Chapter 65 - Ear Ghost

Though the Heavenly Demon Castle was the largest single power in Murim, it lacked the strength to contend with the entire Central Plains. Had it possessed an army on the scale of a nation's, it could have surrounded the enemy strongholds and laid waste to the remaining regions. But it had never had enough men for that. Whenever its main force tried to besiege and attack a major sect, the Murim Alliance's rear detachments invariably emerged to strike it from behind.

Even so, riding its early advantage, the Heavenly Demon Castle conquered the Kongtong Sect, Kunlun Sect, Emei Sect, Qingcheng Sect, and Tang Clan. But it paid for those victories in blood.

Had that provided the opening? As the Heavenly Demon Castle paused to catch its breath, the Murim Alliance found its chance to counterattack.

With four of the Nine Sects and One Gang and two of the Five Great Families fallen, sects and gangs throughout the Central Plains began to grow anxious. Sensing the danger, small and medium-sized sects joined the Murim Alliance one after another. Once that trend took hold, sects from across the country flocked to Zhengzhou, all eager to join.

As a result, the Black-White Great War entered a new phase.

The Heavenly Demon Castle, which had once advanced as far as Shaanxi in the heart of the Central Plains, was soon driven back to Gansu. Its branches, which had risen simultaneously in Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong, Henan, Hunan, Jiangxi, and elsewhere, were all crushed. Riding that momentum, the Murim Alliance even succeeded in reclaiming Mount Kongtong and the Tang Family Estate.

It went without saying that both the Heavenly Demon Castle and the Murim Alliance suffered staggering losses in the process. Afterward, the war raged on, the advantage shifting fiercely back and forth.

Along the borders of Gansu and Sichuan, the two sides repeatedly advanced and retreated. Blood flowed in streams, torn flesh gathered into hills, and corpses piled up like mountains.

The fighting grew ever fiercer, but neither side could completely overwhelm the other. In the end, the Black-White Great War began to show signs of becoming a prolonged conflict and settled into a war of attrition. Representatives from the two sides had not met to discuss a truce, yet the flames of war naturally died down considerably.

On the surface, the victor of this sudden Black-White Great War was the Hall of Gathered Evil. Taking advantage of the struggle between the Murim Alliance and the Heavenly Demon Castle, it succeeded in seizing control of the underground economy throughout the Central Plains. It also amassed enormous wealth by selling weapons and supplies to both sides. It had truly profited from others' strife amid Murim's turmoil.

Weapons were normally subject to state control and could not be sold freely, but Murim factions were a different matter. The principle of noninterference between the authorities and the martial world applied here as well.

From the perspective of the imperial court and the authorities, anything was tolerable so long as those blades were not turned against them. And when the martial artists were waging a great war among themselves, as they were now, what did a little arms dealing matter? Those people were thorns in their sides anyway. If they could not be controlled, then allowing them free rein was good enough if it reduced their strength. Eradicating them was impossible in any case. Murim had never disappeared in all of recorded history, and it had endured while maintaining ties of some kind with the authorities. Since people in both the government and the imperial court also studied and practiced martial arts, the relationship could perhaps be called symbiotic. Their existence did, undeniably, help strengthen national defenses and deter war.

Even so, the authorities always kept watch over Murim. This was especially true now, with barbarians recently having invaded the borders. The frontier was every bit as troubled as Murim.

War raged fiercely not only in Murim but also along the northern reaches of the Central Plains. And that was where the phrase "mountains of corpses and seas of blood" truly belonged. If ten people died in Murim in a day, hundreds died there—and sometimes the daily toll reached into the thousands.

Yet with death so widespread, opportunities also opened up.

There were those who wandered the world with no fixed allegiance, selling their swords to survive.

They were a peculiar breed who found more work, not less, when the world fell into chaos. Interestingly, there was demand for them from both Murim and the authorities.

When Murim hired them, they became vagabond warriors. When the authorities bought their services, they became mercenaries.

Whatever they were called, one thing was certain. No matter what fine words one used to dress them up, they were ruthless hunters of men. That much was indisputably true.

Datong, a city in the far north of Shanxi Province.

The vagabond market was open here today, as always. Vicious-looking men carrying swords, sabers, and axes sprawled here and there, their eyes glinting. A few lay down to sleep, but most were waiting for sword brokers to connect them with employers. These brokers matched employers with vagabonds suited to the difficulty of a commission, taking a small profit in return. The market buzzed with haggling and the sounds of brokers quarreling as they tried to win customers away from one another.

The portable dwellings of the northern barbarians, called gers, had also been set up throughout the vagabond market. Inside, ears taken on hunts were exchanged for silver ingots or coins. The term "ear hunting" was not commonly used elsewhere, but here it referred to hunting humans. There was no special reason for the name. It was simply what they called going to war and taking the barbarians' ears. The mercenaries made their money by selling those ears to ear brokers in the gers. The brokers bundled them in sacks, handed them over to military officers, and exchanged them for silver.

Those who worked here as mercenaries were usually low-grade vagabonds. Anyone with reasonably useful skills could apply to the Murim Alliance's Vagabond Corps or the Heavenly Demon Castle's Outer Demon Corps. Those accepted departed for Gansu, where they would turn their blades on one another. Though they were destined to fight each other, both sides sometimes recruited them from the very same place.

Strangely enough, neither the Murim Alliance nor the Heavenly Demon Castle cared. For them, all that mattered was the war of attrition itself. Since they could not end the war anyway, this was how they conserved their true fighting strength.

Apart from those men, exceptionally skilled vagabonds mainly worked as bodyguards for important officials or escorted shipments for escort agencies. Such work paid better and was safer. Naturally, it also demanded considerable skill.

Markets like this were common not only in Datong but throughout the borderlands. Vagabonds were especially important in brutal times like these. When law and order fell into disarray, those who existed outside them took on greater significance.

They had reduced public order in the surrounding cities to a shambles, but the northern expeditionary army and the garrisons consistently turned a blind eye. Vagabonds were a necessary evil, after all. Scum like these were the same wherever they went. Better to pay them to shed blood in someone else's place here; that was enough. And whether the common people living in these remote borderlands suffered was no concern of the officials charged with governing them.

If the vagabonds were hunting dogs, the people here were rabbits and bitches thrown to them to appease their savagery.

The most important task in Datong was to repel and hunt down the northern nomadic tribes. The vagabonds were tools for that purpose. A good hunter knew to keep his hounds content by tossing them meat now and then, and a bitch when they were in heat. So long as that kept the hounds from biting their master, the master was satisfied.

"We're heading to Guishui on an ear hunt. Anyone interested, don't hesitate to sign up! Two silver coins per ear!"

The vagabond market suddenly grew much busier. More than a dozen military officers had appeared. Their loud voices carried into every corner of the market, drawing the attention of the low-grade vagabonds. Two silver coins was a considerable sum, but it was cheap if it meant sparing a well-trained soldier. For that reason, the army's hiring of mercenaries was an everyday occurrence here.

The scale, however, was unusual. Even in a vagabond market, it was rare to see more than a dozen officers recruiting mercenaries at once. That many officers meant they were hiring hundreds, perhaps even a thousand or more.

It was a sign of a large-scale expedition to come. For low-grade vagabonds, of course, it was an excellent job opportunity. With luck, they might easily collect several people's ears. With even better luck, they might obtain the ears of children or fallen comrades without having to lift a finger.

"I'll go."

"So will I."

"Me too."

Soon, vagabonds who had been sprawled asleep throughout the market rose to sign up for the ear hunt.

"Name?"

"Ho Gu."

"Gang Pae."

The officers entered the volunteers' names in their recruitment registers one by one. The purpose was to have at least a basic count of their men. Vagabonds were so utterly willful that knowing their numbers and names made them easier to control.

Each officer recorded roughly a hundred names. Given the number of officers, that meant they had recruited more than a thousand mercenaries. It was a hiring effort on a scale unprecedented even here.

"Anyone else?"

The man who appeared to be the most senior officer called out loudly. No one stepped forward; apparently there were no more volunteers. He asked, "Anyone else?" one final time, then closed the register.

It was then that a man sauntered over to him, took the brush from his hand, and opened the register.

The man was of average height, with a very solid build. His hair, grown long down his back, was filthy, and his loose bangs hung over both eyes.

Though the brush had been snatched from his hand without warning, the officer did not reproach him. He knew who the man was. In fact, every officer who had come here knew him.

So long as it was not rabid, the best hunting dog was one with powerful jaws. And this man with his eyes hidden behind his bangs stood out even here. Over the past year, hundreds upon thousands of vagabonds had died, but he had survived. Vagabonds who volunteered as mercenaries were generally low-grade fighters, yet despite his skill, he continued to do mercenary work. To the army, he was the perfect hound to put to use.

The officer gave a small chuckle and looked down at the register.