Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 184 - Return (3)

Chapter 184 – Return (3)

Yun County in Hubei was, in truth, little more than a country town. If one went just a bit farther northwest, there was the much larger Shiyan, but even that hardly counted as a bustling city when compared against the whole of the Central Plains.

Beijing, by contrast, was the capital of the empire. Only Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, and Luoyang could be considered equally prosperous.

Which meant that Peng Chae-hyang was, at present, a refined woman from the heart of a great metropolis standing in the midst of country folk.

“…Wow.”

“Stop staring. She’s someone the Company Lord brought with him.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Have you ever seen the Company Lord keep women around him? If he brought her all the way from Beijing, then they must be lovers.”

“Didn’t you say the exact same thing last time when Young Lady Yu came too?”

“Ah, but this time it’s different.”

“Still, the Company Lord really is capable. Isn’t the Hebei Peng Clan an incredibly great family?”

“A great family, and beautiful too. The Company Lord really is an impressive man.”

The whispered conversation of the merchant company staff reached my ears clearly. Like me, ordinary people simply couldn’t imagine what sort of senses martial artists truly possessed. They knew a martial artist’s senses were sharper than a normal person’s, but they never knew how sharp.

So all those things people whispered among themselves, thinking surely this much wouldn’t be overheard, were heard just fine. But since they were only whispering among themselves, and nothing they said crossed any real line, there wasn’t much reason for me to speak up.

When I glanced at Peng Chae-hyang beside me, she too had obviously heard every word, because her face had turned red. At this point, I felt like I saw red far more often than I saw the natural pale color of her skin.

“Just pretend you didn’t hear them.”

“…All right.”

Come to think of it, when I first met Peng Chae-hyang, she had seemed incredibly confident and straightforward. But around me, that aspect of her had thinned a great deal. Maybe this was closer to her true self after all. As people grew closer, the real self had a way of revealing itself.

Once I came out of the Hall of the Three Purities, I went straight into the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company. I’d briefly considered stopping by the Bow Hall to greet the senior brothers there, but it seemed more important to deal with the matter directly before us.

When I entered the Company Lord’s office, the people who had been protesting were all sitting there fiddling awkwardly with their hands. In the center sat Jo Chung-heon writing something down, and the moment he saw me, he sprang to his feet.

“You’ve returned, Company Lord.”

“Sorry I’m late. I ended up speaking with the Sect Leader for a bit.”

“Not late at all. One moment. I’ll finish this and hand it over.”

Jo Chung-heon sat back down, moved his brush swiftly, and then handed me the paper. The ink was still fresh and carried that strong smell upward. The moment I saw what it contained, I let out a short laugh.

“So you asked them in advance.”

“Yes.”

“Excellent work.”

What Jo Chung-heon had handed me was a summary of the information he’d already extracted from them. Most of it was exactly what I would’ve wanted to ask about, which meant he’d spared me the trouble by handling it first. As expected, Jo Chung-heon was an excellent aide.

“Hmm.”

After praising him, I read through the document. It was clean and well organized, just what one would expect from a Head Steward.

He’d separated the professional agitators from the Hubei merchants who’d been swept up in the matter before questioning them, and I liked that as well.

The results were more or less what I’d expected.

The professional agitators had, without any great resolve, immediately identified the Zhuge Clan as the ones behind it. And the Hubei merchants had simply come seeking the protection of their own interests.

In truth, as the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company grew larger, it really had been swallowing a greater and greater share of the Hubei market. That naturally meant the profits of local Hubei merchants had been falling.

“Which person of the Zhuge Clan hired you? Do you remember anything about what they looked like?”

After lifting my eyes from the paper, I asked the agitators.

“It was a beautiful young lady in a scholar’s robe. Though her mouth wasn’t beautiful at all….”

“Ah, confirmed. I know exactly who it is.”

Zhuge Yan, then. It was not a pleasant name to hear again.

Funny, really. In my previous life, she had been the sort of person who’d nearly wiped out small and mid-level merchants in order to expand the Zhuge Clan’s influence. And now that same woman was manipulating small merchants in order to slander us. There had to be a reason she had been called the Poison-Heart Iron Mask.

“Are you perhaps speaking of Young Lady Zhuge Yan?”

At that moment, Peng Chae-hyang, who had been beside me, asked in a quiet voice. I looked at her in surprise.

“You know her?”

“We’re of similar age and from two of the Five Great Clans, so of course I do.”

“Ah. Right.”

“Though I don’t understand what you mean by her mouth not being beautiful. It’s been a long time since I last saw her, but she was honestly like an angel.”

“Then maybe there’s another Zhuge Yan I don’t know.”

I frowned. Zhuge Yan, an angel? It almost sounded like shorthand for a devil in disguise.

“You’re not talking about the hall master attached to the Zhuge Clan’s outer division?”

“That’s right.”

To my surprise, Peng Chae-hyang and I really were speaking of the same person. But I understood soon enough. Zhuge Yan had been brutal to minor merchants without backing, like me. Yet toward someone from another great family, she could have been perfectly courteous.

“Sharp-witted, beautiful, and so considerate with her words. I remember that she never once spoke down even to household servants.”

Peng Chae-hyang went on describing the Zhuge Yan she remembered, and to my ears it was a farce.

“That’s the exact opposite of the woman I know. Her mouth is obviously vicious, the things she does are arrogantly outrageous, and she’s a real… no, never mind. In any case, she’s not a good person.”

“That sounds strange. She’s not someone who ought to be arrogantly outrageous.”

“When was the last time you saw Zhuge Yan?”

“About ten years ago, I think.”

“Ten years is enough time to change a whole landscape. It’s more than enough time to change one person.”

“Could that really be it? It’s hard for me to accept. Our family isn’t that way, but the Zhuge Clan draws a very strict line between the direct line and the collateral branches. That’s why the collateral branches of the Zhuge Clan are usually quiet and modest.”

At that, I frowned slightly. People’s impressions could differ. But when the facts differed, that became a problem.

“Collateral branch? Isn’t Zhuge Yan part of the direct line?”

“No. She’s collateral branch. That much I’m certain of.”

Peng Chae-hyang said it with absolute confidence. But I couldn’t understand it. In my previous life, Zhuge Yan had gone around openly calling herself a member of the direct line, and the Zhuge Clan had never contradicted her, so I’d naturally believed she was.

And yet she was collateral branch? On this sort of matter, Peng Chae-hyang, who came from one of the Five Great Clans herself, would surely know better than I did. Which meant she really was collateral branch. I had no idea what that implied.

“I’ll have to look into that.”

For the moment, I set the Zhuge Yan problem aside. That was Zhuge Yan’s personal matter. The more pressing issue was the problem between the Zhuge Clan, Wudang, and the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company.

First, I sent the agitators and the Hubei merchants back out. To the Hubei merchants, I promised that the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company would take the lead in creating a development fund for the Hubei merchant world, and then sent them on their way.

I had real intention of creating such a fund anyway, so it wasn’t much of a loss. Small and medium merchants were often local rooted people. Turning them into enemies only made life more troublesome. In the long run, it was far better to coax and soothe them and let them move together with us.

“Should we perhaps start going through the backlogged documents, Head Steward?”

“Ah, Company Lord. Before we do the paperwork, there’s something I should tell you.”

Jo Chung-heon cast a slight look toward Peng Chae-hyang. It seemed to be something awkward to say in front of others. Peng Chae-hyang caught on immediately.

“I’ll step out for a moment.”

“Thank you.”

Once Peng Chae-hyang had gone and closed the door behind her, Jo Chung-heon continued.

“I looked through the documents in advance, and there’s a noteworthy issue.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see as soon as you look.”

I took the papers from him. The moment I saw them, I understood why he’d sent Peng Chae-hyang out.

“There was no need to send Young Lady Peng away over this.”

“Is that so? Even so, a decline in sales of this degree is rather serious.”

The unusual issue Jo Chung-heon referred to was something common enough in merchant company life: falling revenue. Right now we were supplying goods throughout the Central Plains through the Heaven’s Gift Merchant Company’s trade network.

Which meant our revenue reports arrived broken down by province. Gansu this much, Jiangxi this much, Shaanxi this much, Liaoning this much, and so on.

But startlingly, every province’s figures had fallen all at once by around thirty percent. Normally, since every province had different climates, environments, and goods that sold well, rises and falls in sales were only natural. Sometimes all regions dropped together too, such as in times of prolonged famine or natural disaster.

But there had been no special disaster right now, which meant that if only our company’s revenues had fallen, there had to be some specific intervention at work.

Jo Chung-heon had sent Peng Chae-hyang out because if word got around the Central Plains that our sales had fallen, it could easily lead to failure in raising investment. Peng Chae-hyang wasn’t part of the merchant world and had no reason to spread such talk, but there was still no harm in being cautious.

“Someone’s definitely working against us.”

I gave my view. A drop this unnatural was best explained by deliberate interference. And interference of this sort usually arose from within the merchant world itself.

People might intentionally sell the same goods more cheaply to damage our revenues, or spread slander, or employ some similar method.

“Yes. That’s why I had the managers of each branch investigate the merchant-world conditions in their respective regions.”

“Well done.”

It wasn’t easy for anyone to suppress us on this scale across the whole Central Plains, but perhaps it was possible because the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company was still relatively small when viewed against the entire world of Central Plains trade.

“Let’s dig a little deeper into the Zhuge Clan.”

“Pardon?”

Jo Chung-heon tilted his head. I explained further.

“Both with these protesters and otherwise, the Zhuge Clan is showing up too much out in the open. There may be another hidden hand behind them, pulling even the Zhuge Clan itself.”

“Ah. I see.”

“It could also be connected to the drop in our revenues. There aren’t that many forces capable of exerting this kind of influence all across the Central Plains.”

“Understood.”

Jo Chung-heon nodded at once and left the Company Lord’s office. As always, he was reassuring.

Rolling a brush in my hand, I looked through the remaining documents. I hadn’t been away more than two months, so there weren’t all that many papers left for me to review.

“Heh heh heh.”

Once the dull work of reviewing documents was over, a far more enjoyable moment awaited me.

Namely, checking how much my money had grown. Last time I’d confirmed it, I had possessed seventeen thousand taels. Since that was only two months ago, it likely hadn’t grown dramatically, but it still ought to have increased by a fair amount.

The way to calculate it was simple. All I had to do was find how much net profit the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company had made over those two months.

“…Hmm.”

Lower than expected. Over two months, the net profit came to a mere one thousand taels of silver. That meant my total was now eighteen thousand taels. It left me feeling slightly gloomy. Then again, our sales this month had been cut by thirty percent, so there was no helping it.

I leaned back in my chair and looked out the window. Eighteen thousand taels of silver was enough money to live comfortably for the rest of my life if I retired right now. And yet the fact that it still felt insufficient only went to show that humans were creatures of greed. Of course, in my case, perhaps it was all the worse because I’d once held far more than this.

I stretched. In any case, up to this point things had still gone smoothly enough. Just past twenty years old and already holding eighteen thousand taels of silver put me among the wealthiest few, especially considering that the children of great houses were usually still too young even to inherit their clan at this age.

“Good.”

At the very least, the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company had no real problem. This was what I had been doing all along, and what I was best at.

The real issue was martial arts. Compared to others of my age, I was strong, but the truth was that I had made far too many enemies. Wasn’t it because of me that the Yunchang Merchant Company, a large network of Demonic Cult infiltrators, had pulled back entirely?

Seen that way, I needed to grow still stronger. And besides, once we started exclusive maritime trade, these eighteen thousand taels would become little more than pocket change anyway, so there was no reason to grow stingy over them.

“It’s been a while.”

As I looked at the slowly rising letters before me, I smiled.

It really had been a very long time. The Martial Talent Shop.