Chapter 56
Chapter 56: Third-rate Martial Family Becomes the Best Under Heaven
Without bothering to move to another reception hall, Yanghwi and Steward Han received Chu Yongwol right where they sat.
Once the attendant set down the fresh tea, Chu Yongwol tilted her head, her expression brimming with curiosity.
“Is the Lord of the House occupied with other matters, by any chance?”
During their initial contract negotiations, Baek Muryang had pressed hard enough to claim an extra portion of the profits. Those tense negotiations still lingered in her memory, leaving her eager to deliver her achievements directly to him and savor her vindication face-to-face.
“Unfortunately, the clan head has entered deep seclusion.”
Following the celebration, the delegation from the Tang Clan had rested for several days to shake off the weariness of their journey before taking their leave, leaving behind only the specialists tasked with compounding the medicines. Baek Muryang had subsequently imparted a few essential instructions to Steward Han and Yanghwi before promptly retiring to solitary cultivation.
Mother is almost certainly the reason.
Jeong Inhwa desperately needed unobstructed acupoint circulation, and his inability to administer the treatment himself had weighed on him like a stone. Though he never voiced that frustration aloud, Yanghwi could perceive it plainly, having spent a prior lifetime alongside his adoptive father.
It is the natural burden of a patriarch and a devoted husband. Moreover, for a leader of a martial lineage to remain stagnant at the first-rate tier must sting his pride.
In all honesty, first-rate competence was meager for the master of an entire clan. He ranked among the five strongest pugilists within Ak’an County, yet outside those borders, the title carried little weight.
That will never suffice. Moving forward, the main house will extend its reach far broader and deeper than this little corner of the world.
Setting mundane administrative duties aside to focus entirely on personal martial breakthroughs was precisely what a clan lord was expected to do. When all was said and done, commanding authority required raw strength; in the martial world, prowess spoke far louder than lineage. In the meantime, Steward Han possessed more than enough cunning and worldly experience to steer the estate through daily affairs.
…Even if all that dignity vanishes into thin air whenever silver is mentioned.
Take this exact moment, for instance.
“Young Mistress Chu! Gracing our humble hall in person must mean you bring truly magnificent tidings, does it not? Hehehe.”
Indeed. Or rather, no. Not this.
That breathy, covetous chuckle sounded utterly bizarre coming from him. With his immaculate scholar’s robes and neatly combed beard, Steward Han seemed every inch the venerable academic steeped in decades of classical wisdom. Watching that refined visage dissolve into naked greed struck Yanghwi as deeply unnatural.
“Come now, out with it! What is the tally? Just how much did we reap!”
Chu Yongwol blinked in mild bewilderment before venturing, “If I might first walk through the particulars of the agreement between the Baek house and the Baekseo Merchant Guild, alongside our current operational rollout—”
Steward Han waved her off mid-sentence.
“Skip straight to the final sum! The coin! Name the exact amount!”
His fingers twitched restlessly, tracing invisible coins through the empty air. Given how diligently he had pursued classical scholarship through both his youth and autumn years, Yanghwi could not fathom where all those upright, scholarly virtues had fled. The man resembled nothing so much as a ruined gambler twitching with withdrawal outside the gates of a den.
Must I be the one dying of second-hand shame here?
Realizing someone had to preserve a modicum of dignity in the room, Yanghwi turned toward Chu Yongwol.
“Young Mistress Chu, recent expenditures have run rather high, leaving our steward somewhat high-strung. What did the final profits come out to?”
Tearing her gaze away from the unnerving steward, Chu Yongwol offered a radiant smile.
“Fufufu. Steel yourself for a surprise. It totals a full…”
“A full what?”
“Five thousand silver nyang.”
“Ghk!”
A strange, strangled wheeze tore through the room, snapping both Yanghwi and Chu Yongwol’s gazes toward Steward Han in alarm.
“Steward Han!”
The elder had frozen rigid, his chin pointed straight toward the rafters. After several excruciating heartbeats, his head tilted back down at a glacial pace. A faint, trembling whisper slipped from his parted lips.
“Ah.”
A peaceful, transcendent grin blossomed across his features. It was an expression of absolute enlightenment—pure nirvana. One could almost see his spirit detaching and floating away from his mortal vessel.
“Steward Han!”
Genuinely alarmed, Yanghwi projected his voice, infusing the shout with a thread of immortal qi. The sudden surge snapped Steward Han back, reviving the fading spark in his glassy eyes.
“Bwahahaha! Bwahahaha!”
Phew. Good grief. I thought he was crossing into the Yellow Springs right before our eyes.
It was no exaggeration; the steward’s faint had seemed perilous enough to invite genuine dread. Yet seeing the sheer vitality rushing back into his face, his grip on mortal existence appeared restored.
“Ehehehe! Five thousand nyang! A mere three months have passed since Young Lord Hwi resolved the crisis at the Baekseo Company! Five thousand whole nyang in a single quarter! Ehehehehe!”
Never mind. His mind is clearly still unmoored.
With a faint shake of his head, Yanghwi turned his attention back to Chu Yongwol to offer heartfelt praise.
“You have outdone yourself, Young Mistress. Factoring in distribution logistics, your actual sales window could not have exceeded two months. This is an astounding outcome.”
Even accounting for polite flattery, her performance was extraordinary. Even Yanghwi, who harbored complete faith in the appeal of Ilpilhwiseo’s manuscripts based on memories from his past life, had not anticipated such immediate returns.
“How did you accomplish it so quickly? The strategy we mapped out was meant to nurture a trend, but I expected it would require the better part of a year before public fervor fully caught on.”
The blueprint Yanghwi had laid out leaned heavily on exclusive, high-prestige marketing. Because perceived worth relied on collective craving, such exclusivity usually demanded patient cultivation. Yet Chu Yongwol had shattered expectations in just eight weeks.
“Fufu. Our blueprint ultimately hinged on harnessing momentum, did it not?”
“It did.”
“So I hitched our wagon to one. Riding atop a tiger, as they say.”
“Aha. You convinced a beast of high standing to blaze the path for you?”
Seeing how effortlessly he unraveled her maneuver, Chu Yongwol shook her head in sheer delight.
“Your business instincts are truly peerless, Young Master. Precisely so. The young miss of Nanchang’s preeminent noble house happens to favor my company, so I leveraged her influence as our primary conduit.”
Put plainly, she had borrowed the authority of the elite to fabricate high-society desire, letting the daughters of grand houses ignite the fad. Once the initial gale gathered force, stoking it into an uncontrollable blaze had been simple work.
Just as I thought. Partnering with Chu Yongwol was the correct decision.
The Baekseo Merchant Guild had expanded exponentially in his former life for good reason. Now that the underhanded interference from the Namgeum Merchant Guild had been dismantled in advance, their ascendancy in this life would prove grander still.
“By the way, have you caught wind of the latest happenings regarding the Namgeum Merchant Guild, Young Master?”
“What happenings?”
“The rumors of the miraculous spirit plant you set in motion last time. It seems the fallout drove them straight into absolute ruin.”
Chu Yongwol’s eyes remained fixed on his face, quietly gauging his reaction.
“From what the streets say, several fierce martial artists descended upon their compound and wrought havoc, only for a wandering hero to step in and save them. Yet when the dust settled, every scrap of their emergency reserves and ledger of high-interest debt was swept clean away. Or so the story goes.”
She was raising an incident that bore no direct relevance to their current trade, which pointed to two possibilities.
She is either testing the extent of my hand in it, or…
Yanghwi offered an easy, unbothered laugh.
“As I shared before, releasing that rumor was the beginning and end of my involvement.”
“Truly? Whispers claim that among the figures who clashed with the demonic practitioner within the Namgeum Estate, there was a remarkably young boy.”
“You could hardly suspect me of such things, could you? Brilliant though I may be, I remain a child of merely eight summers.”
He gave a slight shrug, deliberately letting out an exaggerated shudder.
“Reflecting on it now, it was a profound blessing that I stayed clear. Crossing paths with someone branded a demonic practitioner… heavens. I might have greeted the Underworld before even coming of age. It was likely some reclusive elder who mastered bodily rejuvenation.”
“Mmm. A fair point. Still, you show remarkably little sentiment regarding the ruin of the Namgeum Merchant Guild, considering you set that avalanche in motion.”
So that was her true intent.
“Why should I spare sympathy for the demise of bloodsucking loan sharks? For that matter, how does Young Mistress Chu view their fate?”
“My sentiments mirror your own entirely.”
Having confirmed that each held an unbending will beneath their pleasant exterior, Yanghwi and Chu Yongwol shared knowing smiles.
“In that case, this humble merchant shall take her leave.”
“Will you not linger for an evening to shake off the road’s dust?”
“You understand how things stand. Were I idle, I would gladly accept, but these days every passing dawn is worth its weight in gold. A proper merchant must recognize when to pause and when to strike.”
Her outlook was shrewd and admirable. Every ounce of sweat Chu Yongwol expended would inevitably yield greater wealth for the Baek family coffers.
“Allow me to walk you to the outer gates, then.”
“I would be honored, Young Master.”
After watching her carriage roll out into the distance, Yanghwi stepped back inside Steward Han’s chamber.
“Hehehehe. Five thousand nyang. Five thousand whole nyaaang!”
Steward Han was still sitting in a daze of delight, lovingly caressing the heavy silk pouch holding fifty gold nyang.
Hold on. He mentioned earlier that immediate obligations require two thousand nyang. That leaves three thousand nyang unallocated.
Five thousand silver nyang represented capital substantial enough to launch an entirely new business venture, even if a modest one. Yet locking away two thousand and holding three thousand in reserve felt inefficient. Rather than leaving the coin idle, keeping one thousand nyang as an operational buffer while reinvesting the rest made far better sense.
…If we increase our budget for the medicinal ingredients, the resulting alchemical batches will yield vastly superior potency.
“Steward Han.”
“Bwahaha! Speak, Young Lord Hwi!”
“Well, if we were to direct perhaps two thousand nyang more toward the elixir herbs…”
“YOUNG LOOOORD HWIIIII!”
A thunderous roar, bursting from the lungs of an old scholar without a single wisp of internal energy, rattled the rafters of the entire Baek Estate.
A full month slipped by following the departure of the Tang Clan retinue, during which the remaining adepts from the Poison and Medicine Hall buried themselves in refining the pills. In the interim, Yanghwi dedicated greater portions of his routine to circulating his internal power while guiding his two siblings in their foundation work.
“Steadily now. Do not rush the sequence. Consistency is everything. Guiding your true qi with unbroken stillness is the essential principle.”
Under ordinary circumstances, the brother and sister would have chimed in with cheerful replies, yet they held their silence. Breathing or speaking during deep internal meditation was akin to actively inviting qi deviation.
“Hold the mental image firm. Trace the path of true qi welling from the dantian. Many liken its motion to the flow of a creek or an open river, yet our Baek house’s Harmonious Heaven Primordial Art charts a different path.”
As the internal breath completed its circular journey, only a single image needed to occupy their minds.
A hawk.
“The Harmonious Heaven Primordial Art seeks to reconcile the myriad energies beneath the sky into unity, channeling them to nurture the original source. How does a bird of prey accomplish such an endeavor?”
The solution was elemental.
“Draw it in, let it out.”
“Breathe deep, release slow.”
Listening intently to the rhythm of their breathing, Yanghwi spoke softly.
“Envision a mother hawk. She commands the skies with broad, resolute wings, yet folds those very same feathers to shield her nestlings and preserve her brood. She gathers all under her span. She shelters the realm beneath her reach.”
His perception of qi—sharp enough that he could claim supremacy under the heavens without the slightest hesitation—locked onto Baek Heonso and Baek Yeonyeon. Though deciphering the microscopic shifts of true qi within their flesh lay beyond even him, he could clearly sense the ambient earth qi drawing toward them from the surrounding air.
They are both advancing admirably.
The initial stage of the Harmonious Heaven Primordial Art required establishing an immaculate base—more specifically, distilling the singular trait recognized as Harmonious Heaven qi.
Once you cross this threshold, your cultivation will soar like soaring falcons, little brother, little sister.
Just as a pleased smile touched Yanghwi’s lips, Baek Heonso broke his meditation, his eyes fluttering open, with Baek Yeonyeon following a breath later.
“Both of you performed marvelously. Heonso has settled into his rhythm, and Yeonyeon managed a complete circulation loop today.”
“Thank you, Big Brother! It is entirely because you guided us!”
“Thank you as well, Big Brother! Martial arts feel so natural and thrilling whenever you explain them!”
Naturally, it feels engaging. Do you have any idea how much effort I spend calibrating every concept down to your age?
“Let us hold on to this joy and continue our diligent effort. Now, let us begin the sequence once—”
Before he could finish, a call carried across the training grounds.
“Young Lord Hwi.”
The figure was none other than the Vice Chief of the Tang Clan’s Poison and Medicine Hall.
“Phew. It has been quite some time.”
The vice chief, who had remained cooped up within his assigned laboratory throughout the grueling refinement process, had finally emerged. His appearance signaled only one outcome.
“Vice Chief, could it be finished?”
“It is precisely what you anticipate.”
Infused with four roots of Seven-Branch Three-Berry Ginseng and an astonishing expenditure of four thousand nyang, the coveted elixirs had finally taken form.
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