Chapter 183

A hulking man reminiscent of a Minotaur glared at me with eyes as big as saucers.

“Brother over there, do you need something?”

He was telling me to pretend I hadn’t seen anything and move along.

It was no different from the lines spoken by third-rate thugs in movies, but according to what I’d sensed with Qi Sense, that hulking man was neither a third-rate thug nor an inept wandering martial artist.

System

Level: 95 — Chulwoo

He’s as skilled as he looks.

In Murim terms, he was a Peak master. In modern terms, he was at least an A-rank Hunter.

If a guy like that were a thug, the police—the people’s cane—wouldn’t stand a chance. Even the people’s sledgehammer wouldn’t be enough.

Where did this guy come from?

For a moment, the epithets I’d heard just now—Huashan’s Lone Crane and the Three Plum Blossom Elites—flashed through my mind, but that was as far as it went.

No matter how I looked at him, he seemed more like a knife-wielder from Majang-dong or a twin-axe fighter from Seocho-dong than a crane or a plum blossom. Those sorts of nicknames seemed much more appropriate.

When I merely stared at him without answering, the hulking man, Chulwoo, frowned.

“Didn’t you hear me? Are you deaf? Or mute?”

Before I could say anything, Hyuk Mujin jumped in.

“Have you ever seen such an outrageous bastard? How dare you speak so rudely to our Young Master?”

“Is pretending not to hear someone a polite thing to do?”

“Ahem!”

“What are you ahem-ing about? How important do you think you are that you don’t answer when someone speaks to you?”

“You insolent bastard! Do you need a beating to come to your senses?”

I stopped Hyuk Mujin as he reached for his sword scabbard.

“That’s enough.”

“Please don’t stop me. Someone like this needs to be taught a harsh lesson!”

“He’s stronger than you.”

“Ah. I don’t think this is my place to step in.”

“…”

“…”

Chulwoo opened his mouth with an incredulous expression.

“Is he your subordinate?”

“For now.”

“You must have a hard time.”

“Every day is a battle with my patience.”

After looking our group up and down, Chulwoo clicked his tongue.

“You look like martial artists, so it would be best if you just went on your way. This man made a very serious mistake with me.”

Chulwoo grabbed the collar of this man and lifted him up. He was so strong that the heavyset middle-aged man shot straight into the air.

“Eeeek! H-Help me!”

Above the terrified middle-aged man’s head floated the Level window I had detected earlier with Qi Sense.

System

Level: 60 — Woo Hwangtae

That was a name that made me crave hangover soup.

It also sounded vaguely familiar.

Woo Hwangtae, Woo Hwangtae… Where have I heard that before?

While I was thinking, Chulwoo grabbed Woo Hwangtae by the collar and shook him violently.

“What do you mean, help you? Don’t drag innocent people into this. Just take a few hits and get it over with.”

“G-Great Hero, please don’t do this. Let’s resolve it through conversation. Conversation.”

“Conversation?”

“Y-Yes! Conversation!”

“Conversation sounds good. Then let’s have a private conversation somewhere without any people around.”

He clearly meant to have a physical conversation.

Woo Hwangtae, who was being dragged along against his will, shouted like he was screaming for his life.

“I-I was invited here by the Jin Family of Taiyuan! I’m supposed to have a private audience with the Lesser Family Head!”

“I was invited too. And I’m a simple, crude man by nature, so I don’t particularly care whether you’re meeting the Lesser Family Head or the Family Head.”

“Eeeeeek!”

This wouldn’t do. Someone was going to die before I remembered his name.

I had no desire to get dragged into an unnecessary dispute, but there was something that bothered me about simply walking past.

From what I’ve heard, he seems to be a fairly important guest.

The fact that he was supposed to have a private audience with Jin Wikyung bothered me. So did Chulwoo’s casual disparagement of the Jin Family of Taiyuan.

I smacked my lips and stepped forward.

“Excuse me.”

“All that fat and you still have to make people’s lives difficult… Did you call me?”

“Yes.”

“What do you want?”

“It’s nothing important.”

I continued, addressing Chulwoo, who had paused.

“It’s a good day. Wouldn’t it be better to work things out through conversation?”

“Give it a rest?”

“I’m sorry for sticking my nose in where it doesn’t belong, but wouldn’t it look bad for the Jin Family of Taiyuan if guests started fighting on a day like this?”

“Hey, Young Hero.”

Chulwoo rubbed his neck with an annoyed expression. At the same time, his speech, which had previously been close to polite, was cut in half.

“This is personal. If you stick your nose in, you’ll only make yourself tired.”

“I’m already tired. What can you do?”

“Your speech is getting short?”

“Yep. Same goes for you.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty.”

“Twenty? Huh. Fresh as a daisy. Fresh as a daisy.”

“How old are you?”

“I’m twenty-five, you young bastard.”

Good grief. I was surprised twice.

Once by the boomer attitude of a twenty-five-year-old, and again by the fact that his face belonged to a man in his mid-twenties.

Even if he had been fed protein supplements instead of breast milk as a baby, he shouldn’t have ended up like this. I asked with considerable astonishment,

“Twenty-five? Are you Benjamin? You’re living your life backward.”

Benjamin Chulwoo glared at me.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“It’s not bullshit. It’s a fact. It must have been tough looking prematurely old.”

“Prematurely old? Shut up! Everyone around me thinks I look incredibly young!”

“Everyone around you? Number one, your mother. Number two, your father. Number three, your grandmother. Pick one of the three. Oh, let’s make number four your youngest maternal aunt.”

“This beardless little brat…”

“Pull down your pants. I want to see whether you’ve got hair on your dick.”

“You little—!”

“Woof, woof-woof! Woof-woof-woof!”

Chulwoo released his grip on Woo Hwangtae’s collar. Trembling as he looked from the ground to the sky, he took several deep breaths.

“You… Hoo. Hoooo.”

“Are you angry, Benjamin?”

“Shut that damn mouth!”

He seemed to have completely lost his temper.

I didn’t mean to take it this far.

I had simply answered him one insult at a time, and somehow this was where we had ended up.

Chulwoo, snorting like a frenzied Minotaur, finally managed to open his mouth. It took him a great deal of effort. A very great deal.

“Y-You bastard, what the hell are you?”

“What kind of bastard do you think I am?”

“A bastard who’s gone mad wanting to die.”

Crack.

The sound of bones grinding came from the fist as large as a shovel handle.

Chulwoo ground his teeth and glared at me.

“Do you even know what it means to interfere in someone else’s personal gratitude and grudges in Murim?”

“I already apologized for sticking my nose in where it didn’t belong. But if guests start throwing punches, what does that make the people who invited them? You ought to think about our family’s position too.”

“Our family?”

“Yeah. Our family.”

“Are you perhaps a member of the Jin Family of Taiyuan?”

“I don’t think I’m a freeloader.”

“Make one more wordplay joke and I’ll put you in bed for three years.”

“Watch your mouth—unless you want your family mourning you for three years.”

Chulwoo smiled thinly. It wasn’t a smile born of amusement. It was the kind of smile that appeared on its own when someone’s anger had reached the top of his head.

“My Senior Brother warned me over and over… but I can’t let you off. Time for you to take a few hits.”

Boom!

Before he could finish speaking, an enormous roar rang out, and the ground shattered.

The two-meter-tall giant launched himself like a cannonball. The time it took him to reach the tip of my nose was no more than an instant.

“It’s going to hurt.”

Whoosh!

With a chilling voice, the air scattered.

No—it was crushed.

It was nothing more than a simple punch, with no form or martial principle added to it. The force contained in that fist exploded with enough momentum to shatter a thousand-jin boulder.

But…

As long as it doesn’t hit me.

Bang! B-bang!

I bent backward as if lying down. The fist struck the air a handspan above me, and compressed air exploded from its tip. A tree more than ten feet away flew through the air as if caught in a typhoon.

Wow. This guy was serious.

I was left speechless by the overwhelming power.

If an ordinary First Rate master had taken that blow, it would not have ended with mere pain. Once Chulwoo lost his temper, he seemed unable to see anything else.

“Hey, hey. Take it easy. Take it easy.”

“You rat-like bastard!”

Whoosh! Whoooosh!

One punch, two punches, three. Each time I easily avoided another punch, my suspicion hardened into certainty.

I think I can win.

Even a thousand-jin boulder had to be hit before it could be shattered.

No matter how powerful an attack was, it was useless if it failed to connect.

Moreover, Chulwoo was only at the early Peak realm and could not even project fist qi. If our martial insight was comparable, I had an overwhelming advantage.

Because I possessed a special power no one else had.

Stats.

Whoooosh! Bang!

After yet another wild swing, Chulwoo exploded in frustration.

“What the hell!”

“You’re too excited. Take a deep breath and relax your body. That way, you might be able to touch even a single hair.”

Meanwhile, I had completely regained my composure. Hyuk Mujin and Cheongpung were watching from the sidelines as if none of this concerned them, while Woo Hwangtae stared at our exchange with his mouth hanging open.

Given the situation, Chulwoo also seemed considerably flustered.

“What the hell are you?”

“A member of the Jin Family of Taiyuan.”

“There’s no way someone like you could be in this backwater… Wait.”

Chulwoo stared intently at me, then suddenly narrowed his eyes.

“Are you the Heaven Shaking Sword?”

“I am somewhat related to that man. As far as I know, we came from the same womb.”

“Then… are you the Sleeping Dragon of Shanxi?”

I grinned.

“Bingo.”

He might not have known what bingo meant, but he understood its positive connotation and clenched his fist.

“I knew you had some skill.”

“Try hitting me at least once before saying that. You said it would hurt, but this just feels refreshing.”

“I’ll admit it. You may not be a dragon, but you could at least qualify as an imugi.¹”

“Good grief, that’s a harsh assessment.”

“Your mouth has reached the realm of transcendence.”

“It’s all psychological warfare. Take a look at yourself. You’re showing nothing but the whites of your eyes while throwing punches at thin air.”

“Don’t get confused. I simply had no desire to use my sect’s martial arts against an unknown nobody like you.”

“Which sect is that? The Dodong Sect?”

“You don’t need to know.”

He spat out a wad of phlegm and muttered,

“Damn it, the Sleeping Dragon of Shanxi. What a letdown.”

Same for me.

He was obviously a disciple of a fairly well-known sect, but if we fought until one of us fell, both of us would have to deal with the backlash.

“I’m holding back because of my eldest brother.”

“I’ll let you off because of my Senior Brother.”

We spoke at nearly the same time and glared at each other.

“Oh? Look at this bastard.”

“Bastard? You little brat, how dare you speak to an adult that way!”

“Adult, my ass. Do you even know how old I am, calling yourself an adult?”

“What else is someone who’s barely twenty supposed to be but a child?”

“That’s not what I meant…!”

If I added my age in the Murim to my age in the modern world, I was practically fifty. But there was no chance of getting that across to him.

I swallowed the words that were about to burst out.

“Forget it. What’s the point of talking to a guy like you? Anyway, in Murim, the strong are the adults.”

“What? Are you saying I’m weaker than you?”

“Obviously. Didn’t you feel the difference between us just now?”

“You son of a bitch! I could chew you up and still not feel satisfied!”

“Try hitting me, if you can.”

“You think I can’t?”

It was at that moment, as Chulwoo raised his fist with a heavy snort, that someone’s voice abruptly cut in.

“It would be best if you both stopped now.”

Wipeng alighted with an ethereal movement technique and swept over us with a chilly gaze.

His eyes passed over Cheongpung, Hyuk Mujin, and Woo Hwangtae, whose appearance had become a complete mess from being dragged around, before finally pinning me and Chulwoo like arrows.

“Defeated Flower Fist, and Third Young Master.”

“No, Great Hero Wipeng. It’s not like that. The circumstances…”

“That’s right. I was merely…”

A voice colder than the northern wind and bitter snow froze the words in their throats.

“Are you both determined to bring utter shame upon your respective schools?”

Chulwoo and I quietly shut our mouths.

“How long has Defeated Flower Fist been gone?”

“Dunno. Feels like it’s been more than half an hour.”

“Why isn’t he back?”

“Maybe he got stuck.”

“A Daoist from Huashan?”

“Why would that matter? If he’s a Daoist from Huashan, does that mean his shit should come out smoothly too?”

“I suppose you’re right.”

Just as the theory that Chulwoo was constipated was all but confirmed, the people who spotted a group of people and horses coming down the hill burst into cheers.

There was a face among them that no martial artist in Shanxi Province could possibly fail to recognize.

“It’s the Sleeping Dragon of Shanxi!”

“The Sleeping Dragon of Shanxi! He’s coming with the Defeated Flower Fist!”

“Wooaaah!”

The appearance of two young and outstanding men sent the crowd into a frenzy.

The two young prodigies whom everyone believed would become future leaders of Murim walked side by side, waving their hands.

Every time they did, cheers erupted from all directions, along with hands reaching out to touch even their clothing.

“The Sleeping Dragon of Shanxi!”

“The Defeated Flower Fist!”

“Well now, they look pretty close. Were they acquainted?”

“Does that matter? Real talent recognizes real talent. There’s nothing strange about them forming a deep friendship in such a short time.”

“Now that you mention it, that makes sense. They look great together.”

While everyone looked on with warm smiles, the broadly grinning Jin Taekyung and Chulwoo exchanged words in very low voices.

“I let you off earlier. You know that, right? You couldn’t even touch me.”

“Bullshit. I didn’t use even half my strength.”

“I didn’t use even a third.”

“I misspoke. I didn’t use even one-tenth.”

“My mistake too. Truth is, I didn’t use even one percent.”

“Now that I think about it, same here.”

“Is this guy completely insane?”

“Who are you to say that?”

Amid the tremendous cheers, a fierce exchange took place—one that only Peak masters could hear.