Chapter 164: Turmoil in the Black Market

He was already crippled in both leg and hand, and had sold off a customer besides; even if Qing let him go, he wasn't long for this world anyway.

Big Scar knew this too, but the immediate crisis looming before him was always the most important thing.

That was why Qing deliberately acted even more cruelly.

It was a hint: if he dared to defy her just because he was already a dead man walking, she would ensure his end was far more horrific.

"That young man is..."

"Stop! You bastard, you're registered as a Black Store member, yet you dare reveal customer information? Keuk."

Someone tried to silence Big Scar.

Qing, having confirmed his bad karma, plucked out her hairpin and threw it.

A First-Rate martial artist from the black market clutched his neck and collapsed.

Three Birds One Chopstick was a Third-Rate hidden weapon technique, thrown straight without any particular skill.

However, combined with Qing's superhuman strength and the internal energy imbued in the throw, a fragile human body stood no chance.

"Anyone else got something to say? If you have eyes, you can see how many I have left in my hair, right?"

It wasn't uncommon for women to use iron hairpins as hidden weapons.

But never in their lives had they heard of such a hairpin not just embedding itself in the neck, but piercing clean through and coming out the other side.

Two Peak Realm experts among the black market martial artists exchanged glances, and one of them spoke.

"...Do you have further business in the black market?"

"No. If that guy hadn't interfered, I would've finished my business and left ages ago."

Qing pointed at the fallen black market martial artist.

The other expert then lowered his voice menacingly.

"The Black Store will remember this. A bounty of a thousand gold gwan will make assassins across the land—no, even those who aren't assassins—go mad. We'll see how long you last, wench. Un Yeonyeong, is it? Looks like the ruined Jinju Eon Clan's line will end with you."

With a curt, "Let's go," he turned to leave. The other black market martial artists visibly relaxed and followed him.

They had no confidence they could win if they attacked, and she didn't seem like the type to listen if they tried to stop her.

Even if they did win, the black market wasn't primarily a martial force; each expert was valuable. A fight would bring more loss than gain.

Therefore, since they weren't going to fight anyway, they judged it far better to leave with a stern warning than to stupidly stand by and watch her rampage.

After that, Qing learned Ban Jagwon's whereabouts and retrieved her hairpin.

Once that was done, Gyeon Pohee scurried over.

"Sworn Sister, are you okay?"

"Yeah."

"So, what now? A bounty of a thousand gwan..."

"Eh, I'll just kill a few assassins, and they'll eventually learn to value their lives and back off. Just in case, Sworn Sister, you should probably head back to the Seol Family Trading Company."

"Can't I stay with you? I'm a Peak Realm expert now too."

"Then what about the old man's grandson? Find either of them and tell them the grandson was bought by the Daebyeolmun Sect from Daebyeol Mountain. Tsk, those righteous Orthodox Faction bastards, buying slaves. Still, since it's the Orthodox Faction, he probably isn't suffering too much."

Since Ban Jagwon knew how to work iron, it seemed they'd bought him planning to raise him as the sect's blacksmith.

And now, Qing intended to visit either the Zhuge Clan or the Tang Clan, or perhaps both, so there shouldn't be any further problems for him.

"Then, what about you, Sworn Sister?"

"I'll just lie low for a couple of months, then head to Kaifeng in time for the Murim conference. It'd be good to let Master know about this too. Could you do that for me?"

"Because I'm weak, I'm not helpful..."

Qing grinned.

"This is help. What else is help? Do we have to fight back-to-back, carving a bloody path out for it to count? If my Junior sister isn't there in the morning, I'd have to dress and wash by myself... Ugh, just thinking about it is annoying."

"Okay..."

Qing kept her smile and held out her hand. Gyeon Pohee, looking tearful, took it.

Qing then said, "Hey, why are you holding my hand? Give me the veil. The veil."

"Ah, right."

Taking the veil, Qing leaped lightly.

Using the anti-gravity steps of the Moon Maiden Step, she sprang up, ran across the poles holding up the temporary night market tents, and flew away using Thousand Li Flight.

Her speed was incredible, difficult for even experts skilled in lightness skills to follow.

It was an escape speed even Ximen Surin acknowledged.

If she really decides to bolt, there are only a handful of people in the world who could catch her.

However, Ximen Surin had said a handful.

She hadn't said no one.

"That venomous wench, how can she be so fast? Let's see, that looks like Thousand Li Flight. Hoho, a fast-footed girl who's already mastered such a high-level lightness skill. If only she had some dexterity too, she'd be perfect!"

The recent underworld of merchants had been abuzz due to the departure of the Black Sky Association.

The Black Sky Association was a notorious human trafficking syndicate.

They were the real deal, possessing the skill and reach to carry out abductions throughout the Central Plains, with connections even reaching the Western Regions, allowing them to procure valuable red-haired devil slaves.

Then, suddenly, they spouted nonsense about turning over a new leaf and left the industry.

The problem was, they slaughtered all their associated brokers, warehouse keepers, trainers, and other related personnel before they left.

Moreover, they didn't just kill the associates; they massacred their entire families, strung up the bodies in the marketplace, and carved 'human trafficker' onto them.

Consequently, no one mourned them; people spat and threw stones, saying they got what they deserved.

Witnessing this miserable end, many others quit the business, and there wasn't even any fresh blood entering the field.

This dealt a severe blow to the Black Store.

The Black Store wasn't just an organization that opened black markets—night markets—and skimmed commissions.

Any transaction in the Central Plains that couldn't be spoken of openly happened through the Black Store. The black markets were merely one part of the Black Store; all sorts of underground dealers established in every city were under the Black Store's umbrella.

So, when the slave trade personnel and their families were nicely massacred en masse, all these deaths were, in effect, deaths of Black Store members.

The previous Black Store Manager had thrown a furious tantrum but ultimately failed to catch the tail of the Black Sky Association.

To be precise, all that remained was a strong suspicion, bordering on certainty, that it was a front operation for those Demonic Cult bastards.

But mere suspicion wasn't enough to confront the Demonic Cult.

Amidst public sentiment that the 'dead dogs got what they deserved,' raising a fuss and hurling accusations would be futile.

People would just say, 'Oh, the Demonic Cult did something good for a change.'

Besides, if the Demonic Cult decided to act, the Black Store would be crushed.

Weren't they the war machine that, despite consecutive defeats in the four great wars between the Righteous and Demonic factions, had always left deep scars on the Orthodox Murim?

A war between such a Demonic Cult and a suspicious, secretive coalition of underground merchants was simply inconceivable from the start.

No matter how much gold they possessed, who would respond if they shouted, 'We're going to war with the Demonic Cult, who wants to get paid to fight!'?

Ultimately, they had no choice but to swallow their misplaced fury.

But then, a new problem erupted.

A ya shang had been brutally attacked—practically murdered—right out in the open at the Henan branch of the black market.

To be precise, it wasn't quite murder, but an incident that left the victim in a state arguably worse than death.

The Black Store Manager, Zhang Enchai, clutched her head.

"Why! Why! Why! Why is this happening to me!"

"The ya shangs' complaints are reaching a boiling point, Manager," the steward reported. "They're even talking about forming their own association to protect themselves. We caught and killed the main instigator for now, but if this continues, it's only a matter of time before the ya shangs break away."

"Fuck... We haven't even finished cleaning up the shit those Black Sky Association bastards smeared everywhere."

"We'll issue the bounty for now, but if we don't make an example out of whoever touched the Black Store this time—"

"Five hundred gwan," Zhang Enchai cut him off.

The steward frowned. "Pardon? Only five hundred gwan, you say? That will hardly..."

"Un Yeonyeong, was it? Tell them five hundred gold gwan for her corpse, and ten thousand gwan if she's brought back alive and whole. Add that we'll deduct two thousand gwan per missing limb, so they should try their best to bring her back intact."

Zhang Enchai's eyes were terrifyingly cold.

"Let's take this opportunity to show the entire world exactly what happens when you mess with the Black Store. The human pig wasn't Empress Lü's exclusive invention, was it?"

Empress Lü, who proudly holds a spot among China's Four Great Vicious Women, earned her rank thanks to her cruel nature and creative torture methods.

The human pig was considered so horrific even in the long history of the Central Plains that it was strictly forbidden; planning to capture someone alive and inflict that fate revealed a truly venomous grudge.

She was too afraid to touch the Demonic Cult, her insides burning with frustration, and just then, someone slapped her cheek—her rage inevitably found its target.

"Isn't this perfect timing, when the Black Store needs to make a move to appease the ya shangs anyway? In a way, you could say this turned out well."

Zhang Enchai smiled coldly.

But would things truly go as planned?

The Black Store issued a bounty for Un Yeonyeong.

Many people had seen Qing at the black market.

So, when asked what she looked like, they invariably gave foolish descriptions like "pretty," "very pretty," or "really pretty."

"No, I'm asking what her eyes, nose, and mouth look like!" an official demanded in frustration.

"Uh. Her eyes are large, clear, and beautiful. Her nose is high and flawlessly beautiful. Her mouth is small and red, so—"

"Beautiful?" the official interrupted.

"Yes, that's right."

"Bah! Next!"

But everyone was more or less the same.

Ask them to describe her eyes, nose, and mouth separately, they'd say beautiful. Ask for distinguishing features, they'd say beautiful. Ask about her overall impression, they'd say beautiful again.

It reached the point where even the people asking became curious about what kind of beauty she actually was.

Thus, the black market mobilized all its portrait artists to create a likeness sketch, but they all cried out that the drawings couldn't capture her true appearance.

Even in Qing's modern homeland, the reliability of police sketches based solely on witness testimony without video was quite low; how much worse would it be in the Central Plains?

Eventually, they produced something that was deemed somewhat similar, and now began the hellish task of copying it.

Of course, the method of printing existed.

The Central Plains was the birthplace of human printing technology!

Ever since a Mr. Bi Sheng—whose name literally meant 'Must Win'—commercialized the world's first clay movable type printing, the Central Plains had flaunted its majesty as the originator nation of printing technology.

There was strong circumstantial evidence suggesting they probably also invented the first metal movable type, but not a single shred of physical proof remained due to the double attack of the Cultural Revolution and the Backyard Furnace, so it wasn't recognized.

Thanks to this, the honor of inventing the first metal movable type went to the Korean people.

Surprisingly, both the Cultural Revolution and the Backyard Furnace were the achievements of just one single individual, who, because of this, was ranked second among the most respected figures by the Chinese people even in modern times.

First place was always reserved for the living power, untouchable by the dead, making him the de facto number one.

Anyway, even with the Central Plains' outstanding printing techniques, they were primitive compared to modern methods, and the portrait was too detailed for woodblock printing.

For now, they were distributing hand-drawn copies as they were completed, but the number was woefully insufficient.

Furthermore, bounty hunters and assassins, wanting the prize all to themselves, kept tearing down the sketches and hiding them.

So, in the end, only the news of the bounty spread far and wide.

And the result of this was:

"Oh my. This tea has a bitter, poisonous scent, doesn't it? Xinpa, did I do something to upset you?"

Un Yeonyeong spoke while sipping her tea.

The old woman, about to place her next stone on the Go board, paused and withdrew her elegant hand.

"...What did you say?"

Un Yeonyeong swirled the tea in her mouth, tasting it, then swallowed.

"Mmmhmm. This tastes like Dream Soul Medicine. Goodness me, am I some kind of elephant? Isn't this enough to make one sleep soundly for fifty years?"[^("Daesang" (대상 / 對象) can mean "target" or "subject," while "daesang" (대상 / 大象) means "elephant.")]

Xinpa—a top Demonic Adept among Demonic Adepts, known to the martial arts world as belonging to the White Hand Demonic Sect, a grand Demonic Adept many times over—became enraged.

"Which wench dares...!"

Thus, all the servants of the estate were gathered for a collective session of contemplating the truth.

Water and fire always know the answer, so it wasn't long before the culprit confessed their sins.

"I... I have committed a crime punishable by death. Blinded by greed, I..."

"Money?" Xinpa asked sharply. "Did someone commission an assassination?"

"The Black Store put out a bounty..." the servant stammered. "The amount is a staggering ten thousand gwan..."

At this, Xinpa turned to look at Un Yeonyeong.

"You wench, what scheme did you pull on the Black Store?"

"Scheme, you say?" Yeonyeong replied airily. "Oh dear, I've been involved in so many things, I really couldn't say. Perhaps I underestimated the Black Store? Those insignificant little creatures somehow managed to identify me. Excuse me, Mr. Attempted Assassin?" she called out to the kneeling servant. "Were you certain it was me?"

"Un Yeonyeong of the Jinju Eon Clan, and the description was 'a beauty recognizable at first glance'..." he mumbled.

Xinpa snorted. "Hmph. Sounds certain enough. They say a long tail eventually gets caught, don't they? I told you time and again to wear one of my human skin masks."

"Oh, my," Yeonyeong countered. "I'm already wearing a human's guise; what difference would adding another layer make? It seems I underestimated the Black Store's pathetic intelligence network."

"So, what will you do?" Xinpa asked.

"I only let them live because they were useful for gathering ingredients," She mused, tapping her chin, "but it's bothersome to leave these buzzing flies who don't know their place. Oh dear, how troublesome."

She smiled her characteristically gentle and graceful smile as she continued.

"For now, let's issue a little warning and clean up every single one we see. Would you help me with that, Xinpa? You should indulge in your hobbies once in a while, shouldn't you?"