You never recognize the day itself.
Only after time has passed and you look back
do you finally realize.
Ah! That was the day my life changed.
For Yong Ja-myeong, that was such a day.
It wasn't just because he had been saved from the brink of death.
It was because his very outlook on life had changed.
"In those days, I was always full of confidence."
In truth, he had every reason to be.
He was young, intelligent, and had a knack for business, succeeding in every venture he touched.
"Even sleep felt like a waste of time. It felt like money was scattered everywhere, and if I didn't pick it up first, someone else would."
In his youth, he was completely engrossed in the thrill of making money.
No other emotion could overcome that joy.
"I was successful, time and again. It felt as if all the fortune in the world was focused solely on me. But I didn't become arrogant. Instead, I became more humble, and I worked even harder. Yet, the misfortune that was bound to come, eventually did."
Yong Ja-myeong silently looked down at his wine cup.
Reflected in the wine, he saw the face of his younger self.
*
"Division Lord, you will become a god of the merchant world!"
Man So said with a wide smile.
"Don't flatter me with such empty praise."
Yong Ja-myeong shook his head and laughed.
His smile, which put others at ease, was the same even in his youth.
"It's not flattery. You know how many merchants I've met. Just you wait, you will surely become the greatest merchant of all."
It had been about three or four years since he had gotten to know Man So.
He made a living by doing various jobs for merchants.
He would find information on goods, arrange for laborers, or connect wanderers to merchant groups.
To put it nicely, he was multi-talented; to put it poorly, he handled all the odd jobs.
He always helped with the Silver River Merchant Group's affairs as if they were his own, so everyone there liked him.
Then, one day,
"We have arrived."
The two men entered a small manor.
The reason they were here today was for Man So to introduce someone.
"Now that the merchant group is established, it's time to recruit martial artists. We can't delay any longer."
This was before Yong Ja-myeong had even met Baek Chong.
At the time, there were no martial artists affiliated with the merchant group.
When they needed to transport goods, they used an escort agency, and for the group's work, they had people who had been with them for a long time.
Occasionally, when they needed an escort, Man So would introduce them to a martial artist to handle the matter.
However, as the scale of the merchant group grew, so did the need for their own martial artists.
The value and quantity of the goods they handled had increased.
It was no longer a problem that could be solved by having strong men take turns guarding the warehouse.
But Yong Ja-myeong could not easily make a decision.
What if those martial artists had other intentions?
This worry never left his mind.
It was because of his nature not to trust others easily.
In the end, persuaded by Man So, he had decided to meet a master.
"What kind of person is this martial artist you're introducing me to?"
"He is a trustworthy man. If he is not to your liking, Division Lord, you don't have to make a decision."
He felt that if Man So trusted the man, then he could be trusted.
He had never once been a disappointment.
But he never imagined that today would be the day he was disappointed.
His first impression of the waiting martial artist was not good.
His sharp eyes held a lecherous glint, and he had a cunning look about him.
From the scar on his face to his twisted lips.
"It's a pleasure to meet you."
At Yong Ja-myeong's greeting, the martial artist smirked.
The sight of that smile made him feel uneasy.
Yong Ja-myeong glanced at Man So standing beside him.
‘You introduced this kind of person as someone trustworthy?’
Man So was smiling as always.
Just as he was thinking that his smile seemed strangely unfamiliar today, the martial artist opened his mouth.
"Is this the one?"
At that single phrase, filled with impure intent, Yong Ja-myeong's heart sank.
The martial artist picked up a wine bottle from the table, drank straight from it, and then threw the documents next to it onto the floor.
"Sign it."
*
Yong Ja-myeong returned to the present.
"It was something Man So conspired to do with that martial artist. Do you know what I was truly afraid of then?"
Geom Mugeuk asked as he poured wine into his cup.
"What was it?"
"That my death would be a dog's death."
Geom Mugeuk understood the meaning of those words perfectly.
"They were after a sum of money that wasn't very large."
Yong Ja-myeong nodded.
"The money they tried to steal was only a few thousand Nyang. Of course, it was a lot of money to some, but to me, who was solidifying the foundation of the merchant group at the time, it wasn't that much. It must have been a plan to just steal the goods that had come into the warehouse. Something that was possible with just a document with my signature. Since Man So often helped with our affairs."
"That man, Man So, must have had a rough idea of your financial situation, Division Lord."
"He would have known."
"Why didn't he go for a larger sum?"
"The martial artist he conspired with was no ordinary man. He was Yim Hyul-gwi, who was notorious at the time."
Yim Hyul-gwi.
He was a lustful fiend infamous in the martial world at the time.
A man who had raped and murdered all sorts of women, regardless of age, and had been declared one of the Public Enemies of the Martial World by the Martial Alliance.
"At the time, he was in a hurry, fleeing from someone. He joined hands with Man So while trying to quickly secure funds for his escape. The two had known each other for a long time."
All of this was revealed later.
"Can you believe it? I had lived a life completely unrelated to lustful fiends, but I ended up entangled like that."
Geom Mugeuk listened to his words in silence.
His role right now was to listen.
"I asked Man So. You know roughly how much my fortune is, don't you? And yet you did this for a mere few thousand Nyang."
As if remembering that moment, Yong Ja-myeong's face flushed.
"Then that man shamelessly smiled and said this. 'Then you should have offered more.'"
Anger filled Yong Ja-myeong's face.
"I was truly furious. Not at him, but at myself for being deceived by a man like him. He was a vile person who associated with a lustful fiend from the beginning, but I failed to notice even a hint of it."
"So what happened?"
Yong Ja-myeong drank his wine, and Geom Mugeuk filled his cup again.
These were words that could not be spoken without wine.
"First, they beat me."
Thwack! Thwack!
As the beating continued, Yong Ja-myeong shouted.
"I'll sign it! I will!"
The one beating him was not Yim Hyul-gwi, but Man So.
He didn't pretend to hear and just beat him relentlessly.
He knew it was to break his spirit first.
Even merchants sometimes need to break their opponent's spirit during a deal.
He had chosen the most extreme and fastest method.
Someone who has never been in a fight before easily succumbs when first exposed to violence.
Surprised, hurt, scared, and wondering, am I really going to be beaten to death like this? The mind is bound to break down in an instant.
It was a fear that those who have not experienced it could never know.
"Please! Stop!"
Yong Ja-myeong curled into a ball, covering his head and face.
He was in despair.
Not because he was being beaten.
It was because they had revealed their faces and were openly carrying out their plan.
‘They’re going to kill me in the end.’
Man So, who had stopped the beating, jerked Yong Ja-myeong to his feet.
"Here, sign it."
Yong Ja-myeong knew that the moment he signed, he would die.
"I'll give you more money. A really large sum."
Thwack!
Man So's fist flew again.
A beating even more severe than before began.
Man So knew Yong Ja-myeong well.
He knew that a smart person wouldn't sign easily.
That's why he was trying to beat the sense out of him.
Even while screaming, Yong Ja-myeong had only one thought.
'I have to live. I don't want to die at the hands of someone like him!'
The man pulled Yong Ja-myeong up again.
Meanwhile, Yim Hyul-gwi was looking out the window.
He looked anxious, as if he were being chased by someone.
"Hurry up and finish it!"
At his words, Man So hurried Yong Ja-myeong.
"Sign it."
"I'll give you my entire fortune. So…"
Thwack! Thwack!
Pain could not overcome the fear of death.
Tears streamed down Yong Ja-myeong's face.
He cried because of the pain, and he cried because of the injustice.
How hard he had lived.
He worked, cutting down on his sleep.
He tried his best to treat the people of his merchant group well.
Was this death the end of all that effort?
He shouldn't have trusted people.
Even though he said he didn't.
'You will become a god of the merchant world!'
It was the result of being intoxicated by those sweet words.
Deceived by a person, and by the time he came to his senses, the situation was over.
What if it had been a choice between losing his entire fortune or not?
Would he have felt better then?
'Please save me.'
He prayed to the heavens.
If there was a god of merchants, he prayed to that god as well.
If you save me!
If you save me!
He hadn't made a promise yet, but the door opened.
*
With a deeply moved expression, Yong Ja-myeong said.
"That person came in through there."
Geom Mugeuk pictured that moment.
The image of his young father.
"When that person entered, I felt the air in the room change."
Yong Ja-myeong closed his eyes and recalled that time.
If the previous memory was of pain, from now on it was a memory of joy and longing.
"How should I describe this man?"
Seeing the pondering Yong Ja-myeong, Geom Mugeuk smiled.
It won't be easy to describe him from just that brief encounter.
"First, I thought he was handsome."
"More than me?"
At Geom Mugeuk's question, Yong Ja-myeong firmly nodded his head.
"I think you've forgotten who I am for a moment."
"I'm sorry, but he is my benefactor."
"I'll take that as you adding points for being a benefactor."
Yong Ja-myeong smiled at my joke.
Now that it was a pleasant story, he was more relaxed.
"He was handsome and had a strong presence. He seemed cold and aloof in a way, I don't know how to describe him."
My father's younger self, I want to see him so much too.
So much so that I wish I had been there then.
"As soon as he saw him, Yim Hyul-gwi trembled in fear. That was the first time I saw such extreme terror on someone's face. I could tell that the reason the fiend had been anxious the whole time he was there was because of that man. And what happened next was instantaneous. A bright light flashed, and that lecherous fiend collapsed, torn into unrecognizable pieces. A martial artist like you would like this kind of story, but in truth, my eyes saw nothing."
He must have angered my father to have been torn to shreds.
He probably raped and murdered a woman from the Heavenly Demon Divine Sect.
"So what did you do?"
"At first, I was frozen and couldn't say a word. When that person turned to look this way, I shouted. Please spare me. I am not with them."
Yong Ja-myeong went back to that day, to that place in the past.
He still remembered it.
The way those eyes looked at him.
The look in his eyes was asking for a reason.
Why should I believe you, why should I spare you.
Yong Ja-myeong intuitively knew that his life and death depended on his answer.
What should I say? His mind was racing, but his mouth was already speaking.
He hoped his instincts were working correctly.
"The man who tried to kill me always said that I would become a god of the merchant world. I want to achieve that."
He didn't know why he said those words.
The words just came out on their own.
The man did not handle things based on intuition alone.
He went to the table and looked at the contract placed there.
From the contract, he confirmed that the situation was one where he was being forced to sign.
This time, the man looked at Man So.
"He is lying. That man is…"
The man waited, but the next words did not come.
Man So had the eloquence to conjure up plausible words even in a situation like this, but today was different.
The moment he met the eyes of the man who was silently staring at him, his words strangely caught in his throat.
He had lived his entire life with hypocrisy and lies, but in this final moment, he died truthfully without being able to utter a single lie.
With a flash of light, his body was severed in two.
"Please, benefactor, tell me your name."
But the man left the place without a word.
"I will become the greatest merchant under heaven and surely repay you!"
He made the promise to that man that he couldn't make to the heavens.
It was a shame.
If only he had said a word of acknowledgement, if only he had at least smiled at him.
He left just as abruptly as he had come.
*
"This is what happened that day."
Geom Mugeuk raised his wine cup to him.
Yong Ja-myeong toasted his cup.
The two men drank in silence.
For a moment, they thought of the same person.
"You kept your promise to become the greatest merchant under heaven."
"But he doesn't know, does he?"
That was what was so regrettable.
He wanted to meet that person and tell him.
Do you remember? I am the person you saved back then.
As I said then, I have become the greatest merchant.
If only he could say those words, he felt he would have no regrets.
It could have been something he could have just brushed off as 'I was lucky', but for some reason he kept thinking of that person.
To the point where he felt he was entangled in the chains of fate.
"I tried every means to find my benefactor, but I couldn't. No one said they had seen him. Sometimes, I even think, was I dreaming?"
It was such a pity.
Growing older like this, year by year.
That person must have grown older too.
How would he have changed? What was he doing for a living?
"Do you perhaps have a sketch of him?"
At that, Yong Ja-myeong took out a piece of paper from his bosom.
He took it out carefully, as if it would crumble at the slightest touch.
"I always carry it in my bosom."
The paper, neatly folded inside a silk cloth, was old and discolored, and its edges looked as if they would tear at any moment.
"This is the original that I first drew then. I was going to make hundreds of copies of this to find him, but I stopped. Out of the thought that it would be a disservice to him."
Geom Mugeuk looked at the face drawn on the old paper.
It was so faded that a person seeing it for the first time wouldn't recognize it, but Geom Mugeuk saw his father in it.
Father.
So this is how I get to see my father in his youth.
"I can't remember his face clearly anymore."
He thought he would never forget, no, he was sure he would never forget, but like the paper on which that sketch was drawn, it gradually faded with the passing of time.
Yong Ja-myeong watched Geom Mugeuk as he looked at the sketch.
In his deep, clear eyes, he saw longing.
'Why is he looking at it like that?'
The next moment, Yong Ja-myeong flinched.
The man's face, which had been fading as if in a fog, began to come to mind.
Recently, the face had been growing fainter and fainter, but now it came to him as clearly as if it had happened yesterday.
‘Benefactor!’
When that face became clear, he was so happy to see it.
It was as vivid as if he were standing right in front of him.
'But why?'
What did the reason matter? This joyful feeling was what was important.
‘I have grown so old, but you have remained the same.
Benefactor, where are you and what are you doing now? Are you perhaps struggling without money? I have a lot of money.
Come find me and tell me to repay that kindness from back then!'
Then he absentmindedly looked at Geom Mugeuk.
"!"
Goosebumps rose all over his body.
He had a feeling that the benefactor from that time and Geom Mugeuk, who was in front of him now, had a similar feel.
It was as if the man from that time was sitting in front of him now.
Their appearances were clearly not that similar.
Right at that moment!
'Could it be?'
Over the face of his young benefactor, the face of another person began to overlap.
The face of the person who had summoned him here.
The face of the absolute ruler of this era.
And so, the face of the Demon Cult Master, Geom Woojin, crossed the long years and overlapped with the face of his young benefactor.
The two faces became one and the same.