Chapter 264. Three Bad Men.
I took a sip of the unusually tasteless Dukang Wine today and spoke.
“I’m talking about Senior Du Kang, the one who first made this Dukang Wine.”
The Lust Demon looked at me and replied.
“Du Kang is your senior?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then why do you call him so familiarly?”
“It’s not like I’ve ever met him; I can’t exactly call him big brother.”
The Ghost Demon nodded with a solemn expression.
“That’s right. He’s a senior.”
I asked the two of them.
“Do you two know why Senior Du Kang’s Dukang Wine became so famous?”
The Ghost Demon took a sip of the Dukang Wine and frowned.
“I don’t know, but this place is rather subpar.”
The Lust Demon also agreed with a frown.
“This is an imitation Dukang Wine. It’s to the point where it shouldn’t even bear the name. It couldn’t even be considered low-grade.”
I too set down my cup.
“They say Senior Du Kang traveled far and wide first to find good water in order to brew fine liquor.”
“Who said that?”
“My grandfather did. And so the place he found was called Yichuan, near the Du Kang River. Then, did he first make Dukang Wine there? Apparently not. He searched every corner of Yichuan, went upstream along a stream, and discovered a spring. A clear spring so pure that it tasted good just to drink it. That’s where Dukang Wine began.”
“So?”
“The brewing method for Dukang Wine is now widely known, so it appears even in inns like this, and you can drink it at hole-in-the-wall bars too. But cases where it’s truly tasty are rare. The secret has been passed down, but the actual brewers don’t go through the trouble of finding good water. Did the underworld muscle in during distribution? What made Dukang Wine delicious was that he brewed it with good water before any secret technique. Let’s get going. The taste is ruined.”
The Ghost Demon nodded.
“Even Du Kang, who was called the Wine Immortal, traveled to find good water; it can’t be helped that it tastes awful when people who merely learned the secret technique dare to slap on the name Dukang Wine and sell it haphazardly.”
Only then did the Lust Demon sniff the jug.
“So that’s why the water taste spoiled my mood from the start.”
I nodded.
“The jianghu is the same. Everyone knows sword techniques and palm techniques and such, but truly strong men are rare. One would need to be at least on the level of the Beggar Sect’s Sect Leader to be called the strongest man under heaven.”
Only then did the Lust Demon show interest.
“Then did the Sect Leader travel around desperately searching for spiritual medicine?”
This bastard definitely wasn’t normal either. It was because the way he thought was a bit similar to mine.
I looked at the Lust Demon and answered.
“What I’m trying to say is that the Sect Leader, like Du Kang who was called the Wine Immortal, did not forget the original purpose for learning martial arts. Just as water is important to wine.”
“So what was the original purpose?”
I picked up the cup of tasteless Dukang Wine and replied.
“Whatever it was, it wasn’t to meet women like you.”
“Hahaha.”
When the Ghost Demon suddenly burst into giggles, the Lust Demon glared at him.
“Fucking hilarious…….”
“What was the original purpose you two had for learning martial arts?”
The Lust Demon answered.
“I learned from the time I took my first steps; how could there have been a purpose?”
“That’s what I’m trying to say. You don’t have a purpose. But now that you’ve gotten to that age, you should think about your purpose. Like the Sect Leader or Senior Du Kang.”
“What purpose did Senior Du Kang have?”
“Wouldn’t superb liquor itself have been his purpose? That’s why he started by searching for water. I’m saying that without a purpose, even travel becomes wandering. When you wander, even Dukang Wine ends up tasting like this. It’s because their purpose isn’t good liquor, but money.”
The Lust Demon replied.
“Fine. But why are you suddenly spouting that nonsense to me?”
I stared straight at the Lust Demon’s face.
“Because I drank, so I’m spouting nonsense, you crazy bastard.”
“What nonsense? You’ve attained mastery in spouting nonsense even on ordinary days. So what’s your purpose for learning martial arts?”
Receiving the gazes of both the Ghost Demon and the Lust Demon, I answered without difficulty.
“Naturally, I learned martial arts because an inn caught fire. I always feel like those flames are glaring at me. Because even when I close my eyes or circulate my qi, I can still see those flames.”
I tapped my chest with my hand.
“It’s the cause of my fire ailment. It feels like it’s still burning here. It’s the reason I drink. Let’s drink.”
The three of us gulped down the tasteless Dukang Wine. From somewhere in my heart, I heard a sizzle—as the wine fell onto the blazing flames. Watching that sight, laughter naturally came out.
Suddenly, I turned my head and watched the street.
“…….”
The Lust Demon, who had been about to pick up a side dish with chopsticks in hand, also turned his head and looked toward the street.
Someone’s cursing could be heard, and a woman with a thoroughly frightened expression was walking with quick steps, gripping the front of her skirt with both hands, when a man with a sword at his waist quickly caught up from behind and grabbed her hair.
He was a truly pathetic man, but it was also a sight occasionally seen in areas packed with bars.
I spoke to the man while under the influence of alcohol.
“Hey. Use your words.”
He didn’t pay attention to my words due to the surrounding noise.
I pulled a chopstick from the chopstick container. If a hand flew toward the woman, I intended to send the chopstick flying too.
Suddenly one more person was added before my eyes, and the Lust Demon, who had appeared at some point, grabbed the man’s arm.
The Ghost Demon looked at me and spoke.
“The youngest has stepped in, so we’re good. Put that chopstick down. You’ll kill someone.”
I put the chopstick back in the container and glared at the Lust Demon.
The Lust Demon, gripping the man’s arm, spoke with a smile.
“……You should use your words. What’s the point in grabbing someone’s hair out of nowhere?”
“Who are you.”
Unfortunately, as soon as the man pulled his hand free from the woman’s hair, he threw a punch at the Lust Demon’s face.
Naturally, the Lust Demon, being a bad man, pulverized the forearm of the man he was holding with an expressionless face.
The drunkard was about to let out a scream when…….
“Kuaaaah!”
When the Lust Demon covered the man’s mouth, the scream cut off sharply. However, his expression showed he was still screaming. It seemed he had struck his snout with an ice technique. The man flailed his arms about wildly as if having a seizure.
The Lust Demon easily dodged and grabbed the man by the back of his head, then slammed him into the ground.
As the Lust Demon raised his foot, the man sprang up and fled for his life.
Only then did I pick up a side dish and eat while speaking to the Ghost Demon.
“There was a reason the alcohol tasted bad. The neighborhood itself is a mess, it seems.”
The Lust Demon helped up the woman who had sat down in surprise, then returned without asking what had happened.
The Lust Demon suddenly said to us in an irritated voice.
“Order a different wine.”
“You think a different wine will be any different?”
“Then let’s go somewhere else.”
I poured the rest of the Dukang wine into my cup. Just as I was about to drink, the woman who had followed the Lust Demon stared at us, trembling all over.
Because of her heavy makeup, I had thought she was somewhat older, but up close, she was younger than I expected.
“Are you being chased?”
At my question, the girl waved her hand.
“N-no. Thank you.”
I looked at the girl’s trembling hands, then asked.
“Then why are you shaking like that?”
“Because I was startled.”
We soon learned why the girl was trembling.
Before long, shouts rang out, and as the people in the street were pushed aside to the left and right, several dozen men appeared with swords gripped in their hands. Among them, the man who had been beaten by the Lust Demon clutched his broken arm and, with a distorted expression and gestures, pointed us out. It seemed the shop where the woman worked was nearby.
I met the girl’s eyes, then gestured with my chin toward an empty seat.
“Nothing much will happen, so sit down for a bit.”
The girl seemed to have judged that staying with us, who had helped her, was safer than running away.
Once the girl sat in the empty seat, the Lust Demon looked at the group that had come carrying swords with an annoyed expression.
The Lust Demon asked us.
“Why am I the only one moving when it’s such a bother? Are you all just going to keep sitting there?”
The Ghost Demon replied.
“Are you asking for help?”
“Not exactly.”
“If the sect leader steps in, he might beat more than half of them to death, so you put in some effort.”
Before the Lust Demon could answer, one man extended his sword and spoke to us.
“That woman is an entertainer of Giseonhyang. Don’t meddle in someone else’s business and hand her over.”
I asked the girl.
“Explain why you ran away.”
The girl answered.
“I was tricked into working there. They said all I had to do was play an instrument. But it was work where I didn’t need to play any instrument at all.”
I picked up where the girl left off and said to the man.
“……So she says. Get lost before I drag Giseonhyang’s owner here by the hair.”
When the man holding the sword laughed, his laughter spread to his companions.
“Heh heh heh heh.”
There were more than twenty of them against three, so it was only natural that they would laugh. Someone spat out a mocking remark, the kind commonly mixed into laughter.
“Didn’t know a young thing like her already had a pimp.”
The Lust Demon, who had been drinking, flung his cup.
The Dukang wine that had splashed up slightly from the flying cup froze, and in that instant, there came a thud—then the man spun through the air and collapsed unconscious on the ground.
I poured the girl a cup of Dukang wine and said.
“But why does the Dukang wine here taste so terrible?”
The girl replied.
“That’s why I don’t drink it either.”
“Still, at a time like this, you should have a cup.”
After drinking the Dukang wine together with the girl and the Ghost Demon, I enjoyed watching the Lust Demon walk toward the riffraff.
He was originally a violent man, so there was fun to be had in watching him fight.
The sound of bones breaking rang out frequently.
Perhaps because they weren’t my bones, it wasn’t an unpleasant sound.
He fought on the left, then fought on the right. When a group attack came that was impossible to avoid, he soared into the air, then moved by striking the shoulders and heads of the clumsy ones. It did not take long for him to beat down more than twenty swordsmen.
In truth, if he had unleashed his ice arts, they would all have died in the blink of an eye, but perhaps because the Dukang wine tasted bad, the Lust Demon was beating them one by one with his fists and feet, even breaking their bones. There was a risk that this would escalate into a major fight and make matters worse, but since I was not the one doing the beating, I was not too worried.
The Lust Demon said to one man who looked relatively intact.
“Are there more? Talk quickly. Don’t make me get up in the middle of drinking. Where is it? Should I go to Giseonhyang? You sons of bitches?”
Was that bastard a drunkard, the Lust Demon, or Young Master Mongyeon, who was neither?
I said to the girl.
“Giseonhyang will be busy cleaning up those fellows, so leave carefully.”
The girl said to me with a tense expression.
“Those people are Giseonhyang’s guards.”
“And?”
“Giseonhyang pays tribute to Heukhyang nearby.”
Bewildered by the name of a black-market auction organization I had not heard in a long time, I asked back.
“Heukhyang?”
“You know them?”
Perhaps because I was drunk, I seemed to have confused the past and present for a moment. I recalled how, after obtaining the Golden Turtle Unfettered Art, I had beaten to death everyone connected to the auctions who belonged to Heukhyang. In other words, those auctions were auctions that sold all sorts of things. Heukhyang were the bastards who sold everything one could imagine, and even things one did not want to imagine.
Only then did I look at the Dukang wine. I naturally understood why it tasted so bad.
I asked the Ghost Demon, who at least had broad experience.
“Do you know Heukhyang?”
“Never heard of them. Why? Are they a famous organization?”
I also asked the Lust Demon, who was returning.
“Have you heard of a place called Heukhyang?”
“No. Where is it?”
“Seems to be an unorthodox faction that Giseonhyang pays tribute to.”
“Ah, really?”
The two showed no particular reaction even after hearing the name Heukhyang. Naturally so. But if I told them what I knew, the two of them would not stay still either.
I pondered for a moment.
They were an unorthodox faction from my previous life that I had gone berserk and killed off alone like a madman. As when I had killed the Ring-Saber Twin Ghosts of Heukseon Fortress before, I felt a little strange. In other words, killing again someone I had once killed with my own hands felt as though I were committing some further sin.
In truth, it was an unpleasant feeling I could not define precisely.
After taking a sip of the tasteless Dukang wine, I calmly tried to organize my thoughts. The reason it felt strange to face someone again whom I had killed in my previous life.
“Mm.”
The conclusion was this.
Back then, when I faced Heukhyang, I had staked my life. If I did not want to die, I had to fight desperately and kill them all. But now, I was far stronger than I had been in the early days when I first learned the Golden Turtle Unfettered Art. That meant the Heukhyang I would meet this time could not be my opponent in the first place.
Was it an instinctive guilt toward slaughter?
I asked the girl, who was resting beside me and regaining her composure.
“What kind of bastards are Heukhyang?”
The girl replied.
“Bastards who deserve to die.”
“Why?”
“They put children up for auction too.”
Having deliberately drawn the answer out of him, I watched the expressions on the Ghost Demon and the Lust Demon’s faces.
The Ghost Demon said to me with an impassive look.
“Then we have to go kill them.”
In my case, that meant going to kill them yet again. I asked the Lust Demon for his opinion with my eyes as well.
The Lust Demon said,
“No matter how much of a scoundrel I am, what’s there to even say? Let’s go.”
I joked to the two of them.
“If we go around killing people that much, we might end up becoming public enemies of the Murim.”
The Lust Demon said with a look that told me there was no chance of that.
“You’re close with the Alliance Leader, aren’t you? This is why you have to be good at social life. Put in a good word for us later. Somehow, I don’t think he’d believe me if I said it.”
I rose from my seat and said,
“Let’s go. I learned martial arts precisely so I could raise hell at times like this.”
Now that I thought about it, whether they were the ones I had killed in my previous life or not was not the important issue. What mattered was killing those who deserved to die. Of course, this time, the Lust Demon and the Ghost Demon would also get to see Heukhyang’s business with their own eyes first.