***
Back to the Cheol-geom-mun.
Seong-cheon-wol, who had refused everyone’s send-off but could not ignore the send-off of the Mu-rim-maeng’s Chief Strategist, sent off Je-gal-so-myeong with a rotten face and then went to find Seong-mo-hyeon, who was causing a ruckus in the Geum-ok day after day.
“You wretch! Do you think you can save your life even after doing this! Who will inherit the Cheol-geom-mun later!”
Although he was the culprit who had the ancestor’s sword taken away, Seong-mo-hyeon was confident.
“Grandfather! This cannot be! It is certain that he learned the Heup-seong-dae-beop. Call the Gam-chal-gak of the Mu-rim-maeng......”
“Shut up, you wretch! Are you planning to pull out the very roots of the Cheol-geom-mun!”
“It is definitely certain. The techniques were not connected and......”
“You, you idiot......”
Cheol-geom-mun Sect Leader Seong-cheon-wol thought that if he entrusted the Cheol-geom-mun to this stupid grandson any longer, a major incident would occur.
“Bring Mo-ran here.”
“Yes?”
“Seong-mo-hyeon. If you can endure fifty moves against Mo-ran, I will forgive all the sins you have committed.”
“......What is that?”
At Seong-cheon-wol’s sudden words, Seong-mo-hyeon, Seong-ju-tak, and the other warriors of the Cheol-geom-mun all had puzzled expressions.
“Mo-ran, show everything you have.”
“......”
“Do not think of hiding anything. As you have seen, the survival of the Cheol-geom-mun is already hanging on the edge of a cliff. In this situation, can that fellow Seong-mo-hyeon continue the Cheol-geom-mun?”
“......I understand.”
The others listening to the conversation between Seong-cheon-wol and Seong-mo-ran could not understand the current situation at all.
“Grandfather! This cannot be! To exclude the eldest son!”
“You, you idiot......”
“I did, I did my best for the Cheol-geom-mun.”
Seong-mo-hyeon’s anger, which had nowhere to go, eventually headed toward Seong-mo-ran. After he had taken such good care of her, in the end, she too was a competitor aiming for the succession.
“Mo-ran! How dare you!”
“Shut up and attack.”
Seong-mo-hyeon felt an even greater anger than when he had been defeated by Jin-so-un.
The sense of betrayal toward a blood relative with whom it was natural to live and grow up turned into hatred that even evoked murderous intent.
“How dare someone like you......!”
The Pa-san-geom-beop of the 10th level unfolded from the beginning.
He unleashed a killing blow from the start.
As if to represent his state of mind, the sword’s movements were wild and unrestrained.
However,
“......!”
Bang.
The thunderous metallic sound could not continue three times.
Seong-mo-hyeon was struck by the blade of Seong-mo-ran’s sword, flew three jang, and rolled on the floor.
“What......!”
“Get up. Oppa.”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
A sound completely different from the battle with Jin-so-un.
The clash of Pa-san-geom-beop against Pa-san-geom-beop scattered loud explosions in all directions.
While Seong-mo-ran’s expression remained unchanged, Seong-mo-hyeon’s face was already filled with desperation and surprise.
The feeling of wanting to use strength, but strength not going into it.
The feeling of becoming powerless even though his nae-gong and the achievement of his techniques were clearly higher.
Phut.
This time, Seong-mo-hyeon, who had flown four jang, could not even jump up and looked at Seong-mo-ran blankly.
He had clearly thought of her as below him.
There had been a few sharp counterattacks, but he had always overwhelmed her.
What was this?
It was as if his techniques were cut off, and his strength was draining away.
His hands and feet, which should move naturally, moved crosswise as if they were not his own.
“This is......”
A heavy voice of interrogation pierced the dazed Seong-mo-hyeon.
“Did Mo-ran also learn the Heup-seong-dae-beop?”
“......”
Seong-mo-hyeon could not continue his words.
“Drag him away.”
The warriors of the Cheol-geom-mun grabbed Seong-mo-hyeon, whom they had favored, like a great traitor and began to drag him to the Geum-ok.
Drag, drag, drag, drag.
Seong-mo-hyeon could not walk on his own due to the great shock and was dragged away.
‘But, when that girl’s hands touched me, clearly.......’
The question remained in his head, but Seong-mo-hyeon could not bear to speak it out.
Since it had already been proven by Seong-mo-ran how big a mistake he had made, he had now become afraid even to open his mouth.
<><><>
To clear the Gye-ryong-sang-dan from the Tae-eul-mun, first, the finances of the Tae-eul-mun had to be reorganized.
There would be several ways to solve the chronic financial deficit of the Tae-eul-mun.
One could sell the spiritual medicines written in the Gang-ho Spiritual Medicine Book to raise money, or one could take treasures from secret treasure warehouses or tombs that had not yet been discovered.
However, I had to eat all the spiritual medicines, and most of the treasures were in distant fortresses, so I couldn't get them right away.
“Even if I discovered them, handling the treasures and bringing them was another problem.”
It was the same for spiritual medicines or treasures. If word spread that something had appeared somewhere, jackal-like people from all over the Gang-ho would flock there, and a war would break out.
Since this kind of war caused as much damage as the war with the Heuk-do and the Ma-gyo, the Mu-rim-maeng would deploy faster than any other report to try to prevent bloodshed caused by spiritual medicines or treasures.
Thanks to this, people often reported that spiritual medicines had appeared instead of reporting that a gang of robbers had entered when horse bandits or mountain bandits flocked to the village.
Anyway, in the end, the best method was to bring in a sponsor like the Gye-ryong-sang-dan, even as a temporary measure.
If one were to look for a merchant group to replace the Gye-ryong-sang-dan, one could find quite a few merchant groups within Anhui Province.
Nearby, there was Nanjing in Jiangsu Province and Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province, so Anhui Province was a good location for merchants and escort agencies to expand their influence, and there were many rich people.
The problem was that those with great financial power were not interested in the Tae-eul-mun.
To them, who calculated profit and loss thoroughly, the Tae-eul-mun had nothing to give.
If so, what was needed was not a give-and-take relationship, but sponsorship that welled up from a grateful heart.
And a person with great wealth also had a sufficiently large heart of gratitude.
“They say the Wang family’s manor was so wide that they eventually built a whole village?”
“The number of employees and servants attached to it is enormous. They say that even in nearby fortresses, they were told that if they moved their residence to their fortress, they would give them land for free.”
“I am the person who built that Wang family village. The Wang manor!”
“Do you work at the Wang family manor?”
“I said I built the Wang manor. I put up all the tiles and pillars.”
“......Are you kidding me? Old Man Gwak. Shut up and eat your snack.”
The Wang family manor was a prestigious family that had built immense wealth over 10 generations, starting with the Wang family textile shop.
Operating countless businesses such as the Wang family battlefield, Wang family merchant group, Wang family escort agency, Wang family inn, etc., and even obtaining the qualification of a salt merchant (salt trader), a right monopolized and given by the state, it was a family that had built massive wealth, ranking in the top three in the world beyond Anhui Province.
Of course, such an enormous family would not deal with the Tae-eul-mun.
“But it would be different if the precious daughter was involved.”
Wang So-so, the precious only daughter that the current head, Wang Geum-san, had obtained in his late years.
She was cherished so much that she had never been outside until she turned fifteen, and she handled both academics and hobbies inside the huge mansion that looked like a whale’s back.
Since they said that even going out was done by riding a carriage around the mansion’s courtyard, one could know how great Wang Geum-san’s financial power was and how dearly he cherished his daughter with that financial power.
“They say Wang So-so’s beauty is so great that anyone who sees it once is bewitched, and anyone who sees it twice gets sick, so they are hiding her, worried that the Emperor might take her.”
“They say she has already entered the palace and is not at the Wang manor?”
There was an incident where she disappeared forever in my previous life.
Wang Geum-san had spent all the wealth that 10 generations had accumulated to find the missing Wang So-so, but in the end, Wang So-so could not be found anywhere.
And I knew who the culprit was, the one Wang Geum-san could not find even after spending all his wealth.
“When I first found out about this fact, I almost fainted. To think... that they would have moved......”
The Mu-rim-maeng was a place where information from the entire Gang-ho gathered and then spread again.
As such, there was a variety of information, from trivial details to classified information that should not spread to the world, and the Man-tong-bu graded and classified that information.
Most of the Man-tong-bu’s information did not go beyond Grade Gap (A).
Since every single document was filled with important information that could shake the situation of the Gang-ho, the management of information was that thorough.
However, there was a place that made even such Man-tong-bu information look shabby.
It was the Sim-hyeon-gak, a secret department of the Man-tong-bu.
Most of the information in the Sim-hyeon-gak was graded as ‘Beyond Grade Gap’.
The information here could only be read by the administrator of the Sim-hyeon-gak, the Chief Strategist of the Mu-rim-maeng, and the Leader of the Mu-rim-maeng, and information once decided as classified and sealed could never be opened, even by the Leader.
What was such important information?
Most of it was the weaknesses and dirty secrets of the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Clans.
The materials of the Sim-hyeon-gak were collected to tighten the noose around the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Clans, which had become huge, towering trees of the Gang-ho.
“From the moment they made me memorize the Sim-hyeon-gak materials in the first place, my life and death must have been decided.”
I, who briefly recalled the last moment of my previous life, quickly shook my head.
Anyway, I learned the culprit of the ‘Wang So-so Disappearance Case’ that had shaken the world from this Sim-hyeon-gak.
It was that very place, which I could not have predicted at the time.
“Chang-gung-sang-dan......”
At that time, there were 3 sects involved in the Wang So-so disappearance case.
The Heuk-do sect Gyeon-sa-mun and Hyeol-ju-bo, which were pointed out as suspects, were destroyed, and the Baek-do sect Tang-hyeon-mun could not avoid destruction either.
Nevertheless, no traces of Wang So-so could be found, and Wang Geum-san, who had pushed the work aggressively, had to pay enormous compensation to the Mu-rim-maeng and the Heuk-do-maeng.
“Since he had been played on the board laid out by the Chang-gung-sang-dan from the beginning, he couldn’t have found Wang So-so even if he died.”
The Chang-gung-sang-dan was a new merchant group created by the Nam-gung-se-ga.
The biggest concern of the Chang-gung-sang-dan at this time was that it did not have as deep a history and tradition as the Wang family manor.
To solve this, they entered the bidding for the right of the salt merchant (salt trader), but they could not surpass the Wang family manor, which had kept the right of the salt merchant without any problems for 110 years.
Nam-gung-sang-won, the head of the Nam-gung-se-ga’s branch family and the actual owner of the Chang-gung-sang-dan, judged that the Chang-gung-sang-dan had no choice but to step on the Wang family manor to grow, and for this, he had plotted the work.
“And this time, I intend to sprinkle chili powder on that operation of yours.”
It’s not that there are no other useful things in the memories of my previous life right now. Even so, I deliberately chose the work of the Chang-gung-sang-dan.
I did not choose the Chang-gung-sang-dan, which is difficult to deal with, because of some paltry sense of justice or righteousness.
“You acted as if it had nothing to do with you at the Cheol-geom-mun.”
The bloody battle with Seong-mo-hyeon. The ‘Gold Tribute’ incident in which even the Chief Strategist of the Mu-rim-maeng stepped forward. In the midst of that, Nam-gung-sang-won was yawning on the platform as if he were bored.
Knowing that the Cheol-geom-mun’s tyranny within Anhui Province was also due to the connivance of the Nam-gung-se-ga and the influence of the Chang-gung-sang-dan, there was no way that sight looked good to me.
The attitude that they didn’t care even after driving someone else’s life to the edge of a cliff.
“If so, it wouldn’t be a big problem if I sprinkled some chili powder on your business, right?”
Even though the opponent was the Chang-gung-sang-dan of the Nam-gung-se-ga, I was not that afraid.
If it were the warriors of the Chang-gung-sang-dan, they would have naturally learned the Chang-gung-mu-ae-geom-beop, and as I knew the kidnapping process in detail, there were many things I could prepare.
Above all.
“Seong-mo-ran might not be such a bad woman after all.”
The spiritual pill that Seong-mo-ran handed over was the Gang-cheol-ho-sin-dan, no less.
It wouldn’t be comparable to the Seol-mae-dan of the Hwa-san-pa, but it was a spiritual medicine so precious that it could not be compared to something like a Cheol-sim-dan.
She had readily given me that spiritual pill, which only the direct descendants among the direct descendants could eat, even within the Cheol-geom-mun.
My nae-gong, having digested the Cheol-sim-dan and the Gang-cheol-ho-sin-dan, was looking at 45 years in one breath.
“Let’s see the sight of your clothes getting dirty with the shit water you splashed.”
Anyway, in the future, I would have to face the Ma-gyo and the entire Mu-rim-maeng.
The final boss was too big a presence to be afraid of a branch family of the Nam-gung-se-ga.