Acquiring the Murim with Money - Chapter 27

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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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Chapter 27. The Owner of the Blood Ice Jade

When Baek Yunhui arrived in Luoyang, the Baekun Merchant Group was already in turmoil.
Seoseo had been waiting near the front gate, fidgeting, and rushed over the moment she spotted him.
“Master! Are you alright? We received word from Bicheon Peak by carrier pigeon. I’ve immediately deployed all of the Cheonil Network’s people to scout for anything suspicious.”
“You did well. Come inside for now.”
As they entered the office, Punggeun was waiting with his arms crossed. When he noticed the wound along Baek Yunhui’s ribs, his brows furrowed.
“Master, you mustn’t overextend yourself in that condition.”
“Lord Pung, I’m truly fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
Dang Soyou interjected bluntly from behind.
“He barely managed to stabilize his Blood Energy, and even when I told him to rest, he won’t listen to a word—honestly.”
“I’ll rest after I visit the Geumsin Casino.”
“That’s enough. I know my own body well enough to manage it myself. This old man is turning in.”
Dang Soyou clicked his tongue and withdrew to his quarters.
Baek Yunhui took his seat and called for Seoseo.
“Where is Gusang?”
“He went out with some people from the establishments to scout the back alleys. He said he wanted to check if anything seemed off, that something about the Underworld in Luoyang has felt strange since yesterday.”
“When he returns, have him share what the Cheonil Network has gathered with Gusang.”
Then he turned his gaze to Soryang.
“Over the past few years, there have been merchant groups and sects that were doing fine until suddenly they collapsed or closed down, haven’t there?”
Soryang’s eyes narrowed slightly.
“Why do you ask?”
“Pull together a list for me right now.”

* * *

The topmost floor of the Geumsin Casino.
Seo Harin rose from her seat as soon as Baek Yunhui and Soryang entered, which was unlike her usual manner. She maintained an air of composure, but that distinctive cold and leisurely confidence had visibly dimmed.
“You came quickly. Congratulations, Baek Yunhui. You’re no ordinary man—I asked you to handle the Carrier Pigeon Guild problem, and you ended up swallowing the entire Bicheon faction whole.”
“Ha. I had a rough time of it, I admit. In any case, the communication network can be restored immediately. But as you can see from my face, I’m nearly at my limit, so I’ll lay my cards on the table now. Last night, I was ambushed by those wielding Artificial Blood Ice Jade like bombs at the Bicheon faction. If things had gone even slightly wrong, not only I but the entire Bicheon faction would have been wiped out.”
Seo Harin’s eyes wavered once, then settled again.
“So it was no ordinary item after all.”
After a moment of silence, she withdrew a thick bundle of papers from a drawer and placed it on the table.
“That collateral. Do you remember it?”
“I do. It was the item I assessed as defective.”
“That wasn’t the end of it—it wasn’t just the testing counter that was cut off.”
Seo Harin tapped the table once with her finger.
“We tracked down the person who brought that item to us directly.”
Baek Yunhui’s eyes narrowed.
“What sort of person was he?”
“A petty thief.”
“…Pardon?”
“The kind who can’t get near rich households—just some street-level thief who crawls over flimsy fences.”
Seo Harin let out a short laugh—not one of amusement, but one that found the situation itself bizarre.
“The house he robbed belonged to a poor farming couple at the edge of Luoyang.”
“A farmer with an Artificial Blood Ice Jade!”
Soryang, who had been listening from behind, exclaimed in surprise.
“That couple—they were the type who worked for daily wages at various houses when they had idle time. Do you know which house they were working at last?”
Baek Yunhui looked up.
Seo Harin held his gaze and tapped the table again with her finger. This time, twice.
The words left Baek Yunhui’s lips in barely a whisper.
“Could it be the Pungcheon Merchant Group?”
“More precisely, the home of the warehouse manager of the Pungcheon Merchant Group.”
Seo Harin slid the documents toward him.
“Not only the farming couple, but that manager’s family—they’ve all vanished recently.”
“Whoever discovered the jade was stolen silenced them.”
“Right. There’s a risk we’d be exposed, so we’ve halted our investigation there. Explosives more powerful than those strictly regulated by the authorities, and masters of that caliber… you’re right—it’s not the sort of thing a mere merchant group like the Pungcheon would orchestrate.”
Silence hung in the air for a moment.
Baek Yunhui opened his mouth slowly.
“Where would someone make Artificial Blood Ice Jade?”
Seo Harin picked up the documents, then set them down just as quickly. There was something she needed to say first, before the papers.
“Explosives are forbidden under the unwritten laws of the Martial World and banned by imperial decree as a mass-casualty weapon. On top of that, this is a brand-new type of bomb—Ice Technique and Blood Energy artificially compressed and held in an unstable state. Since it doesn’t use gunpowder, it would’ve slipped past the authorities’ surveillance too.”
“A place with that kind of capability.”
“There’s exactly one place I suspect.”
Seo Harin tapped a spot on the table with her finger.
“The Blood Sect.”
Baek Yunhui had never heard that name before.
Yet somehow those two characters caught on his tongue.
Seo Harin continued.
“Forty years ago, the Orthodox Sects and Families made an exceptional alliance to launch a coordinated assault. The charge was that the Blood Sect had used forbidden techniques and explosives, causing harm to civilians. Back then, their headquarters were eliminated, and afterward the Blood Sect was believed to have vanished completely from the Central Plains.”
“Believed to have?”
“The leadership figures who spearheaded that suppression all clammed up afterward. There isn’t much public record of it. Even the allied forces didn’t celebrate their victory—the casualties were too severe.”
Without a word, Seo Harin opened a middle page of the documents and slid it across to Baek Yunhui.
It was a map. A map of the entire Central Plains, marked with several red dots.
“Look at it yourself first. It’s the result of tracking merchant groups and sects that collapsed over the past decade or so.”
The moment Baek Yunhui’s eyes fell on the map, the Golden Divine Eye activated silently.
The red marks before him were no longer simple points. Numbers began to surface above each one. The scale of collapsed merchant groups, the time they vanished, and the streams of capital that had strangely ceased flowing just before.

[Analysis in progress: Logistics Hub Disappearance Pattern]
[Notable: Capital flow from collapsed hubs converges in a singular direction.]

Baek Yunhui’s eyes narrowed.
The red dots were not scattered. Money flowed like water finding lower ground.
“Key figures or specific logistics hubs within an organization crumble first, gradually losing influence until they’re absorbed by a rising force or disappear entirely. The sequence is…”
Seo Harin stared at him in surprise.
“Wait—I was just thinking about how to explain this. And you’ve grasped it all at a glance from the map? That’s impressive.”
“No, I couldn’t have done it without the branches spread across the nation—like Geumsin Casino—identifying regional capital flow anomalies, or without you, Director Seo, connecting them year by year and compiling everything in one place. It would be impossible otherwise. And whereas in the past such incidents occurred sporadically in the outer regions of the Central Plains over long intervals, recently this flow has been concentrating on the core areas—Luoyang and the Central Plains proper.”
“Right. This is no ordinary matter.”
Seo Harin nodded in agreement.
Just then, Soryang—who had been studying materials he’d brought from Gusang and Seoseo before departure—laid out everything he’d been holding next to Seo Harin’s documents.
Click-click-click—
Soryang’s expression grew increasingly grim as he worked the abacus.
“Baek Yunhui.”
“Yes?”
“It’s really true. Director Seo and we’ve uncovered something far bigger than we realized.”
He set down the abacus.
“It wasn’t just the Luoyang area. When you connect the Dark Path forces in key Central Plains regions, the emerging local merchant groups, and the capital flows manipulating things behind the scenes, it operates like a single massive organization. They’re using different names on the surface, but there are at least dozens of locations suspected to be under the same faction’s influence.”
Soryang struck the table excitedly as he spoke.
“Even if you exclude the territories of a few major merchant groups and the Major Sects, the backstreet rackets and local commerce have already been infiltrated by nearly a third?”
The room fell silent.
Baek Yunhui maintained the Golden Divine Eye, scanning the numbers on the map again.

[Total Capital Convergence Scale: Unable to estimate.]
[Warning: Current caster’s capital scale insufficient to access full scope.]

Those days when his father had collapsed and the merchant group crumbled. Events he’d attributed to mere misfortune.
What if they had been orchestrated by someone’s hand?
He began to analyze quietly.
If the Blood Sect had merely been a heretical faction using forbidden techniques within the Martial World, the coordinated assault forty years ago would have destroyed it. Yet it was possible they had survived in secret, hidden, spreading their reach into both the Merchant Realm and the Dark Path simultaneously.
He couldn’t be certain yet, but the pieces were beginning to fit. Pungcheon Merchant Group’s Kong Jaya. Those pulling strings behind him. Mak Ya, the Dark Path, Yeondok—using Artificial Blood Ice Jade as a weapon while concealing their identity.
“Director Seo.”
“Yes?”
“If the Blood Sect is still active, would they face another public suppression from the Martial World?”
Seo Harin narrowed her eyes.
“Hard to say. The situation in the Central Plains has changed a lot since then, and you can’t just attack them simply because they’ve re-emerged. Some of the Major Sects might keep watch or try to check them, but…”
“Then why hide their identity so thoroughly? Whatever they are—whether it’s the Blood Sect or something else—there’s clearly some massive movement happening. They’re building capital and information networks so meticulously, absorbing troublesome elements or quietly eliminating them, preparing for something. What could it be?”
Baek Yunhui paused, choosing his words carefully.
“And whether it’s military force or funds, if they’ve reached this level, it won’t be long before their preparations are complete.”
Baek Yunhui withdrew his gaze from the map and looked toward Seo Harin.
“And since our merchant group has been such an eyesore,”
Seo Harin picked up her fan, then set it down again as she spoke.
“those three moving at Bicheon Peak—that was likely them.”
The room fell quiet once more.
“Ah, Baek Yunhui. There’s one more thing.”
She withdrew the final document.
“It’s a merchant group that’s been expanding its influence rapidly across the Central Plains recently. You’ve surely heard the rumors.”
Baek Yunhui accepted the document.
Tianma Merchant Group.
“They operate under the protection of the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect. As far as I know, they originally only conducted business within Demonic Sect territory.”
“That’s right. But in the last three years, everything’s changed. They’ve openly raised the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect’s banner and have been rapidly infiltrating the Merchant Realm across the Central Plains with tremendous financial and military power. And,”
Seo Harin pointed to the map once more.
“they’ve begun making moves toward Luoyang.”
Baek Yunhui studied the map.
The expansion route of the Tianma Merchant Group was marked—beginning from Demonic Sect territory and progressing toward the heart of the Central Plains, with Henan Province, where Luoyang lay, at its terminus.
“The movements of the Blood Sect and the expansion route of the Tianma Merchant Group,”
Baek Yunhui said, laying the two maps side by side.
“overlap in certain places.”
Seo Harin was silent for a moment.
“Yes, some portions do. But not all of it. I’m still uncertain whether there’s any connection.”
Soryang’s eyes moved back and forth between the two maps as his fingers worked the abacus.
“Their methods seem different, don’t they? The Blood Sect works quietly, infiltrating gradually, while the Tianma Merchant Group advances openly and forcefully.”
“I still can’t definitively say that this massive force behind the scenes is the Blood Sect. And the connection to the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect,”
Baek Yunhui closed the documents and rose from his seat.
“I’ve seen enough. Thank you, Soyou.”
Seo Harin regarded him.
“Baek Yunhui. The Pungcheon Merchant Group was an opponent we could handle well enough on our own. But if the Blood Sect is behind them,”
She glanced out the window briefly.
“that’s the organization that faced the Orthodox Sects and Families simultaneously over forty years ago. In any case, this is all I can tell you regarding the Blood Sect. Do you understand what I’m saying? Be careful, and”
Baek Yunhui bowed his head.
“That’s already more than enough. Please be careful yourself, Soyou.”

On the way back to the Baekun Merchant Group.
Soryang clutched the documents to his chest and trotted alongside, muttering.
“Hey, if this Blood Sect thing is real, haven’t we bitten off more than we can chew?”
“Once we’ve bitten off, we can’t spit it out.”
“If we retreat, we get swallowed. If we push forward, we collide. I thought we’d just do business diligently and earn money. What kind of situation is this?”
“In the bigger picture, it’s all business.”
Soryang laughed hollowly.
The gate of the Baekun Merchant Group came into view.
Seoseo came bounding out from before the gate, her eyes wider than usual.
“Master! A letter just arrived!”
“From whom?”
“That’s the thing…”
Seoseo held out the envelope.
A seal was stamped upon it.

[Seal of the Director, Tianma Merchant Group]

Soryang leaned over to peer at the envelope and raised his eyebrows.
“From the Tianma Merchant Group? A letter sent directly to us?”
Baek Yunhui opened the envelope.
The letter was brief.

[Request for meeting. Tomorrow morning, Hour of the Dragon. Luoyang Central Inn.]
There was no signature.
But the handwriting.
Baek Yunhui felt tension creep into his fingertips.
It was clearly a handwriting he’d never seen before. And yet, strangely, it didn’t feel unfamiliar. As though he’d glimpsed it somewhere—though that couldn’t possibly be.
‘That can’t be it.’
Soryang spoke up.
“Yunhui, why would Tianma Merchant Group request a meeting with us at this moment? Could it be that the Demonic Sect is behind all this? If that’s the case, we’re in serious trouble.”
Baek Yunhui didn’t answer.
He folded the letter and walked through the gate.
Soryang followed and asked again.
“Really, what are you planning to do? Getting tangled up with Tianma Merchant Group won’t lead anywhere good. Are you going to meet them?”
“I have to.”
“Why?”
Baek Yunhui kept walking and spoke quietly.
“Because I’m curious.”
Baek Yunhui entered his office and closed the door.
He unfolded the letter again and stared at the handwriting.
‘No.’
He spoke to himself.
‘It can’t be.’
Yet his hands trembled.
Beyond the window, night was deepening over Luoyang.

Acquiring the Martial World for Gold | Chapter 27

Author
Song Tteolbol
Publisher
Daon Creative
Planning / Editing / Production
Yoon Taeri
Cover Design
Sik

UCI
G720:N+A036-20260907057.0027

ⓒ2026, Song Tteolbol

This electronic book is protected under the copyright laws of the Republic of Korea.
No part or all of this work may be reproduced or modified in any form without the permission of the author and publisher.

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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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