The True Hangzhou Ghost
A man dressed as a scholar.
That is, Yuk So-wan — the scheming bagman for the one drawing ever closer to becoming the true Hangzhou Ghost.
His footsteps struck the boards.
Arriving at the agreed-upon inn, he offered a respectful bow to the man waiting for him.
"My lord."
Across from him sat an utterly ordinary middle-aged man, a cup of wine at his lips — the kind of face you would never pick out from the tables on every side. He wore a plain, undyed robe and looked no different from any other nameless patron in the room.
It was Master Goechok.
He swallowed the wine he had been holding, then spoke at a measured pace.
"…Jang Po, was it?"
"Yes, my lord!"
"His origins?"
"I was told that a few months ago some black-path thug in Hangzhou lured him in with food. As I recall, it was the Honcheon Sect—"
Yuk So-wan cut himself short.
Master Goechok, who had been listening, raised a hand lightly and stopped him.
Unlike Yuk So-wan, who kept glancing around the crowded inn for eavesdroppers, Goechok asked his questions without the slightest caution.
"I am asking which martial school he comes from."
"Ah—that is what you meant. As far as I know, he has none."
"Will his blood prove unclean, I wonder."
"Pardon?"
"More to the point, a good sword makes for a heavy hilt. I wonder whether he can keep swinging it until the auction."
Goechok offered no answer to Yuk So-wan's question and simply continued. Yuk So-wan turned the words over in his mind, then brightened and spoke.
"No need to worry on that account, my lord! The man is a fool. Even now he hangs on my every word."
"A fool, is he."
"But his strength is the real thing. There is no one better suited to become Hangzhou's only Ghost. So please do not concern yourself. By the day you named, I can seize every last one of the other gangs' operations."
"I hear," Goechok said, taking another sip of wine, "that the second son of the Seoho Gwak Family has also begun to covet the name Hangzhou Ghost. Will that not bring you into collision?"
"Ah."
Yuk So-wan thought of that halfwit who had once claimed the name Hangzhou Ghost for no profit at all — a breed that had almost vanished now.
"You mean Gwak Yeon."
A smile rose to his face.
"I give you my word. If that man and Jang Po ever meet in some back alley, the one who walks away on two good legs and goes for a drink will be Jang Po."
"Is that so."
"Still—"
Yuk So-wan glanced carefully at the other man's face.
Goechok studied him, then let out a dry laugh as he predicted the rest.
"You mean to ask whether you can still swagger about Hangzhou after you break Gwak Yeon — and whether this man called Goechok sitting before you has even that much power. Is that it?"
"H-I know you have power, my lord! Only, we—"
"I have never abandoned my own people."
"Thank you!"
Yuk So-wan bowed so deeply the wine jar on the table trembled. When he lifted his head, fierce longing burned in his eyes.
"To follow even at your heels is the goal of the life I have left!"
"But I do not take just anyone as my own. A stupid pair of hands and feet only makes the head ache."
"Th-that—"
"Before Hangzhou's underground auction, make that Jang Po the only Ghost in this city."
"You may trust me with that!"
"This will be of use to you."
Master Goechok drew a small pouch from his sash and held it out.
Yuk So-wan received it with a look of awed gratitude. Desire still unhidden in his eyes, both hands carefully closed around the pouch Goechok had given him—
"Hwah!"
In the next instant he flung it down onto the table as if it had burned him.
Through the cloth he had felt something squirming — a foul, crawling sensation. Watching that flustered display, Goechok's mouth twisted into a grotesque smile.
"Sseuhit. These are called Eumyang-go."
"E-Eumyang-go?!"
Even a scholar knew of them.
A kind of gu poison infamous for its insidious nature. And of all such parasites, these were the ones said to turn whoever swallowed them into a slave.
"The larger one is the Yang Gu, the smaller the Yin Gu. Whoever eats the Yin Gu can command the one who has eaten the Yang Gu. Take it yourself and you will know the sensation at once."
"I will remember."
"Is it not delightfully amusing? Yin energy driving Yang — just like the principle by which the murim itself moves! Sseuhihihihit."
"Ha… ha… ha-ha."
Startled by the sudden, eerie laughter right in front of him, Yuk So-wan forced himself to laugh along.
But he knew.
Master Goechok.
This man mixed with the murim's mysterious powers — forces that did not fear even the Nine Great Sects or the Seven Great Families. And for that reason, anything he handed over was bound to be an extraordinary treasure, no matter what it was.
And it happened to be exactly what Yuk So-wan needed.
Jang Po was growing harder to handle by the day.
That Goechok should produce the Eumyang-go at this very moment, as if he could see straight through Yuk So-wan's circumstances, only deepened the awe.
"Is this… something you brought from the… the Cult?"
"That."
At the question, something shifted in Goechok's eyes.
"Is not a place for the likes of you to speak of so freely."
"I-I beg your pardon."
"I could gouge out both your eyes and ears right here and it would be no trouble."
"…!"
"But I lack a proper pair of hands and feet in Hangzhou, so I will let it pass this once."
"Th-th-thank you!"
It was then that Yuk So-wan realized every single guest in the inn — all of them — had turned their gazes upon him.
A chill ran down his spine.
He understood at last.
This inn had been in Master Goechok's grasp from the very beginning.
A crushing terror washed over him — yet at Goechok's next words, his twisted face began, little by little, to smooth out again.
"Until Hangzhou's underground auction begins, place every business held by every wretch calling himself the Hangzhou Ghost under Jang Po's name. Then bring that man to the underground auction house where Hangzhou's great ones gather. Do only that, and—"
"I-if I do only that…?"
"I will make you Hangzhou's foremost power behind the throne."
"Ahh."
A grin split his face so wide his mouth hung open.
The dark king who held the city of Hangzhou in the palm of his hand.
That had been Yuk So-wan's long-cherished dream, born and raised in this very city.
"Yes! Leave it to me!"
Beneath the moonlight.
Atop the tallest multi-story wine house in Hangzhou.
A floor no ordinary person could reach.
Only those who stood at the absolute peak of this raucous city's underworld could climb here and look out over Hangzhou's nightscape.
Night markets, inns, pleasure houses, wine houses, great tea houses, the theater stages where plays ran without end — and all of it cunningly ringed by ever-noisy escort agencies and all manner of martial halls. That was the setting of this singular establishment.
In other words: a place with nothing above it but the sky — more than fit for Hangzhou's foremost power behind the throne to dwell.
A sip of tea.
A bearded middle-aged man drank a mouthful of the hot brew, then murmured across the table to the white-haired elder seated opposite.
"I hear the son of the Seoho Gwak Family has stepped forward. Should we not intervene soon?"
"I wonder."
The white-haired elder tilted his head, and from that reply the conversation began.
"That, too, is its own kind of order."
"Your purpose as Society Master was to thin out the small fry writhing under Hangzhou's shadow of their own accord, was it not?"
"Is the Seoho Gwak Family's reaction not also a natural working of Hangzhou itself? They are serving as our net for us."
"For that, the young man seems to be acting as though he were the fisherman himself."
"For one of Gwak Yeon's caliber, that is permitted."
"Your attitude seems to have shifted somewhat from what you said last time."
"I admit it. I heard of his recent visit to the Hubei Pang Family."
"Ah — the trading expedition that even the Pang Family's head acknowledged."
"Just so."
Tea talk between the middle-aged man and the elder.
To speak so casually, from their seats, of events a thousand li away — that alone marked them as the great ones who moved the shadow of the city called Hangzhou.
"I judged that he at least meets the minimum standard."
"Can he keep to the line?"
"Shall we wait and see?"
The two of them spoke Gwak Yeon's name.
These were the men who had watched the uproar of the "false Hangzhou Ghosts" with folded arms — and there had been a clear reason.
As the true powers who governed Hangzhou's darkness, they had meant to use this chance to thin the black path that swarmed in the city's shadow.
"It was never going to end small in any case."
Every city has its black path.
As the principle of yin and yang holds, wherever there is light, shadow exists as well. Yet the things of the shadow have a peculiar nature: without someone to set order in the dark, they breed great chaos.
When that chaos grows large, even the established black-path operators who have long drawn a steady profit find themselves exposed to the daily risk of life and death.
These two meant to prevent that.
"Of late, far too many have crossed the line."
The illegal enterprises built by the black path were many kinds.
Counterfeit salt and gunpowder, smuggled liquor and stolen goods — even forged currency. Beyond that, illegal gambling, dogfighting, cockfighting, usury, fraud, hired violence, assassination, thievery, and robbery. All of it and more.
"We are no saints ourselves… but one ought to know how far is far enough."
Recently there had been men whose cruelty made even the black path click their tongues. Not content with kidnapping and human trafficking, they had committed atrocities against common folk so vile one could scarcely speak of them — as if preparing to sell their victims to some wicked demon lord.
It was not a matter of conscience.
A power of the underworld is, in the end, one who holds the leash of that darkness. When the troubles of the shadow grow so great they blot out the light… even their own place to stand disappears.
"True enough. I have just come from meeting the prefectural magistrate."
"And what did he say?"
"He seems to have caught wind of it to some degree."
"Hmm."
"If we are careless, the Geumuiwi may be dispatched. Best to finish this quickly."
"That is why I look favorably on Gwak Yeon's intervention."
Their decision to overlook the false Hangzhou Ghost affair had, in the end, been in this context.
Like insects swarming under a stone.
They meant to watch the endless rise and fall of the lowest black-path strivers, and from it determine how order should be set again — which men to cut away, which businesses to keep — and draw a clear line.
"It is also a fine opportunity. The outsiders who have been eyeing Hangzhou's interests for so long are showing their hands of their own accord."
"I hear a fellow called Goechok has arrived as well. Is that true?"
"You mean the one scheduled to attend this auction."
"Yes."
"Hangzhou has been underestimated more than I thought."
And in that same breath, it was a rather good chance to keep watch on the outside forces now casting their eyes on Hangzhou's interests amid the chaos.
A quiet snort of laughter.
The two men looked at each other and smiled. Then the bearded middle-aged man put a question about the secret auction house they had just mentioned.
"By the way, Society Master — what will you bring to it?"
"The refining formula for the Gyeongokdan."
"Hoh."
The Gyeongokdan was a supreme-grade elixir whose name drifted through the rumors of the Central Plains.
Save for Shaolin's Great Return Pill, it was said to stand equal with the representative elixirs of most of the Nine Great Sects.
And the refining formula for that Gyeongokdan?
This was a treasure no money could buy — the finest of rare goods.
"There is nothing better for advancing beyond Hangzhou."
"I see."
Not only would it draw other great powers, it was the perfect object to seize every eye at this secret auction.
"If that comes to pass, occasions for private meetings like this will grow far fewer."
"Haha."
The white-haired elder smiled at the middle-aged man's words and added,
"It cannot be helped. There is a limit to sitting forever in Hangzhou and dealing with the throngs that pour in from every direction… and of late, I am told, the influx of men whose identities cannot be known has risen sharply."
"You mean those bizarre cultists, or whatever they are called?"
"You would know that better than this old man."
"Who can say."
Another sip of tea. The middle-aged man twisted his thickly bearded mouth and muttered,
"On that side, one brute keeps crushing them so fast it is hard to say much of anything."
"Jang Po, then."
"Yes."
At that, both men's eyes lit at once.
This false Hangzhou Ghost affair, which they were deliberately overlooking in order to thin Hangzhou's darkness.
Already both of the names they were most likely to keep hearing until the matter was finished had been spoken.
"Well then — we shall know soon enough, shall we not?"
The two of them held a pure curiosity.
Not first as Hangzhou's great powers, but as men who took an interest in the martial way.
Jang Po and Gwak Yeon.
If the two of them clashed — which one would win?
"Which of the two… will remain the true Hangzhou Ghost."