How Does Brother Namgung Know About Sage Time…?
……………
"For sage time, this is the real deal. Want a hit too?
I already bought you your own pipe—hehe."
Watching Chaehyang pull out two pipes with an awkward grin—while tossing around the kind of crude slang that made Im Seowol flinch—Seowol, who had simply thrown fresh clothes over his still-sweaty body, asked with a doubtful look.
"……You want us to smoke tobacco?"
"No, no—it's like tobacco in that you burn it and inhale the smoke, but the leaves are different."
As if explaining to Seowol, who still eyed her suspiciously, Chaehyang grinned and took out a small wooden box painted black.
Click—
The little box was packed with finely shredded leaves. Even Seowol, who had never smoked tobacco, could tell at a glance they were meant to be packed into a pipe and lit.
"This stuff—when you smoke it, you get a nice hazy buzz, which is great, but the real killer is how it keeps you from sleeping.
Keep smoking and you can go more than ten days without sleep—"
"……Hmm, it keeps you awake?"
"Yeah—do you even know what time it is? It's almost the Yin hour (3 to 5 a.m.).
Unless you're planning to sleep and wake up in the red-light district again today, you'd better use it."
"……What, already?!"
While Seowol reeled at how much time had slipped away while he was playing with the thugs, Chaehyang had already packed her own pipe full of leaves, set fire to it, and taken a deep drag.
"Hoo—nice.
I already bought you a pipe, so just try it once—
If you don't like it, you don't have to do it again.
Tomorrow……no, today if you skip class again, that'll make three days straight, right?
Use this, pull an all-nighter, then go to class."
……If this really keeps me from sleeping……
With his judgment already clouded, the sense of duty that he absolutely could not skip class was an irresistible temptation to Seowol, who had only just begun to regain a little of his wits.
Yeah, just try it once. If it's no good, I won't do it again……
I have to attend class, after all……
Hesitating, Seowol took the "trial" roll of leaves Chaehyang had handed him, twisted in paper, and lit the tip.
"Sss—cough, haah—"
"Ahaha, it might sting a bit at first!
Just wait a little and the effect will kick in."
"Ugh, I feel kind of dizzy……"
As Seowol fought the coughs and drew a few more puffs of smoke from the pipe, a haze different from drunkenness soon settled over him.
Then, into a body exhausted from drinking aphrodisiac-laced wine and servicing several men for hours, a strange vitality surged, and his energy recovered in an instant.
"……Uh, huh?
You're right……I'm not sleepy at all, and I suddenly feel full of energy……?"
"Right—? It's called Gabaein leaves. Amazing, isn't it?
Unless I'm deliberately staying home all day to sleep, I smoke it every single day—"
Chaehyang grinned at Seowol, who was clenching and unclenching a fist that now brimmed with almost frightening vigor.
"……Gabaein……'one who wanders more.' Lives up to the name……
……You really smoke this every day? You don't sleep?"
"If you want to play all day and still catch the occasional class, what choice do you have but to cut sleep?
It's actually ridiculously expensive, so most people can't use as much as I do, but for people like us, some 'Confucius' or other practically gives it away for free.
If you ask Lord Harang, you might get it free too."
"……Hmm, Confucius……"
Chaehyang's words sparked a vague sense of déjà vu in Seowol, but the thought was cut short by her next remark.
"Before I met you I went a whole week straight without sleeping, just playing, then after listening to Lord Harang I slept an entire day and met you. Pretty impressive, right?"
"……Yeah, that is pretty impressive."
If I smoke this, I won't just cut sleep to read light novels—I could skip sleep entirely and go out playing……
Seowol was already being drawn in by the indescribable, strange allure of the misdeeds he was committing with Chaehyang.
"Right? Let's head back for today, and next time we'll meet up and play again.
I'll either drop by your dorm or send a letter to Lord Harang."
……………
In truth, Gabaein only restored physical energy. Because smoking it meant forgoing sleep, the brain never rested at all.
With the brain denied rest, thinking ability steadily declined.
In the end, until a Gabaein user got proper rest, their reasoning deteriorated until they could no longer manage complex thoughts and became increasingly fixated on primal pleasures—lust, for example. The perfect example was Chaehyang, smoking Gabaein right in front of Seowol.
Even sleeping an entire day, as Chaehyang had done, was nowhere near enough rest after a full week without sleep. The more such sleep debt accumulated, the emptier the head became—until one was left a hollow-headed airhead.
Knowing nothing of that hidden truth, Seowol and Chaehyang, energized by the smoke, dressed and gathered their belongings so they could return to the dormitory before dawn.
"You dressed? Let's get out of here quick—"
"Ugh, okay, okay. I'm coming.
……Ah, don't tell me……we're not paying with our bodies again, are we?"
To Seowol, who was only now, far too late, growing suspicious of Chaehyang, she fluttered her hand dismissively.
"Please—if that were the case I would've brought people instead of tobacco."
"……Fine. Anyway, let's go."
As they slipped out of the night establishment, the lewd scent of mixed male and female sweat tickled Seowol's nose.
"Nnh……"
The cheap aphrodisiac still lingered in his body, and he could feel the carnal desire he had suppressed without release stirring again.
"Haah……"
Seowol exhaled, trying to hold the lust down, but his skin, which had begun to cool, grew damp once more, and the tips of the large, swollen breasts that proclaimed their owner a female stood stiffly erect beneath his clothes.
Seeing Seowol flush and hurry his steps, Chaehyang wore a sly smile.
"Ah, that dirty smell……you're turned on, aren't you?
Want to go back, grab a guy, and play some more?"
"Ugh……
You really……I'm a man. Why would I play with a guy……?"
"……Huh?! You're saying that now?!"
Bolstered by the tobacco and the guilt of having skipped class, Seowol somehow endured the lust and managed not to throw himself at the other men still deep in their revelry inside the night shop.
Even so, if anyone had simply touched him and pressed a thick cock against him, he would have spread his legs without lasting long—that precarious was his state.
"……Whew, we finally got out……"
"You sure you don't want to play more—? I don't mind either way."
Having barely escaped the night establishment by shaking off the temptation of that lewd scent, Seowol ignored Chaehyang's teasing grin and quickened his pace.
"Ah, wait for me—"
Click, click—
Even in a city that never slept, the hour was the hour. The brick-paved streets of Cheonju were not dark thanks to the street lanterns, yet they were completely empty, and only the sound of Seowol's and Chaehyang's shoes echoed.
"Hold it. Inspection."
"Ah……?!"
Two men who looked like soldiers stepped into their path, spears leveled, blocking Seowol and Chaehyang mid-stride.
"An inspection inside Cheonju—?!
I never heard anything about that……"
Ever since the current emperor's reforms had succeeded and a golden age of peace had arrived, the great cities known as cities that never sleep had completely abolished the night curfew.
It was a display of the central government's confidence in its powerful public security; unless something special happened, neither random checks nor curfews were the rule.
To Chaehyang's question, grounded in that common sense, one of the guards answered.
"We caught a robber recently.
A real vicious one……so for the time being anyone out at night is subject to random checks of their identity plaque."
Hearing the guard, Chaehyang turned to Seowol and frowned in distress.
"What do we do……? I've never been out on the street at this hour, so I had no idea……
Do you have an identity plaque……?"
"I-I don't either……"
As students of the Imperial Academy they almost never needed to show identification, so they never carried their plaques.
Apparently deciding he had waited long enough for their whispering, one guard cleared his throat.
"Ahem, ahem!
No plaque means detention until tomorrow morning, a fine of one silver tael, and ten strokes of the bastinado."
""The bastinado—?!""
Seowol and Chaehyang cried out in unison, horrified.
Neither had ever been caned, but they had heard more than enough about the pain.
The bastinado, in which a sturdy soldier took a running start and smashed the buttocks, was a punishment that after only three or four blows left flesh split and blood flowing.
And even if you endured that agony, more blows waited to strike the same wounds.
As the two of them turned deathly pale before the sudden, brutal force of official power, the guard's voice drilled into their ears.
"If you run, you'll be wanted for flight and face far harsher punishment, so keep that in mind……"
"Th-that's ridiculous……"
Just as Seowol and Chaehyang nearly fainted at the guard's matter-of-fact words, the other guard restrained his comrade.
"Hey, hold on, hold on. Don't worry so much, folks.
If we search your belongings and nothing suspicious turns up, we can just let you off with a warning."