The Legend of Red Cloud - Chapter 88

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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 88. Drawn Into a Transaction
Yi Hwa, for her part, was in complete disarray.
“It’s because of me!”
“Miss, please don’t say such troubling things. If the Master hears, he’ll be furious.”
The ruddy-faced steward who had confronted them when Ryu tried to use Yi Hwa as a hostage and escape was now sweating profusely as he tried to restrain her.
“Master Hwa, I’m telling you the truth. He was trying to get me out of there…….”
“What nonsense is this!”
At the sudden voice, Yi Hwa and the ruddy-faced steward spun around in alarm to find a middle-aged man with an icy expression watching them.
“Ah, Father.”
There was only one person Yi Hwa could call father.
Yi Deok Jin, the master of the Seochen Trading Company, known as the lord of the Western Central Region’s merchant world.
“I asked what this was about.”
“That is…….”
“Ah, it’s nothing at all, Master. The young lady simply misunderstood…….”
“Steward Hwa, hold your tongue. It’s because you always coddle her that she grows more brazen with each passing day.”
The Seochen master, having silenced the ruddy-faced steward now known as Steward Hwa, approached and pressed further.
“Speak again. What did you say?”
Yi Hwa feared her father more than anyone in the world.
Though he seemed to lavish her with everything, when angered he would lock her in her room and refuse her even a sip of water for days on end—a father of terrible discipline.
Under his stern pressure, Yi Hwa hesitated for a moment before the image of her elder brother, Ja Ha Geom, returned to her mind—covered in wounds.
‘He saved my life.’
Her brother had returned having lost all his followers, and from that day forth had secluded himself in the main hall, shutting himself away.
The shock had been severe, yet Yi Hwa was grateful simply that her brother had returned safely.
It was then that she had made a decision.
That when the time came, she would repay the debt of life she owed to her brother.
Though she was a woman who could never speak carelessly, and though this was a promise she had never voiced to anyone, to her it was a vow.
And so…….
Yi Hwa, her resolve seemingly hardened, pressed her lips together firmly and stepped forward.
“That’s right. He came looking for me.”
“Explain yourself more clearly so I can understand what you mean.”
After a moment’s hesitation at her father’s question, Yi Hwa burst out loudly.
“He’s someone I’m in love with!”
Her father made no sound—she had expected him to rage.
Surprised by this, Yi Hwa opened her eyes, which she had squeezed shut, and saw her father’s face, his fingers drumming thoughtfully as if he were weighing something.
Yi Hwa knew this was her father’s habit whenever he was calculating profit and loss, and her eyes widened.
“Surely you’re not calculating the worth of the man I love?”
Yi Deok Jin nodded at his daughter’s incredulous question.
“Of course. This Yi Deok Jin cannot have someone steal away my life’s greatest treasure without checking his value first.”
While Yi Hwa stood speechless at her father’s utter confidence, he finished his calculations, lowered his drumming fingers, and turned away.
“Steward Hwa.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Make haste. We cannot let the Danggaju snatch him away.”
“Yes, Master.”
The Seochen master turned away from the hurrying Steward Hwa, seeming to ask Yi Hwa something before thinking better of it and hastily departed.
Yi Hwa rushed after her father, clinging to him.
“I mean it. He’s someone I truly care for.”
“Yes, yes. I understand, you foolish child.”
“No, the person I love—”
“Your father said he understands.”
“Understanding doesn’t help! You need to save him before the Danggaju does something!”
“Save him? From what?”
“Before he gets hurt!”
“Why would the Danggaju harm him? The Danggaju was delighted when the treasure arrived with vines still attached.”
“What?”
Taken aback by her father’s unexpected words, Yi Hwa heard him explain.
“They say he’s a master of the Hwa Realm for the new Cheol Hyeol Maeng.”
“How… how did you know that?”
“Among those who attended the gathering, there was a guest who recognized him.”
“W-who was it?”
Yi Hwa’s question, born of both shock and curiosity, was met with another shake of her father’s head.
“You need not concern yourself with it.”
He left those words behind and departed, and Yi Hwa did not follow him further.
From her father’s manner, it seemed that this Ryu was unlikely to be in real danger.
***
Danggaju’s expression was quite startled as he entered the room.
He had not expected to find someone sprawled flat on his back, sleeping soundly, despite his invitation to make himself comfortable.
What was more, both the wine bottle and all the side dishes had been completely emptied.
“Heh, heh-heh. A man after my own heart, I see.”
It was Danggaju’s voice that roused him.
A low groan escaped Ryu as he stretched.
Ryu rose, his limbs unfolding like a great cat.
Danggaju regarded him with a question.
“You’re awake, then?”
“Who’s asking?”
“I? I’m the one who oversees this household.”
“Ah! Many thanks for the food and the bed—both were excellent.”
Danggaju chuckled again at Ryu’s artless manner and spoke once more.
“I’m glad to hear it. If you’re willing, would you care to take a short walk with me?”
“Of course.”
Ryu rose without hesitation and followed, and together they left the pavilion.
After they had walked for some time, Danggaju posed a question.
“What did you come here to obtain?”
“A Turtle-Shaped Great Seal, I was told.”
“You weren’t sent to kill anyone?”
“Our orders were limited to that alone.”
Danggaju continued, “I see. Then do you know what it is?”
“No.”
“Does that trouble you?”
Ryu, caught off guard by Danggaju’s sudden question, posed one of his own.
“I’m not sure what you mean by that, sir.”
“I mean: are you content to go on living as you do, fetching things you don’t understand, killing if ordered to kill—obedient and ignorant?”
Ryu had no ready answer to Danggaju’s question.
Danggaju laughed softly and spoke to him.
“That’s how it is, you see. The world is such that we come to know things we never understood before, and forget things we once knew—all while we walk. Come now, let’s keep moving. There’s plenty of time to think while we walk.”
Having spoken these words, Danggaju walked on ahead, and Ryu watched him for a moment before hurrying to catch up and fall into step beside him.
They walked for quite some time after that, but Danggaju did not return to the matter of the Jeok Sa Jo’s orders.
Instead, he rambled on about nothing but his foolish daughter’s belated marriage prospects and his worry for her future.
After they had followed the long walls of the sprawling estate and returned to the pavilion where they had begun, Danggaju spoke again.
“Tell me—what could you offer me?”
“I have only my neck to give, I’m afraid.”
“If I coveted your neck, that would be true enough. But once it’s severed, a neck is worthless—what use would it be? Not to pay for the funerals of those two guards you and your partner killed. Not to cover the cost of the rare medicines used to treat your companion. It wouldn’t serve either purpose.”
Everything else was immaterial.
Yet the matter of the two guards whom Ryu and Dong Pil had dispatched while infiltrating through the Moon Gate of the inner court was not something to be dismissed lightly.
It was a blood price—reckoned in human lives.
Which was precisely why Danggaju had mentioned it deliberately.
“Then what is it you want from me?”
Danggaju smiled gently at Ryu’s heavier tone and replied.
“Think on it carefully. And when you’ve found your answer, tell me later—I’d be grateful for that.”
Having left only those words behind, Danggaju turned and departed as swiftly as he had come.
Left standing before the pavilion after spending the night there, Ryu was approached by the same man who had brought him wine the evening before.
“Please rest inside for now. When the master calls again, he will send for you.”
“Before that—is there no chance I might see my partner?”
“I apologize. Until the master grants permission, you and your companion cannot be in the same place.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you would try to escape.”
Ryu could not deny the man’s words, so he had no choice but to withdraw into the pavilion.
The moment Ryu stepped inside, a young man came rushing over with quick, light steps.
“Is that him?”
At the young man’s question, the servant who had just been speaking with Ryu nodded.
“Yes. That’s the one.”
“You look like a scholar buried in books, if I’m being honest.”
“Then Moyong Chang Un wouldn’t have held him in such regard. And there’s no way he’d have reached a pinnacle as lofty as the Hwa Realm.”
“You’re certain about the Hwa Realm?”
The man answered the young one, whose eyes had widened with the question.
“Well, since that person said so, it must be true.”
The young man seemed to know who the man was referring to, and he nodded while scratching the back of his head.
“That may be so, but…”
“We’ll know for certain if we wait and watch. So let’s be patient.”
“Yes, brother.”
At the young man’s reply, the kind-faced man broke into a smile and ruffled the youth’s hair.
“Hey! Brother! Do you still think I’m a child?”
“You’ll always be a child to me.”
“Brother!”
The young man followed after the man, who walked on with a quiet chuckle at his own words, and the two figures faded into the distance.
Ryu, listening to their exchange from within the pavilion, found himself unsettled by the mention of ‘that person’ in their conversation.
From the way they spoke of him, it seemed clear this was someone who knew him.
The trouble was that among those affiliated with Gunmarim, precious few had ever laid eyes on him.
Most of the Gunmarim people Ryu had encountered had ended up as corpses.
So those who had lived to meet him again were indeed rare.
The first name that came to mind was Moyong Chang Un, the very one the man had mentioned.
After all, he was the one who had freed him from captivity.
Next came Moyong Ji Eun, whose circumstances had led to that act, then Dangli Hyeon who had come searching for her, and Ja Ha Geom, whom he’d confronted when going to meet the Lion-Headed General and the Baek Ui Ryeon’s reinforcements.
But none of them seemed like someone the man would refer to as ‘that person.’
And then…
As the names of two more people surfaced in his mind, Ryu let out a soft groan despite himself.
“Hmm…”
***
In a high pavilion overlooking the one where Ryu stayed, Danggaju and the master of the Seochen Trading Company sat facing each other.
They were not the only ones occupying the high pavilion.
Also present were the master of the Geum Chae Trading Company, through whose hands all the finest silks in Jungwon passed, the patriarch of the Danli Family, and the sect master of the Hwasan School.
They posed a question to Danggaju.
“What manner of man is he?”
At the question from the master of Geum Chae Trading Company, Danggaju laughed softly before asking in return.
“You seem interested—could it be you have a daughter to marry off, Master Geum?”
“Ha ha ha! I’ll be sixty next year. Perhaps a granddaughter, but a daughter… uh ha ha ha.”
Danggaju smiled faintly at the good-natured laughter of Master Geum and spoke.
“Impressive indeed.”
At his cryptic words, everyone nodded in understanding.
After all, when a comrade was captured, a master of such caliber—one who had reached the Hwa Realm—chose surrender rather than escape.
“He certainly understands the value of human life, but no matter how I think about it, he doesn’t seem particularly clever.”
At the tart assessment from the master of the Seochen Trading Company, laughter rippled through the room.
“Then I’ll take him. I’ll bring him with me.”
At the deep voice, those who had turned their gazes toward the door rose to their feet in a stir.
Receiving their welcome, the one who entered the pavilion was Hyeol Yeong Majoun, the Patriarch of Ma Gyo and the Master of Gunmarim.
“We excused ourselves from the gathering and were making pleasant conversation among ourselves while we waited, Master.
At Danggaju’s words, Hyeol Yeong Majoun, who had entered, spoke.
“I stepped out for a bit of bait fishing.”
As Hyeol Yeong Majoun settled into the seat of honor, the heads of the various factions took their places at last.
Scanning across all of them thoughtfully, Hyeol Yeong Majoun posed a question.
“I heard upon entering that you were discussing him.”
“That’s right.”
At Danggaju’s reply, Hyeol Yeong Majoun turned his gaze toward him.
“And what is your assessment now that you’ve met him?”
“As you said, Master, even if we traded him for the deaths of two of our families, it would not be a loss.”
Hyeol Yeong Majoun laughed at Danggaju’s answer.
“Uh ha ha ha! Indeed. So what is your intention?”
Danggaju answered Hyeol Yeong Majoun’s question.

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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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