Acquiring the Murim with Money - Chapter 2

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

Chapter 2. How to Mine Gold from Garbage

The medicinal herb market of Nakyang.
A place where the sharp, earthy fragrance of thousands of herbs drifted through the air, it was a vast artery through which Nakyang’s wealth flowed.
Baek Un-hui did not purchase herbs the moment he entered the market. Instead, he made his way to a ramshackle tea stall where the market merchants drank cheap tea. He listened. In his past life, when he had dominated the distribution industry, he always began by surveying the “pulse” of the marketplace.
“Cough, cough! My goodness, this year’s rainy season has been uncommonly long. Already half the market folk are laid up in bed.”
“Don’t I know it. Chest all tight and the body heavy as lead. The physicians call it influenza, but taking medicine does nothing—no improvement at all.”
Baek Un-hui’s eyes gleamed. He turned to the old proprietress of the tea stall with casual interest.
“Grandmother, do those who fall ill these days all show similar symptoms?”
“Don’t get me started. Hardly any fever, but the phlegm pours out and the whole body swells up like a toad. It’s the damp air off the Nakyang River that’s become a poison.”

[Golden Heart Eye analysis activated]
[Analysis result: Damp-poison Influenza specific to the Nakyang region identified]
[Solution: Medicinal herbs with properties that absorb moisture and expel toxins are required]

Baek Un-hui nodded slowly.
Nakyang lay along a great river; when the rainy season came, moisture seeped into the earth itself. The influenza that arose from such conditions would not yield to ordinary fever-reducing medicine. What was needed instead were herbs that could draw moisture from within the body and expel it.
He made his way at once to the corner of the market where discarded medicinal herbs were stored. There, piled like mountains, lay herbs that had been soaked in this rainy season, turned black with mold or covered in fungus. When Baek Un-hui picked up one of them, Yeon-hwa frowned.
“Un-hui, that’s Byeok-sa Herb, isn’t it? It’s been ruined by the damp—nobody uses it. It’s garbage.”
“Sister, this isn’t just rotting.”
Baek Un-hui scanned the internal structure of the Byeok-sa Herb with his Golden Heart Eye.

[Item: Byeok-sa Herb saturated with moisture]
[Condition: Oversaturated with dampness]
[Latent value: Though Byeok-sa Herb is naturally dry in property, when saturated and fermented in moisture, it undergoes a transformation—becoming magnetized, as it were, to draw damp toxins from within the body]

“Byeok-sa Herb is naturally a fever-reducing medicine. But when fermented this thoroughly in moisture, paradoxically it gains the property of drawing bad dampness from our bodies. Using poison to counter poison—dampness controlled by dampness, you see.”
From his field investigation, Baek Un-hui had learned that the physicians of Joongyeon cared only for the “purity” and “cleanliness” of herbs. They believed any rotted plant was an absolute poison to be discarded without question.
But in his former life, as he had expanded the distribution business and even participated directly in the manufacturing processes of nutritional supplements, he had developed these things with fierce dedication.
With the capabilities of the Golden Heart Eye, combined with modern distribution knowledge and fermentation science, what others saw as abandoned garbage, he recognized as nature’s finest fermented detoxification agent.
“Old merchant, I’ll buy this entire cart for one silver tael.”
The merchant’s eyes went wide. Never mind the ancient cart itself—that was beside the point—but to pay money for garbage that usually cost money just to dispose of?
“What? You really want to take it? No refunds, mind you! I stake my honor on it—these are the most rotted herbs in all of Nakyang!”
The merchant, delighted at his windfall, handed over the cart.

Baek Un-hui pulled the cart into the heart of the market. Due to the prevalence of the influenza, the most crowded spot in the market was around the pharmacy.
Knowing a medicine works well and actually selling it to people in a short span are entirely different matters.
Baek Un-hui began not simply selling medicine, but employing “fear marketing”—stoking people’s anxiety.
“Wait! Are you really buying fever-reducing medicine over there? Feeding that to someone with this current outbreak is like pouring oil on a burning house!”
At Baek Un-hui’s ringing cry, a young man who had been walking away with a medicine packet stopped in his tracks.
“What do you mean by that?”
“What else would you take for a cold? Don’t meddle with business!”
A respectable-looking man standing in line at the pharmacy coughed and quietly remonstrated with Baek Un-hui.
As more people grew interested in the commotion, Baek Un-hui turned his gaze gravely toward the rotted Byeok-sa Herb Extract on the cart.
“Everyone, is this influenza you’re suffering from the same as always? It’s not fever—it’s heaviness in the body, an endless cough and phlegm, yes? This is no ordinary cold. Think of it this way: your lungs have become a rotted swamp, poisoned by the exceptional dampness of this prolonged rainy season.”
Like a medicine peddler possessed, Baek Un-hui’s words flowed on without pause.
“The dreadful thing about this damp-poison disease is that it does not end there.”
Baek Un-hui chose his target. The man who had been coughing continuously was suddenly grabbed by the wrist.
“Won’t you stick out your tongue for just a moment? Good heavens, what a coating! This is a sign that circulation has completely stopped inside your body. If you take fever-reducing medicine as usual from here, you’ll be freezing the dampness inside your body. Eventually your lungs will harden, you’ll cough blood, and you’ll collapse!”
The man, caught off guard and having thrust out his tongue, exclaimed in alarm.
“My lungs will harden? Then what should I do?”
Fear began to spread through the marketplace like contagion. Baek Un-hui seized the moment and held up a bowl containing Byeok-sa Herb Extract.
“This is no ordinary influenza remedy. It is the extract of Byeok-sa Herb—a plant that cast itself into dampness and, rather than rot, underwent transformation—refined through a secret technique until not a single drop is wasted. For damp-poisoned lungs, there is nothing like it.”
Baek Un-hui drank from the extract readily, there and then.
“For a mere ten copper coins, you can save your lungs. Less than the price of a meal, I tell you—and you prevent your family line from ending in disgrace. Will you really stand by and watch your children’s lungs rot away?”
At such extreme words as “family line ending in disgrace” and “lungs rotting away,” people’s reason was paralyzed. The man whose wrist had been seized stepped forward as though bewitched, producing a copper coin.
“I, I’ll take one bowl!”
He drank the extract, and after several bouts of coughing, spat up black phlegm.
“What? The tightness in my chest—it’s gone! This is the real thing!”
With his words, even those who had been skeptical felt their hearts quicken with urgency.
“Give me some too! For my mother and children as well.”
“I have sixty copper here—sell to me first!”
As people began buying five, ten bottles at a time in bulk, the enormous stock of extract that had been prepared was depleted in less than two hours.

[Capital in real-time update···]
[Silver: 20 taels → 300 taels, Internal Power ceiling increased]

An ordinary martial artist would need years of relentless training to acquire the Internal Power that Baek Un-hui was gaining solely through “capital accumulation.” It was a bizarre privilege that only he possessed—the peculiarity of the Great Sky Capital Technique.

* * *

“Impossible! You actually sold all of it!”
Yeon-hwa marveled as she wiped the dust from her face.
Baek Un-hui smiled quietly as he dried his sweat. His purpose extended far beyond simply peddling medicine.
He had Yeon-hwa meticulously record the names and residences of every buyer. He had secured a database—a roster that would become the trading company’s intelligence network and loyal customer base in times to come.
“Un-hui! But once the sun sets, those Heuksabang thugs will be back!”
The moment they caught their breath after selling out, Yeon-hwa cried out in alarm.
The contract’s deadline was sunset today. All they had managed to gather was barely three hundred taels from the medicine sales. They fell catastrophically short of the thousand taels needed to save the trading company.
Anxiety crept into Yeon-hwa’s voice, but Baek Un-hui remained composed, organizing the ledger while his gaze fixed on the Nakyang branch of Geumsin Pawnshop—the largest pawnshop and financial magnate in all of Joongyeon.
“Sister, a true merchant doesn’t trade with just his own money. The art is knowing how to spend another man’s wealth as though it were your own.”
Just then, a carriage adorned with ornate silver fixtures came to a halt at the entrance of the Geumsin Pawnshop branch.
‘There was something in Baek Un-hui’s memory that he’d been meaning to investigate directly, and here fortune smiled upon him.’
Baek Un-hui activated his Golden Heart Eye and scanned the middle-aged man descending from the carriage.

[Target: Chief Manager of Geumsin Pawnshop, Hae Yak-sim]
[Analysis: Senior creditor to Heuksabang’s Faction Lord Jo Chul / Currently in extreme stress due to difficult recovery of a malignant debt]

A gambler’s smile played at the corner of Baek Un-hui’s mouth.

Recently emboldened, Jo Chul, the Faction Lord of Heuksabang, had been dodging repayment of a substantial sum borrowed through Hae Yak-sim.
Direct confrontation was burdensome—the criminal underworld’s martial assault was a liability, and the profit margin didn’t justify it. Yet leaving it alone wounded pride and dried up the money supply.

Baek Un-hui confidently stepped into the path of the Chief Manager as he emerged from the carriage.
“Chief Manager, the thousand taels you cannot collect from Jo Chul—I can resolve that cleanly for you.”
Hae Yak-sim’s eyes narrowed.
“How do you know that? ···Ah, you’re that notorious youngest rogue from Baek Un Trading Company.”
“Whether I’m a rogue or not, you can judge after hearing my proposal. Jo Chul has no intention of repaying you now. Transfer your right to the thousand taels he owes you to me.”
Hae Yak-sim stopped walking and stared at Baek Un-hui hard.
“What? That doesn’t make financial sense. And how do you plan to extract that debt from a blade-wielder of the criminal underworld?”
Baek Un-hui pressed the three hundred taels he’d earned from selling medicine into Hae Yak-sim’s hands, wallet and all.
“This is the transfer fee. Transfer your right to Jo Chul’s debt to me for this amount. If I fail, those three hundred taels are simply yours to keep. But if I succeed, you’ll have rid yourself of Jo Chul as a malignant debtor while simultaneously gaining Baek Un Trading Company—soon to be revived—as an excellent partner.”
After a brief moment of deliberation, Hae Yak-sim laughed heartily.
“Fine. I’ll let myself be fooled for the sake of old friendship with your father. I’ll use these three hundred taels well. As for Jo Chul, you’ll handle him yourself.”
In the end, Hae Yak-sim affixed his official seal.
Baek Un-hui now had not a single copper left to his name. Yet in his hand lay a debt-transfer document bearing the clear seal of Geumsin Pawnshop.

* * *

As the sun dipped low and the sky burned blood-red with twilight, Jo Chul, the Faction Lord of Heuksabang, stormed into Baek Un Trading Company with dozens of subordinates.
Jo Chul was the elder brother of Jo Sik, whom they had faced during the day, and his strength was on an entirely different plane. A first-rate master who had subdued the back alleys of Nakyang with the cruel external technique known as the Black Snake Bone Crushing Hand, he stirred dust into waves with every step he took.
Recognizing that she was not yet a match for an opponent of Jo Chul’s caliber, Baek Yeon-hwa nevertheless drew her sword and stepped forward to block his path.
But Baek Un-hui gave Yeon-hwa’s shoulder a light pat and stepped ahead of her, activating his Golden Heart Eye.

Buying Out the Martial Realm with Money: Episode 2

Author
Jee Un Lee
Publisher
Daon Creative
Planning / Editing / Production
Yoon Tae-ri
Cover Design
Sik

UCI
G720:N+A036-20260907057.0002

ⓒ2026, Song Jjuon-bol

※ This e-book is protected under the Copyright Law of the Republic of Korea.
Without permission from the author and publisher, no part or all of this work may be reprocessed in any form.

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