Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 166

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#166

“Aah!”
A crash and a cry erupted together. Had he mastered the Divine Technique, he should have descended lightly even from this height, but shock had robbed him of the presence of mind to use it.
Geom U-bin went to the window and looked down to see a man rubbing his backside before scrambling away into the crowd.
By his clothes, he was unmistakably a Huashan Faction Disciple. Geom U-bin had turned him away at the door without fuss, but the fact that he’d posted a watcher meant the man was on edge.
Watching the disciple disappear among the passersby, Geom U-bin spoke into the empty air.
“Come out now, the rest of you.”
When the Huashan Disciple fell, Geom U-bin caught the briefest exhalation—so faint it might have been imagination—but he was certain the Bloodwind Four Lions were nearby.
“You brought the Hwach’a Tea, didn’t you? I’ve drunk all I had.”
As he closed the window and prepared the tea set, the door opened. Do Pyeong-su appeared, scratching his head, and asked.
“How did you know we were here, brother?”
“I sensed your presence.”
Seo Seok-san, who had followed Do Pyeong-su in, was startled.
“You sensed our presence? Truly?”
“Just for a moment, when the disciple fell.”
Yeon Geum-hong gave Do Pyeong-su a reproachful look.
“It was you.”
“What are you talking about! I wasn’t even breathing! You shrieked like a girl! Oh—well, you are a girl.”
“Your liver was thundering louder than a storm!”
“What? Whose sound was it, brother?”
If he answered honestly, he had the feeling one of them would never let it go.
“How would I know someone’s gender just by listening to their breath?”
Yeon Geum-hong pressed.
“Can’t you at least tell if someone is male or female?”
“How would I know that? Besides, why are you here? You’re not here to protect me, are you?”
“Why would we protect you? You’re not a child. That’s not it.”
“Then what?”
Do Pyeong-su, having denied the only plausible reason he could think of, found himself in an awkward position.
“Yes, why did we come?”
Before Do Pyeong-su could dig himself deeper, Seo Seok-san stepped in.
“We obtained important information from the Dung Fly—information that points to Shaanxi Province.”
“What kind of information?”
“It concerns the Ink Tablet, our Master’s heirloom.”
Geom U-bin nodded.
“So you were pursuing our Master’s trace.”
“Did you expect that?”
“I thought you wouldn’t simply let it rest. But you’re saying the trail of that Ink Tablet led all the way to Shaanxi?”
Seo Seok-san relayed what he’d learned from the Dung Fly’s network.
“Two of his men who were tracking the trail died. In the end, they were pursuing the Huashan Faction.”
“The Huashan Faction?”
“Yes. That’s the place where you need to collect the debt—quite the coincidence, isn’t it?”
“It’s not a place to collect a debt. I’m the surety.”
“If the Daseong Merchant Association doesn’t pay, you collect from the Huashan Faction. That’s what being a surety means.”
As Seo Seok-san and Do Pyeong-su bickered, Geom U-bin’s voice cut through.
“The money is no longer the issue, though. You said fifty years ago a young Miao tribesman departed for Zhongyuan with a Murim martial artist. That young Miao might well be the Huashan Faction’s Sect Leader.”
Geom U-bin had found a thread linking the Mutual Defeat Society to the Huashan Faction, but his leap of logic was too far.
“Baek Jong-dan is that Miao tribesman?”
Geom U-bin unfolded an intricately drawn sketch of the Ink Tablet on the table.
“I’ve learned that the Sect Leader possessed this. Of course, I’m not entirely certain this is the exact one, but there’s no doubt he had an Ink Tablet. And piecing together all the information, nine chances in ten this tablet belongs to the Huashan Faction’s Sect Leader.”
Do Pyeong-su nodded.
“You’re always ahead of us, brother. But how did you uncover that?”
Geom U-bin recounted his meeting with Jong Ik-jeong at the inn. Drunk as the man was, he was reliable enough.
“Then Baek Jong-dan is definitely connected to our Master’s death.”
The Bloodwind Four Lions’ expression grew grave.
“That’s why I mean to confront the Sect Leader.”
“How so?”

***

Geom U-bin sought out a skilled craftsman and had a counterfeit ink tablet made. He could have replicated the one Ma Gun-ja possessed exactly, but he deliberately made it crude.
It was best that only the fact of its being a Miao clan ink tablet could be discerned.
With the ink tablet placed in the wooden box, Geom U-bin set out toward Huashan Faction. Of course, the Bloodwind Four Lions followed at his heels.
When Geom U-bin said he could go alone, the Bloodwind Four Lions sprang up in protest. They could not let him face a dangerous figure connected to Ma Gun-ja’s death without escort.
Geom U-bin understood the Bloodwind Four Lions’ resolve and did not try to stop them from coming along.
He only secured their promise to watch from a distance and not intervene unless the situation became truly perilous.
Upon arriving at Huashan Faction, the disciple he’d met on his first visit was still sweeping.
Somehow it seemed that disciple would spend his entire life wielding a broom until he grew old.
“Back again?”
Geom U-bin handed the wooden box to the disciple.
“Please deliver this to the Sect Leader.”
“The Sect Leader is not someone an outsider can simply meet—”
“If you tell him someone came bringing an ink tablet, he will absolutely see me.”
The disciple was about to protest, but Geom U-bin spoke first.
“If you deliver this, the worst that could happen to you is a scolding. But if you don’t deliver it, you could face sect expulsion. I guarantee that.”
There was something in Geom U-bin’s stern manner that imparted an uncanny power of conviction.
The disciple disappeared inside with the box, and the wait stretched past a quarter hour.
Do Pyeong-su’s telepathic communication reached Geom U-bin through the growing tedium.
―Let’s just go grab that bastard Baek Jong-dan ourselves.
The Bloodwind Four Lions would have been more than capable.
“We don’t even know if the tablet’s owner is an ally or an enemy. We can’t simply seize him without understanding that first.”
The Bloodwind Four Lions, who had assumed the man to be an adversary, now grasped another possibility through Geom U-bin’s words.
“And if we capture the Sect Leader here, we won’t be able to collect payment from the Daseong Merchant Association.”
―So you intend to extract money from Baek Jong-dan as well?
“Of course. Master’s matter is most important, but if we can resolve both this and that, there’s no reason not to.”
―That much is true, but…
The Bloodwind Four Lions could not fathom what plan Geom U-bin was formulating.
Only after the quarter hour had fully elapsed did the disciple emerge with the wooden box.
“Come inside.”
The fact that Baek Jong-dan would meet Geom U-bin did not sit well with the disciple.
The disciple led Geom U-bin deep into Huashan Faction. Throughout the compound, which had endured centuries in a single place, the patina of ages emanated from every corner.
The trees planted for landscaping had grown dense, and the rocks, sculpted by time, gleamed with polish.
The disciple crossed a small stream that turned a water wheel and stopped before a small building that resembled a hermitage.
“I’ve brought the guest.”
“Let him in. You may go.”
At the voice from within the room, the disciple bowed deeply to the invisible speaker and withdrew.
Geom U-bin stepped onto the stone floor and opened the door. Baek Jong-dan sat directly across from him.
Holding a cold tea cup, Baek Jong-dan regarded Geom U-bin as he entered the room with steady eyes.
“It is an honor to meet you for the first time.”
Geom U-bin bowed respectfully, but Baek Jong-dan did not even nod in response.
Geom U-bin took a seat across from Baek Jong-dan. Baek Jong-dan only watched him, and Geom U-bin maintained his silence.
It was like a contest to see who would speak first and lose. Geom U-bin possessed a patience unsuited to his years, and eventually Baek Jong-dan broke the silence.
“You’ve brought an amusing object.”
“I thought it might stir old memories. Nostalgia is a worthwhile thing, after all.”
“You seem rather young to be speaking of nostalgia.”
“I was young to suffer door refusal as well, and yet I endured such an affront not long ago.”
“Why have you brought me this strange thing?”
“You seem to belittle your own origins too much.”
Bang!
Baek Jong-dan struck the table, the wooden box toppled, and its lid fell open, revealing its contents.
He unleashed the bearing befitting a Sect Leader of Huashan Faction, yet Geom U-bin’s expression remained unmoved.
Observing such composure in the young man, Baek Jong-dan’s brow deepened with creases.
‘At his age, to receive my aura with such calm resolve—what manner of will does he possess?’
Oseong Jang-won was a place under careful watch not only by Baek Jong-dan but by the Murim League as well. This was because the martial prowess of the four known as the Hangju Immortals was anything but ordinary.
Yet even Geom U-bin, the youngest among them, possessed a force of will that far exceeded expectation.
“Do you know what you are attempting to do right now?”
“You’re asking for help.”
“It looks to me like blackmail.”
Geom U-bin feigned a look of surprise.
“Who would dare threaten the Huashan Faction?”
Baek Jong-dan picked up the ink tablet from the table as he spoke.
“What is it you want from me?”
“You offered your guarantee, didn’t you? If I don’t receive the money owed to me, that debt falls on the Huashan Faction—and that benefits no one, does it?”
“So you’re asking me to collect the debt from the Daseong Merchant Association on your behalf?”
“Wouldn’t that serve us both well?”
“You’re asking the sect leader of Huashan to chase down a debt collector?”
“Surely that’s preferable to the world learning that the Huashan sect leader is Miao?”
“Who would believe such a thing?”
“Of course, if someone said it, they’d be written off as a lunatic.”
“You understand that much, at least.”
“But once you’re called mad for it, then twice, then ten times, twenty times—eventually someone will think, ‘What if? What if it’s true?’ And when those suspicions pile up and harden like eternal snow, what happens then?”
A man who had lived as long as Baek Jong-dan understood the terror of rumor. Once such whispers accumulated and froze solid, it fell to him alone to prove the truth.
“You dare blackmail the Huashan sect leader. Do your uncles know of this?”
“I have nothing to do with them, and even if they knew, they wouldn’t blame me for it.”
It was a probe cast into uncertain waters, but Geom U-bin didn’t so much as blink. Baek Jong-dan had meant to speak with him and then decide, but the conclusion that emerged displeased him.
“Very well. Wait for word from me.”
“I’ll look forward to good news.”
There was no need for any formal pledge. Baek Jong-dan’s words alone served as one.
After Geom U-bin left, Baek Jong-dan stared at the crudely made ink tablet for a long time.
A karmic bond with his past that he had wanted to sever, one he believed already broken—yet time had obstinately wound the threads of fate back together.
‘How did Geom U-bin find out?’
The disciple he’d assigned to watch Geom U-bin hadn’t lasted even a double hour before being discovered.
Of course, there was one person he could suspect. The only one who knew he possessed the ink tablet.
‘Jong Ik-jeong.’
Judging by how misshapen and clumsily rendered the ink tablet was, it hadn’t been made with sure knowledge. It was surely a clumsy forgery made from someone’s testimony.
Baek Jong-dan gave a bitter smile.
“Now I’m to collect debts myself.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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