My Younger Siblings Are the Greatest Masters in the World - Chapter 11
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
11.
Twelve taels of silver was a large sum, but no matter how much money it was, it couldn’t be more important than a person.
Money could be earned again, but a person once lost would never return.
So taking the twelve taels to find the thug wasn’t such a difficult decision.
Seol Mujin told Hwa Seonhwa he was going downtown to buy snacks for the triplets and headed into the city.
He had already found out who the thug was and where he lived through the courtesans.
Seol Mujin quickened his pace as he passed through the bustling midday market and entered Seonyeong Road.
Since this wasn’t a pleasant task, he wanted to get it over with quickly.
The thug’s house was located deep inside an alley where shabby houses were packed tightly together.
“They said it was the second house on the left facing the fortune teller’s house…”
Finding the fortune teller’s house with flags fluttering outside the wall wasn’t too difficult.
After passing the gate of the house right next to it, he saw a dark brown gate.
The gate with a low threshold was half open.
Since the door was open, it seemed someone was home.
Taking a deep breath, Seol Mujin stepped over the low threshold of the gate.
“Excuse me…”
Seol Mujin stopped abruptly as he entered the narrow courtyard while announcing his presence.
The thug lying on the ground covered in blood, and two children looking down at him.
Those two children made Seol Mujin freeze.
“Ryeoseon… Mantong?”
Seol Ryeoseon was holding a white mask and Seol Mantong had a black robe draped over his shoulders.
A white mask and black robe.
Though it was only the second time, these were objects all too familiar to Seol Mujin.
Like Seol Mujin, Seol Ryeoseon and Seol Mantong also froze.
“Mu, Mujin, why are you here…?”
“Th, this isn’t what you think it is.”
It was probably exactly what Seol Mujin thought it was.
Suddenly, Seol Mantong lunged at Seol Mujin.
The attack was unexpected and too fast for Seol Mujin to dodge.
Thwack!
Hit in the jaw by Seol Mantong’s foot, Seol Mujin spun around in place before collapsing with a thud.
“You idiot! Why did you hit Mujin!”
Only after confirming that the fallen Seol Mujin had merely fainted did Seol Ryeoseon breathe a sigh of relief.
Since there was no way to explain this situation to Seol Mujin, Seol Mantong had acted on instinct.
“What do we do?”
Seol Ryeoseon clutched her head with both hands.
“We’re screwed. Completely screwed.”
Of all people, it had to be Seol Mujin who caught them!
“Let’s go discuss this with the scholar first.”
Even if the two of them put their heads together for a year, there was no way they’d come up with a clever solution.
As expected, thinking was Seol Changho’s job.
“What about Mujin?”
Seol Ryeoseon said as she covered Seol Mujin with a robe.
“We have to leave him here. He’ll come on his own when he wakes up.”
***
Seol Changho, who had stolen three books, escaped through the bookstore window.
The window, far too small for an adult to pass through, was an excellent escape route.
Seol Changho landed in the alley behind the bookstore, brushed the dust off his clothes, and came out onto the main street.
Just as he was passing a street stall selling dumplings, he heard someone calling from behind.
“Hey! Scholar!”
When he turned his head, he saw Seol Ryeoseon and Seol Mantong running toward him breathlessly.
Seol Changho continued on his way, and the two fell in step beside him.
“We’re in big trouble!”
What kind of big trouble could a five-year-old in appearance have?
“Mujin found out!”
When Seol Mujin’s name came from Seol Mantong, he stopped walking.
“Found out? Found out what?”
“You know! The white mask and black robe!”
He knew what it was as soon as he heard it.
“How did Mujin find out about that old incident?”
“It’s not an old incident, it just happened!”
“It just happened?”
Frustrated with Seol Mantong’s explanation, he turned his gaze to Seol Ryeoseon.
Seol Ryeoseon quickly told him the story of how she wore the white mask and punished the thug.
“But then Mujin suddenly appeared there.”
The scene vividly formed in Seol Changho’s mind.
The bloodied thug. The two idiots looking down at the thug and laughing.
It was an utterly fucked situation with no way out.
“So what about Mujin?”
Seol Ryeoseon pointed at Seol Mantong with her thumb.
“Saekgol knocked him out.”
“What? What did Mujin say?”
“There wasn’t time to say anything.”
They were stuck in a swamp with only their heads barely above water, and now they’d pushed even their heads under.
“What do we do? What excuse do we give Mujin? Should we insist it wasn’t us?”
“Is Mujin an idiot and blind?”
“Mujin is practically a genius. He’s definitely not blind either.”
Seol Changho slumped down onto the chair placed beneath the wall.
Seol Mantong’s appearance as he clutched his hair looked as if he was bearing all the world’s anguish alone.
“Isn’t there some good solution?”
“Let me think about it.”
He had squeezed his head so hard that his brain felt ready to burst.
And the conclusion he reached was.
“Let’s just tell him honestly.”
“Honestly? Tell him what?”
“That we were elders of Mingjiao and used the Rejuvenation Technique.”
“Are you crazy?”
“That’s absolutely not happening!”
Seol Ryeoseon and Seol Mantong opposed in unison.
“Do you have any other good ideas?”
Seol Mantong shouted.
“I’d rather die than tell him honestly!”
“Me too!”
“Why is telling the truth harder than dying?”
Seol Mantong spoke with an expression that looked ready to cry.
“Because if we tell Mujin we’re Mingjiao elders, he’ll hate us.”
Seol Ryeoseon’s words followed.
“We’re known as the Demonic Sect. Do you think kind Mujin would like us, who are Demonic Sect elders? As soon as he finds out, he’ll drive us away. Won’t he?”
Seol Changho could understand the two people saying these words.
Because his heart felt no different.
If disgust toward them appeared on Seol Mujin’s kind face, that would certainly be a reality worse than death.
But there was no plausible excuse.
What kind of lie could make Seol Mujin understand this situation?
If they just stubbornly insisted and tried to get past this matter, Seol Mujin would constantly suspect them.
And if he discovered their true identity then?
The layers of accumulated disgust would surely build an irreversible tower of hatred.
No matter which path they walked, only a bleak future was visible.
“There is another way though.”
“What is it?”
Seol Changho spat out words he didn’t want to say to the two faces full of expectation.
“We leave.”
Their faces looked shocked as if they had been suddenly slapped.
Only after a long while did Seol Ryeoseon speak like a groan.
“Leave Mujin?”
“Yes. Just without saying anything, so he won’t know who we are, and leave like that.”
Seol Mantong burst out shouting.
“How is that any different from being kicked out!”
“Since Mujin doesn’t know our true identity, we can promise to meet again someday.”
“Someday… someday…”
Seol Ryeoseon muttered those words under her breath, then asked, “How far in the future?”
“Well. After we get our revenge?”
“At least fifteen years… Maybe it could take more than twenty years, couldn’t it?”
“By then, his memories of us will have faded too.”
“You’re saying we can’t see Mujin for that long?”
“We decided to leave anyway.”
They probably had that conversation when he was around one year old.
To leave this damn Yeonji-ru that was terrible for Internal Energy Cultivation and focus on Martial Arts deep in the mountains.
To leave Yeonji-ru when he turned ten, once his frame had grown somewhat.
That’s what they had promised.
“The timing just got moved up a little.”
Seol Mantong said with a trembling voice.
“It got moved up by five whole years. Five years…”
Back then, they didn’t know they would become so attached to Seol Mujin.
No one knew that just the thought of leaving Seol Mujin would make their hearts feel blocked and their minds go completely blank.
Seol Changho said.
“We just need to work hard. Let’s get our revenge and come back in twenty years, no, ten years.”
Seol Ryeoseon took a deep breath as if holding back tears.
“Right. We have to pay the price for doing the most foolish thing in our lives.”
Thwack!
“Ugh!”
Seol Mantong, who was knocked down by Seol Ryeoseon’s hit, got up without complaint, wearing an expression that said ‘I deserve this beating.’
“When do we leave?”
“Right now.”
“Where to?”
It was Seol Mantong who answered Seol Ryeoseon’s question.
“Gangseoseong.”
“What’s in Gangseoseong?”
“A good place for Internal Energy Cultivation. You’ll like it, so just trust me.”
“I’d rather go anywhere except Gangseoseong.”
Seol Mantong asked.
“What do we need to prepare? Don’t we need something called money?”
Had they used money maybe twice in their entire lives?
“Let’s just get some jerky and go.”
***
After waiting a day, Seol Mujin decided to go look for the triplets.
“Are you sure they really ran away? They weren’t kidnapped, were they?”
Hwa Seonhwa’s reasoning was natural, but there was no way the triplets had been kidnapped.
They had clearly run away because their identity had been exposed to him.
“Anyway, I’m going to look for them.”
“Do you know where they went?”
“Someone said they saw them near Cheonyang Road. It seems they went west.”
“You’ve already looked into it.”
Hwa Seonhwa pressed five taels of silver into Seol Mujin’s hands despite his reluctance to accept it.
“Don’t struggle too much, and if you don’t think you can find them, just come back.”
Seol Mujin answered “Yes,” but perhaps they might not see each other for a long time.
Hwa Seonhwa felt empty inside, as if the son she had raised all her life was departing on a long journey.
‘Mujin’s heart that cherishes the triplets must be even greater than mine.’
That’s why she didn’t stop Seol Mujin from saying he would go look for them.
Several gisaengs waved their hands toward Seol Mujin as he left Yeonji-ru.
“You have to come back soon!”
***
Seol Mantong, who was chewing jerky, spoke like a monologue.
“This spicy jerky was something Mujin liked.”
Seol Ryeoseon replied, “That’s right.”
“What do you think Mujin thinks of us?”
“I want to go back and ask him.”
A deep silence followed Seol Mantong’s words.
It had only been three days since they left, but they already missed Seol Mujin.
No, actually they had missed Seol Mujin from the moment they left.
“We really are like kids who ran away from home.”
Seol Ryeoseon’s words reflected everyone’s true feelings.
The jerky wrapped in oil paper had somehow run out.
“Let’s go.”
When Seol Changho stood up first, the other two brushed the dirt off their bottoms and got up.
As they were trudging along the mountain path that wound around the mountainside, they heard sounds from ahead.
“Oh ho, what silver coin lumps are these?”
“I was yawning and persimmons just fell by themselves?”
Those who blocked their path were bandits.
With large swords strapped to their backs and wearing animal skin clothes, their profession couldn’t be anything else.
Six bandits, all sporting porcupine-like beards, showed pleased smiles, and similar smiles appeared on the triplets’ faces as well.
“My mood was already gloomy, so this is perfect timing.”
***
Fortunately, Seol Mujin hadn’t lost track of the triplets.
Since it was just three five-year-old kids traveling together, quite a few people remembered them.
“Ah! Two of them were very pretty, and one of them was….”
When the woman selling dumplings at her street stall couldn’t find the right words, Seol Mujin spoke up.
“Looked manly?”
“Yes! That’s exactly right. The kids were so pretty that I remembered them. Which way did they go?”
The woman gestured toward a middle-aged man passing by with a bundle on his back.
“Hey! Yang!”
“What? Want to have a drink? I’m too busy right now.”
“What nonsense? What could Yang possibly be busy with?”
“You know the Dragon King Gang up on Bokyong Mountain?”
“Those bandits with small numbers but impossible to exterminate like cockroaches?”
“All those bandits got captured and brought to the government office!”
“The government finally did some real work for once.”
“It wasn’t the government officials who caught them, they just picked them up sprawled on the roadside?”
“Huh? Did they pass out drunk in broad daylight?”
Yang tilted his head in confusion.
“Could be. The bandits were spouting complete nonsense, they say.”
“What kind of nonsense?”
“They said they got beaten up by kids around five or six years old. Ridiculous….”
Seol Mujin interrupted Yang’s words.
“Where is that place?”
“Huh? Who are…?”
“The place where the bandits were found collapsed.”
Yang pointed his finger toward a mountain visible in the distance.
“It’s that mountain, but there’s only one path leading to Yangbong County, so it shouldn’t be hard to find….”
Before Yang could finish speaking, Seol Mujin left behind a “Thank you!” and ran off.
Finally, the triplets seemed within his grasp.
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE
