Regressed by the Heavenly Demon - Chapter 9

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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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I had been returned to the beginning by Cheon Ma.
Small Investments (4)
Before the regression, my memory held Geon Pyeong as a mediocre talent.
He had inherited the cunning and malice of the Great Lady, but not her brilliance; he lacked the striking looks of Geon Wi Jin, the head of the merchant house, or the sharp improvisation that allowed him to see through others’ hearts.
If anything, the dead Geon A Seong resembled Geon Wi Jin far more — his features were exceptionally refined.
So Geon Pyeong had always tried to mask his inadequacies through his connections.
Just as he was doing now.
I studied the three men and two women arranged in a circle around me.
All of them were notable martial families throughout Sichuan Province.
Geon Pyeong seemed intent on using them to take revenge for my earlier transgression.
Not by striking at me directly, but by tormenting Seol Ha, whom I cherished.
“Don’t worry yourself too much. She’ll return without incident. The master is waiting so eagerly, after all.”
Yeon Gyoo Baek tapped my shoulder.
With each tap, I felt Internal Energy radiating from his palm.
Thump, thump, thump.
Weighted force transmitted through my shoulder.
To anyone watching, it was pure hostility.
A martial artist inferior to Yeon Gyoo Baek would have gasped, his knees buckling beneath him.
But when I showed no reaction, Yeon Gyoo Baek’s brow twitched.
He was clenching his teeth, preparing to pour more force into it, when I made my move.
Before he could withdraw his hand, I seized it.
Seeing his expression harden further, I smiled.
“I appreciate the concern. But the one I brought is closer to a travel companion than a guard. Finding a companion who came with me is hardly your responsibility, wouldn’t you say?”
While I laughed, Yeon Gyoo Baek’s lips barely parted, his face drained of color.
The hand I held was trembling beyond control, unable to straighten properly.
Yet pride kept him from using his other hand, stubbornly resisting with only one.
A genuine laugh burst from me.
Crack—
Followed by the cheerful grinding of bone, and Yeon Gyoo Baek finally screamed.
“Ahhhhh!! You bastard!!!”
His composure shattered, he channeled Internal Energy into his free hand.
The Single Fist that came at me was merciless—any contact would be fatal.
Whoosh—
I tilted my head to evade, then twisted his captured hand again. His arm contorted grotesquely, and Yeon Gyoo Baek became the center of attention.
“Gahhhhh!!!”
Only when he collapsed to his knees in agony did I release him.
Yeon Gyoo Baek was a mess of tears and snot, while the others stared in stunned silence.
It was confusion—the situation they hadn’t anticipated.
Only the girl whose identity was meant to be secret regarded me with an unreadable expression.
Jeong Hong Seon recovered first and lunged forward.
“What is the meaning of this!! Have I ever seen such disrespect, such filth!!”
In the suddenly hostile atmosphere, Jeong Hong Seon vented his rage at Geon Pyeong.
“Won’t you say anything? You ought to discipline your brother sharply for such rudeness!!”
Geon Pyeong’s face flushed crimson, and he glared at me through gritted teeth.
His eyes darted back and forth—he was aware of the watching crowd and uncertain how to proceed.
He did care about his reputation, after all.
Remembering my time as an enemy, I decided to give him a gentle nudge.
I sent a transmission directly to Geon Pyeong.
-What does that girl next to you think, watching you stand there uselessly, unable to even touch me? That you’re a fool who can’t handle your own brother, just flapping around like an idiot. And honestly—what could someone with your mediocre talents ever do to me?
“You… you wretch… how dare you… speak to me like that.”
Geon Pyeong’s face went from red to ashen as he drew his sword.
“I’ll kill you right here!!!”
He charged at me, indifferent now to the eyes upon him.
Yet none moved to intercede.
Instead, they maintained a composed distance, as though watching a fire across a river.
So the Martial World preaches that all are brothers—and the Orthodox Faction’s hypocrisy deserves credit for that.
But today, that hypocrisy—
“—suits me perfectly.”
The faint Sword Aura radiating from his mediocre blade carried some formless vitality as it cut through the air toward me.
The result was pathetic for all the rare medicines poured into him and the superior masters he’d seduced to train him.
I sidestepped Geon Pyeong’s blade as it came at me with lethal intent, then seized his sword hand and wrenched it backward, dislocating it.
“Aaaahhhhh!!!”
To the rhythm of his inevitable scream, I dislocated his shoulder as well.
“Urk—”
Fear flickered across Geon Pyeong’s eyes as his body convulsed in agony.
I smiled and turned away.
This was only the beginning.
When Geon Pyeong saw my knee rising toward him, his eyes went wide.
Crunch!
His teeth scattered into the air like hail.
Blood and fluids poured from his mouth and nose as he fell backward.
To hasten his descent into unconsciousness, I pressed my foot down on his face once more.
Thud. Thud.
Geon Pyeong trembled as he lay there, now a mess of blood, tears, and mucus, reeking unbearably.
“What… what is that smell…?”
Even Ju Yeo Ran Ma, who had been promised a marriage engagement with him, clutched her nose in alarm and retreated—his complete loss of dignity was that overwhelming.
The musicians stopped playing, and an oppressive silence fell over the hall.
Jeong Hong Seon, who had instigated the fight, flinched when he saw Yeon Gyoo Baek and Geon Pyeong lying defeated.
“Care for another round?”
Jeong Hong Seon’s eyes blazed, but he stepped back.
“Forgive the commotion. It was merely a small quarrel between brothers—please, think nothing of it. Close brothers do scrap like this all the time.”
My words carried more weight than I expected.
The tension broke, and soon the musicians resumed, filling the banquet hall with merry music once more.
Yeon Gyoo Baek regained his senses and ground his teeth, groaning.
“You fool—did you truly think you’d walk away from this unscathed? I am Yeon Gyoo Baek of the Yu Byeok Geom Ga!!!”
“Stop your trembling broken hand and leave. I’ve been generous enough with your pride.”
I gestured toward Geon Pyeong, sprawled out on the ground.
“Otherwise, this is what becomes of you.”
Yeon Gyoo Baek couldn’t bring himself to retort and shouted at me instead.
“Whatever happens to your escort whore—it’s all your fault!”
It was pathetic how orthodox faction heirs imitated the gutter tactics of heterodox sect rabble.
This kind of thing would earn me a thorough beating from Cheon Ma later.
Just then, Seol Ha appeared at my side.
A faint copper scent hung about her.
Yeon Gyoo Baek and Jeong Hong Seon’s eyes widened at the sight of her.
They’d never imagined the hired hands they sent would meet such a fate at Seol Ha’s hands.
“My apologies for the delay.”
Seol Ha’s tone was clipped, perhaps due to the surrounding eyes.
“No. Sounds like you had a good time. I could guess what was happening.”
“Yes.”
“Of course I wasn’t worried. I was more concerned for those who dared move against my travel companion.”
……
“I had my hands full too.”
Seol Ha exhaled sharply as she looked down at Geon Pyeong sprawled on the ground.
“Ah…”
“Right?”
“This is… quite troublesome.”
“Well, what can we do? Your brother came at me to kill. The Great Lady will understand.”
I then took my leave of Geon Pyeong’s group.
“We’ll be going now. I think we’ve enjoyed ourselves enough.”
No one moved to stop us.
*
*
*
“Are you alright?”
“You’re asking now?”
“I trusted you.”
“And I lived up to that trust.”
“Still, I didn’t manage to do what I actually needed to do.”
I clicked my tongue in disappointment, and Seol Ha smiled faintly.
“I found them. We agreed to meet outside the Banquet Hall.”
“Really? Well done. Sharp as ever, I see.”
“But sir, how can I be certain the person I found is the same one you’re looking for? You never even told me their name.”
“Their name? I don’t know it either.”
“Pardon?”
I’m serious. Even before the Regression, in my past, I never knew his name.
I only heard fragments of his legend—his rise and his milieu—from him and those around him.
He was the kind of man who, in the turbulent age to come when so many merchant titans would crumble, would be recognized even by Cheon Ma himself as the pillar of the Merchant Realm.
The Merchant King—Baek Mun Gyoo.
That’s who he was.
I’d wondered if it might be so. And here he is, in this very place.
*
*
*
“All things arise from profit and loss. Conflicts between merchants, conflicts within the Martial World, conflicts between government and the martial clans—every last one of them springs from numbers, however small.”
“When Cheon Ma took my hand, it was because those numbers pleased him.”
Of course, it was possible only because we both recognized value that transcended mere profit and loss.
Every Baek Mun Gyoo I’ve known has been inscrutable.
Though he was perhaps five years my senior, he was one of the rare few whom even Cheon Ma—my lord, and a sage from whom I had much to learn—did not presume to command.
When word came that assassins had ambushed and killed him, it shook me; his presence had been that substantial.
It was from that moment, I think, that Cheon Yu Wol’s footing began to crumble in earnest.
“Striking, isn’t it.”
In a modest room of an inn, I raised my cup and wetted my lips.
“Sir, were you speaking to me?”
“Perhaps.”
To encounter Baek Mun Gyoo as he was in his youth stirred something in me.
No one knew his past.
Not that he’d ever hidden it deliberately, but his movements were too erratic to trace.
Everyone spoke the same refrain:
he had simply fallen from the sky.
Yet once, I heard it from his own lips.
“They call me elusive, but I’ve been nothing but a failure, constantly failing.”
“Because I left no impression, no one remembers me. That’s all.”
“My past holds no glory either. Why else would I have looked to the Sichuan Dragon Phoenix Society, seeking investors among merchants whose future prospects were dim?”
He may have been lying.
But “what if” is something no one knows—so I grasped at even that straw to search him out.
“Baek Mun Gyoo…”
His face was naturally younger than what I’d known before the Regression, but it was unmistakably him—the Baek Mun Gyoo I remembered.
The tear mole beneath his eye.
Three distinctly deep wrinkles carved across his forehead.
Though his frame was unremarkable, his shoulders and waist held an unwavering straightness; his dark, quiet eyes that seemed to gauge the depths of another’s heart.
Beyond the quality of his robes, even the meticulous, orderly way he wore them spoke volumes of his nature.
“…….”
The silence stretched on.
Baek Mun Gyoo, too, had not spoken again since our exchange of names.
I found myself curious enough to ask instead.
“Doesn’t it intrigue you—why I summoned you alone like this?”
“It does.”
“Then why not ask?”
“Because I thought you’d tell me of your own accord if I waited.”
A soft laugh escaped me.
Some things don’t change. The Baek Mun Gyoo I’d met before the Regression was the same.
Words, he believed, became a disadvantage the more one spoke.
A merchant’s cardinal virtue was restraint and listening.

“Do you know who I am?”
“I do. The second son of Hwanggeum Jang.”
“Both right and wrong.”
“How so?”
Without prolonging it further, I carefully removed my Face Mask.
Baek Mun Gyoo’s eyes trembled violently.
“I am the discarded child of the Hwanggeum Jang, a man called Geon Gon. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of me. If you knew of me as well, this conversation would be easier.”
After a long silence, Baek Mun Gyoo exhaled deeply and let out a hollow laugh.
“How is it that someone said to have passed away now stands before me?”
“Fortunate that I need not elaborate further.”
“What is it you want from me?”
Watching him adapt swiftly to the bewildering situation, I drew an Investment Note from my sleeve.
“I’ll buy it. Half of yours.”
No matter how my choices would reshape the future ahead, that was not something I needed to concern myself with now.
Such thoughts were for later, once I held everything I desired in my grip.
It was precisely then, when I felt everything flowing according to my will.
An unexpected answer came.
“I won’t sell.”
I set down the wine cup I’d brought to my lips.
The taste of wine had gone entirely flat.

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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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