Chapter 194

“Ahh, that hit the spot.”

Jeok Cheongang, who had said he was stepping away for a moment to relieve himself, returned fifteen minutes later. Something felt suspicious, and I narrowed my eyes.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Did you really just go relieve yourself?”

“Do you need to smell me before you’ll believe me?”

“But it took you fifteen minutes. Could it be that—”

“This old man has virility to spare.”

“…”

How virile did you have to be to spend fifteen minutes pissing?

At that point, it wasn’t a stream. It was a fire hose.

When I stared at him in disbelief, Jeok Cheongang glared at me.

“What? You got a problem?”

“Of course not.”

A problem? Me?

Considering all the help he had given me today, I could bow to him a hundred times and it still wouldn’t be enough.

And then there’s the other thing…

I pushed aside the thought that had suddenly occurred to me.

The Fire Gate Clan’s divine artifact. The Fire King’s Disciple.

I also pretended not to hear the voices that had been whispering nonstop ever since.

Disciple? That’s ridiculous.

It was something I had never once considered before.

Why would a man accept as his new Disciple someone he had known for only a day—someone who had killed the Disciple he had cherished like a son?

Even if that Disciple had been a colossal son of a bitch.

As I was thinking about it, Jin Wikyung approached and respectfully cupped his hands toward Jeok Cheongang.

“I, Jin Wikyung, a junior of Murim, pay my respects to the Fire King Jeok Cheongang, whose fame resounds throughout the world.”

“Are you from the Jin Family?”

Jeok Cheongang looked Jin Wikyung up and down, then nodded as if he had figured it out.

“Then you’re this brat’s father?”

“What?”

“Raise your son properly. The boy’s young, but he’s already hotheaded and causing trouble. His manners are terrible, too.”

Jin Wikyung answered with the darkest expression I had ever seen on his face.

“…”

“He’s my younger brother.”

“Hm?”

“I’m Taekyung’s eldest brother.”

Jeok Cheongang’s face turned serious.

“Don’t joke around. I understand wanting to look young, but if you get too greedy, Heaven will punish you.”

“It’s the truth. I am Jin Wikyung, the Lesser Family Head of the Jin Family of Taiyuan.”

“…”

“How old are you, by any chance?”

“Now that the year has turned, I’m thirty-six.”

Jeok Cheongang muttered in disbelief.

“You look forty-six.”

Admittedly, his face was somewhat—quite a lot, actually—more weathered than his age suggested. Even I had mistaken him for my father at first.

At least his hair was still thick, but there was no cure for a face that had taken a 160-kilometer-per-hour¹ fastball from time itself.

Seeing the sadness on Jin Wikyung’s face, Jeok Cheongang tried to comfort him.

“It’s all right. What matters in a man is his ability. You’ve got a pretty wife and adorable children, so what more do you need? Heh heh.”

“I’m still single.”

“…At thirty-six?”

In modern times, that would only be around the age when people started thinking seriously about marriage. But in Murim, where early marriage was common, thirty-six was old enough to have grandchildren.

The bachelor Jin Wikyung gave a terse answer.

“Yes.”

“…”

This silence ran a little long. The Fire King furrowed his brow, relaxed it, then flared his nostrils before finally heaving a deep sigh.

“Damn it. I could really use a drink.”

I let out a quiet laugh. It was a feast day, after all. What kind of feast would it be without alcohol? There was alcohol everywhere.

“Would you like a drink?”

Jeok Cheongang’s eyes widened.

“You insolent brat. Are you making fun of this old man?”

“What?”

“Bring me the whole crock.”

A mood was like a spark. Once it went out, it was difficult to rekindle.

Yet even after the uninvited guests from the Zhongnan Sect had poured cold water over everything, the spark had not died.

No—in the presence of the Fire King, it blazed even more fiercely.

“Wooooo!”

“Drink! Come on, let’s drink!”

“I never thought I’d live to see the Fire King in person!”

“When the Fire King gets flustered, he goes Left Fire King, Right Fire King!²”

“…”

I didn’t know who that was, but that bastard had nearly put out the spark just now.

At my signal, Hyuk Mujin, who had been standing by, quietly slipped away to hunt down the mood killer.

Meanwhile, Jeok Cheongang was receiving greetings from countless people.

“Great Hero Jeok! It’s the honor of a lifetime to meet you!”

“Please do us the honor of visiting our sect sometime…”

“Please grant us your guidance!”

It was truly a sea of people.

The name of the Fire King, Jeok Cheongang, was practically synonymous with living legend.

Moreover, his whereabouts had been unknown for decades, so most people had long accepted his death as fact.

And now the Fire King, whom everyone had thought dead, had appeared—not in the Central Plains or on Mount Jiuhua, but right here at the Jin Family of Taiyuan in Shanxi Province.

Of course everyone’s going to lose their minds.

Perhaps this was what it would be like if the legendary singer once called the Emperor of Pop came back from the dead.

Yet despite the enthusiasm of his local Shanxi fans, Michael Cheongang looked thoroughly displeased.

Jin Wikyung seemed to notice, too, and sent me a Sound Transmission.

—My youngest.

The only people who could hold a lengthy conversation with the eccentric Jeok Cheongang were Cheongpung and me. But there was no telling where Cheongpung’s thoughts might wander, so in the end, I had no choice but to act as the messenger.

“Are you uncomfortable?”

“Look at the state I’m in. Wouldn’t you be uncomfortable if you were me?”

Jeok Cheongang glared at the wine crock beside him. Quite a bit of time had passed, yet hardly any of it was gone.

It wasn’t that he disliked alcohol. He simply hadn’t had time to drink.

“Damn it. It shouldn’t be this hard to have a single drink.”

People kept asking him to accept them as Disciples, while Sect Leaders and merchants begged to host him as an honored guest.

One heavily pregnant woman had even asked if she could touch his nose. She wanted to receive the Fire King’s qi so she could give birth to a great person, or something like that.

Was he a dol hareubang or something?³

It was enough to make even the onlookers snicker. How much worse must it have been for the man at the center of it all?

Frankly, given Jeok Cheongang’s personality, the fact that he had endured this much was impressive in itself.

“Why don’t we move somewhere I prepared in advance? It’s quiet there.”

“Ugh. Forget it.”

“You said you were uncomfortable.”

“I said forget it. Why are you so damn talkative?”

Even while grumbling, Jeok Cheongang stubbornly refused to leave. I tilted my head.

What’s going on?

We had known each other for only a short time, but I had gotten a fairly good sense of his personality.

It was obvious that he hated noisy places and found people’s attention bothersome. That was probably why he had spent his entire life on Mount Jiuhua.

Then why?

I watched Jeok Cheongang carefully.

In front of him, the owner of a merchant association with considerable influence in Shanxi Province was bowing and scraping.

“Great Hero Jeok! I’ve long heard of your reputation, which shakes the entire world. When I was young, I admired you so much…”

“Get to the point.”

“I have always admired you from the bottom of my heart, so I prepared a small token of my sincerity.”

“A small token?”

“Yes. It’s something I acquired recently, but I suppose every item has its destined owner.”

The merchant took a small wooden box from inside his robe and opened the lid. Inside was a ring set with clear jade.

“It is a Poison-Averting Ring.”

“A fairly valuable item. It must have been difficult to obtain.”

The merchant waved his hands dramatically.

“Having the honor of seeing your noble face, how could price possibly matter? It only cost a thousand silver nyang.⁴ Heh heh.”

A thousand silver nyang⁴ for a single ring. It ranked among the most expensive gifts the Jin Family of Taiyuan had received so far.

Jeok Cheongang, however, merely nodded without much interest.

“Well, since you’re giving it to me, I’ll accept it gratefully. Who are you, and where are you from?”

“I’m in charge of the Yangcheon Merchant Association…”

“Yangcheon? That’s near Hebei.”

The merchant had been interrupted before he could even give his name, but he bowed as if he had received a great honor.

“Yes. We are trying to begin trading with the Hebei Peng Family, but it has not been easy.”

That was the merchant’s real purpose.

It was why he had sought out Jeok Cheongang even after offering a token of sincerity that was anything but small.

In short, he wanted Jeok Cheongang to help him establish a business relationship with the Hebei Peng Family.

“The Peng Family, huh? Who’s the Family Head these days?”

“It is Great Hero Peng Cheolyeong, the Iron Blood Saber.”

“I’ve never heard of him. Is he the Thunderbolt Saber King’s son?”

“Yes, yes. The Thunderbolt Saber King retired from the front lines and passed the position of Family Head to him.”

“This old man once had a drink with the Thunderbolt Saber King in his younger days. All right, I understand.”

That was the end of the conversation. The merchant set down the wooden box and left with a grin stretching from ear to ear.

Beneath the box lay a stack of bank drafts that had not been there moments ago.

I took advantage of the merchant’s retreat to whisper to Jeok Cheongang.

“You know the Thunderbolt Saber King?”

As his title suggested, the Thunderbolt Saber King was one of the Ten Kings, a Supreme Peak master just like Jeok Cheongang.

Jeok Cheongang took a sip of wine before answering.

“I told you. We had a drink together.”

“Wow.”

He talked about the Thunderbolt Saber King as if he were some old neighborhood friend. Every time he did something like this, I was reminded all over again of just how extraordinary Jeok Cheongang was.

When I gaped at him in admiration, Jeok Cheongang puffed out his chest.

“I flattened that bastard’s nose years ago.”

“…What?”

“I was having a drink with the Sword Saint when he barged in without a word and picked a fight. We fought, and I taught him a lesson.”

What the hell was he talking about?

“Weren’t you two friends?”

“Me? With that guy?”

Jeok Cheongang furrowed his brow.

“Why would I associate with an uncultured bastard like him? We never saw each other again after that.”

“…”

“Later, some strange rumor even started going around. They said the Peng Family’s man and I had exchanged over a hundred moves before acknowledging each other and withdrawing. The bastards from the Hebei Peng Family must have pulled some kind of trick.”

I was dumbfounded, and so was everyone around me.

The story about the Thunderbolt Saber King was absurd enough, but if it was true, the merchant’s request had just gone up in smoke.

“Th-then the Yangcheon Merchant Association won’t be able to trade with the Hebei Peng Family, will they? Mentioning Great Hero Jeok’s name will only make things worse.”

Jeok Cheongang blinked.

“The Yangcheon Merchant Association? What’s that?”

“…”

“Ah, you mean that guy from earlier? Why should I care about him?”

“But you said you’d help him trade with the Hebei Peng Family.”

“He asked me to meet him, so I met him. It’s also true that I had a drink with the Thunderbolt Saber King. Was there even a shred of falsehood in anything this old man said?”

“…”

I wasn’t sure about that, but he certainly didn’t seem to possess even a shred of conscience.

His shamelessness was so impressive that I almost respected him for it.

Fire King, are you even human?

He had more than one or two victims. Before long, the people who had believed Jeok Cheongang’s empty promises and offered him a “small token of sincerity” would realize that it had all been complete bullshit and pound the ground in despair.

At this point, this is organized fraud.

Not that any of the victims would come forward.

No one was brave enough to approach the Fire King, Jeok Cheongang, and demand their gifts back.

“We would be honored if you would visit our sect sometime…”

“Hmm. I’ll stop by one day.”

Meaning after he died and found himself wandering the netherworld.

“This is my small token of sincerity…”

“I’ll accept it.”

No. He really is just taking it.

As I watched the treasures, elixirs, and bank drafts pile up like a mountain, I finally realized something.

Was this why he stayed?

It was clearly a grand plan to make one big haul in his old age.

Eventually, after dealing with dozens of suckers, Jeok Cheongang spoke.

“Hmm. This is quite a haul. Aren’t there any more?”

Jin Wikyung answered with an exhausted expression.

“Yes. It seems that everyone who was likely to come has already arrived.”

“A shame. I could have squeezed more out of them.”

Just look at the greed on this old man.

Jeok Cheongang gazed at the spoils he had earned by drinking instead of sweating, then stretched his arms high above his head.

“Good grief, this is tiring.”

“…”

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

I subtly averted my gaze from Jeok Cheongang’s round eyes.

“It’s nothing. I was just admiring you.”

“From where I’m standing, that doesn’t look like admiration.”

“I’m serious. There’s nothing wrong with having a lot of wealth.”

“Is that so?”

Jeok Cheongang let out a quiet laugh, then casually tossed out a remark.

“Then you take it.”

“What?”

“I’m saying I’ll give all of it to you.”

“All of that?”

“It’s completely useless to this old man, but it’s different for you. Scatter it in the street or do whatever you want with it. I won’t care, so take it.”

What was going on?

I stared at Jeok Cheongang in bewilderment.

Why all of a sudden?

He had already helped me immensely. Naturally, I couldn’t help wondering why he was showing such extraordinary favor to both me and the Jin Family of Taiyuan.

Could it really be what I thought? Could he truly mean it?

I swallowed dryly and opened my mouth.

“Great Hero Jeok, by any chance…”

At that moment, Jeok Cheongang rose from his seat and spoke with a drunken expression.

“Ahh, I’m drunk. I’m going inside to rest. See you tomorrow.”

“…”

I watched Jeok Cheongang stagger away, then turned my gaze back to the wine crock.

The moon was reflected in the crock, which he had not even emptied a quarter of.