Hyeonjilmusin - Chapter 102



Only Krnovel

102. The nobles of Huizhou (7)

Myungyeop had a very unpleasant expression on his face as he looked at Myungkyung and me.

“Is this right? Shouldn’t I be going?”

“I told you it doesn’t matter. If you want to take away the position of Myungkyung’s executioner, discuss it between the two of you.”

Myung-kyung’s eyes shook greatly at my words. Myung-kyung had no choice but to change it if Myung-yeop asked her to. That was the hierarchy of the martial arts world.

Myeong-yeop smiled bitterly as he looked at Myeong-gyeong’s wavering eyes.

“I will not take away your position as a priest just because I am sentenced to death.”

“thank you!”

“What are you thankful for when you win and leave? That’s not being thankful.”

Myeongyeop put his hand on Myeonggyeong’s head. Then he quickly turned to look at me.

“Take good care of Myungkyung. She’s still young.”

“I am on death row.”

Myeong-gyeong answered Myeong-yeop’s words in a gruff voice. It seemed like she didn’t want to miss out on that position as the death penalty.

“Okay. Then you should take care of Whiyoung. He’s a death sentence.”

“yes!”

So we set off. The Hoecheonru (回川樓) where the after-party was held was not far away. Myeonggyeong stood in front of Hoecheonru and opened her mouth wide.

“Wow.”

It was an impressive building with a large hip roof, thick foundation, and wooden main building. The banquet hall was roughly three stories high.

“You’re here.”

As the banquet start time approached, many merchants were encountered in front of the main gate.

The merchants I saw at the salt market in the morning were different from what I could recognize in their clothing. When they went to work, they wore comfortable clothes, and when they had a banquet, they wore the most expensive and luxurious clothes possible. I also wore expensive clothes made of silk, and Myeong-gyeong was dressed the same way.

Some of the merchants I encountered approached me and acted friendly.

“Did the disciple of the shamanist faction go to see Sophie for a moment?”

“It’s right next to you.”

The merchants looked left and right and then looked down. Where their eyes were, there was a mysterious figure with a very sad expression. They felt bad because they couldn’t recognize him at a glance.

“What the heck. These guys who are so good at making money?”

Myung-kyung was ticking. He looks like an old man who is obsessed with money. That was so right that I didn’t even feel the need to correct him.

The merchants’ expressions froze. They had not expected that they would bring a child like this as an escort. However, it was not as if Myeonggyeong was not a disciple of the shaman sect, so they could not simply treat her like a child.

“Oh my, oh my! My eyes are so slitted that I didn’t dare to recognize the Taoist priest of the Shamanist faction. Even if you were to burn me with a red-hot iron skewer, I wouldn’t be able to say anything.”

“Me too! What good is it to have eyes when you can’t see?”

The merchants were each exaggerating and pretending to gouge out their own eyes. Myeong-gyeong, who had never seen anyone exaggerate like this before, was taken aback.

“No, not to that extent… … .”

“No. This lowly thing has made a great mistake!”

Myeong-gyeong was not the type of person who would feel pleased when seeing the merchants’ exaggerated guilt. Myeong-gyeong immediately straightened up and said.

“Stop it. I told you to stop.”

“Oh, yes.”

The merchants stopped at the young man’s strangely oppressive tone of voice. The merchants are a group of people who are all sharp when it comes to reading the mood. They are the ones who know when to leave and when to enter.

“Hehehe. Then shall we go in together?”

“great.”

The merchants and I went up to Hoecheonru. There were already many merchants there, and food was served on tables in the shape of the letter “匚” covered with hemispherical lids.

The central seat was probably that of the Chief of the Salt Ministry, and the seats on the left and right seemed to be occupied by merchants at random. Chief of the Salt Ministry, Son Yeong-ui, had not yet arrived.

“Oh, you’re here.”

“Sit here.”

“No, sit here.”

The merchants who had arrived earlier clung to me. Only then did I look at the faces of the people sitting at the tables on my left and right.

“Heh heh… … .”

Now that I look at it, there was a strange classification on the table based on the salt and pepper shakers.

If Yeo Hong-yang hadn’t told me, I would have just missed this.

I cleared my throat and sat down on the left edge. People’s stares became strange.

“Hmm. Are you going to sit there?”

“yes.”

“The right side would be better. In Taoism, isn’t it considered that the left-side path is evil and the right-side path is right?”

The merchant sitting on the right laughed heartily and said that. Then, without me having to say anything, the merchant on the left got angry.

“Since when have you been saying that about sitting on the right? Even just two years ago, we were sitting on the right.”

“Us? Where are we, the merchants of Whiju?”

As the merchant on the right began to murmur, the merchant on the left blushed. The strange war of nerves finally ended when Son Yeong-ui arrived. Next to Son Yeong-ui was a sturdy man with a black hat pulled down deep. He seemed to be the escort he had accompanied.

“I think we’re almost there.”

“You’re here. Chief of the Salt Museum.”

I, who was sitting, stood up and bowed to Son Yeong-ui. Son Yeong-ui looked at me and smiled.

“I told you, I don’t hate a spirited young man like you. You could have run away, but you came bravely.”

“If you invite me personally, it would be rude not to come.”

“Yes. Thank you for coming. Is that the shamanist next to you?”

Son Yeong-ui looked at Myeong-gyeong, who was standing next to me.

“Hwiyoung’s death row inmate, Myeonggyeong… … Oh.”

Myeong-gyeong tried to imitate the cool adult, but her words seemed to be twisted. After all, it was hard to imitate the speech of an adult at that age. All the merchants laughed at that sight, and Myeong-gyeong’s face turned bright red.

“But it’s the death penalty. As far as I know, Muk Danju is a lay disciple.”

“Hwiyoung is different from other disciples. He is a disciple with a name that is recorded in the family tree.”

Myeonggyeong returned to her casual speech. None of the merchants paid attention to Myeonggyeong’s casual speech. What they were interested in was the content.

“A disciple of the name? Is there such a system?”

“huh.”

“Huh. What’s the difference if you’re a disciple with a real name?”

“If you harass Hwiyoung, the shaman will move.”

Everyone looked shocked at Myeong-gyeong’s casual speech. Myeong-yeop would have thought of a more sophisticated way to express himself, but Myeong-gyeong was not yet at that age.

And that statement had quite a big impact. They didn’t know that I wasn’t just a simple disciple. And that the shamans and I had a closer relationship than they thought.

“Ahem. I see. Thank you for your kind explanation.”

“Why something like this?”

The banquet began with a strange atmosphere. The banquet began, of course, with eating and drinking. When the cover was removed, splendid food appeared.

“Wow.”

Myungkyung’s eyes lit up as she looked at the food. It seemed like she had forgotten to look cool at this moment.

“Master, please try this too.”

“Oh, that’s too spicy and it makes the next food taste bad. You have to eat the food in order of mild to moderate liver.”

The merchants stuck to Myeong-gyeong and recommended food. They probably wanted to be friendly with her because she was a shaman, but they also seemed to be more attracted to her because she was a child. Even though the merchants were crazy about money, they were still humans. They couldn’t help but be weak to cute children.

“They are all good people!”

In Myeonggyeong’s bowl, the food that the merchants brought one by one was piled up like a mountain.

‘You said earlier that he was a man who was known for his money.’

Suddenly, I thought of Myeong-gyeong mercilessly beating up the merchants when we first met, but children were originally simple-minded.

“Yes, we are good people.”

“But why don’t you feed the people next to you?”

Myungkyung asked with innocent eyes. All the merchants flinched. She was referring to the guards who were standing next to the merchants like shadows.

“Ah, ah, these guys will have time to eat separately later.”

“It’s delicious. Can we eat it together?”

The merchants looked at each other. The answer came from behind Son Yeong-ui.

“We have to fight soon, but eating something oily like this will make us feel heavy.”

Everyone turned to where the voice had come from. The one who had spoken was a man wearing a black bamboo hat, the bodyguard that Son Yeong-ui had brought.

Son Yeong-ui let out a bewildered voice, as if the man wearing the bamboo hat didn’t know how to speak.

“Great Hero. Saying something like… … .”

“Did I say something wrong?”

The atmosphere froze in an instant. And everyone, including me, was surprised. I don’t know who Son Yeong-ui brought, but at least it wasn’t someone below him.

“While we’re on the subject, let’s do it all. If you’re going to fight, I want it to end quickly. I’m not someone you can treat as a joke.”

The man in the bamboo hat spoke calmly. All the merchants looked at him. They didn’t know for sure, but he seemed like a great person. It was obvious that Son Yeong-ui, who had brought him along, wouldn’t be able to treat him carelessly.

‘It looks like you brought him here because of the party leader.’

This was the part where I could see why Son Yeong-ui had invited me. Son Yeong-ui had brought a master who could even defeat a disciple of the shaman faction.

But what can I do? I had no intention of sending my executioners to such a lowly fight. That would be disrespectful to fellow monks.

The man in the bamboo hat glanced at me and added an explanation.

“A young disciple of the shamanist faction. The merchant next to him probably didn’t know that because he came for the first time. Otherwise, he would have brought another disciple.”

“That’s not it. I knew we were fighting. Did you say it was a proxy war?”

Everyone was surprised by Myeonggyeong’s answer. Even the man wearing the bamboo hat was slightly shaken.

“You knew?”

“Yeah. But the priest told me to just watch.”

Everyone looked at me with a strange expression at those words. They must have thought that I had been fooled, but when I told them that I had not been fooled, it was understandable for them to look that way.

“You knew that too.”

“I heard something.”

“Heh heh… … .”

The merchants smiled awkwardly. After all, no merchant had ever told me that a gambling game using proxy wars would be held. They were also embarrassed because they had joined in my initiation.

“Anyway, it looks like the birth canal has been broken. Can we move on to the next step?”

The man in the bamboo hat spoke in a sinister voice. The unmanned people seemed to want the same thing. The man in the bamboo hat seemed to be like that, but they seemed to be hurt by the fact that he came out here.

“Good.”

Finally, Son Yeong-ui spoke. The merchants looked dissatisfied, but there was nothing they could do since they did not know the identity of the man with the bamboo hat.

“Since there are first-time visitors, I’ll explain. Each person will place a bet of salt on the weapons of the unmanned personnel they are accompanying. The winner of the bet will take the salt they bet on.”

Son Yeong-ui quickly explained. The merchants’ glares were sharp. After all, it was the fault of the Yeom Mu-chong-sang. No matter how strong a warrior he wanted to bring, what could he do if he brought a warrior with such high self-esteem that he could break the game?

“Good.”

A smile appeared on the lips of the man wearing the bamboo hat.

The unarmed area was uniquely located in the middle of the table. If your body moved even slightly out of the unarmed area or if your sword strike disturbed the dining table, you were disqualified. No matter how wide the table was, it was a narrow space to practice martial arts.

“There is no other game like this for nobles.”

The man with the bamboo grove laughed. The situation in which the unmanned people were restricted in such a way was a blow to their pride.

But what can I say? Regardless of whether they win or lose, these guys here are going to make a ton of money. It doesn’t seem like they’ll make as much money as that guy with the bamboo hat.

“Then let’s begin!”

Son Yeong-ui, who tried hard to ignore the grumbling of the man with the long hair, coughed in vain and shouted.

The 15th Whiju clan and the Whiyoung clan. It was the moment when the proxy war between the 16 clans in total began.