Chapter 156: Mountain Too, Devises a Plan

Rumors that the Alliance Leader had died spread across the whole of the Jianghu.

The martial world flipped upside down.

From the Murim Alliance’s perspective, they had hoped the news would leak out slowly if possible, but this was not the kind of matter that could be contained.

Many members of the Orthodox Faction reeled in shock.

Even at this moment, everyone in the taverns talked about nothing else. The most frequently mentioned point, by far, was the murderer.

“They say it is the work of those called the Three Kings, each using a sword, a saber, and fists.”

“They must be men of extraordinary martial skill.”

“I heard not only they, but terrifying figures joined the ambush.”

“What on earth were the Guard Hall’s warriors doing?”

“I hear the chiefs all resigned to take responsibility.”

“It is indeed true that even ten strong men find it difficult to stop one thief.”

The second most talked about subject was the chaos caused by the Alliance Leader’s absence.

“There could be a war because of this.”

“True, the Demonic Cult and the Black Way Alliance will never let a chance like this slip by.”

“But still, they will not be able to start a war so easily.”

“Do not presume to guess what those brutal bastards will do!”

Talk of war naturally shifted to who would become the next Alliance Leader.

“They say the Great Expert Ban is alive.”

“I heard that too. There was some kind of intrigue, they say.”

“Can the Great Expert Ban become the next Alliance Leader? Someone new already leads the Virtuous Heroes.”

“Even if he yielded the Virtuous Heroes, he was the real power in the Murim Alliance for a very long time, was he not? Besides, if you think about it, it has been only a few months since he stepped away.”

“They say the newly appointed head of the Virtuous Heroes, Great Expert Seop, could become a candidate for Alliance Leader.”

“That’s nonsense! He is still only in his twenties!”

“That is not the only way to see it though. If a young man becomes Alliance Leader, perhaps this chronic corruption will finally be purged, right?”

“Fair. It is rotten to the core and it has been. There are even rumors the late Alliance Leader took huge bribes.”

“That is outrageous! Of course Great Expert Ban should ascend to the Alliance Leader’s seat! Give the Murim Alliance to some green brat and the Orthodox Faction will truly be ruined!”

In one corner of a tavern swirling with rumors sat Rain.

A woman sat facing him. It was Water.

“I truly did not think Jang Wonso would die like this.”

Rain made no reply to Water’s words, only tilted back his cup.

“Do you think it is the work of the Black Way Alliance Lord?”

“Of course it is.”

When several days passed after Lee Jaseung entered the Alliance Leader’s manor and he did not emerge, the two had guessed Lee Jaseung might be dead.

But the corpse turned out to be Jang Wonso, and Lee Jaseung walked out without a scratch.

“Then the higher-ups must already know.”

“Of course.”

“Mountain must be very angry.”

This was a moment when the phrase “of course” truly fit. But Rain said nothing.

He dreaded even speaking it aloud. With Jang Wonso dead, the possibility of securing the map had grown slim. They had not found it while he lived, so now that he was dead, obtaining the map was next to impossible.

Rain knew better than anyone how hard Mountain had worked to obtain the Seven-Color Hidden Land.

The mission to secure the map had now failed.

What remained was Mountain’s judgment.

Would he let Rain live? Rain should have acted personally before Jang Wonso died. He could not help resenting Water for talking him out of it.

“Are you worried you will die?”

Rain lifted his head and looked at Water. The resentment that had flickered up melted away at the sight of her beautiful face. He had no regrets.

“If I die, will you cry for me?”

“Why would I?”

She asked so calmly that Rain gave a short, bitter laugh. It was nothing new. She did this often.

Water smiled and said,

“I can at least pluck a single flower and leave it on your grave though.”

“That is good enough.”

Then Water suddenly asked with a serious look,

“What if I die first?”

She asked it so earnestly that Rain could not answer for a moment. He had never once considered her dying before him.

“Please cry for me.”

“That’s unfair, isn’t it?”

“Relations between men and women are unfair by nature.”

Rain snorted a laugh.

To be speaking like this when death could fall at any time.

In that sense, Water was truly remarkable.

“Do you think the Black Way Alliance Lord might have obtained the map?”

“Perhaps.”

“He is truly hard to read huh.”

It was another way of saying he was formidable.

Rain agreed. The Black Way Alliance Lord certainly possessed qualities that surpassed all expectations.

“Are you not going to order me a drink?”

“You pay for it yourself.”

“Are you really going to be this stingy?”

“Life is unfair by nature. Especially when money is involved.”

Water stuck out her tongue, then quickly snatched Rain’s cup and drank from it. Setting it down with a satisfied thump, she said,

“Mountain will not kill you, senior.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Water looked steadily at Rain.

“You are too valuable a person to kill so lightly.”

Just then, as a man passed by where the two sat, he sent Rain a voice transmission.

— The Elder wishes to see you.

Rain’s expression hardened.

At last, the moment had come.

* * *

Mountain stood on the edge of a cliff, looking down.

It was a drop so sheer that one’s heart trembled merely to look. Mountain stood there, perilously close to the brink.

Rain arrived at that place.

“Jang Wonso is dead. I am sorry.”

Rain bowed his head deeply and added,

“Right now it is difficult because all eyes in the Murim Alliance are fixed on this, but we will soon search Jang Wonso’s surroundings again, top to bottom. We are also not ruling out the possibility that the Black Way Alliance Lord obtained the map.”

A brief silence flowed by.

At length, Mountain spoke heavily.

“That will not be necessary. The Seven-Color Hidden Land has already opened.”

“What?”

Rain jerked his head up in shock.

“A rainbow appeared over the Verdant Mountain for several days in a row.”

“Is that related to it?”

“Yes. It is said that when the Seven-Color Hidden Land opens, a rainbow shines over the Verdant Mountain for seven days.”

Mountain knew this all along. He was among the very few Cheon Myeongin had told. Now Rain’s name joined that list.

“Ah! Then that must mean the Seven-Color Hidden Land has opened. The Black Way Alliance Lord, it must be him!”

After all, Lee Jaseung was the one who had been with Jang Wonso at the end.

But Rain quickly donned a baffled look.

“But even if he obtained the map, he did not have time to go searching for the Seven-Color Hidden Land.”

Mountain answered,

“It must have been very close by.”

Rain also thought that was right. If the Secret Ground were far away, it would mean someone had stumbled upon it by chance, and the timing was far too neat for that.

In any case, the one who entered had to be Lee Jaseung.

Mountain let out a light sigh and spoke.

“Treasures of the Jianghu have their destined owners.”

Bitterness saturated his voice.

Rain could not lift his head.

“Do not brood over it.”

“You desired it very much, did you not?”

“I did. But I also know well that one without fate for a treasure cannot have it. If I had not thought so from the start, I would not have entrusted the search for the map to you.”

At times Rain had wondered that. There were certainly people who were better at finding things than he was.

Men filled with the desire to please Mountain by finding it. Men more aggressive than he, who would have gone mad trying to track down the map.

Yet Mountain had given that crucial task to him, the one least inclined toward quests for treasure.

“What do you mean?”

“If I had fate with the Seven-Color Hidden Land, I thought I would be able to find it through you. You despise the idea of relying on a treasure to seize the Jianghu, do you not?”

“That is not true.”

But Rain answered without confidence.

It certainly had been so.

“That is why I left it to you. I wanted to see whether I truly had fate with it.”

Rain understood and yet did not. Why think like this at all? He too was a conqueror who wished to seize the Jianghu.

One thing was certain, these words brushed against a sentimental side that did not suit Mountain.

Mountain suddenly asked Rain,

“When I first tried to recruit you, you asked why I was doing this. Do you remember what I answered?”

“Yes. You said you did it because you were bored of living.”

“Why did you agree after hearing that?”

The answer came after a short pause.

“The men who tried to win me over had something in common.”

“What was it?”

“They hid their selfishness inside righteousness. They could have said, I want it, but they dressed it up with some transparent excuse. I was sick and tired of that posturing.”

“But could I not also have been hiding my selfishness with the same kind of bluff?”

“At least in that moment, I am certain you were not. And also…”

“Also?”

“At the time, I too felt that life was boring.”

“Now that I hear it, I suppose I was very lucky.”

Only then did Mountain turn back with a smiling face.

“Yes, that is right. At least back then, I was. But I am not such a sentimental man. It could be that I tried to make my words true in that moment only to win you over.”

“Like in this moment now, you mean?”

Mountain let out a pleased laugh.

“Hahaha. Perhaps.”

After a hearty laugh, Mountain looked down the cliff again. The bright smile left his face.

It was a chill expression, colder than any other. The gap between the face he showed others and the one he did not was as wide as the chasm before him.

“The situation has changed.”

Rain, standing behind him, spoke carefully.

“I will eliminate the Black Way Alliance Lord without fail.”

“No! Leave him be for the time being. He is a man we have failed to kill until now. And now that he has even entered the Seven-Color Hidden Land, it will be even harder to remove him.”

Rain agreed.

“The first problem we must solve is the next Alliance Leader. We need to put our man in that seat.”

“Do you have someone in mind?”

Staring into the black maw below, Mountain spoke quietly,

“We will raise Gwak Jinpung to the Murim Alliance Leader’s position.”

Gwak Jinpung was one of the strongest candidates for Alliance Leader. He was the very man Dan Woobin had mentioned to Lee Jaseung as being strongly anti–Demonic Cult.

Mountain had already brought him into the fold.

“But putting him in as Alliance Leader will not be easy.”

Rain hesitated to say it, as if dousing the fire before it was even lit, but he believed that in situations like this, one had to face reality.

“There is nothing easy left for us.”

“Yes.”

“What are the current support numbers?”

“Ban Yeo’s support is overwhelming. If Ban Yeo is a five, Gwak Jinpung is not even a two. Lee Jaseung is about the same as Gwak Jinpung. If it turns into an old versus young contest, after Ban Yeo it will be Lee Jaseung.”

“We need to split the vote.”

“How?”

“We will back one more person.”

“Who will it be?”

A name came from Mountain’s mouth that made Rain surprised.

“Baek Seolyoung.”

For a moment, Rain was taken aback. He truly had not thought of Baek Seolyoung.

“Make it a husband and wife contest and split Lee Jaseung’s votes.”

It was an ingenious idea. In the end, both Lee Jaseung and Baek Seolyoung were candidates supported by the young. Swept up in the buzz of a husband and wife matchup, the youth vote would naturally split.

But there was a decisive problem.

“Even so, Ban Yeo still exists.”

“Indeed.”

“Then why…?”

Rain’s eyes suddenly gleamed.

“Wait, do you mean…?”

“Yes. At the final moment, assassinate Ban Yeo. Of course, we will handle it as death by qi deviation from the strain of the Alliance Leader selection.”

If it went as planned, there was a chance.

The young vote would split, and with Ban Yeo’s death, the older vote would surge to Gwak Jinpung.

“The problem is that Ban Yeo will not be easy to kill. Ban Yeo guards his own neck, and Lee Jaseung will protect him.”

Mountain had already prepared for that. A thorough man like him would never make such a proposal without a plan.

“I will assign you Silent Death.”

At the word Silent Death, Rain’s face brightened.

With a radiant expression as if everything had been solved, he said brightly,

“We will certainly be able to kill Ban Yeo.”

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