Chapter 331 Turbulent World (2)

Chapter 331: Turbulent World (2)

It’s agonizing.

It’s terribly painful.

What’s so agonizing?

A grown man in his late twenties has been living alone for over three months. What could be more painful than that?

And that was for a whole month.

What? You ask if my body isn’t comfortable?

Well, that’s fine. I barely did any work during the day, and I couldn’t do any at night either.

But what am I supposed to do about this boiling-hot desire?

Moreover, this wasn’t the only thing tormenting me.

‘You’re bringing in another woman, yet you come looking for me tonight… What on earth do you think of me?’

And then there was Jihwa-ran, who I visited just in case (?), who treated me like trash, unleashing her ‘Did you meet me for this?’ special move.

‘They say heroes have three wives and four concubines, but… aren’t you moving too fast? What kind of face will I have sending my granddaughter off like this?’

‘Kekekek, to take another woman before the wedding even takes place. How truly manly of you. No matter what hellish path this Lord of the North Palace walks, I will chase him to the very depths of hell.’

‘Even if I did urge you to marry, this is a bit much, isn’t it? There’s such a thing as the Lord’s dignity…’

‘Well, isn’t it said that the head of the Jin clan is the greatest womanizer under heaven?’

‘That’s what they say. He couldn’t even wait until he took his second wife.’

“Seong-do! Did you hear? They say the Jin family head has hidden children? Two of them, actually—one son and one daughter.”

‘So the other party is Lady Cheonghwa? More than a few people saw the matchmaker from Cheonggajang entering Jeonryongdang.’

‘Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness! So he did that sort of thing at the clinic even though he has a wife?’

Public opinion toward me began to turn completely against me.

Before, I felt like a righteous apostle, a friend to the common folk, but now I’d become the male lead from a romance war drama.

Thanks to that, I ended up scratching my head in frustration.

“Damn it all! The public opinion has turned against me! To be abandoned by my wife!”

But this despair was short-lived.

“Wait a minute.”

I came up with one idea to get through this predicament.

“Why not just take him in myself?”

That’s right.

Since things had come to this, wouldn’t the problem disappear if I just took the cleaning service in to live with me?

Of course, the cleaning lady isn’t my type.

Sure, she’s pretty, slim, and smart enough to work in a professional field, but her personality is strange, and she showed signs of alcohol dependence and gambling addiction.

But I can’t keep living alone, enduring public scorn forever.

Just close your eyes and accept it—wouldn’t everything be okay then?

‘Yeah, anyway, only one of the three slots will fail. But if I fill the other slots with SSR-grade characters, I can totally make up for it.’

Honestly, I should have at least one pick from the variety show .

Anyway, even the old man at the cleaning shop had accepted me as his son-in-law.

So only one thing remained.

Just getting Myohyang’s permission.

“Phew, let’s go.”

Just as I steeled my resolve and was about to step out of the room.

Thump, thump.

I sensed someone approaching from afar.

Judging by the footsteps, it was Myohyang.

She sat up straight and began meditating when she opened the door and appeared.

“Oh? You’re working hard this morning.”

“Ahem, you’re here?”

“I came to bring you breakfast. You must be worn out from eating out for days, right?”

She showed me a tray piled high with food.

They say it takes three years to learn the basics, but thirty years to master the craft?

Gulp.

Even after eating all sorts of delicacies out and about, seeing the dishes she prepared made my mouth water like Pavlov’s dog.

“Ahem, why did you bring all this here? Maeran, you didn’t have to. It must be heavy. Give it to me, quickly.”

“Before that.”

When I reached out my hand, Myohyang looked at me with a fierce glare.

“Have you resolved the matter?”

“The… matter?”

“Oh? Why pretend you don’t know? I’m talking about the matter with the Cheong family.”

“Ah… that…”

“Surely not? You wouldn’t actually be thinking of bringing Soso along too, since Hwaran and I weren’t enough? If so, I’d be disappointed. Hwaran… I might allow it because I’m powerless… but my heart isn’t that broad to permit Soso too.”

“Ah, no. I’m not some color-obsessed maniac.”

“Then what’s going on?”

“It’s in progress. They’re almost convinced, so just wait a little longer. It’ll be over soon.”

“Hmm, really?”

She said, turning around while holding the tray.

“Then let’s eat this together when you’re done. After all, it’ll be over soon, right?”

“……”

Clatter.

She must drive the cleaning crew out as soon as possible.

* * *

Today was a holiday at the Jeonryongdang, the only martial arts school in the entire martial world operating a six-day workweek.

Finding the Cleanup Crew on a day like this wasn’t particularly difficult.

They’re either at the tavern or the gambling den.

And my prediction didn’t miss by an inch.

“Get down! Cheong-ah!”

Kwaaak! Kwaaak. Kwaaak.

“……”

Opening the gambling den door and stepping inside, I found the cleaning lady and her pet cricket, Cheong-ah, sweeping the touchpad.

“Cheongpung’s Strike won again!”

“At this rate, all the touch panels in Nine Dragons City will collapse.”

“For the sake of peace on the betting boards, someone really needs to take down that Blue Wind Strike…”

“If it were that easy, we wouldn’t still be stuck like this. Didn’t you see last time? Kunming’s strongest touch, Hell Room Touch, was destroyed in one strike.”

“Ugh, this is truly frustrating.”

“……”

I have no idea what the hell a “Chungpung Strike” or a “Hell Room Probe” is, but one thing was certain.

The existence of the Cleaning Shop and Cheong-ah was a huge cancerous tumor in the Nine Dragons Sect’s informant network.

The problem was… they didn’t know it.

“Oh ho ho ho! No one else dares to challenge us ?! Well, challenging our Cheong-ah is a foolish thing to do. Oh ho ho ho!”

Kwii kwii kwii, gwi-tuul.

Glancing around, he saw the gambling den manager—one of Yongmasan’s underlings—bow his head and hold up two fingers.

It meant he’d pay two nyang silver if I chased the sweeper away.

How did I know?

How would I know? I just come by occasionally to earn some pocket money.

“Oh ho ho… Gah!”

As expected, this happens often. The cleaning lady, recognizing my face, gasped and stood up.

“Let’s go.”

“Oh, not today. The tide just came in!”

“The payout’s only 5 cents anyway. It’s just pocket change. Why stay here?”

“Do you know how much it adds up if you collect all day?”

“Ugh.”

“Ah, no!”

Slap.

Grabbing the cleaning lady by the collar and dragging her away, she screamed as if the gambling den were leaving.

“Hey, you better write down my money clearly in the ledger! I’ll be checking later!”

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

What a piece of work.

Just then, as I grabbed the cleaning lady by the collar and dragged her out of the gambling den.

“Huh?”

Kwoong kwoong Kwoong!

A loud rumbling sound echoed. Turning toward the noise, I saw North Palace Chang charging toward us, kicking up dust.

He was, after all, ranked within the top five of the Zhenlong Sect.

He wouldn’t be flustered like that over something trivial, so I set down the cleaning supplies and met him.

“What? What’s so urgent?”

“Well, it’s just that…”

He leaned close to my ear and whispered softly.

“The Dragon Lord of Hao Gate has sent word.”

“What news?”

“The Great Wall…”

“……”

“The Great Wall has been breached.”

“What?!”

* * *

The Great Wall.

A defensive line protecting the Central Plains from the horse-riding tribes, guarded by the Muwang Fortress, the master of the Northern River.

The breach of that fortress implies two things.

First, that the Muwang Fortress has been utterly annihilated in battle against the nomadic tribes, standing on the brink of extinction.

In this case, the entire Central Plains, including its commoners, must rise up.

It signifies that the nomadic tribes have grown powerful enough to bring down Muwang Fortress.

The second case is exactly like this one.

“So you mean you bypassed it instead of breaking through head-on?”

“That’s right. We completely bypassed Shaanxi before crossing the Great Wall.”

It was a bypass to the west.

Though the Imperial Guard is responsible for the Great Wall, they only defend the sections in Hebei, Shanxi, and parts of Shaanxi. Beyond that, they’ve let go of control ( ). They simply didn’t have the manpower to defend that far in the first place.

The reason it had remained quiet until now was simple.

The nomadic horsemen living in the northern part of the Korean Peninsula needed to establish supply lines to make a wide detour westward, but they lacked sufficient grain to do so.

Even if they had managed to establish them, they lacked the capacity to sustain them.

They would be fortunate just to avoid being surrounded and starved out in the middle of the Central Plains.

Yet they still chose to attempt a detour and breakthrough.

Unless they were fools, this meant they had a plan to sustain their supply lines.

“Could it be… they plundered Goryeo to secure food and manpower?”

Out of concern as an honorary Goryeo subject, I asked. Yongmasan shook his head, his head gleaming.

“I thought I might be too, but seeing the ginseng come over last month, I don’t think that’s the case.”

“Then what is it?”

He briefly recalled the history of the Central Plains in the original world before shaking his head.

‘In the original world, the Mongols would be invading…’

Because the histories of the original world and the martial arts world were completely different.

Truthfully, since being reborn into this world, I’d tried several times to apply the historical knowledge I’d accumulated in my past life.

But even within the Central Plains, the history of the Martial World was completely different from the history of the modern world I had come from.

After all, the very name of the empire was ‘Ryū’—utterly unheard of in the modern world.

As I pondered this, Yongmasan offered a plausible solution.

“Could it be… that the supplies are inside the fortress walls?”

“Huh? Inside the fortress…?”

“Yes. Couldn’t they have infiltrated people beforehand to gather supplies?”

“Nah, that’s ridiculous. Right under the nose of Muwangseong, of all places…?”

It wasn’t entirely impossible.

After all, aren’t there only three factions that don’t have to worry about Wu Huang City’s scrutiny?

“Surely not those Lion Clan bastards?”

“I consider that the most likely possibility.”

“Those bastards!”

“Now is not the time for excitement.”

“Like I can help getting worked up…?”

Understood.

Yongmasan hurled a dagger at the map of Jungwon hanging in his room.

He examined where it had stuck and saw a place name all too familiar .

“If those bastards keep heading south like this, they’ll reach this place within half a month.”

“Hanjung…?!

* * *

At the very moment Mujeon and Yongmasan were conversing.

Upon receiving the information from the Red Dragon Sect, the Red Monk immediately went to find Mun Sang.

And Mun Sang immediately convened an emergency party leader meeting.

Boom.

Half a moment after the fireworks burst overhead.

The four remaining sect leaders in Nine Dragons City arrived at the City Lord’s Hall.

They were the Hui Long Sect Leader, the Qing Long Sect Leader, the Mu Long Sect Leader, and finally, the Zhen Long Sect Leader, Wu Zhen.

Mun Sang explained the current situation to them and the castle lord, Baek Gung-baek. Immediately afterward, the dispatch of the Dragon Army was decided unanimously.

Castle Lord Baek addressed Mujeon by an unusual title.

“Head of the Flying Dragon Sect.”

“Yes.”

“I entrust you with command of the Five Hundred Dragon Soldiers and the Black Tiger Corps. You must defend Hanjung at all costs.”

“Nine Dragons!”

Bukgung Baek looked around at the leaders, including Mun Sang.

The remaining two hundred dragon soldiers will establish supply lines in preparation for a prolonged battle. Each faction must form their main forces as swiftly as possible.

Guryong!

The Sino-Korean War had begun.