Episode 79. The Gambler’s Song

When the strong fall silent, the weak are bound to join in that silence as well.

After making Dongfang Yan, who was still alive, and every last onlooker shut their mouths, I picked up Strategist Pyeong’s folding fan from the ground.

When I opened it, blood was smeared here and there across the white fan.

I slowly fanned myself with it and looked around once.

I spoke to everyone present.

“You pathetic bastards.”

Somehow, the words I spat out circled the arena and lodged themselves in my own chest as well.

“I was pathetic too.”

When I glanced at Dongfang Yan, he was staunching the bleeding from his left arm, injured by the attack I had unleashed moments ago.

I cleared my throat, then recited in a flat voice the first line of a song every gambler here knew.

“I spent thirty years in the gambling den.”

“…….”

The song that Strategist Pyeong had often sung, that gamblers and broke bastards, debtors, spectators, and everyone who worked nearby often sang, flowed from my mouth.

“With black hair I held the tiles, with white hair I laid them down.”

The gamblers in the stands answered by singing the next line.

“So much hard-earned money did I offer up.”

I nodded as well and murmured.

“So much hard-earned money did I offer up.”

Pointing at this bastard and that bastard with the fan, I continued the song.

“Was it only my own money?”

The gamblers chimed in.

“Of course it wasn’t.”

“A friend’s money, a relative’s money too—how could you scatter it all without a moment’s hesitation? Coming home after so long, there was not a single person to welcome me. Taking out the money hidden in the cupboard, I headed for the gambling den. Every person in the village looks at me with eyes of contempt.”

The gamblers sang along with the final line.

“Every person I meet looks at me with eyes of contempt.”

I stood still, holding the folding fan, and continued the song.

“If I do not appear again, tell them I died while gambling. Before I even arrive, the tiles flicker before my eyes more vividly than ever today.”

Meeting the eyes of the surviving dregs of the Narak Society, I repeated the refrain.

“Today my luck will be good. Today my luck is sure to be good.”

The gamblers sang after my lead.

“Today my luck will be good. Today my luck is sure to be good.”

After the song ended, I spoke to the gamblers in my normal voice.

“But today, your luck won’t be good.”

“…….”

“This place is closing its doors as of today, so you fucking morons can all go home now. Business is over.”

I roared at the stands and the dregs of the Narak Society, who were watching me without saying a word.

“Fuck off. You sons of bitches!”

In an instant, I ran up to one of the Narak Society warriors, smacked him upside the head, and kicked him in the ass as I spoke.

“I said fuck off, you bastard. Did you not hear me say the place is closed? You pathetic bastards.”

Only after I cursed while beating two or three of them at random did the addicts scatter in every direction.

“You pieces of trash, if you’ve got homes, go home, and if you don’t, beg for your meals if you have to. Starting with the last bastard to leave, I’ll cut off your wrists.”

I ran up to the ones dawdling and kicked them in the ass again.

Thud!

When the bastard who had rolled across the ground sprang up and fled, the surviving Narak Society fell apart as well.

As I looked around, waving the folding fan, there were almost no bastards left. The remaining ones were likely gambling den personnel who simply could not bring themselves to leave because of the vast wealth piled up here.

I looked at the Gambling King, Ouyang Fu, sitting alone in the stands.

“Looks like you’re ruined now, doesn’t it?”

Ouyang Fu glared at me without a word.

“Did you think you could beat me if all your men rushed me at once? Did I say this was crooked gambling or not? Dongfang Yan, what do you think? After beating up bastards who were limp from aphrodisiacs, meeting someone like me feels new, doesn’t it?”

Ouyang Fu, in the stands, opened his mouth.

“Listen, young man. Before coming here, I sent a letter straight to the Nanming Society.”

“Ah, the Nanming Society.”

“I told them that because someone was interfering, it would be difficult to continue paying tribute from now on. It was a simple letter, but the Nanming Society will look into what happened. Because the money I’ve given them all this time was quite substantial.”

I nodded.

“I suppose it was.”

“Did you think that if you turned this place into a complete mess, all the money here would flow to you? The ways of the world are not that simple. No matter how recklessly you run wild, in the end, you are bound to be blocked by the Black Path. That is the reason I lived content with nothing more than this gambling den.”

Ouyang Fu put a Mangucho between his lips in the stands and exhaled pale smoke.

“A bastard who knows nothing of the world.”

I struck the fan against my palm to fold it, then hurled it at Dongfang Yan.

Whoooooosh!

When Dongfang Yan, who had just finished staunching the blood, crossed his twin swords to block the fan, I drew blade and flame from Black Cat Fang at the same time and slashed forward.

The saber qi imbued with Yeomhwahyang cut diagonally through Dongfang Yan’s upper body, then stretched onward.

Splurt!

Three startled executives of the Narak Society scattered and fled north, east, and south.

What confidence had kept those bastards here all this time? It seemed they had trusted Ouyang Fu, who had not moved from the stands.

I sheathed Black Cat Fang, picked up Dongfang Yan’s twin swords, and threw one to the east, then the other to the south.

The two swords pierced the fugitives’ bodies, then lodged in the wall.

The bastard who had fled north sprang up into the stands and said to Ouyang Fu.

“Society Leader, you should escape!”

Ouyang Fu abruptly rose, grabbed the executive who had urged him to flee, pulled him close, then seized his head without warning and slammed it down onto a chair.

Thud! Thud! Thud! After three impacts, the executive’s body crumpled beneath the chair.

Ouyang Fu kicked his subordinate, now already a corpse, and raised his voice.

“Who told you to run?”

I leapt lightly into the air, and by the time Ouyang Fu roared, I was standing behind him.

The moment Ouyang Fu, who had been assaulting the corpse, realized I was behind him, his movements slowed noticeably.

Ouyang Fu turned as he spoke.

“Was it Zaha Inn, you said……?”

At the same time as the question he directed at me, Ouyang Fu’s twin palms came pouring down. I did not deflect Ouyang Fu’s palm force, but extended both hands and matched force against force.

The palm force Ouyang Fu had cultivated for quite a long time surged into the centers of my palms.

As we contended with palm force, I called him as I had in the past.

“Uncle Ouyang, I thought you were a generous man. I didn’t even know that for a gambling den to do well, the owner had to be generous.”

Ouyang Fu's eyes widened even as he poured out his palm force, and he looked at me with a bewildered expression. Naturally, it was impossible to understand, since a man he was seeing for the first time was speaking as though he had known him for ages.

"Who are you?"

But I had no intention of resolving the doubts of a man who would soon die.

"The inn clerk."

Ouyang Fu would understand me as the clerk who had been here.

I pushed away all of Ouyang Fu's palm force as if burning it away with searing energy, then switched to the Star Absorption Grand Technique and extracted Ouyang Fu's internal energy from his dantian. Ouyang Fu's desperate screams filled the arena.

The moment I confirmed that Ouyang Fu's face had changed like that of a person drained of vitality, I hurriedly withdrew my hand.

Ouyang Fu, who had collapsed to the floor as if crumbling, looked up at me with an exhausted expression as though his breath would soon be cut off.

"The Nanming Hui is……."

"Nanming Hui or whatever, I'll handle it myself. Don't you have any last words, our good-natured Uncle Ouyang?"

Facing death, Ouyang Fu suddenly asked me like a madman.

"What of Gaepyeong?"

"He's gone, you bastard."

I raised my right foot and stomped down, ending Ouyang Fu's life.

Thud!

"Gaepyeong, my ass."

I gazed at the empty spectator seats and personally announced the result of today's martial contest.

"Listen well, everyone. It is the victory of the Jaha Guesthouse proprietor."

I walked while applauding alone from the railing of the spectator seats, then pulled out a torch and lit a bundle of papers the bastards had left behind. It was a bundle of papers with things like the gamblers' names and amounts written on them.

Fwoosh!

I looked around, threw the torch at a place where the fire would catch, pulled out another torch, and gifted flames to Ouyang Fu's corpse as well. His clothes, catching fire, wrapped around Ouyang Fu's corpse.

A man who sets fires everywhere he goes—that is me.

As I wandered about throwing torches, flames spread throughout the arena in an instant. Since there was plenty of wood in the spectator seats, it soon roared like a giant furnace.

Walking through the wildly blazing flames, I alone sang a gambler's song.

I spent thirty years in the gambling house.

I grabbed the cards with black hair and laid them down with white.

I devoted much of the money I earned with difficulty.

Was it only my money?

How could I have scattered the money of friends and relatives without such hesitation?

Coming home after a long time, not a single person welcomed me.

Taking out the money hidden in the wall, I head back to the gambling house.

Every person I meet looks at me with eyes of contempt.

If I do not appear again, tell them I died gambling.

Before I even arrive, today the tiles flicker before my eyes with unusual persistence.

Today, luck will be good.

Today, luck will be good.

Having burned the gambling house and sung the song, satisfied with all of it, I let out a long laugh.

Intoxicated with excitement, I leaped into the arena, burned the corpses too, and spread the flames wildly, as though pissing in my sleep.

Drawing Heukmyoa, I danced a sword dance alongside the crackling flames. When I wrapped Heukmyoa in Samadhi True Fire and scattered it about, the blaze grew even fiercer. As the conflagration devoured the sparks, the entire area burned hotly as if the Immovable Wisdom King had descended.

Gazing at the flames, I momentarily lost myself.

How wonderful it would be if this powerful, beautiful, merciless power of flame were mine.

I lay down on the warm ground where the flames had not yet reached and looked up at the night sky.

"I wish to sweep the stars from the night sky into one hand and rain fire upon the heads of the followers who pursued me. A man at whose passing all words cease, who places those who split mountains with their swords beneath his feet, and who strikes the cheeks of the experts called the Three Calamities—that is me. Not yet, but someday. Ah, it's hot."

I sprang up and saw that my surroundings were a sea of fire.

"……."

A man who regressed only to die by fire—that is not me.

I drew Heukmyoa vertically and unleashed a blade wind toward the front.

Swhiiiiing!

The flames split left and right before creeping back out again. I swung my sword this way and that in place, then infused it with the internal energy of the Fighting Cock and unleashed the One-Blade Bisection toward the front for the first time in a long while.

The flames were torn in two and scattered, and even the spectator seats beyond were split entirely open, as a path carved by a blade mark yawned wide.

I bisected the inferno that the gamblers had created by burning their own bodies and escaped from it.

With the burnt arena behind me, I gazed at the gamblers' village that had become a complete mess.

"It is a beautiful night."

Commotion erupted here and there, and someone shouted loudly.

"Fire!"

To those words, I replied in a monotone.

"Just playing with fire."

"Fire!"

"Just playing with fire. Huh?"

As if I had suddenly forgotten something, I unfolded my lightness skill, dashed out, arrived near the Phoenix VIP quarters, and bellowed.

"Miss Baek! Miss Heuk! Are you there?"

I cackled and looked around. With people shouting "Fire!" everywhere, the women whose acupoints had been sealed must have felt like they were lying in hell. A murmuring sound could be heard from inside the Phoenix VIP quarters.

I lifted the curtain of the tent and went inside, asking toward the bedding.

"Are you there? No? Seems not."

"H...h...h...here...."

A desperate scream flowed out from the bed, still half-sealed in its acupoints. I approached the bedding while dancing.

"When the evening glow fades and the moonlight flows...... are you here?"

I flipped up the foot of the bed and looked down at Baek Soa and Heuk Soryeong. Both had been crying for a long time and looked at me with bloodshot eyes.

"……!"

Someone outside the tent shouted while moving past.

"Fire!"

I glared at Baek Soa and Heuk Soryeong with a rigid expression, then said in a low, deep voice.

"……Just playing with fire."

Soon, Baek Soa and Heuk Soryeong rolled their eyes back and fainted simultaneously.