novelraw Chapter 35 : Chapter 35
Chapter 35 : Chapter 35
Chapter 35 - Even if you act like a thug, you shouldn't get stabbed
We walked for days and days.
It was no problem for Biyoung, but for Jinbae, who trudged along with a limp, it must have been quite an ordeal.
However, despite sweating profusely, Jinbae rarely suggested taking a break.
I thought he couldn’t have gone far with his bad leg, but I realized my judgment was mistaken.
Jinbae had a fiery emotion that forced his legs to move.
It wasn't something like ‘hope’ or ‘aspiration’.
‘It’s resentment.’
A deep resentment that seeped into his very bones, making it impossible for him to keep still.
It was hidden behind his kind smile.
Unable to watch any longer, Biyoung suggested they rest several times, but Jinbae just silently kept walking.
And so, we arrived at a village.
Jinbae, catching his breath, introduced the village to Biyoung.
“This place is called Simao.”
“That’s an unusual name.”
“The people who live here are also unusual. This is a place where minorities like the Yi people, as well as people from Tibet and Vietnam, live together. It’s a village often passed through when trading with the western regions from the central plains.”
“Aha.”
Biyoung looked at the village and its people with curious eyes.
Although Diancang Mountain was in Yunnan, he hadn't had many occasions to visit the western regions of Yunnan in his past life.
Especially, this was his first time looking around Simao like this.
After a quick scan of the village, Biyoung soon wore a mischievous smile.
“This neighborhood must be noisy.”
“You’ve seen correctly.”
It was impossible for a town with such a mix of different ethnic groups to be without friction.
Similar people would form groups, and there would be countless squabbles over different cultures.
Moreover, this was a region where the hands of the government or the Murim could hardly reach.
In places like this, fists were often the law, and violence was the conversation.
Crash!
Look at that.
Aren't people rolling around like that in broad daylight!
“Brother Uma! Please, have some mercy!”
A man who had rolled on the ground along with large pots called out to someone inside the shop.
Kneeling and rubbing his hands together like a fly, he looked utterly pathetic.
Thump, thump.
Someone walked out from inside the shop.
Upon seeing his appearance, Biyoung couldn't help but let out a dry laugh.
‘He’s the very picture of a ruffian.’
Even when Hongchil used to bring ruffians home in the past, they weren’t this bad.
A long face with eyebrows gathered in the middle, fierce and persistent beady eyes, and a stubbornly straight nose.
His appearance seemed to proclaim with his entire body, ‘I am a foul-tempered thug.’
“Mercy? Whose mercy are you asking for? Yours, who took the money to a gambling den after promising to return it quickly? Or mine, who trusted you and waited, only to be on the verge of losing all the money I lent?”
A loan shark.
Yes, he looked exactly like he would do something like that.
Biyoung spoke to Jinbae as if he were watching a curious spectacle.
“A noisy incident as soon as we arrive in Simao.”
“Th-that is……”
But.
Jinbae’s expression as he looked at the scene was somehow strange.
He seemed flustered, and also embarrassed.
‘No. This is almost like…….’
He looks embarrassed…?
Why would he be embarrassed watching a loan shark extort money?
No, before that.
He seems to know that man?
Biyoung tilted his head for a moment, then his jaw dropped.
“By any chance, is that debtor the person we were supposed to meet?”
“Not that one.”
“Phew.”
What a relief that it wasn't him.
If the Diancang Sect member we finally managed to meet was a gambler on the run from debt, it might be better to just bite my tongue and die.
No, not me dying, but killing that guy…….
‘Wait.’
He said not that one.
Then which one was he talking about?
Biyoung’s gaze shifted past the debtor to the man opposite him.
“Then……?”
Nah.
It couldn't be.
There’s no way such a crude-looking, wicked thug could be a member of the Diancang Sect.
“Grandfather. Who are you talking about? Over there, there doesn’t seem to be a human-like bastard… I mean, a decent person?”
“………….”
Jinbae covered his eyelids with one hand.
Then, with his other trembling hand, he pointed at someone.
“The man who was just called Uma is one of the people we are to meet.”
“……Wow.”
That in itself was a shocking story.
Being kicked out of the Diancang Sect and settling in a foreign land, I could only imagine how much he must have suffered.
But how could a man from a sect based on Taoism become a loan shark, no matter what storms of time he faced!
It felt like it was a blessing the Sect Leader had ascended to heaven without seeing this.
“……Th-that thing, you mean?”
“Not ‘that thing’, you should say ‘that person’.”
Biyoung looked at the man called Uma again with a bewildered face.
Ugh.
Seeing him again, he was as sloppy and delinquent as could be.
It wasn't just his appearance.
His posture, standing with his weight on one leg, and the way he chewed on tough beef jerky also looked utterly wicked.
So that thing, no, that person is a descendant of the Diancang Sect?
“Haha… ha… well… it might be better to be the lender than the borrower.”
Biyoung let out a deflating sound and was about to approach Uma.
At that moment.
He saw something flash from behind Uma.
“Behind you!”
As soon as Uma heard Biyoung’s voice, he twisted his body.
There, a stout man who seemed to be in league with the debtor was rushing at him with a kitchen knife.
“Kyaak!”
Along with the scream of a watching woman, the stout man’s knife plunged into Uma’s abdomen.
Puk!
“!”
What a useless fool.
I even warned him beforehand, and a descendant of the Diancang Sect gets stabbed?
However.
The corners of Biyoung’s lips, who had been frowning, curled up slightly.
“Right. Even if you act like a thug, you shouldn't get stabbed.”
Uma’s upper body bent slightly, but the blade did not touch his body.
His large hand had snatched the stout man’s wrist and diverted it past his side.
Naturally, the stout man’s hand was caught by Uma, leaving him unable to move.
“You son of a bitch worm……!”
Sparks flew from Uma’s eyes as he slammed his head forward.
Paak!!
“……Didn’t you hear something break?”
“Yes. It broke.”
With a grotesque sound, the stout man collapsed on the spot, foaming at the mouth.
On the other hand, Uma’s forehead had only a slightly red mark and was perfectly fine.
Was there a martial art in the Diancang Sect for training the forehead?
……No way.
Uma spat once on the stout man collapsed on the ground and then pressed his foot on the debtor’s chest.
“Bring ninety silver nyang by tomorrow.”
“N-ninety nyang? Didn’t you say forty-five nyang just a moment ago?”
“The price went up in a short time. My life price is included. So it’s double.”
“Th-that’s……!”
“Unfair? Then there’s one other way.”
Suddenly, Uma pulled the debtor to his feet.
His movements were so smooth and delicate that it was hard to believe he was the same person who had been chewing on beef jerky just moments ago.
“From now on, I’ll be the one stabbing, so you dodge well. Then I’ll cut it in half.”
“!”
Uma picked up the collapsed stout man’s kitchen knife and took a couple of steps back.
“You better be careful. My sword is quite fast. Even with a kitchen knife like this.”
Uma licked the flat of the kitchen knife.
That sight was enough to chill the heart of even Jinbae, who saw him occasionally.
Just as Uma was about to raise the knife and run at the debtor,
“W-wait! I get it! I’ll pay you back, so please stop!”
The debtor waved both his arms, his face pale.
“Please wait. I’ll bring it from inside the shop right away.”
“I’ll count to fifty.”
Uma slammed the kitchen knife onto a wooden stand with a thud! and began to count.
The debtor scrambled into the shop and threw open the door to a small room.
Up to this point, it was a common street scene.
The problem was that the subject was a member of the Diancang Sect.
“H-here it is.”
“Good. Feels better to pay it back right away, doesn’t it?”
Uma bared his teeth, showing his satisfaction.
At that moment.
From the opposite side of where Biyoung was standing, a thin and slender voice was heard.
“Stop right there.”
“?”
Everyone’s gaze turned towards the source of the voice.
And they soon lowered their gazes to the ground with frightened faces.
“Gam-i Gang……!!”
Gam-i Gang?
What’s Gam-i Gang?
Biyoung asked Jinbae, his eyes fixed on the group dressed in red.
“Grandfather. Do you know them?”
Jinbae’s expression was not good.
Even worse than when he was embarrassed while introducing Uma.
“I know them well. The Gam-i Gang is a faction that controls the back alleys of this village. I told you earlier that the Yi people had settled in Simao, did I not?”
“Yes.”
“The rougher ones among that minority group roam around and oppress the good people.”
“If we’re talking about oppression, that guy Uma over there seems just as bad?”
“………….”
“Well. It’s natural to have to repay borrowed money, so I’ll make an exception. Anyway, it seems the Gam-i Gang doesn’t look too kindly on Uma?”
“That would be the case. Since one of the main businesses of the Gam-i Gang is high-interest loans.”
“Oh. So it’s like self-loathing.”
Jinbae seemed quite displeased that Biyoung was treating Uma and the Gam-i Gang as equals.
But regardless of that.
Biyoung looked back and forth between the Gam-i Gang and Uma with great interest.
“That money is ours, so we’d appreciate it if you returned it.”
The bearded man at the front of the Gam-i Gang threatened Uma.
His burly arms were covered in muscle, and in those arms, he held two swords.
It was a sight that made onlookers gulp.
But far from being scared, Uma stuck out his tongue and licked his lips.
“I heard the Gam-i Gang only has blind bastards, but now I see their ears are the same. Didn’t you hear me say I’m collecting the money I lent him?”
“Haha.”
Perhaps because he was from a minority group, his laughter and appearance had a slightly different feel from the people of the central plains.
Of course, the bearded man’s meaning was clearly conveyed nonetheless.
It meant that if things went wrong, his head would fly.
“I knew something like this would happen someday. I felt sorry for you struggling all alone, so I let it slide sometimes, but no more. We were the first to lend money to that guy. So if you give me the money you collected, I’ll spare your life.”
Uma, who had been listening silently, suddenly rummaged inside his clothes.
Was he going to give his own money first before the debtor paid him back?
Ssk.
“Here it is.”
What Uma pulled out from his clothes was,
his middle finger.
“Oh?”
Biyoung whistled as if he was very pleased.
“What do you mean, ‘oh’? Is that something you should be saying right now?”
“I like him. If he gets scared by trash like that, how can he be called a man of the Diancang Sect?”
Huh?
Since when were you a man of the Diancang Sect?
Jinbae wanted to ask that, but he couldn't.
As if enraged by the middle finger, a hot-tempered-looking subordinate of the Gam-i Gang rushed towards Uma.
“Haaaaaap!”
A sharp-looking saber flew towards the top of Uma’s head.
Fwung!
It was an attack so fierce it made the hearts of the onlookers shudder.
However, as he had said just a moment ago, Uma’s blade was faster than others.
Before the subordinate’s saber could reach the top of Uma’s head, the kitchen knife flew and lodged itself in his shoulder first.
Puk!
“Kraaaaaak!”
“!”
The man’s body trembled like a bird skewered on a spit.
The eyes of the townspeople, who had been watching with tense faces, widened like lanterns.
The Gam-i Gang man’s movement had clearly started first, yet Uma’s strike seemed several times faster than his opponent’s movement.
It was, literally…….
“Quick sword.”
A deep smile bloomed on the lips of Biyoung, who was watching Uma.