Chapter 164 – I, Muk Hui-yeong (1)

“Black Elder, stop shouting. It looks like there is some circumstance behind this.”

Peng Chae-hyang must have circulated her internal energy to drive out the alcohol in the meantime, because her voice was perfectly clear again. Before saying anything, I tried to rise and bow my waist in greeting.

“Ugh.”

But then a throbbing pain shot through my ankle, and I collapsed again. When I looked at it after falling, it was swollen badly. I must have twisted it when I fell. Peng Chae-hyang had not managed to support me completely.

“Excuse me, but first of all…”

Still sprawled on the ground, I looked up at them.

“Could you take me to a clinic?”

Black Elder and White Elder both sighed. They looked like they truly did not want to do it, but once Peng Chae-hyang shot them a glare, they finally stepped in to support me. “Thank you very much, Young Lady Peng. And my thanks to you too, Black Elder, White Elder.”

I gave them an awkward smile. Black Elder and White Elder deliberately avoided my gaze. The only one who met my eyes was Peng Chae-hyang.

“White Elder, Black Elder. Let us go back to the main house.”

“The main house?”

Black Elder and White Elder spoke at the same time.

“At this late hour, do you mean to bring an outsider into the main house?”

“We cannot help it. He is injured. There will not be any open clinic at this hour anyway.”

“Then he can wait until morning and go anywhere.”

“Tsk. At the very least, his ankle should be splinted.” When Peng Chae-hyang placed both hands on her waist, White Elder and Black Elder finally fell silent. Then they glared at me. Since they could not vent their anger at their superior, they had found someone else to direct it toward instead. Somehow, I had ended up earning their resentment for nothing.

“By the way, Young Miss, before anything else, this fellow ought to apologize for that.”

White Elder glared at me before speaking in a sullen tone.

“For what?”

“Did he not call Young Miss by name and speak to you informally?”

Now that he mentioned it, I really had done that.

I thought it had happened simply because I had been desperate, but I could also see how, from the perspective of a great house, it might be offensive.

Just as I was about to apologize, Peng Chae-hyang shook her head and spoke first.

“In a situation that urgent, that can happen. Why are you trying to fuss over privilege between fellow subjects of the empire?”

“…My apologies.” Peng Chae-hyang crushed White Elder’s objection with a tone so exemplary that it bordered on saintly. As expected, Peng Chae-hyang was a far more decent human being than that collateral-line fool Peng Jin-yeong.

“Forget helping him walk. White Elder, just carry him on your back. This is no good at all.”

At Peng Chae-hyang’s order, White Elder’s face instantly soured. But perhaps his loyalty toward her was genuine, because he did not complain and simply hoisted me onto his back.

“Thank you, Elder.”

“Be quiet. I am not carrying you because I want to.”

“White Elder!”

Peng Chae-hyang finally raised her voice. White Elder lowered his head. As he did, he gripped me harder on his back as a bonus. If I cried out, I would only be hated even more, so I clenched down and suppressed the groan. Somehow, their hatred of me seemed to be piling up even though I had done absolutely nothing.

“By the way, what happened that made you fall out of the inn window like that?”

Peng Chae-hyang stepped up beside me. Smiling, I thought about how much I ought to tell her. The conclusion I came to was simple: say nothing at all.

Peng Chae-hyang did not seem like a bad person, but I felt I needed to learn more first about the divided Demonic Cult Gwan Seo-ye had mentioned.

While I was still thinking about how to answer, Black Elder, walking beside us, threw in a remark.

“It is obvious, Young Miss.”

“Pardon? Obvious?”

“He summoned a courtesan, but his manhood would not obey him. Embarrassed by that, he jumped out the window.”

That opinion seemed steeped in malice toward me. The nonsense was so absurd that I did not even respond. Who in the world would believe something like that?

But there was indeed someone here who would believe it. A strange trace of contempt began to creep into the way Peng Chae-hyang looked at me.

“Really?”

“Of course. It is a common thing among men.” When Peng Chae-hyang asked with that contempt mixed into her tone, Black Elder answered shamelessly. I immediately raised my voice to defend my honor.

“Does that even make sense? No matter how embarrassing something is, who would jump from a third-floor window over it?”

“A martial artist would survive.”

“Was I not the one who called for Young Lady Peng because I could not even land properly?”

“Who is to say that was not part of some trick?”

At Black Elder’s words, Peng Chae-hyang drew her clothes closed at the front. She did not seem to be taking his words as a joke.

In the end, I decided I had no choice but to reveal part of the truth.

“I was attacked.”

“Attacked by what? In Beijing, where public order is the best in the Central Plains?” “I got hit with qi-dispersing poison and almost got abducted.”

“Hmph. Who would abduct someone like you?”

With Black Elder’s attack succeeding, White Elder seemed to gain some confidence and joined in to support him. I held my wrist out toward Peng Chae-hyang.

“Touch it. Can you feel any internal energy?”

I was still poisoned by qi-dispersing poison. The demonic qi I had temporarily absorbed from Gwan Seo-ye had already escaped again through the baihui acupoint. My dantian was empty, unable to gather demonic qi, internal qi, or Primordial Mixed Qi of any kind. Peng Chae-hyang should have been able to sense that state.

But Peng Chae-hyang did not take hold of my wrist. She only stared at it.

“You are asking me to touch this myself?”

Peng Chae-hyang spoke as if I had held out not my wrist, but my manhood. At that very moment, White Elder roared furiously.

“This bastard dares pull tricks on Young Miss? Take your hand back at once!”

“Come on, it is only a wrist.” “How could a man and woman, when propriety separates them…”

Peng Chae-hyang trailed off. That was the exact moment I felt completely baffled.

They said one could marry as young as the age of learning in the Central Plains. Yet Peng Chae-hyang looked well past the age of twenty, so how was she still making such a fuss over propriety between men and women over something like this?

At first I thought perhaps she was joking. Apparently not.

“Young Miss is right. All men are wolves.”

“I told you, this is just him trying to make a move because Young Miss is beautiful.”

Black Elder and White Elder clamored on, throwing Peng Chae-hyang into confusion. These old men were the real culprits. Was it really acceptable to ruin a person this thoroughly?

“I saved you out of goodwill, and yet if you act like this…”

Peng Chae-hyang stammered on. I was so dumbfounded that I could not believe it. “Do not talk nonsense. Then have that Black Elder over there check my pulse instead.”

I thrust my arm out toward Black Elder. Looking displeased, Black Elder snatched hold of my wrist. He then closed his eyes and began probing through my body. I could feel his true qi moving through my empty body.

Before long, Black Elder finished and let go of my wrist. Peng Chae-hyang hurried closer to him and asked,

“W-well? Was he really struck by qi-dispersing poison?”

At her question, Black Elder hesitated. I loathed the sight of him trying to work through some excuse, so I barked at him.

“Do not even think about lying. Say it straight!”

“Ah, yes. He really was hit by qi-dispersing poison.”

Only then did Black Elder spit out the answer as if he truly hated saying it. At last, Peng Chae-hyang’s expression turned apologetic.

“Then I misunderstood. I am sorry.”

“If you ask me, it looks like you should really replace your guards.” “Black Elder and White Elder are like fathers to me.”

“So you were ruined from childhood.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

I had muttered it too quietly, so Peng Chae-hyang apparently did not hear. White Elder and Black Elder, whose martial skill was much higher, clearly had heard, though, judging by the murderous glares they shot me.

“So you really were struck by qi-dispersing poison. Who was bold enough to attack you in Beijing?”

“Who knows. I happen to be a man with many enemies.”

That was how I brought the conversation to an end for the moment. I did not want to reveal anything about the Demonic Cult.

At a time when even Gwan Seo-ye had turned out to be a demonic practitioner, there was no guarantee Peng Chae-hyang was not one too. The Demonic Cult had many factions, apparently, so caution was necessary. To be honest, I was getting so paranoid that I could almost believe everyone but me was part of the Demonic Cult.

“Come to think of it, where did that sedan chair go? Why are you walking like this?”

I asked what had suddenly come to mind. I also wanted to change the topic. At the question, Peng Chae-hyang scratched her cheek in embarrassment.

“Ah, that. Black Elder and White Elder keep carrying it around and telling me to ride in it, but I do not like riding in it.”

“Then why were you in it earlier?”

“They said that because the Hebei Peng Clan had been insulted, I needed to show the Hebei Peng Clan’s dignity…”

As Peng Chae-hyang lowered her voice in embarrassment, White Elder and Black Elder both cleared their throats.

“A person of Young Miss’s standing should not have her feet touching the ground in the first place.”

“That is right. Even now, Young Miss ought to be riding in the sedan chair, but since we cannot ride you in it alongside her…”

It seemed that what they carried in their packs was a disassembled sedan chair. Apparently they hauled around a collapsible one at all times so they could assemble it whenever Peng Chae-hyang was to be carried. ‘These men are insane.’

That was how I sorted out White Elder and Black Elder in my mind. I also learned just how much twisted affection could ruin a person.

In any case, we entered the Peng residence like that. Peng Chae-hyang immediately summoned someone from the medical hall to look at my ankle.

“It looks like there is a crack in the bone.”

Despite having been dragged out in the middle of the night, the physician diagnosed me earnestly without any trace of annoyance. With practiced hands, he fashioned a splint and secured it to my ankle.

“Move as little as possible and recuperate quietly until the bone mends.”

“How long?”

“Are you perhaps a martial artist?”

The physician asked. Peng Chae-hyang answered in my place. “Yes. He is a martial artist.”

“Ah, in that case, because internal energy speeds recovery, ten days should do it.”

That surprised me a little. Before regression, I had once tumbled down a staircase and cracked a bone, and back then I had suffered for a full three months. This was the difference between martial artists and commoners.

Long live martial artists.

The physician finished his treatment and left. White Elder and Black Elder were about to leave too, but Peng Chae-hyang seemed to have something she wanted to ask me.

“You are not from Beijing, are you?”

Peng Chae-hyang asked. I nodded.

“No. I just came for a short while because of the Merchant Union Council.”

“The Merchant Union Council? Right, there was something like that. Then you really are a merchant. Ah, that is right. I think Jin Su-gwan mentioned you were a merchant.”

“Yes. I am a merchant.” “And yet you are that strong?”

Only then did I understand why Peng Chae-hyang was staying behind.

She was curious about what kind of person I was.

“By chance, I happened to train in martial arts as well.”

“You are a lay disciple of Wudang yet also a Taiji Sword Guardian, and you are a merchant yet that strong. It is all rather strange.”

“What is strange about it? I am simply that kind of person.”

“When you introduce yourself to people, do you say you are a merchant, or that you are a martial artist?”

“Both.”

“There is no such thing.” “Can merchants not be martial artists? Elder Na Han-geol the Golden Sword exists, does he not?”

Peng Chae-hyang shook her head.

“That man is a martial artist in all but name. His name is even listed among the Five Great Sword Masters Under Heaven. As far as I know, Hero Na hardly handles the actual merchant company affairs himself.”

“That is true.”

Na Han-geol was certainly a merchant closer to a martial artist. He possessed a merchant company, but the actual work was handled by the chief steward. What he did was closer to serving as a signboard.

Honestly, I had not even expected him to come to the Merchant Union Council meeting because of that.

Which was exactly why Na Han-geol and I were different. I truly did serve as Merchant King in earnest, to the point that I issued detailed orders to Jo Chung-heon myself.

I had thought before about whether my identity was that of a merchant or a martial artist. In the end, I resolved that dilemma by accepting both. Yet to other people, I still seemed to come across as someone who was neither one thing nor the other.

If I had chosen only one, merchant or martial artist, perhaps these questions would not arise.

“Young Miss, it is late. Have you not always been taught that it is dangerous to be meeting a man this late at night?” “Ah. Right.”

It looked like Peng Chae-hyang had been thoroughly brainwashed by White Elder and Black Elder. I truly could not fathom what they had taught her about men to make her act like this.

“I will lend you a bed in the medical hall, so sleep here tonight. In your condition, with qi-dispersing poison in your system, it would be dangerous to wander around at this hour anyway.”

Peng Chae-hyang said. She was peculiar only when dealing with men. In general, she had no problem treating people properly.

White Elder and Black Elder looked displeased, but they did not protest.

“Thank you.”

“But I have one condition.”

“If it is something I can do for you.”

“Once your ankle is healed, spar with me.” Peng Chae-hyang looked at me with fervent eyes. Judging by that gaze, she genuinely wanted to fight. Since our earlier clash had ended without a proper resolution, her competitive spirit had probably been stirred.

“That much is easy enough.”

“Good. I like a clear answer. Sleep well.”

Peng Chae-hyang instantly shot out of the medical hall like an arrow. It seemed that White Elder and Black Elder really had repeated to her since childhood that she was never to stay alone with a man at night.

In the darkness, I reviewed everything that had happened today.

The dispute with Peng Jin-yeong.

Playing on the boat with Gwan Seo-ye.

My fight with Peng Chae-hyang.

Gwan Seo-ye making a fool of me.

Learning Gwan Seo-ye’s true identity. Calling for Peng Chae-hyang’s help.

And in the end, the thing that surfaced last was still that sweet kiss with Gwan Seo-ye.

“Ah, come on.”

Remembering that moment again, I grew embarrassed for no reason and pulled the blanket all the way over my head.

I had no grounds to say anything about Peng Chae-hyang.

I too was just as inexperienced with women.

As soon as I covered myself like that, an overwhelming wave of fatigue came crashing over me.

I had much to think about now, but I had no strength left to do it tonight.

And so I sank into sleep. Today had been far too long a day.