Chapter 51: There is No Such Thing as Retreat (1)
Translator: hwarang
Editor: Klaurem
When we arrived, the atmosphere in the garden was calm.
It would have been more intimidating if they had over a hundred guards armed to their teeth awaiting our arrival.
Even though they received word that Ma Jung Soo would be coming by, they didn"t deviate too much from their normal activities. From this, I discerned that they weren"t your average guild, but this was a given since even Si Gon was killed by them.
A youth came out and led us the main pavilion.
Ya Chun was sitting in the middle of the pavilion with ten or so guards behind him. Most likely they were the strongest members of this Dark Guild.
Their stares were completely different from the average martial artist. Their eyes burned with the anger and resentment they held against the Kang Ho-In. Not only that, I could also sense that there were guards hidden all around the room as if they were waiting for their prey.
Although their skills might not be great, they should never be underestimated. Since I had already seen them fight before I knew the tricks they had up their sleeves. Their skills weren"t a huge issue, the challenge lay within their weapons. Since they used poison dipped hidden weapons infused with their ki, I needed to be careful.
Since Ma Jung Soo also sensed that this could be an ambush, he swallowed his saliva. He was rather very nervous.
I approached Ya Chun proudly, only stopping when I reached about ten paces from him. Then, I introduced Ma Jung Soo, "He is Lord Ma Jung Soo. the successor to the Heavenly Dao Gate so you should give your respect to him."
Then, Ya Chun rose from his seat and greeted Ma Jung Soo, "Welcome. My name is Ya Chun and I am the master of this place. why has your honorable self come to this desolate place?"
After Ma Jung Soo lightly introduced himself, I took the lead as promised.
"Why else do you think we are here?"
It seems that Ya Chun was also very nervous since his face was rigid.
I already knew what he was worried about. He must have been worried that we came here regarding Si Gon"s death.
"Lord Ma has come here to borrow money from you."
After hearing my words Ya Chun was surprised. Who would have thought that Ma Jung Soo would come here to borrow money?
"Why are you so surprised? Isn"t this something that you do often?"
"Why of course it is, but I still cannot believe that someone so prestigious as yourself must borrow money from someone like me."
"Even important people need money"
Ya Chun was finally able to relax a bit since they were not here to exact revenge on him.
Then he asked with a relaxed expression, "How much do you need?"
"One hundred thousand nyang."
The relaxed expression of Ya Chun became colder once more. Not only was this a huge sum of money, but he still couldn"t understand the other parties" intent. He wasn"t sure if they were here to borrow the money, or take the money as compensation for Si Gon"s death.
So I sent him a mental message
-Since you killed someone belonging to the Heavenly Dao Gate shouldn"t you pay the price?
Ya Chun flinched. It was a mixed expression between anger and surprise. Then I continued
-Or, you can test your luck. Will you be able to get out of this unscathed if you lay your hands on the successor? Do you think we came here without any plan? If you let us borrow the hundred thousand nyang we will let that matter go. Of course, we will return the money with interest.
Ya Chun relied mentally
-Why are you messaging me mentally?
-Since we must eliminate you if the death of Si Gon escapes your mouth. Even if we don"t want that, that is how things will proceed. You know there is nothing more important than your life.
After sending those mental messages in a colder tone, I said with a lighter tone, "As you have heard Lord Ma plan on creating a Martial Arts School in San Dong. This could be a great opportunity for you."
I prayed that my threat got through to them because if they refused the opposite might happen us.
"Please give me a moment to think about it."
"Please do."
Ya Chun closed his eyes and was in deep thought. He suspected that the person who spilled the information about Si Gon was Ma Jung Soo. He believed that Ma Jung Soo went as far as eliminating his own men to force them into this situation. Thus getting twice the money in return for his men.
"Piece of dog sh*t!"
He thought that Ma Jung Soo was even colder and more ruthless than them. However, as he was in this situation, he couldn"t refuse. Since one hundred thousand nyang was not all of their a.s.sets, he couldn"t risk their lives for it. So he decided to take action after giving them the money.
After opening his eyes he slowly said, "Alright, I will lend you the money."
"By tomorrow!"
"Alright."
"Thank you. You will not regret this decision. Please get the traceless bank
notes and meet us at the temple in Mt. Poong."
With that they finalized their agreement, and signed the contract.
Ma Jung Soo personally wrote it, and signed it himself.
Although he didn"t ask me why he need to sign it, I persuaded him in doing so. He might not like it, but at least it confirmed that he had a hundred thousand nyang.
I made him sign it because I was going to use it later. If someone were to investigate what happened later, this would serve as concrete evidence.
After finalizing the deal, we left the place.
After we left, the pavilion was full of anger. The first person who exploded in rage was Koo Chul.
"Son of a b*tch! Where does he think this is!? I wanted to kill him immediately but I didn"t!"
All the other men around him had a similar expression.
But Ya Chun was calm.
"If we want to kill him, we can kill him later."
After Koo Chul killed Si Gon, Ya Chun investigated everything there was to know about Ma Jung Soo.
Since early on Ma Jung Soo had killed his maids and guards for no reasons.
Although Ya Chun was also an evil person he still had some conscience. He had been involved in many incidents but he never harmed the women, children or the weak.
"You plan on giving that b.a.s.t.a.r.d hundred thousand nyang?"
Ya Chun nodded his head.
"Since we are the ones who are clean, let us watch how things go."
"But, it"s such a large amount of money."
"Don"t think of it like that."
Ya Chun was thinking about something else.
"If they were the ones who stole from the San Dong Merchants, they must have a lot of money right?"
"Yes."
"Then, I am sure they are more than capable of paying back the interest."
"What? What do you mean?"
"What, you thought I was just giving it to them? Who are we? Even if the Heavenly Dao Gate, no even if his granddaddy came, I will get back my money with interest. This is what they get for making a fool of us."
After leaving the Dark Guild"s place Ma Jung Soo let out a big sigh and laughed out loud.
"Hahaha, I think you are amazing."
"You are complimenting me too much sir."
"No, no, your performance was excellent."
He looked at me in a new light. He never expected that I would be this good in taking care of business.
"Now we can collect the money tomorrow. I am sure you can take care of the rest after that."
I told him that this was the end of my mission to show him that I was not interested in the money.
"Can I trust you for tomorrow as well?"
It seems that Ma Jung Soo still didn"t fully trust the Dark Guild. He was worried that he might fall into their trap and get killed during the process.
But I expected him to react this way.
"Yes, I understand. You can wait outside, I will get the money and come out."
Since I didn"t say that I will go there alone to get the money but go with him, he was even more happy.
"Ha ha ha, good, good."
I succeeded in fooling both Ma Jung Soo, and Ya Chun.
Everything was going according to my plan.
I experienced almost everything that I could have experienced in my past life. Whether it be fighting against the experts of the Thirteen Demon Alliance, or the martial artists of the Murim Alliance, or be it getting entangled in the power struggle of the Murim Alliance, I had experienced all that my previous life had to offer.
Compared to that, this child"s play. I was once someone that had been called iron-blooded Mengju, or remorseless Mengju so these things didn"t phase me. They should consider this as a divine punishment from me.
But I cannot lower my guard, since there are many unknown variables that are in play like that women.
Whether I am able to successfully retrieve the hundred thousand nyang, kill Ma Jung Soo and place all the blame on the Dark Guild all depended on my ability to trick that woman.
The key point of this plan was not how I was going to kill him, but how I was going to escape without anyone knowing after killing him.
That night I met the woman again at the pond. I purposely went to see her.
"I think you must stop your master."
She quickly turned her gaze toward me.
"He went to the Dark Guild and got their money by threatening them"
She already knew the fact that we went to the Black Merchant.
I said it with a worried expression, "I had to help him since I couldn"t do anything… As you know the Dark Guilds are a very dangerous group."
It was necessary to tell her that Ma Jung Soo was involved with them if I wanted to place the blame on the Dark Guild.
I was only able to tell her this since there weren"t any communication between her and Ma Jung Soo.
"He is not my master."
This wasn"t some single word or phrase like before but a proper conversation. Even if it was proper it still had no emotion in it.
"If you are that worried then you should stop him," after saying this she went back inside her room.
I was now certain, even if Ma Jung Soo died she would not get involved. Maybe she even wanted him dead.
Then I stared into the night sky.
I felt that this situation with Ma Jung Soo will soon come to an end.
At the foot of Mt. Poong I asked him, "Will you go with me?"
"I am alright. I will wait for you here."
He was still afraid that he was going to fall into their trap so he was only sending me. Truthfully, he was truly a shameful person. Thankfully, he wasn"t afraid that I was going to run off with this money.
Through my acting, I was able to his trust. Also, even if I ran away with the money he a.s.sumed he could always get it out of the Yang Clan. So, he was trustful of me.
"Then, I will leave now"
"Do you need such a big bag?"
"If we want to get the traceless back notes sir"
"And the reason why you are doing it?"
"As it is dirty money. There could be problem later on if you go."
"Neat as ever."
Was it because I was neat? Of course not, it was because I need this money.
"I will be leaving now"
After slinging the bag over my shoulder I went up the mountain.
Inside the temple, Koo Chul as well as few other men were waiting.
It seemed as if they were lectured by Ya Chun since their savageness was suppressed.
They filled the bag with one hundred thousand nyang worth of traceless bank notes.
"I don"t need to count them right?"
Koo Chul replied coldly, "You will pay the price for belittling us."
After making a small smile in response, I left the temple.
You will pay the price for not understanding who you opponent truly is. No, you will pay the price for living the wrong path in life. Even if they weren"t involved with Ma Jung Soo I was going to eliminate them eventually.
While I was going down the mountain I looked around and check my surrounding. After confirming with my ki that no one was around I went inside one of the trails.
Someone was waiting for me there. It was Jung Yeo. He had a bag that was similar to mine but his bag was full of fake bank notes. Except for a few real bank notes on the top the rest were all fake.
This was the real reason why I chose this location. I determined that this was the best place since there were many places to hide someone.
In addition to the hundred thousand nyang from before, I had taken two hundred thousand nyang from the Dark Guild. This was the money that I was going to use to raise my strength. I could use this money to buy elixirs, improve my sword sect, or do something else to increase my strength.
The best part of it was no one knew that I was the owner of this much money.
After exchanging the bag with Jung Yeo I went down the mountain.
At the bottom of the mountain Ma Jung Soo greeted me with a delightful expression. He was happy after seeing the bank notes inside the bag.
"Please continue serving me in the future."
"Of course"
I laughed with him. If it was discovered that the money was fake all the blame will be placed on the Dark Guild. He would have never expected that I had switched the money.
Now, I was going to finish everything.
Even though I am not going to consider his wrongdoing from the past. He committed enough crimes against me. He mocked my father, and tried to take another man"s woman. He stole money from the poor, and abused the weak, all in the name of the Heavenly Dao Gate.
I felt that it was time.
Time to eliminate the problem at the root.