Chapter 316

Gung Gibang carefully tucked the silver nyang¹ into his clothes before speaking.

“It’s about the Yongbong Escort Bureau.”

“The Yongbong Escort Bureau? You mean the one we ran into on the way here?”

“That’s right. Its operations are limited to Shaanxi Province now, but it was once one of the largest escort bureaus under Heaven.”

“The Yongbong Escort Bureau?”

I thought back to what I had seen two days ago.

For a mere escort bureau, they certainly had an impressive fighting force. Their Young Bureau Head, Ju Hwaran, was a skilled swordswoman worthy of her place among the Ten Dragons and Phoenixes, while an escort named Song Ilseom was at least a cut above her.

Counting the old man who looked like he could have written the Donguibogam, that made three Peak masters.²

That put them on par with most well-established mid-sized sects.

But compared to their glory days, when they had ranked among the top three escort bureaus under Heaven, what I had seen that day was downright shabby.

“What the hell happened to leave it in that state?”

“It started right after the Escort King passed away.”

“The Escort King? The one I know?”

“There can’t be two Escort Kings under Heaven. Great Hero Ju Gongsan—the Escort King you know—was the previous Bureau Head of the Yongbong Escort Bureau.”

Escort King Ju Gongsan.

I hadn’t known his name, but I had heard his sobriquet plenty of times. I had been around the Murim long enough by now to pick up a decent amount of general knowledge.

Besides, I had spent the past year practically joined at the hip with the Fire King, Jeok Cheongang.

He was a living witness to history—and occasionally an old man who reminisced about the past.

Come to think of it, that friend of mine, the Escort King, was quite something too.

He’s not your friend.

It hasn’t been that long since you tasted the Flame Divine Palm, has it?

Please tell me more. I’ll listen with rapt attention.

The story Jeok Cheongang had told me that day about the Escort King had been quite moving.

It was when the Great Faction War was at its height. By then, the Demonic Cult had seized eight provinces, including Gansu, Sichuan, and Yunnan, and was advancing into the Central Plains with a hundred thousand demonic soldiers.

When does the Escort King show up?

It hasn’t been that long since you tasted the Flame-Extinguishing Divine Fist, has it?

Please continue. I’m begging you.

In any case, the Escort King was nothing more than a wandering escort at the time. Of course, his remarkable skill and chivalrous spirit had already earned him some renown. But with the Demonic Cult sweeping across the world, do you think the orthodox martial artists had time to care about that?

True. Strictly speaking, escorts belong more to the business world than the Murim.

The Demonic Cult needed money as well, so rather than oppressing escort bureaus and merchant groups, they chose to win them over. Given the circumstances, it wasn’t particularly strange that the Escort King of those days was in Guangdong, which was under the Demonic Cult’s control. Everything went smoothly until he met a woman who was about to give birth.

A woman about to give birth?

She carried the last seed of the Guangdong Chen Family in her womb. The family had already been wiped out for resisting the Demonic Cult more fiercely than anyone else.

They must have been found almost immediately.

The Escort King only realized the truth after he encountered a Demonic Cult pursuit squad. If he refused to hand over the woman, he would have to make an enemy of the Demonic Cult.

At the time, the Demonic Cult had already swallowed half the world after winning battle after battle, Jeok Cheongang had said.

Worse still, Guangdong Province lay tens of thousands of li³ from orthodox territory. It was nothing short of the Demonic Cult’s lair.

What do you think the Escort King did?

If he’d handed the woman over to the Demonic Cult, he wouldn’t have been the Escort King.

Correct. He flatly rejected their demand. His reason was simple: he had already been paid the escort fee.

On a day when the world was engulfed in war, the young escort began what might have been his final escort mission.

Tucked inside his clothes was the old jade hairpin the woman of the Guangdong Chen Family had given him as payment.

I heard it took him two whole years.

From Guangdong through Jiangxi and Hubei, all the way to Henan, where the Murim Alliance was located.

The young escort crossed half the continent while evading his pursuers. He climbed mountains, raced across fields, and swam through rivers.

No one knew how he had done it or how many dangers he had overcome, but one thing was certain.

The young escort had completed an escort mission without precedent in the history of the Murim.

When his footsteps finally reached Henan, the last seed of the Guangdong Chen Family was crying lustily in the woman’s arms, and the escort Ju Gongsan had become the Escort King.

The Martial God said that he truly deserved to be called a king. No one disagreed.

Jeok Cheongang brought up the Escort King from time to time after that.

Even Jeok Cheongang, who looked at the world with a jaundiced eye, seemed to consider the Escort King a decent man.

I heard he founded an escort bureau in his hometown of Shaanxi after the Great Faction War ended… I don’t know what became of him after that. Perhaps I should stop by someday and share a few drinks with him.

In the end, Jeok Cheongang’s wish would never come true.

According to what Gung Gibang had just told me, Escort King Ju Gongsan was already dead.

The continent sure is small.

To think the Yongbong Escort Bureau we had encountered by chance two days ago was the legacy of that very Escort King.

Noticing the interest in my eyes, Gung Gibang continued.

“Great Hero Ju Gongsan couldn’t hold out for long after the internal injuries he suffered during the Great Faction War, and passed away. It was a tragic thing.”

“Then who’s the current Bureau Head?”

“Great Hero Ju Hogun, the Junzi Sword.⁴ He’s the Escort King’s only child and Young Lady Ju Hwaran’s father.”

“Junzi Sword, huh? That sobriquet alone gives me a pretty good idea of what he’s like.”

“I’ve never met him myself, but… my Master said the man himself was a very good person.”

A single particle could change the feeling of someone’s words entirely.

Gung Gibang’s Master, the Beggars’ Sect Leader, hadn’t simply said that Ju Hogun was a good person.

He had said that Ju Hogun was good as a person.

That reeks of a sucker.

I had a feeling the Junzi Sword’s personality had played a major part in reducing the Yongbong Escort Bureau to its current state.

Sure enough, Gung Gibang read my expression and nodded.

“As you guessed. Great Hero Ju is sentimental and can’t stand by when he sees injustice, so he’s suffered tremendous losses in various ways since taking over the Yongbong Escort Bureau.”

“He was in the wrong line of work from the start.”

“My Master once said that a chivalrous hero could never be a merchant.”

He was right. To be called a chivalrous hero, you had to disregard profit. To become a successful merchant, you had to pursue it more fiercely than anyone else.

An escort bureau might stand at the intersection of the Murim and the business world, but in the end, it was much closer to the latter.

One hundred points as a chivalrous hero. Zero as a merchant.

The Escort King had managed to catch two rabbits at once and build the Yongbong Escort Bureau into one of the five largest in the industry because of his fame.

But that advantage must have vanished after his death. Ju Hogun lacked the makings of a merchant, and there was no way he could make up the difference.

“Whenever a great famine struck, he would exhaust his own grain stores, then pay a premium to buy even more and give all of it away. He took in poor children and orphans, fed them, and gave them places to sleep…”

“At that point, isn’t he basically UNICEF?”

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Keep going.”

“In any case, more money went out than came in, and the Yongbong Escort Bureau gradually began to decline. Because of his ties to the previous Bureau Head, my Master advised him several times, but apparently, he refused to listen. Great Hero Ju insisted that this was his policy.”

“Wow.”

He was certainly an admirable and respectable businessman. It was just a shame he wasn’t a capable one.

Gung Gibang scratched vigorously at his back as he continued.

“What could anyone do? With a man like Great Hero Ju inheriting the escort bureau, it was bound to shrink drastically in the span of thirty years.”

“Thirty years? They say even a ruined rich family lasts three generations.”

“It would have lasted three generations easily—if Great Hero Ju hadn’t collapsed from qi deviation two years ago.”

“…What’s that supposed to mean? Is this the Yongbong Escort Bureau’s age of tribulations or something?”

“Considering all the misfortunes they’ve suffered over the past two years, you could certainly call it that.”

“Good grief. They must have been through a lot.”

For an instant, Ju Hwaran’s spirited figure flashed through my mind.

At the time, I had thought only that she was smart and pretty. As it turned out, she was a young woman carrying an entire household on her shoulders.

But…

“What exactly is this stink you keep talking about?”

Gung Gibang had started the conversation so ominously that I had listened closely, but the only foul smell around here was the stench coming off that bastard.

My fastball, aimed tight and inside, made Cheongpung and Hyuk Mujin—who had been listening in silence—crane their necks forward.

“That’s right. I don’t smell anything. I want to smell the stink too!”

“Young Hero Gung, when was the last time you brushed your teeth?”

When the man who had nearly killed someone and the man who had nearly died asked in unison, Gung Gibang scowled.

“Oh, shut up with all that yapping.”

“Never mind that. Hurry up and tell us. And don’t open your mouth so wide. Seriously, when did you last brush your teeth?”

“Four months ago.”

What a filthy bastard.

I stared at him as if he were some kind of animal. Gung Gibang flinched and hurriedly spat out a name.

“Z-Zhongnan Sect.”

“Huh? Zhongnan Sect?”

“According to what our Xi’an branch uncovered, there are signs that the Zhongnan Sect was deeply involved in the downfall of the Yongbong Escort Bureau.”

“Good grief. Those bastards stick their noses into everything.”

So this really was information that stank.

No wonder the stench had hit me the moment I heard the words Zhongnan Sect.

For a moment, I wondered if it was because Gung Gibang had opened his mouth too wide. But judging by the conduct of every Zhongnan Sect member I had met so far, this wasn’t a rumor. It was a fact.

“They’re trying to swallow the Yongbong Escort Bureau whole, aren’t they?”

“Swallow it whole? Is it tasty?”

“Cheongpung, could you shut your mouth for a moment?”

“Yes, Benefactor!”

By now accustomed to all of this, Gung Gibang answered as if nothing had happened.

“Most likely. Zhongnan operates an escort bureau of its own, but it can’t compare to the Yongbong Escort Bureau’s position within Shaanxi. From Zhongnan’s perspective, the Yongbong Escort Bureau must be a thorn in its side, just like Huashan.”

“So they’ve been methodically bringing it down for the past two years?”

“Young Lady Ju Hwaran is certainly talented, but she has far too little experience. Being as softhearted as her father is another weakness.”

So she was smart, but naive.

Then again, from what I had heard, Ju Hwaran was only twenty-one.

At that age, she had enough on her plate just digesting everything she had learned. Adapting to real work while leading an escort bureau of that size couldn’t have been easy.

Especially with the Zhongnan Sect pulling dirty tricks behind the scenes.

Zhongnan might have been beneath Huashan, but it was still one of the Nine Sects and One Gang.

The Yongbong Escort Bureau might have withstood its pressure while the Escort King was alive, but in its current state, it didn’t stand a chance.

Zhongnan would nibble away at it little by little until it finally collapsed.

“How widely known is this?”

“It’s top-secret information from the head of our Xi’an branch.”

“Top secret, huh? Then Huashan doesn’t know either?”

“Who knows? They might, or they might not. Even if they do, they could pretend otherwise and let it slide.”

“Pretend they don’t know? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Gung Gibang hesitated for a moment, then answered with a sigh.

“Because they’re both part of the Nine Sects and One Gang.”

“…What?”

“Huashan’s Lone Crane, Baek Museong, is an upright and honorable man. The Sword Saint, Great Hero Mae Jonghak, is as clear as a stream, and so is Cheongpung standing here. But remember—it’s foolish to judge the whole by a single facet.”

That one sentence saw straight through me.

I was leaving today anyway. I had been planning to discreetly tip Baek Museong off.

He was someone I knew to be a good man. And he held enough standing to be called the future of Huashan.

But I had been wrong.

The future is only the future. It isn’t the present.

Once again, I realized that the Murim was more complicated than I had thought.

Even the world of ignorant, simple-looking swordsmen had rules—and a league of its own.

I guess an arm really does bend inward.⁵

When I remained silent, Gung Gibang cautiously watched me and asked,

“What are you planning to do?”

“What do you mean, what am I going to do?”

“Are you… thinking of stepping in yourself?”

“Me?”

I considered it for a moment, then shook my head.

My encounter with the Yongbong Escort Bureau had been nothing more than chance. I had my own responsibilities.

“If I run into them before I leave, I can give them a heads-up. But that’s it.”

Now that Jeok Cheongang had collapsed, getting entangled with the Zhongnan Sect would complicate matters.

For some reason, Ju Hwaran’s face rose in my mind. I shook my head and let the thought slip away.