Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 46 - I Still Don't Know Yet (1)
Chapter 46 – I Still Don’t Know Yet (1)
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Translated by Heavenly Cat
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
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After stirring up a fight, Myeong-il was drinking tea as if he knew nothing.
Beside Zhuge Hyeon, there were also two children around Myeong-il’s age sitting there, and it almost looked as though they had tailored the lineup after seeing our numbers.
The children around Myeong-il’s age glared at Myeong-il. In any case, the one who had provoked them was not me, but Myeong-il.
Zhuge Yan was watching this situation as if she found it interesting, and Zhuge Hyeon was still glaring at me. Embarrassed, I scratched my face.
“I can’t say I am.”
“You can’t do that.”
Unexpectedly, Myeong-il spoke again.
“If a disciple of Wudang says he lacks confidence.”
Was this Wudang of his truly so great that one had to deceive even oneself over it? I wanted to ask, but decided to hold back. Since I was the adult, I should endure it.
“The more I listen, the more it seems your mouth runs far too freely.”
“Exactly. Looking down on the Zhuge Clan should have its limits. Who are you to declare that our elder brother will lose?”
The children of the Zhuge Clan flew into a rage at Myeong-il, but Myeong-il merely glanced at them and said in an indifferent tone,
“Do you not know who I am?”
At those words, the faces of the Zhuge Clan children reddened. They did know who Myeong-il was.
So this was the spirit one was supposed to have as a disciple of Wudang. It was a truly strange experience to watch an aura of pressure flow out from a child barely around ten years old.
“You may be the top genius in Wudang, but we are no pushovers either!”
“I’ve never thought you were easy.”
Myeong-il took a sip of tea.
“It’s just that you aren’t anywhere in the place I’m looking toward.”
I looked at Myeong-il as if seeing him anew. He had been quiet, yet he was the sort of child who could provoke this fiercely. Though it didn’t even seem Myeong-il himself thought of it as provocation. The children of the Zhuge Clan truly were not present in the heights Myeong-il yearned toward.
The eyes of the two Zhuge Clan children met Myeong-il’s, and the eyes of Zhuge Hyeon and me met as well.
“Now then. Enough.”
Zhuge Yan clapped her hands and broke the mood.
“You will be having sparring matches anyway, so there is no need to waste your energy here. Of course, the point of this sparring is not to teach each other a lesson, but to observe one another’s martial arts.”
“When will that sparring take place?”
“When the Clan Head returns. Since the Clan Head must be present.”
I, the one who asked, nodded. It was a sudden thought, but I realized Zhuge Yan, despite still being young, was quite good at separating public and private.
If she had already risen to the point of serving as deputy hall master of the external business division, then as direct line she ought to have said Father rather than Clan Head. It must have been because this was an official setting.
“For now, the external business division has prepared quarters for Wudang’s honored guests. You may rest there. If you go out now, an attendant will guide you.”
“Yes, yes.”
I immediately pushed my chair back to leave. The best course with an uncomfortable place was to end it quickly. At that moment, Zhuge Yan’s white-feather fan blocked me.
“Ah. Young Hero Muk, could I have a word with you for a moment?”
Before I could even voice a complaint, everyone except Zhuge Yan and me left. Zhuge Yan refilled my empty teacup.
“Do you perhaps like me?”
“Don’t talk nonsense.”
“For you to keep hold of a lay disciple you’re supposedly embarrassed to be seen with is suspicious. Let me reject you in advance. My ideal type is someone with a better personality than Miss Zhuge.”
Zhuge Yan looked at me as if dumbfounded. Her eyes said it was such absurd nonsense she wasn’t even angry.
“I don’t particularly have an ideal type, but I will likely marry into a family that benefits the clan. It certainly won’t be yours.”
“For the first time in a while, I suddenly feel like showing filial piety to my father. Thank you. For thinking even of my family.”
“Your madness has climbed all the way to your brain. It seems even the Divine Physician of Hubei can’t manage his own affairs.”
“Still better than the Wuhan Merchant Association, which got greedy for another man’s rice bowl and ended up losing its own.”
For a moment, I saw Zhuge Yan’s pupils widen. As expected of Poison-Heart Iron Mask, she didn’t show it outwardly, but she couldn’t fool my eyes.
Zhuge Yan’s small fist trembled as she spoke through gritted teeth.
“Did you know the Zhuge Clan stands behind the Wuhan Merchant Association?”
“I didn’t know and do it for that reason.”
“Would it have been different if you had known?”
“Of course.”
“Then perhaps you finally know your pla…”
“I only regret not having taken more from their rice bowl. It’s a real pity.”
Zhuge Yan opened her white-feather fan and covered her face. That one had clearly hit her a little. It must have been difficult to force the muscles of her face under control.
Apparently having put her expression back in order, Zhuge Yan lowered the fan again onto her thigh.
“That isn’t what I meant to say.”
“Then what is it?”
“Leave the East Lake Merchant Association with the merchant company you’ve founded and enter the Wuhan Merchant Association.”
“The Wuhan Merchant Association threw me out, though.”
“Things are different now. We’ve replaced the upper ranks with clever people.”
I was slightly surprised by the chill in Zhuge Yan’s words. Honestly, even if the East Lake Merchant Association had begun to rise, it was still only in the realm of rebuilding. It wasn’t as though the Wuhan Merchant Association couldn’t do what it had done so far. Yet that decisiveness and coldness, replacing them at once. She truly was the Poison-Heart Iron Mask I knew.
“I’m giving you an opportunity right now. Naturally, your merchant company will be treated specially even within the Wuhan Merchant Association.”
“For the sake of soothing the Right Vice Censor-in-Chief of the Censorate, you mean?”
“Fortunately, you do understand words.”
Zhuge Yan smiled with her usual confidence. Of course, what she said wasn’t wrong. The Zhuge Clan wasn’t the sort to speak with one mouth and then say something else, and it was entirely possible for them to funnel business toward a single merchant company. In reality, if that happened, the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company would grow faster than it was now.
But she called it an opportunity, and I heard it as a request. If someone made a request in such an insolent tone, then the answer was already decided.
“I refuse.”
Naturally, Zhuge Yan’s expression, which had assumed she was granting me an opportunity, hardened.
“Do you know what it means to make an enemy of the Zhuge Clan in Hubei? Wudang may be stronger in martial arts, but in everything else, including regional influence, the Zhuge Clan is stronger.”
“I know that. Even so, I refuse.”
“You still don’t know your place. From what I hear, you didn’t even raise your starting capital yourself, but borrowed it from fellow lay disciples in order to found your merchant company. If that merchant company collapses, do you have the ability to repay such a huge sum?”
“My ability lies in not letting it collapse.”
“The Zhuge Clan controls Hubei’s commercial sphere. Crushing that shabby little merchant company of yours would be no trouble at all, and further than that, we could make even Wudang uncomfortable. Wudang won’t want to redden faces with us over a mere lay disciple like you, and the same is true for us. So all we need to do is take care of your side a little.”
“Even if I belong to Wudang, I am still a lay disciple. I don’t feel that deep a sense of belonging to Wudang. Even if faces are reddened because of me, I wouldn’t be at fault.”
Our argument paused for a moment. We too needed time to breathe. As though we had agreed to a temporary truce, we each took a sip of tea.
Zhuge Yan let out a sigh. It almost seemed to contain a trace of pity toward me, as though I were making some tremendous mistake.
“If words don’t get through, then there’s nothing to be done. I have no hobby of conversing with beasts.”
“At times, beasts are better than men.”
“Still, I expected this. You’re the sort who doesn’t know his place.”
“Really? Then you’ve moved your lips a great deal for nothing.”
“That’s why I brought you to the Zhuge Clan. So you could see for yourself what sort of place the Zhuge Clan is. Then regret it. Regret that you dared to charge at a place like this carrying a mantis’s sickle.”
“I refuse.”
When I drove in the final wedge, Zhuge Yan’s expression at last crumpled. It was impressive she had managed it this long.
I had not rejected Zhuge Yan’s proposal simply because of her tone. Her proposal was fully worth considering. There was no reason at all for me to become enemies with Zhuge Yan. And she had not lied.
However, word had already quietly spread in the commercial world that I was the one who had revived the East Lake Merchant Association in Wuhan. If I, of all people, entered the Wuhan Merchant Association now, then what would become of people’s trust in me?
People who achieve great success collapse in an instant when they climb steps they once thought too trivial to matter without giving them proper thought. It was the same principle by which no matter how well designed a cylinder might be, it could not stand on top of a sphere.
“Get out. In time, you’ll come to know how great an opportunity you let slip. And at the same time, how you brought about a disaster that could have been prevented.”
“Shall I make a counterproposal?”
Just as I was about to leave, a thought came to me, so I grabbed the doorknob and turned back.
“If you invest in the Radiant Crystal Merchant Company now, I’ll return it with another twenty percent on top. No matter how large the amount.”
“I didn’t even want to hear it in the first place, and after hearing it, it only became even more worthless.”
“In time, you’ll come to know how great an opportunity you let slip.”
Only after Zhuge Yan’s face had turned into something like a wrathful spirit did I open the door and slip right out.
Though the inside of the estate still looked thick with mist, the wind itself was fresh.
***
Zhuge Yan nearly threw her teacup at the door, but held back. In other places she might not have cared, but this teacup too had been bought to entertain guests, making it property of the external business division. She couldn’t go around damaging the external business division’s property recklessly.
A giant man dropped lightly down from the ceiling. Direct-line members always had shadow guards like this attached to them. During their outing before, he had moved together with her, but within the clan estate, they usually hid themselves like this.
“Are you all right, Deputy Hall Master?”
“I nearly died holding back my curses.”
Won gave a bitter smile. Even he, listening quietly from the ceiling, had felt his fists clench with the urge to beat Muk Hui-yeong.
“You should just say them. Freely.”
“No. I’ll curse him when no one’s listening. That’s the dignity of a great family.”
“Is that so.”
Usually, Zhuge Yan was not the sort to bend her opinions. The only people she bent to were those positioned above her.
“Pass word to Hyeon. Tell him to trample that bastard as painfully as possible. I don’t care if one side of him ends up crippled.”
“It’s common enough for someone to be crippled in the middle of a sparring match.”
“Exactly. Hyeon won’t lose, right?”
Zhuge Hyeon was also judged to have less martial talent than the younger generation of the other great families, but even so, it wasn’t something to dismiss lightly that he had received high-grade elixirs and education for close to twenty years.
“There is no way he can lose. The last time at the inn, he couldn’t even react once when I moved.”
“Right?”
On the other hand, Won possessed one of the best martial aptitudes even within the Zhuge Clan itself. If he said so, then so it would be.
“Still, tell him not to let down his guard until the very end. He may lose to others, but not to that bastard.”
It wasn’t simply out of personal resentment that Zhuge Yan said that. Though Myeong-il and Myeong-seong were there too, they were children around ten years old. Compared to them, the sparring match between Zhuge Hyeon and Muk Hui-yeong, who were a little older, would inevitably draw more attention.
The Zhuge Clan had invited them for this exchange, so the outcome needed to leave the Zhuge Clan smiling. For the external business division, that was an obligation. Otherwise, they’d have to directly bear the Clan Head’s wrath.
“Do one last inspection of the sparring ground. And how far along did they say the Clan Head had come?”
“We received a message saying he is now descending from Longzhong Mountain.”
“Then it will still take a little longer.”
Zhuge Yan wore a tense expression. Won looked at her with pity. She always carried herself proudly, yet the moment the Clan Head was mentioned, she became tense.
At that moment, someone flung open the door of the guest house.
“The Clan Head has arrived!”
Zhuge Yan whipped her head toward Won. Won blinked.