Chapter 198: Proselytization (2)

Among the young women of Lanzhou, there was one tea house that enjoyed unrivaled popularity.

But wherever flowers bloom, bees are bound to gather.

As women's gazes flocked to Jeong Hyeon, there were naturally quite a few who weren't too pleased about it.

"Tsk."

One such man sat there, his face flushed red with anger.

He'd heard that a woman he'd been pining after frequented this place, so he'd shown up pretending it was just a coincidence and miraculously managed to sit at her table. But even though he was right there with her, she kept sneaking glances at that pale, pretty-boy-looking bastard over there who resembled some rich madam’s plaything.

Unable to contain his rage, the man stood up.

As he stormed toward the Jade-Faced Young Master, the woman who'd been sitting with him belatedly realized what was happening and jumped up to chase after him in alarm.

But before she could stop him, the man had already closed the distance to Jeong Hyeon.

"You look like a rich madam’s plaything. Came here to toy with women's hearts, did you?"

In response to the man's provocation, the Jade-Faced Young Master remained seated and only glancing up at him with eyes that seemed lost in melancholy before turning away.

For Jeong Hyeon, meeting someone's eyes directly at such close range was simply too difficult to bear.

But the man took that attitude as a sign of contempt.

“You son of a bitch!”

He was so furious that he just lost it and threw a punch.

To Jeong Hyeon, whose five senses had been heightened to an extreme degree thanks to the Ghostly Spirit Divine Bow, that punch seemed to crawl through the air like a caterpillar.

Now, it was true that her side effects usually made her freeze up solid when people got this close, but she was still someone who'd graduated from the Hall of the Demonic Way, the elite training facility that only accepted the most talented believers of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.

Thwack!

Her palm shot out faster than anyone watching could perceive and hit the attacking man square in the stomach.

"Kuh..."

The man who'd started the confrontation collapsed with a choked groan.

The eyes of the woman who'd rushed over to stop him went wide with shock.

'Oh my. So quiet and dignified, yet so capable...'

She wasn't actually quiet by nature. She simply kept her mouth shut because conversing with people was difficult for her.

But regardless of Jeong Hyeon's actual circumstances, that woman was already completely smitten.

And she wasn't the only one.

Every woman sitting in the tea house who'd been watching the scene unfold felt a storm of emotions surging through their heart.

The Jade-Faced Young Master with that androgynous charm and beautiful face actually possessed enough strength to subdue a troublemaker with a single strike.

Those combinations are absolutely lethal for these women.

The woman who'd chased after the man understood immediately. This place was crawling with hyenas all eyeing the same prey.

So she acted boldly.

The idiot she'd been sitting with had just given her the perfect opening, and she was going to take it.

"A-are you alright? That must have been so scary..."

As the blushing woman initiated conversation, Jeong Hyeon couldn't help but be amazed.

'It's... it's actually going exactly like Young Master said it would!'

Il-mok had told her that she wouldn't need to open her mouth for the mission.

She just needed to sit in the tea house, and women would approach her on their own.

Of course, even Il-mok hadn't predicted this exact scenario would unfold. He'd simply expected that if they threw out bait and waited, someone would bite.

Either way, things were proceeding according to Il-mok's predictions, so Jeong Hyeon acted as he'd instructed.

Even though she felt like she was suffocating with the girl standing so close, Jeong Hyeon pulled a folded note from her sleeve and handed it over.

Swoosh.

"Wh-what's this?"

Jeong Hyeon didn't answer the woman's question. She simply stood up silently and brushed past her to leave the tea house.

The woman stared after Jeong Hyeon's departing figure with a dazed expression before finally coming to her senses and unfolding the letter the Jade-Faced Young Master had left behind.

Written on it were a location and a time.

'A... a private meeting with me!'

She interpreted it as an invitation from the Jade-Faced Young Master.

It was an invitation, all right.

Just an invitation to a religious gathering.

***

Meanwhile...

A few shadowy figures had been watching the whole scene go down from a distance. They waited for Jeong Hyeon to leave, then followed her into a nearby alley.

"Hahaha! Did you see that magnificent performance? That's the acting I personally taught her!"

Baek Cheon looked at his three new disciples with an expression overflowing with pride.

But the three women's faces were less than impressed.

'No matter how I look at it, that didn't seem like acting...'

'Ugh. What's the point? He'll just hear what he wants to hear.'

In a single day, the women had come to realize that Baek Cheon was a lunatic.

Meanwhile, Baek Cheon's eyes were blazing with fervor.

'Young Master truly is a genius! To create such a powerful scene with no dialogue, just pure stage direction! Incredible!'

True to someone who'd devoted his life to acting, he couldn't help but be deeply impressed by Il-mok's staging of this situation.

And also true to someone obsessed with acting, he wasn't content to just stand there admiring it.

"Now then! You've witnessed your senior's splendid performance firsthand, so now it's your turn to step up!"

With those words, Baek Cheon took the lead and emerged from the alley, while the three women behind him all sighed in unison as they watched his back.

***

That evening.

The recruitment teams started trickling back to the cult’s local headquarters.

First to return were Baek Cheon and the three women who'd been working the streets. The next was the Jade-Faced Young Master Jeong Hyeon who'd a trail of broken hearts in her wake. The last one was the trio of Seon-ah, Jin Hayeon, and Ouyang Mun.

Seon-ah and Jin Hayeon had been on bodyguard duty, but once Dam Bin and Ju Seo-yeon woke up from their nap and took over, they headed out to help with the recruitment drive.

Ouyang Mun, who had also just woken up, tagged along.

Of course, Jin Hayeon and Hyeokryeon Seon-ah were assigned to male proselytization while Ouyang Mun handled female proselytization, so they had to work separately.

The first stop for most of the returning teams was the bathhouse.

The three women were exhausted after spending several hours wandering the marketplace talking to men, and Jeong Hyeon was in the same state.

Normally, she preferred bathing alone at different times from everyone else, but she had no choice today.

Despite having learned martial arts and mostly just sitting around all day, her body was drenched in sweat. Just sitting there and letting all those girls stare at her had taken a huge mental toll.

Jin Hayeon, who'd barely broken a sweat, went to attend to Il-mok. Ouyang Mun followed her, and Hyeokryeon Seon-ah headed to the bathhouse.

She needed to wash off the black dye she'd applied to hide her distinctive red hair.

So as the five women began undressing to enter the bathhouse together...

"......"

The three women who'd been learning acting from Baek Cheon stood there staring somewhere with dazed expressions.

'T-those... can be hidden with bandages?'

The women couldn't help but be impressed. More than anything else—

'He saw that and still decided to make her dress up as a man...'

—They were impressed by Il-mok's decisiveness.

They couldn't help but think she would have been an absolute knockout if she'd been working as a femme fatale instead of a pretty boy.

"Eep."

Jeong Hyeon, who'd had similar experiences back at the Hall of the Demonic Way, quickly crossed her arms over her chest with a startled expression.

'Th-This is exactly why I hate group baths.'

Just as she was resigning herself to the awkwardness, she felt another pair of eyes locked onto her.

It was Hyeokryeon Seon-ah.

Jeong Hyeon felt something strange about the girl's stare.

Having spent time together, Jeong Hyeon had noticed something peculiar about Hyeokryeon Seon-ah.

Her attitude was completely different depending on whether Il-mok was nearby or not.

It wasn’t like she was mean to people or anything.

It was just that when Il-mok was around, she was sweet and friendly to everyone. But the second he was gone, she couldn’t care less about any of them.

Hyeokryeon Seol-ah, the girl who only bothered being nice when Il-mok was watching, was having an epiphany.

She knew full well that Il-mok still saw her as a little kid or at best a younger sister.

Since Il-mok had openly stated that he preferred women who reached their prime, denying it would be foolish.

In other words, Il-mok liked mature women.

'If I had those, I'd have a chance too...'

Jeong Hyeon felt a chill run down her spine as she saw the way Hyeokryeon Seon-ah’s eyes blazed.

***

Meanwhile, completely unaware of the drama going down in the bathhouse…

"I've returned from the proselytization mission, Young Master."

Il-mok nodded at Jin Hayeon’s report.

"Good work. Ah, and did Young Master Baek Cheon return as well?"

"Yes, Young Master."

"Then please call Young Master Baek Cheon here."

The moment Il-mok's order fell, Jin Hayeon turned and headed out again with Ju Seo-yeon and Ouyang Mun trying to follow her.

"You two stay here."

The sight of them frozen still with desperate eyes made Il-mok shake his head.

A moment later, when Jin Hayeon returned with Baek Cheon and their expressions brightened.

'Seriously, they're like a couple of dogs.'

They were the spitting image of dogs panting and wagging their tails happily when their owner returned home after leaving for work.

'…But what do you call a puppy whose owner doesn't actually want to see? Not exactly a pet, but closer to a nuisance.’

While Il-mok was entertaining such a trivial thought, Baek Cheon spoke up.

"What can I do for you, Young Master?"

"Ah. Actually, I called you here because I have an important task to entrust to you, Young Master Baek Cheon."

"To me?"

Il-mok nodded gravely.

He hadn’t just been sitting on his butt all day while the others were out working.

He’d spent some time training to keep his own alter ego under control, and the rest of the day he'd just been thinking.

'Even if I have to stoop to dirty tricks, I will achieve Transcendence!'

Thanks to his damn obsessive compulsion, once one problem popped into his head, his thoughts wouldn't stop.

So after he'd solved the gender-balance issue with the Jade-Faced Young Master Bait, another issue had surfaced in Il-mok's mind.

Namely, concerns about the gathering that would be held in two days.

This gathering and proselytization in Lanzhou were different from what happened in Gulang County.

In Gulang County, they'd held the gathering and proselytization, then heightened the believers' faith by punishing the scums of the Red Serpent Gang afterward.

But this time, they needed to take advantage of the element of surprise, so they had to flip the script and deal with the Heavenly Orchid Society first before starting proselytization.

Right after that, they'd gone to the places the Heavenly Orchid Society controlled and brought them under the Maitreya Luminous Cult's umbrella, but...

‘That was less like proselytizing and more like a hostile takeover.’

He knew that even if the people from the brothels showed up to the meeting, they'd just be sitting there, scared stiff. Their motivation would be fear, not faith.

They couldn't hold a gathering with only people like that, which was partly why he’d conducted proselytization activities in the marketplace just like in Gulang County.

But that just created new problems.

Those coming from brothels and taverns would be terrified, while those lured in by honey traps or pretty-boy traps would arrive confused, not even knowing what the Maitreya Luminous Cult was.

It could be described as a situation where two groups with no commonalities would coexist.

He racked his brain for a way to unite these two clashing groups and break the horrible, awkward tension.

And Il-mok finally managed to find a solution.

"This is something only you can accomplish, Young Master Baek Cheon."

Namely, by utilizing the attention-seeker known as Baek Cheon.

“If it’s for the glory of the cult and to get me attention, I'll accomplish it no matter what it takes, Young Master!"

At Baek Cheon's firm answer, Il-mok smiled brightly.

"Then from now on, follow along with the song I'm about to sing and memorize the lyrics, melody, and rhythm."

The solution Il-mok had devised for unity.

“I’ve got peaace~ liiike~ a river. I’ve got peaace~ liiike~ a river.”

It was a church song.