Namgoong the Sword Ghost - Chapter 187

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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 187. The Sword Demon Gambles for Victory
“Double Six!”
Yang Mu Cheon threw all ten copper taels he’d been holding into the betting bowl.
At this familiar sight, Gong Tu Ja let out a soft chuckle.
‘His last coin.’
Those who’d lost money at Tu Tu Do Su always ended their final bet the same way—on Ssang Ryuk.
They sought to recoup all their losses at once, gambling their last hope on the longest odds.
But the outcome was always identical.
“Three! Four! Odd versus Even! The total is seven!”
“Ha ha ha! See? Didn’t I say odd?”
“Even again? Only the people who’ve played this game so far are winning.”
“That’s me! Going even again!”
While the gamblers chattered and wagered on the next round, Yang Mu Cheon let out a groan.
“Ahhh…!”
He clutched his head in despair.
“Why must my luck be so wretched…?”
“It’s your turn, sir.”
“I’ll come back another time.”
“Heh heh, please do return.”
Gong Tu Ja offered his farewell as though he’d expected nothing less, and Yang Mu Cheon turned and left the gambling hall.
The sun hung high in the sky.
Yang Mu Cheon trudged forward with heavy steps, releasing a long sigh.
“Ah, Gun Woo will have words for me again.”
Thoughts of his son weighed on his chest.
“Gun Woo, my boy—what misfortune to have such a worthless father.”
His wife had died of plague long ago, leaving Yang Mu Cheon with but one blood relative: his son, Yang Gun Woo.
The boy had shown brilliance from childhood, able to recite difficult classical texts he’d never been taught.
Moreover, blessed with his dead mother’s handsome features, he’d been so popular that neighborhood girls chased after him even as a small child.
“Ah, but what good does it matter? The age when talent bloomed from humble beginnings has long passed.”
His son had passed the Provincial Exam and was recognized as an Accomplished Scholar, yet he’d failed the Hyang Si examination several years running.
The boy spoke humbly of lacking ability, but Yang Mu Cheon knew better.
“My son’s talent cannot be insufficient. Even the second son of Jin Sa Bang, who cannot recite the Four Books and Three Classics, became a Recommended Man.”
What was lacking was not talent, but money and connections.
The Provincial Exam was held at the provincial level, and having acquaintances or official relatives in Gui Zhou gave one an advantage.
Without even that, one needed wealth—enough to offer bribes—but what fortune could the son of a mere leather merchant possess?
“Cursed world! Only the great thieves touch great wealth! Only honest workers are the fools!”
Yang Mu Cheon’s frustration boiled over.
Believing his own incompetence had blocked his son’s path, shame and self-loathing washed through him.
Each time he visited the gambling hall hoping to somehow raise funds, he returned with only losses.
Now he’d reached a point of utter surrender.
A servant’s son could never become a magistrate.
A man’s fate was sealed the moment he drew breath.
“My dear, forgive me. I so wished to see our son ride in the wedding palanquin… but it seems that no matter how hard this worthless man tries, some things simply cannot be.”
Shuffle, shuffle, shuffle.
Yang Mu Cheon trudged homeward with resignation.
Gun Woo would return in the evening from teaching children at Pil Jeol Mun, and Yang Mu Cheon had no idea how to face him.
“Hm?”
When he arrived at his house, lost in worry, a straw mat lay spread before the door.
Something lay heaped beneath it, and Yang Mu Cheon murmured to himself.
“Did Shin the hunter score again? A deer perhaps?”
Deer hide was excellent material.
Soft, durable, and supple.
Quality gloves and hats made from it were always in demand among nobles.
“Well then, let me get to work. Do we still have oak sap left?”
Oak sap was essential for tanning.
The tannic acid made it bitter and dried the mouth, but it stabilized the fiber structure of leather.
“Tsk, Gun Woo always keeps it stocked without my asking. If there’s none, I’ll just do a rough scraping for now.”
Fwip!
Yang Mu Cheon lifted away the straw mat.
Time stopped.
“……What?”
Inside the straw mat lay not the deer he’d expected, but a man.
Battered from a thorough beating, his body was covered in bruises, his limbs twisted at grotesque angles.
Though the face was swollen and the skin split and discolored, Yang Mu Cheon recognized him at once.
“Gun… Gun Woo?!”
His son.
Why Gun Woo?
Who would do this?
For what reason?
“Ah…… Aaaah……!”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
With trembling hands, Yang Mu Cheon touched his ravaged son at various points.
Wherever his fingers made contact, a terrible cold seeped into him.
Not a trace of warmth remained—the warmth that should radiate from a living soul.
He was dead.
“Aaaaaaaaah!”
Yang Mu Cheon let out a howl of anguish.
Passersby turned to stare, but he saw nothing.
Heat flooded his skull.
The world spun around him.
Vertigo seized him.
Bile rose in his throat.
What happened next remained a blur.
He must have carried Gun Woo’s body inside.
Then he stumbled toward Pil Jeol Mun on legs drained of all strength.
“Heh heh, so it’s that scholar?”
“Pffft! This is the brat’s father? They look nothing alike!”
The gatekeepers of Pil Jeol Mun sneered at Yang Mu Cheon, whose eyes had gone hollow and vacant.
“Heh, we beat that bastard Yang Gun Woo to death for the crime of stealing a treasure of our sect leader.”
“The presumptuous wretch. Just because he can recite a few poems, he dared seduce our Young Mistress and make her steal for him? Death a thousand times would not suffice.”
“Aaaaaah! Aaaaaah!”
“This… this bastard!”
“Seize him!”
Crack! Thud-thud-thud!
Bang! Snap!
Like a beast bereft of reason, Yang Mu Cheon hurled himself at them, and the gatekeepers beat him savagely.
Yet as the blows rained down, Yang Mu Cheon felt no pain.
‘Gun Woo……!’
Only his head screamed with agony.
It felt as though a branding iron were searing his forehead.
In some half-conscious moment, he heard a voice click its tongue.
“Tsk. That’s enough. If this one dies too, the rumors could turn ugly.”
“But Overseer!”
“If word spreads of any disloyalty concerning the Young Mistress, will you answer for it?”
“No… no, sir.”
“Dump him at his home and be done with it.”
“Yes, sir.”
The world was murky and indistinct.
Cursed world.
Cursed?
Curse what, exactly?
He was sick of scraping by on charity and begging.
I owe this world nothing.
I should work hard.
“Heheheh, let’s skin the deer. Remove the organs, scrape carefully.”
“What?”
“Has he lost his mind?”
“Heheheh. Pour hot water on the hide to remove the fat. But not too hot—you’ll damage the skin. That won’t do.”
“Damn! His luck has soured!”
“He’s completely gone. Throw it away quickly.”
Thud!
The gatekeepers threw Yang Mu Cheon down in front of the house and departed.
“Hehehehe! Kekekeke!”
Yang Mu Cheon crawled inside, laughing like a madman.
On the workbench where he always butchered animal carcasses lay Yang Gun Woo, wrapped in a straw mat.
“Puhihi!”
Yang Mu Cheon drew his small knife for carving.
Slash!
Without hesitation, he drew it across the wrist.
Drip-drip-drip!
Yet something was wrong.
Though he had clearly severed the artery, no sign of the cut appeared.
Slash! Slash! Slash!
He tried again and again, but the result was the same.
Drip-drip-drip!
Looking closely, the artery was regenerating the instant it was severed.
Yang Mu Cheon did not know that this was the Wound Healing Regeneration technique—the legendary ability of Ju Chang Song, once called the Immortal Demon, a supreme master of old.
“Ahahahaha! This useless thing can’t even die now!”
To Yang Mu Cheon, even the Wound Healing Regeneration technique—an ability possessed by none other in the realm—felt like nothing but mockery from heaven.
Stab! Stab! Stab!
“Kekekeke!”
As Yang Mu Cheon stabbed his own body with the blade, laughing wildly, a human voice reached his ear.
Knock-knock.
“Is anyone home?”
“Heh. Business is finished. For good.”
“I… my name is Myeong Chul. I served Young Master Yang Gun Woo. He entrusted me with something to deliver to you.”
“……”
“I’ll leave it outside. What happened to Young Master is truly lamentable. I believe in his innocence.”
“…Why?”
“Because each morning, he greeted me with such courtesy, though I am of no account.”
“You believe in your master’s son’s innocence based on mere courtesy?”
“Of course. There are precious few people like that these days. Well, then.”
Tap-tap-tap!
Creak!
Opening the door, he glimpsed Myeong Chul fleeing hastily into the shadows, afraid of being seen by others.
His gaze fell to a bundle below. He brought it inside and unfolded it.
Writing implements and books his son had used. And a bamboo tube containing oak sap.
“Heh……”
He pushed aside the oak sap, now useless, and examined the books.
Most held nothing but empty nonsense, but the last one was his son’s diary.
Flip-flip-flip!
As he turned the pages, the final sheets contained not diary entries but a letter.
[Father, it seems the price of refusing the Young Lady’s proposals these past months has finally come due.]
The letter contained the full account of what had befallen his son.
[The Young Lady offered me infidelity. I knew she had promised herself to another, so of course I refused.]
Flip!
[After repeated refusals, the Young Lady made me a proposition: if I accepted her feelings, she would speak to the Master of Pil Jeol Mun, who could put in a word to the Lord of Gui Zhou.]
Flutter!
[I will not deny that I wavered, if only for a moment. You have always yearned so for me to become a Recommended Man.]
Flutter!
[Yet if I were to live with shame before heaven for the rest of my days, no greater unfilial act could exist. I refused her.]
Flutter!
[But today, as I gathered my things after class, I found two unknown books in my bundle: Pok Dun Dan Gong and Jeol Gong Dan Cheon Su—both secret techniques of Pil Jeol Mun’s Master.]
Flutter!
[Sensing that my fate ends here, I write this to you. Though I could not become a Recommended Man, I die an honest commoner with head held high—do not grieve too deeply.]
Flutter!
[I send oak sap by Myeong Chul’s hand. It has run out. Father, please continue to live each day with utmost sincerity, as always. I have ever admired your integrity.]
Flutter!
[Forgive your unfilial son who departs before his parents. Your son, Yang Gun Woo. I die without shame.]
“Sob! Sobbing!”
Pitter-patter! Pitter-patter-patter!
Tears fell in droplets, one after another.
Yang Mu Cheon felt as though his chest were tearing apart.
“Live? For what, exactly? How terribly cruel you are, Gun Woo…….”
Yang Mu Cheon caressed the journal as gently as if it were his son.
“……Hmm?”
Just then, something began to shimmer through the paper, darkened by tears.
He examined the back page, but nothing was written there.
“Could it be……?!”
Rip! Riiip!
Yang Mu Cheon wiped the blood-soaked So Do clean and began carefully separating the pages.
After work more delicate than cutting any leather he’d ever handled.
Yang Mu Cheon was able to withdraw from the gap between the two layers of paper a sheet of Seon Ik Ji — paper thin as a cicada’s wing.
“Pok Dun Dan Gong. And Jeol Gong Dan Cheon Su.”
Yang Mu Cheon recognized the tiny characters on the Seon Ik Ji as the secret techniques of Pil Jeol Mun’s sect master.
Even in his final moments, his son had struck Pil Jeol Mun one last blow.
“Kuh-hahaha! Truly my son!”
Yang Mu Cheon burst into raucous laughter.
“……Very well. As you said, this old man shall live each day doing his utmost.”
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Two ghost fires — ghostly blue flames — kindled in Yang Mu Cheon’s eyes.
From that day forward, no one paid any mind to the leather merchant Yang Mu Cheon as he left his home.
And three years later, Yang Mu Cheon returned to his hometown and stood before the front gate of Pil Jeol Mun.
“Three years’ worth of unpaid leather prices. I’ve come to collect.”
Craaash!
With a tremendous roar, Pil Jeol Mun fell to the Sect Destruction Calamity that very day.
The birth of Tou Wang, Yang Mu Cheon.
* * *
“I didn’t want to go to Gui Zhou.”
Step, step, step.
Yang Mu Cheon turned his back on Hwang San.
He had wanted to meet Mu Yeo Hae but failed, so now he was about to set out to meet Gangsu’s master.
Swish.
Yang Mu Cheon glanced backward.
The young man who had clung to him like a son came to mind.
“I promise you. Within the next ten years, I will become the Greatest Martial Artist Under Heaven and kill you. How does that sound?”
“Heh heh, ten years is too long to wait.”
Yang Mu Cheon shook his head and was about to turn away when—
Whistle! Tap!
From the forest, a young man in a blue martial robe descended like a bird and landed before Yang Mu Cheon.
“Hey, you there, wandering gambler! The game isn’t over yet — since when do you run off with the stakes?”
“……Namgung Ho Yeon?”
Yang Mu Cheon’s brow twitched.
Shiiing!
Ho Yeon drew the Cheonrae Geom.
And the very next instant—
Whoooosh!
Whoooosh!
Blue threads spun across the Geom Myeon, weaving a constellation of stars.
“……You?!”
“Heh heh, you haven’t forgotten the wager terms, have you? I achieved the Seungbyeok last night. Exactly one week!”
To the astonished Yang Mu Cheon, Ho Yeon declared with a confident laugh.
“Kuh-hahaha! My victory! Your defeat!”
“…….”
“Come now, you debt-ridden scholar. Why don’t we go catch chickens in Gangsu with the future Greatest Martial Artist Under Heaven!”
Yang Mu Cheon found his son’s shadow in Ho Yeon’s face, which shone like brilliant sunlight.
Staring blankly at him for a moment, Yang Mu Cheon then let out a soft chuckle and muttered.
“Heh, it seems I truly have no luck.”

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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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