Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 121 - When the Forest Grows Dense, Tigers Enter (6)

Chapter 121 – When the Forest Grows Dense, Tigers Enter (6)

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Muk Hui-yeong paused for a moment, then soon chuckled.

“Why? Have I finally become a little tempting to you?”

“Yes. To be honest, you are tempting. Is there any other way for a martial artist to live forever? If the martial art I honed and carved out remains in later generations, then that is immortality. The martial art I created is my life itself, after all.”

“I see. So you mean you want to take me as your disciple.”

“Yes. What are a mere thirteen thousand taels of silver? If your comprehension meets my martial arts, you’ll gain the power to earn far more than that little sum with ease.”

“Heh heh…”

As Muk Hui-yeong drew out his laughter, Myeong-il’s expression grew uneasy.

Of course, it was a ridiculous idea. A disciple of Wudang taking a heterodox master as well. But this was the Fighting Exalt himself. Since the notoriously eccentric Fighting Exalt was showing that much interest, he thought there would be no martial artist who would not be shaken.

But Muk Hui-yeong answered cleanly.

“I appreciate the offer, but I refuse.”

“Why? Because you’re worried about Wudang noticing?”

“No. I don’t feel any lack in what I’m learning now. I’m already more than satisfied with my current master.”

“I admit the Boundless Divine Sword is an excellent swordsman. But he is still an unripe fruit. If you learned from me, you could take a faster road.”

“I’m already fast enough.”

Jang Gwang-yeong sighed. Now that he had seen the talent, even those words looked like confidence and cheerfulness. Just as the fish one fails to catch always looks bigger, Muk Hui-yeong now looked enormous in Jang Gwang-yeong’s eyes.

“Tsk. You just kicked away a blessing with your own foot.”

“I’ll say it once more, but thank you for the offer.”

“Fine. Understood.”

As Jang Gwang-yeong turned his back, Muk Hui-yeong jolted in alarm.

“No, where are you going? You still have to pay me.”

“What are you talking about?”

When Jang Gwang-yeong turned his head while picking at his ear, Muk Hui-yeong caught a strong whiff of shameless obstinacy. The man was, in a word, a real nuisance.

“I never admitted your talent.”

“Are you really going to do this?”

“If you agree to become my disciple, then I’ll reconsider your talent.”

“I said I don’t want that.”

“Then there’s nothing I can do either.”

Jang Gwang-yeong laughed.

“Still, I won’t get any greedier for the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Forms. Know that this is not me breaking my promise, but purely an act of my consideration.”

“You’re rather shameless. I’d worry about who might be staining the reputation of one of the Eight Exalts.”

“In my experience, this much is acceptable.”

Even to the very end, Jang Gwang-yeong spoke shamelessly and vanished like a shot. Everyone stared blankly at the lone Muk Hui-yeong.

In the end, the one who had driven off the Fighting Exalt was standing there.

“Insane.”

Of course, the face of the one who deserved that honor had turned the color of earth. Muk Hui-yeong’s chest felt as light as could be.

* * *

“So you’re saying you can’t return the ten thousand taels of silver?”

“Yes. Since the Fighting Exalt basically took my money, you can collect it from him.”

“That is exactly what a lender least likes to hear.”

“Haha. It just kind of ended up that way.”

“That doesn’t sound like an amount worth laughing over.”

“My apologies.”

I put on a serious face and apologized. Honestly, ten thousand taels of silver was an amount that warranted a serious apology.

Of course, I had my own grievance. That damned Fighting Exalt said he’d give me thirteen thousand taels of silver, then ran off without paying, which meant my plan to win the money and pay it back had collapsed.

In truth, I did still have some money left after buying talent, but not much, so paying it back that way would feel less like repayment and more like humiliation.

‘This is why heterodox riffraff are like this.’

Thinking about it, I should have trusted someone trustworthy. Yet because there was no one to trust, I trusted the Bandit King. Looking at the result, it really was my fault.

With my head lowered, I raised my eyes slightly and watched Yeom Baek-gyu’s mood. Honestly, if I told someone I couldn’t repay ten thousand taels of silver, I’d expect them to start shouting their lungs out, but Yeom Baek-gyu was showing remarkable calm.

“I’ll repay it in installments.”

“I truly don’t understand. Isn’t it still in your chest right now?”

From Yeom Baek-gyu’s perspective, it was incomprehensible. He had never seen me take anything out after stuffing it into my chest, so how could he rationally accept that I no longer had ten thousand taels of silver?

And yet, astonishingly, Yeom Baek-gyu showed tremendous composure and did not press me that hard.

“Absurd.”

That was all he said, that it was absurd. Was he some man detached from money? But no matter how detached a person was, ten thousand taels of silver was still a large sum. It was a moment that made me curious about his true identity.

“Then I’ll complete the winning bid for the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Forms. It was fifteen thousand taels of silver, correct?”

At the auctioneer’s words cutting straight in, I sucked in a dry breath. This really was getting more and more absurd.

The ten thousand taels of silver Yeom Baek-gyu had lent me was money for purchasing the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Forms. Even if I could cover around five thousand taels with the note from selling the salt, I was still short ten thousand taels of silver.

Which meant that, all of a sudden, I was now in a position where I had to come up with twenty thousand taels of silver. It wasn’t that I had no confidence in earning that amount eventually, but the immediate dizziness was unavoidable.

“The payment will be made directly to the seller. Wasn’t I told I could meet him?”

Amid my mental confusion, Yeom Baek-gyu bought us some breathing room that way. I pulled myself together. The important thing now was who had sold the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Forms.

“Then let us proceed that way. We will escort the winning bidder inside.”

The auctioneer said. He likely did not imagine in the slightest that we lacked the money right now. After all, we had been calling out bids with such confidence.

Yeom Baek-gyu jerked his chin at me. We followed him into the building together. It was a fairly spacious house, five bays wide from side to side. It was probably the home of the richest person in this village.

“If you wait here, he will come out.”

We sat down as the guide instructed. A short silence passed. The one who broke it was Yeom Baek-gyu.

“Tell me.”

“Yes?”

“What are you going to do?”

“About what?”

“When you see the seller.”

“First I’ll have to ask. Where he got it.”

“Tsk. That isn’t the answer I wanted.”

Yeom Baek-gyu lowered his voice as he spoke.

“Will you kill him, or not?”

“…Hmm.”

I had not expected him to ask so bluntly, so I was briefly taken aback. Yeom Baek-gyu seemed to have no hesitation whatsoever about killing people. Of course, I wouldn’t hesitate either if it were necessary. I was the sort who believed I had to protect my own body and my own people.

Even so, it was still too early to jump to conclusions in the current situation.

“I don’t know yet.”

“Soft.”

Yeom Baek-gyu said in a disappointed tone. At that moment, we heard movement outside. Soon someone opened the door and entered. There were two people.

One was a man missing an arm, so that one sleeve fluttered empty. A long sword scar ran across his face, making it easy to guess he was a martial artist. The other was a merchant with a grotesquely protruding belly.

“I’m in charge of appraising goods in this market. I came to see the face of the customer who looked likely to spend the most money. And to verify this gentleman’s identity as well.”

I had guessed that the one who put the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Forms up in the black market would be a martial artist. But the martial artist was the appraiser, and the merchant was the seller.

“The merchant behind me is the esteemed Jin Ik-chan of the Qin-Jin Merchant Company.”

“If all you have to do is pay, why all this coming and going?”

The merchant wore an arrogant expression and showed his displeasure from the outset.

The merchant certainly was someone whose identity the market would be willing to guarantee. After all, the Qin-Jin Merchant Company was one of the Four Shanxi Families.

Of course, even if he was part of one of the Four Shanxi Families, it was still questionable why he had the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Forms.

“Hurry up and pay. If you know my identity, then you know the merchandise is sound.”

Jin Ik-chan said smugly. Yeom Baek-gyu glanced at me. Our eyes met briefly.

“How did you come to obtain the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Forms?”

“Why should I tell you that?”

As expected, Jin Ik-chan was not being cooperative. I shrugged.

“Then I can’t pay you.”

“What?”

“This is stolen goods no matter how you look at it. If I don’t even know how it was obtained, how can I trust it enough to buy it?”

“I don’t see why the route of acquisition matters. There are plenty of people other than you who would buy it. If you’re not going to buy it, then get out.”

“Can you really do that? You’re just going to let me go after I’ve seen who you are? What if I report you to the Mount Hua Sect?”

“I don’t care, so get out. You’re fouling the place.”

Jin Ik-chan waved his hand as though shooing away a bird. It was tremendous confidence. Confidence that he could survive even after touching the reverse scale of the Mount Hua Sect.

“Is someone backing you?”

“What?”

“No matter how large the Qin-Jin Merchant Company is, this isn’t something it could handle alone. Just who are you relying on to act like this?”

“You bastard, what exactly are you trying to pull here!”

Jin Ik-chan slammed the table and stood up. At that instant, the appraiser drew his sword and pointed it at me.

“By the name of the One-Armed Sword, I’ll say this. If you’re not going to make the deal, get out. Otherwise I’ll kill you.”

I tilted my head and looked at the One-Armed Sword.

The One-Armed Sword. I too had heard the name before. Well, to serve as a black-market appraiser, one would need a certain degree of force and authority.

Indeed, the pressure the One-Armed Sword was releasing was quite formidable.

“You’re awfully full of yourself just because you drove off the Fighting Exalt by luck. He simply withdrew. It’s not as though you actually beat him.”

“That’s true enough.”

It seemed the One-Armed Sword was rather confident in his own martial prowess.

But I was even more confident than that. I was certain of it. That was simply how it felt. Which was why I was already prepared to strike the instant he lunged.

“Then let me ask something for once.”

The one who abruptly cut in was Yeom Baek-gyu.

“This is becoming a rather serious matter. Is the government behind this?”

“You pair really are both insane. You brought me people like this?”

Jin Ik-chan shouted furiously at the One-Armed Sword. That was the signal. The One-Armed Sword immediately snatched up the sword lying on the table.

But faster than that was Yeom Baek-gyu. Without even rising from his seat, he swung something. I saw a curved flash. It was bursting out from his waist. The belt Yeom Baek-gyu wore had in fact been a flexible sword.

If I had not bought fourth-grade talent with ten thousand taels of silver, it would have been a speed I could never have seen.

[ Ghosts and Gods – Grade 4 ]

[ Price: Nine thousand five hundred taels of silver ]

The talent I had bought was Ghosts and Gods. Like Fleeting Apparition, it was a talent related to speed.

After buying talent a few times, I had learned that the easiest improvements to feel immediately were still the talents related to movement. What was always so fascinating when buying talent was that motions that would never even have occurred to me before now came instinctively to mind. Once I moved that quickly, the sensory gains came as well.

In any case, Yeom Baek-gyu’s martial prowess was as lofty as I had expected.

In an instant, the One-Armed Sword’s head rolled across the floor. The eyes of the fallen One-Armed Sword were wide open, as though he had not even seen the flash, and blood quickly filled the whites of them until they turned red.

“Aaaagh!”

Jin Ik-chan, who had unwillingly witnessed a man dying before his eyes, tried to bolt out. But Yeom Baek-gyu planted a foot against the wall and blocked his escape.

“This is what the problem is with martial artists. The slightest thing displeases them, and they pull a blade.”

Yeom Baek-gyu clicked his tongue. There was no trace left of Jin Ik-chan’s earlier arrogance. He was only trembling now.

“Aren’t you afraid? Do you know who runs this black market…?”

Jin Ik-chan’s once overbearing voice had shriveled right along with him. Yeom Baek-gyu burst into laughter.

“Afraid? The only one I fear is His Majesty the Emperor. Beyond that, I am not permitted to fear anything.”

“Wh, who are you?”

“What do you mean who? I’m the butcher who deals with swine like you, swollen with greed for money. Did you never once think about what would happen if the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Forms ended up in the hands of riffraff?”

“That isn’t something a merchant should concern himself with…”

“What a shamelessly immoral man!”

Yeom Baek-gyu kicked the wall with a loud bang once more. Jin Ik-chan’s body shook like an aspen.

“Would you say the same if you were selling Five-Stone Powder or aphrodisiacs? Right now you’ve broken national law. Martial manuals are the same as blueprints for deadly weapons. Did you think the Great Empire would allow such things to be sold?”

“Y, y, you’re an official of the imperial palace?”

Jin Ik-chan stammered. Only then did the thought occur to me as well.

Detached from money, strong in force, and contemptuous toward martial artists. Thinking it over carefully, there was nowhere else it could be but the imperial palace.

Yeom Baek-gyu clicked his tongue, then swung his flexible sword at Jin Ik-chan. Jin Ik-chan screamed. But the flexible sword only wrapped around him like a noose. The trousers under the blades soaking Jin Ik-chan grew wet from the inside, and urine leaked out.

“Tell me. I want to hear it. Who is behind this? The government?”

“Th, that is something I cannot say no matter who you are from the imperial palace. And can you really threaten me like this without even a trial? If I broke the law, shouldn’t I be sent to the Ministry of Punishments first?”

“That does not apply to us.”

Smiling, Yeom Baek-gyu pulled something out from his robes. It resembled the Investigating Censor’s token in my chest, but it was different. The one Yeom Baek-gyu took out had more carved details.

“The Embroidered Uniform Guard…”

The strength drained from Jin Ik-chan’s voice. The Embroidered Uniform Guard, together with the Eastern Depot, was one of only two places empowered to pass immediate judgment. Just as Jin Ik-chan said, there was no need to send him to the Ministry of Punishments first.

“Are you still not going to speak?”

“If I speak, will you spare me?”

Jin Ik-chan’s expression became strangely resolute. It seemed that once he saw the Embroidered Uniform Guard’s token, his thoughts shifted a little.

“Of course.”

Yeom Baek-gyu smiled. Jin Ik-chan opened his mouth.

“…His Highness Prince Xian.”

“As I thought. Thank you.”

Yeom Baek-gyu yanked hard on the flexible sword draped over Jin Ik-chan. The flexible sword, which had wrapped around Jin Ik-chan like creeping vines, constricted in an instant. Jin Ik-chan’s corpse was promptly hacked into several pieces. It was a strike without the slightest hesitation.

After killing Jin Ik-chan as if it were nothing, Yeom Baek-gyu wiped off the sprayed blood with the heel of his palm. Then he looked at me, but there was no emotional disturbance at all in those eyes. They were utterly inorganic.

“What is this?”

I barely managed to force the words out. Yeom Baek-gyu shook his head as he belted the flexible sword back at his waist.

“You have no manners toward your senior.”

Then Yeom Baek-gyu shook out his head and peeled away the skin from his face. As the skin lifted, a man who looked to be in his mid-thirties appeared.

“This damned human-skin mask always gets caught in my sideburns.”

Grumbling, Yeom Baek-gyu threw away the now useless human-skin mask. With Myeong-il and Yeo Hong-yang behind me, I looked at Yeom Baek-gyu.

“I assume you won’t claim we met by accident.”

“Mm. I followed you from Hubei.”

“Why?”

“Because I was curious who you were. Even if the Right Vice Censor-in-Chief recommended you, I have to see my subordinates with my own eyes.”

I took a deep breath and steeled myself. If he was from the Embroidered Uniform Guard, then I absolutely could not afford even a single misstep.

As though mocking my tension, Yeom Baek-gyu smiled and introduced himself.

“I am Baek Yu-gyeom of the Northern Pacification Commissioner of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.”

Into the dense forest called the jianghu, a tiger called the Embroidered Uniform Guard had entered.