Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 197 - Conflict (4)
Chapter 197 – Conflict (4)
Guided by the messenger, I entered the Alliance Leader’s office. Inside, even a teacup for me had already been prepared, and Su Je-heon, the Alliance Leader, sat in his chair in a slightly slanted posture.
“Come in.”
“To summon me this late at night, I would be lying if I said I was not a little startled.”
“Haha. Most youths your age would regard a private audience with the Alliance Leader as an honor. But you truly are different.”
“To be honest, I was a little worried.”
“Worried about what?”
“Did I not speak rather rudely to you, Alliance Leader? So I thought perhaps you meant to silence me forever.”
Hearing my words, Su Je-heon laughed so hard he even threw his head back. Since he was laughing this much, he had likely already used some kind of qi barrier to block the sound. Well, since a great many secrets would pass through the Alliance Leader’s office, it made sense that such formations would be in place.
“Silence you forever? Just what sort of man do you take me for?”
“Half of that was a joke.”
“To think half of it was sincere. That is truly sad.”
“Because I do not know you, Alliance Leader.”
Shrugging, I reached to lift the cup. But the fragrance rising from it was not that of tea I was familiar with.
“This is alcohol.”
“It is. What sense would there be in tea when two men are talking together at such a late hour? To have an honest conversation, one naturally needs alcohol.”
“I am not sure you and I have anything to speak honestly about.”
“We do. I have wanted to speak with you alone like this for quite some time. Ever since I first saw you at Wudang. That must have been two or three years ago now, yes?”
“It seems so. It was before the formal match with the Zhuge Clan.”
“I recognized you then. Immortal Cheong-ui saw through my desire for you with astonishing clarity and told me not to lick my lips over what was his.”
“You desired me?”
When Cheong-ui, Su Je-heon, and I had spoken that time, I had shown quite a prickly side of myself. I had thought he would dislike me as some rude brat, so I had not expected him to covet me.
“That is right. You rejected becoming a main-mountain disciple of Wudang. Yet with astounding talent, you still learned even Wudang’s ultimate arts as a registered secular disciple, did you not? I thought you were the perfect sort of talent for the Martial Alliance.”
“Mm. To be honest, even if you say that…”
“There is no ‘mm.’ Think about it. The main-mountain disciples of the Nine Great Sects and the direct lines of the Five Great Families are only a tiny minority. Yet they monopolize the martial world’s talented people and its power. Is that not absurd?”
“I think it is common for a small minority to stand above the majority. That aside from whether it is right or wrong.”
“I am saying that it is wrong.”
Su Je-heon’s eyes shone. I knew that look as well. It was the eyes of someone with an unshakable conviction.
“Even in this laughable situation where the few oppress the many, most people cannot open their mouths. Why? Because in the martial world, strength itself becomes justice. Because of the strength held by the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Families, what is unjust has become justice.”
“And you are saying this in front of a person of the Nine Great Sects?”
“Why would a secular disciple like you be a person of the Nine Great Sects? If a secular disciple counted as a disciple of that sect, then there would be no one in this world who was not a disciple of the Nine Great Sects.”
Cutting off my words, Su Je-heon continued.
“That is why the Martial Alliance needs talented people like you. Talents who do not belong to the Nine Great Sects or the Five Great Families, yet are powerful. And that power is not limited to martial force alone. You have your own merchant company as well, do you not? That too is a great strength. You are exactly the type of talent the Martial Alliance has long wanted.”
“To put it simply, you want me to become a man of the Martial Alliance.”
“Exactly. I am certain you are an outstanding talent. Not just a mere talent, but someone who could even become a leader guiding the new martial world. But that is impossible through your strength alone. Too many people would hold you back on the way up there, and some might even try to kill you. I can protect you from that and raise you into one of the martial world’s great figures.”
It did not seem that Su Je-heon’s claim that he desired me was something he had just improvised. He was pouring out his words like a waterfall, after all.
“I do not particularly intend to become one of the martial world’s great figures.”
“That is not something you can refuse. Already, many people are paying attention to you. In the fight with Clan Head Zhuge this time, you displayed impressive martial ability before others, and you also engraved into them that unique existence of being both a secular disciple and a Taiji Sword Guardian.”
Su Je-heon’s words were not false. It had not even been long since I heard that the Beggars’ Gang sold my information as top-class intelligence.
Of course, there were currents of the age that one individual could not refuse. But one of the martial world’s great figures. It was a future I had never considered.
“There is something I would like to say first.”
“Go ahead.”
“I am a man of Wudang. That will not change.”
“No, you are not a man of Wudang. Did I not show that to you?”
At Su Je-heon’s firm reply, I furrowed my brow. Acting as though my expression meant nothing, he continued speaking.
“In truth, the relation between main-mountain disciples and secular disciples is somewhat different from that between direct lines and collateral lines. Secular disciples eventually leave, but collateral lines live under the same roof while sharing the same surname. That is why there is no conflict between main-mountain disciples and secular disciples, but the conflict between direct and collateral lines tends to surface often enough.”
“That is natural enough if they live under the same roof.”
“And there is no guarantee that will not become your future.”
“What exactly do you mean by that?”
“I mean that though you are a secular disciple, you are not really a secular disciple. You are closer to a collateral line. Though you are a secular disciple, are you not continuing to coexist with Wudang?”
“And?”
“Do you think direct lines and collateral lines were on bad terms from the beginning? At first, being cousins, they likely pulled together with one heart. In this harsh world, blood kin are more trustworthy than strangers.”
I listened to Su Je-heon’s words for the moment. Su Je-heon had lived longer than I had as a martial artist, and he seemed to have spent a long time contemplating this problem. Leaving aside whether the idea itself was right or wrong, I had to hear it if I was to judge it.
“But as time passes, seeds of doubt inevitably begin to sprout in their hearts. The direct lines wonder if the collateral lines might betray them and seize the position of the direct line. The collateral lines ask why they must remain collateral forever. And some will move beyond thought into action. Direct lines who act will purge the collateral lines, while collateral lines who act will raise rebellion.”
“It is a structure that would naturally tend that way.”
“That history becomes a scar on their trust that can never fully heal. Then each side begins to imagine the worst possible act the other could take. The direct lines wonder whether the collateral lines are plotting rebellion again, while the collateral lines fear the direct lines may purge them. They suspect one another and turn hostile even over trivial matters. But in truth, they are not fighting one another. They are fighting the monster of suspicion that they themselves created.”
“Hm.”
I rubbed my chin with my index finger and continued thinking over Su Je-heon’s words. Su Je-heon emptied the alcohol in his deep cup in a single swallow and continued.
“You said that for now you maintain a good relationship with Wudang, yes? But that is only because you are still one of the lowest in generation order and are not yet the strongest in Wudang, so you do not stand out as much. If time passes and you become the strongest within Wudang, some will begin to think you should be the Sect Leader and will gather around you. Regardless of your own will. Then the main-mountain disciples will begin to suspect you, and in order to protect the immense authority of the Wudang Sect Leader, they may even purge you.”
“That goes too far. It is an exaggeration.”
“It is not an exaggeration. Did I not show you the process today? Even while clearly knowing that it was a stage I had set, they willingly put on disgusting performances in order to tear at one another.”
“Do you not think you stirred up that suspicion quite a bit yourself?”
“If suspicion can be stirred up to this extent, then it would have caught fire someday even without me. If they truly had not been wary of each other and had been bound by trust, then as you said, would they not have all come to question me together?”
For a moment, I fell silent. It was not because I had nothing to say.
It was because I had just realized something from his words.
“…So you arranged all of this merely to show me that scene.”
“Haha. As expected, you are a keen one. Yes. I coveted you and wanted to try persuading you.”
Su Je-heon laughed heartily, utterly unconcerned. I knew people like this.
People who manipulated others for the sake of their own goals and felt no guilt about it whatsoever.
The sort who could run an organization well through calculations stripped of all human feeling, but whom one would never want to be close to. That was exactly what Su Je-heon was.
“The phrase that suits you best is truly ‘utterly high-handed.'”
“I do hear that sort of evaluation from time to time. Well, no matter how others evaluate me, I do not care at all. I do not even pay attention to it. I merely try to uphold what I believe is right.”
“There is one thing you overlooked while arranging all this, Alliance Leader.”
“I am listening.”
“That is the human heart. The human heart has no form and no substance, yet it is clearly something that exists unseen. In reality, because of this affair, the Martial Alliance has bought resentment from the Zhuge Clan that it never needed to buy.”
“Does that not simply mean I liked you that much? Hahaha.”
“I do not like you, Alliance Leader.”
I lifted my cup. Then I scattered the liquor onto the floor behind me. Su Je-heon’s eyes narrowed.
“My relationship with Wudang may indeed unfold as you predict. But for now, both Wudang and I hold good feelings toward each other. In our present state, your words are nothing more than sowing discord. We will do our utmost to escape your malicious expectations, and we will gain the treasure called trust, something you will never possess in all your life.”
“Perhaps because you are young, you remain idealistic. That is how a young man ought to be.”
“I am not idealistic because I am young, and you are not negative because you are old. We are simply those kinds of people.”
Placing a hand on the desk, I rose from my seat. Su Je-heon looked up at me with a smile at the corner of his mouth.
“I will be leaving now.”
“My proposal will remain open to you for as long as needed. Think it over carefully.”
“As though that would ever happen.”
Answering with cold sarcasm, I left the Alliance Leader’s office. Once I shut the door with a heavy thud, I looked down the corridor.
Perhaps because dawn had not yet broken, an unpleasant darkness hung thick along the corridor.
Even after I hurried out of the corridor and headed quickly toward the lodging where I was staying, the unpleasantness would not leave me.
What was truly unpleasant was that Su Je-heon’s words kept circling through my mind. Human affairs really were impossible to predict. Had I not only in this life learned that Gwan Seo-ye, whom I had thought a lifelong friend, was in fact a demonic being?
And I too knew that human nature was closer to the kind Su Je-heon had described. Humans were foolish creatures who prioritized protecting themselves above all else, then suffered while imagining countless hypothetical situations in which that protection might be threatened. When pushed that far mentally, people made mistakes.
“Huu.”
I returned to where I was staying. Although the Alliance Leader had promised to restore the treatment of the collateral lines, that did not mean the pavilion was changed immediately, so it remained the same old shabby, foul-smelling building.
When I entered the building, the creaking of the floorboards seemed to scrape against my heart. Just as I grasped the handle of my room and was about to open it, I sensed the presence of someone inside.
In that instant, a chill ran down my spine. Someone had sneaked into my room at this dead hour of night.
There was no sword at my waist now. Zhuge Gyeom had cut it apart. In haste, I grabbed a short wooden rod discarded at the end of the corridor and came back.
Then I threw the door wide and stepped inside, immediately leveling the rod toward the room. But inside, bathed by moonlight coming through the slightly open window, was Myeong-gyeong asleep.
“Mm, Junior Brother, you’re back?”
Because I had opened the door roughly, Myeong-gyeong seemed to have woken a little. Judging by his drowsy voice and the way he could not open his eyes properly, he had not really woken at all.
“…Senior Brother. You startled me. What are you doing here so late?”
“I just missed you, Junior Brother, so I came. You weren’t here, so I waited. Where did you go?”
Rubbing his eyes, Myeong-gyeong spoke as though half dreaming. I hastily swung the wooden rod I had been pointing forward behind my back and tossed it outside the room.
“Where else would I go? I went to the latrine.”
“That took a really long time… Junior Brother, are you constipated?”
“…Yes.”
Because I had no better answer, I ended up falsely admitting that I was constipated. Myeong-gyeong clicked his tongue sympathetically.
“Oh dear. Come here.”
Without being able to properly open his eyes, Myeong-gyeong stretched one arm out to the side. Before I knew it, I had lain down with my head on that arm. Myeong-gyeong’s small body wrapped around me.
“They say constipation gets better if you keep your stomach warm.”
Myeong-gyeong’s warmth spread through my entire body. In that moment, I had to taste a sense of guilt so hot it seemed to rush all the way to my baihui acupoint.
If I had guarded against people more the way Su Je-heon did, would I not have swung the wooden rod down without asking anything? Thinking that way made me feel deeply terrified of what kind of person I was.
“Junior Brother, are you cold? Why are you trembling so much?”
“Yes. I feel chilled.”
Our heartbeats, which had not matched, slowly began to align and resonate together.
And astonishingly, the fear that had ruled my heart began little by little to clear away.
I did not know how much heat would be required to melt all the cold hanging over the world. But to melt the cold within me, the warmth of a single person was enough. The fact felt moving and joyful.
[ Conditions fulfilled. Shop rank will rise. ] And then suddenly, words I had not seen in a long while appeared before my eyes.