“Merchant Master, the owner of the Golden Bank has requested to see you.”
“The owner of the Golden Bank? Who’s that?”
“He said you would know him if I gave you the name Hwang Geumman.”
“Hwang Geumman?”
Jeok Wigang tilted his head, then brightened in recognition.
“Ah! Hwang Geumman.”
“He’s asking to see you.”
“Send him in.”
“Yes!”
A short while later.
The moment Hwang Geumman saw Jeok Wigang, he threw himself flat on the floor and cried out.
“My lord! Your servant Hwang Geumman pays his respects!”
“My lord?”
“Ever since that day, I have sworn to serve you as my lord.”
“Did you keep helping people after that?”
“Of course! Thanks to that, I built up a good reputation, and people began trusting me with their money.”
“What kind of place is the Golden Bank?”
Listening-Eye Beggar answered Jeok Wigang’s question.
“It’s the wealthiest bank in the Central Plains, and its owner is the richest man in the Central Plains. Its reputation is excellent, too. He’s as famous for giving generously to people in need as he is for making money. But... was the owner of the Golden Bank one of your men too?”
Listening-Eye Beggar stared at him with an exhausted expression.
“I {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} didn’t know he was.”
“Please accept me into your service, my lord!”
Jeok Wigang chuckled.
“You’ve kept your promise to me all this time. Fine. I’ll accept you.”
“Thank you! From this moment on, everything I possess belongs entirely to you, my lord! I won’t spend so much as a single coin without your permission!”
“Forget that. Keep doing what you’ve always done. And don’t hold back when it comes to helping people in need.”
“As you command!”
“So what brings you here?”
“I rushed over the moment I heard that you had become Merchant Master of the True Martial Merchant Company. Everything I have is yours now, my lord. Whenever you need anything, please use it as you see fit.”
“It’s fine. I have plenty of money too.”
“I am the wealthiest man in the Central Plains. I have worked hard so that I might one day be of use to you. Please accept what I have to offer.”
“Do whatever you want.”
“Thank you!”
Listening-Eye Beggar could only shake his head at everything he had just witnessed.
With both overwhelming martial might and immense wealth now in his hands, the martial world was practically Jeok Wigang’s to command.
Whether that was a good thing or a bad thing remained to be seen.
A crowd packed the square.
Gi Horang was among them.
“So this is the True Martial Merchant Company?”
The people who had been brought there came from all sorts of backgrounds, but they had one thing in common.
Not a single one of them had come willingly.
They all glanced around with fear in their eyes.
Gi Horang had gotten off relatively lightly.
His refusal to give in to the Blood Demon Gate had worked in his favor, and he had been placed in charge of the others as their unit leader.
Just then, Jin Muryang appeared in the distance.
The moment they saw him, every head dropped.
All of them had learned firsthand how terrifying he was.
Another man walked beside him, all smiles.
“You brought quite a few. Doesn’t look like we’ll have to worry about being short-handed anymore.”
“Heh heh heh. Right? They came swarming in, begging me to take them. I hardly knew what to do with myself.”
When had they ever done that?
Never.
“You’re too softhearted. Did you really have to bring this many just because they asked?”
“What else could I do? They said they’d die if I didn’t give them work. Saving lives comes first.”
How could anyone say something so shameless with a perfectly straight face?
And yet not a single person complained.
Jin Muryang was simply that frightening.
But why had they gathered so many people here in the first place?
“All right. The man you’re going to serve will be here soon. When he arrives, every last one of you gets your head down and shouts, ‘My lord!’ Got it?”
“Yes!”
“Anybody who raises his head gets to play with me.”
“Yes!”
Jin Muryang was smiling in satisfaction when a voice suddenly came from behind him.
“What are you going to play with them?”
Every head turned at once.
A young man stood there with his hands clasped behind his back, speaking casually to the terrifying Jin Muryang as though he were beneath him.
“Gah! Elder Brother! I told you to make some noise when you walk around.”
“Why are you snapping at me because you couldn’t sense me? If you’ve got a problem, we can fight.”
“N-no, that’s not what I meant. I’ll just try harder to sense you next time.”
The crowd stared in disbelief.
The young man had challenged Jin Muryang to a fight, and Jin Muryang had actually shrunk back.
Was that really the same terrifying man they knew?
“Who are all these people?”
“Ah! I forgot. Hey! Say hello! This is the Merchant Master.”
Despite Jin Muryang’s shout, everyone merely stood there in a daze.
“What’s wrong with you bastards? Hey! Wake up!”
“Huh? Y-yes!”
Jolted back to their senses by his roar, they all dropped to the ground and shouted.
“We pay our respects, my lord!”
Jeok Wigang frowned.
“Hey, there isn’t a shred of sincerity in that. I told you, didn’t I? If they don’t mean it, there’s no point.”
“But they’re going to be serving under you, Elder Brother. It makes sense for them to call you my lord.”
“Forget it. Just call me Merchant Master and work hard at whatever you’re assigned. You won’t be treated any differently from the people already here, and if you produce results, you’ll be rewarded accordingly.”
The crowd stared at him in amazement.
They were practically slaves at this point. No one could have complained if he chose to work them to the bone.
The fact that he was saying this instead left them genuinely grateful.
“Hey. Hand one of these out to each of them.”
“What? They haven’t even done any real work yet.”
“They’re one of us now. Besides, they’ll need their strength back if they’re going to work properly. They all look half-dead.”
“Understood.”
At Jeok Wigang’s order, pills began to be distributed.
The newcomers looked uneasily back and forth between the pills and Jeok Wigang.
“If you don’t want yours, you can hand it back. Nobody’s forcing you.”
The moment he said that, the True Martial Merchant Company martial artists standing nearby began eyeing the pills greedily.
“If you’re not going to eat it, give it to me!”
“Me! Give it to me!”
People began shouting from every direction.
“Quiet!”
Jin Muryang’s roar silenced the entire square in an instant.
“I’ll say it again. It’s your choice. If you don’t want to eat it, don’t.”
They had all seen what had just happened.
Had the company staged that entire scene just to fool them?
No.
Those people had genuinely wanted the pills.
Gi Horang stared at the pill resting in his palm for a long moment. Then he squeezed his eyes shut and tossed it into his mouth.
“Gasp!”
The pill melted the instant it touched his tongue. Its medicinal essence slid down his throat, was absorbed almost immediately, and spread throughout his entire body.
Gi Horang instantly realized just how extraordinary the pill was.
Ignoring everyone around him, he dropped to the ground and began circulating his qi in meditation.
Seeing him, the others began taking their pills as well.
One after another, their eyes widened in shock before they hurriedly sat down and did exactly what Gi Horang had done.
Soon, every person who had received a pill was sitting in the same posture, circulating their qi.
The onlookers could only leave reluctantly.
A short while later.
Gi Horang’s eyes snapped open. He examined his body in disbelief.
“Wh-what in the world...?”
He had thought they were being given poison pills meant to place some sort of restraint on them.
Instead, it had been a spirit pill.
It had increased his inner qi by at least twenty years.
Gi Horang wasn’t the only one.
All around him, the others began opening their eyes with equally stunned expressions.
Once everyone had recovered, Jin Muryang spoke.
“You bastards sure know good stuff when you taste it. Listen carefully. Anyone who does good work can earn a spirit pill twice as good as the one you just ate.”
This time, everyone listened with absolute concentration.
Someone thrust a hand into the air.
“What counts as good performance?”
They were suddenly eager.
“Simple! Make as many deliveries as you can. If you exceed your delivery target, you’ll receive a spirit pill twice as good as the one you just took.”
“Ooooh!”
Enthusiasm flared through the crowd.
“And! Every month, we’ll select the best delivery worker and award them a Heavenly Qi Pill. Wondering what that is? Get this through your heads. It’s a divine pill that grants sixty years of inner qi.”
“OOOOOH!”
The excitement grew even hotter.
“Look at the ground.”
They looked down and saw objects wrapped in cloth.
“You wrote down the weapons you use earlier, right? Those weapons were made to match what each of you uses. If you want yours, take it. If you don’t, leave it on the ground.”
Gi Horang looked at his treasured sword.
A masterwork sword he had struggled to obtain.
It was in an entirely different league from some mass-produced blade.
Did he really need to unwrap the one on the ground?
He was about to leave it alone when something kept nagging at him.
A strange feeling that he would regret it terribly if he didn’t look.
Fine.
He would just see what it was.
He unwrapped the cloth.
“Gasp!”
The moment the covering came away, Gi Horang recoiled at the magnificent sword gleaming beneath it.
“Wh-what is this?”
No way.
Were they actually giving this to him?
He carefully took the sword in hand and drew it.
SHIIING—
It felt as though it were part of his own body.
He could barely even feel the sword’s weight in his hand.
A fierce urge to swing it immediately welled up inside him.
That day, Gi Horang got a new favorite sword.
The moment everyone else saw his weapon, they rushed to unwrap their own.
“Whoa!”
“That’s insane!”
Cries of amazement burst out everywhere.
“Y-you’re giving these to us?”
“They’re gifts from the Merchant Master. A little encouragement to work hard. Well? Feel like working now?”
“Yes!”
“See that new building behind the square?”
“Yes.”
“That’s your lodging. They’ll assign your rooms when you get there, so go rest for today.”
“Where’s the training ground?”
At Gi Horang’s question, Jin Muryang grinned.
“You’re standing in it. Anyone who wants to try out the weapon they got today can swing it around here as much as they like.”
With that, he turned away.
Almost immediately, the sounds of weapons cutting through the air erupted behind him.
Jin Muryang shook his head.
“He really is a master at getting people to train because they actually want to.”
Nothing produced faster growth than training done with genuine passion.
For the first time in their lives, those people would now throw themselves into training because they truly wanted to.
And that wasn’t all.
Everyone around them was training just as earnestly, which would ignite their competitive instincts and push them even harder.
Before they realized it, they would be completely won over by Jeok Wigang and begin serving him with genuine loyalty.
That was what made him frightening.
Once someone set foot in Jeok Wigang’s swamp, they never managed to climb back out.
And indeed, in the hearts of those who had received the spirit pills and weapons, Jeok Wigang had already become an extraordinary figure.
The senior members of the Zhuge Family examined the Snow-Pattern Box with grave expressions.
“No matter how many times I look at it, I can only marvel at its construction.”
“It was designed so that not even the slightest trace of cold can escape.”
“That isn’t even the most important part.”
Every gaze converged on the same place.
“This absurd formation...”
“The myriad phenomena of the world are contained within that tiny formation.”
“It even keeps changing as though it were alive. It must have been designed from the very beginning to make copying it impossible.”
“Who could possibly have inscribed such an astonishing formation?”
“I heard it was the Merchant Master of the True Martial Merchant Company.”
“The Merchant Master created a formation like this? I find that difficult to believe.”
“So I did a little investigating.”
All eyes turned to Zhuge Ho, Head of the Zhuge Family.
“He took the imperial examination at barely twenty and passed as top scorer on his very first attempt. A true genius.”
“On his first attempt?”
“Yes. With a mind that extraordinary, is it really so hard to believe that he could create a formation like this?”
“But then why is he running a merchant company instead of serving as an official?”
“To a mind like that, the imperial palace would only be boring. I suspect he entered the world of commerce because it gave him somewhere he could exercise his talents to his heart’s content.”

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