Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 62 - Bring the Fire (4)
Chapter 62 – Bring the Fire (4)
===================
Translated by Heavenly Cat
Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net
===================
“That’ll be difficult.”
That was Mun Il-ji’s answer. I rounded my lips and made a small sound.
“Oh. So you want to die?”
“No, no. It’s because I don’t want to die.”
“If you don’t persuade me within one dagyeong, your head is going to fly.”
At my arrogance, Mun Il-ji’s speech sped up. The fact that his tone had become polite was merely a bonus.
“The truth is, this is something no one knows, but the Black Dragon Gate’s leader planted a gu worm in my brain.”
“A gu worm? Weren’t those supposed to be gone?”
That was another startling thing to hear. A gu worm was an insect parasitically implanted into a person’s brain. The method of making gu was grotesque.
All kinds of venomous insects were placed inside one jar and made to devour one another. The insect that survived there was collectively called gu. If a male and female gu were bred, they produced offspring gu. The offspring gu devoured the father and inherited even stronger venom.
If one fed a small offspring gu to a person, that offspring would crawl up into the brain and parasitize it. If the person holding the mother gu then killed the mother gu, the offspring gu would also necrotize along with the host’s brain. So one fed the offspring gu to another person, and the person holding the mother gu effectively controlled the parasitized victim.
Needless to say, making gu, administering gu, and using gu were all crimes under imperial law. They were grave offenses punishable by the harshest penalties, like sorcery or mutilation.
“I don’t know where that bastard got it either. That’s why I drank the wine with gu in it without suspecting anything.”
At those words I couldn’t help nodding. In this day and age, who could have expected gu to be used? People believed gu had vanished together with the Demonic Cult.
“Gu, huh. I didn’t think of that at all.”
“Exactly. Why else would I live under the thumb of a bastard like that? I regret that day to death. I never imagined that sharing one drink with an old friend from my hometown would turn into this.”
“But what if you’re lying?”
At my words, Mun Il-ji flew into a rage and slammed the table.
“You don’t know how much I’ve suffered. If even the slightest thing displeases him, if I just get on the wrong side of his eyes, he fiddles with the gu. Do you know how much pain gu causes? It breaks your will. It breaks your will.”
“That has nothing to do with me.”
At my blunt answer, Mun Il-ji lowered his head.
“That’s true. And maybe you do think I’m lying. Honestly, gu is something that survives only in legends. But…”
In the middle of speaking, Mun Il-ji suddenly stopped, and his complexion changed violently. His face flushed red and then turned blue. Then he clutched his head and rolled on the floor.
“H-hey. What’s wrong with you?”
“Ghk, ugh.”
Mun Il-ji couldn’t even scream properly. Tears, snot, and drool poured from him.
“…It really is a symptom of gu. They say that when the mother gu is agitated, the offspring gu secretes toxin, causing the host immense pain.”
Jo Chung-heon added that from behind me. I knew that much too, but somehow it still didn’t feel believable. The very existence of gu was such a hard thing to believe. I crouched down and poked Mun Il-ji with my finger.
“Hey, hey. Stop acting.”
“Aagh, urgh.”
Mun Il-ji could do nothing but groan. I looked over at Jo Chung-heon. He too wore a flustered look, with no idea what should be done.
“He really does seem to be in pain.”
“You never know. Maybe he’s a master of acting.”
“Hrk, you madman… do you really think this is acting?”
Even while gasping for breath, Mun Il-ji twisted his body in agony.
At that moment, a thought struck me. Gu was effectively an exclusive art of the vanished Demonic Cult. If so, could it perhaps be controlled through demonic qi? Assuming it truly was gu.
I flipped Mun Il-ji over and placed a hand on his back. As he kept twisting his body, I pressed one knee into his waist to pin him down.
Mun Il-ji was still in terrible pain. On top of that, now that I had immobilized his body, it seemed all the more hellish for him.
“Foreman, step outside for a moment.”
“Ah, y-yes.”
Giving me a look that said, So you’re doing something strange again, Jo Chung-heon left the room.
“Ugh, just kill me.”
Mun Il-ji cried out through his pain. His voice held complete sincerity. The feeling that death would be preferable. They said the pain inflicted by gu could be compared to the agony of being carved to pieces, and apparently there had been no exaggeration in that.
“Stay still for a second.”
With my other hand I pinned down his neck as well and fixed him in place.
I sent a single strand of internal energy as a spearhead through Mun Il-ji’s back. To sense the internal energy more clearly, I closed my eyes. Normally, if another person’s internal energy entered one’s dantian, it caused internal injury or deviation, but a quantity this small was no problem, and I had no intention of sending it all the way to the dantian anyway.
The internal energy advanced along the Governor Vessel in his back and headed for the Baihui acupoint. The instant it reached that point, my eyes flew open. Sure enough, the gu too contained demonic qi. I could feel the gu clinging tightly to the brain, curling its body and emitting demonic qi.
‘Am I a merchant or a physician?’
Who would have thought there would be two occasions so close together where I used demonic qi to heal people. If coincidence happened twice in a short period, it was difficult to call it coincidence any longer. Was the Demonic Cult really doing something in Wuhan?
I sent demonic qi through again. One thing I had learned while treating people was that my demonic qi could control other people’s demonic qi. The lord of all demonic qi. That was what I was.
The demonic qi I sent reached the brain. By now Mun Il-ji couldn’t even breathe properly. Since the brain was now shrouded not only by the gu’s demonic qi but also by my own, the pain it felt must have been even worse.
If I delayed, Mun Il-ji might become an imbecile. I quickly seized the gu with my demonic qi. The moment the gu sensed my demonic qi, it shrank completely in on itself. It looked as though it were waiting for an order. That made pulling it off easy. I detached it with demonic qi and sent it out.
A grotesque venomous insect slid out of Mun Il-ji’s nose together with a stream of snot. Struggling in the sticky mucus, the insect had six eyes arranged in three rows of two and a total of twelve legs, six on each side. It was precisely the sort of thing that made one’s appetite vanish at a glance.
“Ugh.”
I withdrew my demonic qi from Mun Il-ji’s head and moved to crush the gu underfoot, but the gu writhed and died on its own first.
After some time passed, Mun Il-ji, who had been writhing on the floor, blinked his eyes and got to his feet. His face was smeared with drool, snot, tears, and sweat, and the sight was so unpleasant I almost crushed him underfoot too.
“What is this?”
Mun Il-ji tilted his head.
“What do you mean?”
“The pain vanished all at once. It’s supposed to fade gradually.”
“Look down at the floor beside you.”
“Blegh. What kind of bug looks like that?”
“That was in your brain.”
“What nonsense are you talking about? Once gu has parasitized someone, how could it ever come out?”
“But it did come out. Just now. And you don’t feel any pain either.”
“Maybe the gate leader just isn’t stirring the mother gu right now.”
Sadly enough, Mun Il-ji had grown accustomed to the pain given by gu. He had no hope at all that he might actually be freed from it. Once a person became acclimated to suffering, that kind of thing could happen.
“Look carefully. As you said yourself, what sort of normal insect looks like that?”
Only then did Mun Il-ji lower his face to the floor and examine the bug closely.
“…It does look similar to the mother gu.”
“I told you.”
“For real? How? You killed the gu? You did?”
“I’m Divine Physician of Hubei, aren’t I?”
It was a ridiculous thing to say, but for some reason it worked rather well. Mun Il-ji nodded seriously.
“Then again, you’re the one who wiped out that epidemic in Wuhan, but how can that be? Then why are you running a merchant company? If you ran a medical hall, you’d make a fortune.”
“I don’t use my medicine to make money.”
“…That’s strange. You don’t seem like the type.”
“Want me to stuff it back into your mouth?”
At my words, Mun Il-ji’s face turned pale. Then he looked at the crushed, dead gu on the floor, started grinning, and soon burst into loud laughter. For a moment I wondered whether my demonic qi had somehow affected his brain.
Mun Il-ji sprang to his feet. I looked up at him from my chair.
“You said you wanted to crush the Black Dragon Gate, right?”
“Yeah.”
“To be exact, all you really need is to crush the Black Dragon Gate’s leader, don’t you? Since the Black Dragon Gate’s leader is the one currently standing on the other side of you.”
“That’s right. If that direction changes, there’s no reason to be enemies.”
“Good. Just wait right there.”
Leaving those words behind, Mun Il-ji abruptly closed the door and went out. Then, not long after, he opened the door and came back in again.
“What now?”
“I think I forgot to say something.”
“What?”
“You’re the savior of my life.”
Mun Il-ji dropped into a full bow before me. The door was still open, and everyone in the merchant company could see it. When the people saw Mun Il-ji bowing to me, they nearly lost their minds.
“What is that?”
“Great Hero Mun is bowing!”
Paying no mind to the murmuring of the crowd, Mun Il-ji completed the bow in a proper, disciplined manner.
“From now on, I’ll serve you as my elder brother.”
“Elder brother? I think I’m much younger than you.”
“I’m twenty-five.”
Even I was shocked by that statement. Anyone would have thought he had already passed forty, so how could that face belong to someone only just past youth?
Leaving me in that state of shock, Mun Il-ji left the merchant company.
And not long after that, rumors spread everywhere that the leader of the Black Dragon Gate had changed.
In terms of decisiveness, the man really was unmatched.
***
“What? Mun Il-ji disappeared?”
The leader of the Black Dragon Gate stood up after slamming the table. His fist was so weak that the sound wasn’t loud, and everyone simply reacted as though, There he goes again.
“From what I’ve heard by rumor, Great Hero Mun lost to the Company Lord of Radiant Crystal Merchant Company.”
“Nonsense!”
Not only the Black Dragon Gate’s leader but everyone else found that impossible to believe. Who was Mun Il-ji? Wasn’t he the strongest expert in the Black Dragon Gate?
Yet one after another, people appeared who had heard the same rumor.
“But I heard it too.”
“To be honest, I also…”
“It’s all false rumor! How could a whelp like the Company Lord of Radiant Crystal Merchant Company ever defeat Mun Il-ji?”
At the Black Dragon Gate leader’s shout, everyone looked at one another and nodded. In truth, rumors in the Central Plains were not to be trusted. There had been countless times when a rumor spread that someone had died, only for that person to later be seen alive.
The reason the Black Dragon Gate had taken over half the underworld of Wuhan was entirely because of Mun Il-ji. The Black Dragon Gate’s leader merely played the role of ordering Mun Il-ji around.
In fact, many within the Black Dragon Gate thought Mun Il-ji was the real gate leader. They simply accepted things because Mun Il-ji still treated the Black Dragon Gate’s leader as his leader. The leader’s own authority was almost nonexistent.
“Mun Il-ji, that bastard…”
The leader of the Black Dragon Gate clenched his fist and trembled, then abruptly rose and went into the leader’s room.
The Black Dragon Gate’s leader’s room was a place only the leader and Mun Il-ji were allowed to enter. People sighed as they looked toward it.
Whenever the leader entered that room, Mun Il-ji would later come out wearing a haggard expression. To the people who respected Mun Il-ji more than the leader, it was always painful to see.
Sure enough, not long after, Mun Il-ji returned to the Black Dragon Gate. He normally came back with a worn-out face anyway, but today he looked even more haggard. The moment Mun Il-ji came back, people all crowded around him.
“Great Hero Mun!”
“So you really were alive!”
“…Mm. Yeah.”
Mun Il-ji answered awkwardly. The others thought Mun Il-ji seemed different from usual. Normally, whenever Mun Il-ji saw the people of the Black Dragon Gate, he would ask whether they’d eaten.
“Great Hero Mun. There’s a strange rumor going around the market.”
“What rumor? Ah, I think I can guess.”
“Yes. Right now all of Wuhan is in an uproar over it. The ridiculous rumor that the Company Lord of Radiant Crystal Merchant Company defeated Great Hero Mun. I think we should head to the inns at once and sew shut the mouths spreading it.”
“No, leave it.”
Mun Il-ji scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
“It’s true that I lost. He spared my life.”
“…What?”
“What did you say?”
The people doubted their own ears at Mun Il-ji’s answer. How famous had Flamefire Ghost Hand been in Wuhan? Mun Il-ji was the man who had defended Wuhan by wiping out every stray wanderer and unorthodox fighter who drifted in from outside. Yet now such a man had lost not to some famous orthodox or unorthodox martial artist, but to a mere Company Lord.
“Anyway, I’m going in.”
“Ah, yes…”
The people watched uncertainly as Mun Il-ji entered the leader’s room. Before long, the sounds of fists thudding rang out. Everyone squeezed their eyes shut.
Normally, when Mun Il-ji went into the leader’s room, violence like that would follow. Naturally, it was the leader beating Mun Il-ji. In terms of martial strength alone, people had never understood why Mun Il-ji accepted those beatings. They had simply assumed it was because Mun Il-ji treated the leader as his elder brother.
“The leader really is too much. To be honest, isn’t he living off Great Hero Mun?”
“Shh. If he hears you say that, doesn’t he throw a fit?”
“He seems to think it’s all thanks to him.”
The people of the Black Dragon Gate whispered among themselves. The leader’s martial attainment was low enough that he could not hear voices this faint.
“Great Hero Mun…”
People looked toward the leader’s room with worried eyes. Soon the door opened.
Ordinarily, it should have been Mun Il-ji coming out with a bloody nose. But unexpectedly, the one who emerged was Mun Il-ji dragging the leader out by his hair. The leader’s limbs were twisted in directions they should not bend. The sight was so horrific that everyone gasped.
“Hoo.”
Mun Il-ji wiped sweat from the back of his hand as if feeling refreshed.
“Um, Great Hero Mun.”
“What?”
“I-is he dead?”
To everyone else, the leader looked dead. But after a short moment he twitched, then screamed. It seemed he had merely fainted from the terrible pain for a moment. His mouth, full of blood clots, showed teeth broken out here and there. Now that he had woken, he felt the pain again.
“Why would I kill him?”
Smiling, Mun Il-ji stepped down on the Black Dragon Gate leader’s broken knee. The scream that rang out through the Black Dragon Gate once again was hideous enough to make one’s hair stand on end.
“He’s committed too many sins to deserve eternal rest.”
People stared at Mun Il-ji with blank faces. The same Mun Il-ji who had once served that man as an elder brother and accepted every beating was now reducing the Black Dragon Gate’s leader to pulp. There was simply no way they could understand the situation.
“Boys.”
“Y-yes?”
“From today on, the Black Dragon Gate belongs to me. Understood?”
“By all means.”
But in the end, none of the people cared about the cause or the process. The conclusion was exactly what they had all wanted.
So the crowd broke into cheers without really understanding anything. Mun Il-ji grinned and stepped on the former leader once more. The screams of the Black Dragon Gate’s leader rang out through the Black Dragon Gate again.
It was the moment all the black-path men of Wuhan came under Radiant Crystal Merchant Company.