stream of visitors. That was why it was rare to see the main gate closed.
But now the Baek residence stood with its doors shut like a family that had gone to ruin, and even the grounds were badly neglected.
When I returned from Mount Hwa later, the Baek family had already moved somewhere else.
In other words, this was the first time I was seeing it like this.
“...”
I shoved the half-open gate wide open with enough force to make it bang.
And still no one came out.
“Where did everyone go?”
“Ah... well... the thing is, recently the family’s finances ran into trouble, so the servants all quit.”
“Where are the disciples?”
“Ah... some of them left, and the rest are out trying to help the household in any way they can...”
Sa Sobaek could say no more and dropped his head toward the ground. Most likely, the other junior disciples, including Baek Muheun, were working somewhere and eating at Jungseong Inn on their way back.
I immediately turned and headed toward the family head’s hall. As expected, there was no warrior guarding the front of the hall either.
When I stood before the hall, rough voices reached my ears. Their tones were heated. No, it would be more accurate to say they were full of anger.
Creak.
At that sound, I opened the door to the family head’s hall without announcing myself at all. Inside, I saw the people seated around the table.
* * *
Five men sat in the Baek family’s family head’s hall. Not one of them spoke first. Only the sound of tea being sipped broke the silence.
How long did that silence last? Jin Myeong-o set his teacup down on the table and slowly opened his mouth.
“Family Head Baek. I hate to say this as fellow Orthodox factions operating in Jiangxi, but the repayment date keeps being pushed back. You agreed to repay in installments because you said you couldn’t return the full amount at once, did you not? But if the due date keeps getting delayed every single time, it puts us in a difficult position as well!”
Jin Myeong-o cleared his throat, and the Jin family’s chief administrator pulled a document from inside his robe and began to read.
“The Baek family has already been repaying the debt more than seven days after the monthly due date, and this month it has gone beyond that by more than fifteen days without payment. This money is not a trivial sum, and for the Jin Sword Sect it is also capital needed to maintain the family. We ask that you repay it as soon as possible.”
“...”
At the chief administrator’s words, Baek Mu, the head of the Baek family, along with Baek Cheon-hwang, the senior disciple, and the Baek family’s own chief administrator, all kept their heads lowered, unable to say a word. Seeing that, Jin Myeong-o lifted the corner of his mouth for a moment, then quickly twisted his expression back into a frown, as if even speaking these words was a torment.
“As our chief administrator just said, this amount is not small for us either. And with the repayment date being pushed back again and again, our family is suffering inconvenience because the flow of funds isn’t moving smoothly.”
After dumping out that barrage of words, Jin Myeong-o lifted his tea again and went back to drinking. Even with Jin Myeong-o snapping at him like that, Baek Mu couldn’t raise his head. Like a man who had become a criminal, he spoke in a subdued voice.
“I apologize for the delay in repayment. We are trying to secure the funds, but it is not easy. If you could wait just a little longer, we will repay as quickly as possible.”
Bang!
At Baek Mu’s words, Jin Myeong-o slammed the table hard and let out a roar.
“Half the month has already passed! And once that money is repaid, you’ll immediately have to pay the next month’s amount right after it! What reason do I have to keep waiting?”
“Then what would you have us do?”
“What do I want? I only want the money I lent you back!”
“The Baek family has no money we can give you right now. We already sold off every plot of land we owned just to pay what we could.”
“Repay it no matter what it takes! Sell the family if you have to!”
“Sect Master Jin! Your words have gone too far!”
At Jin Myeong-o’s outrageous remark, Baek Cheon-hwang sprang to his feet, knocking his chair back. He was so worked up that veins bulged at his temples and the capillaries around his eyes burst, leaving them red.
“Sit down, Baek Cheon-hwang.”
“Family Head! How can you hear something like that and still—”
“I said sit.”
Even at Baek Mu’s command, Baek Cheon-hwang couldn’t calm down easily. Baek Mu was furious at Jin Myeong-o’s words as well, but as the party in the weaker position, he had to endure this humiliation.
Seeing Baek Mu like that, Jin Myeong-o offered a friendly smile. In this situation, that smile was no different from mockery. But Jin Myeong-o kept it in place and continued.
“I admit my words were harsh. But what else can I do? I’m the one who needs to receive the money, and you’re the one who needs to repay it. So, I have a proposal.”
“A proposal?”
“You need not pay back the money any longer. Instead!”
Jin Myeong-o did not continue immediately. He paused for effect, then spoke with a face full of certainty.
“I want the Baek family’s inherited martial art, Baek Family Seven Sword Art!”
“...”
At Jin Myeong-o’s proposal, Baek Mu, Baek Cheon-hwang, and the chief administrator all widened their eyes as if they might burst. His demand was so absurd that it left no room even for fury.
To demand a family’s inherited martial art from a martial house. How could there be anything more preposterous? And yet Jin Myeong-o simply sat there with a relaxed expression, looking at Baek Mu.
“Family Head Jin! Did I hear you correctly just now?”
“I don’t know how you heard it, but if what you heard was that I want the Baek Family Seven Sword Art, then yes, that is correct.”
“...”
There was nothing to deliberate over. To hand over a family’s inherited martial art was to hand over the pride and value of the house itself. Baek Cheon-hwang had been certain Baek Mu would reject it at once. But Baek Mu couldn’t bring himself to refuse so easily. The problem was that the Baek family no longer had the room or the means to repay the debt.
Must I protect the family? Or must I protect the martial art our ancestors left behind? Why has such a trial fallen to me?
Baek Mu felt sick to his stomach. No matter what choice he made, he could not fully preserve the family as head. It was a position like being trapped under check by a rook and a king at once.
“Family Head Jin. I... will give you the Baek Family Seven Sword Art...”
Baek Mu continued slowly, his voice sounding as though he had already given up on everything. By contrast, a thin, greasy smile was spreading across Jin Myeong-o’s face. In that instant, Jin Myeong-o became certain. Baek Mu would hand over the Baek Family Seven Sword Art to protect the family.
“Hand it ov—”
Baek Cheon-hwang, looking dazed, lowered his head before he realized it.
Creak!
Just before Baek Mu’s final word could fall, the door to the family head’s hall opened. Everyone’s gaze turned toward the doorway.
Standing there was Baek Mugeuk, who should have been at Mount Hwa. Baek Cheon-hwang’s voice burst out before he could stop it.
“Mugeuk? Why are you here?”
But Baek Mugeuk gave no answer. Instead, he turned his head toward Jin Myeong-o.
“What the hell kind of nonsense is that? What kind of half-witted idiot sells martial arts for money?”
Baek Mugeuk asked Jin Myeong-o with a smile. The atmosphere in the hall turned icy cold.