Side Story 10. Tsering (2)

In truth, the Golden Measure Merchant Guild had no tradition or history to speak of.
It was a merchant guild personally built up by Geum Yang-bae’s father, Geum Seok-bong.
And yet, at least here in Kuizhou Prefecture of Sichuan, it had become quite a large merchant guild, all thanks to Geum Seok-bong’s exceptional talent.
Commercial talent meant the aptitude needed to do business.
Being good with numbers, skilled at building relationships with people, and above all having good instincts, that was commercial talent.

They said no tiger ever birthed a dog, but Geum Yang-bae was clearly inferior to his father.
Still, he had inherited a few virtues, and one of them was the instinct to recognize people who could be useful to him.

Geum Yang-bae realized that the beggar girl before his eyes was his savior.
No, in truth, it might not have taken any commercial talent at all to figure that out.
Had the beggars who were about to kill him not scattered all at once at a single gesture from the beggar girl?

“Mmph, mmph!”

With a gag stuffed in his mouth, no proper sound came out.

“Are you okay?”

The beggar girl, Tsering, crouched down in front of Geum Yang-bae.
She tried to remove the gag from his mouth.
But there were also beggars who disliked Tsering’s high-handed behavior.

“Hey!”

One of the beggars standing beside the Branch Leader shouted.

“What!”

Tsering turned her head and shouted right back.
The beggar flinched in surprise, then soon ground his teeth and spoke.

“Fuck, we’ve been letting you do as you please, but don’t push it. You’re not even in the Beggars’ Union, so do you think our Branch Leader is a joke?”

His mouth was pretty foul.
The beggars had scattered so pathetically that it seemed Tsering must hold a tremendous position here, but apparently that was not entirely the case.

“That bastard beat up poor Jwi-ddong for nothing. Who the hell are you to say whether we should let him go or not. Fuck.”

He was the same one who had just argued that Geum Yang-bae should be killed.

“Hey, Dong-bak. Your mouth’s gotten rough.”
“Tch, rotten my ass. Since when did we know each other well enough for you to act familiar?”
“You’re saying this man hit Jwi-ddong first while the kid was doing nothing?”

Tsering brought her hand to Geum Yang-bae’s gag.
Geum Yang-bae thought Tsering was going to untie the knot.
But Tsering simply tore the gag off with brute force.

Ujijijik!
“Ghk!”

A fierce pain shot through him, and Geum Yang-bae nearly screamed.

“Mister, did you really hit Jwi-ddong for no reason at all?”
“No! That wasn’t it!”

Geum Yang-bae shook his head violently.
Then Jwi-ddong, who had been hiding behind the Branch Leader, shrieked.

“No! It’s true! He stole my tanghulu and started hitting me.”
“If you lie, you go straight to the Hell of Tongue-Pulling. They rip your tongue out and plow fields on it forever.”
“……I-it’s true though.”

Jwi-ddong’s momentum clearly weakened.
Talking about hells and such when she was not even a monk was almost laughable, but apparently it sounded scary enough to a child.
As Jwi-ddong fumbled and hesitated, the mood turned strange.
The beggar called Dong-bak seemed displeased with how things were going.

“Fuck that! Branch Leader, shouldn’t we discipline her once? She’s treating you like a joke.”
“Huh? Uh, yeah, uh……”

The Branch Leader panicked when the matter suddenly landed on him.
But every beggar was staring at him.
If he showed weakness here, he would lose the beggars’ respect, and the authority of the Branch Leader would collapse.
The one who helped the Branch Leader out of that bind was none other than Tsering.

“Dong-bak, you got a problem with me? Then let’s settle it.”
“What?”
“Your tongue’s gotten long, huh? Come to think of it, you’ve never been beaten by me before, have you?”

Dong-bak’s face flushed red.
Tsering’s way of speaking was anything but gentle.
Who would think she had grown up under the care of lamas and Divine Monk in the Potala Palace?
With a manner that would have made Divine Monk press his hand to his forehead and sigh, Tsering crooked a finger.

“Come at me all at once.”
“Fine! Let’s do it!”

The beggar called Dong-bak didn’t come out alone.
Four beggars who sided with him stepped forward as well, and all of them looked like men who knew martial arts.

“If you thought we’d go easy on you, that was a stupid mistake.”

Dong-bak grinned.
For several people to gang up on one person was not the way of the orthodox. It was considered cowardly.
But that unspoken rule did not apply to the Beggars’ Union.
Beggars were one.
They begged together, fought together, and ran together.

And the five beggars rushed at Tsering all at once.
Some of them were even carrying club-like weapons.
Tsering was empty-handed.

“N-no!”

Geum Yang-bae cried out in dismay.
It seemed obvious that the beggars were about to beat Tsering down.

But reality was different.
Tsering took the wooden staff Dong-bak swung head-on.
Taking a wooden staff infused with internal energy directly to the head was madness.
Unless one had trained external arts to the utmost.
Or had mastered a Buddhist divine art like Shaolin’s Arhat Qi Art.

Tsering’s body flashed for an instant.

Ppakkak!

Absurdly, it was the wooden staff that broke rather than her skull.
In that same instant, Tsering’s fist sank into Dong-bak’s abdomen.

Pung!

She struck his stomach, yet the clothing on his back burst apart.
Dong-bak’s eyes rolled back, and he passed out.
A nonlethal internal striking method that released the force without crushing the organs.
That too was one of Shaolin’s profound divine arts.

Dong-bak was subdued in an instant.
But the remaining four beggars didn’t miss that opening.
Attacks came at her simultaneously from four directions.
True to Beggars’ Union style, coordinated assault was second nature to them.
Unless she had four arms, it looked impossible to block them all.
In that case, would Tsering just take them with her body again as before.
No, she didn’t.

For an instant, Tsering’s hand seemed to grow enormous.
Was it just the eye being deceived by the profundity of her palm technique?

Peobeobeok!

The four beggars were all blasted away at the same time.

“Huhk!”

The watching beggars gasped in shock.
So did Geum Yang-bae.
To his eyes, Tsering’s hand had undeniably looked as if it had grown larger.

‘She’s a master, a real master!’

He had no idea that Tsering’s martial art was the Great Hand Seal of the Potala Palace.
Nor did Geum Yang-bae know that her hand had not merely looked bigger, but had truly grown bigger for an instant.
Even so, to someone who knew nothing of martial arts, Tsering’s display was astonishing.

In truth, the air beneath the bridge went cold.
Tsering dusted off her hands and spoke.

“Well, that settles it cleanly, right?”

Fortunately, she had held back.
Aside from Dong-bak, who had been knocked out, the others soon got back up groaning.

“Branch Leader, sorry for causing a disturbance.”
“Huh? O-oh, no.”
“If it’s alright, I’d like you to show mercy and end it here. Even the Buddha said forgiveness is important.”

Tsering showed the Branch Leader respect.
Relief appeared on the face of the once-flustered Branch Leader.

“Jwi-ddong did get hit, but this man got beaten far worse, so how about ending it here? Surely he doesn’t plan to take revenge either. Right, mister?”
“Of course not, of course not!”

Geum Yang-bae answered at once.
He had bluffed before, but in truth that was how he really felt.
No matter how much the Beggars’ Union had declined, the Golden Measure Merchant Guild was in no position to oppose it.

The Branch Leader also nodded as though he had no choice.

“……Well, if that’s how it is. We did go too far.”

At the very least, the Beggars’ Union was rooted in the orthodox path.
They returned the clothes they had stripped off Geum Yang-bae.
They stank and were stained, but Geum Yang-bae hurriedly put them back on.

“Then that settles it, right? I’ll take this man back.”

Tsering grabbed Geum Yang-bae by the wrist and dragged him out.
Geum Yang-bae limped along behind her.
It seemed he had twisted his ankle earlier when he kicked the Branch Leader.

Tsering led him out onto the bridge.
Only after they had gone far enough that no beggars could be seen nearby did Geum Yang-bae finally relax.

“Th-thank you.”

His legs were trembling badly.
What had just happened, being beaten half to death by beggars, felt like a dream.
Where had the bravado come from that made him yell at them to just try killing him.
They said that even if you were dragged into a tiger’s den, you would live as long as you kept your wits about you.

“Mister, you lived because of me, huh?”

Tsering grinned.
He had noticed it before too, but unlike her grimy face, her teeth were bright white.
Her little fang-like tooth made her look rather mischievous.

“Yes, I lived thanks to you.”

Geum Yang-bae plopped down on the spot.
He had stormed out in frustration after being rejected by Baek Sang-ye, but he could not think of that at all now.
Tsering crouched beside him and pulled something out from her clothes.
It was rice cake wrapped in bamboo leaves.
She ate one herself and handed one to Geum Yang-bae.
He hesitated, then accepted it and ate it.
He had worried it might be dirty, but it was actually a decent rice cake with red bean filling.
For some reason, it brought tears to his eyes.

“Huh, why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying. Kheuheuk.”
“Haha……”

Geum Yang-bae cried for quite a while.
Throughout it, Tsering stayed by his side.
Even telling Geum Yang-bae, who kept speaking politely, to just speak casually.
Perhaps because he had poured out his emotions, Geum Yang-bae began to feel close to Tsering.

So when Tsering cautiously made a request.
Geum Yang-bae readily nodded first.

“You need some money? Of course. I’m the vice guild master of the Golden Measure Merchant Guild. For the one who saved my life, that much is only natural.”
“Really? Thanks, and sorry.”
“So you ran out of travel money and got stuck in a bad situation.”
“Yeah. I got into a fight with the Beggars’ Union kids while begging. Though we’re on good terms now.”

Tsering scratched the back of her head.

“Right, so how much do you need?”

Geum Yang-bae felt his heart warm.
How hard things must have been for a girl not even twenty yet. He was ready to hand over a few silver taels.
He had asked generously, but Tsering gave an answer beyond anything he expected.

“Hmm, about twenty nyang of gold?”
“……?”

Twenty nyang of gold? Not twenty silver taels, but gold?
Even twenty silver taels was a huge sum. Twenty nyang of gold was practically several years’ income for the Golden Measure Merchant Guild.
Was she insane? That was the thought that came to him.

“Ah, was that too much? Then ten nyang. If I had just ten nyang, I could make it to my destination.”

He wondered if this was some sophisticated form of extortion.
But Tsering seemed completely sincere.

“I-I don’t have that kind of money.”
“Really……? I set out with twenty nyang of gold as travel funds. But by the time I got to Sichuan, it was all gone. I figured I’d need ten nyang to get all the way to Azure Forest.”
“Where did you set out from for that to happen?”
“I set out from Tibet, from the Potala Palace, and I’m on my way to Azure Forest.”
“Why……”
“Divine Monk told me to go to Azure Forest. The Dalai Lama gave me my travel money.”
“Divine…… Monk?”

Divine Monk. Could she mean that peerless master of the previous generation?
Geum Yang-bae studied Tsering’s face closely.
She did not look like she was teasing him or boasting.
If so, there was only one conclusion.

‘She’s crazy…….’

Tsering was not entirely sound of mind.
She had not ended up looking like a beggar for no reason. She had probably gone a bit off.
Just hearing her talk about coming from the Potala Palace and heading to Azure Forest made it obvious she was not in her right mind.

“Ten nyang of gold is a very, very large sum. A very large sum.”
“……I see. But why are you talking so greasy?”

He had only been speaking gently because he felt sorry for her, and she called it greasy.
Geum Yang-bae forced a smile.

“I can’t give you that much, but I can give you enough to get to Azure Forest.”

He rummaged through his clothes.
Of course, his money pouch and everything else had already been taken.

“……Let’s head back to the merchant guild first. Everyone’s staying at an inn called Wind Forest Inn.”
“Alright!”
“I’ll buy you a proper meal too.”

Tsering’s eyes lit up.
Since she had been hanging around with beggars, it had been a very long time since she had eaten at a proper upscale inn.
With a bright expression, she followed Geum Yang-bae.

“But how did you manage to spend twenty nyang of gold?”
“I met a lot of pitiful people. Some had villages destroyed by yokai, others had the shops they worked so hard to build ruined. So I shared it with them.”
“So you got scammed.”
“No, I gave alms. The Dalai Lama said wealth is like grains of sand, so if you clutch it in your hand, it slips away. He said it’s better to share it.”
“Right. Sure.”

Geum Yang-bae answered vaguely.
He wanted to get back to the inn as quickly as possible.
A good meal, a drink, and a soak in hot water would wash away all the fatigue.

What was he supposed to say to Warrior Jang?
He could not very well admit that he had been beaten half to death by beggars.
He would have to think up some excuse.

But Geum Yang-bae never got the chance to worry about that.
When he arrived at Wind Forest Inn.
What greeted them was the thick smell of blood.
Warrior Jang and the merchant guild members were already gone.