On the second day after Hae Chul arrived at his wife’s family home.
‘My life really is pathetic.’
He let out a sigh and wallowed in his own misery.
He’d thought he’d be treated like an honored guest once he came to his in-laws’ house.
It didn’t take long for him to realize how wrong he was.
When he first arrived, his father-in-law, mother-in-law, and brothers-in-law had all welcomed him.
“Um, Father. Mother.”
Hae Chul’s wife carefully spoke up.
“I think we’re going to have to live here with you.”
“What?”
“W-what do you mean by that?”
“The truth is, my husband…”
Tears streamed down her face as she explained what had happened.
“He invested in a business and lost everything. We even lost the house and the land. Sob… I couldn’t even bring a single decent piece of jewelry with me.”
“He lost every last bit of his money?”
“Yes.”
“Oh no, oh no, what are we supposed to do?”
“Father, Mother! How am I supposed to live now?”
At her sobbing cries, Hae Chul’s father-in-law and mother-in-law comforted her, and that was how they got permission to stay with her family.
But the way her family treated Hae Chul changed the very next day.
He headed to the dining room after hearing breakfast had been set out.
It was a little meager compared to the breakfasts he used to eat, but it was still a generous spread.
But he failed to understand his place.
“Mother-in-law, how can this be all you serve when your son-in-law is here? Shouldn’t there be at least three meat dishes?”
“Bullshit.”
“…Pardon?”
He’d never heard such foul language from his mother-in-law before.
“You come crawling into your wife’s family home after blowing through all your money, and you expect me to serve you three meat dishes? Eat what you’re given while I’m still being nice!”
His father-in-law chimed in from the side with an equally displeased look.
“In this family, anyone who complains about food eats in the back quarters. Want to go back there?”
As he was wondering what the back quarters meant, his wife answered from beside him.
“That’s where the servants eat. And do you think this is your house? Just shut up and eat!”
“…”
At that, he had no choice but to shrink his neck like a turtle and silently eat.
But even that was unbearable.
“My daughter, eat plenty. You suffered so much because of that worthless husband of yours, didn’t you?”
“Mom… I feel so sorry…”
“No. No, you don’t.”
“Ahem! Ahem!”
At his forced cough, his eldest brother-in-law said,
“Brother-in-law, if you’re done eating, you can get up now.”
He hadn’t even taken five bites yet. But the situation had somehow turned strange.
“Done already? That fast? Want more?”
“Then go sweep the yard.”
“What? Isn’t that something the servants should be doing…”
At his words, the second brother-in-law said,
“Shouldn’t you at least do that much if you want the decency to keep staying here?”
At that contemptuous treatment, he flared up without even realizing it.
“Ha! So this is how you’re going to act? You’ve all lived well off the money I gave you!”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
At his words, his wife cut in sharply from the side.
“My family was well-off from the start.”
Hae Chul was left speechless.
Just as she said, her family had always lived comfortably.
But Hae Chul had lured her in by pretending he was the son of a wealthy family, and in the end, she became pregnant with his child.
That was how the two of them got married, and of course, the truth about Hae Chul came out during the process.
Her family had been utterly dumbfounded, but for the sake of their precious daughter, they’d supported them financially. They covered not only the wedding expenses, but also their living costs afterward.
Then, when his younger sister moved in with her son, her family heard the story and pitied them enough to support his sister’s family too.
But after Hae Chul’s younger sister became Manor Lord Song’s concubine and turned into an overnight rich woman, Hae Chul completely forgot everything his wife’s family had done for him and started treating them with contempt.
“You don’t even remember what my family did for us when we were poor, do you? I was embarrassed just watching how arrogant you became after you got money. And how much do you think you even gave us? Did you give my parents more than they gave you?”
At that, Hae Chul had no good answer.
“W-when was I ever arrogant…”
“See? You don’t even remember!”
She coldly told Hae Chul,
“Stop stuffing your face for free and go sweep the yard.”
“Son… your father’s being treated like this…”
At that, his son quickly glanced at his mother’s face before saying,
“Grandfather, Grandmother, starting today, I’m going to study hard and restore our family.”
“Our grandson is such a good boy…”
In this house, no one was on Hae Chul’s side.
Remembering what had happened that morning, Hae Chul let out another sigh as he stepped into the yard.
It had been a very long time since Hae Chul last held a broom.
It had been around ten years since he’d swept with one, so the feeling was…
‘Sentimental my ass!’
He was hungry and miserable since he hadn’t even gotten to eat breakfast properly.
But he didn’t even have time to feel miserable.
“Husband Hae, if you’re done sweeping the yard, clean out the stable too.”
“…”
“If you don’t want to, leave.”
“N-no, that’s not it. I’ll do it.”
Hae Chul trudged toward the stable.
As befitted a well-off household, his in-laws owned two horses.
When he arrived at the stable, the servant in charge of it held out a pitchfork and said,
“You load the manure into the cart with this. Then stack it in the compost shed.”
“…”
“If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. I’ll just inform Madam…”
“W-when did I say I didn’t want to?”
He quickly took the pitchfork and stepped inside the stable.
“Ugh…”
A shiver ran through him without him meaning to.
But there was no helping it.
As he used the pitchfork and other farm tools to load horse dung into the cart, he ground his teeth inwardly.
‘That Elixir I took is supposed to start working in a month! That’s right! Once I get Inner Qi, just wait and see! I’ll make every last one of my in-laws kneel in front of me and beg!’
After clearing out all the dung, he followed the servant to the place where the compost was piled.
When he got there, he tilted his head.
Something familiar was heaped up there like a mountain.
He picked some of it up, brought it to his nose, and sniffed.
‘T-this is the Elixir, isn’t it? That smell, that texture! It’s definitely the same Elixir I ate!’
At that moment, the servant looked at him like he was insane and asked,
“Have you gone crazy? Why are you suddenly sniffing horse dung? That’s disgusting.”
“What? Horse dung? This is an Elixir…”
“What Elixir are you talking about? It’s just dried horse dung.”
“What?”
Still not understanding, he stared blankly as the servant explained,
“That wet horse dung dries out and turns like that.”
“But the smell isn’t that bad.”
“Horse dung doesn’t smell once it dries.”
“…”
Only then did he begin to feel like something had gone very wrong.
‘But they definitely gave it to me, saying it was an errand from Ji Sang…’
After agonizing over it, he picked up a piece of horse dung and shoved it into his mouth.
Crunch, crunch…
The servant watched him with a look that clearly said, ‘He’s finally snapped,’ but Hae Chul was deadly serious.
“Uh…”
It tasted exactly the same.
‘N-no! That can’t be right!’
He bolted from the spot. Then he went into a martial academy in the village where his wife’s family lived.
As far as he knew, the academy master there was a man who had once eaten an Elixir and become a Peak master.
Surely he could answer his question.
“Where have you come from?”
“I-I have something to ask! I ate an Elixir, and they said it was one that could give even an ordinary person without martial training Inner Qi. Can you tell me whether I really ate an Elixir?”
“Hmm, please wait a moment.”
One of the martial academy’s disciples called for the academy master, and after hearing the whole story from Hae Chul, the academy master spoke.
“Hmm… that wasn’t an Elixir.”
“N-no? T-that can’t be!”
“First of all, Elixirs aren’t something you can just eat carelessly. Especially one powerful enough to give Inner Qi to an ordinary person. Those are extremely dangerous. Even martial artists seek out experts to help guide the Qi flow when taking an Elixir, so for a commoner, it goes without saying. If a peerless master isn’t beside you to help circulate the Qi, all your meridians will burst on the spot and you’ll die.”
“But didn’t you eat an Elixir in the mountains and become a master?”
“I was an incredibly rare case blessed by absurd luck. I had to endure tremendous pain to absorb the Elixir’s power. If I’d lost consciousness during it, I would’ve died right there.”
He continued speaking.
“The pain is so bad you’d think it would be better never to eat an Elixir at all. How much pain were you in?”
“M-my stomach hurt a little.”
“Then it sounds like you just got an upset stomach. Because you ate something you shouldn’t have. There’s no way the pain would’ve been that mild if it had really been an Elixir.”
“T-then the Elixir I ate was…?”
“A fake. You were tricked.”
At those words, he collapsed to the ground.
Only then did he understand everything.
What he’d eaten… had just been horse dung.
“Aaaaagh!”
He roared in fury.
‘Ji Sang, you bastard! I’ll kill you!’
Consumed by rage, he started running, only to suddenly stop in his tracks.
Something about it felt wrong.
‘Wait…’
Why had someone other than Ji Sang given it to him?
And the pouch it had come in had been made from the same fabric used for monks’ robes.
That meant…
‘Shaolin already knew! They knew I was the one who told Ji Sang to do it!’
In other words, it had been a warning.
Shaolin was simply the kind of place that didn’t kill lightly, so they’d stopped at a warning. If it had been any other martial family, his life would already have been forfeit.
‘Come to think of it…’
He remembered the Tracking Incense he’d taken. The Tracking Incense that was supposed to let them find him wherever he went.
That too had been meant as a warning that they would keep watch on him.
It had all been a misunderstanding, but the result of that misunderstanding worked even better than Eun Seo-ho had expected.
Hae Chul made up his mind.
He would never go anywhere near Shaolin again.
So in the end, there was only one place left for him to return to.
As he trudged through the forest to head back to his wife’s family home, a large man approached him.
“Are you Hae Chul?”
“I am.”
The moment that answer left his mouth, the large man drove a dagger into his stomach.
Thunk!
“…!”
The man whispered into his ear.
“Do you remember the servant you beat to death just because you didn’t like him?”
He’d beaten more than one servant to death, so nothing came to him at first.
But then he remembered a face that looked like the man standing before him.
“G-Gyeong Eul?”
“That’s right. I’m Gyeong Eul’s older brother. At last, I finally get to avenge him.”
Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!
He stabbed Hae Chul over and over with the dagger, pouring all his resentment into every strike.
“Ghk… ghk…”
“Die well.”
Thud.
Hae Chul’s body collapsed where it stood.
The large man poured oil over Hae Chul’s body, then threw a fire starter at it.
Right now, I’m in the village below Shaolin.
Abbot said he’d reward me, and I was about to leave this place, but something unexpected came up that I needed to handle first.
I headed to Geumsan Money House.
I was going to buy the estate and land that had belonged to Hae Chul.
Geumsan Money House had no pressing need for the property, so I was able to buy the estate and land for thirty thousand taels.
The reason I bought it was because this place is right next to Luoyang.
Right now, I have a friendly relationship with Shaolin.
With that being the case, if I ever had reason to come to Luoyang, I figured it would be useful to have a base here to work from.
And now that everything was settled, I realized the estate’s size and location were perfect too.
After wrapping up the transaction, I said to Palgap,
“We need to hire people and get this place in order.”
“Understood.”
Palgap quickly went off and brought people back.
They were the ones who had worked at the estate before.
The owner had been the problem, not the employees.
I spoke to the employees Palgap had brought.
“I may have bought this estate, but I won’t be staying here very often. Still, your wages will never be delayed, and I won’t fail in my responsibilities to you. So I expect all of you to keep faith with me as well.”
I spoke with a cold expression.
“I do not forgive those who betray trust.”
“…”
I could see the tension on the employees’ faces.
Well, now it was time to ease that tension a little.
“As long as you honor that, I will treat you with trust and respect.”
Once I finished speaking, Palgap clapped his hands.
“Clap, clap! All right, everyone, back to work!”
They hurried off to their positions and immediately began cleaning up the estate.
As expected of people who had worked here before, everything moved smoothly without a hitch.
Palgap walked over to me and said,
“While I was gathering people, I heard that Hae treated his employees terribly.”
“Really?”
“Yes. They say he even beat several servants to death himself just to make an example out of them.”
“Wow… he really was awful.”
The ending for someone like that was never going to be a good one.
Just then.
An old servant hesitantly approached us.
“Um… there is something I need to tell you.”
“Ah, yes. What is it? Are you perhaps not feeling well? Should I call a Physician for you?”
“N-no! It’s not that… are you perhaps the Great Hero known as the Handsome Young Hero?”
Cough!
Why was that title coming up out of nowhere?
But the servant’s expression was extremely serious, so I answered just as seriously.
“I don’t see myself that way, but people have graciously called me that.”
He pulled something out from inside his sleeve and held it out to me.
“Would you perhaps be willing to deliver this to Monk Ji Sang at Shaolin?”
It was a faded, dirty envelope.
“What is this exactly…”
“This is… a letter left behind by Monk Ji Sang’s late mother.”
“What?”
–TL Notes–
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