Murim School Record - Chapter 51

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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 51: Closing Out (2)

“Don’t worry about that. Would I have suggested this operation to you if I hadn’t made those preparations? Is Sa Yul outside?”
Whoosh—
The door opened without a sound.
A wisp of cloud appeared in the air and took the shape of Sa Yul.
It was a remarkable display of the Illusion Technique.
“You called for me?”
“Bring the old master here at once.”
“As you wish.”
Sa Yul vanished like smoke.
Yi Mo Baek looked at Dang Du Chun with an unspoken question—who was this old master?
Dang Du Chun smiled faintly.
“An old man who tends fire on Market Street. To ordinary folk, he’s known as a blacksmith, but he possesses considerable expertise in explosives. In his youth, he served as an Explosive Powder Bomb specialist for the imperial arsenal.”
Yi Mo Baek studied Dang Du Chun.
The man had sought him out with a clear intention to invest in his plans.
What Yi Mo Baek needed most now was a diverse network of connections.
Dang Du Chun, as the proprietor of an Escort House, knew many people working across various professions.
In the Jianghu, such people were called Extraordinary Persons.
“While we wait, shall we have some tea?”
Dang Du Chun instructed a maid to serve tea.

The old man’s name was Seo Mok Ha.
He was seventy-nine years old, thin as a rail, and his two sons carried on his work with iron and flame.
Yi Mo Baek temporarily stepped back from his duties as an Escort Guard, taking a leave from guarding merchant caravans.
This arrangement was, of course, Dang Du Chun’s doing.
After that, Yi Mo Baek appeared at the Seo Family Smithy, situated on one side of Market Street.
Seo Mok Ha’s two sons were in their mid-forties and early forties respectively.
They were taciturn men who rarely spoke unless asked a question.
They began teaching Yi Mo Baek the Explosive Powder Bomb Manufacturing technique—how to use explosives to cause lethal damage and achieve maximum destructive force.
The more powder packed into a bomb, the greater its destructive power.
But there was a drawback: the size and weight of the bomb had to increase accordingly.

‘The life of a bomb lies in transporting it without the target noticing. If they know you’re carrying one, who would come within the blast radius?’

He needed a bomb small enough to carry on his person without detection, yet powerful enough to deal a mortal blow in an instant.
It was no simple task.
While bomb technology was advancing by the day, Seo Mok Ha said that no sufficiently small bomb yet existed that could be concealed on one’s body and escape detection by an opponent.
“Hmm.”
On the tenth day of learning bomb-making while lodging and eating at the smithy, Yi Mo Baek let out a low sound.
Smaller.
Even smaller.
In truth, he had come only to learn the basic principles of bomb-making and pick up some fundamental techniques.
No matter how gifted one might be, how could he possibly master such a terrible and formidable weapon in a day or two?
Yet as he studied the craft, he found himself dreaming of creating a bomb the size of an adult’s fist.
Yi Mo Baek chuckled softly to himself.
If Seo Mok Ha and his two sons saw him now—a man who couldn’t even walk properly—trying to fly, they would find it ridiculous.
Everything had its order.
When desire raced ahead, work could never be done right.

‘Calmly. One step at a time.’

Yi Mo Baek steadied his mind and devoted himself wholly to learning the craft—asking questions when curious, repeating difficult techniques until they were mastered.
But around a month in, on the very evening Yi Mo Baek was about to retire to bed, someone came to visit him.
To his surprise, it was Seo Mok Ha himself.
“I hope it’s not too late? I’ve been wavering on whether to come, you see.”
He had spent days wavering back and forth, caught between wanting to go and holding back, until at last today he had made his decision.
“What decision are you speaking of? Please, sit down first.”
The two men settled themselves on the floor, facing one another.
The old man straightened his spine and fixed his gaze on Yi Mo Baek.
Yi Mo Baek felt a flicker of surprise.
This was not the bearing he had come to know from the old man.
His eyes were sharp.
“I too would like to owe this Escort Chief a debt of gratitude.”
“A debt of gratitude—what do you mean?”
“I wish to place this old man’s skills at the service of what you wish to accomplish.”
Flicker.
Yi Mo Baek’s eyes trembled.
The truth was that hearing such words caused his eyes to tremble—an entirely unforeseen proposal. To be more honest about it, it was as though the Yang Family Trading House and the Huang He Transport Alliance and the Red Mountain Escort House were all investing shares, and now someone like this old man was trying to join in as well.
The old man knew nothing of the Yang Family Trading House or the Huang He Transport Alliance.
He would at least understand that the Red Mountain Escort House had cast a clear die before Yi Mo Baek.
“Presumptuous, you say? It is well. I shall not feel wounded or offended if you refuse.”
The old man rose from his seat.
“Forgive my rudeness.”
He turned and walked out of the room.
As the old man passed through the doorway, Yi Mo Baek spoke.
“You said you had deliberated over this carefully—but if things go wrong, your entire household could be ruined.”
Spin.
The old man wheeled around.
“There is a saying: Choking While Eating—one who fears choking abandons eating altogether.”
Yi Mo Baek’s eyes widened.
It meant refusing to eat out of fear of choking—a refusal born of small anxieties.
In other words, he was asking: should one abandon what must be done simply because of petty fear or the risk of failure?
Grin.
Yi Mo Baek’s smile spread with satisfaction.
This was no mere old man who had spent his life tending a forge.
He grasped life itself, and had come to understand his own way of living.
“In all my years, I have not met an elder as noble as you.”
“Is that praise?”
“Indeed. Let us do this together.”
In that moment, both men burst into laughter at once.
Ha-ha-ha-ha!
Hee-hee-hee-hee!
Their laughter spilled through the smithy and pierced the darkness.

Wuwei in Gansu Province was a city of trade.
It was the gathering place for wool flowing in from Qinghai and the Western Regions, and with fur merchants from the North and the Western Regions crowding in, it had become a marketplace of tongues and races.
When the noonday sun blazed bright, a man entered Wuwei.
Dressed in a black sleeveless robe with a bamboo hat pulled deep over his brow, dust settled upon him spoke of a long journey.
The man glanced about and made his way into the busy Market Street.
Shops lined both sides of the lane, nearly all of them dealing in wool, and stacks of large and small fleeces lay piled along the road.
Here and there could be seen merchants piling yellow barley for sale, for this region was famous as a barley-producing land.
The man in black, Yi Mo Baek, walked along taking in the sights of the market around him without hurrying.
He still had more than twenty li to travel before reaching his destination, Tan Ung.
Though an ordinary person might find that distance considerable, for a martial master it was but a stone’s throw, so there was no need to hasten.
After passing through the Market Street and walking a quarter li to the east, a grand estate came into view.

‘Yong Bi Dan’

Inscribed in bold, sweeping strokes against a massive stone monument carved with a single horse thundering forward in full gallop.
It was the finest Escort House in the northern reaches of Gansu Province, tasked with transporting the goods of the Red Mountain Escort House across the region.
As Yi Mo Baek approached, an Escort Guard standing alone quietly rested his hand upon the hilt of his sheathed sword and asked his business.
“What brings you to seek out the Yong Bi Dan?”
Yi Mo Baek withdrew a Sealed Letter from his breast.
“I come from the Red Mountain Escort House.”
At the mention of the Red Mountain Escort House, Wei Zhiguang started visibly and took the Sealed Letter, examining the seal impressed on its surface.
Against a crimson background, the mountain character shone clearly—the unmistakable mark of the Red Mountain Escort House.
“Please, give me a moment.”
Wei Zhiguang disappeared in a flash, his body moving like the wind.

After a night had passed, Yi Mo Baek reappeared at Dunhuang, the gateway where Gansu Province gave way to Xinjiang.
Though not quite as crowded as Wuwei, the streets here teemed with people—and far more striking were the dark-skinned western peoples and fair-skinned northerners than Han Chinese faces.
At Yi Mo Baek’s side followed a man named Dham Hak, who had come from Yong Bi Dan.
He was both guide and one of the Yong Bi Dan warriors who had witnessed the incident that day.
Dham Hak’s demeanor toward Yi Mo Baek was extraordinarily cautious.
Word had come down from Dang Du Chun, the lord of the Red Mountain Escort House—an official document of cooperation stating that they would assist thoroughly and hoped to carry out Yi Mo Baek’s orders without reservation.
Though it was called cooperation, it was unmistakably a command.
For Yong Bi Dan, to defy the wishes of the Red Mountain Escort House was to invite the closure of its doors to them.
“There stands the Tae Ha Guesthouse.”
It was the very inn where a fight had broken out with the men serving Tan Hwang.
“What caused the fight?”
Dham Hak hesitated briefly.
“Nothing of consequence. Once alcohol entered both sides, voices grew louder, and each began shouting at the other to be quiet—and that was how it began.”
The kind of scene one saw often enough in inns.
My own voice is never raised.
Yet the other fellow’s voice is unbearably loud.
If the talk between us were amusing, one could endure it, but there are those who speak with such tedious lack of wit.
When armed martial artists find themselves in such circumstances, there is no hesitation in clashing.
“Welcome, gentlemen!”
Perhaps because the inn was crowded that day, the server did not recognize Dham Hak.
Though the first floor had plenty of empty tables, Yi Mo Baek insisted on the second story, and further still, he chose a window seat.
Whoever becomes the target of another’s enmity, and the greater a warrior’s ambitions, the more enemies multiply like gathering clouds.
Ten soldiers cannot catch a single thief.
Since one never knows when or what might happen, an open vantage point alone brings a measure of peace to the mind.
The two men ordered wine and food, and Yi Mo Baek began to study the other patrons in the inn.
From the fight that day, there was one person who had gained the most.
Himself.
He had been wrestling with how to penetrate the Mo Yong Clan.
The conclusion: frontal assault.
If he faced Wei Zhiguang in a confrontation over the succession—one striking with Heaven and Earth deciding all—then one of them would prevail.
The problem was that even in victory, the wounds incurred would be too grievous.
There was no guarantee that a third party would not seize that moment to strike.
Either way, a frontal assault favored him poorly.
Yet in the meantime, Dang Du Chun had obtained a letter that Tan Hwang had sent to Wei Zhiguang.
Judging by the context before and after, it appeared Wei Zhiguang had invited Tan Hwang first, and this was his reply.
Of course, the warrior carrying the reply had died, and Tan Hwang would have written another letter and sent it again.
Tan Hwang’s base was not far from here.
While remaining in this place, he would have to conduct inquiries to find Tan Hwang.
There was much work to be done.
“Your food and wine have arrived.”
The server set down generous dishes and wine, then withdrew.
The two men shared the meal and wine in near silence.

From the next day on, things grew busy.
It was more than mere busyness.
He spread word, talking loudly wherever he went.
It was deliberate, a calculated move.
A man who wished to learn about fire.
A man obsessed with fire.
He spoke of someone who studied the principles of fire and would be happy to die burned by it, wandering here and there through Market Street as he began his search for Tan Hwang.

‘I hear there is a person somewhere in Dunhuang whose ability, virtue, and learning in the art of fire stand higher than those snow-capped peaks.’
‘I hear that when he touches stone, it becomes fire, and when he grows angry, a fire dragon rises up to overturn heaven and earth.’

If the man himself had heard such praise, he would have gone mad with joy.
Five days passed like that.
Yi Mo Baek, who had spent yet another day wandering the Dunhuang region in search of the god of fire, collapsed into sleep the moment he entered the guesthouse.
Five thousand li from Chang’an through Gansu Province and Wuwei to Dunhuang—the exhaustion of the journey weighed on him, and without a moment’s rest he had been tearing through Dunhuang searching everywhere, so that sleep claimed him the instant his head touched the pillow.
The men moved swiftly and silently.
Five of them slipped through an unlocked window and entered the room without difficulty, their eyes fixed on one figure.
Snooooore!
Snooooore!
The sound of his snoring filled the room.
The men watching Yi Mo Baek’s dead sleep exchanged grins.
“Hehehehe!”
“Let’s take him!”
They pressed Yi Mo Baek’s Acupuncture Points while he slept, then hoisted him onto their shoulders and slipped from the room.

Yi Mo Baek’s eyes fluttered open.
This was not the guesthouse where he had eaten and slept for the past five days.
He lay on cold granite flooring, thick darkness pressing down from all around.

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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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