Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 110 - Merchant King (4)
Chapter 110 – Merchant King (4)
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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Yeo Bul-jin’s expression did not change. By my own standards, it had been an excellent ambush. The only surprising thing was that Yeo Bul-jin showed no change in expression at words this abrupt and far over the line.
Rather, it was my Wudang Senior Brothers who were looking at me anxiously. Even the younger ones were.
They too had grasped the situation in broad terms. If one wanted to compare it, it was as though Huizhou merchants had come to Wudang and started telling them what to do about the Wudang Sect Leader’s position. It was an outrageous discourtesy.
Even so, Yeo Bul-jin quietly took another sip of tea, then slowly opened his mouth.
“How much?”
“How much of what?”
“How much would it take for me to buy you right now?”
Yeo Bul-jin’s words were abrupt. Just as mine had been. I was startled, but I did not show it.
“People are bought with the heart, not with money.”
“Do you truly think that? Didn’t you also hire the employees of your merchant company with money?”
“I bought their labor, not the people themselves. Those people each have lives of their own.”
“Bringing up orthodox principles here looks a little cowardly. The world doesn’t move according to orthodox principles. If you had only moved according to orthodox principles, you wouldn’t be sitting in front of me right now.”
“That isn’t wrong.”
As if by prior agreement, Yeo Bul-jin and I each took a sip of tea. There was not the slightest disorder in either of our postures.
In a way, I was standing in a sharper situation now than if I had been sparring with live blades. That was because this was the battlefield where I had originally stood.
“But why did you suddenly talk about being able to buy me?”
“There has to be a reason you’re acting like this. I don’t know who paid you or how much, but I’ll give you at least double. So tell me everything. The background behind why you said that.”
Only then did I understand what Yeo Bul-jin meant. That was why he had spoken of buying me. To be fair, what I had said could only be explained as if I had been prompted by someone.
“So that’s what you meant.”
“Yes. Then can you answer me?”
“How much are you prepared to offer?”
“I don’t think about money. The more one thinks about money, the farther away it gets.”
Yeo Bul-jin gave a nod toward his escort. The escort brought out an inkstone, a brush, and a sheet of white paper from a drawer and placed them before me.
When I looked at Yeo Bul-jin, he spoke with a faint smile.
“Write the amount you want. That’s cleaner than talking about at least double.”
“I might uproot the pillars of the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company, you know.”
“I didn’t say I would give it unconditionally. I still have to make my own judgment of value. Even so, I mean to respect your opinion as much as possible.”
I had heard that Yeo Bul-jin in his youth had been extraordinary. His presence truly was no joke. So even that shabby old man had once had a past this handsome. I suddenly found myself indulging in impressions of memories that felt neither wholly future nor wholly past.
“Aren’t you going to write?”
“No, I will.”
I took up the brush and wrote without hesitation. It was the very image of writing in a single sweeping stroke. The word I wrote was one hundred thousand.
The escort’s expression hardened, while Yeo Bul-jin remained expressionless, impossible to read.
“One hundred thousand taels. You think very highly of yourself.”
One hundred thousand taels. It was an enormous sum. The Wudang disciples beside me, who were watching my strange behavior, looked nearly ready to stop breathing.
The money I had left after sweeping up and selling the Green Forest Twelve Forms across the Central Plains had been five thousand taels. This was twenty times that amount. No matter that this was the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company, such a number could not help but be burdensome.
“One hundred thousand taels.”
Yeo Bul-jin repeated it. Honestly, it would have been reasonable for him to be angry, but all along his expression had remained either blank or faintly smiling. It almost felt as though my strategy of provocation was having no effect at all.
“What are you hesitating over? It’s not even a great sum.”
I smiled. Only then did Yeo Bul-jin’s eyebrows twitch.
“One hundred thousand taels isn’t a great sum?”
“That’s right. It’s not a great sum even to me, so how could it be a great sum to the Merchant King?”
I paused for a moment and looked at him. Yeo Bul-jin’s eyes had narrowed. He seemed to be examining whether I was mad or not. At this point, I needed to prove that I wasn’t mad.
“One hundred thousand copper cash is only a hundred taels of silver, after all. That’s not even enough to cover the cart and horse expenses from Huaiyin to here, is it?”
“Hah.”
Yeo Bul-jin let out a hollow laugh and leaned back into his chair.
“I never said silver taels.”
“Since it was my mistake to overlook that, I won’t say anything to you over it.”
For the first time, Yeo Bul-jin burst out laughing as he said it.
“Otherwise, you wouldn’t have walked out of this room intact.”
“I was fortunate.”
“How long has it been since I got caught by wordplay like this? In the old days it happened often, but now no one jokes with me like this anymore, so I let my guard down a little. It feels like I’ve returned to active service for the first time in a long while.”
“Aren’t you still active now?”
“I’ve retired halfway. I’ve earned enough, so shouldn’t I enjoy life a little too?”
Those words were full of sincerity. I gave a bitter smile. I knew Yeo Bul-jin’s future. Far from enjoying himself, his later years became terribly twisted. Of course, saying that here would have been revealing heaven’s secrets.
“So you’ll sell the information for a hundred taels of silver?”
“Yes.”
“Cheaper than expected.”
“That’s right.”
“Fine, that’s something I can pay immediately. You’re making me feel embarrassed.”
Yeo Bul-jin took out a banknote from a drawer, wrote in one hundred taels of silver, and pushed it toward me.
“I accept it gratefully.”
“Good. Then I’ll ask without circling around it. Who hired you? Hong-yang?”
“No. There is no such person.”
“…?”
That reply of mine shook Yeo Bul-jin more than anything so far. Confusion entered his eyes.
“Has the wordplay still not ended? I’m not so lenient as to indulge it twice.”
“No. There truly is no one who hired me. This is entirely my own judgment and design. Yeo Hong-yang probably doesn’t even know I’m here doing this.”
“Heh heh heh…”
Yeo Bul-jin’s hollow laughter continued.
“Then you’re saying that you want Hong-yang to become the Company Lord of the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company?”
“Exactly so.”
“There’s a limit to arrogance!”
Yeo Bul-jin swept the teacups off the desk and sent them crashing to the floor. The sound of jade teacups shattering was chilling.
“A wretch like you dares decide the successor to the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company that I built?”
Yeo Bul-jin shot to his feet and glared at me. The anger of a giant was every bit as vast as one would expect. Even the Wudang disciples could not move.
“Please calm yourself, Elder. I respect that. Among the Huizhou Fifteen Clans, the Yeo family was one of the weakest, and yet with the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company it rose at a stroke to the very forefront.”
“And you know that, yet you still say such nonsense in front of me?”
“That is why I wish for the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company to pass over in the proper shape and continue to endure. That is why I am saying this.”
“Ridiculous! What could you possibly know?”
I knew many things.
That after Yeo Hong-won inherited the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company, it collapsed in less than three years. It was the very scene that shattered before my eyes the saying that even if a rich house falls, it lasts for three years. That was why it remained so vividly impressed in my mind.
Honestly, I had no obligation to save the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company. In truth, I had even thought of simply leaving it untouched. Coldly speaking, I was already busy enough growing my own merchant company.
But I thought that if I kept the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company alive and turned it into a business partner, that too would not be bad, so I was making a gamble of my own.
“Elder. Please calm yourself.”
As Yeo Bul-jin’s face reddened, even the escort who had been standing beside him stepped in. The escort seated Yeo Bul-jin again and glared at me.
“Are you speaking like this because you think those Wudang Daoists beside you will protect you? That is a truly foolish thought.”
An enormous pressure burst out from the escort’s body in an instant. I had already thought he would be no ordinary man, since he guarded the Merchant King, but he was even stronger than I had expected.
At once, Myeong-yeop shot to his feet and put a hand on his sword hilt.
“Do not raise your pressure any further. That could be taken as intimidation of Wudang.”
“Did you not hear what the fellow beside you just said?”
In an instant, the atmosphere turned murderous, enough to make one feel as if suffocating. Looking at my younger Senior Brothers, I saw their faces had gone pale.
By now, the moment seemed ripe enough.
“Yeo Hong-won is managing Prince Xian’s private treasury funds.”
“What?”
The atmosphere, hot only a moment ago, cooled as if cold water had been poured over it. Naturally, my young Senior Brothers did not understand, and neither the escort nor Myeong-yeop did, so they only blinked. The only one who reacted was Yeo Bul-jin.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. Yeo Hong-won is managing the private treasury funds of Prince Xian, one of the princely kings.”
“Do you understand what that means?”
“It means you’ll need to keep the mouths of everyone here tightly shut.”
Yeo Bul-jin trembled. His face, red just moments ago, had now turned pale.
Private treasury funds were the personal assets of the imperial house, meaning the emperor. In principle, only the current emperor was supposed to possess private treasury funds. But the enfeoffed princely kings secretly formed private treasury funds of their own as well.
Naturally, that was dangerous, and the private treasury funds of princely kings in particular were strictly watched by the imperial house as signs of rebellion. For Yeo Hong-won to be managing such dangerous assets was like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky from Yeo Bul-jin’s point of view.
“Speak only words you can take responsibility for.”
“Send men to Gansu, where Prince Xian is, and investigate. You will find many suspicious circumstances.”
“Then my son really is managing Prince Xian’s private treasury funds?”
“That’s right.”
“There are limits even to sleeping on a blade’s edge!”
Yeo Bul-jin roared once more.
It could hardly be helped. How many merchant companies had met ruin by choosing the wrong line? In the Empire, if one was branded an accomplice to rebellion, the extermination of three generations was common sense.
Of course, not every princely king with private treasury funds launched a rebellion. The problem was that in my previous life, Prince Xian had in fact rebelled.
The rebellion had been crushed quickly, and Yeo Hong-won had been beheaded for managing the private treasury funds. It had originally been a situation where even three generations would have been exterminated, but because Yeo Bul-jin had good relations with the imperial family, he had barely survived after surrendering all his wealth to the state. That was why his later years had become so twisted, and I knew the whole story.
“How did you come to know this?”
Yeo Bul-jin asked the question, then waved a hand.
“No, that doesn’t matter. In any case, it’s something I can verify myself.”
Yeo Bul-jin looked utterly confused. And understandably so. He was being told that the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company he had built was gambling on its very existence, so how could his heart not tremble?
“Leave for now. My apologies to the Daoists of Wudang. Things are urgent at the moment, so let us speak separately another time.”
Even in the midst of that, Yeo Bul-jin showed superhuman patience by speaking respectfully to my Wudang Senior Brothers. It seemed there was a reason not just anyone succeeded.
Once we were all but forcibly driven out of the Company Lord’s room, my Senior Brothers immediately let out long sighs.
“I thought I was going to suffocate.”
Speaking for all of them, Myeong-yeop gave his impression. Seeing my Senior Brothers’ pale faces, I found myself laughing.
“You’re laughing now? After stirring up such chaos?”
“It was something that had to be done.”
Myeong-yeop fell silent. He probably hadn’t understood anything from the moment I said princely king onward. They were ignorant of the structure of the imperial house.
In the first place, it was a realm even ordinary commoners were ignorant of. The imperial family, including the princely kings, was a sacred and untouchable domain.
“Sometimes I want to open up your head and see what’s inside.”
Myeong-yeop grumbled. I looked behind me. The door to the Company Lord’s room was shut tight. A storm was surely raging inside there now.
It seemed to me that I could hear the creaking sound of the board of the commercial world being shaken.