Abolition of the Wicked - Chapter 74

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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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#074

“Who ordered you to interfere with the construction?”
“What are you talking about?”
“If you tell us, we’ll take care of it.”
“Now, see here! I was merely saying your construction has its faults…….”
“Don’t fabricate problems you can’t answer for. Not over a few coins!”
“How dare you slap us with a false accusation of corruption! I was trying to handle this gracefully, but…….”
Bang!
A wooden plank flew through the air and lodged itself in the partition wall with a tremendous crash, its edge just missing the official’s face.
“Wh—what is this……?”
Jegal Jong-ryeo’s voice cut through the stammering official’s words.
“It seems you’re the sort of officials who care for nothing but coin, so clearly you lack the judgment to understand who I am, which means nothing I say will help, will it?”
The officials flinched at the words of the woman whose face was half-concealed by an odd cloth wrapping.
“Just wait a quarter hour.”
Jegal Jong-ryeo threw herself forward and vanished from sight in an instant.
“Wh—who was that woman?”
Her manner of dress looked mad, yet that Lightness Technique that made her disappear before their eyes was extraordinary. Se-hwa spoke to the bewildered official.
“I’m afraid you’re all in serious trouble.”
“Why would we be?”
“Just wait the quarter hour. You’ll understand then.”
Se-hwa herself didn’t know what Jegal Jong-ryeo intended to do.
But she wouldn’t have mentioned a quarter hour and vanished without reason. Foolish she might be, and lazy to excess, but she was no fool.
The officials, too confused to press Se-hwa further, could only wait as the quarter hour slipped away in a moment.
“Tongpan, sir! You really are someone important, aren’t you?”
“I am not so very important, but what the young lady asked me to resolve can likely be resolved.”
With those words, Jegal Jong-ryeo reappeared.
Behind Jegal Jong-ryeo came a single official who appeared to be in his early fifties.
The three officials before them quickly bowed at the waist.
“We greet Tongpan!”
“Hmm? Aren’t you Gwak Jubu? Were you the corrupt official the young lady spoke of?”
“N—no, I wasn’t—I mean, it wasn’t corruption, it was…….”
Jegal Jong-ryeo cut off Gwak Jubu’s stammering words.
“It was corruption. You were taking orders from someone and grasping at pretexts to halt the construction.”
“Those weren’t pretexts, they were legitimate concerns…….”
Gwak Jubu’s words were cut off again.
“Where is the document ordering the halt of construction?”
Gwak Jubu’s head drooped before he could say anything else.
“I apologize. There is none.”
“So you were attempting to halt properly authorized construction without even formal documentation?”
Now Gwak Jubu fell silent altogether. Tongpan bowed respectfully to Jegal Jong-ryeo.
“I am in your debt. Thanks to you, I have uncovered officials who mislead the people.”
“Officials like that won’t reflect well on my uncle, the Provincial Governor.”
The Provincial Governor held the highest post among those who governed Hangju.
Tongpan thanked Jegal Jong-ryeo repeatedly and departed with the three officials, promising before he left that Oseong Pavilion would face no further interference from the government.
The government was an enemy best avoided in direct confrontation, but thanks to Jegal Jong-ryeo, they had dispatched it cleanly.
“Thank you.”
Jegal Jong-ryeo grinned widely at Se-hwa’s gratitude.
“Does this count toward my meals?”

***

Geom U-bin knocked on the door to Jegal Jong-ryeo’s room, but there was no answer.
“I heard she was in.”
When she opened the door, the first thing she saw was Jegal Jong-ryeo lying face-down, absorbed in a book.
“Finally coming to finish me off?”
Her pronunciation came out garbled because she was still rolling a pastry around in her mouth.
“I was trying to thank Se-hwa for helping, but it seems I just got in the way instead.”
Jegal Jong-ryeo spoke to Geom U-bin as he turned to leave.
“I’m going to marry you, so keep that in mind.”
“Sigh…….”
Geom U-bin let out another sigh. Lately, it seemed there were more and more reasons to sigh.
“I’m only thirteen, you know.”
“I know. But after a few days here, Oseong Jang-won feels like paradise. Right now, nobody’s nagging me to clean my room, bathe, or practice martial arts. Don’t worry. I won’t turn into a pig. People from the Jegal Family just don’t get fat from their constitution.”
“Isn’t it odd that I’m marrying Oseong Jang-won itself, not you?”
“You can’t marry a building, can you?”
“There are plenty of unmarried men at Oseong Jang-won.”
“Still, you’re the most suitable. The family will approve easily. So keep that in mind.”
“Um, what about my opinion?”
Jegal Jong-ryeo waved her hand dismissively.
“Don’t overthink it. You’ve got the looks, the figure, the family background. If there’s anything else you want, just say so. I’ll give it to you if I can.”
Only after saying this did Jegal Jong-ryeo’s gaze shift from her book to Geom U-bin.
“That’s enough. Instead of worrying about me, find a way to marry Oseong Jang-won yourself.”
Jegal Jong-ryeo’s eyes followed Geom U-bin all the way out.
She grabbed a handful of pastries and stuffed them in her mouth, then sat down.
“Is this method not going to work? Other methods seem too troublesome.”
She sprawled out flat again, holding the book in front of her face as she muttered.
“There’s still time. Maybe I should just have a child to avoid the engagement my family mentioned?”

***

For the first time since arriving at Oseong Jang-won, Jegal Jong-ryeo woke early and walked around the estate.
When the time seemed right, she climbed up to the roof and watched Gong Seong-tak working at his forge. Naturally, Yeon Geum-hong occupied the spot beside her.
“This place is really fascinating.”
“What is?”
“Nobody complains about anything. Even if I walk around unwashed, they greet me warmly. Nobody seems to gossip behind my back. Whoever I meet, they smile at me.”
“You seemed to stay in your room all the time — when did you see all this?”
“I have to use the privy sometime, you know. Oh!”
Jegal Jong-ryeo suddenly became serious and asked.
“What would I have to do to marry U-bin?”
“Because you like this place, or because you like U-bin?”
Jegal Jong-ryeo shrugged.
“Both. Honestly, the Jegal Family can be so busy and intense sometimes that it’s hard even to breathe. This place has none of that. Of course, U-bin is the best part.”
After watching Gong Seong-tak for a while, Jegal Jong-ryeo asked.
“It would be good to get close to the people here first, wouldn’t it?”
“No harm in that.”
“Then let’s start with the blacksmith.”
Jegal Jong-ryeo jumped down from the roof, and Gong Seong-tak greeted her without a trace of surprise.
They exchanged pleasantries about it being their first proper meeting and what an interesting sight she was watching, before Jegal Jong-ryeo mentioned wanting to try the forging work herself.
Gong Seong-tak readily handed her a hammer.
Jegal Jong-ryeo’s body lurched forward as she took it.
“Wow! It’s heavy!”
“Want a lighter one?”
“This is fine. How do I do it?”
Once she channeled her martial force, she was able to swing the hammer just as Gong Seong-tak had shown her.
“Impressive, young lady. You learn quickly too. You have the makings of a fine blacksmith. Let me check your bone structure.”
As Gong Seong-tak reached out to touch Jegal Jong-ryeo’s shoulder, Yeon Geum-hong, who was watching, slapped his hand away.
“Now, now! Don’t go touching a woman’s body so carelessly!”
“Bone structure has nothing to do with whether someone’s male or female. Well, I can tell you’re excellent even without checking. Say, would you have any interest in becoming my disciple?”
“Your disciple?”
“I found someone to pass on martial arts to, but I still haven’t found a disciple for blacksmithing.”
Jegal Jong-ryeo laughed heartily.
“Wow, that’s quite something. You’re saying you want to turn the only daughter of the Jegal Family into a blacksmith?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Gong Seong-tak blinked in bewilderment, and this time it was Jegal Jong-ryeo’s turn to be astonished.
“You really don’t know about the Jegal Family?”
She was about to explain the Jegal Family to her when O Da-rae called for Jegal Jong-ryeo.
“Miss, you have a visitor.”
“A visitor? How could anyone know I’m here?”
“Well, it’s a handsome young nobleman, miss.”
Jegal Jong-ryeo could count fifty handsome young noblemen she knew, but among them, only three could be counted on the fingers of one hand as people who would come looking for her.
“Where did you show him?”
“That is… well, he was quite insistent about seeing the room where you stay…”
From O Da-rae’s hesitant admission that she’d led him all the way to her room, Jegal Jong-ryeo could piece together who it was.
“I think I know who it is.”
She’d known this day would come eventually.
Either way, only two people would come, and depending on which one it was, that determined whether she’d enjoy her time or suffer through it. She’d hoped for the former, but the moment she opened the door, the figure standing in the center of the room with hands clasped behind his back was unmistakably the latter.
Jegal Jong-ryeo let out a thin sigh.
‘I need to leave today.’
She had hoped it would be her older brother, but the man who’d come to fetch her was Jegal Pyeong-su, the Provincial Governor.
“So this is what you’ve been doing?”
The room, which O Da-rae hadn’t managed to clean, remained exactly as Jegal Jong-ryeo had left it.
Crunch.
As he stepped forward, Jegal Pyeong-su’s brow furrowed at the sound of pastry crumbs crackling beneath his foot.
“You disgrace the Jegal Family wherever you go.”
Jegal Jong-ryeo spoke with deliberate nonchalance.
“Only you think of it as disgrace. No one at this estate would criticize something like this.”
“Who would dare speak ill of the Jegal Family to their face?”
“Anyone at Oseong Jang-won would criticize right in front of me if they truly thought poorly of me. Here, no one cares about the Jegal Family or anything like that. You don’t know how liberating it is.”
“Silence!”
Jegal Pyeong-su’s cold voice cut through as he shut her up.
“Pack your things. I can’t stay here any longer because of you.”
There was no point prolonging the conversation; all it would bring were more reproaches from Jegal Pyeong-su.
“Who asked you to come fetch me? You show up uninvited and throw a fit.”
Grumbling was the most defiance she could muster. Then Geom U-bin’s voice came, rescuing her from the moment.
“It’s Geom U-bin. May I come in?”
Jegal Jong-ryeo answered quickly.
“Come in!”
Geom U-bin entered and greeted Jegal Pyeong-su.
“I heard you’d arrived.”
Thirteen-year-old Geom U-bin bowed with a formality that belied his age.
“My apologies. In my haste, I failed to pay proper respects to the master. I am Jegal Pyeong-su, Provincial Governor of the Jegal Family.”
They had passed each other briefly when he visited the Jegal estate, but had never been formally introduced.
“I’m sorry my younger sister has caused you such trouble.”
“Not at all. Rather, we’ve had a pleasant time because of the lady. But please, speak comfortably. Not only am I still young, but I’m also a friend of Hoon’s.”
“That would be disrespectful. You’ve established your own household.”
“My older brother is just too rigid, that’s all.”
Jegal Jong-ryeo, who had been avoiding Jegal Pyeong-su’s stern gaze, flashed a desperate look at Geom U-bin.
‘Please, don’t send me away!’
Her earnest plea seemed to reach him clearly.
“Since you’ve come so far, why not stay a few days?”
“I appreciate the kindness, but I’m in the middle of urgent business and must return promptly. I hope you’ll understand that I cannot stay long.”
It seemed Jegal Pyeong-su hadn’t come all this way specifically to fetch her.
“I understand. Then please allow me to provide at least one meal. I cannot face my friend if I send his brother away like this.”
“Since you’ve asked so earnestly, it would be rude to decline further.”
Jegal Jong-ryeo’s face brightened momentarily, then darkened, before settling into resignation.
She had barely enough time for one meal.
“U-bin.”
“Yes?”
“The way you talk—it’s like listening to an old man. You’re just a child playing at wisdom.”
Having failed in her purpose, Jegal Jong-ryeo spoke those words and left the room.
“I, that is… please forgive her thoughtlessness. I’m so sorry.”
“No, not at all. About a hundred people have called me an old soul before. It doesn’t bother me anymore.”
While the meal was being prepared, Geom U-bin and Jegal Pyeong-su took a tour around Oseong Jang-won. After eating, they prepared the carriage he’d ridden in, as promised, at the front of the estate.
Jegal Jong-ryeo, who had harbored a faint hope, now wore the melancholy expression of a celestial maiden cast out of heaven.
“U-bin, you look pleased with yourself for driving me out?”
Jegal Jong-ryeo suddenly embraced Geom U-bin.
“You’ll come back, won’t you? You have to!”
Geom U-bin patted her back gently.
“Next time, don’t run away. Just come visit.”
Jegal Jong-ryeo, who had come to see her off along with Yeon Geum-hong, climbed into the carriage.
“My younger sister has caused you trouble. I’m troubled that we keep imposing on your estate. Please, allow the Jegal Family the chance to repay this debt in the future.”
Jegal Pyeong-su’s manner remained unfailingly courteous throughout. As the carriage departed, Yeon Geum-hong muttered under her breath.
“Never met a smooth talker yet who turned out decent.”

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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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