WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Martial Genius who Remembers Everything ◈

Chapter 225: The Invited Uninvited Guest (3)

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Black Alliance Headquarters.

Behind the Black Alliance Lord's office on the top floor was a secret room.

Only the Alliance Lord and a select few knew of this room, yet two people who had not even joined the Black Alliance entered it.

"You've arrived."

Cha Seokdu, once the Lord of the Four Emperors Association and now the Black Alliance Lord, rose from his chair.

"I should have gone out to greet you myself. Please forgive my discourtesy."

Cha Seokdu, who had never bowed his head to anyone in his life, gave them a respectful bow.

"Enough. Now that you're in a different position, it's only natural for your backside to grow heavier."

"Don't worry about it, little brother. If we cared about every little thing, we wouldn't have come here in the first place."

Blood Brawl and the Flame Ghost Consort took their seats before Cha Seokdu did, as though they owned the room.

"Have you both been well?"

Blood Brawl chuckled at Cha Seokdu's question.

"You didn't call us here just to ask after our health. Get to the point. Why did you summon us?"

"..."

"Do you have men refusing to listen?"

Cha Seokdu smiled weakly.

"Trying to do something I've never done before is proving harder than I expected."

"Heh heh. Why do you think the Black Path has spent so long being beaten down by the White Path? Still, it looks like you've built a decent foundation. It couldn't have come from that head of yours, so I suppose you found a capable fellow?"

Cha Seokdu readily nodded, as though Blood Brawl already knew everything.

"I was fortunate."

"That too is your blessing."

"Thank you."

The Flame Ghost Consort, who had been listening, gave a soft hum.

"You wouldn't have called us here just to openly cause a scene, little brother. Are there people gnawing away at your foundations?"

Cha Seokdu had spent his entire life dealing with people who only knew how to eat and fight. Somehow, this stifling secret room felt refreshing.

He leaned farther forward and whispered.

"They're cautious. They've hidden themselves within the faction and spread rumors while pretending to act for the Black Alliance's benefit."

"They say schemes are more frightening than hidden attacks."

Cha Seokdu shook his head slightly.

"This isn't something we can simply overlook."

Even Blood Brawl's expression hardened at his tone.

"Do you have any suspects?"

"I don't even know that yet."

"Hmm..."

After thinking for a moment, Blood Brawl spoke.

"Then there's not much we can do for you right now."

"I'm sorry. I thought I'd feel a little more at ease if you two came..."

"Hah, you've taken up politics and learned to wield White Path internal art with your tongue. Hmm..."

After a brief silence, Blood Brawl nodded, having understood Cha Seokdu's intention.

"We'll look into it slowly, so don't worry too much."

Cha Seokdu's expression finally brightened at Blood Brawl and the Flame Ghost Consort's words. Only then did he realize his mistake and speak again.

"I'm sorry. I've only spoken about myself. Was the journey here difficult?"

Blood Brawl lifted the corner of his lips.

"It was fine. We met an interesting fellow on the way."

"I heard you arrived with Jin Sowoon."

"That's right. He's more interesting than the rumors say. Even if the Black Path Alliance truly had a Joint Successor, I doubt they could compare to him."

Cha Seokdu nodded in agreement.

"He's certainly... an unusual fellow."

Blood Brawl's expression suddenly turned serious.

"I heard you sent that bastard an invitation. Why would you do something that benefits neither you nor him?"

"...Have you ever heard of the Night March of the Black Path?"

Blood Brawl nodded.

"Yes. I heard that ridiculous rumor about the Black Flame Dragon leading the ghosts of the Black Path."

Rumors said the Black Flame Dragon had led the Night March of the Black Path, which had become a major justification for forming the Black Alliance, but Blood Brawl had not believed them.

Jin Sowoon might have attached himself to the event through some connection with Black Path sects, but it was not something a man who had only just turned twenty could have led.

Yet Cha Seokdu shook his head, shattering Blood Brawl's certainty.

"That rumor is somewhat true."

"...What?"

"Oh my."

Blood Brawl and the Flame Ghost Consort both straightened without realizing it.

Cha Seokdu then told them in detail how Jin Sowoon had stormed the Four Emperors Association during the Martial Arts Academy's regular examination.

It was not a short story, but Blood Brawl and the Flame Ghost Consort did not lose focus for even a moment.

Once he had heard everything, Blood Brawl let out a low groan.

"Huh... So he really did lead it."

The rumors had faded by now, and Cha Seokdu himself was known as the one who had made the greatest contribution to forming the Black Alliance. Strictly speaking, though, Jin Sowoon had fired the opening shot for the formation of the Black Path Alliance.

"That is why I invited him to this founding ceremony."

Blood Brawl asked sharply.

"...Are you expecting the same thing from him as you do from us?"

Cha Seokdu scratched the back of his head awkwardly.

"Not at all, but..."

His eyes gleamed as he continued.

"I'm hoping for something unexpected."

Blood Brawl and the Flame Ghost Consort exchanged strange smiles.

"Interesting. Competing with the Black Flame Dragon, are you?"

"Hmm... This maiden only wants to have lovers' quarrels with her dear husband."

For a moment, Cha Seokdu wanted to ask whom she meant by "dear husband," but he remembered the flames that would surely come flying at him afterward and kept his mouth tightly shut.

#

The Black Alliance's eve celebration felt less like the banquets commonly held by White Path sects and more like a back alley in a famous tourist city.

In other words, it was a complete mess.

"Pick one, pick one, pick anything! Don't pick and you lose, pick right and hit the jackpot! This isn't an opportunity that comes around every day. The most commonly used concealed weapons in the Black Path martial world..."

There was a man selling concealed weapons at the training ground.

"Now, watch closely. I'm about to swallow this sword, so don't try this at home!"

There was a traveling troupe performing stunts before martial artists.

"Come on, don't miss this chance! This is the very elixir made by Shaolin Temple, the foremost sect of the White Path! It's called the Lesser Rejuvenation Pellet! To celebrate the Black Alliance Founding Ceremony, today only, ten silver coins each!"

Good grief, there was even a man selling Lesser Rejuvenation Pellets.

Wow! I couldn't let this chance pass by!

No matter how ignorant these Black Path bastards were, I wondered whether anyone would really fall for such an obvious scam...

"I want to buy a Lesser Rejuvenation Pellet."

There was the sucker.

I grabbed Dang Seohui by the back of her collar as she tried to rush forward.

"Forget it. You shouldn't eat something like that."

"I have money!"

"This isn't about money. If you eat some random mixture of herbs, you'll just get terrible diarrhea."

Dang Seohui narrowed her eyes and asked.

"How do you know?"

How did I know?

Because I'd tried it in my previous life.

Ridiculously enough, I'd even taken a Greater Rejuvenation Pellet in my previous life.

I thought it would make me a Peak Realm expert.

Peak Realm, my ass. It was really a medicine that sent you to immortality through diarrhea.

"...Don't ask any more. You'll get hurt."

More importantly, where had that bald monk gone? A man was brazenly selling Shaolin Temple's elixir like that.

Shouldn't he catch the bastard and beat him senseless?

I looked around.

"I don't see Senior Ilmyeong."

"He said he found someone to teach, so he already went off."

"Is that so?"

Still, Ilmyeong wouldn't cause trouble like Dang Seohui. It wasn't as if he'd let himself get beaten around if a fight broke out.

He was overshadowed by Yong Soa's brilliant name, but if Yong Soa did not exist, Ilmyeong's name would be ringing across the world in his place.

There were only a handful of people in this Black Alliance who could harm him, and if things got truly dangerous, he could always run.

I looked at Dang Seohui.

"Then let's look around on our own."

"That sounds good!"

Excited, Dang Seohui grabbed my hand and started dragging me along.

"I want to buy those concealed weapons."

"They're made from rusted iron. They'll break after one throw. Besides, doesn't the Tang Clan make concealed weapons too?"

"I want to throw those knives."

"They give ordinary people dull ones. They won't even stick into a wooden wall."

Dang Seohui clenched both fists and shouted.

"I want to enter the stone-lifting contest!"

"You can't use internal energy. Are you sure? That's a contest of external martial arts."

"..."

Dang Seohui's grip on my hand weakened. When I turned to look, her cheeks had puffed up.

"...Then there was no point in coming out."

Right, we came out so she could blow off some steam.

I hurriedly bought two sweets from a stall and handed both to Dang Seohui.

She expertly pulled two needles from inside her robe and jabbed the sweets several times. After checking the needles, she handed one back to me.

"Let's find something suitable."

"Then I want to do that at least!"

Dang Seohui, chewing on her sweet, pointed to one side.

Ten men stood around a small table there, each clutching their chins as they thought hard.

"Place your money and double it! It's the game even children passing by can win! Ladies, money for powder. Gentlemen, money for drinks. Kids, pocket money, one copper coin! Just one copper coin! Place your money and double it! This isn't an opportunity that comes around every day! It's the game even passing dogs can win! Find the bean, the bean!"

Three cups were overturned on the table, and the man was moving them around chaotically to change the red bean's position.

'A gambling game?'

This was truly incredible. They'd gone from one thing to another, and now there was gambling too?

What was even more incredible was that swindler. With no other place to set up a gambling table, he had set one up in a place packed with martial artists.

Still, it didn't look especially dangerous, and it wasn't expensive.

Dang Seohui needed to learn a little about the world too. This didn't seem like a bad first lesson.

I nodded readily.

"All right."

As we approached the table with a sweet in each of our mouths, the spectators stepped aside and made room for us.

The swindler smiled at Dang Seohui.

"Oh, what an adorable young lady and such a handsome gentleman. Would you like to play a round?"

"I'm confident I'll get them all right!"

"Of course! Even passing dogs can win this game. Let's begin."

The swindler showed us the red bean in the middle cup, then quickly began mixing the cups.

"Place your money and double it! This isn't an opportunity that comes around every day! It's the game even passing dogs can win! Find the bean, the bean!"

Dang Seohui focused intently as she followed the cups moving at a fairly quick pace.

The moment the swindler stopped moving them, she placed ten silver coins in front of the cup on the far right.

"Gasp! T-ten silver coins?"

"Why? Is that not allowed?"

Why was she so bold?

I stopped Dang Seohui.

"Things like this are for fun. Don't you have any copper coins?"

"I only have silver coins. And I'm confident!"

Then again, Dang Seohui was the precious daughter of the Sichuan Tang Clan who knew nothing of life's hardships. Her purse would never run dry.

I decided to let her be.

Everyone's eyes fixed on the table.

"Gulp."

The nervous swindler opened the cup Dang Seohui had bet on...

"Ah... How did you get that right?"

The red bean bounced out!

"Waaaah! I got it right! I got it right!"

Dang Seohui jumped up and down, and the swindler began moving the cups again with a pained expression.

Dang Seohui snorted and pointed to one spot.

"This time, it's here!"

She put all twenty silver coins, including those she had just won, in front of the cup on the far left.

Yet when the swindler opened the cup...

There was no bean.

'Heh. Look at this bastard.'

As I laughed inwardly in disbelief, the swindler taunted Dang Seohui.

"Oh dear! The adorable young lady missed this time."

When the swindler took all twenty silver coins, Dang Seohui took another twenty from her robe.

"Place your money and double it! This isn't an opportunity that comes around every day! It's the game even passing dogs can win! Find the bean, the bean!"

The swindler's hands moved even faster than before.

Dang Seohui drew up her qi and followed the cups as though she would not miss a single moment.

"It's here!"

Tension peaked among the swindler and spectators alike.

As passersby began gathering one by one around the growing game, the swindler slightly lifted the cup.

"Huh? Huh? Why? Why isn't it there?"

Dang Seohui stood blankly with an expression as though her world had collapsed.

The swindler deliberately lowered his brows.

"What a shame. It would've been nice if you were just a little faster. Would you like to keep playing?"

"...Do you take gold coins too?"

"...G-gold coins?"

The swindler's pupils widened for the first time.

"W-well. If you insist."

"Fine, then with gold coins..."

I stepped forward, blocking Dang Seohui.

"This time, I'll give it a try."

"Huh?"

"Are you going to have all the fun by yourself?"

Dang Seohui hesitated before speaking.

"...If you can't get it right, I'll do it again."

I nodded.

"Let's do that."

"..."

When I rattled my silver coins and gave him a look, the swindler clicked his tongue regretfully at losing his sucker.

But when the sucker said he would play again, his eyes lit up and he began moving the cups.

"Place your money and double it! This isn't an opportunity that comes around every day! It's the game even passing dogs can win! Find the bean, the bean!"

Three cups.

A game where you could win money if you guessed the position of the bean you had first seen.

As the swindler said, it was a game even passing children could win.

The swindler stared up at me.

"Where will you place your bet?"

"Where?"

But I knew.

You could never win this game against the swindler.

Because the whole thing was a scam from the beginning.

"All of them."

"Huh?"

I placed a silver coin in front of each cup.

"What are you doing? Open them."

I knew it was a scam from the start.

I had felt it from the moment he first began moving the cups.

Even so, I had left him alone because I had seen something unusual in him.

The swindler put on an act.

"Honestly, there are people like this. All right, have a look."

He flipped all three cups over at once.

There had clearly been a red bean beneath one of the three cups.

"All right, adorable young lady, why don't you take your place again?"

I grabbed the man's hand as he tried to cover the cups and mix them again.

"W-what? What are you doing?!"

"How dare you try to scam us?"

"A scam? What scam? You clearly saw it too..."

I opened the cup that had just contained the bean.

The red bean that should have been there was gone.

The startled swindler flinched.

"T-this... Damn it! Boys, get him!"

The men standing around the table as spectators must have been his accomplices. They tried to strike away the hand holding the swindler.

Thud thud thud thud thud thud!

Dang Seohui's knife-hand strikes flashed out in an instant, and every one of them fell to the ground with cries of pain.

"...It was a scam?"

Dang Seohui had already returned to being the White-Handed Divine Maiden, an object of fear to the Black Path.

"Games like this are always like that."

"...Is it really, really like that?"

Dang Seohui glared at the swindler.

"Eek!"

The swindler looked at Dang Seohui as if he had seen a ghost.

"P-please spare me! I'll return all the money I took earlier and everything I made today!"

I looked down at him, rubbing my chin.

"Hmm? No. You don't need to return that."

"What? W-what do you mean?"

"How did you do that just now?"

"W-what are you talking about?"

Usually, swindlers did not put the bean in any cup when the game began.

Once the sucker chose a cup, they slipped the bean back in.

That was why this game did not work on even moderately skilled martial artists.

Yet except when he had deliberately let Dang Seohui win, this swindler had never put the bean back in.

"How did you make the bean appear and disappear?"

What I wanted to know was the nature of that bean.

Just as Blood Brawl could throw his voice by encasing it in qi, this trick created a bean-shaped mass of red qi encased within qi.

For some reason, I wondered whether it might also offer a clue to unraveling the secret of the Void-Destroying Fist.

The swindler's pupils widened.

"What? T-that's my sect's secret art..."

There was even a sect behind gambling? Incredible.

"Fine. I'll give you back that money, so hand over that secret art."

"B-but... If my master finds out..."

Oh, he had a master too?

Then it was worth worrying about.

To ease his concerns, I clapped my hands and spoke.

"Come on, this isn't an opportunity that comes around every day! A deal even passing dogs would accept! Choose quickly if you don't want your wrists and ankles twisted backward! Come on! Pick one, pick one!"

I tried imitating him, but perhaps my pitch was off. The swindler's face did not look good.

Hah. Did I really need to tear off several limbs?

#

After receiving the swindler's secret art for free, I was about to return to our lodgings with Dang Seohui, who seemed a little sullen after learning of the world's cruelty.

Yet Dang Seohui planted her feet and would not move an inch.

"...We have to take Ilmyeong with us too."

"Excuse me?"

"The world is more frightening than I thought. Ilmyeong could be getting taken advantage of by someone too."

Come on, did she think Ilmyeong was like her?

Yet Dang Seohui cried out, her shoulders heaving.

"We have to save Ilmyeong! He could be trembling in fear somewhere!"

In my previous life, Ilmyeong had faced the Sura Demon-Slaying Unit alone without fear.

Would someone like him be afraid of a few Black Path riffraff?

But...

"My instincts are telling me! We have to go save Ilmyeong!"

Dang Seohui was strangely fired up, and I worried that the bald monk might be beating up innocent Black Path men while trying to preach to them. So I nodded.

"All right. It's getting late too."

When we asked the servants passing by about the bald monk's whereabouts, we found his trail surprisingly quickly.

Well, a monk in robes among a bunch of Black Path bastards.

There was no way he would not stand out.

Following his trail, we eventually arrived somewhere strange.

'A gambling den?'

Makeshift tents had been spread across the Little Training Ground, and countless people were gambling beneath them.

What had that man been doing to end up here?

As I looked around at the people sitting there, Dang Seohui spoke.

"Jin Sowoon! There! He's there!"

As Dang Seohui said, the bald monk was sitting in the middle of the gambling den.

As we approached, a strange sight came into view.

Wasn't Ilmyeong, who had claimed he was going to preach, holding a sword token?

'What? Is he planning to break his vows?'

On top of that, he did not look well at all.

Why was his entire body trembling?

I spoke to him.

"Senior Ilmyeong, what are you doing here?"

Ilmyeong turned his head at my call.

His face had gone beyond pale and turned black.

"J-Jin... Benefactor Jin... P-please! S-save me!"

...No, what on earth had you been doing here?

Footnotes:

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