There is no way, right? (2)
Clink.
“Hehehehe.”
Clink. Clink.
“Euhehehehe.”
“…”
The thick money pouch shot up over his head, then dropped back into his hand. Every time it struck his palm, the heavy sound of coins rang out, and Chung Myung burst into fits of laughter.
The disciples of Hwasan watching the scene were not exactly at ease.
“Is this really all right, Sasuk?”
“…A bit late to ask that now.”
Baek Cheon smiled faintly. There was even a faint confusion to that smile now.
“We’ve come too far to make a fuss over something like this now. Let’s just accept it as it is.”
At those words, Hye Yeon nodded in admiration.
“That is the attitude of an admirable Buddhist, Siju. I would believe it if you said you were about to attain Buddahood.”
“Still, I am a Taoist in name at least, so if possible, could you call it ascending to immortality?”
“Isn’t dying the same either way?”
Jo Geol’s mutter was neatly ignored.
“No, but is this really something we can just let slide like this?”
Tang Soso opened her mouth, sounding dumbfounded, as if she could not accept what was happening.
“If he’d simply swindled a beggar, then fine, we could let it go as one of those things, but looking at a bigger picture, he scammed the Beggars Sect.”
Yoon Jong whispered into Jo Geol’s ear.
“Geol, is it just my imagination that simply swindling a beggar sounds several times more serious?”
“I don’t think it’s your imagination, Sahyeong. I’m getting chills too.”
“Ugh! This isn’t something to joke about!”
“We’d be happy if it were a joke too…”
“Exactly.”
As if there were no one else to scam, he had to go and scam a beggar. What is this – something you should be struck dead by lightning for?
“I’m really not joking, this could very easily sour our relationship with the Beggars Sect.”
“Ah, surely not… Maybe our relationship with Branch Leader Hong could get worse, but…”
“Branch Leader Hong is part of the Beggars Sect too! What’s more, Branch Leader Hong is someone who’s even being mentioned as a candidate for Junior Beggar Chief [소걸개]. He’s several times more important than the Jinan branch!”
“Huh?”
At those words, Hwasan’s disciples blinked.
“Why, did you not know?”
“No, we knew, but hearing it again…”
“Now that I think about it, he really is an impressive person.”
“That man as Junior Beggar Chief. Could anything suit him less?”
They tilted their heads and looked far off towards the west, where Hwaeum lay. There were few people in the world one could know so well and yet understand so little.
“So, I mean, I really don’t think this should be happening. Let’s give the money back, even now.”
“………I would like to do that too.”
“Then we can just do that, can’t we?”
“Soso.”
“Yes?”
“Do you think that’s possible?”
Baek Cheon gestured towards Chung Myung with his eyes. Seeing Chung Myung grinning stupidly while holding the money pouch, Tang Soso’s shoulders drooped.
“….We should have stopped him before it came to this.”
“Let’s think of it in a positive light. Strictly speaking, it’s not as though we were ever exactly on good terms with Gupailbang to begin with, were we? Even if we make enemies of the Beggars Sect, is there really anything that will suddenly get worse?”
“That… is truly comforting, Sasuk.”
“Don’t mention it.”
Tang Soso let out a sigh and shook her head.
“So what are we going to do now?”
“What else?”
Chung Myung snorted and tossed the money pouch high into the air before catching it again.
“Now that we’ve got the money…”
His eyes flashed.
“We should drag that damned bastard here.”
❀ ❀ ❀
“Boss, are you all right?”
Seok Hanbin’s face twisted slightly.
“I heard you got dragged off to the magistrate’s office. Nothing happened, right?”
“Hoo.”
Seok Hanbin waved his hand dismissively, then took a huge bite of the dumpling in his other hand. The hollow dumpling clogged his throat dryly, but as if venting his frustration, he chewed it roughly.
Seeing him like that, the children quietly shut their mouths.
‘Looks like he’s in a bad mood.’
‘Don’t provoke him for no reason. You’ll get your ass kicked.’
Among the dozen or so gathered here, there were even some twice Seok Hanbin’s size, but not one of them stepped forward. They all merely watched Seok Hanbin’s mood.
“Ugghhhh.”
Seok Hanbin twisted his neck.
“The more I think about it, the more pissed off I get. Those damned Taoist bastards!”
“Taoists? Boss, are you fighting Taoists now too?”
“It’s not like that! Those bastards were the ones who picked a fight!”
“…Sure they were.”
“Agh!”
Seok Hanbin kicked the child who had spoken.
“Aaagh!”
“I knew that would happen.”
“His mouth always gets him into trouble.”
Seok Hanbin, still fuming, roughly rubbed his face with both hands.
“Dragging in some ridiculous nonsense about ancestors, and out of nowhere.”
“Ancestors?”
“There’s something like that.”
Seok Hanbin flopped back down into his seat.
‘Ancestors, my ass. What bullshit.’
If they had at least said something vague about his grandfather, he might have pretended to listen. No matter how thoroughly he had cut those ties with his own hands, it was difficult to completely forget the place where one was born.
But his great-grandfather? And the brother of someone from his great-grandfather’s generation, at that?
‘Do they take people for idiots?’
Who in their right mind would remember a connection from their great-grandfather’s generation and go looking for someone because of it? Not even in the Song Dynasty would people have done something like that.
Seok Hanbin knew. Between people, there were certainly times when someone showed kindness for no reason. But if that kindness was excessive, then there was always some reason behind it.
“Tsk.”
Seok Hanbin shook his head.
‘Whatever the reason was, what does it matter? It has nothing to do with me anymore.’
He was no longer a member of the Shandong Yu family. No, he had to erase the name of the Shandong Yu family completely.
Having calmed his heart, Seok Hanbin let out a sigh without realizing it. One of the children asked cautiously.
“But Boss, are you really okay?”
“With what?”
“That… the Black Water Manor.”
“…”
Seok Hanbin frowned and closed his mouth.
“You cheated those guys out of their money, didn’t you?”
“I paid it back.”
It had not been him who paid it back, but he had heard that those Taoist bastards had paid Lord Song in his place.
‘It’s no secret that Lord Song looks after the Black Water Manor, so there shouldn’t be any more trouble over the money.’
But that was a rather complacent thought. It was not as though Seok Hanbin did not know that.
“Will it really be all right? You know as well as anyone that those bastards aren’t the type to just back down quietly because the money was paid.”
Seok Hanbin’s brow furrowed even deeper.
Even if the money had been repaid, the fact that those men had been made fools of by Seok Hanbin did not disappear.
Those of the Black Path valued face. In some ways, even more than the Just Sects did. In the world of the Black Path, once you were looked down on, it was over.
The Black Water Manor was a Black Path sect that vied for supremacy in Jinan. If people like that were made fools of by a brat like Seok Hanbin and could not properly take their revenge? Anyone with even one foot in the back alleys would try taking a stab at the Black Water Manor. And they surely knew that too.
“They’ll find me somehow and make me pay the price.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Ugh. I know. I know, but…”
Seok Hanbin scratched his head roughly.
What was he supposed to do just because he knew?
In any case, it would be hard to avoid the Black Water Manor’s eyes in Jinan. Which meant that, in the end, to escape the Black Water Manor’s clutches, he would have to leave Jinan.
‘I have no money.’
More precisely, he had no way to do anything right away.
One might ask, since his life was more important than money, should he not flee outside the city at once?
‘It’s because my life is important that I’m doing this.’
This was a world where even an ordinary adult would find it hard to keep their life once they left the city. And yet, someone as young as Seok Hanbin, leaving Jinan without an escort?
He would probably be skinned before he even reached another city. That was the kind of world it was now.
“Phew. I guess there’s no helping it.”
“Huh? Did you find a way?”
“What’s there to find?”
Seok Hanbin smiled, lifting one corner of his mouth.
“If the problem is not having money, then I just need to make some. It’s not like I ever had money before.”
“D-Don’t tell me you’re going to run another scam?”
“Scam? I told you, it’s redistribution of wealth. What’s so wrong about people with money sharing the said money they pile up in their storehouses and leave to rot with someone without money?”
“R-Right.”
If one ignored the fact that the person without money was Seok Hanbin himself, it was not entirely wrong.
“But Boss, why are you always so broke? You made a lot before too.”
At those words, Seok Hanbin flinched.
It might look now like scamming had become Seok Hanbin’s main trade, but if Seok Hanbin had been nothing more than an ordinary swindler, it would have been impossible for him to make the children of Jinan submit under him.
‘If it weren’t for that damned flood..’
Clear tears gathered at the corners of Seok Hanbin’s eyes.
If the business he had planned had gone properly, he could have been sitting on a pile of money by now, living like a king! Who could have known the Huang He would overflow at that exact moment?
For those who lived near the Huang He river, floods were a common occurrence. That was why he had taken it into account to some degree and prepared for it, but the flood had been so enormous that all of that was rendered meaningless. Surely that could not be blamed on Seok Hanbin.
“Never mind.”
Seok Hanbin shook off his idle thoughts and his eyes gleamed.
“This time, I really won’t fail. I’ll just earn enough for travel expenses, hide somewhere else for a few months, then come back.”
“…You are coming back, right, Boss?”
“What would I do for a living if I left Jinan? Of course I have to come back.”
It was just as Seok Hanbin was about to start moving again.
“There you are.”
“Hm?”
At the unfamiliar voice that suddenly rang out, Seok Hanbin turned his head. At the same time, his face hardened.
“Seok Hanbin. Is that right?”
A chill ran down his spine, and goosebumps rose all over his body.
The figure standing on the other side of the dim alley.
He wore a black bamboo hat, so his face could not be seen clearly, but that was not particularly important. From his appearance and the atmosphere he gave off alone, it was easy enough to tell just how dangerous this man was.
Seok Hanbin gritted his teeth.
“…Did the Black Water Manor send you?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
At first glance, it was a strange answer, but Seok Hanbin immediately grasped the meaning hidden within it.
If he were an assassin, then the one who received the commission and the one who carried it out would be different. In that case, it would not be strange for the person carrying out the mission not to know who the client was.
Even if that were not the case, at the very least, it was certain that this man was not someone who moved while weighing all the circumstances.
‘Damn it. I should have moved sooner.’
He hadn’t expected the Black Water Manor to reach out their claws this quickly either. Thinking that, since Lord Song had received the money, he would at least have a few days’ grace had been his mistake.
Because those Taoists had suddenly appeared and brought up the Shandong Yu family, he had been too unsettled to make a swift judgment.
“Who the hell are you to dare threaten the Boss…”
“Don’t step forward!”
Seok Hanbin shouted in terror. At that, the children who had been about to block his way hesitated.
“Even if all of you rush him, you can’t win. Run. Don’t even look back!”
“Boss.”
“Go already, you bastards! I won’t die!”
“What are you going to do alone…..”
“I said go! Unless you want to die by my hand!“
“O-Okay.”
They were already terrified by the assassin’s aura. While Seok Hanbin stepped forward, the frightened children hesitated for a moment, then began fleeing all at once.
Seok Hanbin cast a glance at those running past him, then picked up a stick lying on the ground. It was not as though holding this would change anything, but it was better than having nothing.
“You’re not running?”
“…..Don’t spout nonsense.”
If he ran carelessly and their paths crossed, innocent kids might end up dead. That man didn’t look like the type to hold back just because there were bystanders when his target was right in front of him.
At the very least, he had to buy enough time for those guys to run far enough not to get caught up in this. Somehow.
“Hey.”
The assassin raised his head slightly and looked at Seok Hanbin.
“How much were you paid?”
“…”
“I doubt you were paid a lot to just catch one brat who can’t even use martial arts. I’ll give you five times that much. How about it?”
The line of the assassin’s mouth, visible beneath the bamboo hat, twisted upward slightly.
“Not a bad offer. But the money wouldn’t be going into my pocket anyway.”
“You could take it and just say you failed.”
“Hm.”
The assassin drew his sword indifferently.
“Let’s end the jokes here. I’m a fairly busy man.“
Seok Hanbin gripped the stick tightly.
‘I’m not dying like this.’
He knew there wasn’t even the slightest chance he could defeat a martial artist, but maybe – just maybe – he could find a way to escape. As long as he didn’t give up until the very end
Fwoosh.
At that moment, the assassin rushed towards Seok Hanbin.
“Uh…….”
And at the same time, Seok Hanbin realized.
The assassin before his eyes was, from the start, on a completely different level from the back alley thugs he had seen until now.
In the span of a single breath, as though time itself had been split, the assassin appeared before him. In that instant, Seok Hanbin came to know his fate.
The assassin’s sword shot towards Seok Hanbin’s throat at a speed he could not possibly react to. For a fleeting moment, an intense despair filled Seok Hanbin’s eyes.
‘Damn it…’
And suddenly, appearing right in front of the assassin’s face, just as he was about to cut down his neck…
‘White?’
Kwaaaaaang!
Something small and white slammed violently into the assassin’s face.
“Kuhuhuhuk!”
The assassin let out an indescribable scream as he spun wildly while being flung away.
Kwadadang!
As if the force of the collision had still not run out, he hit the ground and kept rolling for quite a while before finally collapsing face-first.
“…”
Seok Hanbin stared blankly at the sight, then slowly lowered his gaze.
Tsk.
A weasel, clicking its tongue like a person, stood there with its forepaws resting against its own sides, looking back at Seok Hanbin as though he were utterly pathetic.
Staring at the creature, Seok Hanbin looked up at the sky and muttered sorrowfully.
“…This is driving me crazy, seriously.”
It was his unfiltered, honest feeling.
________
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