How Much?

The business with the Geodobang men was settled, for now, and I sat in the office of House Hwang Timber. Its owner, the old man Hwang Yanggeon, had stepped outside for a while to set things in order.

I let my mind go back a short while, to the moment I had put those men down.

Just as the axe had when I felled trees, the spear settled more snugly into my hand. It was as though the feel a man should have needed hundreds of swings to earn was being stamped straight into my body.

The voice’s effect is extraordinary.

In a single stroke it handed me the instincts and habits that only long endurance can buy. Even at Blood Sand Plain, where men wielded every strange and wondrous ability imaginable, I had never heard talk of such a thing.

Every time I heard the voice I lost track of whether I had truly come back to reality or was shut inside some vicious illusion. When I woke each morning I was afraid to open my eyes; gripped by the fear that all of it might have been a phantom, I would lie there a long while before I opened them and let out a breath of relief.

Of course, even if it were an illusion, there was only one thing for me to do.

Protect my family and my house.

I would not let what happened in my past life happen again. For that I needed strength, and to get strength I would do anything, even use a power whose nature I did not know.

Fortunately, I had a rough grasp of how to make use of the voice.

The voice came whenever I threw myself into something.

The first time it had been the heart method. After that, training the body brought it, and so did handling a tool; the thing called ‘understanding’ rose for that as well. The more I acted, the more my growth accelerated. That was as much as I had worked out so far.

So what I had to do from here was simple.

Act, and act again.

All I had to do was keep running without stopping. If everything up to now had been taking my place at the starting line, then getting the lightning-struck jujube wood through House Hwang Timber would be my first step off it.

For that, I need to put Hwang Yanggeon firmly in my debt.

Firmly enough that a single conviction lodged in the old man’s head: ‘if not for him, I would never have gotten the lightning-struck jujube wood.’

I was still turning the plan over when the office door opened and Hwang Yanggeon appeared. The deep crease between his brows, the hiked-up eyebrows, the mouth clamped shut. Everything about the man said temper, and after watching him square up to the Geodobang men earlier, what more was there to say?

He took a teacup off the tray and set it down in front of me.

“You have my thanks for earlier. Drink.”
“Thank you.”

I did not refuse. I lifted the cup and took a sip. A crisp fruit scent and a faint breath of flowers filled my mouth. There had been a good smell in the room from the moment Hwang Yanggeon walked in, and this was it. Whatever these leaves were, they had plainly cost a great deal.

He must have caught me studying the cup, because he spoke again.

“That’s a rare tea called Biluochun. I’m not the sort of man who can stand owing a debt.”
“Then I’ll drink it gratefully.”

For a while we took our tea in silence. Hwang Yanggeon broke it first.

“So. Was what you said earlier true? About coming to sell timber.”
“Yes.”
“A boy comes to sell timber and puts down Geodobang men — not one, but five?”
“Is that a problem?”
“Well. Nothing wrong with it, I suppose.”

He bobbed his head.

“How much of it have you got?”
“Enough to fill a small storehouse.”
“That’s a fair amount. Where is the timber?”
“Come to the Yang manor, in Qingzhou, Shandong.”
“The Yang manor?”

Something seemed to come back to him, and he went on.

“Isn’t that where Iron Lion Yang Taejun and Flying Serpent Spear Ju Cheolsan are?”
“That’s right.”

His eyes moved to the spear standing beside me. Then he spoke again.

“You wouldn’t happen to be one of the Yang manor’s people?”
“Unworthy as I am, I hold the seat of Young Master of House Yang. My name is Yang Mujin.”
“Ha. You?”

He said it staring at me as though he could not believe it. The way he addressed me had changed, too.

That was my father and Uncle Ju for you. Their names alone were enough to change the man’s manner. That told me exactly where the two of them stood within Shandong.

“Just goes to show, half of what the gangho says is not worth believing. They said House Yang’s eldest had no martial talent. Whoever put that rumor about must have been blind.”
“Not at all. Those men were simply weak.”
“No, they weren’t. It looks like nothing because you put them down so easily, but those were Geodobang men. You live in Qingzhou yourself — you know that well enough.”
“I know.”

I knew it very well. They were Geodobang, and that was the reason I had stepped into the fight at all.

Hwang Yanggeon nodded as though impressed and fell silent, his face that of a man deep in thought. I waited quietly. There was nothing I needed to do; even if I only sat there, he would be the first to raise what I wanted to hear.

The silence stretched. Then, at some point, the look in his eyes changed, and just as I had expected, he finally said what I’d been waiting to hear.

“Do you happen to have some time to spare?”
“I had meant to stay a few days.”
“That’s fortunate. I’d like you to guard me. I’ll see you’re not shortchanged on the pay.”

At his words the corner of my mouth lifted a little, then came back down. My original plan had been to ‘join him once Hwang Yanggeon was in danger’. This way I could secure the lightning-struck jujube wood as well, in one stroke and more safely.

“Very well.”
“Wisely decided. We’ll set out tomorrow morning.”
“Understood.”

I made my farewells and left House Hwang Timber. What I had to do was clear.

I had to make ready to burn the insects that would come flying in.

I stopped at an apothecary, bought a few medicinal ingredients, and went back to the inn. In my room I pounded them for their juice and mixed them in exact proportions. As they combined, the color turned a blackish blue.

Done.

It’s come out well.

It was a poison we had used at Blood Sand Plain, its ingredients easy to come by and its effect certain. Wherever it took hold the pain came on as though a blade were gouging into bone, which was how it got the name Bone-Borer Poison.

That did not make it a cure-all. The poisoning wore off in half a day, and one dose was enough to build a tolerance. A first-rate martial artist could purge it simply by raising his internal energy, and against second-rate and below it was a poison you could not use twice.

But for catching insects it was enough.

— Tap! Tap!

Insects that had rushed the lamplight in the room were slamming into the window paper. Listening to them beat against it, I poured the finished poison into a small bottle.

Geodobang might not come.

I had no certainty that they would move on Hwang Yanggeon. In my past life I had never been here at all. Even so, I had to be ready.

If they did not come, that was fine in its own way. But if they attacked, as I expected them to.

— Tap! Tap-tap-tap!

Then, like those insects hurling themselves at the lamp, they too would burn up in the fire that was me.

The Geodobang branch office in Linqu County. Inside a room.

Several men sat around a table. The man in the head seat brought his fist down on it.

— BANG!

The table broke apart and the teacups on it rolled to the floor. Hot water splashed, but not one of them dared move. Kneeling before the man with their heads pressed low were the ones Yang Mujin had put down at House Hwang Timber.

“So. You got done over by some boy? All five of you?”

Not one of the five had his limbs in working order. Arms or legs had been crippled, and one of them, they said, had a rib driven into his lung.

“B-Branch Chief! He was no ordinary man! In the blink of an eye—!”
“Shut it!”

The branch chief’s bellow closed his man’s mouth.

“Never mind that. Tell me what that old man Hwang Yanggeon said.”
“He said he’d pay it back soon. Principal and interest both.”
“Did he now?”

The branch chief’s eyes narrowed, and the corner of his mouth twisted, as though he found it interesting.

“That old wretch borrowed a fair sum. And he means to pay the lot at once? Has he got some big earner lined up?”

He closed his eyes and tapped his fingers against the table. For a long while he sat thinking like that, then opened his eyes and went on.

“Put men on the old wretch and watch what he does. Anything looks off, send word at once.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And have every man in the branch stand ready. Whatever it is the old wretch means to swallow, we take it off him.”

A greedy laugh spilled out of the branch chief.

The next day, I set out for House Hwang Timber. Hwang Yanggeon was waiting in front of the door, dressed light, his luggage no more than a single bundle.

I asked him.

“Sir, are you going alone? Is no one coming with you?”
“This isn’t the sort of business that’s helped by numbers. A secret keeps best when few men know it. Let’s be off.”

With that he set off at the front, and I followed without a word.

We left Linqu County and climbed one of the mountains nearby. At first we kept to the trail, but before long we left it.

I moved briskly along behind him, bending the springy stems of young oaks and pinning them to the ground, digging into the earth and planting sharpened branches beneath it, laying traps here and there all along the way. On every part of them that would touch skin, I carefully painted on the poison I had made the day before.

They were nothing much as traps, but they worked splendidly. I had seen hundreds of men caught by them.

Ahead of me, Hwang Yanggeon turned and asked.

“What are you doing back there instead of keeping up?”
“Making traps.”
“Traps? Are you after rabbits?”
“Something like that.”

Rabbits, or the men who’d be following us by now, it made no difference: either way they were just beasts on four legs, waiting to be trapped.

“Quick hands. You must have hunted a good deal.”
“Yes.”
“Did you learn this from Great Hero Yang?”
“That’s right.”

I had never once gone hunting with my father. I had only done enough of it at Blood Sand Plain to grow sick of it.

“I’ve picked the right man. See this through and I’ll look after you handsomely.”
“Understood.”
“I’d be glad if something got caught, so we could have a bite on the way back.”
“By the look of these mountains, something big will get caught.”

Very big ones, at that. By now the Geodobang pack would be hard on our trail.

“Confident, aren’t you. Care to make a wager of it?”
“What sort of wager?”
“I’ll add to your pay according to what the traps catch. A rabbit, one tael of silver; a deer, two; anything larger, more silver depending on the kind. How’s that?”
“Agreed.”
“Pray we find plenty on the way back.”

Hwang Yanggeon laughed out loud and walked on ahead. I looked at his back.

The bait is cast.

Whether they bit or not, time would tell. And if they did take the bait… I wondered whether our old man’s fortune would survive it.

Hiding the lift at the corner of my mouth, I set off after him.

How much further did we walk? A faint smell of burning reached me, and Hwang Yanggeon must have caught it too, because his pace quickened. The further we went, the stronger the smell grew, until a tree burned black stood before us.

A jujube tree, split in two by lightning.

It was lightning-struck jujube wood.

“Found it! I’ve found it!”

Hwang Yanggeon jumped in the air and shouted.

I was no less astonished myself. I had only ever heard of lightning-struck jujube wood; this was the first time I had laid eyes on it.

He whipped around.

“You see that? Split in two and it’s still all but whole. And it’s a big tree — it’ll fill two carts easily!”
“Congratulations.”
“My thanks. Don’t you worry, I’ll pay you handsomely as well. Come, let’s get down!”
“Yes, sir.”

We retraced the way we had come and went down the mountain. Hwang Yanggeon’s step was light, and his voice, when he spoke, was fizzing with excitement.

“I’m getting peckish — let’s roast whatever you’ve caught on the way down. And I’ll give you double what I promised earlier.”

He laughed a great open laugh.

But the laugh did not last long.

“Ngghhh—!”
“Aaargh!”
“It hurts! Help me!”

Not far off, Geodobang men lay collapsed on the ground, clutching their arms and legs.

“How did these bastards get here…”

I walked up to the bewildered Hwang Yanggeon and asked.

“Sir, how much will you give me for a black-haired beast?¹”
“What?”
“That promise of double, just now. You’ll have to keep it.”

Accounts must always be exact.