The beggar sect is one of the nine great martial sects of murim. They are composed entirely of beggars that have learned martial arts and the ammount of knots on their belt signifies their rank within the sect with new members having one, elders having nine and the sect leader having ten. My target had 3. The members of the beggar sect are present in every nook and cranny of the country, nearly indistinguishable from normal beggars and thus are one of the greatest information brokers of the martial realm.
Yet their martial arts do not lag behind any of the other great sects. Once reaching five knots one is allowed to learn the eighteen subduing dragon palms, one of the greatest martial arts still known to the world rivaling even mount hua's plum blossom sword technique. But the strongest martial art of the beggar sect is the dog beating staff technique which only the sect leader and their direct disciple are allowed to learn. Mastering that martial art even halfway is said to be enough to make someone one of the one hundred strongest martial masters in the murim.
-
Nightfall came fast but the beggar was still at his spot. The wind had pushed his hat off his head, revealing his face. He was middle aged, and had bags under his eyes but what piqued my interest were his sunk cheeks. He must have gone hungry for a while and that was an opportunity I couldn't let pass me up.
If I could manipulate his need for food I could use poison to take him out. He only had three knots on his belt meaning he was still low ranking in the beggar sect. Whatever martial art he practiced wouldn't be impressive but that just meant he wouldn't be able to find and expel the poison before it was too late. And there was one way I could capitalize on it. Sneak out to the nearby forest to forage for a very specific kind of poison. But before that, I had to test how easy getting him to eat something would be.
I took a long breath and forced a smile on my face. I reached into the steamer and grabbed one of the two pork buns leftover for me and mister Joo to have dinner. Before taking it out, I squeezed it to make its shape ugly and cause some rips to form. I then approached the beggar confidently, squatted next to him and poked his shoulder.
"What do you want?" The beggar growled, barely acknowledging my existence .
"I wanted to give you something to eat. I saw you didn't eat anything all day and we had some misshapen buns today so I thought I'd bring you one." I extended my hands and presented the ruined pork bun to him.
The moment food was mentioned his eyes opened widely and he turned to face me. His hand reached for the bun I was presenting him with, shoving it in his mouth without hesitation. With an appetite like that he had sealed his own fate.
"Thank you." He said while still chewing.
"I'll try to bring you something tomorrow as well sir. Stay safe, the night gets cold." As I turned away from the beggar and started walking away I heard him swallow loudly.
I turned my head only to see him back to being half asleep. My gaze lingered on him for a while longer but he was back to normal.
"What was that for?" Mister Joo asked when I returned to the stand.
"Aren't you the one that told me to help people in need, Pops?" I yawned loudly and patted him on the back.
"I told you to help people in need but I also told you not to do it to your detriment. You're making yourself go hungry for this lazy guy's sake." Mister Joo put all of our steamers on his shoulder and walked them into our working shed. "Look at him. He's not disabled. He's younger than me too. If I can work, so can he."
"Don't tell me you haven't noticed Pops. That beggar is no normal beggar." I waited for him to get out of the shed before tossing him the large metal lock we use on the shed to keep people away from our goods and equipment.
"What do you mean he's no normal beggar? He's begging around pretty normally as I see it." Mister Joo slammed the wooden door closed, rattling the entire building followed by the loud scraping of the lock being put in place and locked.
"He's from the beggar sect. If I win him over he might teach me some martial arts." I whispered, careful not to be heard. I couldn't tell him my true intentions. It would break his heart.
"Then what?" Mister Joo's eyebrows furrowed as his eyes met mine.
"Then I can get strong and help you retire early. Your hair is starting to gray and I can hear you groaning when you get out of bed." I patted him in the back. "You're growing old Pops."
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
"I'm still forty-three years young, you punk. My hair won't go silver for a long time." He growled and wrapped his large meaty arm around me, pulling me in for a hug.
I hadn't felt normal in so long that I had forgotten how it felt. Yet such a mundane interaction overwhelmed me with joy to the point of barely holding back tears. Even as an assassin trained to show only the feelings I wanted to, my face still contorted unwillingly.
"Huh, what's going on? Why's your face like that?" Mister Joo asked with concern in his voice.
"What's not going on is you having a bath. You reek of sweat and pork." I replied with a chuckle.
"Now you've done it." Mister Joo wrapped his hand around my head in a headlock and his teeth shone in a malicious smile.
-
The night sky loomed over my head while I slowly made my way into the forest. My small lamp was able to burn bright enough to illuminate most of my surroundings but with a light so intense it would only be able to run for about two hours. I had to be quick.
The forest always was difficult to traverse even when its layout was fresh in my head and in broad daylight. The massive century old trees covered the sky with their canopy making the night a starless one. There wasn't much danger in the area I was in but my target was well hidden. A cluster of tiny gray mushrooms with thin yellow stripes across their stalks and caps.
It was known to very few of the local foragers and lumberjack for working as a pain reliever and an aid for restful sleep among those with chronic pain from work. But what those foragers didn't know was that those mushrooms are an underdeveloped version of the eternal sleep poison mushroom, a mushroom capable of killing even an expert with a single bite without leaving any trace of poison. The only difference between those two was that the eternal sleep mushroom grew in an environment rich in ki.
So, what would happen if a martial artist whose entire body was full of ki ate a yellow striped mushroom? The answer is simple. The benign mushroom would absorb some of the internal energy and become poisonous. While its lethality is less than the eternal sleep poison mushroom it would still be able to kill most unsuspecting non-expert martial artists.
My lamp had run through half of its fuel already when I finally spotted my targets. A cluster of 10 barely matured yellow striped mushrooms. They were deeply under the root of a tree with an opening barely enough for my body to fit through. If I were to grind them into paste it would be more than enough to kill a beggar with just three knots on his belt.
I lowered myself to my knees and crawled under the root of the tree, my hands touching the wet soil. I took out my pocket knife and cut into the ground around each mushroom, keeping the dirt around their roots as I put them in my satchel so their faint poison would not lose any of its potency on the trip back.
I pushed myself out of the opening and stood up, my face and clothes covered in dirt. I closed my satchel tightly and put it under my clothes in direct contact with my skin. I couldn't let even one fall out of my grasp. To me, those mushrooms were worth more than their weight in gold.
-
The next day went on smoothly. I woke up early to rub away any evidence I had left the night before. After scrubbing away my muddy footsteps from inside the house and discarding my stained clothes I worked on my 'special' pork bun. I cleaned the dirt off the mushrooms, put them in the mortar and pestle mister Joo used to make our spice blend and mashed them into a fine paste. Then, that paste was merged with a portion of our pork filling and put into a bun which I would discreetly cook along with our product.
Minutes felt like hours as my anticipation built up. Customer after customer I went through the same day I had appreciated upon returning to the past much like I would in a mission for the cult. And then, the time finally came. As the night escorts started roaming the streets we closed shop. I grabbed the poisoned bun and as I went to approach the beggar, Mister Joo's meaty hand grabbed me by the shoulder.
"Are you doing that again?" He said in a stern yet mellow tone.
"If I can get his trust then we'd be set for life. No more counting every single coin. Who knows? We might even be able to hold a gold tael." I lied to his face for the second time. It was necessary evil.
"Very well." He sighed, letting me go.
I approached the beggar the same way I had the previous day but this time he heard me approach and greeted me with a smile.
"You really kept your promise huh mister?" He swiped the bun off my hand and devoured it like he had done the day before.
"I did. I'll bring you one tomorrow as well." I gave him a smile and turned back towards our stall.
"I'll be waiting for ya. Thanks for the food." The beggar spoke, his mouth still full of food.
"See you soon."
-
Nightfall again, I made my way out. Slipping through the shadows as if I was never there. The small city was fully asleep excluding the red lights district. And there I saw the beggar. Fast asleep at his usual spot across our stand. Or at least that's what any passerby would have thought.
I approached. I put my hand under his tattered clothes, feeling his cold lifeless body as I pulled a leather bound booklet loose from his belt. The manual reeked with a foul odor and mold grew on its cover, partially covering its name 'Four steps of the Crane Palms'.
I wanted to feel guilty about taking the beggar's life but all I could feel was excitement as I held the worn out leather manual I stole from the man's body firmly in my hands. My new chance at life was depending on me using that manual in order to feel and gather some internal energy. I had to learn martial arts and the reason as to why was simple.
In two years' time a common first rate warrior from the heavenly demonic cult would come upon a fortuitous encounter that in the span of six years would turn him into one of the four demonic generals of the cult. That man was my former sworn brother Gyo, the first friend I made within that hellish cult. He was the bud of the rose, the only member in our squad allowed to learn martial arts so he could infiltrate escort agencies and manors as a guard instead of a simple porter or servant.
He was trying to escape from a mid-sized sect affiliated with the Namgung clan after being outed as a demonic practitioner. But as he was about to get caught, he absentmindedly fell into a chasm on the ground, barely surviving the fall. That's when he found it. The inheritance of a long forgotten martial master nicknamed the Jade Dragon. He didn't tell me the details but the manual for his martial art, the Pristine Jade Claws was there.
The cult coveted the martial art so they took Gyo to the inner cult to groom him into a great master. And they did just that. They fed him all sorts of miracle drugs to increase his internal energy. That's what he said to me the last time I saw him as himself. I heard rumors that he fell into ki deviation and succumbed to his inner demon, becoming a cruel and sadistic man. I refused to believe them until he appeared in my cell after my failure at the Golden Sparrow mission. He beat me half to death because I caused him embarrassment with the higher-ups and told me to never call him my sworn brother again.
But I'd use this chance in order to take his martial art before he ever finds it and accumulate enough power to never feel powerless or fear again. That was my goal in this life.