My Father Is the Number One Under Heaven - Chapter 7

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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 7. Something That Never Happened in My Previous Life
No one knew what had become of the ruffians who descended upon Sodam Village.
Yeo Woon-hui had thrown their corpses deep into the mountains where wild beasts prowled in teeming masses, and the rain that fell shortly after washed away even the remaining traces of blood.
“Exhale.”
Yeo Woon-hui washed his face by the stream.
Perhaps it was because he had just taken lives.
Even though there was no blood on his hands or face, he felt the need.
He gazed quietly at his reflection in the streamwater.
It was the first murder he had committed since the Regression.
Did he regret it? Not in the slightest.
Not even a shred of remorse.
They deserved to die.
Men like that never truly change.
Those who have once grasped power in their hands, oppressed the weak, and exploited them—they never return to what they were before.
Because it is far too sweet, far too easy.
Yeo Woon-hui knew well that the moment their own lives hung in the balance, they would only pretend to change for an instant; in truth, they would never become good.
Of course, perhaps somewhere in this world there existed an exception, someone who had genuinely transformed.
But over two lifetimes, across no small span of time, Yeo Woon-hui had never once witnessed such an exception, nor even heard of one.
So he did not believe in that possibility, however remote it might be.
To stake faith on one such possibility, only to watch countless innocents suffer the consequences, seemed an unbearable gamble.
So why was he doing this?
He simply feared returning to his family without ceremony after having taken lives, as though nothing had happened.
He worried that some trace of blood might yet cling to him—a concern he had never felt in his previous life.
After losing his family then, he had never harbored such a worry.
There had been no need to.
In any case, he could not linger here forever.
Soon Yeo Woon-hui swept his reflection away in the streamwater and rose to his feet.
It was time to return to his family.
***
“Father!”
His beloved daughter Yul came running and embraced him with joy.
“Has my little Yul been well all this time?”
“Yes!”
“You missed Father, didn’t you?”
“Yes, yes!”
The moment he saw his daughter, all the tangled thoughts that had troubled him just moments before simply vanished.
After all, his family was everything—
“Welcome home.”
“Ha ha. M-my dear.”
Only then did Yeo Woon-hui notice Paeng Seo-yeon glaring daggers at him.
The fortnight he had promised his wife had long since passed, with several days beyond that as well.
Moreover, he had not properly explained what business required him to leave or why he needed to be gone; his transgression was far too grave to slip past her with honeyed words.
Hmm.
Yeo Woon-hui found himself at a loss for excuses.
What use would there be in stringing together a stream of flimsy justifications?
In moments like this,
“I am truly sorry. I have no words in my defense.”
“You were wrong, weren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, yes! Father was wrong!”
As Yeo Woon-hui nodded, Yul echoed the answer alongside him.
At the sight, both Yeo Woon-hui and Paeng Seo-yeon could not help but break into soft laughter.
Yet some hint of lingering displeasure remained in Paeng Seo-yeon, who now tilted her head with a sidelong glance and asked,
“How is your body feeling?”
“Mine?”
“Who else would I be asking?”
“You’d be asking me!”
“Ha ha!”
Today, Yul seemed to have discovered the fun of repeating words.
Soon after, Yeo Woon-hui planted a kiss on Yul’s cheek and gave a soft chuckle.
“Ha, I’m in fine health.”
“Hmm… wait?”
Paeng Seo-yeon leaned in closer, as though she’d noticed something.
Yeo Woon-hui’s eyes widened in response.
“What is it?”
“Your skin looks better, doesn’t it? You seem taller too. And your shoulders—they look broader somehow…”
“That’s nonsense. I’m hardly at an age for growing.”
“No, something about you really has changed. Don’t you think? Yul, how’s Father’s skin? Feel it. Bouncy, isn’t it?”
“Papa’s skin is bouncy! Bouncy!”
Yul, charmed by the word, bounced her small body up and down in delight.
“Haha…”
While this unfolded, Yeo Woon-hui felt far from at ease.
The phenomenon occurring in his body after absorbing the Divine Martial Orb and spending more than a fortnight unconscious.
That, people called Complete Physical Transformation.
As his wife said—he’d grown taller, his skin had improved, and his body had become optimal for learning and wielding martial arts.
His wife, Paeng Seo-yeon, had noticed the change swiftly.
Her intuition was never something to dismiss lightly.
“You…”
Paeng Seo-yeon’s eyes narrowed in an instant.
“Where exactly have you been?”
“Ah, well… that is to say…”
Yeo Woon-hui could think of no better answer than a hot spring, no matter how hard he racked his brain.
Perhaps this was the most critical moment he’d faced since his Regression.
Just then,
Growl.
Yeo Woon-hui’s stomach rumbled loudly.
“Mom, Dad’s hungry!”
“You haven’t eaten?”
“Ha, well, it turned out that way.”
“Goodness. Come inside quickly. I’ll have something ready in no time. I’ve been simmering that meat broth you love for days now, just in case. I’ll mix some thin noodles in it for you.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
Phew.
Thanks to his hunger, he’d narrowly escaped the trap.
Having weathered the crisis, Yeo Woon-hui carried Yul into the house.
And then,
“Hmm.”
Paeng Seo-yeon, delighted at her husband’s safe return, hummed softly as she prepared the meal in the kitchen.
But as Yeo Woon-hui watched her retreating figure, his eyes grew heavy with an inexplicable sadness.
Why was that?
‘How could this have happened?’
During the time Yeo Woon-hui had been away, something utterly unforeseen had occurred.
His gaze fixed on Paeng Seo-yeon’s hands.
Just beneath her fingernails, the skin had taken on a faint discoloration.
Black as night.
That was…
‘Poison.’
He didn’t know when it had begun.
What he knew for certain was that Paeng Seo-yeon was now poisoned.
And in his previous life, this had never happened.
Yeo Woon-hui’s eyes turned cold and hard.
***
The night deepened, and the cry of an owl drifted faintly from a distance.
“Mm-hm. Mm-hm. And candy… I want one more candy.”
Nestled in her mother’s arms, Yul murmured in her sleep with tender innocence.
Yeo Woon-hui sat quietly, watching his sleeping wife.
Yet her breathing was subtly labored.
Confusion filled his eyes.
But there was something he needed to do first.
He quietly reached out toward his wife.
Whoooosh.
Then a soft light began to shimmer across her body.
A jade-green orb, no larger than a fingertip, emerged from within her.
It radiated an extraordinary Divine Technique.
The kind that defied belief, even when witnessed with one’s own eyes.
Ordinarily, ridding the body of poison meant forcing it out through bowel movements, sweat, or vomiting—expelling both the toxin and the corrupted flesh it had claimed.
But to extract a Poison Orb in this manner, without causing the slightest damage to the body itself, was something that transcended explanation.
Only the Sacheon Dang Clan’s Poison Master—supreme in all matters of toxins across the realm—might accomplish such a thing; no other living person was known to have ever achieved it.
That any of this was possible at all owed itself to Yeo Woon-hui’s mastery of the Heavenly Martial Divine Art, the Divine Technique of the martial god.
The Heavenly Martial Divine Art possessed a purity beyond all else in the world, and wielded the power to drive out every malignant force.
It was, without question, a Martial Art of heaven itself—a term far too meager to contain its truth.
“Hah… so this is it.”
Yeo Woon-hui gazed down at the Poison Orb resting in the center of his palm.
He studied it for a moment—that viscous, repugnant thing brimming with toxic essence—before carefully depositing it into a Small Gourd Bottle.
Almost at once, his wife’s breathing grew steady and calm as she slept.
A mercy, at least, that this poison was not of the swift-killing variety—the sort that would shatter every organ in the body and steal life within hours.
Moreover, the poisoning had occurred only recently, so it seemed no lasting damage would remain.
Yet there was no denying the toxin’s ferocity; it was an extreme poison of terrible potency.
The sort designed to work slowly over time, a wasting death that came by degrees—in some respects, the cruelest variety of all.
‘Poison… she was poisoned.’
But what on earth had happened?
His thoughts grew tangled.
What grievance could drive someone to employ such a vile toxin?
Above all, what confounded Yeo Woon-hui was this: in his past life, his wife had never been poisoned before she died of illness—or wait.
Yeo Woon-hui picked up the Small Gourd Bottle containing the Poison Orb.
‘Could it be…’
Had his wife not died of sickness at all, but rather been murdered by poison?
And in his past life, he had simply been blind to it?
Judging by the nature of the poison, this seemed not merely possible but certain.
Ha… ha ha…
Fury rose within him, scalding and bitter.
It made sense now. It had always made sense.
His wife had been born the daughter of a martial family whose name was known throughout the Martial World, raised from childhood on elixirs and martial training.
In other words, she had been far healthier than any common person—never frail, never sickly by nature.
Yet in his past life, she had suddenly collapsed with illness.
Within days, her condition had deteriorated beyond what any physician could remedy, and she had died.
At the time, Yeo Woon-hui had cursed heaven itself.
The cruel sky that had stolen his wife from him so abruptly.
But now he understood:
‘There was a murderer all along.’
Both his wife and his child had been taken by another’s hand.
In his past life, he had protected neither of them.
Yeo Woon-hui found himself shaking his head, unbidden.
Powerless. Such a staggering, suffocating powerlessness that his gorge rose.
And whoever had done this was no ordinary foe.
A master skilled enough that even his wife, adept as she was, had failed to recognize the poison at work within her.
‘Of course.’
Yeo Woon-hui’s mind went cold and clear.
From this moment forward, he would discover who that murderer was.
Never again would he lose his wife without knowing why. Never again.
Yeo Woon-hui’s hands clenched into fists, trembling with rage.

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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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