The Strongest Card
The life of a vagabond was one of endless drifting, like duckweed carried on the current—yet punching through two walled cities in a matter of hours was a novel experience even for Yi Chun-baek.
Crossing Anhui into Hubei, then fording the Yangtze to set foot in Hunan, Yi Chun-baek's verdict was...
"...Exhausting."
That was all. Given Yi Chun-baek's placid temperament, that much was probably the honest measure of it. His inner power, refined all the way to the Harmony Realm, was scraping bedrock—truth be told, it was a march that could only be described as madness.
"How much time can you shave off?"
"It's a matter of utmost urgency."
"So—how much?"
"Hmm... as fast as possible?"
"Haah..."
"I'm sorry, Brother Chun-baek."
"It's fine. It has to be done, if lives hang in the balance."
Had it not been the request of a dear younger brother, he would never have attempted it. Still, the haste had been worth the price. Pushed to its very limit, the secret movement art of his school had carried Yi Chun-baek's silhouette to the Sado League headquarters before he knew it.
He had arrived just barely before the sun vanished from the sky; one could reasonably say he had saved a full day. It was a transcendent feat of movement that even most Harmony Realm masters would not have dared to imitate.
Step.
His bearing gathered once more, Yi Chun-baek's footsteps carried him toward the guards at the headquarters' main gate.
Snap.
Moving with restrained precision, a guard raised his spear and barred Chun-baek's path.
"State your business, please."
They say one can know ten things from seeing one. The guard's conduct—courteous without servility, stern without insolence—spoke volumes about the Sado League's underlying strength.
"I have come to see the League Leader."
At Yi Chun-baek's placid answer, the guard's eyes swept over his figure.
"Do you have a prior arrangement?"
"No."
"One moment, please."
"Take your time."
The Sado League truly lived up to its name. Even a mere gatekeeper seemed to lack nothing in discernment. No doubt the man had seen through the fact that Yi Chun-baek was no ordinary master—his unfailing courtesy toward a stranger who had abruptly come demanding the League Leader was proof enough of that.
The guard returned from his brief absence.
"We will receive you."
"I may see him at once?"
"It will take about three days. As an honored guest cannot be neglected, I have orders to put one of the Sado League's finest lodgings at your disposal."
"Mm."
The League's hospitality left nothing to be desired, and yet it could not satisfy him. The reason lay in the gulf between Dancheon Myeong's cry of urgency and the three days on offer. Had the plan been to wait three days after coming all this way, he would never have pushed himself to the brink to arrive within half a day.
"Could it not be arranged any sooner?"
At Yi Chun-baek's polite request, the guard bowed his head.
"That is beyond my authority. I cannot make you any promises."
"...I see."
"My apologies."
"Think nothing of it. I'm grateful for the kindness."
Truthfully, if one stopped to weigh it, the guard was right. Considering the Sado League Leader's standing and dignity, three days to secure an audience with him was hardly a long wait. But a matter on which a friend's life hung could not be handled so loosely. Nor could he simply demand they shorten it—Yi Chun-baek was a man of principle, and he thought it wrong to trouble any further a guard who had been nothing but proper and kind.
"I will call again."
"Of course. The gates of the Sado League are always open."
Yi Chun-baek turned on his heel without a trace of regret.
There's no other way, then.
Yi Chun-baek decided to go over the Sado League's wall. It was the vagabond's way.
The movement arts of Ascension-realm masters are commonly described as ghostlike—appearing and vanishing beyond the eye's reach. To ordinary eyes, every master's movement art would look like sorcery, but viewed through the eyes of masters who had themselves entered the Ascension realm, the story changes somewhat.
There are arts that wield the subtleties of weight, like the Namgung Clan's; arts devoted to the subtleties of lightness, like the Dancheon Clan's; arts faithful to the subtleties of speed, like the Beggars' Gang's; and arts grounded in the subtleties of change, like Kunlun's. But among them all, if one had to name the truly ghostlike kind, it would be the arts that wield the subtlety of concealment to its fullest. Take, for instance, the movement art of the Mystic Sect that Yi Chun-baek had mastered.
Sliip.
Yi Chun-baek descended onto the roof of the Sado League's grandest hall like a phantom. Between a movement art so soundless it might rightly be called an art of stealth and the night clothes that melted him into the dark, not a soul noticed his presence.
He widened his senses and picked his way across the rooftop, yet there was no sound, no stir of presence to be felt. As if in answer, the roof of the aged hall kept its silence as well. For all the weight of his body, the burden pressing on the tiles was no greater than a small bird alighting—only natural, when an Ascension-realm master, a man for whom treading snow without a trace was no great feat, gave it everything he had.
This should be far enough.
In truth, there was a calculation behind Yi Chun-baek's audacious march: he knew that when calamity had struck the Dancheon Clan, the Sado League Leader had appeared at the scene in person.
"A martial artist with a bright future ahead of him."
"Thank you."
He had even exchanged a few words with the man. The gap in their years made "friends" too strong a word, but Yi Chun-baek knew that the Sado League Leader, too, had forged a deep bond with Dancheon Myeong.
The footfalls of a giant like the Sado League Leader shake the world. It meant that even a man like Yi Chun-baek, who took little interest in worldly affairs, had heard the rumors and come to know his face.
By all accounts, the Sado League Leader—the Overlord Martial Emperor, Wiji Han—was a martial artist who understood honor and good faith. And so Yi Chun-baek chose to believe the man would forgive a measure of rudeness. Set aside even that belief, and there was simply no way on earth to meet the supreme sovereign of the unorthodox path at a moment's notice.
In any case... he had come this far unscathed. Success was within arm's reach. Yi Chun-baek resolved to release a wisp of aura so faint that even he himself could scarcely feel it. Faint though it was, he trusted that the Sado League Leader—a man who looked down upon the world from the supreme height of the Profound Realm—would be able to catch it. It was a far better method than blindly combing the vast Sado League citadel.
He was just about to let the aura loose when—
"I thought a stray bird had flown in. Turns out it was a rat."
The voice came from Yi Chun-baek's blind side. Someone had pierced through his concealment before he could even loose a flicker of aura.
Turning his head to confirm the speaker, Yi Chun-baek could do nothing but concede.
"I greet the Sado League Leader."
Even Yi Chun-baek's movement art—more than deserving of the word "ghostlike"—had failed to slip past the senses of an absolute master. The Overlord Martial Emperor, Wiji Han. Truly the presence of a peerless master who looked down upon all under heaven.
"Hm? You're..."
Wiji Han, too, seemed to recognize Yi Chun-baek, his voice trailing off.
"League Leader, I've overstepped with a request to make."
A smile settled onto Yi Chun-baek's face. Things were turning out easier than expected.
"Listen here, little brother Myeong."
"Speak, Brother Gang Pae."
When Gang Pae called on me in such a grave voice, I couldn't help but tense. My conduct, as it had come to light in the course of searching for Yeo Wol's whereabouts, contained points that strained believability—and I feared Gang Pae might point at exactly those.
"Could you spare me a little time?"
"Time, you say?"
"That's right."
"How much time?"
"By my reckoning, four hours should do it."
Four hours. A truly delicate span. With Yeo Wol held captive at this very moment, it could be an eternity; weighed against the time Gang Pae's joining had already saved us, it was not so very much.
"...Might I ask why?"
I admit I pressed him, near to challenging him. Honestly, the biggest reason was that I could not understand Gang Pae asking for time in a situation like this. I could not shake the suspicion that somewhere in his motives lay doubt of me.
"Ah—seems I've given you the wrong idea."
Perhaps because he read the look on my face, Brother Gang Pae met my eyes squarely.
"Listen here, little brother Myeong."
"Speak, Brother Gang Pae."
"I took you as my little brother."
"You did."
"A sworn elder brother does not doubt his junior. If ever a junior drove a knife into his elder brother's back, it would be because the brother's virtue fell short—not because the junior was base. That is what it means to call oneself a sworn brother."
Judging from his words, he had clearly noticed the inconsistencies in my conduct. But he showed no intention of pressing the matter, nor of holding it against me. There was only one thing that puzzled me.
"Wasn't that just settled by our ages?"
"It wasn't."
"Then what was it?"
"It was because I truly wanted us to be brothers—you, who bared your arms and threw yourself into it for my Ma Sok's sake."
"..."
Honestly, I could not fully grasp his way of thinking. Perhaps my understanding of the walpae's code of loyalty was simply too shallow.
"I asked for time because there's something I need to prepare. I trust you. Trust has no need of time—that's all there is to it. So open your heart a little, and trust me too."
But I could tell there wasn't a shred of guile in Gang Pae's heart as he said it.
"...Very well."
"Hahaha! Much obliged."
The moment my consent fell, Brother Gang Pae broke into a hearty laugh.
"Still—might I know the reason? Not that I doubt you. It's for the sake of preparation."
"So I can gather my true strength."
Honestly speaking, Gang Pae was not a handsome man. But neither could one deny that this very Gang Pae cut a finer figure than anyone in the gangho.
"Strength?"
"That's right. My strength."
That booming, hearty smile could not have looked more magnificent.
A lecture on Haomun I had once heard in my Myeong-gae days came back to me. Know your enemy and know yourself, and you will never be imperiled in a hundred battles—or so the old saying goes. For the Beggars' Gang, intelligence on Haomun was required study; it was a lecture everyone who entered the gang had to sit through.
"As you all know, the Five roots of Haomun are the courtesans, the walpae, the loan sharks, the gamblers, and the fortune tellers. Today we'll be learning about them."
The lecturer had been a doddering old beggar far senior even to Chwipung-gae—and as I recall, a remarkably eloquent man.
"The courtesans boast peerless skill at gathering intelligence from the upper crust. That is the greatest point of difference between Haomun and our Beggars' Gang."
"Mm."
"The fortune tellers are like us beggars, yet not. They collect rumors. But their real distinction lies in compiling those rumors into something called a 'reading of the times.' Rumors come free; a reading of the times commands a steep price. You lot would do well to remember that."
As the old beggar said, one ought to learn whatever can be learned—acknowledging an adversary's strengths is the first step to surpassing them.
"The gamblers are the ones who devoted themselves to technique over intelligence. The arts of deception and the con, you'd call them. They had no small hand in Haomun surviving among the lowlifes entrenched in every corner of the unorthodox world."
"Whew..."
Men who had sublimated even trickery and swindling into arts of survival—respect was due them.
"The loan sharks, now, they had money. Their gold is what hammered out the ground Haomun stands on today."
"Money really does make the world go round..."
Having unspooled his long lecture, the doddering old beggar swept his gaze over us.
"So then. What would you say is the true strength of the walpae?"
One of my fellow beggars thrust his hand up, brimming with confidence.
"Walpae means fists. It's brute force, isn't it?"
His words rang so true that my head was just beginning to nod when—
"Wrong."
The doddering old beggar struck the answer down.
"Huh?"
At the unexpected verdict, the eyes of every beggar in the lecture converged on the old man's mouth.
The old beggar smiled, sure of himself, and opened his mouth.
"The true strength of the walpae is..."
"So this is Brother Gang Pae's true strength?"
"It is."
As Brother Gang Pae answered me, one of his men came sprinting up.
"Boss, the boys are all assembled."
"How many did we get?"
"A bit short. Should come to a little over five thousand."
"Good work."
Bathed in Gang Pae's praise, the walpae underling broke into a bright smile that sat strangely on his brutal face.
The four hours Brother Gang Pae had asked for had now passed. In that time, walpae numbering five thousand had converged from across Anhui.
"Call the brothers for help."
It was a miracle worked by a single sentence from Gang Pae.
"...Astonishing."
They said a hundred thousand beggars walked the gangho. Then how many walpae must there be? By common estimate, more than the beggars themselves—for a man trained in the martial arts, the walpae's road was an easier one to take than the beggar's.
Of course, counting every walpae as a single faction would be a mistaken judgment. They formed no collective like the Beggars' Gang, nor were they strung together in master-disciple lines like the many sects. And that was precisely why the Beggars' Gang rightly held the title of the gangho's greatest faction.
And yet, in certain circumstances, Gang Pae could borrow the strength of every walpae under heaven.
Loyalty.
That was the root spirit of the walpae. Just as every beggar was a brother, every walpae was a comrade.
Right. The walpae's greatest strength lay in their standing as a force—or to put it plainly, in sheer numbers.
"Let's move."
"Yes, Boss!"
Behind Gang Pae's stride, an army of five thousand walpae fell in. Facing the crisis of Yeo Wol—the woman he adored—Gang Pae had drawn the strongest card in his hand.