The Chase (10)
The Chase (10)
I had to think coldly and clearly.
If I simply kept my mouth shut, no one would ever know that I had burned the Heavenly Demon's treasured possession. There was no need to wallow in paranoid fears that the Heavenly Demon might attack me. I needed to pull my thoughts together right now.
"What exactly were the terms the Demonic Cult offered? Finding its location? Or retrieving it?"
The Hao Sect Leader shook his head at my question.
"Finding the location and informing them was the mission. Retrieving the object, too, if there was no owner guarding it."
By 'no owner,' he meant that if the owner was someone the Hao Sect could handle, they were to 'persuade' them and take it. As cold-blooded and cruel as the Demonic Cult bastards were, it seemed they could still distinguish between what the Hao Sect could and could not do.
"Did the client know the contents of the secret manual? I doubt the Heavenly Demon came down personally to commission this."
"They said he was a man of considerable skill within the Demonic Cult... but he didn't seem to know much about the contents. He even asked me who this Sex Demon Cheonpung was and what he did."
"Was the client from the Central Plains?"
"From what I could tell, he wasn't from the Central Plains—more likely from the Potala Palace of Tibet. There's a merchant in Chang'an who has connections over there, sells all sorts of things like perfumed oils and carpets. When you go to Chang'an later, buy plenty of goods from him."
Now that I thought about it, when I was wandering around Chang'an, I did seem to recall seeing someone with an exotic face hawking wares in an awkward accent. I made a mental note to ask later if he sold lubricating oil as well, and the Hao Sect Leader posed a question.
"But what do these questions have to do with the problem we're facing right now? You said you had a solution—let's hear it."
"...There is a simple solution. One where we don't have to search for it, and we don't bear the responsibility either."
"What is it?"
After all, the Heavenly Demon, the only one who could verify the manual's authenticity, wasn't here. The client who had come on the Heavenly Demon's behalf didn't know the detailed contents of the manual either. And there was no way the Heavenly Demon had been standing in front of his subordinates with both arms stretched forward in a horse stance, going ebebebe.
In the entire Central Plains right now, I was the only one who truly knew the contents of Sex Demon Cheonpung's secret manual.
"We forge a fake secret manual. Make a plausible one, pass it off to a major sect, and let the sect dispose of it."
"What the... no, wait...."
The Hao Sect Leader started to object but then seemed to have a realization, nodding and sinking into thought. Even with just a moment's reflection, this was a decent plan. The Demonic Cult had told the Hao Sect to find the object, but they knew perfectly well that the Hao Sect couldn't seize something held in the hands of a major sect.
And besides, if a major sect disposed of the Heavenly Demon's treasured item, who would he target first—the Hao Sect or the major sect?
I continued.
"We pass the object to a major sect without being detected, report the progress, and at the same time, the Hao Sect withdraws from Shaanxi. We shunt the Heavenly Demon's fury onto them."
The Hao Sect Leader thought it had potential, but there was no sign of enthusiasm for my proposal. It wasn't because he thought my plan was absurd. It was something else—fear. Blatant fear and anxiety wrapped around the Hao Sect Leader.
"...If this fails, we'll all die. You still don't know the terror of the Demonic Cult. For people like me who deal in information, vivid stories reach us of what the Demonic Cult does beyond the lands of the Central Plains. The Heavenly Demon has no mercy in his methods and never leaves those who betray or mock him in peace. And what do you think will happen if the Heavenly Demon flies into a rage and suddenly descends to trample the Central Plains?"
The Hao Sect Leader's concerns were valid. Zhuge Yeong-yu had been worried about this too. But by now, my thinking had changed. Im Ha-ryeong's life hadn't been solely dedicated to martial arts. Every corner of her existence was tangled with sinister stratagems and convoluted schemes.
"The Heavenly Demon won't come. If he thought the timing for invasion was ripe, would he go to the trouble of commissioning the Hao Sect to hunt down his own treasure? No matter how well the Hao Sect maintains security, rumors are bound to leak out eventually. A man who's risen to become the leader of the unorthodox sects is a veteran of intrigue and cunning—there's no way he wouldn't know that. Think about it, Sect Leader. Until now, no one imagined that the Heavenly Demon's treasure was in Shaanxi, but under the Heavenly Demon's orders, the inside of Shaanxi has grown noisy, and the orthodox sects of the martial world have started warily eyeing each other."
"Hmm...."
"The right time to invade is when the situation is unexpected—so why would he do this? It's because the conditions aren't right to invade right now."
Of course, there was still a chance he would come. But even if the Heavenly Demon's eyes rolled back in fury and he invaded, I had to resolve this problem now. If the secret manual had been a genuinely terrifying martial arts manual or some other treasure, I might have taken my time searching for a solution. But since it was Sex Demon Cheonpung's manual, that changed everything.
Because it was an object that even the Hao Sect's founding father couldn't find.
How in the hell was anyone supposed to find something I'd already set on fire and burned to ashes?
If I couldn't resolve this problem, I couldn't gain the Hao Sect's help, and without the Hao Sect's help, I couldn't expand my power any further. The reason I had been able to bring down Jong Yuseop and Venerable Geumbok was because I had the backing of the Zhuge Family and the Imperial Household—not because of my own faction's strength.
Without my own power base, I couldn't push the great undertaking forward. I would just be dragged along by the Zhuge Family and the Imperial Household until I met a tragic fate. I would rather die floundering in pursuit of my goals than suffer such a powerless death.
Hadn't I made a promise to Sannyeo?
That I would become the kind of person who swallows the world whole.
I didn't want to end as some wretched creature wagging its tail under the Zhuge Family. I wanted to devour the Princess too, climb to the very top of this nation, and become someone who wielded everything. To become that kind of person, I had to have the courage to willingly walk into the line of fire.
Let's wait for the next opportunity because the Heavenly Demon might invade? There was no next opportunity. The chance for a private audience with the Hao Sect Leader and a proposal of cooperation, the chance to secretly join hands with other sects and the Zhuge Family to expand my power—things like that didn't just come around easily.
Heaven favored those who seized opportunity. The coward who hid away shouting 'next time' would never get a second chance.
The Heavenly Demon would not invade.
I decided to stake everything on that.
"...I'll trust you this once. But if things don't work out, I'll sell you out."
That was a threat I had to accept. There was no way a massive power like the Hao Sect would fall neatly into my hands without any risk. It was a deal worth staking my life on, and I had to take comfort in the fact that it was made at all.
"If this succeeds, will the Hao Sect cooperate with me?"
"...They say the unorthodox sects have no loyalty, but that's just bluster from those who got their heads cracked trying to lord it over men of a different caliber. The audacity to attempt deceiving the Heavenly Demon, and that dream of yours—I acknowledge both. If this succeeds, I'll acknowledge your foresight and trust you accordingly."
It was still just cooperation for now. To become the master of the Hao Sect, I lacked both the skill and the achievements.
"So, who are you planning to dump this on, and how?"
The Hao Sect Leader asked. The first step of the plan was selecting a major sect.
Of course, there was one major sect that fit this perfectly.
A sect that must have been burning with anxiety, watching the Mount Hua Sect move aggressively to seize the position of Shaanxi's master. A sect that had recently lost public trust and was desperate to rack up achievements by any means necessary. Yet a sect whose urgency far outstripped its ability to mobilize manpower immediately, leaving it pacing in frustration.
And on top of that, a corrupt sect that until recently had been sucking the blood of the common people to fatten its own power, to the point where it had lost even its pride as an orthodox sect.
"We dump it on the Zhongnan Sect."
This wouldn't end with Jong Yuseop and Venerable Geumbok. For the sake of my future, the Zhongnan Sect was an entity that had to be thoroughly erased. Geographically, the Zhongnan Sect and the Crimson Ring Sect were quite close. If the Crimson Ring Sect grew, the Zhongnan Sect was bound to grow wary, and attracting the attention of a major sect was never a pleasant thing.
Through this affair, I would divert the Demonic Cult's attention to the Zhongnan Sect and leave behind the seeds to set them ablaze. And in doing so, I would secure the Hao Sect's freedom.
"What do you plan to do about the manual's contents?"
"I'll write it myself. Wasn't Cheonpung the man who awakened to the Bedroom Arts under Shaolin and then fled? If the manual he left behind at Mount Hua was real, the odds are high that its contents would relate to the Bedroom Arts. Fortunately, I too once received instruction in the Bedroom Arts from a monk of Shaolin origin."
"Isn't that a bit too flimsy to serve as the entire basis?"
"If the contents had nothing to do with the Bedroom Arts, then why wouldn't the Heavenly Demon have explained the manual's contents to his own subordinate who came all the way here? And if he didn't even tell him what sort of man Cheonpung was, then what in the world could possibly be written in that manual?"
The Hao Sect Leader's face stiffened at my words. He furrowed his brow and brooded for a moment, then shot me a look as if about to say something, before letting out a breath.
"...That does sound plausible."
Plausible? It was the truth.
Because the contents were about thrusting two fingers into the air while going ebebebe, right?