Murim Login - Chapter 319

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

Chapter 319
“The Deputy Chief of the Yongbong Escort Agency, Ju Hwa-ran, pays respects to the Tae-eul Mujeong Sword, Hwang Bo-eom.”
Ju Hwa-ran executed a formal fist salute with dignified precision.
The Tae-eul Mujeong Sword Hwang Bo-eom—truly a name that lived up to its reputation. Merely meeting his gaze constricted her chest and stole her breath.
‘The First Sword of Zhongnan….’
The Nine Major Sects and One Alliance and the Five Great Families. Fifteen pillars that upheld the martial world of the present age.
The man before her was the supreme master of the Zhongnan Sect, one of those fifteen. The immense weight carried by that name pressed down upon her shoulders.
‘But it’s alright.’
I had completed the escort mission that everyone said was impossible.
This was why I could stand confidently even if the Feng Yun Sword Lord had appeared instead of the Tae-eul Mujeong Sword.
“Well then, you’ve brought the commissioned item safely?”
“Of course.”
Ju Hwa-ran withdrew a wooden box containing the Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng from her embrace as she answered. The knots of twine binding the entire box bore small characters written upon them.
Shandong, Sungsu Family.
Hwang Bo-eom nodded upon confirming the characters.
“Indeed. That is the seal of the Sungsu Family.”
People say it thus:
If the Tang Family dwells in Sichuan, then the Sungsu Family dwells in Shandong.
The Sungsu Family was renowned precisely for their medical expertise. Unlike the Sichuan Tang Family, which was a martial clan, they were a prestigious medical house with deep roots in the healing arts.
The Zhongnan Sect had procured the Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng through the Sungsu Family and entrusted its transport to the Yongbong Escort Agency.
“The current patriarch of the Sungsu Family, Hwan-ui, personally placed the Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng within the box and affixed his signature.”
“Ah, Hwan-ui himself?”
“Yes. Moreover, several witnesses, including myself, observed the entire process.”
“Remarkably meticulous for one so young.”
Hwang Bo-eom’s weathered fingers swept across his white beard.
“I have heard even in my years that the daughter of the Sword of Righteousness is a woman of exceptional talent. I am grateful—you have handled this difficult commission flawlessly.”
“The Yongbong Escort Agency permits not even the slightest error in our escort missions.”
“That is precisely why you are called the finest in Shaanxi Province. The Main Sect operates an escort service as well, but it cannot compare to the Yongbong Escort Agency. Hehehehe.”
Ju Hwa-ran’s heart quickened.
Was it from joy at Hwang Bo-eom’s praise?
No. It was something else entirely—an emotion that gripped her chest. And she knew the name of that emotion.
Unease.
‘Something is wrong.’
It was an intuition bordering on premonition. Yet before Ju Hwa-ran could probe the nature of her anxiety, Hwang Bo-eom’s lips parted.
“Well then, only the final procedure remains.”
Verify the commissioned item, and leave one’s personal seal to certify the transfer of custody.
After a simple procedure that would take mere moments, the four-month escort mission, purchased at great cost, would be concluded thus.
Surely that would be the case.
‘…But would it truly be so?’
A chill unlike any she had felt before crept up her spine.
Hwang Bo-eom’s voice pierced through Ju Hwa-ran’s frozen ears.
“What are you doing? Show me the goods at once.”
Ju Hwa-ran slowly lifted her head.
Her voice was gentle and benevolent. Yet the old woman’s dark eyes gleamed with an enigmatic light.
A barely squeezed-out whisper escaped between her crimson lips.
“…Hwang Bo-eom.”
“Open the wooden box. With your own hands.”
Ju Hwa-ran understood then. The true nature of her unease—that she had nowhere left to retreat.
In the end, only one choice remained for her.
Ssssk.
Her trembling fingers began to untie the knots. The wooden box she had carried in her heart for the past four months now felt as unfamiliar as if she were seeing it for the first time.
‘No, no. It must be. It absolutely cannot be….’
And in the next moment.
Click.
At last the wooden box opened, and what lay within revealed itself. A crystalline fragrance, roots stretching straight, a frost-white body pristine and unblemished.
It was unmistakably Hundred-Year Snow Ginseng. Yet everyone who beheld it held their breath, eyes wide with shock.
In that suffocating silence, Hwang Bo-eom’s gentle voice rang out.
“How amusing.”
As Hwang Bo-eom’s wrinkled fingers twitched, formidable inner force flowed forth.
Gazing at the Hundred-Year Snow Ginseng suspended in mid-air by the vacuum grip, he continued.
“A Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng, you say… Am I seeing illusions now that my vitality has waned?”
To whom the question was directed was abundantly clear.
All eyes converged on one point. Heo Jun, the escort chief whose face was frozen in shock, and Song Il-seom, who stood in a twisted posture as if he were invisible—both were the same.
At the end of dozens of gazes stood Ju Hwa-ran, her pale face with eyes tightly shut.
‘It’s over.’
The moment she saw the Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng inside the wooden box, she could not bear to face that sight and closed her eyes.
Something that should never have happened had come to pass.
‘I saw it with my own eyes, and I’ve been carrying it.’
Where exactly had things gone wrong?
The past hours flashed before her darkened vision like a lantern show.
She had staked the very survival of the Yongbong Escort Agency on this delivery.
The sum the Zhongnan Sect had offered for this commission was truly astronomical. Yet upon failure, she would owe a penalty ten times that amount.
And now, this double-edged blade had been driven straight into the heart of her and the Yongbong Escort Agency.
“I won’t ask how this came to be. I’m not curious about what extraordinary circumstances transformed a Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng into a Hundred-Year one. However….”
Hwang Bo-eom swept his gaze across Ju Hwa-ran and the members of the Yongbong Escort Agency with an expression of apparent regret.
“I must receive compensation for this matter.”
“…!”
“The Main Sect has already paid the Sungsu Family one hundred thousand silver taels as the price for the Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng. And should the Yongbong Escort Agency succeed in the delivery, we agreed to pay ten thousand silver taels as the transport fee, equivalent to one-tenth of the cargo value.”
The value of the lost Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng, plus the tenfold penalty the Yongbong Escort Agency would owe for breach of contract.
Combined, it amounted to two hundred thousand silver taels—an astronomical sum. An amount that could only be covered by selling nearly everything the Yongbong Escort Agency possessed.
Blood dripped from Ju Hwa-ran’s lips as she grasped the truth, while Heo Jun’s face darkened to an ashen hue.
“F-Hwang Bo-eom. That is…!”
“Two hundred thousand silver taels. I will entertain no compromise whatsoever.”
“Ah, ahhh.”
The escort agents who had accompanied Ju Hwa-ran let out sighs of despair.
All save one—Song Il-seom.
Despite the escort agency he had served for nearly a decade now facing a desperate crisis, he showed no reaction. His lips merely twitched upward once.
Hwang Bo-eom, catching that fleeting expression, extended a teacup brimming with tea toward Ju Hwa-ran.
“Do have a cup. When the heart is troubled, nothing soothes quite like warm tea.”
Ju Hwa-ran’s long eyelashes, which had been tightly shut, trembled. She opened her eyes slowly and fixed them upon Hwang Bo-eom.
“Is this… the way of Zhongnan?”
“Well, I’m afraid this old man doesn’t quite understand what you’re saying.”
Hwang Bo-eom chuckled softly and tilted his teacup to his lips.
Astringent, as expected. The young proprietor who had inherited the tea house across generations still lacked refinement in his craft.
Yet somehow, the fragrance and subtle notes lingering in Hwang Bo-eom’s mouth now were incomparably richer than moments before.
“Exquisite. It feels as though I’ve returned to thirty years past.”
“…!”
“Why do you hesitate? Drink it before it grows cold.”
Ju Hwa-ran bit her lip in silence.
She had been utterly outmaneuvered. Despite her utmost vigilance, she had fallen into his trap.
She, who had led the escort agency for three years in place of her father, the Gentleman Swordsman Ju Ho-gun, had weathered countless trials and failures. Yet never had she felt such despair.
‘Can we rise again as we once did?’
She had stumbled but never fallen. Yet two hundred thousand silver taels possessed the destructive force to crush the Yongbong Escort Agency beneath its weight.
‘The penalty can be paid, perhaps.’
It was possible.
If she sold all the fields and properties owned by the Yongbong Escort Agency at pittance, and sent away hundreds of hired hands, escorts, and agency heads who could no longer receive wages.
And once that entire ordeal concluded, the Yongbong Escort Agency would be nothing but an empty shell.
‘Is this truly the end? Must it be so?’
Hwang Bo-eom regarded Ju Hwa-ran with eyes alight with amusement.
He had long heard tales that the young agency chief of the Yongbong Escort Agency was quite capable.
Yet to him, she remained but a fledgling, still woefully inexperienced.
‘Tsk tsk. How pitiful.’
It was at that very moment when Hwang Bo-eom’s inner laughter was about to burst forth.
“Hmm?”
His gaze suddenly turned toward the tea house door. The auras of several approaching figures were drawing steadily nearer.
‘This is….’
It was an aura so formidable that even Hwang Bo-eom, who stood among the supreme echelon, could not easily dismiss it.
A vast reservoir of martial power comparable to the elders of the Nine Major Sects and One Alliance drew gradually closer, then came to an abrupt halt before the tea house.
‘Could it be the Huashan Sect?’
Hwang Bo-eom’s conjecture was spectacularly proven wrong in the next instant.
Squeak.
“Oh, I was just craving some tea, and look—there’s a tea house right here!”
A young man with an imposing frame pushed through the door at the front. Hwang Bo-eom’s eyes, fixed on Jin Tae-kyung, deepened with gravity.
* * *
The scene was unmistakably unusual.
Dozens of swordsmen scattered throughout, and the air hung heavy with tension.
‘Ju Hwa-ran—or rather, the Yongbong Escort Agency?’
The question surfaced, and in that same instant, I spotted it. At a table surrounded by people, slender fingers trembling ever so slightly.
Though I’d only met her once, those fingers alone were enough to identify her. Curious how that works.
‘Hmm, were her hands really that beautiful?’
As I scratched the back of my head, all eyes in the room fixed upon me.
A middle-aged man who appeared to be the tea house proprietor rushed over, bowing obsequiously.
“Guest, I apologize, but we’re fully occupied at the moment….”
“There’s a table over there, isn’t there?”
“That one’s not in use.”
“Then I’ll stand and drink.”
At that moment, a martial artist who appeared to be a Zhongnan Sect disciple approached with measured steps and spoke.
“Are you a martial artist?”
“No. I’m just a fat guy.”
The martial artist looked me over from head to toe with the gaze of someone observing a madman.
“I know not who you are or whence you hail, but a distinguished guest has graced us with their presence. It would be wise for you to withdraw.”
“I’m my family’s distinguished son too. Besides, there’s plenty of room anyway.”
“…You’re troublesome. I am a disciple of the Great Zhongnan Sect. Surely you understand now—take your leave.”
“Why do you keep telling me to go? I just want to sit and have a cup of tea.”
Chung Poong, who had been fidgeting behind me, suddenly exclaimed with excitement.
“Master! Candied fruits too!”
“Candied fruits? Hey, Moo-jin. Do they sell candied fruits at tea houses?”
“Is this really the time to be asking that?”
What kind of people are these?
The Zhongnan Sect disciple’s face, which had been regarding us with such disdain, suddenly hardened—the moment he spotted someone.
“The—the Huashan One School’s Baek Moo-sung!”
As expected in Huashan’s home territory, there were more than a few who recognized Baek Moo-sung’s face.
In any case, the Zhongnan Sect disciple’s inadvertent cry proved effective. Unlike when we’d entered moments before, everyone was now staring at us.
Among them, two gazes burned with particular intensity.
I waved toward one of them.
“Oh, we meet again.”
“…Jin So-hyup?”
Ju Hwa-ran, her face pallid, stared at me with wide eyes.
Across from her sat an elderly man with a wispy white beard.
I offered Ju Hwa-ran a slight smile before fixing my gaze intently upon the old man.
“Is there perhaps some trouble between you and Miss Ju?”
The Old Master, Hwang Bo-eom of the Tae-eul Mujeong Sword, stroked his beard with an amused chuckle.
“An interesting fellow has appeared.”

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