I'll Need Your Cooperation
"This one."
"Sip-pal-gong?"
"Not exactly a common name, I'll grant you."
Jo Hae, branch leader of the Hao Sect's Anhui office, nodded as though he perfectly understood why Sun Wukong was tilting his head.
"If his name weren't so peculiar, I wouldn't have given him a second glance. He's something of a local notable where he lives, but looking at the people gathered in Hefei right now — the Nine Sects and One Gang, the Five Great Clans — he's hardly the sort of figure who'd register on the Hao Sect's intelligence network."
"It's a pine tree."
"Pardon?"
Jo Hae cocked his head. Sun Wukong wasn't listening to a word he said. With a strange look on his face, he tapped the name Sip-pal-gong written on the register.
"Ten, eight, and lord. Stack them together and they look just like the character for pine."
"Ah — so they do. Come to think of it, there's a forest of nothing but pine trees near Geumgeom Manor, where this man resides."
"Curious."
"Yes, looking at it that way, it is rather curious. Perhaps his parents named him after the pines nearby when he was born."
"That's how names work. They decide your fate."
Jo Hae narrowed his eyes and studied Sun Wukong. The look in those eyes as they rested on the register was distant — as if he were tracing memories of another life, staring at something beyond what was visible. Jo Hae sensed there was something here he didn't know, and asked carefully.
"Did you know him from before?"
"I might have. I might not have."
Jo Hae frowned at the slippery answer — and then Wukong added something that made his eyes fly wide.
"Besides this guy, are there ones named Gojikgong, Bulunsu, and Neunggongja too?"
"H-how do you know that? I was just about to report on them. They're on the list as well."
Sun Wukong burst out laughing. It was a raw, ringing laugh, the kind that tore straight up from the gut.
The sudden roar of it left Jo Hae more than a little rattled.
Really. This is a difficult man to deal with.
It might have been easier on the nerves to simply write him off as a madman. If he were nothing more than a lunatic, Jo Hae would never have been standing here with his head bowed, delivering Hao Sect intelligence to his face.
This was a bizarre creature who, from the moment he opened his eyes and took in a situation, bent everything to his will — made the world into whatever he wanted it to be. Measuring him was impossible. Matching him was nearly as hard. His words and actions defied all prediction, and even the social arts a Hao Sect officer spent a lifetime honing were useless against him.
More than anything, Wukong's reaction planted a quiet suspicion in Jo Hae's mind.
How on earth does he know?
There was no way he could have already identified a man like Sip-pal-gong. The man was genuinely just the master of some backwater sect. First-class, and nothing more. With every renowned master and expert in the martial world gathered in one place, Jo Hae had never dreamed that even a nobody like this would already be sitting in Sun Wukong's head.
Someone must have told him.
Jo Hae's eyes settled into a cool, still calm.
"Have you been receiving separate reports from Hoga Manor?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"This information was obtained through the Hao Sect's own capabilities. Teacher Sun — have you been using Hoga Manor to access Hao Sect internal secrets without going through me?"
Jo Hae's voice had gone sharp.
An unspoken rule existed between the two of them. Sun Wukong's grip on the Hao Sect was acknowledged. But every scrap of intelligence from the Anhui branch was to be viewed through Jo Hae alone. If even that were denied him, he would be a scarecrow in the most literal sense — not a shred of real power left to his name.
A Hao Sect branch leader lived in the dark. It was not a title you paraded in front of anyone. There was no awe, no reverence, no praise, no envy. Everything that ordinarily followed power and fame had to be surrendered. And yet people still coveted the position — because it was real power. The Hao Sect was a vast organization that treated the entire Central Plains as its stage. The authority to wield even a fraction of that force at one's own discretion was not an empty husk. It was genuine power.
Jo Hae's hunger was not confined to a mere seat. That was why he had bitten into Sun Wukong's poisoned apple.
"If you've been receiving your information through Hoga Manor, then I have not the slightest reason left to sit in this chair."
The edge in his voice came of its own accord. If Hoga Manor were the true master of the Anhui branch, who would be sitting here? Hoga Jangju, most likely. That was why Jo Hae, even as he found the arrangement humiliating, had quietly welcomed the fact that Sun Wukong heard Hao Sect reports through him and him alone.
Sun Wukong's face twisted into a frown.
Jo Hae flinched. The man wore a smile so constantly that even a small crease of the brow carried a pressure that crushed the air from a room.
"What information would I be getting from Hoga Manor? Those guys are your people."
"Then how do you know?"
"I met these bastards in a previous life."
"A previous life?"
"I don't tell lies."
"……"
"And having you in that seat is more convenient for me anyway. Hoga Jangju's from the unorthodox path originally — too rough. He works in a completely different direction. I couldn't put him in your place even if I wanted to."
"Then… you mean you acknowledge me?"
"Hao Sect business is Hao Sect business. Hoga Manor business is Hoga Manor business."
"Hoga Manor business being……"
Jo Hae let out a hollow laugh. A man as sharp as he was could hardly miss the meaning.
"What else? Watching to make sure you don't pull any tricks."
The casual way he discussed surveillance to Jo Hae's face left the man speechless.
A threat?
A warning: I am watching your every move, so don't get any ideas. Perhaps it was because he said it as blandly as if he were passing along a greeting — but it chilled Jo Hae deeper than any threat he had ever heard. He looked into those calmly settled pupils, set in a face that still carried the ghost of a smile.
As I thought. This is not a man I can casually take the measure of.
Trying to gauge him, analyze him, find an angle of attack — it was meaningless.
Who sits down and analyzes a disaster? A storm, an earthquake, a volcano?
He smiled bitterly. You either weather a disaster as it comes, or you run for your life. Capricious. Unpredictable. At least, that was the Sun Wukong Jo Hae had seen so far.
But at least one difference from a natural disaster is perfectly clear.
He distinguished friend from foe. He had never said as much out loud, but when he considered someone his own, he protected them without hesitation.
The Namgung Clan. Hoga Manor. And that fellow Ojeong he always keeps at his side.
Meow.
A pitch-black cat suddenly poked its head out from inside Sun Wukong's robes, and Jo Hae smiled a wry little smile.
Compared to a disaster that smashes friend and foe alike without distinction — what Buddha-like mercy this is.
Jo Hae adjusted his thinking, just a little.
If I serve as a sincere collaborator, perhaps I can find a place inside that fence.
Having reached that conclusion, he began his report in earnest.
"This Sip-pal-gong has recently been gathering the smaller sects of the martial world under one banner."
"A bunch of nobodies huddling together so they can speak with one voice, I take it."
"Precisely. And frankly, it's remarkable. Geumgeom Manor is a sect of no consequence whatsoever. Meanwhile, many of the sects flocking to him have enough prestige to look down on Geumgeom Manor without a second thought."
"So he's become the center of the coalition. That's rare in a martial world that runs on the logic of strength."
"Sip-pal-gong himself is only First-class. His martial skill is nothing special either."
"A sect whose master is First-class — and that sect is the center of a coalition?"
On the face of it, the whole thing made no sense.
"I found that strange myself, so I looked into it. First of all, Sip-pal-gong and his associates have considerable political skill. They've been operating on political maneuvering alone."
"Oh?"
"But more important than that — you remember the Sima fellow you asked me to investigate?"
Sun Wukong's eyebrow twitched. Jo Hae wore the look of a man playing his trump card.
"He's gone completely dark for now, but there is evidence that he made contact with this man some time ago. Of course, we're still tracking him, but……"
"Ah, leave that to me. I'm already handling it on my end. I'll ask for support if I need it later."
"You're tracking him yourself?"
"Yeah. I'm doing it right now."
Jo Hae's face twisted into something peculiar. Sun Wukong had half-lidded his eyes, as though he were looking at someplace else entirely. It didn't feel like a joke. It felt as if he truly were watching another place.
"Anyway. So this guy met him before."
"Yes. That's confirmed."
"Which means when Sip-pal-gong set this thing in motion, Sima intervened somehow — or at least exerted some kind of influence."
"There's one more thing that matters most. Sip-pal-gong himself commissioned the Hao Sect. He requested information on the sects his side had already recruited."
Jo Hae lowered his voice.
"They're scattered all across the Central Plains. Sects that have never had contact with one another in their entire existence. But they share exactly one thing in common."
"And that is?"
"Every last one of them holds a grudge against the Namgung Clan."
Interest kindled in Sun Wukong's eyes.
"I smell something."
"A nasty smell, yes."
"Where is he?"
As if he had been expecting the question, Jo Hae gave him the location at once.
"The Great Sage, Equal to Heaven…… Teacher Sun Wukong, is it?"
Sun Wukong looked at the middle-aged man standing before him — a man who couldn't quite hide his fluster, yet held himself rigidly upright all the same.
The internal energy stored in his dantian was First-class at best. First-class was nothing to sneeze at, but it was a low grade for the master of a sect. A gathering of minor sects trying to speak with one voice in the cracks between the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Clans — and this was the man meant to lead it. He looked distinctly unequal to the task.
Did they judge him on skill rather than internal energy?
Wukong's gaze swept over him in a flash. The muscles packed grain by grain through his body. The calluses on his palms. The spacing of his stance. The set of his shoulders. The rhythm of his ordinary breathing.
First-class. That's all he is.
There was no shortage of martial artists who compensated for thin internal energy with raw talent and hard-honed technique. Wukong had wondered if this might be one of those cases. It wasn't.
He stroked his chin.
So it's purely political skill, then.
Which, if anything, was even more surprising.
Sip-pal-gong had been trembling under that unblinking stare, but he gradually found his composure. All that sat in Sun Wukong's eyes was curiosity. There was not a trace of hostility. And once the fear receded, his mind began to turn at a furious clip.
"You want to work together on something?"
Work. If the man had sought him out specifically, it meant he already knew what Sip-pal-gong had been doing. Which meant their purposes aligned, did they not? He had fully intended to make contact with Sun Wukong himself.
A renowned figure with no ties to either side — someone who could give voice to our cause! A master neither the Nine Sects and One Gang nor the Five Great Clans would dare treat lightly!
And now the Great Sage, Equal to Heaven, had come to him.
Sip-pal-gong straightened his back as if the trembling had never happened, his bearing suddenly bold.
"Well now — and here I was planning to seek you out myself. That you've come to me proposing we work together… surely our purposes are already one and the same."
"What are you talking about?"
"……Pardon?"
"Not the thing you want. The thing I want to do."
"The thing you want to do, Teacher?"
"I'm planning a little something. I'll need you to cooperate."
Sun Wukong smiled faintly at the man who had gone still. His golden pupils settled on the faint red thread that ran from Sip-pal-gong to himself — and his smile deepened.