You're the One in a Hurry
"The name's Jo Hae."
Gang Ok and Yang Jeok rose in a flurry and stepped aside.
Young Jo Hae looked, at first glance, entirely ordinary. The only thing that set him apart was his face — unusually plump and fleshy, despite a frame that was otherwise quite lean.
"If the branch leader himself is making an appearance, things must not be going so well on your end either, huh?"
"..."
Something strange flickered through Jo Hae's eyes. Beneath that plump flesh, the corner of his mouth twitched, just barely.
"I never dreamed the Great Sage's intelligence network reached all the way inside the Hao Sect."
"I wish it did. We're not quite there yet."
"So this is simply a matter of instinct, then?"
"Instinct? Please. You think I can't recognize a customer's face?"
"...!"
"About four days ago, you were here drinking Shaohong wine, weren't you..."
Jo Hae's gaze snapped sideways before he could stop himself. Gang Ok and Yang Jeok, eyes equally wide, gave a slight shake of their heads.
Sun Wukong cackled.
"Don't bother. This Great Sage has ears and eyes in every corner of the world."
Jo Hae swallowed dryly.
Bluffing?
He had concealed his identity with painstaking care. His face, hidden behind a human-skin mask, had been entirely different then. So had his build. He was not so sloppy that anyone could see through him at a glance. If he were, the Hao Sect would have taken down its signboard long ago.
The courtesans here are no joke, either. They're from the Shandong branch, and they're veterans. And yet he still saw through my identity...
Jo Hae considered the worst possibility. Even if the Shandong Seven Shadows had figured out he belonged to the Hao Sect, that alone was a problem.
The real issue is my rank.
How did Sun Wukong know he was the Anhui Branch Leader?
Does this organization's intelligence network really go that deep?
Jo Hae bit his lip, just slightly.
No. No, that can't be it. If they had that kind of reach, this would have been over before I ever sat down at this table.
The personal details of Hao Sect officers were tightly guarded secrets even within the organization itself. Fellow members of the Hao Sect did not know them. In all of Anhui Province, Jo Hae's true identity was known only to Gang Ok and Yang Jeok, who stood at his side. The other disciples even believed that Gang Ok or Yang Jeok was the branch leader.
It was an unavoidable fact of life in the Hao Sect — a measure born of the need to protect oneself.
The Hao Sect was open to the world. Open enough that the wretched and the useless could come sniffing around. Anyone could cross its threshold with ease. That also meant it was just as easy for someone to siphon information from the inside, or for an outside force to slip in and try to overturn the whole organization.
To deceive your enemy, first deceive your own. The Hao Sect followed that old saying to the letter. In the blood-soaked martial world, it was the surest way to survive.
To uncover that Jo Hae was the branch leader would take an intelligence network on the level of the Beggar's Sect, at the very least.
If they already had that kind of reach, there would have been no reason for this fight to drag on in the first place.
Jo Hae assessed the situation with cold clarity.
I'll grant that spotting me as the man who visited this place a few days ago is the work of their intelligence outfit. But figuring out my rank — that came from this man's own head.
The moment that thought landed, tension crept across Jo Hae's face.
"Since the Anhui Branch Leader has gone to the trouble of coming in person, I take it we have something real to talk about."
"The matter is the same as before. Do you intend to keep treating the Hao Sect as an enemy?"
"If you were hoping for a different answer, you're going to be disappointed."
"The Hao Sect may lose ground, but it will never disappear. Wherever there are people living at the bottom, we will rise again."
Sun Wukong folded his arms, as if inviting him to keep going.
Jo Hae did not like how this felt. It looked as though he were the one pleading.
"The Hao Sect is vast. We stretch across every corner of the Central Plains, and anyone can become one of us."
"In short — even if you get pushed out of here, support will come from the other branches?"
"It already has."
Jo Hae put weight behind the words.
"Every eye in the martial world is fixed on Anhui right now."
"So it's a bumper harvest, is that it?"
"A bumper harvest..."
Jo Hae faltered for a moment at Sun Wukong's raw, unvarnished metaphor.
"That's right. Yes. This is the season for a great catch. People desperate to know what's happening in Anhui are pouring in with gold in both hands."
The Grand Assembly of Murim. The Hao Sect would throw its full strength behind the Anhui branch.
Sun Wukong scratched his chin.
The Hao Sect had even figured out that he was the master of Hoga Manor.
Making an enemy of the Hao Sect in a situation like this... yeah, that's not great.
Sun Wukong admitted it honestly.
These aren't even the kind of people you can properly fight.
A sect with a fixed stronghold and ranks of powerful martial artists would have been easier for him. It wasn't as though Heaven had been packed with weaklings when he stormed the place, after all.
But these people? They're different.
A gathering of those who lived at the bottom. Even if he seized their leadership and beat them bloody, could he truly say he had defeated the Hao Sect?
Impossible.
The Hao Sect was strong in an entirely different sense.
Sun Wukong clicked his tongue.
Do I keep this as a cooperative, symbiotic relationship?
What he had wanted was the role of an Earth Deity — a diligent little worker who would fetch him whatever information he desired, whenever and wherever he desired it. Building that across the entire Central Plains was too much to ask, but he had meant to create it in Anhui, using Hoga Manor as the foundation.
The Hao Sect, on the other hand...
It was not an organization small enough to sit in the palm of his hand and be toyed with. Naturally, information about Sun Wukong would flow to the Hao Sect as well.
I can't exactly rest easy with them around, either.
Where had the Shandong Seven Shadows come from, after all? The Hao Sect's Shandong branch.
The more I deal with the Hao Sect, the more likely it is that information about me leaks over to their side.
Sun Wukong clicked his tongue again. That was precisely why he had wanted to drive the Hao Sect out of Anhui altogether — but it was not going to be easy.
Then his thinking shifted.
Wait...
Something flashed through the thoughts that followed.
Do I even need to drive them out of Anhui?
Sun Wukong opened his palm and looked at it. It was a large hand. Large enough to hold the sea. Large enough to blot out the sky. An entire world could sit in a palm like this.
He studied Jo Hae's face — the man staring straight back at him.
Try as you might to leave the Buddha's palm, you'll never make it out.
A faint smile touched the corner of Sun Wukong's mouth.
The seat of an organization's leader was not something you won on a gamble. Jo Hae was certainly skilled at hiding his emotions. But he was still human. Slipping past Sun Wukong's Fiery Golden Eyes was never going to be easy.
Sun Wukong's gaze flared, soft and luminous. Beyond a wash of pale red light, golden pupils shimmered.
The world beyond appearances laid bare. The trembling of a soul, read as clearly as an open book. Every flicker of feeling buried beneath that composure.
Sun Wukong's mouth curled upward.
"Hey, Jo Hae. The moment you came looking for me, you'd already lost."
"I haven't the faintest idea what kind of sophistry that's supposed to be."
On the surface, he was still composed. But the trembling of his soul had grown worse.
"Before a fight starts, maybe. But the one who asks to talk in the middle of a fight is the one who's gotten desperate."
"I believe you're the desperate one. If we commit our full strength, Hoga Manor will be finished in no time. And the fact that Teacher Sun has been quietly building his own power in Anhui, behind the Namgung Clan's back, will find its way to them as well."
"Then go ahead and do it."
"...I beg your pardon? Teacher Sun, puffing out your chest like that isn't going to settle anything."
"You think this is bluster?"
Sun Wukong threw his head back and laughed outright — a laugh so violent that Jo Hae, sitting across from him, could see all the way down to his Adam's apple.
The mockery in it was unmistakable. Jo Hae's face went rigid.
"Think about it. Something huge is happening in Anhui Province, so the Hao Sect wants to throw the full weight of the organization behind it — and yet the Anhui branch itself isn't even holding steady. It's getting squeezed by some unorthodox outfit, losing ground by the day."
"What are you suddenly—"
Jo Hae's brow twitched.
"A branch that should be running just fine if you left it alone, hmm? Instead it's locked in a death grip with some unorthodox rabble, tearing at each other like animals. And look — those rabble aren't even anybody special. How do you think that looks to the people upstairs, our dear Anhui Branch Leader?"
Sun Wukong shrugged.
"If it were me? I'd think, ah, the branch leader over there is so incompetent he's running the whole place into the ground. So maybe we should replace him first? And while we're at it, is there anyone we could push into the seat instead?"
"...!"
"People who fancy themselves clever — especially the ones clutching some paltry scrap of power at the head of an organization — have a very sharp sense for this kind of thing. They know, in their gut, when their seat is about to get pulled out from under them. So what do they do then, Jo Hae?"
The corners of Jo Hae's eyes shot upward.
"They try to resolve the situation themselves, however they can. Which is why a branch leader is sitting here in front of me."
Sun Wukong pointed at him.
"How did you know?"
A faint light glimmered in Neung's eyes. Her expression was telling — surprise mixed with a look that said she almost understood.
"Know what?"
"That he was the Anhui Branch Leader."
Neung found it hard to grasp.
How long has this man even been back in Hefei?
A single day. That was all. Even Neung had failed to uncover Jo Hae's rank within the Hao Sect, let alone that he was the branch leader. She wouldn't even have suspected he was a Hao Sect disciple if not for her own sharp eye.
And yet Sun Wukong had not only identified the man with certainty — he had pressed him with it. Watching from a distance, Neung had felt a chill crawl up her spine.
"What exactly did you see that let you be so sure he was the branch leader?"
It was a fair question.
"Do we have another hidden network I don't know about?"
An intelligence outfit beyond Hoga Manor and Manhyangru. She couldn't help but wonder.
Sun Wukong snorted.
"That tree next to the rock over there."
"Pardon?"
Neung's head turned. In the well-tended garden stood a single old tree. One look was enough to tell it was ancient.
"It told me."
"Pardon?"
The tree did?
Neung swallowed the rest of the sentence, wondering if she had somehow misheard.
"Those two next to him — Gang Ok and Yang Jeok — called him branch leader once, a while back. The tree overheard."
"So you're saying..."
The tree did?
She couldn't bring herself to finish the thought out loud. She simply stared at Sun Wukong for a long time, as though he had grown a second head.
"Kids these days. You tell them the truth and they still won't swallow it."
"...Fine. I believe you."
"I'm not asking you to bow and thank me for it."
"So what do you intend to do?"
"About them?"
"If the Hao Sect throws its full strength into Anhui, this will not be easy. Hoga Manor's intelligence network will almost certainly get crushed and fall apart overnight."
"And what's the Pavilion Master's thinking? You want to try putting them down by force?"
"That might work in the short term. But it would be nothing more than a stopgap."
"Then what?"
"We either bring them in as allies, or we negotiate — acknowledge each other and respect each other's territory."
Given the circumstances, Neung's suggestion was the best available.
"They're desperate too, after all. They want this situation cleaned up so the branch leader doesn't lose his seat."
"Let's look at that a little more closely."
"Do you have a plan?"
"Nothing so grand as a plan. We just need to force a choice."
"What do you mean?"
Neung's fine brow furrowed. Even without using the Heart-Captivating Art, that look of hers was enough to steal a man's gaze. Sun Wukong glanced at those eyes and snorted softly.
"We set the board so they don't get to choose."
Even sharp-witted Neung couldn't quite follow. But as Sun Wukong went on, her eyes grew wider and wider.
By the time the explanation was finished, she was looking at him with something close to awe.
"...May I ask what you used to do? Before all this?"
"I was a Buddha."
Neung was left speechless. All she could do was mutter inwardly that the man was a born con artist.
"Word is that someone is coming from headquarters. They say he's a close sworn brother of the Sect Leader."
"He's been sitting idle at headquarters all this time with no assignment, so in all likelihood..."
Jo Hae let out a long breath at Yang Jeok's report.
"They're going to replace me and put him in this seat."
Yang Jeok's face hardened as well. When the leadership changed, it was standard practice for their direct subordinates to be swept out in a single stroke. In other words, the three of them were in this together.
"Once they start looking for faults, they won't be hard to find. Our results are one thing — but if word gets back that we're losing ground to some unorthodox rabble..."
"Mm."
"We have to get this situation in order before headquarters lays a hand on us."
Jo Hae sighed again.
"The Great Sage, Equal to Heaven, was it..."
His face twisted of its own accord. Like the rumors that swirled around the man, he was someone you could not easily read.
One thing, however, was certain.
"He's no ordinary human."
There was not a single gap to pry open. Every time their eyes met, Jo Hae felt as though the man were looking straight through to the inside of him. He shuddered.
"At this rate, we'll have no choice but to bow to him."
Jo Hae bit his lip, turning the problem over. That was when Gang Ok burst in, face pale with alarm.
"Branch Leader — a gift has arrived. Addressed to you."
"To me? Not to you?"
"Yes. Addressed specifically to Branch Leader Jo Hae..."
Jo Hae's face went rigid.
The gift itself was simple. A box of gold bars.
"Who sent it?"
Gang Ok spoke with a look of genuine incomprehension.
"It came in the name of Hoga Manor."
"What?"
Jo Hae's face contorted sharply.
"...What in the world is he thinking?"
Confusion flooded his eyes.