Wontae Wants to Live
He had to think.
This woman thinks I’m some kind of spy. She’s on guard because she doesn’t want the location of her house exposed.
And she was sloppy.
When she asked where it was, her wrist had loosened for a moment.
Letting your guard slip while restraining someone?
Absurd.
She’d probably been trying to cover her clumsiness by acting even rougher.
Good. That makes her easier to butter up.
He drew a breath and opened his mouth.
“No… anyway, I found that house before I ever ran into you. If all you wanted was the location, you could’ve gone back before getting caught. So why did you step forward and get discovered? I’m just a castaway. Whatever you think I am, I’m not involved in it, not even one millimeter.”
“Milli…meter…?”
Her brows twitched.
She looked confused by a word she’d never heard before.
Baek Wontae’s eyes went wide.
She doesn’t know what a millimeter is…?
“You’re trying to confuse me with nonsense. Useless.”
“You don’t know what a millimeter is…?”
“Never heard of it.”
Baek Wontae fell into thought.
He had to confirm it.
Whether this was the world he knew or not.
“Hydrogen, helium, lithium… forget that. You know Apple? Banana?”
Common knowledge among common knowledge.
Something no one in the world could possibly not know.
“No.”
??????
He had two hypotheses.
Either she was a lunatic cosplay nerd who’d been educated by kicking textbooks, or…
he really was in another world.
He mulled over her words again.
Dang Clan, transmission through voice.
He ransacked his memory, trying to remember where he’d seen those terms before.
Martial-arts novel…!
The last wuxia novel he’d read.
Those were the words that appeared there.
The Dang Clan was a major family in Sichuan.
And transmission by voice was a martial technique for sending words over a distance.
If that wasn’t it…
Then I’m inside a wuxia novel…?
He swallowed hard.
He’d rather be dead than stuck in a transmigration story.
Why am I even taking this seriously?
But the pain of his arm being twisted behind his back was still vivid.
To survive, he needed information.
He steadied himself and asked again.
“…You said Dang Clan earlier. Do you mean the Sichuan Dang Clan?”
Her head tilted.
“What else would I mean by Dang Clan?”
Sichuan Dang Clan.
He was sure of it now.
This was a wuxia world.
He’d fallen to his death from a rooftop and transmigrated into a martial-arts novel?
How the hell had that happened?
No. Leave the realistic theories for later.
For now, he just prayed this was the same world as the novel he’d read.
Then he’d at least be able to use some of what he knew.
Meanwhile, she chewed over his words.
Milli? Hydrogen? A bull? Helr… heli…?
They were words she couldn’t understand, let alone pronounce.
“You’re just spouting nonsense….”
Strange clothes. Strange words.
A man suspicious from head to toe.
Then a thought struck her.
“Could you be from the Demonic Cult?! ”
She raised her sword.
“I-I’ll kill you!”
“Wait, wait!”
Right before his throat was pierced, he shouted in a panic.
She flinched.
For one thin instant, there was a gap.
The blade stopped.
He dragged in a ragged breath and spoke through a cough.
“Then… just in case, let me ask. Is this China… no, what country is this? Sui? Tang? Song? Yuan? Ming? Qing?”
He prayed inwardly.
Please be the Ming dynasty, please be the Ming dynasty, please be the Ming dynasty….
The last wuxia novel he’d read had been set in the Ming dynasty.
“You… are trying to deceive me?”
Her voice cooled.
She suspected he was trying to fool her with an idiot act.
Baek Wontae made up his mind.
If he wanted information, it would be better to lay everything bare.
After all, with his weird clothes and weird way of speaking, he’d already been branded as suspicious.
Whether they believed him or not didn’t matter.
They could believe him, or they could write him off as a lunatic spouting nonsense.
It made no difference.
He had no other option.
“I’ll tell you the truth. I’m not from this world. I’m from a country called the Republic of Korea. I fell from a rooftop, and I thought I was dead, right? But when I opened my eyes, I was in this forest. I wandered around looking for people, saw that house, and then got restrained by you.”
“You fell from a rooftop…? Why?”
Her eyes narrowed.
Her tone made it sound like she was honestly curious.
“That’s… because of circumstances. Anyway, I’m not a spy or a cultist or anything. Just an ordinary guy. I don’t have any power at all. What do I have to do for you to believe me?”
She reached out and placed a hand on his back.
Right over the area of his heart.
The so-called lower dantian.
“…Stay still.”
Baek Wontae didn’t move a muscle.
In a brief instant, her expression changed.
Surprised.
He has… no inner energy….
She withdrew her hand, her face shifting into something faintly strange.
The pressure on his arm loosened a little.
“The answer to your earlier question: this is Yeom Kingdom.”
Half of Baek Wontae’s emotions collapsed into despair, the other half burst into relief.
Despair, because this wasn’t the world of the story.
Relief, because at least he’d gotten an answer.
“So giving me an answer means you’ve dropped the suspicion, right?”
“I confirmed that there’s no inner energy in your body. Not even a speck of dust.”
“I told you I’m innocent.”
“That’s what makes you more suspicious.”
“Huh?”
Her eyes narrowed.
“No outsider can come to this place. The roads are all disguised, and there are traps everywhere. We patrol every day, too. A normal person couldn’t get here unless they used light-footwork. And yet you appeared near the main residence without even escaping my notice?”
The interrogation continued.
“On top of that, you said it yourself—you came from another world. How could that not be suspicious?”
“I didn’t exactly come here by choice….”
“Either way, I can’t let you go. You might have hidden your inner energy with some martial art I don’t know. And I have no way of knowing whether what you’re saying is true. There are too many reasons to doubt you.”
And she’s still suspicious.
He tried to gauge her nature.
Was she really this ruthless?
If so, the moment he set foot here, his neck would have gone flying.
And yet she’d gone to the trouble of restraining him and carrying on the conversation.
That meant there was still room to appeal to her emotions.
Baek Wontae spoke calmly.
“Um… have you ever killed anyone?”
A brief silence.
Her eyes wavered.
“…Why would you ask that?”
“Because I don’t want you to kill an innocent person and spend the rest of your life drowning in guilt.”
Her hand trembled.
He pressed in immediately.
“You’re a good person, aren’t you? Slitting someone’s throat takes only an instant, but the consequences can’t be taken back. So please, make the wise choice.”
There was nothing more he could do.
He placed everything on her conscience.
“…You talk like someone who’s killed before.”
“Of course not. I’m just… leaning on universal morality.”
Baek Wontae gave a faint smile.
Strictly speaking, he hadn’t committed murder.
She thought for a long moment.
Then, rustle.
She untied her headband.
“……”
And tied up both of his hands.
“Wait, what are you do—”
“I’m taking you to my father. If it’s my father, he’ll be able to determine the truth.”
He let out a huge internal groan.
He’d finally talked her down, and now she was handing him off to someone else.
With both hands bound, he was forced to his feet.
“Am I going to live?”
“Who knows. That depends on how you handle yourself.”
“No….”
“Walk faster.”
And so he ended up going to the tile-roofed house he’d originally meant to approach, only in a slightly different way.
As they pushed through the forest path, the roof tiles came into view.
The gate was neither tall nor extravagant.
Surrounding it was a small flower bed.
Wildflowers of every color and medicinal herbs mingled together, modest but full of life.
It happened in an instant.
Something inside that little garden caught his eye at once.
That is…?
* * *
Inside the main residence, in the study, a middle-aged man with sharp eyes sat face-to-face with a young man who resembled him closely.
A brush moved across the ledger.
The man massaged his brow and muttered, “Medicine hall operating costs, living expenses… and debt, too.”
The young man replied with calm indifference, “That’s how it always is. There’s more going out than coming in.”
“I’m sorry, but….”
“It’s for our long-held wish.”
He answered lightly, as though he understood everything.
Only then did the man give a small nod.
“Thank you for understanding, Hyeon.”
A moment later, he set down the brush and let out a long sigh.
“I’ll step outside for a bit and get some air.”
“Go ahead.”
The man left the study.
He looked up at the night sky.
The stars were so densely packed it felt as though they might pour down at any moment.
A clear, beautiful sight.
It was the kind of view he had once gazed at with someone he loved.
But—
Among them, one star stood out far more than the rest.
The man’s eyes narrowed.
“Cheonsalseong….”
He shook his head.
“Unlucky… Tomorrow, I should be especially careful about meeting people.”
Just as he turned to go back to the study, a voice came from behind him.
It was his daughter.
“Father, we’ve captured a suspicious man.”
“A suspicious man?”
“We found him in the forest near the main residence. He doesn’t even seem to have inner energy, but he made it this far without a single wound. According to him, he came from another world.”
An unfamiliar outfit.
And yet not the slightest trace of inner energy or oppressive presence—a completely ordinary man.
And he had reached this place somehow—
Then Cheonsalseong flashed through his mind.
Don’t tell me, this man….
Baek Wontae said, “I was just lost—”
“Shut up.”
Whoosh!
The man released his aura.
In an instant, the air around them grew heavy.
Even his daughter flinched at that force.
Baek Wontae, who had no inner energy whatsoever, collapsed flat on the ground.
What the hell? My body won’t move. I can’t even speak…!
“Ahwa, step back.”
“Father, wait!”
The daughter hurriedly raised her arms and moved to block him.
“C-could we confirm a little more before deciding? He might really just be a castaway….”
The man said coldly, “Ahwa. You know what Cheonsalseong means.”
“I was taught that it’s the most ominous of the Thirty-Six Heavenly Stars and Seventy-Two Earthly Fiends. But why…?”
“That star shone in the sky today.”
“…!”
She lifted her head and looked up at the heavens.
Among the countless stars, one point shone with a distinctly cold light.
The star her father had once taught her about.
The star that had shone on the night he never wanted to remember.
Cheonsalseong.
Cold sweat gathered on her forehead.
“And….”
The man seemed to think of something.
He let the words trail off.
“There’s no need to hesitate.”
Before anyone had realized it, the young man from the study had stepped out and picked up the thread.
“I know what happened the last time that star appeared.”
His gaze sharpened.
The man spoke again.
“There has never been an intruder here, and yet on the very day Cheonsalseong rose… can you really call that a coincidence?”
Ihwa objected, “But this man doesn’t even have inner energy.”
“True. He’s less capable than a newborn.”
“Then—”
“Cheonsalseong itself is a disaster. It brings blood and slaughter with it.”
The young man snapped at her curtly.
“Dang Ihwa. Didn’t I tell you? If a suspicious person gets near the main residence, no questions asked. Immediate execution—that’s the rule.”
“D-Dang Ihyeon, you haven’t even done it yourself…!”
“Both of you, be quiet!”
The man barked at them.
Since their father had rarely ever raised his voice in their lives, that alone made them tense up even more.
Baek Wontae didn’t hear a word of their conversation.
Immediate execution? What the fuck is this? Are you kidding me?!
The man spoke softly to his daughter.
“Ahwa. I know how gentle you are. I’ll handle this matter myself. But… from now on, be more ruthless, like a proper member of the Dang Clan.”
With that, a dagger appeared from his sleeve.
Everyone held their breath.
Baek Wontae was seized by terror.
“The moment this man set foot in the main residence, the rot had already begun to spread. We don’t know what sinister omen he might drag in with him. Even if it’s only a sliver, I’ll protect my family from danger.”
“Father, but—”
“You know what Cheonsalseong means to us.”
At Ihyeon’s words, Ihwa fell silent.
“Move.”
Ihyeon shoved Ihwa aside.
Baek Wontae felt his stomach turn.
Cheonsalseong? A star? You’re going to kill someone over astrology? Are you out of your damn mind?
“Don’t resent me. I’ll pray for your soul.”
He raised the dagger.
Death was coming.
He scrambled for a way out.
What did he need to survive?
The best move he could possibly make.
What he himself could offer.
What the other side needed.
Then one thing flashed through his head.
That thing he’d seen in the flower bed.
Baek Wontae put every ounce of strength into his voice.
“I can make you money!!”
Jiiing—
The air trembled.
“…What did you say?”
The man’s hand froze.
For the first time, the coldness in his eyes wavered.