The Last Pill

"Chwipung-gae."

Sect Leader Musan-gae called his name in a tone so tender it sat strangely against that gravel-rasp voice of his.

"Hm."

A bad feeling stirred in Chwipung-gae. He had caught hold of a sense bordering on certainty — something information brokers, sensitive as they were to probability, almost never permitted themselves. It was an intuition one could call precognition without overstating it.

"Don't call me like that."

That was the reason — the reason Chwipung-gae had so coldly shaken off the Sect Leader's tender voice.

"This punk?"

At Chwipung-gae's flat refusal, Musan-gae's wrinkled eyes narrowed into sharp triangles.

"I'm calling Chwipung-gae 'Chwipung-gae.' What else would you have me call you?"

"Just don't call me at all."

"Aww, c'mon."

"Don't. Call. Me."

"What, is your name 'C'mon' now? You beggar of a bastard."

"A beggar is exactly what I am."

"Tsk."

Chwipung-gae's obduracy wrung a click of the tongue from Sect Leader Musan-gae.

But there is a fact worth knowing here: no dull-witted mediocrity who crumpled the moment Chwipung-gae threw his weight around had the makings to ascend to the seat of Sect Leader of the Beggars' Gang. For the record, the current Sect Leader, Musan-gae, was a man whose caliber fell nothing short of that vessel.

"Chwipung-gae."

In a voice honeyed all the more, Musan-gae called for him again. One would have to call it a face of iron, forged through a lifetime of begging — the very picture of a true and consummate beggar chief.

"Haah..."

Chwipung-gae knew. Knew that even if he threw his weight around once more, the very same scene would simply play out again — and it was right to judge that he had, in practical terms, no way to bend Musan-gae.

"...What is it you want? Drop the creepy voice and just state your business."

And so Chwipung-gae had no choice but to capitulate. Save for his long stand of refusing to tie on the seventh knot, he had not a single memory of ever besting Sect Leader Musan-gae — his resignation came swiftly. The reality was that the times this man had drained his time and strength in precisely this fashion were beyond counting on ten fingers.

"Well, it's — the Chwigu-hwan. Do you truly need it?"

At the question, delivered in a voice as demure as a maiden of a respectable house, Chwipung-gae's face crumpled in an instant. Partly because the Sect Leader's cooing tone sat ill with him — and partly because the matter itself was grave. It seemed the ancient sages' dictum, that a bad premonition never misses, had held true yet again today.

"What's the problem? Speak plainly, hold nothing back."

Yet for all his bravado, worry had settled into Chwipung-gae's voice. When Musan-gae called him "Chwipung-gae" instead of "you punk" or "you bastard," it usually meant trouble. No — it would be more accurate to say it always meant something was wrong. What Chwipung-gae had felt was less an intuition than a deduction built from accumulated information.

"No, what I mean is — this Chwigu-hwan. Do you need it absolutely, positively, no matter what, come what may?"

An old beggar's words trailing longer and longer was, in its own way, another sure sign of trouble.

"I need it. Give it to me."

Deliberately ignoring that, Chwipung-gae answered as though laying down the law.

"Tsk. Stubborn bastard."

At this hardline stance, Musan-gae clicked his tongue a second time.

In truth, becoming an elder granted no right to demand the Chwigu-hwan. In the Beggars' ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Gang — a gang that boasted a hundred thousand beggars — the seven-knot elders alone numbered more than ten, and in certain seasons the count climbed to twenty. If every one of them held the right to demand the gang's secret treasure, then not a single Chwigu-hwan could remain in its keeping.

The Chwigu-hwan had never existed in quantity to begin with. That, one would have to call the fate of the Five Great Murim Pills. If they could be stamped out by the dozen or the score at will, how could they ever have become treasures? They were treasures precisely because they were hard to find, and hard to make.

But Chwipung-gae had the standing to demand one.

Such was the pact between Musan-gae and Chwipung-gae, who had then been the Master of the Five Formulas. It was an old matter, more than ten years gone — but a beggar's promise does not weather with time, and it remained as binding as the day it was sworn.

In truth, the reason his steps had been so light when Dancheon Myeong asked him to obtain the Chwigu-hwan was that he had trusted in that pact. A precious promise aged more than ten years — and yet spending it for his benefactor Dancheon Myeong felt like no loss at all. Chwipung-gae no longer had any wishes left of his own. That was why.

"Ugh."

Musan-gae scratched at his lice-teeming head and groaned as if in physical pain.

"You're not going to give it?"

Musan-gae strove to turn away from the sidelong glare Chwipung-gae leveled at him — and found that he could not. A promise, after all, rests upon good faith. Unlike a contract notarized on paper, there was no guarantee to lean on but one's trust in the other man. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠But the good faith of Dragon Head Sect Leader Musan-gae was such that his promise could carry more force than any contract.

And so a question rose in Chwipung-gae's mind — because Musan-gae, more transcendent of material greed than even himself, had no reason to hoard the Chwigu-hwan at the cost of breaking his word.

No... it couldn't be.

A single hypothesis surfaced in his head, and he wiped it away. Because it was a thing that must never be.

"Of course I'll give it. It's only right that I give it."

Musan-gae stole a glance to read Chwipung-gae's face, heaved a long, deep sigh, and forced the words out at last.

"There's only one Chwigu-hwan left."

It was word that one of the Five Great Murim Pills — the secret treasure of the Beggars' Gang — had all but run dry.

"...Have you lost your mind?"

They say it is always the unthinkable that trips you up — and the impossible had come to pass. Had the old beggar before him not been the Sect Leader, Chwipung-gae would have seized him by the collar and shaken him where he stood.

Sects of middling standing and above usually possessed what was called a sacred treasure.

And for the most part, these were things of a value too great to be reckoned in coin. In truth, a sacred treasure need only serve as a focal point symbolizing its sect's authority — but the prevailing belief held that a treasure insufficiently rare and precious diminished the sect's authority itself.

A gathering of beggars. Even the Beggars' Gang, utterly beyond worldly greed, possessed sacred treasures — and exceedingly rare ones at that, not the least bit outshone by those of the Nine Great Sects who ran at the head of the murim. They were kept for authority's sake, but for practical gain as well.

Among the many sects of the Jianghu, the Beggars' Gang was a collective that prized its sacred treasures above most. The reason, presumably, was that its numbers were simply too vast: for binding a hundred thousand beggars into one, nothing served as a symbol like a sacred treasure. Unlike ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the other great sects, whose memberships were mere thousands, the Beggars' Gang counted a hundred thousand — an organization of commonsense-defying scale, one that needed a clear focal point beyond its Sect Leader.

As far as the Jianghu knew, the Beggars' Gang possessed as many as three sacred treasures.

The first was the Jianghu Register of a Thousand Names — a masterpiece that might well be called the distillation of the gang's information power. Updated every year, the register held the vast stores of intelligence the gang had gathered, and every beggar of the third knot or higher was free to open its pages. One might call it the sacred treasure that truly embodied the gang's spirit.

The second was the Thunderbolt Dog-Beating ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Staff. Carved from a tree struck by lightning three times over, it was a rare treasure whose hardness was said to surpass iron — the sacred relic that symbolized the Sect Leader's authority. The Dog-Beating Staff Art was a supreme consummate technique in its own right, but it was said to reveal its true majesty only when wielded through the Thunderbolt Dog-Beating Staff.

And the third was none other than the Chwigu-hwan — the Intoxicated Dog Pill — holder of a seat among the Five Great Murim Pills.

What is the Chwigu-hwan? A peerless elixir wrought by the art of alchemy — one of the rare few treasures whose efficacy was said to rival Shaolin's Great Returning Pill. And yet, ponder it, and something odd emerges: how did the Beggars' Gang come to possess the Chwigu-hwan at all?

It was said that all martial arts under heaven flow from Shaolin. So venerable was its history, so towering its power, that the roots of every martial art were traced back to it — even now, to speak of the Central Plains' foremost sect was to speak of Shaolin. That such a place should hold a peerless elixir like the Great Returning Pill was only natural.

Wudang, home of the Supreme Clarity Pill; Mount Hua, home of the Purple Cloud Divine Pill; Kunlun, home of the Blue Pine Divine Pill — all traced their origins to the Taoists. To men who had honed themselves in pursuit of transcendence, of shedding the mortal shell to ascend as immortals. Though the Nine Great Sects of today had been tinged with worldliness to a degree, most of them still took the Dao for their root.

In truth, the Taoists were the wellspring of alchemy itself — the art of refining nature's elixirs into things fit for mortal hands — so it was no wonder that their alchemy had produced the Five Great Murim Pills, elixirs such as the world had rarely seen. Besides, Wudang, Mount Hua, and Kunlun were all venerable, illustrious houses that had held their seats among the Nine Great Sects since time out of mind.

But the Chwigu-hwan was strange. How could beggars of the dust and mire have produced a peerless elixir worthy of a seat among the Five Great Murim Pills? The gang's renown rested on its colossal scale and on the reverence for righteousness and chivalry engraved deep in its members' spirit — and was it not common knowledge that the Beggars' Gang stood at the very antipode of wealth?

Alchemy devours money. This was a gang that had raised even its grand headquarters and halls not with coin but with the voluntary labor of its own beggars — the notion that such men had sunk vast capital into producing an elixir like the Chwigu-hwan defied common sense outright.

The truth lay in the gang's own history. The tale dated from roughly the era when Wudang's Sambong Jinin still roamed the world in the flesh — an old story one could rightly call ancient. In those days, it was said, there lived a beggar who carried the banner of righteousness and chivalry, spreading righteous deeds across the world.

That beggar, who left not even a name behind, became the founding patriarch of the Beggars' Gang, and was in later days elevated to the sect title of Yongdu-gae — the Dragon Head Beggar. Yes, the very "Dragon Head" borne by the Dragon Head Sect Leader. One account held that among those who owed their lives to the chivalrous Dragon Head Beggar was the Medicine Immortal of that age, said to be a descendant of Hua Tuo.

"Take this, and add it to your righteousness."

What the Medicine Immortal handed over was an improved form of the Sosaengdan — the resurrection pill known as Hua Tuo's secret legacy. That secret formula had been handed down through the long ages to become the Beggars' Gang's Chwigu-hwan.

As with all oral tradition, none could say how much of it was true. But the truly important fact was this: the Chwigu-hwan was a peerless elixir whose efficacy had been proven beyond doubt — and the only sacred treasure that had shared the whole length of the gang's history at its side.

The Chwigu-hwan: the single treasure prized by a gang that spurned wealth. Within it were held the Beggars' Gang's history, and its righteousness.

"The Chwigu-hwan is gone?"

Chwipung-gae's shock, then, was inevitable. A sect that loses its sacred treasure is a sect in decline. It was a kind of superstition — but not a groundless one. For what hope of permanence has a collective that could not even preserve the thing most precious to it?

"One pill is left, you punk."

"Why?"

"Short with your words, are you?"

"Do I look like I have time for long ones?"

"Ugh."

Musan-gae thumped his own chest as though the words were stuck in it, and Chwipung-gae pressed him.

"Say something, will you?"

Musan-gae shot him a sidelong look and answered.

"The ingredients are gone."

"Then gather more. Gather them and brew more Chwigu-hwan — and quickly."

Chwipung-gae's thinking, that the gang's secret treasure must be refilled with Chwigu-hwan at once, was a sound one.

"What are the Chwigu-hwan's ingredients?"

At Musan-gae's question, Chwipung-gae pondered. The answer came easily.

"Rare spirit herbs?"

Even a man who had never been Master of the Medicine Hall ought to be capable of deducing at least that much.

"Right. So you weren't a dim-witted beggar after all."

Chwipung-gae, catching his meaning, screwed up his face. What good was a secret alchemical art? Without the ingredients, nothing can be made.

"How short are we?"

"A lot."

"How much is a lot?"

"A very great deal."

"..."

Unable to bring himself to beat the Sect Leader black and blue, Chwipung-gae resolved to change the question.

"Then how long would it take to gather them?"

"Ten years?"

And then, his face gone distant, Musan-gae added:

"No — it might take a hundred."

"...Damn it all."

The situation was anything but good.

He could not hand the last remaining Chwigu-hwan to Dancheon Myeong. Better by far that he himself become the man without good faith. And yet he could hardly ask the boy to wait ten years — or a hundred — could he?

A beggar who had lived his whole life with righteousness and chivalry held to his breast — Chwipung-gae.

For the first time in his sixty-odd years, he stood on the brink of betraying his good faith.