If You’re Wronged, Then Get Yourself Resurrected Too (4)
"Uuugh."
Exhausted, Chung Myung flopped onto a bed and lay there as if he’d been wrung dry.
Baek Cheon and Yoon Jong both shook their heads when they saw him like that.
"You all right?"
"Ugh... that damn leech."
Chung Myung’s face was drawn and dark with suffering.
To him, the Tang Family had been nothing less than paradise. Then one condition changed, and in an instant it had turned into hell.
Dang Soso had decided that, from that moment on, she would never leave Chung Myung’s side.
If they ate in the main hall, she sat right next to him and tried to serve him. If he drank, she would not let go of the bottle. At this rate, it felt like she’d follow him even into the latrine.
In the end, Chung Myung had grown sick of it, barely escaped, and fled here to Baek Cheon’s quarters.
"You could’ve just gone back to your own room."
"...Sasuk."
"Hmm?"
"I’m really saying this because I’m scared, you know?"
Yoon Jong, listening to Chung Myung’s flippant nonsense, let out a snort of laughter.
"It’s not that bad, though. Why?"
But Baek Cheon seemed to have a very different opinion.
"Even if your mouth’s crooked, tell the truth straight. It’s too much. Way too much."
"Exactly. She’s even the Tang Family Lord’s only daughter, isn’t she?"
Chung Myung shouted in outrage.
"It’s not only daughter as in only daughter, it’s only daughter as in poison daughter!"
"...That’s not exactly wrong either."
"Marriage? Marriage my ass! I’m a Taoist—what the hell do I need marriage for?"
"Mount Hua Taoists can get married. No one forbids it."
Yoon Jong nodded.
"That’s right. There are even elders of the sect who are married."
"Grrrgh."
Chung Myung flopped down again.
Why the hell would I marry the Tang Family Lord’s daughter?
Hey, you idiots. Poison isn’t some separate thing. She is the poison. Poison. A poison you swallow once and can never spit back out!
No, really—so this old man is the Poison King? And he’s putting out poison like this?
If it were an actual poison, I could blast it away with internal energy or sweep it aside with sword wind. But this kind of poison couldn’t be stopped with force.
What Chung Myung hated most in this world was anything he couldn’t solve by brute strength. The dagger the Tang Family Lord had prepared had stabbed straight into his weakness.
"If she looks that good to you, why don’t you let Yoon Jong do it, then?"
"She probably wouldn’t want me."
"See? You do know."
Still sprawled on the bed, Chung Myung feigned indifference. Yoon Jong gave him a strange look, then turned to Baek Cheon with a faintly wicked expression.
"Sasuk. If you think about it, it may not be such a bad thing."
"Hmm?"
"They say a man only grows up after he gets married, don’t they? Maybe that bastard would actually start acting like a human being if he tied the knot. Besides, it would also bind Mount Hua and the Tang Family together through blood, which is even better."
"Yoon Jong."
"Yes?"
"I’ve never been more disappointed in you than I am today. This sashuk’s heart hurts."
"Why are you saying that?"
"Have you thought even once about the position of the woman who’d have to spend her life married to that bastard?"
"...I was thoughtless. Please kill me, Sasuk."
"Hey, what are you two bastards saying?"
Chung Myung glared at them, and Yoon Jong and Baek Cheon both averted their eyes and coughed awkwardly.
It’s not like they’re wrong.
At least have a conscience.
Then Jo Gul let out a snicker and said, "I heard the Tang Family Lord’s daughter is the most stunning beauty under heaven, and that he treasures her like a jewel. If he’s sending out a daughter like that, he must really like you."
"Tell him I said no."
"Still, it means they at least see us in a good light."
"Do you throw poison at people you like? Poison? Is that the Tang Family’s way of welcoming guests?"
Chung Myung let out a long, miserable sigh at the absurd situation.
"Grr... that old man’s seriously devious."
Or maybe he was just recklessly bold without a single thought for caution.
Either way, thanks to that, Chung Myung couldn’t even dream of stepping outside and had holed himself up in the pavilion.
"...Why won’t he come out?"
Dang Soso bit at her sleeve.
Watching her, Dang Jan let out a long sigh.
"Noona, how about you rein it in a little?"
"You keep quiet."
Dang Soso chewed on her lip, looking thoroughly dissatisfied.
"Something’s weird. There’s no way he’d be avoiding me like this."
"...Why not?"
"Because I’m pretty."
"...."
Dang Jan’s face twisted.
She’s right, and I can’t even say anything.
People said those who spoke the truth too bluntly tended to die young, and Dang Jan thought he now understood why.
"Is he blind just because he’s a Taoist? Or did he spend so long shut up in the mountains that he can’t recognize a beauty? Why’s he running from me?"
"...Maybe he’s simply not interested in women?"
"Do men like that even exist in this world?"
"...."
Dang Jan quietly sighed.
But that’s strange.
Truthfully, Dang Soso wasn’t the type who had been desperate to marry. If anything, she had been closer to someone who actively avoided marriage. So why on earth had she suddenly changed her mind?
"Do you like the Mount Hua Divine Dragon?"
"Jan-ah."
"Yes, Noona."
"I only met him yesterday."
"...."
"How am I supposed to like someone without knowing a thing about them? It’s not like I’ve got some kind of divine sight that lets me see inside people’s hearts."
"No, but why are you so aggressive about this?"
Dang Soso glanced at Dang Jan, her face slightly flushed, then let out a long breath.
"If I miss this chance, where do you think I’d end up getting married to?"
"...."
Dang Jan clamped his mouth shut, unable to answer.
"Father loves me too much. But he’s the Lord of the Tang Family. Between his own position and the Tang Family’s interests, he’s always going to put the Tang Family first. When the time comes that he can’t delay any longer, he’ll have no choice but to marry me off somewhere appropriate. Then I’ll have to go to some influential or powerful family in Sichuan."
"That’s true."
"I’d suffocate to death in a place like that. But what can I do? I accepted it as my fate. Once you’re born the Tang Family Lord’s daughter, you can’t avoid it. But..."
"The Mount Hua Divine Dragon is different?"
"I don’t like that he’s basically trapped himself in the mountains, but he’s still someone Father acknowledged. They say he’s a future peerless master, don’t they?"
"If you’re getting married anyway, you’d at least want the honor of becoming the wife of the world’s strongest man?"
Dang Soso stared at Dang Jan in outrage.
"Are you stupid?"
"Pardon?"
"What good is something like that? I’m not the one becoming the strongest man."
"Then why—?"
"A man on the level of the strongest in the world would be too busy training to come home, or too busy to come home at all! Then I’d just wither away alone like a flower!"
"Ah..."
What a tragic...
"Where else am I going to find a marriage like that?"
Dang Jan stared at his noona in dumbfounded silence.
No. Good?
That?
"That’s good?"
"It’s a hundred times better than a life where every little thing is interfered with. If I married into some influential family, I’d probably have to make a show of even how I drank water. Could you live like that?"
No way.
Nope. Absolutely not.
"A marriage that lets me keep my own life and not care about other people’s nonsense doesn’t come around twice! Never! I’m going to snatch that man up even if I have to die for it!"
Fire burned in Dang Soso’s eyes.
"Father might oppose it, but Father isn’t the one who’s going to live my life for me, is he? Right?"
Dang Jan stared at her blankly.
My sister already has a whole plan worked out.
It wasn’t even a plan for the Tang Family. It was a plan for her own happiness! He felt like applauding the sheer passion she brought to that goal.
"But the Mount Hua Divine Dragon doesn’t seem like such an easy person to deal with. I doubt things will go your way."
"Why are you making assumptions on your own like that?"
"Pardon?"
"I’m not trying to boss that man around. No, I can’t. How could I possibly control someone Father himself acknowledged? I should respect him and be considerate."
"Affection...?"
"What’s affection, really? Living together and enduring it until something like comradeship blossoms—that’s affection."
"...."
She was terrifyingly practical.
"Anyway, there’s no better marriage prospect for me than this one. Besides, when you really look at him, he’s actually pretty handsome. I don’t like that he looks at me like I’m a pebble in the road, but given time, I’m sure he’ll change his mind."
Dang Jan let out a low sigh as he looked at his over-energized sister.
But he couldn’t bring himself to blame her. He knew exactly what kind of future awaited a daughter of the Tang Family.
The daughters of the Tang Family were not recognized as true members of the household. They could not learn the Tang Family’s core arts, nor could they master the family’s martial studies. What was passed on to them was only a handful of hidden-weapon techniques, a lineage separate from the one inherited by the men.
And for the direct line, it was even worse.
Dang Soso, simply because she was the Tang Family Lord’s daughter, had spent her whole life confined within the Tang estate, never truly seeing the world outside.
She had been raised like a carefully tended flower, only to be married off when the time came, as though sold to someone else. How could anyone who entered a marriage like that be happy?
No matter how much Tang Gun-ak was the Tang Family Lord, he could not change the rules and customs that had been entwined with the family for generations.
"Jan-ah!"
"Yes, Noona!"
"You help me too!"
"...."
"I’m going to be happy somehow. And the first key to that happiness is right over there! I’m going to marry that Taoist no matter what it takes, so help me. Then I’ll help you too."
"Help me with what?"
"Would they really mistreat the younger brother of the wife of the house? That would make you the brother-in-law of the strongest man in the world, wouldn’t it?"
"...."
"I’ll back you."
Dang Jan slowly nodded.
"I trust you."
They briefly clasped hands and let go, then both of them shot a fierce glare toward someone inside the pavilion.
Thanks to that, Chung Myung had to shudder through an inexplicable chill.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
A pair of eyes peeked up over the eaves.
She’s not there, right?
After quickly checking the surroundings, Chung Myung let out a sigh and crawled onto the roof.
Ah, damn my fate.
At Mount Hua, he had been chased around by Yu I-seol. Here in the Tang Family, he was running from Dang Soso.
To think that the Plum Blossom Sword Saint, who had once feared nothing under heaven, was now fleeing from little girls not even half his age.
- Serves you right, you little brat.
"Hey, you old geezer who never even got married!"
Chung Myung jabbed a finger at the heavens, then stretched out on the eaves. His hand reflexively grabbed the bandage wrapped around his stomach.
"Ugh..."
His face twisted.
A dull, throbbing pain washed over him.
It hurts.
He couldn’t afford to show weakness in front of the Tang Family Lord. The more highly Tang Gun-ak thought of him, the more he could wring out of him.
He also couldn’t afford to look weak in front of his martial brothers. The more they worried, the more miserable they’d feel.
Maybe they’d even start resenting their own helplessness.
"Strange, isn’t it, Sect Leader Sasuk?"
He used to not act like this at all.
And now he was acting more and more full of himself every day.
I used to think people who put on airs were absolutely pathetic.
Chuckling softly, Chung Myung poured alcohol into his mouth.
"Kuhhh."
Wiping his mouth, he stared blankly up at the moon in the sky.
I’m weak.
Pathetically weak.
He’d gotten injured in a fight with someone like the Tang Family Lord, of all people.
If this had been the old him, he would have split the man’s skull with a single sword strike.
Tang Pae’s sneak attack?
That wasn’t an excuse. On a horrific battlefield, cowardice was the norm and ambushes were a skill. If he had been stronger, no ambush would have dared lay a hand on him.
"I’m really damn weak."
But if he thought about it, that was only natural.
It had only been a little over three years since Chung Myung had awakened from death. By years, yes, it was three years, but in actual time it hadn’t even quite been three full years yet. It was impressive enough that he had grown this much in such a short span.
No matter how familiar the road was because he had once walked it before, he could not catch up to what had taken an entire lifetime to achieve in just three years.
He knew that. But...
"That sure as hell isn’t an excuse!"
Chung Myung’s eyes sharpened with resolve.
He understood better than anyone how cruel and dangerous the martial world was. It would be wonderful if he could leisurely take his time growing stronger in peace—but what were the chances of that?
"I’m getting stronger."
He had to surpass the old Plum Blossom Sword Saint and move on to a new level.
Strong enough to protect Mount Hua no matter what danger in this world came crashing down upon it!
Chung Myung reached into his robes.
Then, with both hands, he took out the Thousand Poison Pill he had extorted from the Tang Family and the Honwon Dan he had brought with him.
Will this work?
His eyes darkened slightly.
It was extremely dangerous. But if things went the way he thought they would...
The internal energy problem can be solved all at once.
Even if he couldn’t return to the level of the past, he would never again be unable to show his true strength just because he lacked internal energy like this.
"Once my body’s fully healed..."
At that moment, Chung Myung held his breath and flattened himself against the roof.
"Sir Chung Myung? Sir Chung Myuuuuung? Strange. I checked his room and he wasn’t there. Where did that fellow go?"
Chung Myung broke into a cold sweat and held his breath.
Only after deploying even the Breath-Concealing Art and confirming that Dang Soso had gone completely out of range did Chung Myung finally let out a crooked smile.
I can’t beat that.
There are always things in this world you can’t defeat no matter how strong you become.
Chung Myung was feeling that truth in his bones.