Episode 37. The Leader’s Lesson
The Star-Sucking Grand Law, of course, is a martial art derived from the Heavenly Jade. If you only look at the power that pulls objects in, you could call it a type of object-grabbing void art. But once you factor in how the Heavenly Jade absorbs the energy of pills, it’s an outright supernatural ability.
I’d gained a power I never asked for, and I was lying in a bed that didn’t feel like mine, so sleep didn’t come easily.
On top of that, even the servants were a pain.
“Gang Leader? Who shall we call to attend you tonight?”
The leader had changed, but I guess they couldn’t just skip the questions they were used to asking.
“What attendance?”
“Pardon? Well, it’s just that…”
Looked like the dead Rabbit had been spending his nights with the servants.
At that, I uncovered another reason why the Black Cat Gang’s previous leader died so easily at my hands. With a long way to go and unfinished martial arts, sleeping around with that many women makes progress very difficult.
If you keep fooling around during training, you get muscle loss.
Muscle loss is not a term you’ll hear at a prestigious orthodox sect, and you won’t find it in most martial manuals.
When the Hao Gate I’d hastily founded in my previous life went under before it could shine, there were a few idiots who stuck by me so closely that “Mad” kept getting tacked onto my nickname.
The phrase “muscle loss” was something the Fist King, one of those idiots, used all the time. There are a handful of fools I’m fond of in the Jianghu, and the Fist King is one of them.
Madmen tend to get along with fools.
I don’t really know why. If there’s a common thread, it’s that neither of us spends much time calculating what we do with our lives.
Thinking of muscle loss naturally brought the Fist King to mind, and that consummate idiot made me smile up at the ceiling.
“That dumb bastard’s out there training somewhere, I bet.”
Just tracking down all the people I’d tangled with in my previous life was no small task. I didn’t know every detail of their pasts, so I’d have to spend time and effort to find them.
Still, compared to enemies and “allies” alike, I was getting stronger at a pace that wasn’t falling behind. That much was a relief.
I spoke to the servant waiting outside the door.
“Did the previous leader make you do weird things at night?”
I only asked because it felt strange how casually they were talking.
“Yes. In the summer we’d fan him all night to keep him cool. When it was cold, we were the ones who kept him warm. And if he had trouble sleeping, we would massage him through the night.”
I couldn’t help but sigh.
“Listen, from now on I’m not going to order any of that. Sleep comfortably. The leader’s changed, so your daily lives will be a little easier too. Go back to your quarters and rest.”
“Yes, Gang Leader.”
The servants, who’d been stiff with nerves since the leadership changed, traded glances and barely hid the joy on their faces.
I’d joked about becoming the vanguard of the Great Jianghu Anti-Slavery Front… and now that I looked around, this place was already full of slaves. Not every criminal gang is like this, but the Great Rakshasa himself and the disciples he raised clearly weren’t normal people.
In that case, I couldn’t help it either.
I’d just have to give them a proper lesson in the Black Cat Leader’s name.
I finally tried to sleep, in the quarters reserved for the Black Cat Gang’s leader, hidden in the deepest part of the compound.
A long day ended, buried in darkness along with the underworld.
The biggest threat to Ilyang Prefecture has always been the Black Cat Gang.
And now I happened to be the Black Cat Gang’s leader, so there was no urgent need to hurry back to Ilyang.
I ate breakfast with the gang’s executives and wrapped up a short morning meeting.
Maybe because all the key people were gathered there, a subordinate came into the main hall to report we had a visitor.
“A woman is here, Gang Leader. She says she has news about Ilyang Prefecture to report. If it were anything else, I would’ve sent her away. But since it concerns Ilyang, I thought you should hear it… What should we do?”
The one reporting was under Shao Junpyeong, who’d been in charge of external security.
“Just one person?”
“Yes.”
Shao asked me,
“Shall I have her brought in?”
I nodded, and he gave his subordinate a slight nod in turn.
What news from Ilyang could there be?
No matter how I thought about it, nothing particular came to mind, so I couldn’t guess. Still, it’s my hometown, the seat of the Hao Gate, and where the Zahe Inn is being built, so it wasn’t something I could ignore.
For all I knew, the Black Lotus Casino might have started throwing its weight around.
But the moment I saw the woman brought in by the Gold Dragon Pavilion warrior, I grasped the situation.
Lady Son from Plum Blossom House, who’d vanished without a trace, approached with a slightly frightened look on her face.
…You?
Naturally, I was wearing the Black Cat Gang leader’s mask. I folded my arms, so Junpyeong asked the questions in my place.
“Tell the Gang Leader in detail what happened.”
Lady Son spoke in a trembling voice.
“Y-yes. I am Son Sosso, from Ilyang Prefecture.”
First time I’d heard her full name.
“Pretty name.”
At my comment, she glanced at me and continued.
She was nervous, so her story wasn’t exactly organized. In short, the Zahe Inn’s tavern boy had killed the brothel owners one by one and taken complete control of Ilyang.
Great news, in other words.
Professionally known as: a report long overdue.
This was the sort of petty survival tactic you saw at the bottom of the barrel.
Still, I am a generous man. Listening to a third-person account of what I’d personally done, I nodded a few times behind the mask and replied briefly,
“I see. Good news.”
The executives listened and could hardly believe their ears.
The tavern boy in Ilyang was obviously me. Which meant the current gang leader was being directly informed of his own deeds by the woman who’d come “to report.”
Shao Junpyeong looked flustered and watched my reaction.
I asked, as if meeting her for the first time,
“Brave lady. Do you have any place to go?”
“I do not.”
“That’s unfortunate. How about this: if I put you in charge of the servants, how does that sound?”
She asked back, eyes brightening,
“Really?”
“If you’re willing. You worked at Plum Blossom House, and you’re about the right age. You’ve got enough experience. Perfect fit.”
“Gang Leader, if you’ll entrust it to me, I will do my very best.”
“Then let’s promise two things.”
“Yes.”
“First: betrayal is death.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
I pointed at her mouth with my finger, kindly explaining the second condition.
“And especially, be careful with that mouth of yours. Got it?”
The request didn’t quite make sense, but she nodded vigorously.
“Yes, Gang Leader.”
“Good. You’re hired.”
Newly re-employed, Lady Son clasped her hands together and answered with a delighted expression.
“I’m truly grateful. I’ll serve you with all my heart.”
“You should be grateful. I’m the one giving you another chance. Let’s get along, Miss Son… Lady Son Sosso. Lovely name. Haha.”
While I was speaking, I took off the Black Cat leader’s mask.
The moment she saw my face, Lady Son let out a strange, clipped little shriek and fainted on the spot. The atmosphere chilled instantly.
Apparently this is in fashion these days.
“She fainted?”
One of the executives put a finger under her nose.
“Gang Leader, she just passed out from shock. Her breathing is normal.”
“Good. Have the servants look after her. Fainting the moment she sees me… how disrespectful.”
Soon after, the servants rushed out, grabbed her by the arms and legs, and dragged her away somewhere. Watching Lady Son still alive did make me feel oddly relieved.
She’s a woman with nowhere to go. If I don’t take her in, who will?
I’m a merciful man like that.
And the Hao Gate was always meant to be such a place.
I gathered the idle underlings of the Black Cat Gang out in the front courtyard.
The core of strengthening an organization is group training, group conditioning, group drills, and group ideological education.
Only when you suffer together does camaraderie bloom.
And I had to forge them into elites if I wanted an easier time crushing the Black Lotus Casino later. To be honest, since they hadn’t been my subordinates to begin with, I fully intended to be harsher with them.
Let criminals collide with criminals…
But as the one who’d become their boss, I also planned to kill as few of them as possible.
In other words, training was the answer.
And I do have my pride as a gang leader; I wasn’t planning to let them live a pathetic life.
I stepped up alone onto the platform and looked down at the ragtag bunch of thugs waiting for me.
“Since it’s the first day, I’ll personally supervise your training today. Executives will apply my methods as-is from now on. For the Black Path, the first priority is training, the second is drills, the third is duels. Outside of eating, shitting, and sleeping, every moment will be devoted to getting stronger. Before lunch, every last one of you will do physical conditioning. No exceptions.”
I said “physical conditioning,” but what I wanted was hell training.
These are people who spend their whole lives stealing, robbing, and brawling. There was no reason at all to go easy on them.
I spotted old Chief Byuk, the eldest, looking at me, and tossed him a lifeline.
“Old Chief Byuk is exempt from physical drills.”
His face lit up.
“Thank you, Gang Leader.”
I issued the first training order to the lined-up Black Cat fighters.
“Everyone except Gold Dragon Pavilion—standard push-up position. Now. Gold Dragon Pavilion, head to the rear courtyard. Make sandbags and then come back to pile them on the backs of your comrades who’ve already started. Shao Junpyeong, take them.”
“Understood.”
If you think Jianghu experts get strong just by building internal energy, you’re dead wrong.
External training is the essence of fighting. And the foundation of external training is nothing special. All you can do is push your body to its limits, over and over.
The quickest way to break through those limits is simple: slap on a ridiculous amount of weight. That was the Fist King’s usual, stupid-sounding theory.
In other words, this training I was putting the Black Cat Gang through was the very same meathead regimen the Fist King had systematized.
While Gold Dragon Pavilion hustled off to make sandbags, the gang’s fighters wore dumbfounded expressions as they dropped into push-ups.
They weren’t taking it seriously at all.
I was.
“From now until you hit five hundred reps. Fast.”
“……!”
“Once you finish five hundred, you can rest in horse stance. Executives only need to do a hundred first, then stand and go fetch wooden practice swords. We’ll beat the slackers senseless while they finish.”
I glanced affectionately at idle Chief Byuk and gave him something to do.
“Chief Byuk.”
“Yes, Gang Leader.”
“Go inside and work on your reports. Don’t just stand around here.”
“Ah, understood.”
As the rank-and-file started slowing down, I pushed them.
“I’ll give gold to the first five who finish five hundred.”
Money is always the strongest motivator.
Since it wasn’t my money anyway, I fully intended to shower diligent subordinates with silver like flower petals. Black Path or not, everyone’s just trying to make a living.
“Faster. Faster. Cleaner. Faster. Executives, memorize today’s regiment. You’ll be the instructors from now on.”
The executives’ push-ups were blazing fast.
As soon as they hit their hundred, they popped up here and there. I gave the order immediately.
“Executives, bring wooden swords and whack anyone trying to slack off. Hit them until just before they die. I’ll allow broken bones.”
The executives seemed thrilled at the idea of beating their subordinates. They used light footwork to sprint off for the wooden swords.
The Black Path is full of weird bastards.
I kept ratcheting up the threats.
“Better finish those five hundred quick. The sandbags are coming soon. Obviously, once they arrive, the remaining reps will be done with that weight on your backs. What sounds easier, huh? This now, or that later? Then move. Faster, faster, faster!”
Someone let out a scream like a dying animal.
“Kkyaaaaaaa!”
I nodded.
“Nice. Very nice. Just now… you expressed your rising pain very well through that scream. I’ll allow screaming if it hurts. What matters is hitting all five hundred, fast and clean. For a Black Path gang to be struggling with five hundred push-ups… pathetic, honestly.”
I broke into a cackle.
Meanwhile, the executives returned with wooden swords and immediately started whacking backsides.
Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!
After watching a bit, I gave further instructions.
“Executives.”
“Yes, Gang Leader.”
“Hit only your direct subordinates. Don’t go around pounding members of other branches just because you don’t like them.”
See? I’m a fair man.
“Ah, understood.”
The beating sounds died down a little. Looked like they’d been focusing on other people’s men earlier.
But the real suffering was just beginning.
I addressed the warriors who’d already passed three hundred reps.
“Shao Junpyeong will be bringing you some sandbags soon. Isn’t that exciting? My heart’s pounding already. Hurry up.”
Sure enough, Shao appeared with his men and their sandbags. I held up a hand to have them wait.
Wait.
While the Gold Dragon Pavilion stood quietly by, the courtyard filled with the drip of sweat hitting stone, the rhythm of push-ups, screams, and the thwack of wooden swords all mingling into a beautiful chorus.
I have to grow the Hao Gate, raise this criminal force, meet the people from my past life, and soon enough, give the Twelve Zodiac Generals and the Great Rakshasa a proper beating.
Busy days indeed.
And yet, somehow, all of it felt peaceful to me.