You Ugly Thing
Turn northwest by north. Cheong exercised the crisp decision-making of a modern person. If you fled clumsily, you’d get caught. It was a lesson drilled in by countless modern stories. So she had slept, eaten, and run for a full ten days straight.
Only then could Cheong finally relax and dive back into her newly acquired Murim hobby: gourmet dining.
Ahhh. The aroma of this crisp inn. It really has been a long, humiliating time…
As she sat at the table, the waiter approached with a distinctly uncomfortable expression. Thanks to the maturity gained from two years of Murim life, Cheong now understood the dining etiquette of the Central Plains. In an inn, seating was everything. The center and window seats were premium; the farther from them you were, the lower the seat’s value dropped. The absolute worst spot was the one nearest the back door leading to the courtyard. Those eating cheap food were expected to take the bad seats themselves. It was an unspoken rule of the inn.
Yet Cheong had blatantly claimed the sunny window seat. After ten days of running, eating, and sleeping rough, she looked like a disaster. For someone in her state to occupy the best seat, the waiter’s sour face was only natural.
But all such rules became meaningless in front of a sword. The waiter didn’t dare say a word because of the blade Cheong had leaned openly against the table; he simply remained unfriendly.
“What will you have?”
“Heh heh…”
Cheong let out a bizarre chuckle. The instant the waiter’s face twisted, she slapped a silver ingot onto the table.
“Huk!”
“That’s right. It’s a silver ingot. Bring out the most delicious, best thing you have here. Three portions. And liquor too. The expensive stuff.”
“Right away!”
The waiter sucked in a huge breath.
“Customer at table one ordered Dongpo pork! Shredded beef with mountain vegetables! Spicy fish soup! And a side of bamboo-leaf green wine!”
The more expensive the order, the louder the waiter had to shout. It was his solemn duty. Look, everyone! This customer ordered the expensive stuff! Hey, inn folks, look over here! This person is loaded!
Through this, one could see that the Chinese people’s eternal truth—vulgar money worship—had been a continental trait since ancient times. But once you experienced it yourself, you understood.
It felt fucking great.
The other guests stared at Cheong with envious eyes. Something like: Gasp, Dongpo pork, shredded beef, and spicy fish soup? Whoa, how rich is that guy?
Then the greatest beauty in the city (Cheongbaekjisin) would approach and hand her a bamboo slip, and…
“Tsk.”
Cheong frowned. Because in her imagination, the city’s greatest beauty was looking down at her with utter contempt.
In Luoyang, Cheong had gotten her fill of eye candy, but not a single gaze had been friendly. I just want them to smile at me. Does that make me selfish?
At that moment the waiter returned, carefully setting down the liquor and dried snacks before retreating backward. In any case, Cheong’s mood was so good she was on the verge of acting like a complete fool.
Cheong’s good moods came from one of three things: delicious food in front of her, thoroughly enjoying a bloody life-or-death fight, or having lots of money. In that sense, the ten days of flight had been entirely worth it.
The young lady from the Black Shadow Association—Cheong didn’t know her name—had clearly been deeply loved by her family. After all, parental love sometimes manifested in the form of gold. Judging by the girl’s rudeness and evil deeds, she must have been spoiled rotten. This was exactly why proper family education mattered.
Two full coffers of gold was plenty as tuition for the Black Shadow Association’s leader. If you let your child grow up crooked like that, they won’t know when to butt in and when to stay out. They’ll act out where they shouldn’t and end up dead. Please raise your other children properly.
At this level, wasn’t she basically a master teacher on the level of child expert Mr. Oh?
Though honestly, there was no proof that she had killed them, was there? She had simply come to her senses and found them already dead. There was a possibility they had wrapped their own hair around her hand and then slit their own throats in suicide. Therefore she bore zero fault. On the contrary, she had removed three pieces of human garbage from the world…
“Fuck, the food is taking forever.”
Cheong cursed under her breath. So she drank a cup of liquor.
“Krrgh, this is killer.”
The people of the Central Plains had an unusual love for strong liquor. The bamboo-leaf green, poured into a cup that could barely hold a spoonful, scraped her tongue and throat like sandpaper before exploding into flames at her solar plexus.
Is liquor bitter to you? It’s sweet to me. Because bamboo-leaf green is originally sweet.
Wait, but was it always this spicy? Was liquor supposed to burn like this?
Cheong tilted her head. The tingling spiciness that rose as an aftertaste was strange, yet strangely addictive. Whatever. Must be normal. She kept sipping until the dishes arrived.
Pork with a perfectly crisped surface. Tender inside and out. Fried eggplant and vegetables served alongside some kind of raw fish. There was also a whitish thing in the center; she had no idea what it was. It was a shame there was no chili paste, but the rich sweetness was superb. A whole enormous unknown freshwater fish, steamed. The soft, flaky flesh typical of river fish made it a pain to eat, but the flavor was excellent.
Overall review: superb. Seal of approval.
After a quick taste, Cheong nodded. Now it was time to eat in earnest.
“……”
This pork was incredible! When lifted with chopsticks it came obediently, then melted in the mouth like shaved ice. The meat and fat melted together in a rich, silky wave of…
“……”
That whitish thing had a pudding-like texture, pale pink with faint vein-like strands. When she put it in her mouth—good heavens—it was another wave of rich, melting fat. But the flavors overlapped a bit. In times like these, one should cleanse the palate with vegetables…
“……”
Fried eggplant. It was just fried eggplant. Tasty. The flavor was quite stable. However…
“……”
“……”
“……”
“…Hey, kid?”
Cheong tilted her head sideways. A child had been maintaining a subtle distance and staring at her the entire time, making it impossible to enjoy the meal properly. The kid looked about ten. Small and painfully skinny.
“You’re not supposed to bother someone while they’re eating. And staring is violence, violence! Did you think I’d crumble just because of those pure, innocent eyes? That if you looked at me pitifully enough I’d say, ‘Here, kid, try some of this’?”
“……”
“Ha. Unbelievable. If you actually thought that would work, then yes, I really am that soft-hearted.”
“…?”
Being hungry for food was truly a miserable thing. Cheong had learned that lesson bitterly during her life in the gangho. Especially when chewing dumplings while the person beside her was devouring an entire feast—the urge to slice them up was almost unbearable. The dumplings of the Central Plains were just empty bread anyway.
Cheong was currently wealthy. And because she never thought about future wealth, she was even richer. That was more than enough reason to engage in unmotivated kindness.
“Want some meat?”
“!!!”
The child’s eyes widened like saucers. Finding the sight adorable, Cheong poked a large piece with her chopsticks and held it out. The child looked at the meat with trembling eyes, whipped her head around to check the surroundings, then looked back at the meat. Finally, she chomped down.
The child didn’t speak, but her expression said everything. It was the face of someone discovering how something this delicious could exist in the world, and the betrayal of not having known about it until now. A single tear rolled down the child’s cheek.
Cheong chuckled and handed over the chopsticks entirely.
“Here, sit down. Yes, kid. You know how to use chopsticks, right? Pick up whatever you want and eat it yourself. I’m a cold-hearted person who doesn’t go easy on someone just because they’re a child. In the first place, you have to become someone who can take care of their own share.”
Cheong began devouring her meal with fierce intensity. The child hesitated at first, but once she saw the plates rapidly emptying, she resolutely stretched out her chopsticks. From then on, two beggars occupied the table.
It was right around then.
“Jangmyeong!”
With a scream-like cry, a woman came rushing over in a clatter. Cheong was skilled enough to block her easily. But the woman’s expression was so desperate and her gaze was fixed on the child, so Cheong simply let her through.
The woman snatched the child into her arms as if stealing her back.
“Thank you, thank you so much…! Great Hero…!”
The middle-aged woman who appeared to be the mother kept bowing repeatedly. Her name was Yang Sowol. The gratitude was so overwhelming it felt almost burdensome.
“It was just because the kid was cute. That’s all. Jangmyeong? How old is our Jangmyeong?”
Instead of answering, the child blushed and averted her eyes. This kid really is adorable. Cheong was smiling warmly when—
“Um, Great Hero…”
“Yes?”
“Jangmyeong turned sixteen this year, but…”
“Pardon?”
Cheong looked at the child’s painfully thin frame. No matter how she looked at it, the kid didn’t seem older than ten.
“The child has a rather weak constitution, so she’s a bit smaller than others her age…”
Ma’am, I think it’s more than “a bit.” Cheong held her tongue. Now that she knew, the child’s red face looked different. It wasn’t shyness—it was shame!
Sixteen years old, so… She had been in school too long; she couldn’t immediately match grades to ages. Elementary first grade was eight? Right? Then nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. Middle school third year? This kid?
Having asked “how old are you, kid?” in front of a middle school third-year, of course the child would feel ashamed. Cheong was stunned. She looked back and forth between Yang Sowol and Jin Jangmyeong.
Yang Sowol was a gracefully aged woman. Though her clothes were poor, she carried an air of refinement. Jin Jangmyeong was a sunken-cheeked child. The kid hadn’t been eating properly, yet the mother looked perfectly fine? This, perhaps… no way. Besides, the child couldn’t even speak. Cheong had let her guard down thinking the woman was a good-natured auntie. Her eyes sharpened.
“G-Great Hero, you’ve misunderstood.”
“Misunderstood? What exactly did I misunderstand?”
“The child is a bit ill… no, quite ill…”
Yang Sowol’s face was filled with guilt toward her child. It was undeniable proof of deep maternal love.
Ah, it really was a needless misunderstanding. Cheong felt awkward.
“Did you eat some wrong herbal medicine too…?”
“…What are you saying, you ugly thing.”
Cheong was startled. She spoke! What, she could talk! Well, of course a sixteen-year-old could talk. But more importantly—ugly? Had she heard? The content? A little?
Huh? After all the effort of feeding her, this was the state of her manners?