Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 232

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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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#Episode 232

“As they say, knowledge itself is a disease. Best to put this one to sleep first.”
The moment Noh Dae-sul pressed a meridian point on Nam Jae-seok’s body, the man collapsed like a bundle of straw.
“The place you need to go is Oseong Jang-won in Hangju.”
“Why would I go there?”
“Do you want to spend the rest of your life running? Die fleeing?”
“Who’s at Oseong Jang-won?”
“Hyeolpung Saja.”
Maeng Mang-do, who had been staring vacantly at Noh Dae-sul, belatedly gasped in alarm.
“What? Hyeolpung Saja?”
“Yes. You’ve already met them, haven’t you?”
“Well, yes! Though it was more like… I only caught a glimpse of their face, but Hyeolpung Saja is really at a place called Oseong Jang-won in Hangju?”
“Yes. When you go, run hard. Make sure no one follows you. If word gets out that Hyeolpung Saja is there, Murim will be stirred up quite a bit.”
“That’s true, but… why must I go to where Hyeolpung Saja is?”
“Is there anywhere safer in this Murim than there?”
“It seems there’s nowhere more dangerous either.”
“Hyeolpung Saja is not who they were before. You’ll see when you get there.”
“Are you saying Hyeolpung Saja will change as easily as stone turning to gold?”
“If you don’t want to go, forget it. I don’t feel like begging Hyeolpung Saja for favors anymore either.”
“No, it’s not that I dislike the idea entirely, but…”
It was clear that if he stayed with Hyeolpung Saja, not even the Murim Alliance would dare touch him recklessly.
After more than twenty years of fleeing, he was sick of running.
“Would it really be all right to live with Hyeolpung Saja?”
“Go and see. If you hate it, you can always leave.”
“I could also leave as a corpse.”
At Cheom-geom Peak, he’d already resigned himself to mutual destruction with the leaders of the Murim Alliance. In that sense, from this moment onward, his life was borrowed time—a gift.
Above all, he wanted to stay alive until his false accusation was cleared.
“Understood. Let’s go!”
“No one else must know that Hyeolpung Saja is there. If they do, you really will come out as a corpse.”

***

Gal Ma-pyeong, delighted to receive what he recognized as a carrier pigeon from Geom U-bin, opened the letter and his face went rigid at the four characters: “Hyeol-geom O-gyeon.”
“Seo-bang! Tong-su! Betrayal!”
At his frantic shout, both Go Seo-bang and O Tong-su came running—along with Se-hwa.
“What is it?”
“A carrier pigeon just came from the Lord. Hyeol-geom O-gyeon is coming to Oseong Jang-won!”
“What? Hyeol-geom O-gyeon? That Hyeol-geom O-gyeon we met thirty years ago?”
Go Seo-bang corrected O Tong-su’s surprise.
“To be precise, it was twenty-eight years ago.”
“Thirty or twenty-eight—what’s the difference! But why would Hyeol-geom O-gyeon suddenly come to Oseong Jang-won?”
“The letter just says to receive Hyeol-geom O-gyeon well. That’s all.”
“Receive them well? What does that mean?”
“In our parlance, it would mean breaking arms and legs as a baseline, and if we’re being extra hospitable, cutting open the belly too.”
“Surely the Lord didn’t mean it that way.”
Se-hwa, who had been listening to their conversation, interjected.
“Who is Hyeol-geom O-gyeon that you all are like this?”
“You don’t know who Hyeol-geom O-gyeon is? That famous evil martial master?”
“I think I’ve heard the name…”
“If our masters hadn’t been around, Hyeol-geom O-gyeon would have taken the seat of Greatest Evil Martial Master.”
“Are they really that vicious?”
“Why else would the Murim Alliance have been hunting them as a Public Enemy of Murim for over twenty years?”
“But why is the Lord sending such an evil master here?”
Gal Ma-pyeong carefully unfolded the letter again.
“I wonder if the Lord really meant what was written here.”

***

Geom U-bin, Do Pyeong-su, and Jang Man-dok arrived in Shanyang County, Shaanxi Province.
“If it’s a merchant association matter, shouldn’t you leave it to the association lord? Why must you go yourself?”
“Shaanxi has the Huashan Faction and the Jongnam Sect. I think we need to visit them again.”
At the mention of the two sects’ names, Jang Man-dok and Do Pyeong-su’s eyes gleamed.
“You’re going to deal with them?”
“Not a fight, no.”
Their disappointed expressions made him feel a twinge of guilt.
“Then what do you mean by ‘visit’…?”
“The association pays them quite a bit of money.”
Beyond the officials, large Murim forces in any region receive considerable tribute payments from merchant associations operating there.
Most merchant associations in Zhongyuan work this way.
“I mean to cut off those payments.”
Jang Man-dok and Do Pyeong-su’s eyes widened in surprise.
“We’ve been giving money to those bastards?”
“It’s custom.”
“Then let’s teach them a proper lesson this time. Stay put, won’t you? We’ll handle it ourselves.”
Jang Man-dok nodded vigorously in agreement with Do Pyeong-su. With the two of them, the Huashan and Jongnam factions would scatter to the winds in an instant.
“No—I want to find out how deeply Huashan and Jongnam are connected to the forces hidden behind the curtain.”
“How?”
“If we stop paying tribute, they’ll come looking for the association. That creates friction between us and them. Something will emerge in that process.”
He could provoke Huashan or Jongnam anytime he wished. But doing so would create problems not only with the Orthodox Faction sects under the Murim Alliance, but also make the Oseong Jang-won stand out even more in Murim.
Moreover, there was only suspicion about Jongnam’s connection to the hidden forces—no solid proof.
So Geom U-bin’s thinking was that it was better to beat the grass and startle the snake.
The Oseong Merchant Association’s branch here had firmly established itself as the premier merchant house in Shaanxi Province.
The branch leader was a man named Seo Dong-cheol, forty-six years old, recruited by Bae Do-sang, the lord of the Oseong Merchant Association. His face had the harsh bearing of an alleyway thug, yet he proved surprisingly easygoing and possessed excellent social skills.
“If you’d sent word of your arrival, I would have come to meet you.”
Since the people who controlled the Oseong Merchant Association had come, Seo Dong-cheol spared no courtesy.
“Was that necessary?”
Geom U-bin answered lightly and posed his question.
“How is the Daseong Merchant Association faring these days?”
“Unfortunately, not well.”
As Seo Dong-cheol spoke those words, a smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.
“In their attempt to push us out, they’ve engaged in excessive price competition and collapsed under their own weight. Their prices were certainly threatening, but rumors spread that cheap goods are worthless, so their sales plummeted. Besides, our merchandise is genuinely superior.”
“Still, they’ve managed to stay afloat thanks to goods from Sae-oe, haven’t they?”
He’d heard from Bae Do-sang countless times about how special the young lord of Oseong Jang-won was, but he didn’t expect the Shaanxi branch leader to be so thoroughly informed.
“Indeed. There are many items available only from that source, you see. We’ve tried to break in, but it’s not easy. Even when we offer generous prices, they won’t sell to us.”
“I’ll look into that myself. In the meantime, focus on choking off Daseong Merchant Association’s lifeline.”
“Is there a way?”
“I’m thinking of using the Saeoe Five Kings.”
“Pardon? The Saeoe Five Kings?”
Bae Do-sang blinked in confusion.
“You mean those… who control all of Sae-oe…?”
“Yes, exactly. Fortunately, I have a connection. If you send word, someone will come. Discuss the details with them. And we may need force in the future.”
If Sae-oe affairs fell under the Oseong Merchant Association’s umbrella, Daseong Merchant Association might make a final desperate struggle, and Huashan and Jongnam would have to take notice.
“The Oseong Merchant Association will dispatch people to you. Station them as branch employees. Officially, that’s what they are, but in reality, they’re the estate’s blades, prepared for any contingency.”
Listening to Geom U-bin, Seo Dong-cheol clicked his tongue.
It was astonishing enough that such meticulous planning went into every operation, but the fact that influence extended even to Sae-oe was stunning.
“May I see the ledgers?”
Seo Dong-cheol quickly rose and brought out twenty-one ledgers from the bookshelf. Unable to know precisely which ledgers were wanted, he brought them all.
Geom U-bin examined two ledgers containing expense records.
Since he seemed to flip through them casually, it didn’t take much time.
“As expected, the sums going to Huashan and Jongnam are considerable.”
“They match what Daseong Merchant Association was paying before.”
“Then stop making those contributions starting this month.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s fine. The people I send will handle any immediate problems, and if pressure comes, just contact the Oseong Jang-won. Looking at these ledgers, even after paying tribute to Jongnam and Huashan, we gain almost nothing.”
Generally speaking, making donations to Murim forces serves less to gain advantage than to avoid disadvantage.
“You’ll need to prepare yourselves for their resistance.”
“Just make sure no one here gets hurt. I’ll take responsibility for everything else in Hangju.”

***

Under Se-hwa’s relentless questioning, they had no choice but to confess the truth.
“We ran a little con at the gambling house…….”
“You swindled Hyeol-geom O-gyeon?”
“Back then we didn’t even know who he was. Some clumsy-looking fellow walked in, so we figured he was easy prey.”
Gal Ma-pyeong pointed at Go Seo-bang.
“This bastard cooked up the scheme to fleece him.”
“And you went along with it at the first word!”
O Tong-su grumbled.
“I just got dragged into it and my head got cracked for it. My hair still hasn’t grown back where he hit me. Look, right here!”
He parted his hair, revealing a scar the size of a thumbnail near his crown.
“If it’d gone a bit to the left, I’d have been dead then and there.”
The memory made O Tong-su shudder visibly.
“How on earth did you survive?”
“We were young then. Looking back now, we were reckless.”
Se-hwa spoke up.
“But you’re nothing like you were when you were at the bottom of the Gangseо Samak. And it’s been more than twenty years—do you really think they’d recognize you?”
“Fat chance they’d recognize us.”
“But what if they do? Wouldn’t this be your chance to settle old scores?”
With their current martial arts, the Gangseо Samak would be the equal of any Ga-ju of the Five Great Families, if not superior.
Go Seo-bang, always the most pragmatic of them, shook his head firmly.
“We’ve grown incomparably stronger than we were, but revenge? Don’t even dream of it. He’s the man who would’ve been called the greatest evil martial master in Murim if it weren’t for our masters.”
“You swindled someone like that and somehow lived? If it had been our masters, there’d have been no question about it.”
If their opponent had been Hyeolpung Saja, the Gangseо Samak would’ve disappeared without a trace that very day.
“He just asked a few questions about that gambling game and then let us go. He had business at the house, and we were unlucky enough to get caught up in it.”
“The past is the past. There’s nothing to fear now. After all, he’s just a laborer coming to the Oseong Jang-won.”
“A laborer? Hyeol-geom O-gyeon is coming as a laborer?”
Go Seo-bang looked baffled, and Se-hwa wore an equally bewildered expression.
“Of course. Is there anyone staying at the Oseong Jang-won, besides the director and our masters, who isn’t a laborer?”
The three of them worked as overseers, and Jeon Mi-ryeo was a housekeeper.
The Sang Nam-jae couple had no formal titles either, but they were surely doing something somewhere even now.
“Hyeol-geom O-gyeon isn’t stronger than our masters, is he?”
“Of course not. No matter how skilled Hyeol-geom O-gyeon is, he can’t match our masters.”
“Then wouldn’t our masters just watch him idle away?”
“Exactly. If he lounges around, he won’t keep his skin intact.”
“So when he comes, he’ll end up under us anyway. The director is right below the lord, and the overseers are right below the director. So don’t worry too much about the disciples. Once he arrives, I’ll make sure he stays in line. Oh! We need to visit Ban Dong-gwang’s house for the funeral rites today!”
Ban Dong-gwang, who had served as Minister of Revenue before retiring to his hometown, was held in high regard in Hangju and maintained a close friendship with the Oseong Merchant Association.
Since Ban Dong-gwang’s mother had passed away, they had no choice but to pay their respects.
Hang Ju-sa-ung hurried toward Ban Dong-gwang’s residence. As befitted a family of standing, a steady stream of mourners poured in.
When the four of them entered the house, the eyes of everyone present turned toward them in unison.
“So Hang Ju-sa-ung has come as well.”
“We were deeply grateful for the relief supplies you sent us before. Thanks to your kindness, the people of Hwang-gye were able to get through the off-season without hunger.”
Words of gratitude for Hang Ju-sa-ung came from all directions. As they exchanged greetings and stepped into the courtyard, there was another figure who drew the crowd’s admiration no less than Hang Ju-sa-ung.
“Has Provincial Governor Kang arrived?”
“Thanks to our righteous provincial governor, life has become so much better these days.”
It wasn’t mere flattery—the very word “corrupt officials” had been completely erased from Hangju.

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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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