The Beggar King's Deal with the Heavenly Demon
"You've got information on the Heavenly Demon, you say?"
Silence dropped over the shop in an instant.
The beggar standing there gave off a reek fierce enough to crack the signboard overhead — a Branch Head of the Beggars' Gang. The words Heavenly Demon leaving his mouth made Yeon Sowol's heart and mine lurch at the same time.
"The Heavenly Demon?"
I put on a blank face and wiped the table with a damp cloth, as if I'd never heard the name in my life.
"You mean... the cult leader of the Demonic Cult? I hear he's a terrifying man."
"Heh heh. That's the one. Greatest demonic fiend under heaven. A butcher with neither blood nor tears."
The beggar bared yellow teeth in a grin.
"But a strange rumor's been going around. That fiend up and vanished, and the last place his aura was sensed is right around here."
"Around here?"
"Yeah. Right under the Murim Alliance's nose. Either he's living out the old saying that it's darkest beneath the lamp, or he came to spy on the Alliance... either way, interesting, isn't it?"
He raked me with a meaningful look, as if he meant to see straight through my skin to the demonic qi hidden underneath.
This bastard... did he come here already knowing?
The Beggars' Gang's intelligence network was the best in the murim. However thoroughly I buried my presence with the Turtle Breathing Technique, I might not have erased every faint trace left behind when I dealt with those assassins. And with Yeon Sowol having rolled into my shop on top of that, the odds were high he'd simply followed the smell.
But the moment you flinch, you lose. I arranged my face into the stupidest expression I could manage.
"Ah, come on. Why would the cult leader of the Demonic Cult bother with a backwater like this? Even if he did, the Alliance Leader would've caught him already."
"Well. Suppose so. Heh heh heh."
The beggar neither confirmed nor denied it. He only laughed.
The problem wasn't his words. It was the smell.
"Urk...!"
A customer eating dumplings at the next table gagged and clapped a hand over his mouth. The beggar's signature rot, the stink of sweat, and the sour reek of grime left unwashed for ages were poisoning the air. The fragrance the dumplings ought to have carried was buried under the stench.
"Ugh... kills the appetite."
"Owner, I'm just going. Wrap mine up."
Customers abandoned their seats one after another. Even the people lined up outside pinched their noses and fled.
In the kitchen doorway, Yeon Sowol's brow twitched. She had a fixation about cleanliness; show her filth and she couldn't endure it. Her hand drifted toward the inside of her martial robes, where her dagger waited.
No.
I stopped her with a look. Kill a Beggars' Gang Branch Head in here, and every beggar in the Central Plains would come swarming. That was a calamity worse than the Demonic Cult's army of a hundred thousand.
"Excuse me, sir."
Yujin stepped forward in Yeon Sowol's place. Brow furrowed, she threw the windows wide open.
"I'm sorry, but you're disrupting business. Can't you see the customers all leaving because of the smell?"
"Oh? A ronin, and mouthy besides?"
The beggar sauntered over to her.
"Smell? Now that's hurtful. This is what we call the fragrance of the murim. You're of the murim yourself — you ought to know."
He deliberately flapped the hem of his robe. Yellow dust and stench rolled in like a storm.
"Ugh..."
Yujin stumbled back. She was fastidious to the bone, the sort who believed a swordsman's hands must always be clean, and a reek like poisonous mist was more than she could bear.
"Please leave. If you don't..."
Her hand went to the wooden sword at her waist — the shop's weapon of self-defense.
"Hey now, drawing steel on a customer? This shop's hospitality is a complete disaster!"
The beggar raised his voice. Beside them, Jang Mugi, who had been dozing in his cups, finally rubbed his eyes and sat up.
"Ughhh... what? We fighting?"
"Brother, please stop him. He's a guest you brought."
I shook Jang Mugi, but he was already past making sense.
"Little brother... hic... yeah, he does smell a bit. But the man's always been like that. Hates washing worse than dying. Just give him a dumpling and send him off."
Easy to say. Let that stench stay and eat, and today's business was a total loss. I let out a sigh. There was only one way.
"Customer."
I stepped out from behind the counter and drew something from my coin pouch.
"Our shop welcomes every guest. Beggar or emperor, pay your coin and you're the same customer."
"Ooh, the owner talks sense! Then one plate of dumplings..."
"But!"
I cut him off.
"Cleanliness is not negotiable. The dumplings in this shop are the cleanest, most delicious dumplings in the world. If you want to taste them properly, shouldn't the body and the mind of the one eating them be clean as well?"
"...What are you on about?"
I held out the two slips of paper in my hand.
"A ticket to the public bathhouse right behind the shop. My treat."
"What? A bath?"
The beggar's face crumpled.
"Who do you take me for! You think I'm gonna wash? The grime on this body is the very source of my inner energy! Scrape it off and my martial arts drop by half!"
"Then there are no dumplings."
I said it without room to bargain.
"Wash and come back, and the dumplings are free until your stomach bursts. I'll even pack some for the road when you go. Don't wash, and you don't get so much as the broth."
"H-hey, you!"
"Choose. Your pride, or the finest flavor under heaven?"
I cracked the steamer lid. White vapor rushed out, and with it the smell of king dumplings fresh from the steam spread through the shop — the savor of pork, the green fragrance of chives, the deep umami of the secret broth, a scent powerful enough to cut straight through even that stench.
Gulp. The beggar's throat bobbed hard.
He was a Branch Head of the Beggars' Gang, a gourmet who had tasted every delicacy of land and sea. But this smell was different. It wasn't merely delicious. It stirred a hunger from deep in the gut, a hunger that rang in the soul.
"Nnngh..."
He wavered. A lifetime of unwashed beggar's pride, or the dumpling of fantasy sitting in front of him. His eyes traveled from the steamer to me, and then to the bath ticket. Around us, Yujin and Yeon Sowol were both sending him the same look: please, just wash.
After a long silence, he snatched the tickets roughly.
"Damn it! Fine, I'll wash!"
"An excellent choice."
Smiling, I pulled one more bundle from the back of the kitchen — a spare set of the ronin robes Yujin wore.
"And these. We're burning the clothes you came in, so put these on. They're new."
"Fine! And they better not taste like nothing, you hear me! I'll flip this whole shop!"
Grumbling, the beggar stomped out with the tickets and the clothes. The moment he was gone, clean, fresh air rushed into the shop.
"Whew..."
Yujin threw the windows wide and let out a sigh of relief. Yeon Sowol fanned the air in front of her nose, face twisted.
"Ugh, that was vile. Master, you're really going to give dumplings to a beggar like that?"
"He's a customer. And..."
I dropped my voice.
"Make an enemy of that man and it's a headache. There'll come a time we need the Beggars' Gang's intelligence."
Especially if I meant to find out who was digging into my identity.
One shichen later — roughly two hours. Lunch service had passed, and the afternoon trade was just about to begin, when the shop door opened again.
Jingle—
"Owner! I'm back!"
A booming voice. The man who came in... was not a beggar. Or rather, he had been a beggar, and he wasn't one anymore. His face was washed clean, his skin bright with a healthy sheen. The hair that had been plastered flat was washed and combed back, and it lent him a surprisingly dignified handsomeness. Dressed in Yujin's ronin robes, he looked every inch a master of the murim.
"W-who are you?"
Yujin asked, failing to recognize him.
"It's me, me! The beggar from earlier!"
He laughed heartily and thumped his own chest.
"Wow... that bathhouse was something! The scrubber nearly passed out working on my back, but it felt great! I can't even remember how many years it's been since I washed!"
The stench was gone. In its place hung the bathhouse's scented oil and the clean smell of soap.
"You kept your word."
I smiled, thoroughly pleased, and guided him to the best seat in the house.
"Please, sit. As promised, the dumplings are free until you burst."
"Ooh! I'll be expecting great things!"
He sat and took up his chopsticks. I went into the kitchen and lifted from the steamer the special dumplings I had prepared in advance. They were no ordinary dumplings. Beggars' Gang folk liked their food stimulating, so I had worked a little chili oil and Sichuan peppercorn into the filling — spicy, and yet the sort of heat that made the mouth water.
"Here you are. Sichuan-style spicy dumplings."
I set down a plate still breathing steam. He picked up a dumpling with his chopsticks and tipped the whole thing into his mouth in one bite. The moment he chewed, his eyes flew wide. Spicy meat juices struck his tongue, and right behind them the chewy wrapper and the savory meat wrapped his whole mouth. It wasn't merely hot. There was a clean, opening freshness to it, a deep flavor like a whole pot of restorative hangover soup distilled into a single bite.
Words failed him. He grabbed a second dumpling, then a third, one after another. Sweat beaded across his forehead. A body refreshed by the bath, and then rich spicy dumplings going down — it was as if his blood and qi had burst into circulation all at once.
"Haa... to die for!"
He slammed the table.
"I've lived as a beggar my whole life and cadged every delicacy of land and sea there is... but this is the real thing. A hundred times better than the dumplings that go up on the imperial table — a thousand times!"
"I'm glad they suit you."
"Suit me? This is art!"
He emptied five plates in a flash. His belly swelled up like a mountain, and still he couldn't put the chopsticks down.
"Burp... that was good."
He let out a satisfied belch and stuck a toothpick between his teeth.
"Owner. I won't forget this kindness."
"Ah, it's only a few plates of dumplings."
"No. It isn't only the dumplings. You're the first person who ever treated me like a person, instead of a stinking beggar."
His eyes had gone serious. This was not the playful gaze of a beggar. It was the sharp, deep look of a Beggars' Gang Branch Head, a man who held up one of the pillars of the murim.
"Thank you, Hero Hong."
I offered him a formal cupped-fist salute. I had the Beggars' Gang at my back now — a shield no amount of money could buy. For a man who had to live with his identity hidden, winning the murim's great information network as an ally was a stroke of divine genius.
"And..."
Hong Chil grinned and added the rest.
"That Heavenly Demon information... let's say it never existed. I must have been mistaken. A man who folds dumplings this good couldn't possibly be a blood-reeking demonic fiend."
He shot me a look.
Ah. This man. He'd seen through me.
He knew who I was — or at the very least, he had guessed I was no ordinary person. But he meant to cover for me. Because he had tasted the dumplings.
"Of course. I'm just an honest, law-abiding commoner."
I smiled back at him. A wordless deal was struck.
"By the way, Owner."
Hong Chil patted his bulging belly and looked around the shop.
"Shame the place is so cramped you can't fit many customers. Look at that line outside. It's raining, and they're having a miserable time of the wait."
Beyond the window, customers in straw rain-hats still stood in a long queue.
"I know. I'd like to expand, but the building next door isn't coming up for sale..."
"Expand? Do you really need to expand?"
A strange smile crossed Hong Chil's face.
"If the customers can't come to the dumplings, the dumplings can go to the customers."
"Sorry? The dumplings go?"
"Yeah. Our Beggars' Gang kids. Fastest feet under heaven, and the best eye for a road, you know? How about putting them to work running errands?"
Lightning struck through my head. Delivery. On modern Earth it was the most ordinary thing in the world, but in this murim it was a notion that had never taken root. Beggars with food boxes, using lightness skill to leap the rooftops and deliver dumplings. Hot dumplings arriving inside a Murim Alliance training-hall room before they had time to cool.
This is it.
This was the splitting of heaven and earth. An upheaval that would rewrite the entire board of the martial world's restaurant trade.
"Hero Hong."
Excited, I caught his hand.
"Let's do it. Let's go into business together."
"Partners? How?"
"I'll entrust the deliveries to the brothers of the Beggars' Gang. A fee for every run, and meals provided — on the condition that they wash before they come."
"Oho? My kids get a living, and I keep eating delicious dumplings?"
Hong Chil's eyes gleamed with greed — no, with a merchant's passion.
"Good! I accept! I'll assemble the kids at once!"
That afternoon, a spectacle unfolded in front of Murim Alliance King Mandu. Twenty beggars, freshly bathed and purified, stood in ranks with wooden tubs in their arms.
"We are—"
"—of the murim—"
"—the Divine Speed Flying Legs!"
Hong Chil called the lead, and the beggars roared it back. Passersby stared at them as if they were lunatics, but I was certain of one thing: from this day on, every meal inside the Murim Alliance would pass through our shop.
And the prediction struck true. The swift deliveries that began the next day upended the daily lives of the Murim Alliance's trainees from the roots.