Ankang (3)
Cheonhwa decided first to meet with Yongwang.
At the very least, he needed to know for what purpose the man was seeking him out.
Under the guidance of the Ankang branch leader, Cheonhwa made his way to the guest room where Yongwang was waiting.
The moment he stepped inside, a sharp tang of liquor stabbed at his nose. The smell was rising from the empty wine bottles set out on the table.
Cheonhwa took in the room. Only two men occupied it. One was a Peak Expert of the same caliber as Cheonhwa himself, standing nearby like a bodyguard. The other sat alone at the table, pouring his own drinks.
"Oh, you're here?"
The man who had been drinking grinned at Cheonhwa's entrance. His clothes looked shabby at a glance yet were cut for easy ventilation. He seemed slender at first, but a solid, densely packed physique filled them out. Sun-browned skin, a rough growth of beard, and a confident smile hanging at the corner of his mouth—every inch of him declared, I am a boatman.
"I am Cheonhwa, third-generation disciple of the Zhongnan Sect."
"I hold the post of Chief of the Yangtze Waterway Sect. Call me Yongwang, that'll do. This one's my right hand."
Yongwang tossed off the introduction and waved Cheonhwa into a seat. He produced a fresh cup, filled it, and held it out.
"Can't have a proper chat without wine. Knock one back first, then we'll talk."
"Thank you."
Cheonhwa accepted the cup and drank. The wine and cups had been provided by the Hao Sect side; there was no reason anyone would bother poisoning them here.
More than that, the man across from me is a Super Expert. If he wanted me dead he wouldn't need any tricks—he could manage it whenever he pleased.
A presence sharper and more distinct than any Peak Expert rode his spiritual sense. Despite the flippant manner, the man's qi never wavered for an instant—clear proof that his internal energy had reached a true realm of mastery.
"I was told you requested cooperation."
"That's right. Embarrassing as it is, a portion of the Waterway Sect turned traitor. Cleaning them up with our own people alone is tough, so I'm looking for help."
"Could you not simply ask the rest of the Six Tyrant Coalition?"
"Pfft. That's a funny one. You think the unorthodox sects have that kind of loyalty? Individuals, maybe—but as groups? Perfect for getting a knife in the back."
Yongwang chuckled and waved the idea away. The Six Tyrant Coalition was merely a convenient label for the great unorthodox powers. They traded and dealt with one another, but they never built the kind of trust the righteous sects cultivated.
"More importantly, none of the other Coalition outfits are in a position to help with this mess."
The Green Forest operated in a different territory and the same rough trade, so asking them felt awkward. The Silent Merchant House were ruthless about contracts and would wring every scrap of profit. Black Water Castle was little better. The Night Assassin Pavilion was a killer outfit—wrong tool for the job. And Paegeommun, the least bad option, was too busy holding its own ground to spare a glance outside.
"In short, there's no proper group inside the Six Tyrant Coalition I can turn to. Then it hit me—who says the help has to come from the unorthodox side?"
After all, the unorthodox Green Forest and Silent Merchant House had already joined hands with the righteous Zhongnan Sect, the Beggar's Sect, and the gray-aligned Hao Sect once before. The mysterious force had made fools of them all in the end, but precedent mattered. Given sound reasons and proper compensation, even a righteous sect could cooperate.
"And just then I heard the Red Dragon Faction got spooked by a Zhongnan rising star and fled the land. Looked like a perfect opening."
"I understand what you're saying. But cooperation between great sects is not something I have the authority to decide."
"Of course I know that. So before any real request, I figured I needed to leave a good impression."
Yongwang grinned and went on.
"Looks like the Red Dragon Faction's flight has you in a bind. We'll lend a hand—free of charge, no other price."
"…"
Cheonhwa regarded him in silence. The offer to help suppress the Red Dragon Faction seemed genuine enough, yet "free of charge" was a blatant lie.
Simply cooperating on this affair would already be reward enough for Yongwang.
Myeonghwa had once said free things were a way to obtain what money could not buy—and that nothing was more expensive than free.
They have to deal with the Red Dragon Faction that betrayed the Yangtze Waterway Sect anyway. If that also lets them forge friendly ties with Zhongnan, it's two birds with one stone.
Still, the proposal was not bad for Cheonhwa's side either. To catch the Red Dragon Faction they would have to take to the waterways, and no one knew those waters better than the Yangtze Waterway Sect.
"I will need to contact the main sect and decide after that."
"Fine by me—but will that work for you? While messages go back and forth the Red Dragon boys will catch the scent and bolt."
In other words, miss this chance and they might never get another shot at the Red Dragon Faction. After a brief moment of thought Cheonhwa reached his conclusion.
"I appreciate the offer, but I must decline."
"Hmm. I thought it was a pretty sweet deal. Mind telling me why?"
"First, as I said, I lack the authority to decide such a matter. Second, I have found no reason to place my trust in the Yangtze Waterway Sect."
The earlier alliance with Green Forest and the Silent Merchant House had been a strategic decision made by Okwon Jinin and the leadership. Old grudges and debts between Zhongnan, Green Forest, and the Silent Merchant House had been tangled in the process. This approach, by contrast, had come with no prior contact and far too suddenly. Between Zhongnan and the Yangtze Waterway Sect there might be old enmity, but nothing that inspired trust.
"I get that trust is thin. That's why I offered myself as the price of cooperation. Still not enough?"
"The problem is that it is a price, not a guarantee. If the famous Yangtze Great Bandit—renowned for vanishing like a ghost—decides to run, how exactly would anyone catch him?"
Was he simply planning to bolt without paying? Cheonhwa's answer carried that question. Yongwang's mouth twisted into an amused, lopsided smile.
"Saying that right to my face—you've got guts. What if I lose my temper and put hands on you?"
Cheonhwa met his gaze squarely.
"If I die here, far from any cooperation you will only earn Zhongnan's enmity. You will also make enemies of the other righteous sects and of the Hao Sect that arranged this meeting. A man who sits as Chief would never fail so simple a calculation."
Whatever Yongwang's true purpose, turning two great sects into enemies would only push that purpose farther away. At the reply Yongwang let out a short laugh and clapped his hands.
"Excellent. Not even past twenty yet and already thinking that far. So the talk of Zhongnan's foremost rising star wasn't empty rumor."
"…"
"Fine. Then we'll take a little loss on our side. We'll drive the Red Dragon Faction onto dry land so you can hunt them. We may not be able to wipe them out ourselves, but we can certainly make their lives miserable."
The Yangtze Waterway Sect would simply create the chance to suppress the Red Dragon Faction. Whether Cheonhwa's party seized that chance was entirely up to them. That was what Yongwang was saying.
"This isn't even a proposal. Call it a show of sincerity if you like. So I'd be grateful if you put in a good word for us with Zhongnan."
Having said his piece, Yongwang simply closed his eyes—a clear signal that there was nothing more to discuss. Cheonhwa left the guest room without lingering.
On the way back to where his companions waited, he turned Yongwang's words and manner over in his mind. The man seemed as open and expansive as the Green Forest King, yet his every gesture felt light as wind. No outright lies, yet the air of a swindler who never told the whole truth. Survival instinct raised no alarm, yet a faint, itching unease refused to fade.
At least his willingness to cooperate in the Red Dragon suppression for his own ends seems real. But what exactly is that end?
To the last Cheonhwa could not set the question down, and he sank into deep thought.
Once Cheonhwa had left the room, Yongwang alone sharpened every sense. Only after confirming that no presence lingered nearby did he turn to his subordinate.
"Nobody around, right?"
"Boss, your senses are sharper than mine. Why ask me?"
"Hey! Cross-check, dummy! Cross-check!"
"As far as I can tell, no one."
"Uwaaaaaah…!"
With a limp, defeated sigh he slumped back in the chair. The confident smile of moments ago had vanished; his face now looked ready to burst into tears at any second.
"Rising star of the righteous path, my ass—those eyes are pure murder. I was sweating bullets thinking he'd seen through me!"
"Boss… you do remember you're a Super Expert, right?"
"What's a Super Expert worth when I'm a reed that might lose to a Peak Expert? You think I keep you as a bodyguard for fun?"
"Well, you are kind of a weakling, Boss."
The flippancy was nothing like what one expected from the leader of a vast power, and the subordinate answered as if that were only natural.
"Why the hell am I even here putting myself through this?"
"Because you don't have the prestige to hold the entire Yangtze Waterway Sect in your grip, right? You talk a big game, but you're a coward."
"Wow, my own right hand is just listing the facts and beating me with them. I'm gonna cry, you know? Waaah, real tears!"
"Boss! Who wants to see a grown man blubbering like that?!"
"Screw this rotten world! I can't take it without a drink!"
Yongwang heaved a massive sigh and gulped down whatever remained in the bottle. His subordinate watched with open pity and muttered,
"Can't even hold his liquor, yet he loves the stuff more than anyone…"
"Shut it! My martial arts exist for two things—running away and drinking!"
"Even so, could you stop expelling the alcohol the second you finish a bottle? The smell is murder."
"Aigoo, now you're trying to snatch away one of the few joys I have left! What's the point of living any longer!"
"So are you actually going to die?"
"What kind of garbage is that? Of course I'm living long enough to paint the walls with my own crap. That's why I came all the way here."
Empty cup in hand, Yongwang stared blankly at the ceiling and mumbled,
"How the hell did it come to this? I never planned on becoming a big shot."
"You and I both started as oar-slave captives of river bandits."
"Yeah… that's right."
He still remembered it with perfect clarity. That day had arrived like fate itself. As usual the bandit chief had taken the boats out for a raid and rammed the target.
"Only problem was, the target was a government grain-transport ship."
Naturally the ship carried imperial troops. The bandit chief who had started the mess died in moments, and the rest of them waited to be drowned and fed to the fish. Even now the memory made his hands shake, cold sweat pour, and tears blur his sight. What had saved them was a talent he never knew he possessed—the talent for survival, or more precisely, the talent for running away.
"I still can't believe it. That coward grabbed people's legs, bawling his eyes out and screaming that if they wanted to live they had to run."
"Looking back, it's a miracle they even listened to me."
"When you're dead either way, following the coward yelling 'Let's live!' seemed better than the alternative."
"And as payment my whole life went completely sideways."
In the end they had managed the feat of escaping the government troops together. The price was becoming celebrities—survivors of the imperial army. One by one men volunteered as followers. By the time he came to his senses he was master of a vast waterway empire spanning the entire Yangtze, complete with flashy titles like Yangtze Great Bandit and Dragon King.
"Dragon King, my ass. All I'm good at is running."
"True enough. Loach King would fit you better than Dragon King."
"Even so, a loach is a bit…"
"Don't complain to me—the government troops named you that. I only told the truth."
"Aargh, and I can't even beat up my own bodyguard."
Yongwang fumed and used it as an excuse to drink again. That made three bottles.
"Huu… why am I the boss, anyway? Plenty of guys want the job. Just hand it to them!"
"We tried that. They all died. Only you were left."
"That's because they were idiots. They never knew when to strike and when to pull out. All pride and no sense—they walked straight into their own graves."
"…"
The subordinate privately thought that the ability to make exactly that distinction was why they served him as Chief. He kept the thought to himself; saying it aloud would only make the man swell with pride.
"Still, did we really have to come crawling this low? You put your own neck on the line."
"If you're negotiating with the righteous path, you have to put that much on the table. More than that, my gut feels wrong. Drag this out any longer and the whole lot of us could vanish for real."
Chaos was sweeping the Central Plains martial world. For mountain bandits and river pirates there had never been a better time for a big score.
"But at the same time you get people who want to use that chaos—and people whose blood has gone ice-cold because of it."
The mysterious force had scattered demonic arts across the Central Plains to sow disorder. The righteous sects were now venomously angry. It would not be strange if the imperial court and the military stepped in next. And they were still going to keep pirating in the middle of that?
It was the same as inviting everyone to die together. The only way to survive was to quit piracy entirely.
"I hate dying like a dog. Better to drop the pirate life and become a gray-path outfit."
"Coming from the man who offered his own head as bargaining chips, that sounds a bit rich…"
"I had my reasons for that."
The bodyguard sighed and continued.
"Anyway, the ones who rebelled against that idea are camped on the Han River now."
"I still don't get why they cling to piracy so hard. I already taught them plenty of easier ways to make money."
"They joined the Yangtze Waterway Sect because they wanted to pirate. If they can't pirate, they see no reason to stay."
"Those bastards! They rode my name while they were pirating, and now they flip their hands like it never happened!"
Yongwang's notoriety was known throughout the Central Plains, yet more of it came from the crimes his subordinates committed freely than from anything he himself had done. From his viewpoint it was enough to make him shed tears of blood. In the end the Yangtze Waterway Sect had split into the Dragon King faction that followed him and the anti-Dragon King faction that rejected him. The latter had made the Han River—linked to the Yangtze—their base and were slowly gathering strength. In the process they had even laid hands on the strange power of demonic arts.
"Using martial arts that scream 'touch this and die' the second you look at them… do those idiots have anything at all between their ears?"
"How many educated men do you think you find among pirates? If you were strong enough to just thrash them all yourself, they never would have fallen for that junk."
"Yeah, yeah, my fault for not living up to the Super Expert name."
Yongwang was an unorthodox martial artist, yet strength had never mattered much to him. Being strong did not guarantee survival. Power that did not fit the vessel bred arrogance, and arrogance was the shortest road to death. Better to have none of it—that was Yongwang's view.
"Can't we just ignore them and stick together on our own?"
"No. Leave those dogs alone and the back of my neck itches."
Why were the anti-Dragon King faction building power on the Han River? To strike the Dragon King faction's Yangtze territory and claim the Chief's seat for themselves.
"If we leave them be, even after we remake ourselves into something like a Waterway Alliance they'll still come to put a knife in our backs."
Yet striking first to clean them out was impossible; they simply lacked the men. The old Yangtze Waterway Sect might have managed, but with the anti-faction gone they were half-strength and already strained just holding the Yangtze. Outside help was the only answer. Then he had heard of the cooperation between Zhongnan and the unorthodox groups, and the idea had struck him: this could be used.
An opportunity to erase the anti-Dragon King faction and at the same time transform the Yangtze Waterway Sect from pirates into something new.
"Those dogs are sacrificial offerings. We announce that every pirate who wanted to keep pirating fled to the anti-faction, then we wipe them out with our own hands and declare we've washed our hands of the pirate trade forever."
"I understand that much. But will people believe it on that alone?"
"Of course not. That's why we need a famous righteous sect to vouch for us."
And that was why he had come all the way to Ankang, where the Red Dragon Faction—once Red Dragon Stronghold—was hiding. Contacting Cheonhwa had been entirely deliberate: a chance to forge a connection with Zhongnan and at the same time smash the Red Dragon Faction. Two birds, one stone. Of course things had not gone exactly as planned. Who would have expected one of the leaders of the Six Tyrant Coalition to be sitting right there, only for a youngster to refuse him flat-out without buckling under the pressure?
"Are all the rising stars these days like that? In my day just keeping your own skin in one piece was hard enough."
"Same for me. We should just chalk it up to the Flash Sword Dragon being special."
"Anyway, I'm dead tired. Once we remake the organization I'll quit as Chief, powder my face, and go live in seclusion."
Yongwang blew out another heavy sigh and tipped the bottle once more. Watching his boss blow into the empty vessel like a trumpet, the subordinate thought: the man had staked his own neck on this operation yet was already daydreaming about peaceful retirement. Either a complete coward or a man with nerves of pure sinew—pick one and stick to it.