Chapter 10: What a Mess
Hwang Geolgae’s training method was simple yet extremely effective.
He was the kind of person who could imbue killing intent even in a feint.
This body, imbued with the Heaven-Slaying Star, instinctively reacted to any strike it sensed as a killing move, as if a targeting radar had been activated.
The air-ripping whoosh, the faintly readable technique, and the instinctive movements and footwork driven by survival.
“...Ha, I thought I was really going to die.”
He hit and hit again. If I couldn’t dodge, he’d beat me until dust came off me.
After a long bout of chaos, I finally managed to escape that merciless barrage of punches.
Of course, it was probably because he figured that was enough and let me go.
“Aigo, my whole body…”
My entire body throbbed like I’d been rolled up in a straw mat and beaten. Especially the last hit on my shoulder blade—it stung and ached terribly.
It wasn’t a killing blow, but the fact that I got beaten up didn’t change. Lumps and bruises had formed all over.
Hwang Geolgae said he activated my meridians and qi channels while hitting me, so if I circulated the Small Heavenly Cycle, I’d feel my qi flow more clearly than before.
Honestly, he was the kind of guy who gave the disease and then sold the cure.
“You can go now, Murder Star.”
I spoke toward the red mist that had risen in reaction to the provocation.
But it was a cheeky bastard that constantly tried to seize control of my body—no way it would listen to my command. Its dense killing intent still lingered around me.
‘Seongnyeong Hoilche, Sujeon Gipase, this is the embodiment of the strength that repels demons…’
As I recited the incantation and activated the Starfall Heart Cultivation Method, the energy of the Heaven-Slaying Star finally slipped back inside me like it was annoyed.
I guess the internal energy imbued with anti-demonic qi really worked well.
If I didn’t want to be consumed by the Heaven-Slaying Star, I had to figure out a way to accumulate more of that energy.
“...So where am I now?”
When I came to, I found myself in a place where neat rows of modest-sized trees stood in order.
Purple fruits hung in clusters between the jagged leaves.
Looks like I ended up in Eunseong Trading Company’s cultivation fields while running away.
“Oh, these are mulberry trees?”
Seeing them up close, I recognized their shape. The well-ripened purple fruits were mulberries.
I happened to be hungry, so I grabbed a handful of the fruits and crunched them in my mouth. The tangy flavor filled my mouth, and the purple juice stained my fingertips.
“To think they grow so many mulberry trees… Is Eunseong Trading Company in the sericulture business?”
The vast size of the mulberry field and the fully ripe, unharvested mulberries led me to that conclusion.
It’s not a common experience, but I used to raise silkworms myself in the past.
“Brings back memories.”
Back when I was a snot-nosed kid, the orphanage director once brought in a silkworm-raising kit.
You know, like how kindergartens raise hamsters in each class to teach kids proper values.
The director probably wanted to bring some warmth into the orphanage, which was full of troubled kids—especially me.
And so, I was put in charge of raising the wriggling Goldsilk breed.
At first, it was just a hassle. But when the little thing started munching on mulberry leaves and spun a shimmering golden cocoon, my perspective changed.
At the time, I was short on pocket money, so I’d been reselling Pokimon bread on Carrot Market, standing in lines for others, dog-walking, and drawing simple sketches for money. I had just started getting into hustling.
Then I found out these cocoons were the raw material for expensive silk. A rare, natural material not easily encountered by the general public—unique and mysterious, too.
I immediately sensed it could be worth money. I listed some online for a few thousand won, and some locals bought them out of curiosity.
It was the moment when a chore turned into a source of income.
The feed cost was covered by the director anyway. I just had to rake in the money—a total win.
I even got fancy packaging and stamped phrases like “Great Fortune,” “Pass Your Exam,” “Prosperous Business” on them. That brought in more customers.
With the money I earned, I increased the number of silkworms and even hired a few orphanage kids to scale up the business.
“But then I got caught.”
The director noticed my suddenly increased spending, got suspicious, and shut down my silk empire.
Thus ended my dream of a silkworm empire.
“It was a heartbreaking loss.”
Still, it was a valuable lesson at a young age: where there’s demand, there’s opportunity.
It became an excellent foundation for me to become a troubleshooter.
Crunch. Crunch crunch.
As I chewed the sweet mulberries after a long time, memories of my past life came flooding back.
Then I heard the click of high heels, and a moon-pale face suddenly rose from between the mulberry leaves.
“Huh?”
“Oh my.”
We both let out surprised sounds the moment our eyes met.
A woman in silk clothes embroidered with gold thread and a neatly folded fan.
She looked at me with eyes that said, “What are you doing here?”
“Eun Hwaran Noona?”
She was Eun Hwaran, of Eunseong lineage—young and rich, a high-ranking trading lord of the Eunseong family.
Looks like she’d been deep in thought while taking a walk through this mulberry field.
“That ‘Noona’ title is really… ugh, never mind.”
Eun Hwaran flinched slightly at the overly familiar way I addressed her.
She seemed to consider scolding me but decided to let it go since I was still young and Hwang Noya’s disciple.
Juvenile immunity and guanxi shield—solid.
“Did you say your name was Dan Mujin? How did you end up here?”
Since this cultivation field was located in a very remote area of the manor, Eun Hwaran’s eyes were filled with curiosity.
“Well, I was being chased so wildly that I ended up here.”
Fists filled with killing intent flew at my back, the Heaven-Slaying Star reacted and went berserk, and I had to escape using Seonpungbo—there was no time to think.
“What are you talking about? You were being chased in the manor? Who would do such a thing...?”
Eun Hwaran asked with concern, thinking it might be a serious matter.
“There is. Some old man who likes beating kids.”
I grumbled while rubbing my swollen cheek and the bump on my head.
He really beat the crap out of me. Who would’ve guessed he had the title Heopung Jin-in hidden in his heart all this time.
“...?”
Eun Hwaran looked even more confused, staring at me.
She had no idea I was talking about Hwang Geolgae.
The old man really kept up a good image. To others, he was still seen as a mysterious Daoist.
But after clashing with him myself, I knew there was no worse beggar than him.
“Is someone in the company bullying you? If so, tell me their name.”
She seemed to think that since I was a newcomer, maybe one of the entrenched workers was harassing me.
But I got along well with the warehouse assistants. I moved cargo at double or triple the usual rate, after all.
“Um, well...”
I didn’t want to ruin my master’s mystique by telling the truth. And explaining Heaven-Slaying Star-style training would be too weird. So I dodged the question, and the conversation fell awkwardly silent.
We didn’t know much about each other, and she didn’t seem used to talking with a kid who called her “Noona.”
Nothing breaks awkward tension like some small talk.
This was a conversation technique I learned during my private investigator days.
You start with a light topic—like the weather or what someone does for a living—and gradually build rapport.
“Seeing so many mulberry trees here, I’m guessing you raise silkworms?”
It was a casual topic I tossed out without much thought.
“...What?”
“I raised them a bit back in the day too. With this kind of scale, I imagine you’d get a decent number of cocoons.”
I figured it must be profitable. Sericulture in this era was a high-tech, money-raking industry.
But Eun Hwaran, who had been listening to me, looked visibly shaken.
I wasn’t sure what startled her, but her eyes went wide.
“You—you’ve raised silkworms before…?”
It was something I said without thinking, but the usually composed Eun Hwaran began to stutter like something had short-circuited.
In this world, you need money to live like a proper human being.
Even the most renowned martial artists still had to eat, sleep, and clothe themselves.
In that sense, since they achieved all this through violence, they might be even more enslaved by desire than anyone else.
‘Borrow the wind to sail the boat; with money, even gods may be persuaded.’
A proverb framed and hung neatly on the wall of the main office of the Man Geum Trading Post.
A middle-aged man with a double chin like a greedy toad was tapping the stone-carved desk with his fingers, clearly displeased.
Despite the desk being topped with a gleaming, horseshoe-shaped gold ingot and an elegant gilded incense burner...
And the room being filled with colorful jewels and trinkets from the Western Regions...
He still looked dissatisfied, always hungering for more.
“This is the month's tribute, Lord Geum Hwangdo.”
One of the main revenue sources of the Man Geum Trading Post was high-interest lending—money lending to eat money.
The overseer of the trading post, recognizable by his goat-like beard, slammed down a heavy gold chest filled with someone’s lifeblood.
It was impressively heavy, and the overseer tugged proudly at the tip of his thin beard as if to ask, “Not bad, right?”
But Geum Hwangdo still looked displeased, even though the bright yellow gold gleamed right in front of him.
That was because what he wanted wasn’t the mountains of wealth already stockpiled in the warehouse.
“What did Eun Hwaran, that woman, say about our proposal?”
Geum Hwangdo’s ambitions were much grander.
What he sought was to devour the Eunseong Trading Company entirely, now that its foundation was starting to shake.
By doing so, he would not only dominate the moneylending business but also seize their nationwide distribution network, trading, and escort operations, making his group the largest commercial power in Beijing.
Until now, however, the tightly knit clique of merchants had kept him out—he could only salivate from the sidelines.
But the Eunseong Trading Company had shown interest in the sericulture industry, said to be worth its weight in both silk and gold.
Someone within the royal family, who disliked this, had sided with Geum Hwangdo, giving him an unexpected opening.
“She said she needs time to think.”
Despite her striking beauty, she was a woman who had managed to stay clean of scandal.
Normally, someone of her caliber would’ve kicked a fourth son with a dirty reputation to the curb, but asking for time meant things weren’t going well in Eunseong.
“She’s trying to buy time, huh. Useless attempt.”
She was likely waiting for the person who would lead their sericulture operations and manage the silkworm farms.
But it had already been two weeks.
And the sericulture officer she was waiting for would never arrive.
Geum Hwangdo had heard this from a certain party and was the only one who knew.
He chuckled to himself, rubbing his double chin.
Lately, Eun Hwaran had been running all over trying to keep the company afloat.
But to him, she looked like a white butterfly caught in a spiderweb, flapping her wings in vain.
“A gentleman’s revenge is never too late, even after ten years.”
Eunjincheong—an old man with unshakable integrity—was dead.
Now, with the Eunseong Trading Company at death’s door, there was no way for it to recover.
All that remained was a pretty young woman who had inherited the trading lord’s seat without even knowing the circumstances behind her father’s collapse.
If the royal court reclaimed their silk business rights, the company would be in a full-blown crisis.
When that happened, she’d have no choice but to accept his proposal under even harsher terms.
Geum Hwangdo intended to slowly eat away at the company bit by bit.
Then, one day, when that woman collapsed like her father, Eunseong would be finished.
The company would fall into the hands of the fourth son.
And Man Geum would be reborn as a colossal force that ruled over Beijing’s business world.
‘Foolish Eunjincheong. You brought this upon yourself.’
Geum Hwangdo did admit the man had ability.
He’d even managed to win that nearly impossible sericulture business license.
But excessive greed always becomes poison.
To make that deal happen, he had joined hands with Princess Peach Blossom of the imperial court.
That made a lot of powerful people very uncomfortable.
They feared what would happen if she were empowered with financial backing.
The disappearance of the dispatched sericulture officer had happened under those circumstances.
The people of the Eun family were probably clueless and scrambling in panic, unaware they were already sinking.
“If Eunjincheong were still around, maybe he could’ve saved them.”
He was someone different from Geum Hwangdo—respected and admired by Beijing merchants.
But now, the one steering the Eunseong ship was a young and inexperienced woman.
Even a 100-year-old tree would fall if you kept chopping at its roots.
“Send another marriage proposal. This time, make sure to fill it with language that reminds her of her position.”
“Yes, Lord Geum Hwangdo.”
They had suffered long under the stigma of being usurious loan sharks—called monsters in human skin and nicknamed Pig Gold.
But soon, they would become a power that no one could ignore, dominating Hebei’s commercial world.
The place where silkworms eat, sleep, and defecate is called a “Jamsil” (silkworm chamber).
The character for ‘jam’ (silkworm) and ‘sil’ (chamber). Same as the “Jamsil” neighborhood in Korea.
That’s because it used to be the central hub of sericulture long ago.
It wasn’t that long ago, actually.
But with the rise of chemical industries and synthetic silk, the silkworm business naturally declined.
That’s why my authentic golden cocoons had felt so exotic and rare to people.
“Mujin, how does it look now that you’ve seen it for yourself?”
And so, after stealing some mulberries, I’d been unexpectedly dragged to the Eunseong Trading Company’s silkworm chamber.
At first, I thought this silver-spoon lady just wanted to show off her money-printing business.
But after closely observing the situation, I could tell—that was absolutely not the case.
“...Wow, what a mess.”