Chapter 527

The end of the journey.

It had been a long journey.

From when Jin Ja-gang was first bitten by the Five Colored Centipede, tortured terribly by the Mang Ryo, digging in hell-like mine tunnels for eight years… he wandered searching and searching for an invisible enemy.

And… finally here.

His emotions were immeasurable.

Even Jin Ja-gang, who rarely showed emotion, trembled at his fingertips as feelings surged within him.

Wang Yan looked at Jin Ja-gang even with the Asura Scripture before him and smiled.

“The end of the journey? Well… it won’t be that simple. If I were you, I’d think at least once more about why my opponent responded and answered so kindly.”

“We’re done talking. Do you still have more to say?”

“Do you think I came to meet you with just this level of preparation?”

Wang Yan slowly raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

Snap!

The curtain behind Wang Yan began to be drawn back.

A large table hidden behind. Numerous documents and ledgers were stacked neatly upon it. Children rushed in and surrounded the documents. Some blocked them with their bodies as if protecting the documents from Jin Ja-gang.

Click click.

One of the children struck flint and lit a torch. Then they shared the lit torches.

“Promissory notes.”

Wang Yan said.

“Those documents stacked there are promissory notes. From the Ten Great Merchant Houses to large and small merchant associations. If you add up all the amounts on those notes, it would be a tremendous sum that doesn’t even come close to what was invested in the likes of Baek Li-jung.”

Wang Yan clasped his hands behind his back and spoke with an arrogant attitude.

“Among those are money I should receive, but also money I should give. If I die at your hands, the children will burn those promissory notes and destroy them. Then what will happen?”

A long… brutal smile appeared at the corners of Wang Yan’s mouth.

“Those who should receive money won’t receive it and will suffer great losses, right? The big merchant houses will endure, but the subcontracted merchant associations below them will go bankrupt one after another. Then the good people who worked there won’t receive their wages and will be driven out. They’ll lose their jobs overnight and won’t be able to feed their families.”

Wang Yan stretched out his finger and pointed at Jin Ja-gang.

“You. You’re the one taking away their jobs and starving their elderly mothers and wives and children!”

Jin Ja-gang looked at Wang Yan without a word. He frowned, creating fine wrinkles.

The Asura Scripture swayed. It swayed as if revealing Jin Ja-gang’s anguish, then drooped downward. It drooped completely and lay on the floor.

Excited, Wang Yan even pointed his finger at Jin Ja-gang while shouting.

“If you don’t care, then try to kill me! Hundreds of thousands of common people unrelated to your revenge will die in hunger and become bandits unable to overcome their poverty! All because of you…!”

Grab.

Jin Ja-gang grabbed Wang Yan’s index finger. He pressed firmly on the middle joint of Wang Yan’s index finger with his thumb.

Snap!

The middle of his index finger broke like rubbing a dried anchovy.

“…!”

Wang Yan’s face contorted as if struck by lightning and his jaw opened as wide as it could. He was so shocked and in pain that he couldn’t even scream.

Jin Ja-gang said.

“I wondered what you were going to say, but it’s just bullshit.”

At the words spoken so calmly, Wang Yan got chills. Wang Yan shouted desperately.

“Bullshit? Because of you, hundreds of thousands will lose their jobs…!”

“Why do you keep blaming me for what you did? Do you think that would threaten me?”

Jin Ja-gang pulled on the index finger and tore it off.

He tore it so roughly that blood spurted violently.

Only then did Wang Yan scream. No matter how great a merchant he was, he was an ordinary person far removed from pain. The torn-off finger hurt so much that his face and back were already drenched in sweat.

“Aaaagh! Aaagh!”

Wang Yan knelt in place and curled up, holding his torn finger while screaming.

“You bastard! Impudent bastard! How dare you… my finger…!”

Wang Yan shouted frantically.

“Light them!”

The children behind flinched.

Jin Ja-gang glared at the children. The children held the torches to the promissory notes and bared their teeth at Jin Ja-gang.

Wang Yan shouted desperately.

“If you want to stop them, you’ll have to kill all those kids! Pretending to be a hero, pretending to be a righteous person, kill dozens of children and become a demon and fall into hell!”

Wang Yan wanted to giggle and laugh, but his finger hurt too much for that.

Jin Ja-gang glared at the children. Then he commanded in a low voice.

“Stay as you are.”

At Jin Ja-gang’s cool voice, the children’s whole bodies froze.

That was something Wang Yan hadn’t thought of.

Jin Ja-gang already possessed dignity not as a martial artist but as a ruler. He had not just killing intent but supreme intimidating force.

Only someone like Wang Yan could endure Jin Ja-gang’s killing intent and intimidating force. How could ordinary children who merely learned basic martial arts endure Jin Ja-gang’s intimidating force!

The children’s pupils opened vacantly. In this wide hall, only Jin Ja-gang’s eyes were visible. Jin Ja-gang’s eyes gradually grew larger and pressed down on the children. Some children not even five or six years old couldn’t move and wet themselves on the spot. Even the slightly older children felt their legs give out and sat down. They barely held onto the torches without dropping them.

Sensing something wrong, Wang Yan turned to look at the children and shouted.

“How have I treated you! How dare you betray me! I brought you orphans who would soon starve to death and fed, clothed, and taught you well, yet you disobey me? Hurry and set the fire!”

The children could neither do this nor that. Even if they wanted to move, they couldn’t.

Jin Ja-gang released his intimidating aura.

The children tried to set the fire in that moment.

Then Jin Ja-gang said.

“I’ll give you fifteen minutes.”

Flinch.

The children looked at Jin Ja-gang.

“Even if you don’t light the fire, this place will become ashes within fifteen minutes. Your only chance to pack your things and leave the estate is now.”

The children didn’t understand Jin Ja-gang’s words. Jin Ja-gang continued.

“You can stay there and light the fire and die without escaping. That’s your choice.”

Only then did the children understand Jin Ja-gang’s words. Lang-ah, who was acquainted with Jin Ja-gang, said trembling.

“I, I don’t want to die. I’ve… already saved enough money to be independent…”

“Right. You have things you want to do and have worked hard toward that dream until now, so you’re scared you won’t achieve it right before your eyes.”

At Jin Ja-gang’s words, Lang-ah nodded. The other children were the same.

Jin Ja-gang raised both arms. The Asura Scripture shot up.

The children’s eyes were colored with fear.

“Engrave this in your bones.”

Jin Ja-gang swung both arms forcefully. The Asura Scripture flew like beams of light toward the children.

If a life is only about eating and surviving, how is that life different from beasts!

“Aagh!”

“Aaaagh!”

The children screamed. The Asura Scripture pierced precisely through the backs of the children’s right hands and came out. The torches the children were holding flew up. The Asura Scripture struck all the torches away in all directions. Not one fell on the table.

Instead, fires started in various places of the hall from the torches that flew. The children held their bleeding hands and burst into tears.

Jin Ja-gang said in a tone filled with killing intent.

“Listen well. I’ve memorized all of your scents, faces, gazes, and the wounds on your hands. If you remain as beasts rather than humans even after becoming adults, you will surely meet me.”

Jin Ja-gang extended his hand and pointed to the exit.

The children rushed out competing with each other.

“Where are you going! You bastards! You bastaards!”

Wang Yan shouted as if spitting blood, but the children ran away without even looking back once.

Jin Ja-gang muttered toward the passing children.

“Fear death. The more afraid you are, the more you’ll understand the preciousness of life. That is the value of your lives.”

Wang Yan got up desperately. He tried to run to where the promissory notes were. However, Jin Ja-gang was already blocking his way.

Jin Ja-gang said.

“I’ll give you a chance.”

Wang Yan glared at Jin Ja-gang bewildered, grinding his teeth.

“Now you’re saying… you’ll give me a chance?”

Jin Ja-gang picked up a teacup from the refreshment table and poured tea. Then he placed it on the small table.

“If you have the courage to drink even one sip, I’ll forgive you.”

Was the tea poisoned or not?

But either way, Wang Yan had no way to survive from Jin Ja-gang’s hands. It might be better to drink poisoned tea and die rather than be tortured. Or perhaps he would really let him live.

Moreover, if those promissory notes weren’t processed, the Central Plains’ economy would literally be destroyed! Even though he said that kind of thing wasn’t threatening or not, seeing how he prevented the children from lighting the fire, it clearly weighed on his mind!

Furthermore, Jin Ja-gang bent down and picked up one promissory note that had fallen on the floor.

Wang Yan quickly grabbed the teacup, afraid Jin Ja-gang’s mind would change.

However, the teacup didn’t come along. Only the top part of the teacup came away. The upper body of the teacup was cut off, and the bottom part remained on the small table with the tea sloshing.

Wang Yan looked at Jin Ja-gang incredulously. Jin Ja-gang was holding the promissory note stiffly upright.

Did he really cut the teacup horizontally with a paper promissory note?

“One sip.”

At Jin Ja-gang’s words, Wang Yan ground his teeth and grabbed the teacup again.

Slice.

This time too, the teacup didn’t lift. His arm lifted but his wrist remained attached to the small table, holding the teacup.

“Ugh, uaaaagh!”

To the screaming Wang Yan, Jin Ja-gang said.

“Not one sip but one drop. If you drink even one drop, I’ll let you live.”

Wang Yan’s face turned red and even bloodshot appeared in his eyes. However, he bit his lower lip hard and endured.

Paradoxically…

Even though his body hurt and he screamed, his desire for life was growing even stronger than before.

“Kill me if you’re going to kill me!”

It was do or die. Wang Yan, with his wrist cut off, covered the small table with his whole body.

Crash!

He deliberately pushed the small table to drop the teacup.

One drop, one drop would do.

The teacup fell to the floor and broke, with tea pooling abundantly. Wang Yan prostrated himself on the floor, knelt, and stuck out his tongue to lick the tea.

Slice.

Wang Yan’s tongue flew off from the promissory note Jin Ja-gang swung.

Now there was no tongue left to lick the tea.

Wang Yan was so incredulous that he raised his upper body and, still kneeling, looked up at Jin Ja-gang vacantly.

Gurgle gurgle. Blood kept filling his mouth.

Jin Ja-gang looked at Wang Yan coldly and said.

“If you’re curious about what will happen after this journey ends, don’t worry too much.”

Jin Ja-gang raised the promissory note. What he held was a promissory note, but now Wang Yan no longer saw it as a promissory note.

“My personal journey for revenge has ended, but there’s still a burden someone entrusted to me. From now on, I’ll go to do that work. That’s probably something you wouldn’t understand.”

Jin Ja-gang recited in a chilly voice.

“There are no blessings for you in death. See you in hell.”

Wang Yan barely, with great difficulty, spat out words with his severed tongue.

“Bas…tard…”

Slash!

The promissory note emitted a sharp light and passed across Wang Yan’s neck.