Day 14: Tanghulu and an Uninvited Guest
Munch, munch.
“This is delicious.”
An entire banquet of delicacies sprawled across the table before her—more than a hundred dishes of every kind. Cheon Seo-ah sampled them one by one, then smiled sweetly as she spoke.
Maraseung’s expression brightened at once.
“I am glad it suits your taste.”
“Mmm… though it’s getting a little rich.”
The moment those words left her lips, the light vanished from Maraseung’s face as if storm clouds had swallowed the sun. Perhaps it was the nature of Chinese cuisine—so many of the dishes were oily and boldly seasoned. Eating a great deal of them did leave one feeling rather overwhelmed.
His features stiffening, Maraseung gestured toward the door. It opened, and a man stepped inside. The suit he wore looked thoroughly uncomfortable on him; he made little effort to hide his unease. Yet Cheon Seo-ah’s eyes lit up at the sweet fragrance drifting from the package clutched in his hands.
“What is that?”
“Haha. Why don’t you open it yourself?”
Maraseung smiled and waved the man forward. The moment the package touched the table, Cheon Seo-ah tore it open. Inside were fruit skewers—every piece of fruit coated in a gleaming shell of sugar. Her eyes went wide.
“Th-this is?!”
“Ah, that is a dessert called tanghulu. Fruit threaded onto a stick and coated in sugar.”
“I already know what it is, you know?”
She grinned brightly at Maraseung’s solemn explanation, as though he had just revealed some great secret. She truly had known; that was the only reason she answered so casually. To Maraseung, however, her tone carried a distinct air of Why are you acting like this is impressive?
“I-I see. Come to think of it, tanghulu did enjoy a boom in Korea as well for a time.”
He nodded, belatedly recalling the brief frenzy that had swept through Korea.
“Well, tanghulu did cause one rather large incident.”
Cheon Seo-ah nodded in agreement and picked up a skewer.
Crunch—
The sugar shell shattered the instant her teeth met it, flooding her tongue with that distinctly artificial sweetness unique to candy. Right behind it came the bright, fresh sweetness of the strawberry itself.
“This is delicious.”
After so long, the tanghulu delivered a sweetness intense enough to make one worry about diabetes. It was more aggressively sweet than any dessert she had tasted in ages. Even knowing most of that sweetness came from pure sugar, Cheon Seo-ah—who had not encountered a dessert this wholly devoted to sugar in hundreds of thousands of years—found her satisfaction only multiplied.
She continued alternating between a bite of the banquet dishes and a bite of tanghulu when—
“Would you just get the hell out of my way already?!”
Crash—
A shout from outside, followed by the racket of something being smashed to pieces, punched straight through the firmly shut door. Cheon Seo-ah, cheeks still puffed with food, turned a curious gaze toward the entrance.
Bang!
A single kick reduced the door to splinters that went skittering across the floor. A young man strode through the wreckage.
“Hah, you bastards. Why’d you have to stand in my way and start shit?”
He brushed dust from his shoulders with sharp flicks of his hands and clicked his tongue. A keen, aggressive aura rolled off him in waves. Maraseung immediately recognized that the uninvited guest was an ability user of at least Grade 6.
Hmm. Have the martial artists caught the scent?
Maraseung muttered inwardly. In China, ability users did not call themselves “heroes.” They called themselves martial artists, and they organized into groups known as sects. No one quite knew when or who had first begun the practice.
Of course…
Martial arts did once exist in truth. But—
1966. A single event that year had erased Chinese martial arts forever. Or rather, they had not been lost; the Chinese had wiped every trace of them away with their own hands. And now those same people had the gall to style themselves martial artists and found sects. Maraseung, who had personally walked the old murim, found their pretensions utterly laughable.
The young man, oblivious to the contempt in Maraseung’s eyes, looked Cheon Seo-ah up and down.
“Face is definitely worth a look.”
…?
Cheon Seo-ah tilted her head at the abrupt appraisal of her appearance. The young man was not finished.
“The vacant air is a bit of a shame, but with a face like that it just becomes another charm. Yeah. Good.”
He nodded, answering himself with complete satisfaction. For the first time since returning to Earth, a clear flicker of displeasure rose in Cheon Seo-ah’s eyes. Sensing it, Maraseung rose from his seat.
“Benefactor. This is both my first and final warning. Withdraw quietly.”
He pressed his palms together in a respectful bow, yet fury leaked plainly through his polite tone. The young man either failed to notice or simply did not care. He only snorted.
“I was wondering where that moldy smell was coming from. Turns out some bald monk had crawled in here.”
Maraseung’s brow twitched. He had to endure it. He must. This place held not only himself but the Heavenly Demon he served—Cheon Seo-ah. For her sake, he could not cause a scene here. Drawing on superhuman patience, he forced the boiling rage back down.
Then the young man spoke again.
“I’ve decided. You—come with me.”
Step. Step. Step.
With those words and a stride of absolute confidence, he walked straight up to Cheon Seo-ah and reached out. With rough, unceremonious hands he seized the still-innocent-looking girl and yanked her toward him—
“You fucking mongrel!”
Maraseung could hold back no longer. A roar of pure fury tore from his throat as he thrust out an open palm.
Boom—!
An unprecedented force exploded from the strike and slammed into the young man’s body. With a thunderous crash he was hurled backward, smashing clean through the wall and vanishing.
“Hah… hah…”
Maraseung dragged in ragged breaths, barely restraining the rage that had finally erupted. Once unleashed, however, fury was not so easily caged. Thick killing intent settled in his eyes as he glared at the hole the young man had left behind.
“My deepest apologies, Lady Cheon Seo-ah. It seems we must leave for today.”
“I’m fine.”
She answered with a gentle smile, as if truly unbothered. This was not Maraseung’s fault in the slightest—only the fault of that insect. There was nothing for him to apologize for.
Judging they could no longer remain, the two turned to leave the restaurant.
“You sons of bitches! Where do you think you’re running?!”
Rumble—!
The young man burst back through the rubble, bellowing. A clear handprint was burned into his chest, yet beyond that he showed neither pain nor injury despite having taken Maraseung’s full palm strike.
“Ptooey. Hey, baldy. Looks like you’ve learned a bit of martial arts, but it won’t work on me.”
He spat a mouthful of blood—so at least the internal damage was real. Maraseung let out a short, incredulous laugh at the young man’s swagger.
“Martial arts… martial arts, is it…”
It was truly absurd. No matter how loudly they called themselves martial artists, the power they used was unmistakably an ability. And for the very people who had erased real martial arts with their own hands to now prattle on about “martial arts”…
“Boy. Step down quietly and I will overlook today’s offense. But if you insist on seeing this through…”
Flare—
Sinister black light erupted from Maraseung’s eyes.
“I will have no choice but to kill you.”
Thrum—
A crushing presence exploded outward, pressing down on everything nearby. The other diners, already startled by the chaos, groaned and collapsed under the weight of it. Ordinary humans simply could not withstand the pressure Maraseung released.
Nor could the young man.
“Kh—!”
He did not fall like the others, but he still bent under the force, a stifled groan escaping him. Shock flooded his eyes as he stared at Maraseung. That unremarkable-looking bald monk was releasing a presence equal to his own father’s. That meant the man before him was a martial artist of at least Grade 3.
“Interesting. They call themselves martial artists, yet they measure strength on the same Grade 1-to-10 scale as every other country.”
“They are merely fools who have never experienced the true murim.”
“Is that so? The murim… I’ve honestly always wanted to see it for myself.”
“Haha, have you? Then tonight I shall personally recount the murim this humble monk once walked. It will be quite an entertaining tale.”
The moment Cheon Seo-ah showed interest, Maraseung answered without missing a beat. With that, he had secured several more days of her company instead of sending her straight back to the Proxy’s mansion.
Watching the exchange, the young man snarled.
“Damn it! You! Don’t think this is over!”
Boom!
Whoosh—!
Flames burst from both his palms, forcibly shoving Maraseung’s pressure aside. With a line worthy of a third-rate villain, he vanished.
Maraseung looked mildly surprised that a brat of that level had managed to push through his aura and escape.
A miscalculation. I should have crushed his mind and body completely.
Then he dismissed the thought. At best the boy was a Grade 6 ability user. To anyone else that might matter; to Maraseung, a Grade 6 was no different from a pebble lying in the street. Should the fool ever again show disrespect toward the Heavenly Demon he served—Cheon Seo-ah—
Then I will erase him without leaving a single trace.
With that quiet resolution, Maraseung departed with Cheon Seo-ah for his secluded retreat not far from Beijing.