The caravan leader’s face darkened after hearing the man’s words.
There was a very real chance that everything would unfold exactly as he had said.
The Tang Family Head was a man who would do anything to protect the family’s honor.
The man speaking to the troubled caravan leader was Jeok Wigang.
“Even if you insist you’re innocent, do you truly think the Tang Family Head will spare you? He’ll hold you entirely responsible for the failed trading run. No—once he sees that you returned without so much as a scratch, he might rage that you abandoned the cargo and fled for your life, then force poison down your throat. Wouldn’t he?”
Ja Un unconsciously nodded.
The Tang Family Head was more than capable of doing exactly that.
Ja Un spoke in a tearful voice.
“I-I only did what I was ordered to do... I truly did nothing but follow the Tang Family’s commands...”
“Do you think the Tang Family will care?”
Ja Un shook his head.
They probably would not.
“You can always return and find out for yourself.”
Ja Un lowered his head.
“If I don’t return, my family may be placed in danger. Those men would not hesitate to take my family hostage and threaten them just to capture me.”
“Come to me. I’ll protect them.”
Ja Un raised his head and stared at Jeok Wigang.
“I am a man who failed his trading run. You would still accept me?”
“You just said it yourself. The situation was beyond your control, and you were right. If I were your opponent, the trading run would fail no matter what kind of expert they sent.”
Jeok Wigang’s voice overflowed with confidence.
“But who are you to say that you want me?”
Jeok Wigang grinned at the question.
“Ah, did I forget to introduce myself? I’m the Merchant Master of the True Martial Merchant Company.”
“T-The True Martial Merchant Company!”
Ja Un recoiled in shock.
“Th-The Tang Family will not let this pass if they discover the truth. A-Are you certain this will be all right?”
“And if they refuse to let it pass?”
“War may break out. Can the True Martial Sect withstand the Tang Family?”
“The Tang Family will be the one that has to withstand us. We were going to visit them anyway, so once we arrive, we can either talk or fight.”
“What?”
“Stop worrying and decide. Will you follow me?”
“Th-That is...”
Ja Un hesitated for a moment before asking,
“Do you truly need me?”
“Yes. Very much.”
Jeok Wigang’s sincerity struck deeply at Ja Un’s heart.
It was said that a man would risk his life for someone who recognized his worth.
This was entirely different from the Heavenly Flower Merchant Company and the Tang Family, who had always treated him as insignificant.
“Become a caravan leader for the True Martial Merchant Company. I’ll give you an even higher position if that’s what you want.”
“I am an insignificant man.”
“Insignificant? You were the one who stepped forward and resolved every crisis whenever the Heavenly Flower Merchant Company began to falter.”
“You know about me?”
“You need to understand your enemy thoroughly before facing them, don’t you? I happen to like talented people.”
Even when Ja Un had saved the Heavenly Flower Merchant Company from disaster, he had never been rewarded.
Instead, they had accused him of acting too slowly when he was capable of resolving the situation and ordered him to devise a plan to compensate for the losses they had suffered.
The memory brought tears to his eyes.
They had resented him.
Yet the man before him wanted him.
“Can you truly protect my family?”
“I promise.”
At Jeok Wigang’s answer, Ja Un prostrated himself.
“I will serve you as my lord.”
Jeok Wigang grinned and held something out to him.
“You’ve suffered enough. Here. Take this, circulate your qi, and recover your strength.”
“What is it?”
“A gift to thank you for becoming my subordinate. It’s nothing special, so just swallow it and circulate your qi.”
“Th-Thank you.”
Ja Un hesitated briefly before placing the pill Jeok Wigang had given him into his mouth.
It melted like snow the instant it touched his tongue.
At the same moment, intense heat began rising throughout his entire body.
“If you don’t circulate your qi quickly, all that valuable medicinal energy will go to waste.”
At Jeok Wigang’s words, Ja Un immediately sat cross-legged and began circulating his qi.
How much time passed?
When Ja Un finally opened his eyes, his entire body trembled.
Jeok Wigang had clearly said it was nothing special.
My inner qi increased by a full sixty years...!
Thinking he might have misjudged it, Ja Un checked again.
Then he checked once more.
There was no mistake.
He could feel sixty additional years of inner qi within him.
The increase had even broken through the cultivation barrier that had blocked him.
It was a fortuitous encounter unlike anything he had experienced in his entire life.
Ja Un’s lifelong regret had always been his lack of inner qi.
Jeok Wigang had resolved that problem all at once.
More importantly, what kind of pill could possibly increase one’s inner qi by sixty years?
Would that not require something on the level of Shaolin’s Great Restoration Pill?
Such a spirit pill was a priceless treasure whose value could not even be measured.
Yet Jeok Wigang had casually handed him something so extraordinary merely because he had agreed to become his subordinate.
Tears flowed from Ja Un’s eyes.
“To grant such an immense favor to a lowly servant like me... I will devote my life to serving you, my lord!”
“It was nothing. Work hard from now on, and I’ll give you something even better.”
There is something better than this?
In Ja Un’s eyes, Jeok Wigang appeared no different from a divine being.
There was a reason Jeok Wigang was treating Ja Un so generously.
As he had said, Ja Un possessed exceptional talent.
The Tang Family had belittled that talent, but Jeok Wigang saw it differently.
He had already selected Ja Un as the future Merchant Master of the True Martial Merchant Company.
Through the Lower Gate, Jeok Wigang had gathered such exhaustive information about the Heavenly Flower Merchant Company that he even knew how many chopsticks it owned.
Among all that information, one person had stood out above the rest.
Ja Un.
The reason Jeok Wigang had personally taken part in this operation was that Ja Un had been assigned as the caravan leader.
“I look forward to working with you.”
“Yes! I will devote my life to you, my lord!”
Once Ja Un entered Jeok Wigang’s service, the wagon hands who followed him naturally did the same.
With that, Jeok Wigang had filled every position the True Martial Merchant Company had been lacking.
*****
“Another failure?”
The man glared incredulously at Tang Sang, who was prostrating before him.
He was Tang Pae, the Tang Family Head known as the Dark Poison Lord.
“What in the world did you do to fail again?”
“My apologies. The enemy was stronger than expected.”
“You call that an excuse?”
Tang Pae glared at Tang Sang as though he wanted to beat him to death on the spot.
Tang Sang, however, was of Tang blood.
Tang Pae could not kill him.
The Tang Family was a clan whose members closed ranks tightly around one another.
BANG—
Unable to strike Tang °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° Sang, Tang Pae smashed the innocent desk instead.
Had anyone else accompanied Tang Sang, that person would probably have borne the full force of Tang Pae’s fury.
Knowing that, Tang Sang had come to meet the Family Head alone.
After panting angrily for some time, Tang Pae took a deep breath and asked,
“Did you determine who they were?”
“They appeared skilled in both hidden weapons and poison, much like us. Their martial arts were also formidable enough to defeat me with a single blow.”
“What weapons did they use?”
“They seemed to favor daggers.”
“Men proficient in hidden weapons and poison who use daggers. Assassins, then.”
“That was also my conclusion.”
“Who could they be? They cannot be from Black Blood Gate.”
Tang Pae sank into thought.
A moment later, he violently shook his head.
“Damn it! Thinking about it won’t give me an answer. The only way to know for certain is to capture them.”
Tang Pae addressed Tang Sang.
“Go and summon Tang Jin.”
“You mean Tang Jin, Leader of the Dark Blood Unit?”
“Is there another man in our Tang Family named Jin? Hurry up and deliver my order.”
“Y-Yes.”
*****
“You summoned me?”
A gloomy, expressionless man prostrated himself.
It was Tang Jin, Leader of the Dark Blood Unit.
The Dark Blood Unit was both the Tang Family Head’s hidden blade and the force entrusted with protecting the Tang Family.
From childhood, only the most talented children had been gathered, fed countless spirit medicines, and painstakingly molded into the finest elites the Tang Family possessed.
Tang Jin was the strongest expert in the Dark Blood Unit and its leader.
“You’re here, Jin. I have a task for you.”
“You want me to capture them?”
“That’s right.”
“May I bring them back dead?”
“If you kill all of them, how are we supposed to learn their identities? Are you not confident you can bring them back alive?”
Tang Jin’s eyebrow twitched at Tang Pae’s words.
“You want all of them brought back alive?”
“There is no need to go that far. Bring back a few alive. You may deal with the rest however you please.”
“Understood.”
“If necessary, I authorize you to use poisons up to Heaven grade.”
For the first time, an expression appeared on Tang Jin’s face.
It vanished almost immediately.
“I may use even Heaven-grade poisons?”
“Yes. If we fail to capture these people, the Tang Family may face a grave crisis. Use your full strength.”
Tang Jin bowed his head.
“Rest assured. By any means necessary, I will erase every person who poses a threat to the Tang Family.”
Tang Pae grinned.
“Hearing you say that puts my mind at ease.”
“Then I will depart.”
“Go.”
*****
Tang Jin did not move immediately.
He was cautious by nature and acted only after completing every possible preparation.
First, he gathered the witnesses connected to the incidents involving the True Martial Merchant Company.
He suspected that the True Martial Merchant Company had been involved in the latest attack as well.
The witnesses were ordered to recount every detail they remembered, and their statements were recorded word for word.
Portraits were also drawn of every face they could recall.
Tang Jin watched the endless stream of portraits with an expressionless face.
Then one of his eyebrows twitched.
“Bring me that portrait.”
The artist hurriedly delivered the portrait Tang Jin had indicated.
After examining it closely, Tang Jin asked one of his subordinates,
“Isn’t this the man who used to research cooking?”
The subordinate studied the portrait carefully before nodding.
“Yes. This is the man we were searching for. Could he have acted to take revenge?”
“Who knows? Regardless, this may be easier than expected.”
Tang Jin issued an order.
“His family is still under surveillance, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Go and seize all of them.”
“What do you intend to do after capturing them?”
“We’ll draw him out. Once he learns that his family has been taken hostage, he’ll be forced to act.”
“Understood.”
*****
Jeok Wigang held a posted notice bearing both a portrait and several lines of writing.
The portrait depicted Hae Jeon, the former Master of Delicacies.
The notice contained a warning.
If Hae Jeon did not appear by the stated deadline, one member of his family would be killed at a time.
They had posted such a notice openly.
Yet no one treated it as a problem.
It seemed the rumors that the Tang Family ruled Sichuan were true.
After reading the notice, Hae Jeon looked ready to lose his mind.
Because he had followed Jeok Wigang here, even the family members who had been living peacefully were now in danger.
“Did you not evacuate your family?”
“I moved them somewhere else. I do not understand why they are back in Sichuan.”
Hae Jeon pleaded with Jeok Wigang in a trembling voice.
“My lord! Please, save my wife and children!”
Jeok Wigang smiled reassuringly.
“Don’t worry. Nothing will happen to your family.”
Had anyone else said those words, Hae Jeon would still have been terrified.
Yet for some strange reason, hearing them from Jeok Wigang put him at ease.
“If my lord says so, then I will set aside my fears.”
“Yes. Don’t worry. Every one of them will be released without so much as a scratch.”
“Yes! I trust you, my lord.”
After bowing, Hae Jeon left.
Jeok Wigang watched his departing back, and his expression turned cold.
“Family should be off-limits. Don’t you agree?”
No one valued family more deeply than Jeok Wigang.
That was precisely why his anger was unmistakable.
Jin Muryang, who had been standing silently nearby, asked,
“Shall I bring them all in?”
“Yes. We should teach them that if they make someone else’s family shed tears, they had better be prepared to watch their own family shed tears of blood.”