The Hwangbo Clan’s Beloved Live-In Son-in-Law - Chapter 8

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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 8

“How about we have a bout after such a long time?”

“…Are you feeling nostalgic or something?”

A blunt, gruff response came out first.

Of course, judging by his attitude so far, that probably wasn’t the case.

But facing each other like this, how could old memories not surface?

“Hardly. This is just, confirmation.”

What kind of confirmation, you ask?

Thud.

With a that shook the training ground, Yunlei’s body instantly rushed toward Jin Baowei.

Just as he had advised the children earlier, it was a sudden leap as dramatic as his outstretched leg.

It was one step of the Cheonhutaebo, the basic footwork of the Huangbo Family.

Clang! Clatter!

Though it was a sudden strike, Jin Baowei skillfully parried by swinging the staff that Yunlei had given him.

The heavy strikes of Odaebugeom, the light consecutive attacks of Kwaehwalsan, and the ever-changing techniques of Iljopyeon flowed naturally from Yunlei’s sword like breathing.

“Excellent!”

And Jin Baowei’s movements in skillfully receiving all of that were likewise impressive.

He countered the heavy sword with the weight of Taisanzhongshou, returned the quick consecutive strikes with even more continuous attacks of Hokwaeshipsamjang, and actually charged forward with the aggressiveness of Taisanjuquan against the whip-like curved and splitting strikes.

To display all of this with a single staff.

This was truly the martial arts that the Huangbo Family pursued, the Taisanshippaljeong that only seasoned veterans could barely master.

The orthodox way of Hwangbo Family Martial Arts, which trains to apply the Huangbo Family’s martial arts to all eighteen types of weapons.

Clack!

With the sound, Huangbo Yeon-gung’s sword and Jin Baowei’s staff clashed right before their faces.

Both men’s sweat dripped with audible plops.

Already dozens of exchanges.

Even in this not-so-long sparring match, they had moved so intensely that heat radiated from their bodies.

Suddenly, Jin Baowei struck his staff hard and sent Yunlei flying back.

“As expected of Yunlei. I didn’t know before, but you’re certainly impressive.”

Even holding a staff, he had fought within sword range. What more was there to see? Jin Baowei was the first to put away his staff.

Huangbo Yeon-gung just stared at Jin Baowei quietly.

Then he suddenly opened his mouth.

“Won’t your leg recover? Why was your finger cut off?”

“Well. I’m alive, aren’t I?”

Jin Baowei shrugged as if it was nothing.

Huangbo Yeon-gung continued with gloomy eyes.

“…Even if not the finger, the leg will be a major weakness.”

“It’s an old wound. It’s about time I got used to it.”

His voice was full of worry and sadness.

That awkwardness made Jin Baowei speak gruffly.

“…Yes. I see.”

Huangbo Yeon-gung hung his head low. But thinking of something, he soon raised his head and forced a smile.

“Still, it’s amazing. Amazing, Brother Jin. To think someone who knew nothing has grown this far. How much you must have suffered after leaving the family. Now I understand.”

Huangbo Yeon-gung said.

That smile was so forlorn that Jin Baowei could only scratch the back of his head awkwardly.

Then.

Thud.

The sword fell first.

Next came the knees, then the forehead struck the ground.

A solemn voice flowed from the ground, as if he had never smiled.

“Even begging a hundred times wouldn’t be enough. Please forgive my past self. This worthless person drove a family member into mortal danger.”

Jin Baowei didn’t say it was fine, and looked at his cousin’s back of the head and the blood buried in the dirt floor.

Words didn’t come easily.

He watched quietly, then slowly extended his hand.

“Take it, brother. Your clothes are getting dirty.”

“Brother Jin…”

It was the first time he had forgiven.

***

After the sparring match, Huangbo Yeon-gung bothered Jin Baowei quite a bit.

Let’s go wash together, let’s eat dinner together, let’s have a drink.

When he rejected everything with the excuse of being tired, Yeon-gung looked at him with hurt eyes, so he finally made a promise for one drink and was released.

Even then, he said they should have a proper match sometime.

This time with real learning involved. Wouldn’t that be the Huangbo Family’s Chentabeipa?

Seeing the guilt in those eyes and the desire to properly teach his younger brother this time, he immediately regretted agreeing, but it couldn’t be helped.

Right. Next sparring match, no, during Chentabeipa, I’ll have to slap him, even if I pretend it’s an accident.

Jin Baowei resolved.

“Here! Over here! Our son-in-law Jin! Brother Jin! The precious treasure of our family!”

No. Should I hit him now?

It was time when people were just gathering after finishing work.

As the sun was setting in the center of Jinan, on Daming Street, Yunlei raised his hand high and shouted loudly toward Jin Baowei.

Jin Baowei momentarily considered whether to run over and kick him or turn around and flee, but eventually hurried his steps.

Because it seemed like he would follow anyway.

“…I’m here.”

“Haha! Our Brother Jin. You look even better seeing you outside!”

“Are you already drunk?”

“Come now. Where! I haven’t had even one drink because I was waiting to drink with you!”

Damn it. But why.

All the people around were already staring only at Jin Baowei.

That Jin Baowei? The great fortune woodcutter?

I heard he returned this time?! So it was true! To meet him here!

Such murmurs overflowed.

At the turtle-something sounds that made Huangbo Yeon-gung bristle and try to stand up, Jin Baowei grabbed his shoulder and gritted his teeth.

“Please. Lower your voice.”

“Haha. Why so? Your name is already rippling through this Jinan district. Most of the taverns here are probably talking about you? That bastard!”

Jin Baowei pulled him back as he tried to jump out again at another turtle-something comment.

Fortunately, even without Yunlei, people around scolded those who spoke of great fortune and turtles, so it couldn’t be heard anymore.

However, what was puzzling were people’s eyes.

Those gazes that were unilaterally favorable only toward him.

That is to say.

“Haha. Well now. This feels good. Let’s go quickly.”

Contrary to the pouring goodwill, pouring hostility was directed at Yunlei.

What’s this. Isn’t this Daming Street?

It wasn’t the kind of murderous hostility one would show an enemy.

How should I put it. Warning? Surveillance?

A kind of feeling like, you. I’m watching you…

“Like I’ve become a criminal?”

“This is all because of you.”

“What?”

At the response that followed his muttering, Jin Baowei stared blankly.

Huangbo Yeon-gung chuckled and dragged Jin Baowei along as if those gazes didn’t matter.

“It’s been a while for me too. Maybe because rumors spread that you came, but it’s gotten better. How should I put it. In the early days, they almost thought we had really committed treason.”

Jin Baowei had fled in the night!

The rumor spread quickly.

Jin Baowei didn’t realize it, but he was quite a famous person.

It was only natural.

How could a great family’s marriage be like that of a common household?

A marriage of the century made purely of love!

There were as many people cheering for him as there were those who envied him, and it was even more so because it was the Huangbo family that had spread virtue throughout Jinan.

Moreover, he was that young lady’s husband.

What? …He ran away because he couldn’t bear the pressure from the Huangbo family’s elders?

“Well. Things didn’t work out. The laborers turned their backs, and the family’s business revenues dropped one after another. Even the tenant farmers ran away. Thanks to that, the surrounding families had an overflow of workers, right? They said they wouldn’t take Huangbo family work even if they were paid a little less?”

Revenge was possible. How could they be in a position of ‘doing’ work for them?

The Huangbo family was in a position of ‘giving’ work.

However, they didn’t do that.

The Huangbo family simply remained silent.

They reduced their businesses, sold land to decrease tenant farming, demolished buildings under construction, and cut off exchanges with other families.

They simply exercised restraint.

They sent people away and reduced the family’s size.

Naturally, others reached out their hands. The owners simply changed where the family’s businesses had been.

Those who had only been watching rushed in desperately.

However, there were no disputes.

That was because the Huangbo family thoroughly prevented and protected against them.

Lower, lower.

Though the Huangbo family’s power diminished, people still thought.

That the Huangbo family was still the master of Daming Street.

“It was natural treatment, but they say you couldn’t even drink outside for a while? Oh my. How they glared at you. You speak first – since when did you gain all the people’s trust in Jinan?”

Yeon-gung playfully hit Jin Baowei.

Jin Baowei simply followed without being able to say a word.

Was I such an existence? He never thought about it.

I was just.

“Let’s go over there. The alcohol there tastes very good.”

He was dragged along as Yeon-gung pulled him.

It was a familiar direction.

The marketplace of Daming Street was over there.

“You must have tried Lanling wine, right?”

“No.”

“…Ke Zhong Xing. Don’t you know it?”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“Good grief.”

At Jin Baowei’s words, Yeon-gung’s steps stopped. His face was colored with guilt again.

“The wine that the Immortal Poet Li Bai praised as ‘Lanling fine wine with turmeric fragrance’! You, a person of Jinan! Haven’t tried it?”

I’ve heard of it, at least. Heard of it.

Lanling fine wine with turmeric fragrance

In jade bowls comes amber light

If only the host can intoxicate the guest

Who knows where is foreign land

From Lanling’s fine wine comes turmeric fragrance

In jade cups spreads amber color

The host intoxicates the guest

I don’t know where foreign land is

Lanling wine was alcohol that no person from Jinan could be unaware of.

Even those who couldn’t read could recite the Immortal Poet’s poem.

It was wine that everyone should try at least once, and he too wanted to try it, but.

It was quite expensive wine.

So expensive that a woodcutter like Jin Baowei couldn’t even dream of touching it.

“Sigh… The family’s sins reach to the bone marrow. Please, don’t say those words anywhere else. Hatred for the Huangbo family might spread through Jinan again.”

Huangbo Yeon-gung led Jin Baowei again with a firmly resolved face.

The direction changed.

“Let’s go over there!”

Huangbo Yeon-gung’s trembling hand pointed toward Daming Lake.

Daming Lake

The lake that made Daming Street of Jinan the central district.

Wasn’t it the most famous place in Jinan, called the city of springs, where the Immortal Poet Li Bai, whom Yeon-gung mentioned earlier, also enjoyed the wind and flow?

So then.

The wine houses standing tall right next to it were places usually visited only by wealthy people. That’s what it meant.

“It’s been a while. Ohaeng Daeju.”

“It has been a while.”

Among them, the place Huangbo Yeon-gung led Jin Baowei to was none other than Changhollu, a three-story hall.

He remembered it as the family’s wine house in the old days, but seeing Huangbo Yeon-gung’s face, it seemed that was no longer the case.

First, the gatekeeper greeting them wasn’t familiar, and the steward in charge of reception was also a different person entirely.

His eyes briefly scanned Yunlei and Baowei’s clothes, but quickly changed his expression.

Whatever the case, they were Huangbo family people, so they would have money.

Yunlei felt that gaze and trembled. Was he remembering the splendid days of old?

But seeing him laugh with a trembling face, it wasn’t that kind of problem.

“Brother. Do you have money?”

“Oh my. This brother has money to buy his younger brother good wine.”

“…Let’s not overdo it.”

While the two were whispering, an attendant approached quickly with quiet steps.

She politely guided the two people.

Her eyes were full of respect and goodwill, so Jin Baowei was still bewildered.

However, Yunlei trembled in a different sense when the attendant ghostly smoothly passed through the crowded seats on the first floor and headed toward the stairs to the second floor.

“…Money. Do you have it?”

“…I said I do. I have it. For now.”

I didn’t think about this floor.

He swallowed those words.

Changhollu was a good wine house.

Like all wine houses around Daming Lake boast that the Immortal Poet recited Ke Zhong Xing there, Changhollu was old enough to be one of the places where this might truly be possible.

It was a wine house that made a lot of money, elegant enough for that age to feel antique, and therefore, it was also a wine house that cost a lot of money.

Changhollu was popular because it divided floors.

Anyone could come to the first floor if they spent a reasonable amount of money. The second floor guided you to wider tables and more comfortable seats if you spent a little more.

The third floor was different.

The ten rooms facing Daming Lake were filled with spacious windows and high-end furniture that made each person feel Daming Lake as their own private garden.

Thus it was called Chimyeongheon.

It was named separately as a pavilion where one gets drunk while viewing the blue lake (Daming Lake).

Huangbo Yeon-gung definitely had no intention of treating them this far.

“…Excuse me. I.”

So when he was about to stop the attendant without shame.

“The owner said to give him a chance to repay his debt to Master Jin.”

“Oh!”

Yeon-gung turned around with joy.

“Come quickly. Master Jin. Couldn’t I do this much for my Master Jin! Haha!”

Xie Baowei shook his head and stepped onto the stairs first.

“Hey. Is there any reason for a guest to go first?”

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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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