The Farmer Who Ended Up Teaching the World’s Greatest Martial Artist - Chapter 67
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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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| Chapter 67
About two weeks had passed since the three of them headed toward Ma-gyo.
“Hahaha! Hand over everything you have!”
Near Dongjeongho in Honam Province. In a place not far from Jangsa, about ten bandits revealed themselves.
Yoo Eun-hyun looked at them with a displeased expression, then turned his head and continued his conversation with Ju Yu-ryeon.
“Is this Dongjeongho?”
“Yeah. This is a place I really wanted to visit. Night entertainment, water activities, boat rides… Anyway, when it comes to fun, isn’t Dongjeongho the place? I absolutely have to enjoy myself here before leaving.”
The bandits’ faces became bewildered at the strangely calm attitude of the two people. However, that was only momentary, and soon they raised their voices with enraged expressions.
“Y-you bastards! Are you ignoring us?!”
The bandits hastily raised their axes and swung them toward the pair.
Thwack!
However, the axes never reached their targets. Ho Won had somehow intervened and blocked their path.
With a single kick that sent the bandit’s body soaring into the air, the last thing he felt was the sensation of his body flying through the air. Seeing this, the other thieves turned around and fled without looking back.
“Hyung-nim. Noona. I’ve taken care of it.”
Ho Won approached Yoo Eun-hyun and Ju Yu-ryeon and reported the situation. Then Ju Yu-ryeon waved her hand dismissively to stop him.
“Stop talking about it now. How many times has this been already?”
“Dongjeongho is such a famous tourist destination. Rich people gather here, so they’re probably targeting that.”
“Even so, are the government troops just leaving this alone?”
“Hmm. The government troops are probably only focused on the conflict between Cheonmu-maeng and Ma-gyo. And actually, it’s normal not to go outside the city at this time when the sun is setting.”
Though Yoo Eun-hyun had his doubts, he didn’t pursue the matter further. Indeed, now that the sun was setting, there were hardly any people walking the streets, just as Ju Yu-ryeon had said.
“Are we about halfway there now?”
“About that. We’re going to have some fun, right?”
“Not having fun, just resting. Even though we have plenty of time, I think we’ve been taking it too easy.”
“Even so, we can’t just pass by Dongjeongho. Eun-hyun, isn’t this your first time here too?”
Yoo Eun-hyun had also heard rumors that Dongjeongho was beautiful with many sights to see, so he had no intention of just passing by.
“Let’s rest for exactly three days before leaving. No more than that.”
“Aw… can’t be helped. This time I’ll just be satisfied with having visited. If I suck up everything from the start, I’ll be less inclined to come back next time.”
Thus, the three of them headed to Jangsa, the largest city near Dongjeongho.
*
As soon as the three entered Jangsa, they looked around to find a place to stay. After asking several people, they made their way to Sugyeongnu, famous for being large and luxurious even in Jangsa.
“Welcome, customers.”
“Please give us one room each.”
“One room… each, you say?”
When Yoo Eun-hyun spoke while rummaging through his belongings, the clerk widened his eyes as if he had heard something impossible and asked again. At that reaction, Yoo Eun-hyun also paused momentarily, showing signs of confusion.
“Why, are there no rooms available?”
“No, that’s not it. Our Sugyeongnu has separate VIP rooms for distinguished guests in addition to regular guest rooms, so we pride ourselves on never being fully booked except on special occasions…”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Our rooms cost one gold tael per night… Would that be acceptable?”
The staff member asked while gauging their reaction. They clearly looked like young people out on a pleasure trip.
The staff member had seen countless customers who wanted to stay one night at a top-class inn. Usually in such cases, they would scrape together money and book just one room, so he seemed suspicious.
“Please prepare three days’ worth.”
“Three days’ worth?!”
However, when Yoo Eun-hyun casually pulled out a ten-gold-tael note, the staff member’s face, which had been worried inside, immediately brightened.
“Oh, thank you! If you need anything, please let us know anytime!”
“Could you prepare a meal for us first?”
“Yes, please follow me this way.”
Since the sun was already setting and they hadn’t had dinner yet, the three began to chat while having a simple meal.
“Expensive places are definitely good. The food is delicious too.”
Yoo Eun-hyun muttered while looking around as he ate rice with eohyangran (fish-flavored eggs) as a side dish.
True to the name Sugyeongnu, water was contained throughout the interior, and the light reflected like mirrors on the surface created a mysterious beauty.
“What should we do after eating?”
“Rest, what else. Aren’t you tired?”
To Ju Yu-ryeon’s question, Yoo Eun-hyun answered as if it was nothing. However, Ju Yu-ryeon, who was drinking tea after the meal, raised her hand and clicked her tongue.
“Hmph. How long are we staying that you’d waste the night so meaninglessly? Shouldn’t we at least go sightseeing?”
“Do as you please… I need to rest a bit. What about you, Won-jik?”
Normally Yoo Eun-hyun would have followed along, but there was no reason to rush this much. More than anything, he liked the interior of Sugyeongnu and wanted to look around slowly.
“Of course I have to follow noona.”
“You don’t have to follow. Do as you please. I don’t stop men who want to follow me.”
Since Ju Yu-ryeon was someone who didn’t discriminate when it came to having fun, she didn’t seem to care much about who she went with. As the meal was almost finishing, Yoo Eun-hyun spoke again.
“Among the staff here… there seem to be people who have learned martial arts, so be careful.”
When Yoo Eun-hyun glanced at the staff members moving around and spoke, Ju Yu-ryeon also took a quick look at them and nodded.
“I thought so too. You felt it as well?”
“And they don’t seem ordinary either. Why are martial artists in an inn? They’re not even trying to hide their martial arts.”
Yoo Eun-hyun asked back with suspicious eyes, but Ju Yu-ryeon answered nonchalantly as if it was nothing.
“Well, that could happen. Here in Jangsa, the Black Turban Sect’s influence is strong, so they wouldn’t leave a place where money flows like this alone.”
The Black Turban Sect was one of the major Mado sects with Honam and Gangxi as their territory, and like Chukho-bang, it was also a force belonging to the Six Demon Pillars.
Ho Won, who was listening to the conversation from the side, also added a word.
“Noona is ri-right. They deliberately stationed sect members here without hiding their martial arts to show force, declaring this is our territory. I heard that the Black Turban Sect especially profits from loan sharking and illegal investments for market gains, centered around money flowing from Heukryeon Trading Company.”
“Aren’t you guys similar?”
“It’s di-different. Our Chukho-bang also operates places like this inn, but we mainly do work that directly uses force, like escort services or assassinations.”
“For that kind of work, they seemed too weak.”
“It’s just that hyung-nim is too st-strong. Being a farmer and that strong… that’s cheating.”
“Haha. Eun-hyun is a bit of a cheat.”
When Ho Won got flustered at Yoo Eun-hyun’s joke, Ju Yu-ryeon burst into laughter.
“Anyway, having martial artists here isn’t really surprising. There’s no need to worry about danger either. An inn of this caliber would have wealthy people staying here too, and if incidents like robbery or theft happened in such places, it would be an even bigger loss.”
“N-noona is right. No matter how much we’re Mado, we don’t do things that cause losses.”
Yoo Eun-hyun also nodded after hearing their explanations. Rather than being bothered by the fact that there were martial artists, he had simply asked out of curiosity.
And this time he raised his finger with a rather worried expression.
“Actually, the real big problem is something else.”
“Huh? What is it?”
“We’re running out of money.”
Yoo Eun-hyun said while taking out and shaking his money pouch. Then Ju Yu-ryeon looked at Ho Won and said.
“So he says?”
“N-noona. I don’t have any money left either. I gave all the money I had to hyung-nim from the beginning.”
Ho Won had entrusted all the money he had to Yoo Eun-hyun when joining the group. The money he brought from Chukho-bang alone amounted to thirty gold taels.
Adding the money Yoo Eun-hyun got from selling the tiger’s eye stone and the money he had saved up, it was over twenty gold taels. Combined, it was by no means a small amount, but…
“…Ten gold taels left?”
“We lived too luxuriously on the way here. It’s not like we’ll starve, but this will be the last place we can be extravagant.”
“That’s fine. I can have fun even without a single penny. But speaking of which… this means we can’t waste time today even more, right? Let’s get ready and go out right away.”
Ju Yu-ryeon shouted loudly as if it didn’t matter and headed to her room, with Ho Won hurriedly following behind her. Watching them, Yoo Eun-hyun leisurely finished his remaining tea.
Soon returning to his room, Yoo Eun-hyun washed his body with the prepared bath water, then opened the window to let in the breeze and sat quietly on the bed to dry himself.
“It’s not as good as home, but it’s quite a refreshing breeze.”
He recalled memories of washing his body at a nearby stream after hard farm work and drying himself in the night breeze. At that memory, a faint smile appeared on Yoo Eun-hyun’s lips.
Yoo Eun-hyun sat by the window like that, feeling the breeze. Before he knew it, his eyelids drooped down, and he fell asleep just like that.
*
“Mmm… how much time has passed.”
Yoo Eun-hyun, who had awakened from sleep, approached the window swaying in the breeze and looked outside. Seeing that even the small lights that had barely illuminated the darkness had already disappeared, it seemed to have become deep night.
Normally he would have closed the window and gone back to bed, but since sleep had completely fled, Yoo Eun-hyun got up from his spot and frowned.
“It’s good that fatigue recovers quickly, but at times like this it’s troublesome.”
Since learning martial arts, he rarely felt fatigue. Even if he did get tired, he would recover quickly with just a brief rest. There was no problem if he slept on time and woke up a little early, but the only flaw was that if he took a short nap like this and woke up, it was difficult to fall asleep again.
“Haven’t Yoo Ryeon and Won-jik arrived yet?”
In the end, though he was a bit late, he decided to tour Sugyeongnu as originally planned and began slowly strolling inside.
Though the lights were dimmer than in the evening, the decorations of Sugyeongnu, designed to reflect and re-reflect off the mirror-like water, still displayed their beauty. Following the lights reflected in the water as he descended to the lower floor, Yoo Eun-hyun found himself moving toward where the lights gathered.
And in the courtyard of Sugyeongnu. In that place decorated like a giant mirror using a pond, as Yoo Eun-hyun blankly gazed at the full moon rippling greatly on the water’s surface, a building came into his view.
“Is that place an annex?”
A building that was neither small nor large. Though it appeared unremarkable, Yoo Eun-hyun sensed a strange energy from that place. To his eyes, which could perceive natural energy, it seemed as if distorted energy was swirling around the building.
As Yoo Eun-hyun walked toward the annex, half out of curiosity and half out of boredom, someone suddenly appeared before him and blocked his path.
“Guest. Are you taking a stroll?”
A man who seemed different from the staff member he had encountered in the evening spoke to Yoo Eun-hyun with a smile. In his eyes, an indescribable energy was subtly stirring.
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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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