Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 27 - Pride (1)

Chapter 27 – Pride (1)

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Just as I had expected, news that I had defeated Myeong-il spread through all of Wudang in less than half a shichen.

I could tell because Cheong-hwa came straight into my quarters with bloodshot eyes.

“What exactly did you do?”

Cheong-hwa demanded that without preamble. Even though I understood perfectly well what he meant, I pretended not to.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“I mean how you beat Myeong-il.”

“How did I beat him? Like this, yah, hyah, and I won.”

“Stop joking around. I have no intention of joking right now.”

Just as he said, Cheong-hwa’s expression was completely serious. Even so, there was nothing I could tell him. I could not exactly say that I had won by buying Swift Movement from the Martial Talent Shop.

“I guess I’m just stronger than Myeong-il.”

“Were you hiding your martial arts?”

“No chance. If I had, then surely you would have known, Immortal.”

It was not easy to hide one’s realm before experts. Had they not even probed my inner qi?

“How? Just how in the world…”

Cheong-hwa was so shocked he could not even finish his sentence. Then someone appeared behind him. My quarters were lively today.

“Muk Hui-yeong. You are being summoned to the Three Purities Hall.”

The newcomer was Cheong-su, the hall master of the Hall of Preserved Wholeness. Cheong-hwa turned around and jumped in surprise.

“You startled me. Since when were you there?”

“If you’re so distraught that you can’t even sense my presence, then your mind must truly be in disarray.”

Cheong-su led both the still-dazed Cheong-hwa and me to the Three Purities Hall. There, together with Sect Leader Cheong-ui, were Myeong-il, with whom I had fought, several third-generation disciples who had watched, and the drill instructor who had acted as referee.

“You’ve come.”

Cheong-ui spoke. As soon as the door behind us closed, they got straight to the point. This must have been an urgent matter for them.

“So then, did Myeong-il truly lose to Hui-yeong?”

“Yes. He did.”

The drill instructor who had refereed answered Cheong-ui’s question. It seemed they had held back from saying anything until I arrived.

Cheong-ui looked at Myeong-il. Myeong-il had his head bowed so low one might have thought he was some great criminal.

“Raise your head, Myeong-il.”

When Cheong-ui spoke, Myeong-il slowly lifted his head. His face was full of humiliation.

“Say it in your own words. Is it true that you lost to Hui-yeong over there?”

“…Yes.”

“Louder. I can’t hear you well.”

“Yes!”

Fortunately, Myeong-il was not filthy enough to refuse to accept the result of a spar. Though he did look at me with resentment.

“But if we fought again, I would definitely win. His movements changed all of a sudden, so I was a little thrown off…”

Still, he really was a child yet, since excuses came out. But in a situation like this, excuses were poison. Sure enough, Cheong-ui frowned.

“Those words only make you look more pitiful. Do not lose your dignity. You are a person of Wudang.”

“…I apologize.”

Myeong-il lowered his head again.

“Myeong-ha. You explain it. Tell us how the spar unfolded.”

So the drill instructor’s Daoist name was Myeong-ha. It seemed the people who supervised the drill instructors were second-generation disciples of the Myeong line.

Standing before the sect leader, Myeong-ha appeared nervous and began explaining in fits and starts. Even so, there was no difficulty understanding the general flow of the spar.

Like Cheong-su when he described my proxy match against the hall master of the Ascending Thunder Gate, Myeong-ha added detailed descriptions. Just as one would write down the record of a game of go, it seemed martial artists were also trained to remember things in that way.

As Myeong-ha continued, the expressions of Cheong-ui, Cheong-hwa, and Cheong-su, who had not been present, gradually began to change.

“Hoh.”

Cheong-hwa, in particular, was close to giving a gasp of admiration when he heard how I had evaded one of Myeong-il’s exquisite moves with the Azure Cloud Steps.

“Impressive.”

Once Myeong-ha’s explanation ended, Cheong-ui summed it up. Upon hearing the recounting of the match, Myeong-il seemed to feel the sting of defeat afresh and bit down hard on his lip.

“Impressive. Truly impressive. Even if there was an irregular move where your movement suddenly changed, that too is part of skill.”

Seeing the grievance on Myeong-il’s face, Cheong-ui went on.

“For a martial artist, a single defeat is the same as death. You may fight a hundred times and win ninety-nine, but if you lose once, you die. Even if you truly could defeat Hui-yeong in another match, what meaning would that have?”

“This disciple understands. But I feel I have smeared mud on Master’s face, so I can hardly bear to lift my head.”

Myeong-il spoke in a trembling voice, biting his lip. If I teased him even a little here, he looked about ready to start crying. Of course, I was a mature adult, so I had no intention of doing any such thing.

“If you had refused to accept the outcome of the spar here, then I would have been ashamed. But since you did not, it is fine.”

Cheong-hwa finally took his gaze off Myeong-il and looked at me.

“Hui-yeong, you have proven it. At the very least, you have shown why you cannot remain only a lay disciple.”

“I was lucky.”

“Your modesty is excessive. I have never trained Myeong-il carelessly. He is not the type to lose through luck.”

Cheong-ui’s gaze toward me had also changed considerably. Defeating his own disciple, Myeong-il, would naturally strike him more strongly than defeating some hall master of the Ascending Thunder Gate whose name he did not even know.

“Seeing young talent lifts my spirits.”

“You flatter me.”

“That is why I wish to propose it once more. Become a main-sect disciple.”

I was about to refuse without a second thought, but Cheong-ui had more to say.

“If you enter as a main-sect disciple now, I will give you one Taechung Pill.”

At those words, not only I but everyone inside the sect leader’s chamber stared wide-eyed. Even I knew what the Taechung Pill was. Shaolin had the Great Rejuvenation Pill, Mount Hua had the Violet Dawn Pill, and Wudang had the Taechung Pill.

I did not know the exact details because I was a merchant, but it was a spiritual medicine valued across the whole Central Plains. As far as I knew, only the most gifted among Wudang’s main-sect disciples could receive one, yet he was offering it to me. It was hard to believe.

“…Do you truly mean that?”

“Do I look like someone who would lie?”

Not at all. To be honest, those words shook me too. The Taechung Pill was something one could not buy even with immeasurable wealth.

But I shook my head. The expressions of both Cheong-ui and the silent Cheong-hwa turned bitter.

“I apologize.”

“I see. Then I will not ask again.”

Everyone else looked at me as though I were some strange creature. They seemed utterly unable to understand how anyone could reject becoming a main-sect disciple of Wudang when a Taechung Pill was also being offered on top of it. Cheong-ui and Cheong-hwa, however, seemed to have expected my answer to some extent.

“Very well. But understand this. Separate from the fact that you defeated Myeong-il, whether the elders acknowledge you as a Registered lay disciple is another matter entirely.”

“I understand.”

“Your composure is pleasing to see. But the next elders’ council is only a little over ten days away. What more can you possibly show them in that time? To be frank, I thought you had already shown everything.”

“No. I thought that if I wanted to become a Registered lay disciple, proving martial talent alone would not be enough. I planned from the start to prove two things.”

“Two things?”

“Martial talent and merchant talent. I have to prove that keeping me here will benefit Wudang no matter what. Elders of their standing may dislike money, but they will understand necessity.”

Cheong-ui tilted his head at my words.

“That may be true, but there is little time left. Can you prove merchant talent in that span? To prove merchant talent would take even more time than martial talent.”

“Not at all.”

I smiled.

“Trade is my pride. It won’t take much time at all.”

At that bold statement, everyone in the room looked bewildered. Merchant talent certainly was the harder thing to prove. Martial talent could be proven quickly by defeating someone, but how was merchant talent to be proven?

It was not a simple matter. If I had been trying to prove merchant talent empty-handed, it probably would have taken some time.

But I now belonged to none other than the Wudang Sect. Wudang, one of the Nine Great Sects that stood among the countless sects of the Central Plains. Its name alone was enough for me.

***

I proposed a new business to the Wudang Sect. Naturally, Cheong-su, the hall master of the Hall of Preserved Wholeness, wore a dubious expression. The Hall of Preserved Wholeness handled Wudang’s financial concerns, but the hall master himself was still just a mountain Daoist and could hardly be expected to understand business well.

“…Will that really make money?”

“Without fail.”

“I don’t understand. If they trade directly, it would be cheaper. Why would they deliberately go through us? Who would even want that?”

As expected, Cheong-su was merely somewhat better at arithmetic. And even that was only relative to Wudang’s Daoists.

What I proposed was distribution. Merchants traveling in or through Hubei would entrust their goods to us, and we would pass them safely on to the next party. In Hubei, only Wudang could do that.

After all, there was nowhere people trusted more than Wudang. At the very least, they would not have to worry about their money being swallowed.

“You said we were doing business, so I thought we’d be selling something. To think you came up with something this trivial.”

“We’re selling trust. It may be intangible, but that doesn’t make it nonexistent property. The value of Wudang’s name, built up over all these years as one of the Nine Great Sects, is what makes it possible.”

“This honestly sounds like fraud.”

“That’s only because you’re not used to selling intangible goods.”

Everyone knew it, but the Central Plains was a dangerous place. As the saying went, once people saw valuable goods, greedy thoughts arose, and plenty were willing to rob others outright. Naturally, many merchants worried about exactly that.

So what I suggested was that Wudang step in as intermediary. At least, no one would have the nerve to draw a blade in front of Wudang. In exchange, we would take a set fee. Since this concerned their lives and their safety, people would surely pay it without resistance.

Cheong-su did not even understand what it meant to hold goods in trust and mediate their delivery, nor could he imagine that such a simple act could make money, so he merely looked at me with suspicion.

And it did not take long for that look to change.

“…This is insane.”

The moment Wudang took on the intermediary role, merchants impressed by Wudang’s name started rushing to entrust their goods to us.

Apparently they thought it was cheaper than hiring escort guards whenever safety was a concern in trade. In fact, I had strategically set our fee lower than the cost of hiring guards for a single day.

“…I have nothing to say. Nothing at all.”

Cheong-su could only repeat that in a dazed voice.

All we were doing was storing goods in a warehouse and handing them back out, yet money kept pouring in, so of course he would be dumbfounded. In practice, all we had done was insert ourselves into the middle of direct transactions between merchants. That alone earned us fees.

My Radiant Crystal Merchant Company had wanted to try this in my previous life as well, but because people lacked faith in the company’s martial strength, they had refused to entrust us with anything, and the plan had been abandoned. Now that same business had been given life through Wudang.

And before even ten days had passed since we started the mediation, Wudang had earned more than two hundred nyang of silver.