My Younger Siblings Are the Greatest Masters in the World - Chapter 19
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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19.
Gulp— Cough!
The taste was bitter and his chest burned.
Just as he was about to say he didn’t understand why people drank this bitter liquor, a fragrance began to swirl in his mouth.
Along with it, some kind of energy spread through him, naturally lifting his mood.
“Huh? This is strange?”
“See! I told you it was strange! But what’s strange? You’ve never tried Bokhwaju before, brother.”
“At first it was just bitter and harsh, but at the end there’s this fragrance and that… something. Something that makes you feel good.”
He couldn’t describe it in words.
Since he wasn’t a drinker, that was natural.
“See! Even you think it’s delicious!”
Seol Ryeoseon drank another cup and muttered, “Still, the aftertaste is bland.”
Seol Mujin said.
“Now I understand why people like alcohol so much.”
Seol Mantong raised his short index finger and waved it left and right.
“No, no. Not all alcohol is like this. The liquor I made is special. If you try other alcohol, you’ll definitely know.”
“Really?”
Even Seol Ryeoseon, who had tried to kill Seol Mantong, acknowledged this.
“The liquor Saekgol made is at least drinkable compared to other alcohol.”
“I see. Oh! I’m late. I’ll be back!”
Seol Mujin hurriedly left for work at Yeonji-ru.
As soon as Seol Mujin left, Seol Ryeoseon asked Seol Changho.
“Why did you tell brother to taste the liquor?”
The perceptive Seol Ryeoseon thought Seol Changho had some ulterior motive.
“If even someone trying alcohol for the first time is satisfied, then Mantong’s liquor will sell well.”
“You want to start a liquor business?”
“More precisely, a brewery.”
“Suddenly?”
Seol Changho spoke with a rather serious expression.
“We can’t stay by his side forever.”
Seol Mantong jumped up.
“What are you talking about? We promised not to leave him!”
“What about our revenge?”
Those words brought sudden silence.
Seol Changho had brought up the reality they had been trying to avoid.
“We can think about that when the time comes…”
Seol Changho cut off Seol Ryeoseon’s words.
“Like last time when we suddenly decided to leave?”
“What does that have to do with the brewery?”
“Hyung will definitely become a master.”
Looking at Seol Mujin’s qualities, there was no doubt about it.
“But being just a martial arts master isn’t enough to live comfortably in this world.”
“Money is the best for living comfortably.”
“So we need to make money.”
“You want to make money with a brewery?”
“Is there any other way to make money besides the brewery?”
There wasn’t.
How could they, who even struggled to spend money, possibly make any?
The only method Seol Changho had come up with was bound to be the only one for all three of them.
“Let’s make oppa rich with the brewery. Hmm… That’s not bad?”
Then Seol Mantong quietly raised his hand.
“What?”
“Aren’t you going to ask the opinion of the person who has to make the alcohol?”
“Rejected!”
“Tch!”
***
As Seol Mujin was returning from repairing the hole in the warehouse roof, he saw the courtesans gathering in the courtyard.
Come to think of it, today was the day the scribe Bang Donguk was coming.
In the Central Plains, probably no more than thirty percent of the people had mastered the basic Thousand Character Classic.
So it was difficult to write even a single letter, and people who wrote letters or documents on behalf of others were called scribes.
Since most of the courtesans at Yeonji-ru were also illiterate, a scribe would come about once a month to write letters to their hometowns for them.
The courtesans who had received number tickets spotted Seol Mujin and each waved their hands.
Bang Donguk, who had placed a table in front of him, was writing down what the courtesan across from him was dictating.
Originally, Bang Donguk’s profession wasn’t that of a scribe but an administrator who worked at the government office.
He wasn’t even a low-ranking administrator but the head of the Personnel Department, one of the Six Departments, yet he ended up being dismissed for falling out of favor with the magistrate.
His honest and upright character was what caused Bang Donguk’s downfall.
“You must be very worried about your mother’s illness.”
Bang Donguk didn’t accept the money the courtesan had paid.
“Use it toward the medicine costs.”
Even though his own life wasn’t comfortable after being dismissed from the Personnel Department, Bang Donguk was someone who wasn’t stingy toward those in difficulty.
Going around the two-hundred-pyeong third-floor pleasure house doing this and that, darkness would fall before he knew it.
Finally, it was time for the pleasure house.
Among those coming to work was Yoon Seokgu, the pleasure house’s guard.
Originally they hadn’t employed guards, but recently troublesome customers had increased significantly, so they hired him five days ago.
However, in Seol Mujin’s view, Yoon Seokgu wasn’t a very good guard.
For the first three days he acted somewhat like a guard, but starting two days ago, the first thing he did when he came to work was order alcohol.
He spent all his time on the first floor drinking free alcohol and watching the courtesans’ performances and listening to music.
Of course, nothing particular happened so there wasn’t much to complain about, but it’s common sense to refrain from drinking while on duty.
“Hey! Jeom Soi!”
That day there were many customers, so Seol Mujin had delayed leaving work and was helping out on the first floor.
Yoon Seokgu called out to Seol Mujin.
“Bring another bottle of alcohol here! Not the cheap stuff, get the good one!”
“It seems like you’re drinking too much while on duty.”
Yoon Seokgu’s face crumpled at Seol Mujin’s straightforward words.
“What? A mere servant like you is lecturing me?”
“There are many customers, so please don’t raise your voice.”
“This bastard needs a beating to come to his senses!”
Yoon Seokgu shot up and tried to grab Seol Mujin by the collar, but Jang Sabong came running over.
“Oh my, Guard Yoon! Mujin-i isn’t a servant!”
“Damn it, if he’s doing menial work at a pleasure house, then he’s a servant! What else would he be! Today I’ll show him what happens when you talk back to an adult…!”
Crash!
A loud noise from the second floor cut off Yoon Seokgu’s words.
This was followed by a courtesan’s scream of “Oh my!”
It seemed like the time had finally come for Yoon Seokgu to earn his keep.
“You bastard! I’ll go handle things upstairs and come back, so wait here! No, follow me! I’ll show you what kind of person I am!”
Watching Yoon Seokgu climb the stairs to the second floor, Seol Mujin let out a quiet sigh.
Jang Sabong said to Seol Mujin.
“Go inside quickly. I’ll talk to Master Ruju and resolve this.”
“I’d like to see just how capable he is.”
Seol Mujin slowly climbed the stairs.
Just as he set foot on the second floor.
“Argh!”
With a scream, someone burst through a door and flew out.
The person sprawled in the hallway with blood flowing from his nose was Yoon Seokgu.
“This fucking bastard…”
A bald man emerged from the room with unhurried steps.
It was a man with a snake tattoo from behind his ear down to his neck.
“An idiot like this is working as a guard?”
“You son of a bitch!”
When Yoon Seokgu threw a punch, the bald man simply tilted his head slightly to dodge and kicked him.
Yoon Seokgu took a blow to the stomach and crashed roughly into the wall before rolling on the floor.
Another foot slammed into Yoon Seokgu’s face as he fell forward.
Yoon Seokgu flipped over and his face became covered in blood.
“Where does a pathetic bastard like you get off acting tough as a guard!”
He was literally being trampled mercilessly.
If left like this, he seemed like he would die.
Though Yoon Seokgu was displeasing, he couldn’t just let him die.
“That’s enough.”
When Seol Mujin stepped forward, it was the gisaengs who were surprised.
The two trembling gisaengs grabbed Seol Mujin’s arms from both sides.
“Mujin-i, don’t get involved.”
“That’s right. You’ll get hurt if you interfere for no reason.”
Seol Mujin gently pushed away the gisaengs’ hands.
“It’s okay.”
Would it really be okay?
Looking at the bald man’s momentum, it didn’t seem like something that could be resolved with words.
Though he was learning martial arts, he couldn’t grasp how strong he actually was.
Had he become stronger?
His strength had certainly increased.
However, simply becoming physically stronger and becoming stronger in combat were different matters.
“What are you?”
When asked that way, he suddenly wondered ‘What am I?’ in Yeonji-ru.
“A servant?”
The bald man placed his foot on Yoon Seokgu’s neck.
“Grrk—!”
“Did you come to clean up this bastard’s corpse?”
“If you’re going to kill that person, do it outside. It would be troublesome if bad rumors spread.”
Fortunately, the bald man wasn’t frightening.
“Funny bastard. Looking at you, you seem more like this pleasure house’s guard than this guy.”
The bald man drew closer.
“If I get rid of you, I wonder what kind of guy will come out next?”
“The scary Master Ruju would come out, but I don’t think that will happen.”
He didn’t want to drag Hwa Seonhwa into this kind of situation.
So his desire to win grew stronger.
When the distance between the two narrowed to about seven ja, the bald man suddenly became faster.
The bald man, who closed the distance in an instant, threw a punch toward Seol Mujin’s face.
It was powerful enough to make a whooshing sound, but it wasn’t fast.
Seol Mujin twisted his body to the side, deflected the punch past his face, and aimed for the bald man’s ribs.
Thud!
“Kuk!”
The man who took the punch to his ribs staggered two steps and then dropped to his knees with a thud.
Even though it wasn’t a full-power attack, the impact seemed quite significant.
“This bastard’s got some skill.”
The man kicked off from his position and lunged with his whole body.
The man grabbed Seol Mujin’s waist and exerted force while saying “You’re dead!”, but Seol Mujin didn’t budge at all.
“You… what are you?”
“Jeom Soi.”
Seol Mujin grabbed the back of the man’s pants and threw him.
The man who was flung into the air fell roughly and screamed.
Seol Mujin spoke to the man who was staggering to his feet.
“Let’s stop before you get hurt more.”
But Seol Mujin’s advice didn’t work on the man whose eyes had rolled back.
“Iyaaaa—!”
The man charging while screaming was like an enraged buffalo.
Seol Mujin lightly dodged the man rushing with his whole body and tripped him.
Unable to control his own momentum, the man flew through the air, broke through the stair railing, and fell below.
This was a result even Seol Mujin hadn’t expected.
Startled, Seol Mujin looked down below the railing and sighed in relief.
The man who had fallen onto an empty table was fortunately still moving.
Hwa Seonhwa, who arrived late, took care of finishing the fight.
The man who fell from the railing suffered injuries with a dislocated shoulder and a couple of broken ribs.
Hwa Seonhwa searched the man’s pouch, extracted two silver coins, then sent the man to the medical clinic.
Yoon Seokgu, the guard who didn’t seem like a guard, was kicked out that very day.
He started to say “The few days I worked…” but left with a nosebleed after the retort “Should I charge you for the drinks you had?”
Seol Mujin also received a warning not to get involved in such matters in the future.
“I don’t want to see you get hurt.”
“If you’re a man, you should protect your own home.”
At Seol Mujin’s words “your own home,” the corners of Hwa Seonhwa’s mouth lifted slightly.
“A broken home can be fixed. Thank you for calling it home.”
***
—From today on, we need to focus on real combat.
When he told the triplets about the fight, that was the first thing they said.
So he was late to work because he spent time sparring with them until late.
“Sorry for being late!”
Seol Mujin, who apologized first and entered through the main gate, stopped abruptly.
The eyes of the triplets who came with him also widened.
Many of the windows of the Yeonji-ru building were broken, and debris from shattered furniture was scattered throughout the courtyard.
Jang Sabong, who was cleaning up the furniture debris, smiled awkwardly.
“Mujin-i is here?”
“What happened here?”
“Huh? Well… that’s…”
The other workers and several courtesans helping with the cleanup didn’t answer Seol Mujin’s question either.
When Seol Mujin asked for the third time, Hwa Seonhwa appeared.
She clearly looked tired.
“Master Ruju. What happened here?”
“It’s nothing serious, so don’t worry about it.”
With the pleasure house in such a mess, it was clearly not nothing serious.
And if it really was nothing, there would be no reason not to tell Seol Mujin.
“Who did this?”
“You don’t need to know about it, so just help with the cleaning.”
Yeon Seobi also backed up Hwa Seonhwa.
“That’s right. These things happen from time to time when running a pleasure house.”
Something that had never happened once in over five years was a common occurrence?
As Seol Mujin cleared away the broken table legs, he suddenly realized.
“This is because of the person I beat up last night, isn’t it?”
If that wasn’t the case, Hwa Seonhwa wouldn’t have any reason to hide it.
“It’s all been resolved.”
“How?”
“Like this.”
Seol Mujin bowed his head to Hwa Seonhwa.
“I’m sorry. Because of me…”
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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