My Father Is the Number One Under Heaven - Chapter 104

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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 104. The Circumstances of Twin Brothers
“Hwaaaaagh!”
“Hyah! Hyah! Hyah! Hyah!”
“Come on!”
“Ayooooo!”
Even today, the Baeklang Dae continued their intense training at the Training Ground, which had become their stronghold.
As always, the Training Ground was loud with activity.
But what had changed from before was that the cries filling the Training Ground were no longer screams of pain, but shouts of exertion and focus.
It seemed like a small thing, yet it made a profound difference.
It meant their stamina had improved to the point where they were no longer training in a frantic scramble for survival, but could fully absorb the training itself.
Watching each of his soldiers, Yeo Un-hwi nodded with quiet satisfaction.
And yet—
Hmm?
Something caught his eye.
Gi-su and Gi-sang, the twin brothers who had always thrown themselves into training with the most fierce determination among the Baeklang Dae, seemed listless today, lacking their usual vigor.
No—truth be told, this wasn’t just today’s affair.
They’d been like this for some time now.
With the training ground so loud with everyone’s shouts, it would have been easy to miss such a change, but anyone with sharp eyes would have noticed their irregularity already.
Yeo Un-hwi certainly had.
“Thank you for your effort!”
Not long after training ended, the twin brothers gave a brief salute and quickly vanished somewhere.
That too was unlike them.
Normally they would have lingered late, chatting idly with the other soldiers.
In fact, they were usually the ones setting that tone.
But lately, even the way they departed looked wrong.
Their expressions were dark.
“Then I’ll see you all tomorrow.”
“Yes, Commander. Please go in.”
Receiving the robust salute from his soldiers, Yeo Un-hwi nodded and left the Training Ground.
“He’s gone?”
Only after confirming Yeo Un-hwi had disappeared did O Chae-mu, Gu Tae-san, Peng Do-hwan, and the rest of the soldiers gather to speak among themselves.
“Are those two really going to be all right?”
“They shouldn’t be harboring strange thoughts like this.”
“Those idiots, just sitting there and worrying without even asking for help.”
“What do you expect them to do? Stop saying such things.”
“No, I’m just upset about it.”
“From what I hear, proper treatment isn’t going to be cheap—how could they mention it to us? Anyone would be the same.”
“Still, though. Geez, these damned fools getting all meek about the weirdest things. Can’t even tell the Commander about it.”
“Hey, Tae-san.”
All their faces stiffened mid-conversation.
But Gu Tae-san paid no mind and continued prattling on.
“Though I suppose the Commander must be quite busy. I understand his position, honestly. He’s the most dependable person around, but his bearing is such that it’s not easy to just broach subjects like this so readily, is it?”
“Tae-san. Please, stop.”
“All things considered, my manner is a bit gentler. My face may fall short in comparison, I’ll grant you. Ha ha!”
“But let me be clear—I quite like the Commander’s bearing.”
“Same here. I certainly don’t think like that dense oaf.”
“C-cough. I, I also think so.”
Suddenly Peng Do-hwan, then Do-gyeong and O Chae-mu, began shaking their heads with stiffened faces and offering counterarguments.
Only then did Gu Tae-san, sensing something amiss, ask “What’s wrong?” when—
“Are you all badmouthing me behind my back?”
Suddenly Yeo Un-hwi’s voice came from behind Gu Tae-san.
“Yiiiiieek!”
At that, Gu Tae-san’s face went pale with shock.
More precisely, he barely maintained consciousness, on the brink of fainting.
“C-c-c-commander?”
“What? Why are you all so startled? Were you really badmouthing me?”
“N-no! How could we?”
“Only Tae-san said those things. We had nothing to do with it.”
“B-brother! How could you abandon me like this!”
“Sorry. A man’s gotta survive.”
Peng was far from the only one shocked.
When Yeo Un-hwi, whom they’d thought had left, reappeared, the entire Baeklang Dae contingent wore expressions of bewilderment.
“Ah ha ha. By the way, Captain, you haven’t left yet?”
“Something felt off, so I came back to check. It looks like everyone’s concerned about those twin brothers. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“What? How did you know that?”
“Wouldn’t it be stranger not to notice? You’re all showing it so plainly. Both of you, and those twins too, aren’t you?”
That much was true.
“So.”
Looking at them, Yeo Un-hwi tilted his head slightly.
“Tell me. What’s going on?”
“Well, that’s… ”
O Chae-mu and the others exchanged wary glances and hesitated.
They seemed uncertain whether they should speak of it.
Then,
“I’ll explain it for you.”
Do-gyeong, who was closest to the twins and the only one to hear the story directly from them, opened his mouth.
“The thing is… ”
After hearing the account from Do-gyeong, Yeo Un-hwi’s eyebrows rose slightly.
***
“Cough, cough! Cough!”
The sound of severe coughing came from inside the room.
Gi-su and Gi-sang, the twin brothers, stood in the courtyard with anxious expressions.
Soon, the Physician emerged from the room with a troubled look.
“What is it?”
Gi-su and Gi-sang asked the Physician carefully, their manner more guarded than usual.
The Physician drew a heavy sigh before speaking.
“To be frank, if things continue as they are, she won’t last more than half a year.”
At the Physician’s first words, the twins’ faces turned cold and rigid.
The situation was worse than they had feared.
It felt as though the very world had come crashing down on them.
Their mother was everything to them.
But then,
“Until now, we’ve managed to slow the disease’s progression by using fever-reducing medicines, but holding it back any further seems impossible.”
“That means… ”
“From here on, the illness will advance very rapidly.”
In that moment, the twin brothers were left speechless.
They understood exactly what that meant.
After a long silence, Gi-sang finally spoke first.
“As you said before, there’s only one sure method of treatment, isn’t there?”
“There is, but the medicinal herb is so terribly expensive… ”
Moreover, even with money, there was no guarantee of obtaining it—the herb appeared on the market so rarely, like beans during a drought, that securing it at the right time was itself a problem.
How could these two possibly acquire such a rare and costly herb?
The Physician couldn’t fathom that these twins would possess such an enormous sum, which made speaking the truth exceptionally difficult.
Even as formally recognized warriors of the Hebei Peng Estate, the salary of two ordinary fighters fell far short of such a price.
Looking at it this way, this family seemed cursed with misfortune.
‘How did they contract such a rare illness among all the diseases in the world? Tsk.’
The Physician clicked his tongue in sympathy.
Honghyeolhwa.
That was the name of the illness the twins’ mother had recently contracted.
When afflicted with this disease, red blotches appeared across the entire body, and it was a rare illness where high fever made the blood boil—a terrible condition.
While fever-reducing medicines could slow the disease’s progression to some extent, without proper treatment the victim would eventually die in agony, their body desiccated as though wrung of all moisture.
And to cure this illness, one had to brew and consume a single specific medicinal herb—one that was far too rare and difficult to obtain.
“Sigh!”
After the Physician left shortly after, the twins continued exhaling heavy sighs in silence.
Then,
“There’s no choice anymore.”
Gi-sang spoke first at last.
“There’s only one way now. Leave Baeklang Dae and find work that pays real money.”
“L-leave Baeklang Dae?”
Gi-su’s face showed shock at his brother’s words.
He hadn’t anticipated this kind of conversation at all.
For him, it had never been an option he’d considered before.
“So what? You’re just going to let Mother die like that?”
“No, I was thinking—what if we spoke to the clan leader or the Peng Estate first?”
“Right. And you think they’re going to magically procure those absurdly expensive medicinal herbs for us?”
“That’s not quite what I mean.”
Gi-sang shook his head.
“They’ve kept us around without cutting ties, even after all the trouble we’ve caused—and that’s already something we owe them for. They shouldn’t have to bear this burden when there’s no solution anyway. It’s not pocket change, either.”
……
Yet despite his words, Gi-sang’s face looked utterly sorrowful.
Still, there was no more time to hesitate.
“In any case, we don’t have much time. Half a year. Or less. We need to scrape together every coin and buy those herbs before then. I’m planning to leave tomorrow. Gi-su, what about you?”
“What kind of stupid question is that? Of course I’ll do the same. I can’t let you go alone.”
“Right. If it’s come to this, we’ll do whatever work brings in money and save Mother no matter what.”
Gi-su nodded at Gi-sang’s words.
Then, suddenly, Gi-su spoke again.
“Wait… so tomorrow is our last day?”
“That’s how it would be, wouldn’t it?”
Tomorrow, then.
Lately, with Mother’s illness weighing on him, he’d barely spent time with the other members of Baeklang Dae.
“It’s a shame.”
Gi-su smacked his lips and scratched his head.
“Never thought the day would come when we’d leave Baeklang Dae. It was quite good while it lasted.”
Baeklang Dae had been to them like a home and the place where they’d realized their dreams.
They’d vaguely thought they needed to become martial artists, but the truth was that if things had gone even slightly wrong, they could have ended up as riffraff in the jianghu—so Mother’s worries had always been considerable.
That’s why when Mother heard the news that they’d officially become martial artists at the Hebei Peng Estate, she’d been overjoyed beyond measure.
Though afterward, they’d managed to cause trouble of every conceivable kind and gave her reason to worry.
In any case, they hadn’t imagined an ending like this.
“We were never really worthy of a place like this anyway. But we’ve had plenty of good times here, and that’s enough.”
“True. That much is true.”
But did they know?
That despite their words, neither of their expressions looked quite settled?
In any case, a day was passing over the heads of the twin brothers who had resolved to leave Baeklang Dae.
***
The next day arrived.
The brothers Gi-su and Gi-sang arrived at the Training Ground early in the morning.
Today they’d come out before the other members showed up, earlier than usual.
Yeo Un-hwi, unless there was something pressing, would always be at the Training Ground on training days rather than in his private quarters, spreading out a straw mat, reading a book while keeping watch over the members’ training—seeming both present and absent at once.
But then—
“Where is he? By this hour, he should be here.”
“Really. Did he sleep in today?”
“Yeah.”
Just then, O Chae-mu and Gu Tae-san appeared at the Training Ground, unusually early.
“What’s with you two? What wind blew in to make you show up this early?”
“Well, we happened to wake up early. It happens sometimes, doesn’t it? Ha ha!”
“Right. That’s right.”
Gi-su and Gi-sang, laughing awkwardly, both scratched their heads in exactly the same way while dodging the question.
What’s with these fools?
O Chae-mu and Gu Tae-san both had the distinct impression that these idiotic brothers were plotting something.
“By the way, where’s the clan leader?”
“Oh, I heard he went out today to take care of some business out of town.”
At Gu Tae-san’s words, Gi-su and Gi-sang’s brows furrowed simultaneously.
“What? Hmm. That’s inconvenient.”
“Huh? Why is it inconvenient?”
“Oh, nothing. Do you know when he might return?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but I think I heard it would take a few days.”
“I… see.”
“Hey. What do we do now? The whole plan’s fallen through.”
Gi-su whispered urgently to Gi-sang, his face troubled.
Gi-sang whispered back to him in turn.
“What else can we do? It’s the end, after all—we should see his face one last time, hear his words. It’s the least we owe him.”
“Yes. Let’s do that.”
But neither of them could have imagined.
What Yeo Un-hwi would bring with him days hence.
Or where he would be headed.

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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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