Chapter 124
"If you tell me about your relationship with Qingcheng, I might let you live."
As soon as the Qingcheng Sect was mentioned, Gu Yongbaek's mind snapped to attention.
Only then did he realize. This guy came knowing everything. He came to turn his suspicions into certainty in the first place.
Naturally, Gu Yongbaek had no intention of opening his mouth. He had seen the Seven Great Protectors die without leaving a trace. It was obvious that if he gave this guy everything he wanted, he would end up the same way.
Gu Yongbaek, unlike his son, was a sharp-witted man.
He did not commit the foolish act of succumbing to the fear of death and truly inviting death.
"Yes, I operated the Pinghai Merchant Guild, engaged in smuggling, and then killed the guild master to take all the profits. But, the Qingcheng Sect?"
"The government and the Alliance ignored the request to find the disappeared people from Dujiangyan. Surely the Gu family couldn't have had such influence over the government and the Alliance in the region where the Qingcheng Sect is located."
"Hahaha! See? Am I not right? The current Martial Alliance is completely rotten... Kyaaak!"
Crack-!
Cheon Woojin's hand tightened further.
Gu Yongbaek's right shoulder was completely crushed.
Nevertheless, he did not give Cheon Woojin the words he wanted. It would have been the same even if his limbs were cut off.
For a man who had maintained his current position by crossing between the Unorthodox and Orthodox Paths, the current pain was something he could endure.
Of course, Cheon Woojin's thoughts were different.
The more Gu Yongbaek refused to speak, the more certain he became that this matter was related to the Qingcheng Sect.
The method of extracting what he wanted from his mouth was easy. This was something the Black Master was better at than the White Master.
There was no need to pull out his eyes and teeth, break his bones, or burn him with fire.
Cheon Woojin, still holding Gu Yongbaek with his right hand, wrapped his left hand in dark ki.
The Black Master's voice came to him clearly.
- The order is kidneys, liver, lungs, dantian, brain, and heart. I have yet to see a praiseworthy fellow who has endured all of that.
Using the destructive nature of dark ki, he directly damaged the inside of the body, not the outside. No matter how much of a master one was, one could not train their internal organs.
A truly unbearable pain, greater than death, would come.
Cheon Woojin gently placed his palm on Gu Yongbaek's dantian, slightly above and to the left. Soon, a blackish dark ki flowed into his body without resistance.
"K-kyaaaak! Aaaaaaak!"
A truly desperate scream echoed within the Gu family.
The martial artists of the Gu family flinched. Among them, a martial artist with considerable backbone had the attitude of fighting and dying rather than letting his family head be humiliated while alive.
Without needing Cheon Woojin's order, the Hidden Dragon Unit members each drew their swords and sabers. They were also more serious than ever. If anyone approached even a single step, they were planning to cut them down.
"I don't know! You son of a bitch!!"
Gu Yongbaek's scream continued for a long time.
Nevertheless, Cheon Woojin's expression did not change in the slightest.
He just slightly moved the position of his palm to the right.
At that, Gu Yongbaek could no longer even scream. He couldn't put strength into his abdomen, so he just opened his mouth wide and drooled.
"T-talk... talk."
Cheon Woojin removed his hand.
He looked at Gu Yongbaek intently with a face that said, "Talk."
In an instant, he saw Gu Yongbaek's pupils tremble slightly from side to side. It was a minute movement that lasted only a moment, but it could not deceive Cheon Woojin's eyes at this distance.
The most honest part of the human body was the eyes. The movements were different when telling the truth and when telling a lie.
Gu Yongbaek was trying to tell a lie again in this situation.
Cheon Woojin, as if there was no need to listen, moved the position of his hand again.
It was then.
"That's enough. Do you think that Gu Yongbaek guy will open his mouth?"
A woman's clear voice rang out.
Cheon Woojin turned his head.
A woman lightly dressed in black silk clothes was approaching, her characteristic red lips curled up.
Gu Yongbaek, who had confirmed her, was startled.
"Y-Yahwa!"
As someone who had grown up in the Unorthodox Path, Gu Yongbaek knew the face of the Beggars' Sect's leader. At her sudden appearance, Gu Yongbaek's heart became anxious.
'He had a connection with the Black Plaque Star Lord, so I should have considered his relationship with the Beggars' Sect as well!'
Regret always comes too late.
Gu Yongbaek hoped that the Beggars' Sect had not found out about the relationship between the Gu family and the Qingcheng Sect. If the evidence came from her mouth, he was as good as dead.
As if to mock Gu Yongbaek's desperate wish, the Beggars' Sect's leader looked at him with a gloating expression and continued.
"I found out what the Gu family. No, to be precise, what Gu Yongbaek did. Of course, I've secured all the evidence as well."
"Is that really true?"
Cheon Woojin asked back, a rare occurrence. He had heard about the abilities of the Beggars' Sect from his masters, but he had not expected them to handle the matter so quickly.
And he hadn't even asked for it.
As Yahwa answered with a smile, Gu Yongbaek, who saw this, suddenly knelt down.
"P-please, spare me. I'll tell you everything, so please."
"...!"
Shock spread across the faces of the Gu family's martial artists. The family head they knew was strong. It wasn't just about martial prowess; he was a man who did not succumb to anyone with his vicious and terrible personality.
Such a family head was kneeling in front of a young man and begging for his life.
Before the martial artists' shock could even subside, Gu Yongbaek hurriedly continued.
"I heard that the Qingcheng Sect needed a lot of money recently, so I approached them first."
If it was revealed through Yahwa's mouth, he would die no matter what. Gu Yongbaek told everything he had done. It was just a struggle to live.
His explanation was long, but to summarize, it was like this.
The Qingcheng Sect needed spirit medicines to take the initiative after establishing the Righteous Heaven Alliance. Among the martial world factions, there was no other power besides strength.
However, a huge amount of money was needed to obtain that many spirit medicines.
Gu Yongbaek had approached them knowing this. Saying that he had a good business. Saying that he would definitely get them the money they needed.
The Gu family and the Qingcheng Sect, with the Pinghai Merchant Guild at the forefront, hired the people of Dujiangyan to mine a salt mine in the Southern Man region, and then skipped the taxes they had to pay when crossing back into the Central Plains.
It was a kind of smuggling.
It was a matter that the government and the Alliance should have checked, but the influence of the Qingcheng Sect was at play. They were Taoist priests respected even by the officials, and as a member of the Nine Sects, they were a martial world faction that exerted influence on the Martial Alliance.
Gu Yongbaek, who had explained everything, even told them the location of the ledger that could be called the evidence. It was a ledger that detailed the profits earned from the salt mine, the amount shared with the Qingcheng Sect, and the money fed to the officials of the government and the Alliance.
Yahwa, who was looking at such a Gu Yongbaek, pretended to be surprised and said.
"No, you committed such an act too?"
"...?"
Gu Yongbaek's pupils trembled for a moment. Soon, a faint momentum even began to rise from his shoulders.
"Don't tell me this bitch has been playing me!"
Crack-!
Cheon Woojin struck Gu Yongbaek's shoulder with his Crescent Moon Staff.
Gu Yongbaek collapsed, clutching his shoulder in pain.
"Don't speak carelessly."
How dare someone like Gu Yongbaek insult a person of the Black Master's acquaintance with harsh words?
At that sight, Yahwa drew a deeper smile.
"What I found out was something else. I heard that young and pretty women have been disappearing from Lanzhou recently, and it turns out Family Head Gu had been forcing them into unpayable debts and taking them away. He had locked all the women in a villa and visited them every night. What a bad guy."
Of course, all the women had been rescued by the Beggars' Sect. As an Unorthodox Path faction in essence, the Beggars' Sect had no obligation to do so, but Yahwa, as a woman herself, could not just turn a blind eye and move on.
Gu Yongba-ek trembled at the fact that he had been deceived.
He had an expression that said he wanted to tear the Beggars' Sect's leader to pieces right away.
In the meantime, Song Yiyeon and Jin Yun went to the place Gu Yongbaek had told them and brought the ledger. Yahwa, who had confirmed it, affirmed that it was a genuine ledger.
And so, the evil deeds of the Gu family and the Qingcheng Sect were revealed in detail.
Of course, there was still one fact that had not been revealed, perhaps the most important one.
"What did you do with the people you hired from Dujiangyan?"
At Cheon Woojin's question, the hall became quiet.
Everyone was clearly tense.
Soon, from Gu Yongbaek's mouth came words that should not have come out.
"I killed them all."
"You heaven-and-man-enraging...!"
Jin Yun made a plum blossom bloom from his sword. As a Taoist priest, he could not bear to stand in front of such a person.
This was the same for Song Yiyeon and even Namgung Jin.
The martial artists of the Gu family could no longer even look at their family head.
Cheon Woojin's expression was the same as usual.
However, his voice had become very slightly lower.
"The bodies."
"Half are buried here at the Gu family, and half at the Qingcheng Sect."
"Why didn't you burn them?"
"Because you can't hide the smoke."
It meant that since the land was wide, there was no need to create trouble by burning a large number of bodies.
Cheon Woojin looked at Gu Yongbaek with dry eyes. He no longer had any questions for Gu Yongbaek.
From that gaze, Gu Yongbaek also realized that he was going to kill him and drew his sword. If he was going to die anyway, he intended to at least take one of his arms with him.
He had certainly made up his mind, but.
Sreung-
Before the sword was even half drawn.
Pooooong-!
Gu Yongbaek's entire body exploded like a thunderclap bomb. Thanks to that, blood, flesh, and all sorts of blood fragments scattered in all directions like fireworks.
Cheon Woojin did not move in the slightest. He had just detonated the dark ki he had planted when he had been torturing Gu Yongbaek earlier.
In the eyes of those who did not know that fact, it looked as if Cheon Woojin had killed Gu Yongbaek by exploding him with some kind of formless energy.
Cheon Woojin looked at Gu Yongbaek's scattered body with emotionless eyes and then turned his head.
The martial artists of the Gu family flinched greatly.
"Is there anyone who will avenge the family head?"
Naturally, no one stepped forward.
How could they step forward after seeing the scene Cheon Woojin had just shown? Moreover, when they had heard Gu Yongbaek's confession at the last moment, they were even ashamed of the fact that they had had such a man as their family head.
"If not, then that's that."
Cheon Woojin told the Hidden Dragon Unit members to go back. Of course, with his eyes. The three, who had come to understand his gaze to some extent, sheathed their swords and sabers.
Suddenly, Yahwa stood in front of Cheon Woojin.
"But what about the information fee?"
"..."
Originally, the Beggars' Sect was an organization that bought and sold information. And in this incident, the role of the Beggars' Sect was by no means small.
Cheon Woojin and Yahwa had a staring contest for a moment.
Yahwa felt wronged.
'No, I just asked for the money I'm supposed to receive, so why are you staring at me like that?'
Soon, Cheon Woojin nodded. It was the right thing to do to pay the price if he had received help.
He fumbled in his money pouch.
A few iron coins came out.
Yahwa's slender eyebrows twitched when she saw this.
"That's not all, is it?"
"It is."
"..."
A moment of silence.
Yahwa, with her eyes narrowed, looked at Cheon Woojin as if he were despicable and said.
"Then pay with your body."
At that, Song Yiyeon, who was next to her, was startled and said.
"No, how can you say such a shameful...!"
"That's not what I meant!"
Yahwa glared at Song Yiyeon once. She had felt it before, but this handsome guy next to the Black Master's disciple had a strange feeling that made her want to beat him up.
"I'm saying that if we need your help later, Young Master, you should help us once."
"Is it like a favor token?"
Cheon Woojin recalled the favor token he had received from Ilrang at the Black Plaque Star. Yahwa nodded as if they were finally on the same page.
"It's similar. It's just that rather than an obligatory feeling like a favor token, it's more of a feeling of helping each other while building a bond."
Yahwa truly hoped it would be so.
Just as the Black Master and the Beggars' Sect had been.
"Well, I understand."
Cheon Woojin nodded.
In any case, the Beggars' Sect had never disappointed him when he needed them.
"But what are you going to do now? Now that you know the relationship between the Gu family and the Qingcheng Sect... surely not?"
"Well. I think I'll have to have a talk with the sect leader first."
Yahwa's face turned pale.
She knew better than anyone in the world what the Black Master's 'talk' meant.
"No, are there so few people in the Martial Alliance? Tell the Bukli Cheon Alliance Leader to do it himself. It's not a job for someone who has just entered the Alliance, is it?"
It was the Qingcheng Sect of the Nine Sects, not just anywhere else.
It couldn't be compared to the likes of the Gu family.
Cheon Woojin just shrugged and walked away.
At that sight, Yahwa felt frustrated. Was it because she had known the Black Master for too long and had received a lot of help from him? His disciple felt like a nephew. Naturally, she was worried.
"You're not even listening to me! The Nine Sects are really different. Do you think they've maintained their power for hundreds of years for no reason? The number of related officials and respected members is enormous..."
Suddenly, Yahwa's words trailed off.
It was because she had suddenly seen it.
In that back view, walking away calmly with the Crescent Moon Staff on his back as if it were no big deal, she saw the figure of the Black Master.
That back view, the calmest and most reliable in the world.
(End of Chapter)