Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 118

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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#Episode 118

“As you said, we don’t need secret techniques here. Our Estate doesn’t permit idle living. If you’re going to stay, you’ll need to contribute something. Is there anything you do well?”
If not, she’d assign menial work. Jeon Mi-ryeo smiled brightly as she spoke.
“You’ll probably be quite surprised.”
Her confidence became reality that very evening.
A different meal appeared — one unlike Gang Seo Samak’s usual cooking.
“These vegetables are prepared differently, and the lotus seed soup and skewered fish… it’s not what we’re used to.”
Yeon Geum-hong, who had spoken, took a spoonful of the lotus seed soup and her eyes widened.
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“Gulp! Just try it first.”
One by one, everyone transferred the lotus seed soup to their plates and tasted it.
“Oh! This tastes better than what a seasoned chef could make!”
Seo Seok-san felt the same, and both Do Pyeong-su and Jang Man-dok gave thumbs up.
It wasn’t just the lotus seed soup — every dish on the table was delicious enough to rival a professional chef’s work.
“Did Miss Jeon really make all of this?”
At Geom U-bin’s question, Gang Seo Samak replied with an expression that was strangely both joyful and sorrowful.
“Yes. I hate to admit it, but our cooking isn’t even cooking compared to hers.”
“We’ve always found your meals delicious. It’s simply that Miss Jeon’s skill is extraordinary. Now that an excellent cook has joined us, our disciples can focus entirely on their martial training. That’s fortunate for everyone.”
It was typical of the ever-optimistic Geom U-bin.

***

After observing Jeon Mi-ryeo for several days, it was clear she was fulfilling her role as an excellent cook admirably.
She got along surprisingly well with the other workers and spent considerable time especially with Go Shin-ji.
Judging from how awkwardly she handled Ji-u, it seemed she’d had no children of her own, yet she played with the child kindly, and her obvious affection revealed her to be a good person.
Watching Jeon Mi-ryeo play with the laughing Ji-u, Geom U-bin spoke softly.
“I’m glad she seems to be settling in well.”
The Bloodwind Saja also harbored no particular grievance about Jeon Mi-ryeo’s presence at Oseong Jang-won.
Rather, eating the dishes she prepared made them reluctant to return to their old Gang Seo Samak days.
“But she won’t just stay like this forever, will she?”
This was Jeon Mi-ryeo, who’d thrown herself from a thousand-foot cliff to protect a secret technique. There was no way she could live an ordinary life here.
“Perhaps we should talk with her.”
Geom U-bin and the Bloodwind Saja had lunch with Jeon Mi-ryeo that day.
“How are you finding life at the Estate?”
“It’s wonderful. Everyone is kind, and it’s so pleasant that I wonder if I’ve ever been this comfortable before in my life.”
“And otherwise?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Are you truly going to spend your whole life here?”
The wariness that flickered in Jeon Mi-ryeo’s eyes was proof she still hadn’t fully trusted Oseong Jang-won.
“I ask only to be sure. If you wish to live an ordinary life forever at Oseong Jang-won, that’s actually what we desire most for you.”
“I know you worry I might cause trouble. But that won’t happen.”
Jeon Mi-ryeo hadn’t set foot outside Oseong Jang-won, fearful of drawing the attention of the Murim Alliance. The Estate was vast enough that confinement was no burden.
“I’m not worried about the Murim Alliance. I’m concerned about you.”
“About me?”
“You’re not doing what you want most.”
“You know what I want most?”
“Cultivation practice.”
Jeon Mi-ryeo’s silence was answer enough.
“You wish to learn martial arts for revenge, don’t you? I understand that feeling. I would have done the same.”
Jeon Mi-ryeo’s expression turned cold.
“I have the feeling this conversation is heading toward ‘so please teach me your secret technique,’ but perhaps I’m imagining things?”
Yeon Geum-hong bristled, but Geom U-bin gently restrained her hand.
“No. I truly have no interest whatsoever in your secret technique. Even if you were to master that secret art, it’s absurd to think you could surpass us.”
Jeon Mi-ryeo looked at the Bloodwind Saja with surprise in her eyes.
“You know whose secret technique I possess, don’t you?”
“It’s the same with me. You didn’t believe what I told you before. We simply want to know what you intend, young lady. Will you live an ordinary life here, or will you learn martial arts and seek revenge?”
“Of course, what I hope for is the latter. My abilities are lacking, but I can’t abandon this.”
“I’m not asking you to abandon it.”
Geom U-bin added to his words.
“But lately it seems you haven’t been doing any cultivation practice at all?”
Jeon Mi-ryeo let out a sigh.
The truth was she wanted to begin cultivation immediately, but the reason she couldn’t was that she didn’t want others to see her practicing. This wasn’t something peculiar to Jeon Mi-ryeo alone—it was something all martial artists dreaded most.
“Would you like to borrow the Underground Cultivation Chamber?”
“Do you mean that underground chamber I was in before?”
“Yes. There, no one would be able to see your cultivation practice. That’s what you were worried about, isn’t it?”
The Bloodwind Saja leaped to his feet.
“Lord! That’s your cultivation chamber!”
“I barely use it anymore anyway.”
In truth, the Underground Cultivation Chamber was merely an empty space except when used for secluded training. And it seemed Geom U-bin no longer needed secluded training.
Since the side effects had disappeared, Geom U-bin’s martial prowess had been rising visibly without requiring him to spend several hours a day in cultivation.
This was why enlightenment in martial arts was so important.
“That may be true, but…”
“It would be a waste to leave unused a space that was created for me.”
The Bloodwind Saja nodded, looking discouraged.
“I understand. However, she must maintain it herself. We shouldn’t trouble others with such matters.”
“You think you can manage that?”
At Geom U-bin’s question, Jeon Mi-ryeo found herself nodding without thinking.
“Then that settles it. From tomorrow on, practice your cultivation without worrying about others watching.”
As Geom U-bin rose to leave, having concluded his business, Jeon Mi-ryeo startled and got to her feet as well.
“Is that all?”
“Why? Is there something more you wished to say?”
“No, I… just… why are you being so kind to me?”
“That’s just how our Estate is. We couldn’t ignore you now that we know your situation. You didn’t arrive here through ordinary fate, did you?”
Jeon Mi-ryeo found it impossible to believe the situation she was in.
Even the monks of Shaolin or the Daoists of the Wudang Sect wouldn’t be so free from material desire. So she suspected the people of this Estate were doing this to deceive her further.
Yet even so, wasn’t this kindness excessive?
‘Could it really be that they don’t covet Master’s secret techniques?’
Jeon Mi-ryeo felt her thoughts beginning to shift.
‘No! That can’t be!’
There couldn’t be such people in the Murim. Peerless secret techniques were treasures more precious than life itself to martial artists, weren’t they? No matter how skilled one’s own martial arts were, there was always another’s to covet.
And these belonged to one of the Saeoe Five Kings.
So why did Geom U-bin and Hang Ju-sa-byeon treat her secret techniques as if they were worthless dung?
“I really don’t understand.”
“Understand what?”
Jeon Mi-ryeo, who had been playing with Ji-u, asked Go Shin-ji, who was sewing.
“Do you know what kind of people these Lords are?”
“The Hangju Oseong, of course.”
“No, I know that much, but besides the Great Lord, why are there four others… who are clearly martial artists…?”
Go Shin-ji spoke without looking up from her sewing, as if it were nothing.
“It’s a secret.”
“Pardon?”
“A secret, I said. Ji-u’s father made me promise never to tell anyone else about it.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Actually, what does their past matter so much? Ji-u’s father was an assassin too.”
“An assassin, you say?”
“Yes, one of the finest assassins in the Murim… or perhaps not the finest? He said he was among the top three.”
Go Shin-ji spoke of such things without any apparent concern.
“But the past is the past, after all. Now he’s just a worker of the Oseong Jang-won. Hehe!”
……
Jeon Mi-ryeo was too startled to respond.
“The Lords… do they know he was an assassin?”
“Of course they do.”
“But… they’re not concerned?”
Only then did Go Shin-ji glance up to look at Jeon Mi-ryeo.
“To truly know a person, examining their past is most accurate. But a person’s past doesn’t determine their present. Ji-u’s father has already left the assassin’s path, and even if he were still active, the Lords wouldn’t worry the tiniest bit. According to him, even if a hundred men came, he wouldn’t be able to lay a finger on either of the Lords.”
“So you’re saying he’s an assassin within the top three fingers of the Murim?”
“I wouldn’t even know if he’s the best.”
“And you’re telling me a hundred men couldn’t take him?”
“For what it’s worth, the boy’s father can’t exaggerate. It frustrates people—he only ever states facts. Maybe that’s why even his jokes fall flat?”
Jeon Mi-ryeo had tried to pry it out of Go Shin-ji, but only found herself more confused.
She’d expected his martial arts to be formidable, but a master so accomplished that the finest assassin in all the Murim wouldn’t dare approach him?
It didn’t seem as though Go Shin-ji had lied.
Churning with confusion, she stepped toward the back of the estate when a tremendous crash struck her forward.
‘What on earth?’
She turned toward the sound. Then she stopped, startled.
Deep in the back garden where the blacksmith’s forge stood, two people were fighting.
It was Geom U-bin and Gong Seong-tak, whom she’d taken for a blacksmith—a sparring match so fierce it could hardly be called anything else.
But what truly astonished Jeon Mi-ryeo wasn’t the ferocity alone.
Their martial arts were wonder incarnate.
She had often imagined it: what would it look like if she perfected her master’s martial arts?
She’d let her imagination soar endlessly, and now that imagination was unfolding before her eyes.
Geom U-bin and Gong Seong-tak displayed before her the very realm she ached so desperately to reach.
Their speed and power, their adaptability and fluidity—they embodied every extreme element that martial arts could possess.
She couldn’t say how much time had passed.
After long minutes in which their trousers and sleeves grew ragged and the ground beneath them cracked and crumbled to dust, the sparring suddenly ceased.
“Haah!”
As both drew long, shuddering breaths, the dust hanging in the air seemed to shudder with them.
“Ah? So you were here too, Miss Jeon.”
She wasn’t alone in having watched the sparring between Geom U-bin and Gong Seong-tak.
Hang Ju-sa-byeon had also been quietly observing from one side, and Go Seo-bang had only just now noticed Jeon Mi-ryeo’s presence.
“Yes! Oh! I—I’m terribly sorry! I wasn’t trying to spy intentionally! Truly, I apologize!”
Knowing that stealing a glimpse of another’s cultivation practice in the Murim was akin to theft, she apologized in confusion and distress.
At her distress, Go Seo-bang laughed heartily.
“It’s fine. At our estate, all martial arts training is open to view.”
“But that’s only because you’re all cultivating the same arts. I’m an outsider.”
“No. We’ve all learned different martial arts. Look at him—he’s mastered the Jincheon Thunder Technique.”
“The Jincheon Thunder Technique? The one from the Cheoncheon Il-in Sect?”
“Yes.”
“Then isn’t he the sect master of the Cheoncheon Il-in Sect?”
“That’s right. They didn’t attach ‘Il-in’ to the name for nothing.”
“Then why is such a person working as a blacksmith here!”
“That’s not something you should ask me about.”
“It makes no sense! A sect master of the Cheoncheon Il-in Sect ought to roam the Murim, sparring with countless masters!”
“That’s exactly what he’s doing.”
Gal Ma-pyeong, who had been listening, pointed his eyes toward Geom U-bin, who was wiping sweat from his brow with a towel.
That’s right.
Gong Seong-tak was remarkable, but the truly astounding one was Geom U-bin.
That sparring match was not something that could happen if Gong Seong-tak were merely letting him win.
Good heavens! Holding his own against the sect master of the Cheoncheon Il-in Sect?
“Didn’t you say the young master is fourteen years old?”
“That’s right.”
“A fourteen-year-old boy holding his own against the sect master of the Cheoncheon Il-in Sect—does that make any sense to you?”
“If you ask those of us who see it every day whether it makes sense, we can’t exactly say it doesn’t.”
The voice of Gong Seong-tak reached her ears.
“I really can’t beat him easily anymore. In another year, he’ll surpass me.”
“You’re still taking it easy on him, though.”
“Taking it easy, he says—don’t you see the bruises on my arms and legs? Even I’ve been working hard at my cultivation lately, but it seems the gap between the dull and the gifted is considerable. Haha!”
That was when the Bloodwind Four Lions entered the back garden.
“You fool, is it only talent that makes the difference? If you cultivated as diligently as your brother, you could master the Jincheon Thunder Technique within five years.”
At Do Pyeong-su’s words, Gong Seong-tak waved both hands.
“Oh my, I have no such intention. That’s U-bin’s responsibility. Isn’t that right, U-bin?”
Do Pyeong-su glared at him.
“Why are you placing such a burden on your brother? Find your own disciples!”
“Yikes! I’ve got work at the forge. I’m off!”
Do Pyeong-su clicked his tongue in disapproval as Gong Seong-tak scurried away.
“A weakling who won’t lift a finger to grow stronger, yet spends all his time hammering iron. How tiresome.”
‘Weak? With martial arts like that? A lord of the Cheoncheon Il-in Sect?’
Just how formidable must Do Pyeong-su be, to call such a man weak?
“Ah? Miss Jeon was here as well?”
Geom U-bin noticed Jeon Mi-ryeo a moment too late and offered a greeting.
“Master Geom, hello.”
Jeon Mi-ryeo bowed deeply without thinking.
“Come closer. It will begin shortly.”
“What will?”
“Just wait and see. It’s no fun if you know beforehand.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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