Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 151 - Beijing's Heavyweights (1)
Chapter 151 – Beijing’s Heavyweights (1)
[ Not open for business for the time being. ]
[ No entry. Mechanism formation active. ] Those notices were posted when I approached the Beijing Restaurant.
I looked at Na Hyeon-wi.
I could understand Jo Chung-heon and Yu Cha-ryeon not knowing the place, but I had expected Na Hyeon-wi to know it. Strangely enough, he looked just as clueless about the Beijing Restaurant. “You do not know this place?”
“Me?”
“Yeah.” “I have never come to a restaurant like this. To be honest, it does not look like somewhere I would want to come. The food looks like it would be bad too. I may not look it, but I have rather refined taste.”
“Well, you are the son of the All-Under-Heaven Merchant Company.”
“You know that, so why ask?” It really seemed that Na Hyeon-wi had no idea what sort of place the Beijing Restaurant was.
I tested him several times, but all he gave me was nonsense, and it did not feel like he was lying.
“Before we go in, can I ask you one thing?” “What is it?”
“How did you decide to take my side back there?”
This was simple, honest curiosity on my part as a person.
Na Hyeon-wi only shrugged. “Who knows. I just felt like doing it.”
“Like I said, your instincts are good.”
“What?” “Never mind. Let’s go in.”
Just as I was about to head inside, Jo Chung-heon cut in.
“But it says they are not open. If you want a drink, let us go somewhere else.” I shook my head at his words.
“This place never closes. It is open all day.”
“A restaurant like that exists?” “It does. This one.”
“It says the mechanism formation is active.”
“You can just go in. It is not as if it is going to kill us.” To tell the truth, I did not know exactly what sort of mechanism formation was in there either.
Back then, I had not trained in martial arts, so I only entered after confirming several times that the mechanism formation did not trigger on me.
But things were different now. I had trained in martial arts, and I was confident I could break through most mechanism formations.
I reached for the door immediately.
Naturally, it was locked.
“See? Like the Acting Head Steward said, let us just go somew…” Before Na Hyeon-wi could finish, I kicked the door.
The sound of the latch snapping came from inside, and the door burst open.
“…That is property damage, Brother.” “It is fine. It cannot cost that much.”
I answered indifferently and stepped forward.
The moment I did, I felt the building itself vibrate. Reflexively, I looked up at the ceiling, the source of the vibration.
From above, something like a huge harpoon, the sort used to hunt beasts, was dropping straight at me.
I drew my sword at once and knocked the harpoon aside. When I did, my hand tingled.
If it had this much force despite being an inorganic weapon with no inner power, then it must have fallen carrying tremendous force.
“Wow. This place is savage.” “…Is this really right, Brother?”
Na Hyeon-wi asked while looking at the size of the harpoon that had been sent flying off to the side.
Yu Cha-ryeon and Jo Chung-heon had both gone pale as well. If they imagined that thing falling on their own heads, their legs would naturally go weak.
“It is fine. I will go first.”
“No, that is not the point. This mechanism was clearly built to kill people.”
“It will not kill us. It will not kill us.” I said it with a laugh, but the three behind me had gone stiff.
For some reason, they were all looking at me like I was some kind of monster.
“If it looks too dangerous, you can stay outside.” I said with an awkward smile.
The three of them looked at one another, then nodded as though making some silent resolution.
“Right. If the Branch Master is here, we probably will not die.” “If it is a place the Branch Master is going, then I should follow.”
It seemed they too had realized by now that this was no ordinary place.
Then again, what shabby restaurant closed for a while and used mechanisms like this? Risk and reward were always proportional.
They had smelled the scent of money from inside.
“Let’s go.” I headed inward.
When I lifted the inner curtain, a long, dark corridor appeared.
Anyone could see that its length made no sense. “…The building must be bigger than it looked from outside.”
“I think it may be a formation.”
I had already felt it from the moment I stepped inside.
The flow of qi was strange. That meant there had to be a formation made by distorting natural energy.
“Do we just go straight down there?”
“No. There is no need. Since we have come this far, there will be a response from inside.” We waited at the entrance to the corridor.
Before long, a voice echoed from the ceiling like Six-Harmony Voice Projection.
“Who are you? How did you find this place?” The voice that came down sounded polite.
I looked up at the ceiling and answered.
“I am Muk Hui-yeong of the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company. I came because of this Merchant Union Council meeting.” After I spoke, silence followed for a moment.
Most likely, they were discussing it among themselves.
Whether they should let me in or not. Not long after, the corridor in front of us distorted.
“W-what is this?”
The others were startled by the sight of the corridor writhing. The wavering corridor soon turned into a staircase leading to the upper floor.
The stairs were covered in luxurious red silk that utterly did not match the outside of the building.
“Wow…”
Na Hyeon-wi let out an exclamation. Not just the staircase, but the inside of the building was lavish.
Old ink paintings and portraits of beauties hung on the walls, and fist-sized night-luminescent pearls were fixed to the ceiling.
Just as we were about to go up, a man in black light attire descended the staircase. He was a clean-looking middle-aged man with a well-kept white beard.
“Welcome. I am the manager of the Beijing Restaurant. There were some mechanisms in place. You were not injured, I hope?”
“Not at all.” “We did not realize you were connected to the Merchant Union Council, so we committed a discourtesy. Please forgive our rudeness.”
The man who introduced himself as the manager of the Beijing Restaurant was extremely polite.
Then again, this was a place where only true heavyweights gathered. That degree of courtesy was only natural.
“The guests inside are waiting for you. Please follow me.”
The manager climbed the staircase. The stairs bent once around a landing before continuing upward.
The moment we stepped on the landing, I could finally smell wine and food.
They had probably installed yet another device to keep the smells from escaping.
Once we climbed all the way up, many faces came into view. Most of them were middle-aged or older, and every one of them was staring at me.
“I apologize for disturbing your meal. I am Muk Hui-yeong of the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company.”
I bowed to them politely. “…Father?”
At that moment, Na Hyeon-wi muttered from behind in a dazed voice.
I knew at once whom he meant. There was only one person in this room giving off the pressure of a formidable martial artist.
“Heh heh. This is interesting.”
The huge man rose with a laugh, walked over to me, and extended his hand. “Na Han-geol of the All-Under-Heaven Merchant Company.”
“Muk Hui-yeong of the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company. It is an honor to meet a senior I have long admired.”
I meant it sincerely. Na Han-geol was one of the very few people I admired deeply.
Several others rose as well and offered me a handshake.
From Na Han-geol of the All-Under-Heaven Merchant Company to Son Chung-won, the Company Lord of the Janggyeong Merchant Company, Gwan Yeong-sang, the Company Lord of the Yunchang Merchant Company, and Oh Jong-yo, acting Company Lord of the Oui Merchant Company. Among them, Oh Jong-yo was someone I had met during the salt trade last time.
It looked like he had been promoted from handling the salt trade to the merchant company’s main branch.
Of course, there were also those who did not greet me.
The most obvious one was Jin Deuk-myeong, the Company Lord of the Qin-Jin Merchant Company. “Interesting. How did you learn about this place?”
Jin Deuk-myeong poured himself a drink without even looking at me.
I smiled. The real body of the Merchant Union Council was not that gathering of old men in a back room playing go.
It was here, where the true heavyweights of Central Plains commerce gathered.
“Come, sit here. I have been very curious about you.” Na Han-geol was the first to clear the seat opposite him.
I gave a respectful nod and sat.
My companions lined up and sat beside me. The moment I sat down, a sharp voice flew at me from behind.
“Since when did the Beijing Restaurant become a place where people drag in a string of subordinates behind them?”
When I turned, a thin, medium-height man was glaring at me. His face looked familiar.
Looking more closely, I realized he resembled Yeo Hong-yang.
He was Yeo Hong-won, attending as acting Company Lord of Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company. No wonder he had worn such a cold expression the instant he saw me.
“Ah. It is my first time here, so I did not know.”
I let it pass with a smile.
But Yeo Hong-won had no intention of leaving me alone. “You only got in because the other elders said it was fine. Otherwise you would never have had the chance. Do you even know where this is?”
“Is it not just a restaurant?”
“Hmph. You knew it was not just a restaurant, which is why you broke through the mechanism formation and came in.” “You seem awfully hostile for someone meeting me for the first time.”
I kept grinning.
Realizing I was mocking him, Yeo Hong-won’s face twisted like that of a wrathful demon. He could not help being hostile.
The public supply contract in Gansu that I had obtained from Prince Xian was something I had snatched away from Yeo Hong-won.
No matter how one looked at it, Yeo Hong-won must have been thoroughly chewed out by Yeo Bul-jin over it. “Now, now. Let us stop there, Hong-won. There is no reason to redden faces on a good day.”
Just before the atmosphere turned ugly, Na Han-geol laughed heartily and raised his cup.
I sensed the strange current flowing through this room. Some of them were clearly hostile to me, and some were favorable.
I was beginning to understand why heavyweight merchant companies had gathered over a single Radiant Crystal Merchant Company.
Some wanted to befriend the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company and use it as a bridgehead. Others wanted to place it beneath them and use it.
Their attitudes were very different, but one fact was common to all of them.
They all recognized the necessity of the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company.
If anything, the person who had been underestimating the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company the most may have been me. Come to think of it, the company had already achieved many incredible things.
We had pulled the Wudang Sect into commerce.
We had not merely held our own against a merchant association, but swallowed it instead. We had even gone to the stronghold of the Huizhou merchants and calmly carried off salt.
In many ways, these were feats other merchant companies would never even dare attempt.
“It has been a while. We met once during the last salt trade.” “Ah, it was Lord Oh. It is good to see you.”
“So you remembered.”
Oh Jong-yo greeted me first as well. It seemed the Oui Merchant Company, to which he belonged, was also part of the faction friendly to the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company.
After that, I exchanged personal greetings with many people.
Truly, the most prominent great merchants of the Central Plains were gathered in one place. In truth, the original purpose of the Merchant Union Council had always been to provide a pretext for heavyweight merchants to gather.
The official banner the Merchant Union Council raised was that it carried out various activities to develop the commercial world. Policy proposals, research, statistics, and the like.
But that was only the appearance of it. In reality, it was just an excuse for old men in back rooms to extort money from active merchants.
Of course, active merchants were not fools, so they did not simply pay membership dues and the like for nothing.
They needed a legal pretext to gather, and they used the Merchant Union Council as that pretext.
If they gathered without something like this, they might attract suspicious attention from officials. So the old men squeezed money out of the active merchants, while the active merchants used the old men as a shield to create a place for themselves.
Usually, this was where important things were discussed, illegal dealings like price-fixing, and information on changed policies heard from Beijing informants.
In any case, these people had no interest in the topics raised by the old men in the back room. This Beijing Restaurant was the real Merchant Union Council.
“Now that the Company Lord of the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company is here, perhaps we should talk a bit in advance about what will be discussed at the Merchant Union Council. What do the rest of you think?”
Na Han-geol said that with a laugh. In response, Jin Deuk-myeong, the Company Lord of the Qin-Jin Merchant Company, cleared his throat and answered.
“That would be difficult when all the other Company Lords have not yet arrived.”
“Well, there is no harm in trying first. This is an unofficial gathering, so everyone can speak their minds freely, can they not?” “Then only those who wish to speak may do so. I personally have no opinion to express.”
“Then may the All-Under-Heaven Merchant Company speak first?”
Na Han-geol said that with a broad smile. “From now on, the All-Under-Heaven Merchant Company wishes to become a close and trusted friend of the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company. Any hostility toward the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company will be regarded as hostility toward the All-Under-Heaven Merchant Company as well.”
Not only I, but the others too were startled.
None of us had expected Na Han-geol to come out this aggressively. Na Han-geol looked very pleased with the storm he himself had stirred up, and smiled faintly as he looked at me.