The Sect Leader's Intuition
"Hmm."
Singija, sunk deep in deliberation, scratched his chin with a grave expression. The cause was information he had received only moments before—news too difficult to believe.
"We have discovered the Hwanragwon."
"What?"
The Hwanragwon—the Garden of Delight. A hidden valley where spiritual herbs grew in dense clusters, its value beyond price in gold and in strategy alike.
All the more so from where Singija stood, foreseeing the rise of the Heavenly Demon Cult and keeping watch over the affairs of the Central Plains murim and the lands beyond. Nothing raised the strength of the Alliance's members in a short span of time like spiritual elixirs did.
And in truth, considering that such herbs could not be bought in any quantity with any amount of money, it would be more correct to call their value beyond measuring altogether.
Rumors that the Hwanragwon had been found, that someone knew its location—such tales rang out five or six times in a single year. Yet across the long history of the Central Plains murim, the valley had actually been discovered only twice. That, one might say, was simply the nature of the Central Plains murim itself.
Singija knew this better than anyone. And yet, after positing every possible scenario and agonizing to the very end, the conclusion he finally reached was...
"...It's true."
Had some callow nobody so much as mentioned the Hwanragwon, he would have snapped at them to stop spouting nonsense and thrown them out. Here, he could do no such thing. The one who had spoken the information was Myeong, second son of the Dancheon Clan, and the one who relayed it was a Special Operations agent Singija had personally trained.
"...The Hwanragwon?"
"Yes."
"Is it true?"
"It is. We found no sign of deception."
If a Special Operations agent could find no sign of a lie, then even Singija himself would not have found one—for he trusted the abilities of the agents he had raised with every ounce of his own considerable skill. Which meant, at the very least, that there was no lie in Dancheon Myeong's words.
Myeong, second son of the Dancheon Clan. A man one could only call an enigma. Singija had invested considerable effort gathering extensive information on his birth and upbringing, and there was a strange discrepancy in it that did not match the man he was now.
It came down to one of two possibilities. Either a man so meticulous in scheme and execution that he could hide even his own past—or one born with a heaven-sent fortune that let him clear every obstacle with ease.
Inwardly, Singija concluded it was the latter. A cunning and drive thorough enough to fabricate one's own upbringing belonged to a realm impossible even for himself—a man who had lived, by his own admission and everyone else's, as a genius all his life.
The jianghu was a world where rare fortunes ran rampant, which was perhaps why Dancheon Myeong's heaven-sent luck felt special—and yet, at the same time, not so very special at all.
At the same time, there was a reason Singija chose not to dig into his lingering questions about the man. Because he was certain of one thing: Dancheon Myeong gazed toward the same place Singija himself did.
"The Great War of Righteousness and Evil must never come to pass."
In every trace of Dancheon Myeong as he spoke those words, Singija had seen sincerity. Partly, too, because the man had been acknowledged by Alliance Leader Yeom Gi-ha—whose eye for reading people, unlike his famously boisterous temperament, was stricter and more exact than anyone's.
"The Yakseon Heart Decision."
Part of why Singija judged Dancheon Myeong a man of heaven-sent fortune was that he had learned the Yakseon Heart Decision and attained mastery of it. By Singija's assessment, the Yakseon Heart Decision was, quite literally, a martial art whose attainments could not continue unless heaven's fortune followed.
He did not know its exact workings, but Yakseon had said he possessed the ability to discover peerless spiritual herbs for himself. According to Yakseon, he had been born with spiritual eyes that could perceive spiritual essence.
"Alliance Leader, what is spiritual essence?"
"Fame?"
"No. Spiritual essence."
"What's that?"
"Did you not read the Yakseon Heart Decision yourself, Alliance Leader?"
"I did."
"Then why don't you know it?"
"I only read the parts concerning the martial art."
"Tsk."
"Gija, did you just click your tongue at me?"
"I did not."
"Sounded like a tsk to me."
"Good grief."
In any event, if even Yeom Gi-ha the Sovereign of Destruction did not know it, then it was plainly no matter of martial arts.
"What is this spiritual essence? If a man knew it, could he find spiritual herbs?"
"Pah! Quit that wicked talk and be gone with you!"
Even the miracle-working shamans could give him no answer. They merely chased him out, telling him not to stir up a commotion.
The faces and conduct of those who had bowed low, cooing "the Chief Strategist of the Murim Alliance, gracing us with his presence!" changed in a heartbeat—so there had been no pressing them further.
And so Singija, hailed as the finest strategist in the jianghu, did not know what spiritual essence was.
But it was not that Singija knew nothing at all. He knew that Dancheon Myeong was the successor of Yakseon.
'Does the successor of Yakseon possess the same gift as Yakseon himself for discovering spiritual herbs?'
Looking back on it now, he could only answer yes to that proposition. Hadn't that very successor gone and discovered the Hwanragwon itself? Perhaps it had been easier to affirm because Singija had long known, through the reports of his Special Operations agents, that Dancheon Myeong had been living the life of a wandering herb-gatherer alongside Yi Chun-baek.
Seen only up to this point, there was no problem. If anything, it ought to be called a great blessing for the Murim Alliance. The one who had found the Hwanragwon was a descendant of a proper great clan, and one of the first places he had sent word to was the Murim Alliance.
The greatest problem was...
"Why now, of all times."
The problem was that Singija could not leave his post at present. And yet he could not delay, either—a matter as great as the Hwanragwon was not something to sit on.
The conclusion was...
"There is no one but that man."
That man. The reality that no one but the Sovereign of Destruction Yeom Gi-ha could be trusted with this affair—that was the greatest problem standing before him.
"Hmm."
Singija knew well that not all the world's affairs could be solved by stratagem. However long he racked his brains, there was no alternative to Yeom Gi-ha the Sovereign of Destruction.
"Good grief."
Even as he walked in search of Alliance Leader Yeom Gi-ha, Singija's deliberations did not cease.
"The Shanxi Branch Chief."
Paeng Ga-heon, the Reckless Blade. Dancheon Myeong had requested the man along with additional martial forces from Shanxi. Truly an apt request, and an apt choice of man. The Reckless Blade was a warrior free of selfish ambition, fair and upright—he would raise no trouble.
There was, however, one problem.
"Alliance Leader, let's have a proper spar—it's been ages!"
"Come, then. Paeng, you rascal—have you been training hard?"
"Is that even a question!"
The problem was that Paeng Ga-heon the Reckless Blade was every bit as much a fool for martial arts as Yeom Gi-ha himself. Singija knew the man was shrewd enough to have earned the nickname Fox Bear, but his true nature was unmistakably that of a martial arts fool—befitting a trueborn son of the Paeng Clan.
"...Was the Alliance always this barren of talent?"
With that lament as his last, Singija's steps arrived before the Alliance Leader's hall.
"Alliance Leader, there you are."
"Gija, what is it?"
"There is a task that falls to you, Alliance Leader."
"Nuh-uh."
"..."
Sending Yeom Gi-ha the Sovereign of Destruction off on a matter of such grave import filled him with a creeping sense of foreboding, but he resolved to ignore it. This, too, was a surrender only a wise strategist could make.
The Sect Leader of the Beggars' Gang. Chief of a hundred thousand beggars—Dragon Head Sect Leader Musan-gae. In all my lives, this was the first time I had ever met the man.
In truth, that was only natural. What reason would Myeong-gae, a mere three-knot beggar, ever have had to stand before the Sect Leader? In any case, his visit was truly unexpected—what I had requested through Wonpyeong-gae was Chwipung-gae and the Medicine Hall Master.
"Hmm."
The first words Musan-gae spoke upon laying eyes on me were...
"So it's you?"
That was it. A bluntness of speech befitting a beggar chief second to none.
"Dancheon Myeong, humble student of the jianghu, greets the Sect Leader."
At my greeting Musan-gae gave a small nod, and his gaze combed over me from head to toe. The discerning eyes of an old beggar picked me apart, and I did not find it unpleasant. Perhaps that, too, was owing to Musan-gae's long years of experience.
"Handsome as a gisaeng's brother, aren't you."
"My thanks."
I, who had once been Myeong-gae, knew: "gisaeng's brother" was the choicest praise we beggars reached for when complimenting another man's looks. He must have taken a liking to me.
As though trading mere pleasantries, Musan-gae pressed on.
"You. Did you find the Hwanragwon?"
"...!"
Words carrying enough force to set the entire room astir. Only now did I grasp why the Sect Leader of the Beggars' Gang had made so long a journey.
Rather than answer, I took a moment to order my thoughts—for I remembered with perfect clarity that I had disclosed the Hwanragwon's existence to the Special Operations Unit alone. And my memory held true: the three beggars standing in silence beside the Sect Leader—Wonpyeong-gae, Chwipung-gae, and the Medicine Hall Master—were staring at their own leader as if he were spouting nonsense. They had no reason to put on an act, so it was safe to conclude the news was as fresh to them as it was shocking.
Paying the three beggars' stares no mind whatsoever, Musan-gae went on.
"So my guess was right."
Conviction rang in the Sect Leader's voice as he said it with a flash of a grin.
"I never said any such thing."
"And does that make me wrong?"
Musan-gae smirked. This old man was no easy mark. The fortunate thing was that he was an ally who could be trusted through and through. Of course, as I said, this was my first time laying eyes on the Sect Leader—but I knew that Chwipung-gae trusted Musan-gae more than anyone alive. That was enough.
"Might I hear the reasoning behind that guess?"
I asked Musan-gae. I wished to confirm whether some lapse of my own had slipped in somewhere along the way.
"Ahem. Then listen closely."
Taking it, it seemed, as a declaration of defeat, Musan-gae swelled with self-importance and continued.
"First—you told that rascal Chwipung-gae you would fetch the ingredients for the Chwigu-hwan."
"True. I need the Chwigu-hwan."
Musan-gae's second finger unfolded.
"Second—you have been going about of late playing the wandering herb-gatherer."
With no apparent intention of concealing that he had had me watched, Musan-gae declared it brazenly. It was Wonpyeong-gae, if anything, who winced.
"There was no other way to obtain the ingredients I lacked."
In truth, I had noticed Wonpyeong-gae's presence and let it pass, so there was no grievance to be had.
"Third—the moment you returned from Mount Heng, you went straight to Chwipung-gae and the Medicine Hall Master."
"Also true."
So I answered, and waited for Musan-gae's next word. But he only gave a snort through his nose and said nothing more, as if to ask, "Well? What of it?"
"...That's all?"
"What more could you possibly need?"
"Where in that reasoning is there any sign of the Hwanragwon?"
"Ahem. That, precisely, is the Sect Leader's intuition."
I swallowed the thought that the man might be mad—I could hardly commit the sin of defying one's master and elders.
"...I see."
Beggars and their affairs, as the old saying goes, were never meant to be understood—only accepted.
"Now it is your turn."
"My turn for what?"
"How you came to find the Hwanragwon."
"I found it by chance."
There was no sense denying the valley's existence at this point—it was information I would have to disclose sooner or later regardless.
Evidently unsatisfied with my answer, Musan-gae narrowed his eyes and studied me.
"Doesn't look like chance to me. Speak—and spare no detail."
"Hmm."
A capable information broker is, by nature, a practiced liar—which is to say, I too was a man of no small accomplishment in the art of the lie. And yet, before Musan-gae, I could not easily tell one. There was something uncanny in the air, a feeling that my every falsehood would be read through to the last letter.
Fortunately, a savior appeared at precisely that moment.
"Who dares torment my successor!"
The savior in question was the Sovereign of Destruction Yeom Gi-ha, bursting in from nowhere. Yeom Gi-ha, who deferred to neither rank nor office—his entrance was best described as an advent from on high.
But...
"Troublemaker. So it's you this time?"
Musan-gae clicked his tongue and took Yeom Gi-ha to task before his very face. The Demonic Cult's leader, Paeryeok Muje, called him a good-for-nothing, and the Beggars' Gang's Sect Leader Musan-gae called him Troublemaker. At this rate, one might need to reassess just where the Murim Alliance Leader truly stood.
The moment the barging Yeom Gi-ha spotted Musan-gae, I saw his once-imposing shoulders shrink back a fraction.
"What are you doing here, old man?"
"What do you mean, why?"
"Shouldn't an old man be back in Kaifeng, idly scratching his belly?"
"You little rascal—are you telling an old man to go climb into his coffin? A troublemaker from the cradle, and not a whit changed now that you're grown."
Yeom Gi-ha looked a touch cowed by Musan-gae's bark, but he did not yield and pressed on.
"Come now, Sect Leader. I'm already past sixty. What do you mean, troublemaker?"
But Yeom Gi-ha's resistance bore no fruit.
"Giha, do you truly wish for this old mouth of mine to flutter loose as a sheet of practice paper? Why, back in the day, you..."
"Spare me!"
At the Sect Leader's words, the Sovereign of Destruction Yeom Gi-ha himself dropped to his knees.
It was the moment I confirmed that the man seated just beneath Singija, the #1 Intellect Under Heaven, was not the Sovereign of Destruction Yeom Gi-ha—it was Musan-gae.