The Hwangbo Clan’s Beloved Live-In Son-in-Law - Chapter 78
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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 78
Ugh.
“Hmm.”
Xie Baowei swung his arms with an expressionless face, lost in thought.
Uuugh.
What is this?
“Block him! Block him! All of you charge at once!”
Luoyang, Henan had always been a bustling city.
A place that should have faded as its former glory waned, becoming just another old ancient capital, had become like this largely because the Wulin Alliance had established itself there.
Aaaah.
“R-run away. No. Run!”
“Don’t run! No! Block him!”
This massive organization, somehow established despite the conflicting interests of countless sects, ended up handling numerous tasks once it was formed.
Most were simple errands requested by various sects,
disbanding street thugs or black chambers, finding people,
gathering information about local situations and rumors,
or distributing wanted posters and regulations announced by the Alliance,
but how could the affairs of something as grand as the Wulin Alliance be so simple?
“…Damn, what kind of monster is this.”
Nearly twenty subordinates had fallen and fled in an instant.
This couldn’t be happening.
It had been three whole years.
Three years since he’d been living as a bandit on Fenghuang Mountain in southern Henan’s Nanyang.
Zhang Man, who called himself Blood Blade and acted as their leader, spat.
“Damn bastard. I’ll definitely kill you before I go.”
Damn bastard!
Zhang Man cursed again and shouted “Aaaah!”
The momentum contained in that roar was indeed impressive enough to show he had the guts to rob on the route to a major city.
His body suddenly swayed forward.
It was when Xie Baowei unconsciously gripped his club tightly.
Whoosh!
“You bastard!”
Zhang Man shouted again, threw the sword he was holding, then turned and began to flee.
He was someone who knew the treacherous mountain paths of the mountain retreat inside and out.
There was a reason he had survived for three years.
“…Damn it.”
Large build and fierce face. Zhang Man had dominated the area for some time, and his momentum was indeed impressive.
He hadn’t expected this.
Xie Baowei glanced at his left leg and let out a deep sigh.
It seemed like today would require a long mountain chase.
.
.
.
“…You’re back.”
“What! Why are you so late! I’ve been waiting forever.”
Zhang Man had fled so well that Xie Baowei only returned to his lodging near curfew time, where two people welcomed him.
Cheongjukrim always operated in groups of three. It was natural for people to be assigned to Xie Baowei, who was still a lower-ranking member of Cheongjukrim.
“You said you’d just look for traces and come back. We were worried something had happened! No, really, why do you get involved in things that aren’t even missions? Our job in Nanyang is to verify rumors about the Yangdong Road Black Chamber selling human flesh! Just leave that to us!”
“…Did you resolve it?”
One talked too much and the other talked too little.
Actually, the quiet one wasn’t a problem, but the talkative one alone was excessive.
“What about the black chamber?”
“…The human flesh part was a lie.”
“That’s a relief.”
“But the human trafficking part was real! If it wasn’t for Brother Ijue, I would have been in big trouble!”
“…That was fortunate.”
The affairs of the martial arts world could never be smooth. Especially if they were affairs of the Wulin Alliance.
Even the simplest task of delivering letters could result in deaths depending on their contents.
Most thugs had at least learned some martial arts, and it was common to find that the person you were looking for had become a corpse. Those who wanted to hide this fact would often turn the searcher into a corpse as well.
Investigating local situations and rumors? You’d easily die being mistaken for an enemy spy, or die even after revealing you were from the Alliance.
There was a reason why those called parasites and ticks existed within Cheongjukrim.
“Hmph. Just words.”
“Really. How about I buy you something delicious tomorrow? Um… Nanyang is famous for eight medicinal herbs called the Eight Wan Medicines. Among them, red sage is called Yu Red Sage and is a specialty. How about red sage porridge tomorrow morning?”
“…You’re like an old man.”
Damn.
He had deliberately rambled on out of guilt, but the response was painful.
Xie Baowei smiled bitterly and shook his head.
After running and roaming the entire mountain for the first time in a while, his left leg was throbbing. The leg that had trouble even with short sprints always caused problems after long-distance running.
At least it was better than before, thanks to the training he’d done throughout winter.
Perhaps he was the one who really needed mountain herb porridge.
“I’m tired. Let’s sleep.”
“Exactly! Why are you doing things I didn’t even ask you to do!”
“…It seemed like something we’d end up doing anyway.”
Damn it.
This time a grumpy sound burst out from the girl’s side.
She too seemed to have nothing to say to that answer, remaining silent for a while.
“There’s too much work. This doesn’t make sense.”
“…It’s excessive. From what I’ve heard, it’s not supposed to be like this.”
She had good reason to grumble.
In addition to all those trivial tasks, there was catching enemies from various regions that couldn’t be resolved locally like this time,
capturing criminals that the Alliance irregularly distributed bounties for,
and dealing with those who violated Alliance regulations, so it was understandable that the strategists of Hongchaekhwon were crying about being short-handed.
And those crying people kept sending Cheongjukrim’s guards.
“…Thank you for waiting.”
“Tch.”
Having accepted all those tasks without complaint, Xie Baowei had nothing to say even with ten mouths.
He could only smile gently.
At that smile, the girl, Dangyeonhwa, turned her head away with a pouty expression.
Though her expression seemed somewhat softened.
“Still, it’s over now, so let’s go back.”
“Hmph. Of course!”
It seemed she wasn’t completely appeased.
The still young girl answered sharply and went into her room making thump, thump sounds with her footsteps.
Thump!
“…Wh, why is the wind blowing so hard.”
…What on earth.
He didn’t even have children yet, but it felt like raising a teenage girl after a young child.
Feeling suddenly aged, Xie Baowei looked back at the young man standing beside him.
“I was very worried.”
“…I know.”
Swift Severing Wind.
Akmungi of the E Family was a twenty-year-old late-stage prodigy who came to the Alliance from that silent E Family.
The youngest son of the E Family head, he was quite taciturn, but he was a much more socially normal young man than Ak Munheon, who was supposedly his distant cousin.
In other words, he didn’t suddenly thrust spears forward demanding fights.
Thus, the Three Joints Group.
Solid like bamboo joints (Cheongjukrim) and each exceptional, hence Three Excellences.
After long discussion, Dangyeonhwa became the first joint, Akmungi the second joint, and Xie Baowei the third joint.
“We’re going back tomorrow, right?”
“Mm. We should.”
“…We must.”
“…Right. I heard on the way here that Nanyang is famous for soup made by long-boiling beef or mutton. I’ve noted down a famous place, so let’s stop by tomorrow.”
“Hmm… It doesn’t seem like the kind of anger that can be resolved with food.”
The fact that he could make such judgments showed he was quite sensible.
For now, at least.
“Let’s eat first and think about it later.”
“…Yes.”
Trudge, trudge.
…Thump.
“Uh.”
“…Th, the wind.”
Damn it.
It seemed Akmungi was also hurt.
Though he pretended otherwise, his sullen expression gave it away.
However, Xie Baowei had something to say about this.
Apart from himself, these two young people were excessively competent.
At first, he thought he’d be playing nanny to kids who knew nothing, but what do you know.
Instead, Xie Baowei ended up following the two around.
Dangyeonhwa was bold yet surprisingly good at communicating with people, gathering various information well, and had good eyes and quick wit for finding clues.
Akmungi too, truly lived up to Swift Severing Wind. His martial prowess was excellent and his mind sharp, so when the two conversed, work was often resolved smoothly.
Xie Baowei?
Me? Well, I just enjoyed the benefits.
“Sleep well!”
“….”
Sigh.
After shouting at the unresponsive doors, Xie Baowei also trudged to his room.
He quickly washed in the cold bathtub and lay down on the bed, feeling like the sky was spinning.
It felt like a million years since he’d been in worse conditions than this.
It must be because last winter was too warm.
“Damn Jegal.”
Lying still and looking at the ceiling, anger bubbled up.
What? He’d just assign easy work first?
Don’t complain about being bored because it’s too easy, and don’t slack off and cause trouble?
Damn it. He shouldn’t have trusted smooth talkers.
The first month really was easy.
Running errands with two young kids, visiting shops, escort agencies, and sects under the Alliance’s umbrella to exchange jokes, giving appropriate warnings to back alley thugs, then going home.
Ah. I miss Hee-mae.
It was truly brief.
No. Even that was just a few days. No, about a month?
I had felt proud that I had handled several matters quite cleanly, in my own opinion.
From that point on, work became abundant.
No. It wasn’t just abundant, it was too much.
No. It wasn’t just too much, it was way too much.
It just poured down on me.
Damn it.
How long has it been since I’ve seen Hee-mae?
I somehow managed to get through the first month, and today marks nearly three months already.
Gradually, the work assigned to me increased and the distances for dispatches grew longer, until this current dispatch that started in eastern Henan has brought me all the way to the south.
Has it already been three weeks since I couldn’t return home?
Xie Baowei let out another deep sigh.
…Still, I’ll go tomorrow.
Or so I was about to say.
The next day, when the group stopped by the Nanyang liaison office to report the completion of their mission, another message from the Alliance reached them.
“Where is it this time? Since Luoyang is to the west, ah. Are we to stop by Huaiqing? No, should we just resolve everything on the way there?”
Dangyeonhwa spoke sarcastically.
Her mood, which had barely improved after being handed a single ginseng pancake in the morning, seemed to have soured again.
Understandably so.
“Is it okay to work people like this? They should change the name from Wulin Alliance to something like Black Dao Sect. Like some exploitative establishment!”
Dangyeonhwa, who had been grumbling incessantly, stuffed the pancake into her mouth as if she was furious and chewed roughly.
The dry yet soft, savory, sweet, and bitter flavors mixed together and lingered in her mouth, but her anger didn’t subside.
It was natural.
This stoic team leader would again say something like, “It can’t be helped… Isn’t this a matter concerning people’s safety?”
She had lost her temper more than once or twice at how that big-eyed witch from the Jegal Family would spout righteous words about martial world peace and the people’s tranquility, exploiting the team leader’s naivety.
Moreover, that damn Bifeng.
If it was something that might harm his wife’s reputation, Xie Baowei would startle as if caught with naked spring paintings and nod his head in agreement.
That was our team leader, Sandong Daeyun, now also called Bongnang.
“Ugh. This is already the fourth time! I mean, what is this? They told us to do a small errand in Kaifeng, then next they told us to investigate the situation in Zhengzhou, then on the way to escort a trading company’s caravan, and then coming all the way to Nanyang to investigate the black gangs!”
In the meantime, even without missions, they had punished a lecher who was harassing beggars, raided two mountain retreats, and captured three wanted criminals to turn them in.
And there wasn’t even overtime pay!
Though the travel expenses were generous, following Xie Baowei often meant sleeping rough under the stars, and traveling with two stoic men, she found herself grateful even for sleeping in a barn with just a roof over her head these days.
Adventures were only fun at first.
This wasn’t what she had wanted!
Waaaah.
It seemed like fire was shooting from Dangyeonhwa’s mouth.
She had to do this much to feel better…
“Huh?”
Dangyeonhwa’s round eyes opened even wider.
Akmungi, who had been silently nodding while letting out bitter sighs, also stopped abruptly.
“Uh… Team Leader Xie? …Uncle Xie? Are you alright?”
“Senior?”
The message in Xie Baowei’s hand had been crumpled with a crunch.
Dangyeonhwa hurriedly ran over and snatched the crumpled message away.
As expected!
The content was to meet Zhao Tiejun, the master of Honyuelin Forest, one of the Nokrim Paryeong in the Taihang Mountains of northern Henan Province.
Moreover, it contained all those damn words like martial world peace… people’s safety… court’s unrest… creating anxiety… and even the damned phrase asking to elevate Bifeng’s honor once again, so why?!
Dangyeonhwa looked back and forth between the message and Xie Baowei.
Xie Baowei, who had been quietly closing his eyes in contemplation, let out a groan.
Dangyeonhwa and Akmungi looked at Xie Baowei with tense faces, not even daring to breathe.
Finally, Xie Baowei’s eyes snapped open.
“We’re going to Luoyang.”
“That’s right!”
Dangyeonhwa shouted.
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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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