Jin Sohan nudged the broken weapons into a pile with the toe of his foot, then spoke to the man in blue martial robes, who was staring at a sword as if he’d lost his mind.
“Is that the one you chose?”
Without taking his eyes off the sword, the man in blue martial robes replied.
“They call it the Soul-Chasing Sword.”
Jin Sohan didn’t even ask the price.
“If you like it, take it.”
The man in blue martial robes nodded with a broad smile.
“Are you sure I can really take it?”
When he turned, Jin Sohan also curved his lips.
“Why wouldn’t you?”
The man in blue martial robes had found his sword, and Jin Sohan felt as though he’d found a sword of his own. Of course, he figured the matter of “getting close” to that sword could wait.
Was he a man who hid his feelings well? Or was he truly as pure as he appeared? Either way, to Jin Sohan’s eyes, the man in blue martial robes was genuinely happy.
“We barely traded a few words, and yet this feels strange. Anyway, thank you. I couldn’t have bought it even with the money I brought. And since this one is the bastard I chose with my own hands, I like it even more.”
Jin Sohan glanced at the sword the man had been using until now and said,
“Shouldn’t you confirm whether you chose a good sword?”
“You mean break it like you did?”
When Jin Sohan nodded, the man shook his head.
“I won’t do that. It’s saved my life more times than I can count. I should keep it properly and treat it well. I can’t do that to it.”
At that, Jin Sohan laughed out loud for the first time.
The man in blue martial robes tilted his head.
“Why are you laughing?”
“It’s not the answer I expected, but I liked it.”
“Heh. You’re something else… You’ve been stiff-faced from start to finish, and then you laugh like that at a line that’s nothing.”
Two men with different temperaments and different hearts smiled at the same time.
Only after confirming that their thoughts strangely aligned did they decide they ought to exchange names. Even that exchange continued like each of them was laying down a single card.
The man in blue martial robes spoke first.
“I came from East Ghost Road. I’m in training.”
East Ghost Road was Unorthodox territory connected to West Black Road, and “training” was a rather unfamiliar way to put it. It could mean refining martial arts, or it could be taken as mental discipline in pursuit of insight.
Jin Sohan nodded.
“This place is my hometown.”
“Then you’ve come back after a long time?”
“That’s right.”
“I thought you looked like a man with a story… So killing the Moonlit Night Pavilion Master wasn’t just because of poison, then.”
“Of course not.”
“I see. I’ll hear the details later. I’m thirty this year.”
“Twenty-six.”
The man in blue martial robes smiled crookedly and spoke with self-mockery.
“More than I expected. My swordsmanship is truly vulgar. I wandered as a drifter and learned bits and pieces of the sword from masters I happened to befriend.”
“A drifter…”
He reeked of someone who’d climbed up from the very bottom. But drifter or not, Jin Sohan didn’t care. He’d never been interested in a person’s origins. And behind the claim that his sword was vulgar, there was, instead, a quiet pride in the sword—confidence that a man could climb from the bottom upward.
Jin Sohan nodded and answered.
“I have a sect lineage, but I can’t reveal it.”
“I’m Ha Jigwang.”
“Jin Sohan.”
Only after they spoke each other’s names did they exchange smiles again. Jin Sohan was unusual, but Ha Jigwang—the drifter who spoke so well with Jin Sohan—was no ordinary man either.
Ha Jigwang asked,
“How should I address you going forward?”
“Call me Troupe Master Jin.”
“Understood. Troupe Master Jin—do you have anything you need my help with?”
Jin Sohan shook his head.
“Not right now. If you have nowhere to go, stay here for now, and help me once later.”
Ha Jigwang smiled crookedly.
“Thanks. But when you say ‘later,’ when do you mean?”
Jin Sohan looked into Ha Jigwang’s eyes.
“When I smash the Blood-Whisper Sect to pieces….”
Ha Jigwang burst into laughter.
“Heh… You’re a bold man. What if I go straight to the Blood-Whisper Sect and tell them what happened today?”
As if telling him to try it, Jin Sohan replied without much interest.
“Then I lose one man I happen to get along with.”
Jin Sohan’s phrasing carried two meanings.
“Lose a man I get along with” could be taken as “I’ll kill you.”
Along with the Blood-Whisper Sect.
Ha Jigwang answered as if conceding.
“I like you, Troupe Master Jin. It was a joke.”
“I know.”
Ha Jigwang thought for a moment, then asked,
“Can I bring some drifters I know?”
Jin Sohan cocked his head.
“I don’t need that many people. If you bring trash, they’ll just die. At minimum, they need to be a lower-rank martial artist—or above—to be useful.”
Ha Jigwang replied in a lowered voice.
“You talk as if you’ve grasped my level. How would you know without even seeing it?”
Jin Sohan smiled.
Of course I can see it.
Jin Sohan’s gaze carried the meaning:
Want me to confirm it for you?
Ha Jigwang stared at Jin Sohan in silence for a moment. Truthfully, he couldn’t gauge Jin Sohan’s level at all.
“Troupe Master.”
Just then, Choo Sahyeok came down the stairs and spoke.
Jin Sohan replied.
“What.”
Choo Sahyeok approached while glaring at Ha Jigwang.
“There were a few whose true intentions were unclear, so we locked them up. The rest were people with no ties to the Blood-Whisper Sect to begin with. I tightened the mouths of the underlings.”
Jin Sohan nodded, then introduced Ha Jigwang out of nowhere.
“Choo Sahyeok. From now on, make sure Ha Jigwang can come and go here comfortably.”
Choo Sahyeok looked at Ha Jigwang and answered.
“Yes. Understood.”
Jin Sohan held out Joyful Death Saber to Choo Sahyeok.
“Take this.”
Receiving Joyful Death Saber, Choo Sahyeok asked,
“Isn’t this an auction item?”
Without explaining, Jin Sohan continued.
“Inject the same amount of inner energy into your straight saber and Joyful Death Saber, then clash them.”
“Hm….”
Choo Sahyeok drew his straight saber and, as Jin Sohan said, struck blade against blade with Joyful Death Saber.
CLANG!
The straight saber’s blade dropped to the floor.
When Choo Sahyeok’s eyes widened in shock at Joyful Death Saber’s sharpness, Jin Sohan said,
“Use it. Later, clean up the armory.”
“Yes.”
As if he couldn’t understand, Ha Jigwang cut in.
“No, Troupe Master Jin. You went in there breaking everything to find that saber—so why aren’t you using it yourself? Why give it to him?”
Jin Sohan looked at Ha Jigwang as if to say, What are you talking about? Then he replied shortly.
“Because mine is better.”
“Hm.”
Ha Jigwang studied Jin Sohan, but with the black robe on, he couldn’t see what weapon Jin Sohan carried.
Come to think of it, when he killed the Moonlit Night Pavilion Master, he didn’t even use his own weapon.
Jin Sohan carried a lot of armament.
He had the two blades of Twin Moon at each side of his waist, and even the White Fan was, strictly speaking, a weapon. If you added Joyful Death Saber on top of that, it would be a nuisance. After looking over Joyful Death Saber, Choo Sahyeok finally expressed his thanks to Jin Sohan.
“I’ll use it well.”
Jin Sohan didn’t answer Choo Sahyeok. He spoke to Ha Jigwang instead.
“Ha Jigwang, we’ll see each other again later. I still have more to do here.”
“As you say.”
Choo Sahyeok spoke as if requesting permission.
“Ah. We cleared the corpse. I think we need to open the doors now. There are guests trying to leave. They’re ordinary guests who didn’t participate in the auction.”
Jin Sohan nodded.
“Handle it.”
Then Choo Sahyeok said to Ha Jigwang,
“Please come up. I’ll guide you.”
Ha Jigwang followed Choo Sahyeok, then looked back at Jin Sohan, still standing in the corridor, and spoke.
“Troupe Master Jin.”
When Jin Sohan looked over, Ha Jigwang smiled again.
“That sword… I’ll use it well.”
Jin Sohan nodded.
******
After the two of them disappeared, Jin Sohan walked down the corridor, stopped in front of a warehouse that leaked the smell of herbs, found a key, and opened the door.
A stinging odor poured out from inside.
To Jin Sohan, it was a very familiar scent.
It was where herbs, elixirs, and poisons were stored. It was narrower than the armory, but there were even more kinds of items. Looking around, there were quite a few things that had gone up for auction and didn’t sell, and quite a few elixirs gathered to sell later. But either way, medicine was medicine, and poison was poison.
Let’s see what’s here.
The most eye-catching thing was Hundred-Year Fo-ti.
But when he checked the quality, it was lower grade. Someone had put real effort into dressing it up to look like Hundred-Year Fo-ti. It was absolutely not fo-ti that had formed over a hundred years. They had only skillfully trimmed something comparable.
Even so, Jin Sohan picked it up and started chewing it like a snack. While he gnawed through the Hundred-Year Fo-ti, he kept examining the other elixirs.
They’re nothing but con artists.
If he had to compare them, they were at about the same level as the weapons.
Most of what was labeled “inner pellets” had been made by mixing tonics together, and even what was labeled “detox herbs”—when he chewed it—was just the most easily obtained herbs blended together. It might work on a minor injury, but it was useless for a serious wound. Still, even though the Hundred-Year Fo-ti was lower grade, it retained fo-ti’s inherent elixir function.
Jin Sohan wandered from box to box and chewed and swallowed every last piece of the Hundred-Year Fo-ti divided into small containers. Since he’d spent the whole day drinking liquor, he didn’t even bother to scrutinize what was labeled “inner pellets”—he swallowed that too, filling his belly.
If you had to put it one way, it was an aftertaste cleanser after drinking.
Looking around, the poisons were in better condition, at least.
The poisons applied to weapons were gathered in one place.
And the poisons mixed into food were divided out on wooden shelving like a bookcase. Standing there, Jin Sohan tasted them little by little. Compared to the poisons Venom Demon used, they were lower grade, but this was to grasp what poisons were circulating around West Black Road.
If someone was poisoned by a newly developed extreme venom from Venom Demon, they’d be bedridden for three or four days. If it was bad, Medicine Immortal had to intervene. But these lower-grade poisons would melt away inside Jin Sohan’s body like snow.
Because of his masters’ experiments, Jin Sohan possessed regeneration that restored internal injuries and external injuries alike.
Jin Sohan moved around, gathering any medicine and poison worth taking, and whenever he felt bored, he ate poison or chewed herb roots and swallowed them down.
Even if they weren’t genuine, elixirs that would sell for hundreds of thousands of taels with minimal effort were vanishing into Jin Sohan’s stomach in an instant.
Then, suddenly, Jin Sohan found a poison with no description at all.
There were about a fistful of small pellets, and they gave off no smell whatsoever. He picked one up and touched it, and it crumbled immediately.
A poison mixed into food.
Jin Sohan pinched one pellet and swallowed it as-is.
As the unknown poison slid down his throat and spread through his body, Jin Sohan’s ash-gray eyes rippled again, as if a hazy fog were filling them. His body remembered information about poison.
Paralyzing powder. Made pretty well.
This one was upper grade.
Because the smell and the taste had been handled.
Jin Sohan took the paralyzing powder and stepped back out. When he opened his mouth with a belch—
“Hrk.”
—it was as if a pale, whitish smoke left behind from burning off the poison was flowing out of his mouth.