Joyous News
Joyous news!
The eldest daughter of Sichuan’s Crouching Dragon Dang Hui-yeom and the Heavenly Fragrance Beauty Phoenix Sama Yun had been born!
The glad tidings set the entire martial world and the whole of Sichuan abuzz with excitement.
Hui-yeom showered the people of the Dang Family with enormous gifts.
“One full month of leave for every department—every single person!!”
“Wooooooooooooo!!!”
“Dang Woo-ju! Is she a goddess?! A goddess! Is she Dang Woo-ju?!”
Of course, if every enterprise of the Sichuan Dang Family had truly halted operations, the people of Sichuan would have suffered tremendous inconvenience, so Hui-yeom’s declaration was never followed to the letter.
Even so, the employees were more than satisfied simply to take turns enjoying their holidays free of overtime and the crushing pressure of performance targets.
Sama Yun and Hui-yeom themselves remained quietly in their quarters, determined that their newborn—whose immune system was still fragile—would catch no lingering illness.
Sama Yun’s chambers were closed to outsiders; only the servants who attended her and members of the Dang Family were permitted entry.
Everyone who came and went endured Hui-yeom’s piercing stare while they scrubbed their hands with the alcohol dispenser installed at the entrance and put on face masks.
Anyone who might have wanted to grumble that he was making an absurd fuss found themselves with nothing to say—because Hui-yeom himself observed the hygiene rules more strictly than anyone.
“Honestly, son, isn’t this a bit much? I’m not some plague carrier…”
“If you dislike it, Father, you are free to turn around and leave.”
“Hey! Your mother didn’t make this kind of fuss when she gave birth to you! Huh?!”
“We simply got lucky. I have not the slightest intention of entrusting my daughter’s life to luck.”
“Are you saying I was a terrible father who gambled with his own son’s life?!”
“Not quite. But you are a terrible grandfather who is raising his voice because he finds the inconvenience bothersome and would rather ignore the risk of his granddaughter falling ill.”
“You little—!”
“Please do not raise your voice like that, Father. You will frighten the child.”
“Grrr…”
Was my son always this insufferable?! Dang Un-sang grumbled under his breath, yet under Hui-yeom’s axe-sharp gaze he still scrubbed his hands thoroughly with alcohol and even donned a mask.
“Satisfied?!”
“Please go in, Father.”
“Ugh… He’s my own son, so how in the world did he turn into such a doting fool?”
But the moment Dang Un-sang’s eyes, still scrunched with complaint, fell upon the adorable little life wriggling in her swaddling clothes, they melted into a foolish, blissful smile.
“Ohhh~ Woo-ju~ What’s wrong with your father, hmm? Even when this grandpa comes to see you he makes such a fuss~ Ohhh, so pretty! Ohhh, so pretty!”
“Welcome, Father.”
“There you are, my dear girl! Good heavens, don’t get up—lie down, lie down!”
“Since Father has come, I should at least offer some fruit…”
“What dangerous nonsense is that! You there! Our girl wants fruit! Peel some at once and bring it!”
“Yes, sir.”
The maidservant attending them wiped her hands with alcohol and peeled an apple, her face wearing an expression that clearly said, Ugh, this is so sickening I wish the whole place would just collapse…
Dang Hui-yeom, who had been watching quietly, suddenly caught the maid by the shoulder.
“A moment, you.”
“Y-yes?!”
Startled by the sudden grip, the maid gave a violent flinch.
Hui-yeom, however, drew a one-guan lump of pure silver from his robes, pressed it firmly into her hand, and said,
“I have been observing you for some time. Your sense of hygiene is thoroughly exemplary. You are nothing less than a model for all caregivers.
Please continue to take good care of the cleanliness around my wife and child.”
“Th-thank you! I’ll work hard!”
The maid, who had suddenly struck it rich, left the room with light, quick steps and a beaming face. Sama Yun frowned playfully while smiling.
“Hmm~ My husband never used to be this free with money~.”
“Yun-mae’s and Woo-ju’s safety are at stake. If I’m going to spend, this is exactly where I should spend it.”
“You’re overdoing it.”
Sama Yun lightly pinched the tip of Hui-yeom’s nose with her fingertips.
“How are the business preparations coming along?”
“…We’re on leave.”
“Good heavens, is this really my husband, Sichuan’s Crouching Dragon Dang Hui-yeom? Who are you? Reveal your true identity!”
“Since when did you start thinking I was the Sichuan Dragon? I am Woo-ju’s dad.”
“Woo-ju’s dad? If you don’t go back right this instant and continue preparations for the Second State-run Ironworks, I’ll sentence you to three full shichen of the ‘No Holding Woo-ju’ punishment.”
“What… absurd…! Who are you?! My Yun-mae would never do something so cruel! Reveal your true identity!”
“Heh heh heh! Since when did you start thinking I was Sama Yun? I am Woo-ju’s mom.”
“Ah, seriously, this is pure nonsense of the highest order…”
Dang Su-jeong’s heartfelt comment sent everyone present into laughter.
Lee Jinmyeong, who had been watching the couple’s banter that wasn’t quite banter, muttered with a thoroughly drained expression.
“Wow… They really do say you can know someone for years and still discover new sides… Young Master has this side to him, huh.”
“I know, right? It doesn’t even feel like the little Hui-yeom I watched grow up from the time he was a snot-nosed kid.”
Dang Su-jeong chimed in. Hui-yeom merely shrugged.
“I’m surprised myself. To think something other than work could steal my heart like this. I’m rather flustered by this new side of myself I never knew existed.”
“As your wife I’m a little hurt. Even after we married you never lost your mind over me to this degree. In the end, the baby comes before me, doesn’t she?”
Sama Yun pouted her lips in deliberate sulkiness. Hui-yeom took Woo-ju’s tiny hand and waved it toward her as he replied,
“But she’s cute, isn’t she?”
“Daaa~?”
“….”
Seeing Woo-ju’s eyes that seemed to gather starlight itself, Sama Yun gave a helpless little laugh and slumped her shoulders.
Paying them no mind, Dang Un-sang had already stolen Woo-ju from Hui-yeom’s arms. He grinned foolishly at the baby who giggled and grabbed his beard, then turned to Dang Su-jeong.
“So when are you and Secretary Lee going to set up your bridal chamber?”
“Pffk?!”
Dang Su-jeong, who had been crunching away at her apple, went wide-eyed as a piece of fruit lodged in her windpipe and began pounding her own chest. A startled Lee Jinmyeong thumped her back.
At last she spat out an apple fragment the size of a thumbnail and gasped,
“I-I thought I was going to die… Hey! What kind of ridiculous nonsense is that?!”
Ordinarily Dang Su-jeong still treated him with the respect due a family head, but with only immediate family present her true colors seemed to slip out unbidden.
Dang Un-sang, for his part, put on the face of an older brother thoroughly enjoying teasing his little sister and smirked.
“I hear you and Secretary Lee have been creating a pretty heated atmosphere every single day? The people around you are so sick of the sight they’re begging us to just marry you off already. Huh? Just go for it and snatch him up.”
“Put Woo-ju down, you bastard. Today I’m replacing the Dang Family head with Hui-yeom.”
“Don’t use such strong language—it makes you look old.”
“…Aunt, please put the gun down.”
Anyone watching would have called them a family of comedians.
Yet the expressions of the Dang Family members as they looked at Dang Su-jeong and Lee Jinmyeong were warm beyond measure.
After all, there was hardly anyone left who did not already know how the two felt about each other.
Cheeks flushed, Dang Su-jeong stole glances at Lee Jinmyeong and raised her voice at Dang Un-sang for no good reason.
“W-well, normally the woman leaves room and waits until the man proposes first, you know?!”
“That’s for ordinary women. You’re more of a true man than most men, so there’s nothing wrong with you proposing—you little—! Don’t throw Red Lotus Palm Strikes!!”
Dang Un-sang twisted aside as six palm forces skimmed over his head, shouting in pure terror.
Dang Su-jeong drew up her inner energy and declared,
“Come to think of it, even if you disappear Hui-yeom is still here, so the Dang Family would keep running just fine, wouldn’t it? How about you just pass on the headship and vanish into dust?”
Like any pair of siblings, Dang Un-sang and Dang Su-jeong bickered with affectionate(?) physical communication.
Watching them, Hui-yeom was just about to light the twin fuses of his temper—Honestly, kicking up dust where there’s a baby…—when Lee Jinmyeong’s calm voice cut into the quarrel.
“That is so, Family Head. Though this humble one may not be a chivalrous knight of the martial world, I am still a man. How could I fail to throw myself forward to obtain the most beautiful flower in the world?
I am merely enduring hardship and building my strength so that I may earn the right to propose with pride.”
“Eh.”
“Crazy.”
“…?”
“This is the real deal. The absolute real deal.”
Dang Su-jeong was appalled, Dang Un-sang shuddered, Hui-yeom’s mouth fell open, and Sama Yun shook her head—Lee Jinmyeong’s 314th season of scorching, sincere confession.
Dang Un-sang turned a face that looked exactly like the monarch of some advanced scientific civilization declaring, “What a foolish and pitiable man,” and asked Lee Jinmyeong in all seriousness,
“Secretary Lee, speak honestly. Exactly what weakness of yours has she got hold of that makes a wildcat like her appeal to y—AAAAAARGH?!”
Dang Un-sang clutched his groin and collapsed, trembling violently. His wife Eun Seol-ran merely shook her head with an expression that said, He had it coming, of course.
Dang Su-jeong gazed at Lee Jinmyeong with moist, innocent eyes while quietly withdrawing the foot that had flown between Dang Un-sang’s legs.
It had been a single, breathtaking move of the Cheolma-gak—the Iron Horse Kick.
Judging by that one strike alone, had Dang Su-jeong entered Shaolin Temple she could have made her name throughout the land as a master of kicking arts.
“Gyaa!”
Woo-ju burst into peals of laughter for reasons known only to herself. Hui-yeom discreetly covered her eyes with his hand.
No, no, little one. That’s not something you should watch and learn from~.
“…Secretary Lee, what exactly do you consider the ‘right to propose’?”
As though speaking for Dang Su-jeong’s desperate heart, Sama Yun asked the question. Lee Jinmyeong hummed thoughtfully for a moment, then answered in a quiet, precise tone.
“So-jeong is a perfect woman. Her beauty is as gorgeous and radiant as a red rose, and her martial arts place her among the most renowned female heroes under heaven without question.
To a nameless, empty-handed commoner like myself, she is a being as unattainable as Chang’e of the Moon Palace.”
“Did you hear that, husband? Good heavens—So-jeong, he said. So-jeong! Listen to that sweet nickname…!”
“I heard it too, Yun-mae. Hmm… so when they’re alone he calls her by that pet name…”
Dang Su-jeong’s face was turning such a blazing red it looked ready to spout actual flames.
She had already far surpassed the famously ruddy-faced Guan Yu, and at this rate one could almost believe she had transferred her affiliation to the Temple of the Sun God.
Whether people in the outer circle whispered among themselves, whether Dang Su-jeong was dying of both embarrassment and delight—Lee Jinmyeong calmly continued stating his thoughts.
“If I were to propose now, would I not simply look like a worm who had been blinded by her beauty, background, and fame and sought to use her?”
“Well of course. One look and it’s obvious he’s selling his body to a twelve-year-older ajumma because he’s blinded by money and advancement!”
“Dear, it would be better if you just kept your mouth shut.”
Dang Su-jeong’s kick once again targeted Dang Un-sang’s twin spheres, but this time his twin palms snapped down to guard his groin—there would be no second time.
Yet her leg bent like an illusion, whipped upward, and came crashing down like an axe that would split Dang Un-sang’s crown.
The trajectory was so artistic that Hui-yeom nearly clapped. Had it appeared in the UFC it would have been locked into the all-time legend reels and guaranteed a Fight of the Night bonus.
For a family head who had been knocked unconscious, the surrounding reaction was far too quiet.
Even his own wife Eun Seol-ran looked down at her fallen husband and clicked her tongue with a cold expression…
The man who had mocked a woman’s pure heart and a man’s sincerity received no one’s concern and simply slept on.
Hui-yeom handed Woo-ju over to Sama Yun and asked Lee Jinmyeong in a serious tone,
“In other words, you intend to produce achievements that will not pale even when compared to Aunt’s, and only then propose?”
“That is correct. This is a man’s stubbornness.”
Despair settled over Dang Su-jeong’s face.
She was forty-one years old. Lee Jinmyeong’s heart made her happy, yet if she truly waited until he achieved results comparable to her own, she might well be looking at fifty.
Her desperate gaze turned to Hui-yeom, pleading for him to do something.
After a brief silence, Hui-yeom asked Lee Jinmyeong,
“Secretary Lee. Would you be willing to take charge of an enterprise?”
“…Pardon?”