Chapter 136
Chapter 136
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 136
Chapter Title: You Can't Spit on a Smiling Face
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There's an old saying that you can't spit on a smiling face.
All of it must be utter nonsense.
"Seol-ha, I'm smiling."
"So?"
"I'm expressing how sorry I am to you with my face."
"Ah. You think smiling once will let you off the hook? Do you think you're some peerless beauty or something?"
...The peerless beauty is you, not me.
"Sigh."
"A sigh? I feel like the one who should be sighing here?"
The reason Zhuge Seol-ha was so furious and snapping at him like this was simple.
He had sent a letter to the Zhuge Clan without warning and summoned her uncle, Zhuge Seon.
She must have suffered quite a bit, no doubt.
To top it off, her doting father and her sister-obsessed older brother Zhuge Hwa-un had come along too.
"I trusted you, senior brother. My heart, which received betrayal as payment for that trust, this wounded heart needs medicine."
"...How?"
"Repay favors twofold, grudges tenfold!"
"... ."
In an attempt to shift the mood, he bellowed.
"Adu, you bastard! Weren't you in the middle of training?!"
Adu flinched and turned his head toward the window.
No wonder the room had been overflowing with such an oddly intense aura.
It had to be to hide Zhuge Seol-ha.
"I trusted you! Pay the price for betraying that trust, you monk!"
"That's... that's..."
Watching Adu fidget anxiously, he shouted again.
"What did you get? What did you take to sell me out?!"
"Heh."
Adu didn't answer. Zhuge Seol-ha did.
She spread her hands like fans. All sorts of rice cakes were skewered between her fingers.
Bean cakes, red bean cakes, steamed cakes... What kind was that one?
Anyway, every expensive kind of rice cake was there.
"This bastard sells out a fellow being for a few rice cakes? And you call yourself a monk?"
Adu replied with a resolute expression, as if this was one thing he could answer confidently.
"Yang-hui isn't a fellow being!"
"...?"
"Amitabha. The Lesser Vehicle walks the hell road solely for the weak..."
He was about to wear a dumbfounded expression from the sheer absurdity.
"Don't badmouth our poor monk. Shouldn't you be talking to me?"
"Seol-ha's right! Absolutely right!"
"Great job, monk!"
Zhuge Seol-ha tossed a rice cake, and Adu snatched it out of the air like a well-trained hunting dog.
When did you two get so close?
"Enough nonsense, senior brother. Let's talk seriously about compensation."
"...Fine."
"You sold me out. Admit it?"
"The way you put it makes it sound like I sent a letter to some demon."
"Hey. Stop nitpicking. Admit it?"
"...I admit it."
"This junior sister trusted you. Why? Because we're senior brother and junior sister! Because I believed in the bond and brotherhood between us!"
"... ."
"In other words, your actions were a betrayal. Betrayal!"
Is this something to declare so solemnly?
"But listen, junior sister. In a way, didn't I relieve Uncle's worries in your place? It was fulfilling filial duty by proxy."
It was a solid excuse and logic, but Zhuge Seol-ha's retort was simple.
"Punish the betrayer! Betrayal means immediate execution!"
"... ."
"Right, monk?"
"Absolutely!"
"Make the betrayer pay!"
"Immediate execution!"
"... ."
His temper was starting to boil.
Come to think of it, he hadn't properly paid her back for mocking him back at the Dongpa Inn when he was acting cool.
If she was going to play it like this, then he'd go full thug mode!
"Junior sister. You don't expect to get away with just words, right?"
"Of course not."
"Then let's do this. I'll complete your body for you."
"Pardon?"
"You're at first-rate level. To aim beyond the peak realm, you need to perfect your physical body, right?"
"That's true, but..."
Suddenly, Zhuge Seol-ha furrowed her delicate brows.
Completing the body. Easy to say, but it was practically the same as handing over a spiritual elixir.
"Just like that? You? You're not scheming something weird again, are you?"
"Scheming what?"
"Like, suddenly remembering how I mocked you before and deciding to get revenge."
How did she know?
"A real man doesn't act petty like that. You know that, right?"
A real man... petty?
A pleased smile rose on Baek Yang-hui's face.
Yeah. He knew that very well.
"Unlike my junior sister, who doesn't let even small things slide, I, your senior brother, am magnanimous and broad-minded. Why would I hold back when giving to you?"
"Oh ho. Is that so? I felt a bit sorry for going too big all of a sudden, but no need now."
"Follow me."
Baek Yang-hui walked ahead. Zhuge Seol-ha tilted her head and followed.
'Is he really going to give me a spiritual elixir?'
To be honest, Zhuge Seol-ha had aimed for something small like catching a weakness or large like securing a promise through it.
But a spiritual elixir out of nowhere?
Strictly speaking, she wasn't in a position to blame Yang-hui, so this put her in a bit of a bind.
'If Father finds out, he'll scold me for throwing a tantrum over nothing.'
As she walked with those thoughts, Zhuge Seol-ha suddenly realized something.
"Senior brother, why are we here?"
The place they arrived at following Baek Yang-hui wasn't a spiritual elixir storage room.
It was the training ground built in the rear garden of the Baek Pavilion.
"Why? I said I'd complete your body."
A sudden surge of unease. She hesitated before asking.
"Come to think of it, how exactly are you going to complete it?"
"You know I have this mystical energy called pure qi, right?"
"Yes."
"Pure qi has one special ability. It guides the body in the right direction."
"...So?"
Baek Yang-hui moved like a flash of light and struck her Pursuit Acupoint.
From the mouth of what she thought was a peerless beauty came unbelievable words.
"Seol-ha. It was a bit too aggressive for you, so I hesitated, but after hearing you, my hesitation vanished."
"Senior brother?!"
"What? A real man being petty?"
Thanks to that, he realized it, Seol-ha.
A real man shouldn't get hung up on small, trivial things.
Because he's not petty!
"Senior brother, I was wrong, senior brother! Kyaaah!"
The body tempering overflowing with senior-junior sibling affection began.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ A month passed.
It was the time it took to dismantle the Baekui Gate, which had dominated the massive city of Namchang, and for Baek Yang-hui and Zhuge Seol-ha to deepen their senior-junior bond.
"Senior brother... I'll never forget this grudge..."
Baek Yang-hui snorted.
"Grudge? Aren't you mistaking it for grace? I gave you tremendous growth in just a month."
"Eek..."
Zhuge Seol-ha couldn't retort and let out a groan filled with rage.
Because Baek Yang-hui was right.
The pure qi's effect was outstanding. It had rebuilt her body in just one month.
Of course, as the one who endured it, she felt differently.
"I won't let you get away with this..."
"Yeah, yeah, repay it tenfold later."
Baek Yang-hui wiped his sweat with his sleeve and left Zhuge Seol-ha behind to head to the guest room.
So Seo-saeng, whom he had summoned in advance, was waiting there.
"Young master. How can you keep someone waiting and show up late?"
"Sorry. It took longer than expected."
So Seo-saeng's face looked utterly haggard, unbelievable for a boy in his prime growing years.
More precisely, the complexion of someone buried in work up to his neck.
"You look like your health's taken a hit. Want me to prescribe some tonic?"
"Is that something the person who did this to me should say?!"
Unable to hold back, So Seo-saeng yelled.
It was only natural for him to act like that.
So Seo-saeng barely slept two hours a day, tormented by work, all because of Baek Yang-hui.
But.
"You were the one who asked to be made the Baekui Gate leader."
"That was asking the Baek Clan to support us! Not tearing the Baekui Gate to shreds and making me handle every little piece!"
"You knew what you were getting into."
"I thought you'd recognize my value as a strategist, but I didn't expect you'd use me this thoroughly!"
"A man is moved when someone recognizes his worth. I get how you feel."
The boy who looked thirteen or fourteen grabbed the back of his neck like a middle-aged man of fifty.
"Calm down. You'll collapse."
"This is all because of who?!"
"Alright, alright. Let's talk business. It's about time we put the Baekui Gate to use."
The Baek Clan and Zhuge Clan had taken down the Baekui Gate's signboard and split its members into family units.
Instead of scattering them to prevent reuniting, they allowed small-scale survival.
This way, they could utilize the Baekui Gate's forces to some extent.
'Well... honestly, without this guy, it wouldn't have been an option.'
The reason was simple. Beyond having too much to manage, it was impossible from the start.
Like a bird unable to swallow prey bigger than itself.
Even chopped up, gorging would just cause indigestion.
'But if not eating it, and using it another way?'
That was made possible by So Seo-saeng's existence and duty.
"Now. Tell me what we need to do."
"Another test?"
"No. Just seeking advice from my strategist."
"...Heh heh heh heh."
Still a kid, it seemed. Just calling him a strategist had him beaming with pride.
"So Seo-saeng. You're smart, so you know how precarious the main house's situation is, right?"
"Of course. It's inner strife and outer threats, literally."
The Baek Clan had devoured the Baekui Gate.
No matter the justification, this would shake the Jiangxi martial world.
Changing the lord of Namchang, Jiangxi's castle city, was no small matter.
"The Jiangxi martial world is divided with Namchang at the center: black path factions dominate the west, white path the east."
"Can't be helped. Hunan is to the west of Jiangxi."
Dozens of years ago, the Sword King's Tomb bloodbath left Hunan's white path martial world in ruins.
Now, calling it a black path world wouldn't be wrong.
"The western black path gangs will move against the main house."
"They'll see the Heaven-Covering Baek Clan's banner and think they have justification."
"Meanwhile, the main house, having devoured Baekui Gate, still needs to rally forces."
Inner strife and outer threats, exactly.
Inside, remnants of Baekui Gate cause trouble; outside, fend off black path invasions.
"Asking how to move in this situation. Truly no plan."
"So, you have nothing in mind?"
So Seo-saeng raised the corner of his mouth and shook his head.
"As if. To a strategist, chaos is opportunity."
The plan So Seo-saeng proposed next was simple.
"With the Tang Clan's help, pacify Jiangxi's black path martial world. Use external enemies to solidify internal unity. A true case of one stroke, two gains!"
So Seo-saeng finished grandly and looked at Baek Yang-hui.
Clearly expecting praise, but...
"Wrong."
"Wrong?"
"Yeah. Unfortunately, the Tang Clan can't help us."
"Pardon? Why?"
"Because the Namgung Clan is about to step in?"
"Pardon?"
So Seo-saeng's eyes went wide.
"Why tell me now?!"
Unlike the shocked So Seo-saeng, Baek Yang-hui just chuckled slyly.
'It's been quite some time since the Sword King's Tomb. About time those bastards move.'
He recalled Namgung Cheon-hu's annoying face.
That guy wouldn't stay quiet after getting hit.
Thanks to him, he could turn crisis into opportunity, though.