Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 30 - Fallen Angel (1)

Chapter 30 – Fallen Angel (1)

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Before I could even explain myself, Cheong-hwa objected at once.

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

“It isn’t nonsense. Lay disciples can go out freely whenever they have business outside, can’t they?”

“That may be true, but haven’t you only just become a registered lay disciple? Isn’t this the time when you should be putting your strength into martial training?”

There was something Cheong-hwa did not know. Before I could devote myself to martial arts, I needed money. That was why I was going out. But if I said that, there was no way he would understand.

“I just want to get a bit of fresh air outside. And see my father too.”

“Your father?”

Cheong-hwa’s voice grew slightly flustered. Heh heh. Well? No matter what, he wouldn’t interfere with family, would he? Who would stop someone from going to see his family?

“Yes. I should brag a little that I became a registered lay disciple.”

“Hm.”

Cheong-hwa stroked his chin. He seemed to be thinking.

“You aren’t planning to go out and simply never come back, are you?”

“Of course not.”

In the past, I might have thought of running away, but now that I had become a registered lay disciple, I intended to drain every bit of value I could from it.

“Very well. A brief change of air is necessary at times.”

“Oh.”

He gave permission with less trouble than I had expected. In the first place, he did not have much grounds to forbid it, but since this was Cheong-hwa, I had assumed he would stop me first and think later.

“But take Myeong-gyeong with you.”

“Pardon?”

This time it was my face that crumpled.

“Why?”

“How can I trust you enough to send you out alone?”

“Have you spent your whole life being deceived? I said I was coming back.”

“You also need someone to supervise you. If you’re alone, you won’t train your martial arts at all, will you?”

I had no rebuttal to that. But what was I supposed to do when I lacked the talent for it?

“But does it really have to be Senior Brother Myeong-gyeong?”

“Myeong-seong has recently gained an insight, and his martial arts are improving quickly. At a time like this, he should focus entirely on martial training. Myeong-jin is the youngest.”

“Then so be it.”

What mattered was going out. I had not expected a lump to be attached to me, but that did not mean he could stop me from doing what I needed to do.

Once my first outing had been decided, I immediately headed to the Outer Court. It was where the lay disciples stayed.

“Oh. Registered.”

“Hui-yeong! Long time no see!”

“Have you been well?”

The moment I arrived, the lay disciples welcomed me. The reception was intense enough to make me flustered. They were the same boys who had not exchanged a single word with me when I was just a lay disciple. Some of them had even belonged to Sagong Hyeon’s clique.

I knew why they were suddenly acting so friendly.

The fact that I had become a registered lay disciple had already spread through all of Wudang.

Even if they did not know exactly what that meant, they had grasped that I was receiving some special treatment from Wudang.

From the point of view of lay disciples who cared more about connections than martial arts, I was exactly the kind of connection they needed to secure.

“Congratulations. I heard you became a registered lay disciple.”

“But what’s a registered lay disciple?”

The lay disciples surrounded me and kept acting warmly toward me. I let out a slight smile and slowly looked over all of them.

The lay disciples flinched. They knew it too. They knew it was shameless for them to act close to me now when they had all pretended not to know me back when Sagong Hyeon had marked me.

“It just means I get to learn better martial arts than an ordinary lay disciple. It’s nothing that special.”

Even so, I answered mildly and even smiled at them. I needed connections too.

The relationship we wanted from one another was never that of intimate friends who would shoulder parts of each other’s lives. We only needed to be businesslike associates we could contact when necessary.

“I’m touched by how warmly you’re welcoming me.”

“Of course. We’re the same intake, after all.”

Ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha.

Hollow laughter drifted through the Outer Court. Keeping the smile on my face, I slowly brought up the main point.

“Right. We’re from the same intake. Love your peers, love your country.”

“Exactly, exactly.”

“And since we’re such dear peers, I came because I have a favor to ask.”

“Oh. What is it?”

“Will you lend me some money?”

The expressions of the children crowding around me froze like stone statues. Some standing at the back even took a step away.

“…Mm, that’s a bit…”

“Oh wow, I need to go practice martial arts.”

“See you next time!”

The children immediately scattered like an ebbing tide. As expected, that was all our relationship amounted to. Lightly swatting away the gnats that had come buzzing around me, I made a circuit of the Outer Court.

When I went into the back yard, I found some lay disciples gathered there training on their own. Among them were the ones I was looking for.

I waited until their training was finished. Only then did they realize I had come.

“A few months passed and now you’ve got some bearing to you.”

I smiled. Compared to the main-sect disciples, they still fell short, but there were clear traces of hard training.

Yeo Hong-yang and Jeon Oh-su dropped onto the ground as though they were about to die. They were the people I had come to see.

“Don’t even talk about it. They work us harder than I expected. They said that if we go out and embarrass ourselves, it becomes Wudang’s embarrassment.”

“That is true.”

If word spread that someone had beaten one of Wudang’s lay disciples, it would not take long at all for the word lay to vanish from the rumor.

“Why’d you come?”

“What’s with that? That’s cold. Do I need to have some business every time I come looking for you?”

“Judging by how loose your mouth is, you definitely came because you have business.”

After speaking only with main-sect disciples, it was nice talking to lay disciples again. We understood each other well.

“I came to borrow some money.”

I said it bluntly. Unlike the other lay disciples, however, these two did not try to run away.

“You brought up an uncomfortable subject.”

“How much do you need?”

Jeon Oh-su smiled, but he did not look uncomfortable, and Yeo Hong-yang went straight to asking the amount.

As expected, my eye for people had not rusted. For some assets, there was the concept of pricing in future expectations. Even if something looked shabby right now, if people expected it to grow larger later, that expectation would be reflected in its value. Land was especially like that.

Those two were the sort who could judge and value me not just for what I was capable of right now, but for the future they saw in me.

“As much as possible.”

I smiled. Jeon Oh-su and Yeo Hong-yang’s eyes turned sharp.

“Ah, is that rumor really true?”

“What rumor?”

“That your master ended up being Immortal Cheong-hwa.”

“It’s true.”

“Oh. Is that so?”

The eyes of Yeo Hong-yang, who had asked the question, grew deeper. He looked as though he were taking in new information and repricing my value. While Yeo Hong-yang watched me with that peculiar gaze, Jeon Oh-su spoke first.

“Still, I don’t actually have that much money I can free up. I’ve only got the hollow-sounding title of young master.”

“How much?”

“About five hundred nyang in silver.”

I was startled, but I did not show it. There was nothing cruder or more unsightly in a money conversation than looking surprised. Five hundred nyang of silver was enough money for a family of four to live on for three years. I had not expected him to value me that highly.

“That really isn’t much.”

Those words came not from me but from Yeo Hong-yang. Jeon Oh-su looked somewhat bitter, but he did not refute it. After all, the one who had spoken was the son of the Merchant King.

“I can free up about two thousand nyang.”

“Without reporting it to the Merchant King?”

My body trembled slightly. Two thousand nyang. That was an enormous sum. A person had to be at least a fifth-rank official to borrow that kind of money from a money house.

Right now, Yeo Hong-yang was valuing me as someone equivalent to a fifth-rank official.

“If I reported it to my father, then you would become part of his network too. I don’t want that. I need people of my own.”

Yeo Hong-yang’s eyes gleamed. As expected of the Merchant King’s son, he was ambitious. Feeling the vigor of youth so directly almost made me feel young myself. Though in truth I was young right now anyway.

Maybe because they were young, they handled things boldly. They immediately pulled out paper and brushes and wrote me a promissory note and a loan certificate.

I looked over the loan certificate and the note. Something about them seemed odd.

“There’s no interest?”

“There isn’t. And you see there’s no return deadline written either.”

Yeo Hong-yang said it as though it were obvious. Looking at the two of them, it did not seem to be some mistake.

It stung me a little. As a senior merchant, it felt as though I were taking advantage of juniors.

“Aren’t you working a little too loosely?”

“You’re just undervaluing yourself.”

But Yeo Hong-yang and Jeon Oh-su were firm.

“Disciple of Immortal Cheong-hwa. Special treatment from Wudang. That’s enough by itself. If I had more money I could free up, I would have called an even higher number.”

“I second that.”

When I ran the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company, I had tried not to interact with martial artists any more than necessary. Only later, when the company grew too large, had I been forced to deal with them. That was how low I had rated martial artists, and how little I understood their real value. But it seemed martial artists carried even more value than I had thought.

I grinned. Even leaving martial artists aside, I knew my own worth.

“You two know how to do business.”

Yeo Hong-yang and Jeon Oh-su also grinned. I received the promissory note from them, and they took the loan certificate. That meant I was fully prepared to go out now.

***

On the morning of our departure, Myeong-gyeong had come out even earlier than I had and stood there with his arms folded proudly.

“Today’s the day we’re going out.”

“Don’t go thinking you can slack off just because you’re going outside. Master assigned me the task of keeping watch over you.”

“When have I ever slacked off?”

“Your face is already slack.”

As Myeong-gyeong pointed out, my expression probably had relaxed. In a way, this was the first time since my regression that I was going out freely. The trip to the Yichang market last time had been for a clear mission.

“Myeong-gyeong is right. Whatever you plan to do out there, just remember to come back quickly.”

Cheong-hwa also gave me a scolding, but it did not really enter my ears.

Besides that, Cheong-hwa gave a long lecture on the dignity Wudang disciples must maintain outside, how they should behave, and what they should be careful about. I only half listened.

“Then go and return.”

“Yes, Master.”

I cupped my fist in salute, bowed my head, and turned around. I tried to step forward first, but Myeong-gyeong quickly moved ahead of me.

“When martial artists walk together, the elder walks in front.”

“…Yes. Please walk in front.”

I yielded the lead position to Myeong-gyeong and walked out of the Wudang Sect. For some reason, the moment we passed through Wudang’s main gate, the air felt fresher, and even the mountain scenery looked more beautiful and refined.

And Myeong-gyeong was no different in being too busy taking in the sights around us. In truth, Myeong-gyeong had entered Wudang Mountain at a young age as well, so he probably had not gone out much.

After walking ahead, Myeong-gyeong came to a stop once we had fully descended from Wudang Mountain. I simply stood there behind him and watched him. Myeong-gyeong turned around with a slightly reddened face.

“Come to think of it, where are we supposed to go?”

I let out a small laugh. In the first place, it made no sense for Myeong-gyeong to be leading. The place I was going was the road itself. The initiative for this trip down the mountain belonged to me.

“Just follow me.”

“Where are we going? What are we going there to do?”

As expected, Myeong-gyeong was full of curiosity because he was still a child.

“We’ll be stopping by a few places.”

“We’re going to Wuhan.”

“Why Wuhan?”

“Because it’s the provincial capital of Hubei.”

I swallowed the rest of my words.

Usually, in each province’s capital, there was an official who approved the establishment of merchant companies.

That’s right. The purpose of this outing was to create my merchant company.