Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 127 - For the Emperor (1)

Chapter 127 – For the Emperor (1)

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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The black-path men could not even resist me. No matter how low-level martial artists they were, they were fully capable of feeling the gap between us.

They did not even try to fight. Instead, they shoved their own comrades aside as they tried to flee first. The first ones sacrificed were the young and the weak.

The black-path men even went so far as to pick up weak children and throw them in front of me. All their talk of family and loyalty became worthless the moment their own lives were on the line.

Strangely enough, the one who fell closest before us was that child. The same child who had acted beaten and swindled a few taels of silver from Yeo Hong-yang.

“…Do you actually have an older sister?”

“Aaaah!”

The child did not even answer my question. He only clutched a dagger and charged me. His eyes were full of terror.

The one who moved before I did was Myeong-il. Myeong-il’s lightning-fast sword pierced the child’s heart.

The child collapsed without being able to utter even a single scream.

That child deserved to die. He had already deceived us the first time we met, and now he had rushed at me with a blade.

In the jianghu, resolving things this way was utterly natural. If one spared him, the child might nurse a grudge and come for revenge later. It was right to cut off rotten sprouts.

Even so, watching a child who barely reached my chest crumple to the ground was not an especially pleasant sight.

“Tsk.”

I clicked my tongue and swung my blade.

The walls of the extinguished alleyways were drenched in blood.

* * *

We walked through the cavern without saying anything. It seemed that the child’s death had weighed rather heavily on them. But what could one do. The world could not be full of pleasant things alone.

“There’s something here.”

I pointed at a room that was especially bright. Yeo Hong-yang and Myeong-il wanted to get out of this loathsome mass grave as soon as possible, but there was something I needed to find.

Namely, the room of the Mara Blood Buddha. The Mara Blood Buddha was the first remnant of the Demonic Cult I had directly encountered since I regressed.

Since my death in my previous life had been tied up with the Demonic Cult, it was a matter I could never afford to neglect.

When we entered the room, bright lamps were hanging on both walls. There was a desk and a small bookshelf there, and on the desk sat ink, a brush, and an inkstone. Strangely enough, the bookshelf was packed full of Buddhist scriptures. The combination of the Demonic Cult and Buddhist scriptures.

If the Demonic Cult was a religion and Buddhism was also a religion, then what exactly had the Mara Blood Buddha believed in? I became curious, but the person who could answer that was already gone from this world.

“Why this room?”

Myeong-il asked in a displeased tone. It seemed he was instinctively sensing traces of demonic qi. Even if he could not explain it clearly, he was still a disciple of Wudang, so he was reacting sensitively.

“There’s something I need to find.”

I flipped open the Buddhist scriptures and rifled through the pages, then searched the desk. Myeong-il and Yeo Hong-yang simply watched what I was doing from behind.

I slid my hand to the far end of the desk drawer. As I felt around along the end of the drawer, I brushed against something. Closing my eyes and probing more carefully, I found it was something rounded and soft.

‘This is it.’

Without hesitation, I pressed down on that rounded spot. Some mechanism creaked beside the bookshelf. Looking over there, I saw that what I had thought was a wall had become a door and opened halfway.

“Senior Brother, stay here with Yeo Hong-yang for a moment. There may be trap mechanisms inside, so I’ll go in first.”

“Fine.”

Myeong-il nodded. If it had been Myeong-gyeong, he probably would have made a fuss about going in with me, but Myeong-il was straightforward.

Then again, Myeong-il had seen me slaughter the black-path men earlier. By now I was far stronger than when I had fought him, so he likely understood clearly that if he followed, he would only become a burden.

I stepped through the half-open door. To my surprise, there was nothing inside. To be honest, because it was an underground cavern, I had secretly hoped for jewels or luminous pearls embedded all around. That was why I had used trap mechanisms as an excuse to keep Yeo Hong-yang and Myeong-il out.

“Tsk.”

The only thing in that room was a small box on a stand. When I opened it, there was a small pill at the center, shining black, and around it were much smaller pellets no bigger than millet grains.

Before examining the one in the center, I picked up one of the grain-sized pellets and smelled it. It seemed to be an elixir as well.

‘So this was what he handed out to his subordinates.’

The reason I could sense even a little demonic qi from the people here was the effect of this medicine. It contained only a very tiny amount of demonic qi, but demonic qi itself was good for dragging out power over the short term, so it seemed they had made good use of it.

‘Then this one…’

The pill in the center clearly carried no ordinary atmosphere. The pills around it all contained a certain amount of demonic qi as well, but this one seemed to contain demonic qi of an entirely different order.

The moment I lifted the black pill and looked at it, I felt a chill crawl down my spine.

‘The Divine Demon Pill?’

Because it was too similar to the Divine Demon Pill I had once taken in the past. The scent was similar, and so were the color and the size.

Yet when I carefully felt the energy of the pill, it was similar to the demonic qi circulating inside my body, while at the same time somehow different.

“Hm.”

For the moment, I stuffed the entire box into the satchel at my waist. It was such a small box that once it was inside, it hardly even felt like there was anything there. I did not know exactly what it was, but it felt like something I had to take. There was no way I could simply leave it behind.

But once I lifted the box, there was a hollowed space beneath it. It had been too dark to notice clearly, but the box had not merely been placed on the stand. It had been fitted into it.

Inside that stand, something like a thin talisman paper had been pasted. The instant I saw that paper, I could not help narrowing my eyes.

A kill register. There was a long list of people’s names, professions, and places of residence. What those names meant was made clear at the end.

Because there were also listed the places where one could secretly contact the Superintendent of the Eastern Depot. Since there were quite a few locations where one could meet a Superintendent of the Eastern Depot, they had evidently needed to write them down like this.

– Safe house of the Superintendent of the Eastern Depot in Lanzhou

– Silver Linghu Inn

– Lanzhou branch of the Hao Clan

…

‘So this is a record of the Embroidered Uniform Guard censors.’

The names here were probably all aliases. These were people of the Embroidered Uniform Guard who had been secretly infiltrating. And the ones who had removed them were the blind men led by the Mara Blood Buddha. I felt I now roughly understood how the situation had been turning.

I even pocketed that sheet of paper densely covered in writing before stepping back outside.

“Let’s go.”

“Was there something in there?”

“No.”

I lied naturally and headed outside. I had already memorized the escape route leading out of the cave. From the very moment we entered, I had strongly felt this was going to become troublesome, so I had roughly memorized the route. As a merchant, I was thoroughly trained in remembering roads. Yeo Hong-yang, however, did not seem to have done that. This was what the difference in experience as merchants looked like.

We climbed the long, dark stairs and emerged into the inn. When we flung open the door leading into the inn, it opened into the kitchen, where the owner was making noodle soup.

“Hk!”

The innkeeper froze the instant he saw us. Not only I, but Myeong-il and Yeo Hong-yang as well were drenched in blood from the slaughter.

The innkeeper, looking at us, was trembling too hard even to think of fleeing. He would have known too. He would have known this was a place where people were abducted. The passage was inside his own inn, after all. What I was curious about, however, was something else.

“Hey.”

“Y, yes?”

“Give me your hand.”

Even under my coercive command, the innkeeper could not say a word and held out his hand. When I grabbed his wrist, I could feel his racing heartbeat. It was nearly tachycardic.

Then again, the people he had sold off had returned alive. How could he not be terrified?

But I simply let the innkeeper go. He had no demonic qi at all, nor any internal energy. He was just a common civilian.

“I, I had no choice. They said if I didn’t cooperate, they would make it impossible for me to do business.”

Before I could even open my mouth, the innkeeper blurted that out in a trembling voice. His voice grew faster and faster, reflecting his panic.

“I didn’t know about the hidden passage inside when I bought this place. I truly didn’t. I didn’t know it was being used like this. I had heard that because Gansu was once occupied by the Demonic Cult, there were many buildings with hidden passages, but…”

“Enough. Be quiet. Just bring out the noodles. They’re going to get soggy.”

I said that while releasing his wrist. The innkeeper stared blankly at me. When I jerked my chin, he shot out and delivered the noodle bowls to the customers outside before hurrying back into the kitchen.

“A, are you sparing me?”

“I don’t want to see any more blood today. All the more so if it’s blood with even a little innocence mixed into it.”

“Th, thank you. Thank you!”

“Even so, there is no way we’d have good feelings toward you people. So bring us the best room you’ve got. Prepare hot water too. And by the time we’re done washing, have the best food you can make prepared.”

“Understood!”

The innkeeper ran off as though he had mastered lightness arts. Soon, we were assigned what looked like the largest room in the inn, and we were able to wash ourselves with warm water.

After washing, we went back down to the first floor. On the table there was enough hot food waiting to break the legs of the table itself. The few remaining guests were staring at it.

“Hey, innkeeper! You had food like that here?”

Some of the guests even began complaining to the innkeeper. But the innkeeper simply ignored them.

With commendable sensibility, the innkeeper had even placed a chilled bottle of Bamboo Leaf Green on the table. At least that was one scheme of his that I could not help but appreciate.

“Senior Brother. I’ll just have one cup.”

I said that while filling a cup with Bamboo Leaf Green. Even so, since my senior brother of Wudang was sitting here, it felt a bit awkward to drink without saying anything. Myeong-il nodded as though too tired even to speak.

I poured Bamboo Leaf Green into the cup sitting in front of Yeo Hong-yang too. My arms were still so tense that the liquor spilled over the rim.

“That’s perfect.”

Yeo Hong-yang muttered as he looked at the cup, filled until the surface bulged.

Thus we drank without saying anything. It was a table everyone else would have envied, but none of us felt any pleasure from it.

All I wanted was for the clear Bamboo Leaf Green to wash away the blood that felt stuck in my throat like fishbones. I thought Yeo Hong-yang probably felt the same.

* * *

The next day, we sought out Prince Xian’s palace. I had nearly forgotten for a moment, but our original purpose in coming to Gansu had been to sell goods to Prince Xian.

After going through something major, I had considered resting a few days before going, but for once Yeo Hong-yang and Myeong-il were fully united in wanting only to return to Wudang as quickly as possible.

Since Prince Xian’s palace was not a place just anyone could enter, I had expected it would take considerable time. But when I showed the letter of recommendation from the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company, the palace attendant took it as though he had already known and began to guide us inside.

“Ah, by the way, the recommendation letter only mentions Company Lord Muk Hui-yeong. The others will be shown to a reception room.”

That was what the palace attendant said. It was somewhat uncomfortable, but there was no way we could make demands inside the palace of a princely lord, so I briefly parted from Yeo Hong-yang and Myeong-il.

As I followed the palace attendant, I observed the palace as carefully as possible. I was carrying out the task the Northern Pacification Commissioner had given me.

But the palace was more modest than I had expected. In the palaces of princely lords like these, there were often lavish ornaments and carvings arrayed to the point of tedium. They vented the desire to display themselves, something not even the position of prince could satisfy, through decorative objects.

Since Prince Xian was someone who would one day raise a rebellion, I had assumed he would be the sort of man with strong ambition for power and display, but that was not the case at all.

Usually, the reason not to set out lavish decorative objects like that was respect toward the Emperor. The thinking was that all things precious and splendid belonged to the Emperor.

Then again, perhaps because he was plotting rebellion, he was crouching even lower than usual for the moment.

“This is the residence of His Highness Prince Xian. You may enter.”

While all those thoughts were crossing my mind, I had already arrived at Prince Xian’s residence.

When I opened the door, a surprisingly young man who looked to be about thirty was sitting there in a composed manner.

“So you’re the Company Lord of the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company.”

He had only said that one line, but I recognized at once that he was Prince Xian. Men of princely stature carried a particular dignity and authority. I immediately bowed and offered my greeting.

“It is my honor to behold the illustrious Prince Xian. I am Muk Hui-yeong of the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company.”

“Yes. Rise.”

I rose and stole as much of a glance at Prince Xian as I could. Staring too openly could itself be discourteous toward a prince.

And without any special effort at all, I was able to feel the demonic qi within Prince Xian’s body.