Chapter 46

Light Novel: Volume 2 Episode 21
Manhwa: Chapter 29

The journey to Chengdu was uneventful.

Even the pirates didn’t want to fight anymore as they heard the news of their comrades being massacred.

The rice carrier was anchored at a dock not far from Chengdu. From now on, they had to move by land instead of by water. There were wagons already waiting to load rice at the dock.

“Hurry up! We have to go to Chengdu tomorrow.”

“Be careful not to burst the sack!”

Workers got on the boat and started unloading the rice.

Pyo-wol and Heo Ranju also got off the boat.

Daoshi Goh stretched out.

“I think I will be able to live again if I step on the ground.”

“Are you saying you’ve been sick for a few days? It’s not like you’re getting any old.”

“Why is this bitching starting a fight again? Are you sexually frustrated huh?”

“Excuse me?”

“Ehem, nothing.”

When Heo Ranju raised her eyebrows and grabbed the whip, Daoshi Goh took a step back. He deliberately spoke to Pyo-wol.

“What are you going to do now?”

“What?”

“We’re going to go straight to Chengdu.”

“I’m going to stay the night here.”

It was already evening time. There was no reason to rush out. Daoshi Goh made a disappointing expression on his face.

“Then we must separate here. Since we have to arrive in Chengdu by tomorrow morning.”

“Can’t you just go with us?”

Heo Ranju, standing next to Hyulseung, had a pitiful expression on her face.

“I have something I have to prepare.”

“What preparations? I’ll help. Let’s go together.”

“I need to do by myself.”

“Tsk!”

Heo Ranju licked her lips at Pyo-wol’s resolute answer. A look of sadness was evident on her face. But that was not enough to shake Pyo-wol’s heart.

“I’ll contact you once I reach to Chengdu later.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

Heo Ranju relaxed her expression as if she liked Pyo-wol’s answer.

The three of them bought horses at a nearby horse market and set off right away.

Pyo-wol, who was left alone, looked for a guesthouse nearby.

All cargo loaded onto the ship was unloaded from there and loaded onto carts. Since this is a place where a huge amount of cargo goes through, there were a lot of large passengers that stayed in the area.

The guest house, which Pyo-wol visited, was one of those places.

The inside of the guest house was already crowded with people. Most of them came from high-ranking countries. They were sitting together and eating.

As Pyo-wol looked around, an inn servant approached him. 

“Welcome. Are you here for a meal or lodging?”

“Both.”

“Ah! So you’re going to stay to here to eat and sleep.”

“Is there a room?”

“There is a room left. But it’s a little expensive…”

“How much?”

“Ten coins. And the cost of food is two. As you can see, the seats are full, so even you will have to wait for a little while.”

Pyo-wol silently took the money from his pocket and gave it.

“Hehe! Go up this floor and follow it all the way to the left corridor, you will find a room at the end. You can stay and sleep there.”

“Okay. Bring me my meal first.”

“Yes, wait a minute!”

After giving a quick reply, the inn servant ran to the kitchen.

Pyo-wol looked at the inn servant for a moment, then found an empty seat and sat down.

“Hey, look! What kind of bastard is prettier than a bitch?”

“Is he really a guy? Isn’t it a bitch crossdressing as a male?”

The martial artists who were nearby looked at the Pyo-wol and gossiped. 

They weren’t the only ones. Most of the people nearby were staring blankly at Pyo-wol. It wsa because Pyo-wol’s appearance stood out. 

Pyo-wol didn’t even care about the chatter of people.

He knew how great his appearance was.

He was handsome in the first place, but not to this extent. After spending seven years with the snakes, Pyo-wol’s appearance became so beautiful. He didn’t even know maybe it was the effect of having been with snakes for a long time.

He thought it didn’t matter at all.

There was no need to depreciate himself just because he was seen as beautiful and not necessarily handsome. Having a beautiful appearance was also a great weapon.

Coming from the underground cave to this place, Pyo-wol was aware of that fact.

The women who fell for his appearance lowered their guards, and they provided a lot of information to Pyo-wol, both knowingly and unconsciously.

Such information was of great help to Pyo-wol.

Pyo-wol tapped the table with his finger and waited for the food to come out.

Fortunately, the food came out quickly.

The inn servant asked while putting down the food.

“By the way, would you like some alcohol? The sake brewed directly in our guesthouse is amazing.”

“I don’t drink.”

“Okay, if you change your mind, call me anytime.”

The inn servant nodded his head at Pyo-wol and went back to his place.

Pyo-wol ate with chopsticks.

At first, chopsticks felt unfamiliar. He hasn’t used chopsticks in over 14 years. So he missed getting the side dishes several times. But he soon got used to using chopsticks.

Pyo-wol savored the food little by little.

It was just the level of food that you can taste at any other restaurant. He couldn’t say it was particularly delicious. But to Pyo-wol, even such cheap food felt like heaven.

This moment was the greatest luxury of his life.

People here will not know how fortunate they were to pay a fair price and eat the right food.

He could feel the sweetness of each grain of rice in his mouth.

There was a smile on the corner of Pyo-wol’s lips.

That was then.

“Hey! You’re a guy, right?”

An unusually large warrior approached Pyo-wol.

He was wearing a sleeveless top which showed off his muscles. His forearms, exposed outside his clothes, were as thick as the torso of any woman. His face was also quite rough, and just looking at it would give anyone goosebumps.

Pyo-wol looked up at the man with the chopsticks still in his hand. Then, the man revealed his yellow teeth and grinned.

“My name is Jang Wurak. I’m a chief escort of the Nine Treasures Escort Corps.¹“

“So?”

“I made a bet with my comrades. If I manage to know your gender they will give me two taels of silver.”

Jang Wurak looked at Pyo-wol who was in the left corner, smirking. There, the leaders of the Nine Treasures Escort Corps had gathered. They were looking at Pyo-wol with a look of interest.

Pyo-wol asked with an indifferent expression.

“So which side did you take?”

“I bet that you’re a crossdressing bitch.”

“What a shame. You’ll just lose two taels of silver.”

“Then you’re a man?”

“You’d better throw away those eyes. Can’t you see properly?”

“I don’t know. Heh heh heh!”

Jang Wurak let out a sinister laugh.

“Heh heh! Come on, take it off and let me check it out.”

“If you can strip him off, I will buy you a drink!”

Jang Wurak’s colleagues whistled and shouted. 

The other people who were in the guest house looked at the scene with interest. They knew that the members of the Nine Treasures Escort Corps were making spiteful pranks, but they had no intention of intervening. 

Because what was happening in front of them was both exciting and entertaining.

They wondered.

What kind of response will the man who looks like a woman show?

They thought that maybe he would shed tears and squeal like a bitch.

Jang Wurak clasped his big hand and said,

“Come on, let’s see where your— Keuk!”

Suddenly, Jang Wurak let out a desperate scream.

In the eyes of such Jang Wurak, thin chopsticks were stuck imperceptibly. 

 It was the chopsticks in Pyo-wol’s hand.

“You, you! You crazy bastard! My eyes—”

Jang Wurak looked at Pyo-wol, clutching his eyes that were stabbed with chopsticks. Blood was dripping from his left eye.

Pyo-wol got up from his seat.

“If you can’t see what’s right in front of you, it’d be better for you to not have your eyes. I’ll take your other eye now.”

“What? N-No!”

Jang Wurak hurriedly backed away.

But the speed at which Pyo-wol approached was much faster than the speed he retreated. Pyo-wol approached Jang Wurak without making a sound.

Only then did Jang Wurak see Pyo-wol’s eyes.

His serpent’s eyes, which had no emotion, were staring at him. Only then did Jang Wurak realize that he had mistakenly touched the wrong opponent. 

A person with eyes like his couldn’t be normal.

Pyo-wol’s face was the last scene he saw.

Puk!

“Keugh! My eyes!”

With the eerie attack, Jang Wurak’s world turned into darkness.

“Hey! You crazy bastard—!”

“What?”

The complexion of the head of the Nine Treasures Escort Corps, who had been watching with an interesting expression so far, has changed to a greenish color.

Chopsticks were stuck in Jang Wurak’s eyes. He cannot avoid being blind by taking out the chopsticks. He never thought  that there would be a madman who would poke his eyes out with just one remark.

It was also a man who looked as beautiful as a girl.

They jumped over the table and ran towards Pyo-wol. All of a sudden, they had weapons such as swords and daggers in their hands.

They were planning to attack Pyo-wol and save Jang Wurak.

Pupupuk!

“Kaak!”

“Hiic!”

But before they could even get close, they screamed and collapsed. They had chopsticks stuck to their shoulders and sides.

It was thrown by Pyo-wol.

“Uh, h-how?”

“I didn’t even see him throw.”

The martial artists who were nearby were appalled.

Although they acted rudely like a gangster, the leaders of the Nine Treasures Escort Corps were still quite recognizable experts.

Nine Treasures Escort Corps was a medium-sized escort company in Sichuan Province. It was entirely thanks to their strength that they were able to grow, even when they just started their company.

Because of that, they were very proud of themselves, and gradually became unruly. It was for the same reason that Jang Wurak tried to harass Pyo-wol.

He found his target, and thought of molesting and humiliating him because he looked like a girl.

The only problem was that Pyo-wol turned out to be at a level they could not offend.

Pyo-wol had a cold expression. Suddenly, he had chopsticks in his hand. He used the Soul-Reaping Thread to pick up a bunch of chopsticks.

Bang!

“Geurgk!”

With the sound of chopsticks hitting the wall, one of the members of Nine Treasures Escort Corps screamed desperately.

The chopsticks that Pyo-wol had thrown pierced his shoulder and made him stuck on the wall. The man struggled to remove the chopsticks stuck in his shoulder, but it was so deeply embedded that he couldn’t pull them out by himself.

“You crazy bastard! Do you know who we are?!”

Gong Jin-hyeok , the oldest of the Nine Treasures Escort Corps members, shouted.

In an instant, four people from the Nine Treasures Escort Corps, including Jang Wurak, were suppressed by Pyo-wol. 

The results were too fatal just because they made fun of a person because of his appearance.

The escorts here were the real power of the Nine Treasures Escort Corps. Since they were now either blind or wounded, they could not even dream of working for a while.

The fate of escort company, whose members could be active, was dim. 

That was then.

Sreuk!

Suddenly, Pyo-wol appeared in front of Gong Jin-hyeok.

Gong Jin-hyeok was surprised to see Pyo-Wol who ignored the distance and appeared without any sign. The moment he saw Pyo-wol’s sunken eyes, he felt goosebumps all over his body.

Pyo-wol was looking at him with eyes that couldn’t be defined. It would have been less scary if his eyes were as cold as ice or full of life.

But the perfectly still eyes that show no emotion stimulated the feeling of fear deep inside Gong Jin-hyeok’s heart.

“Kugh!”

Gong Jin-hyeok let out a moan without knowing it.

Pyo-wol pushed his face up to his nose and opened his mouth.

“Who are you?”

“That, that…”

“Tell me. Who are you guys?”

“Keuk, we are the me-members of the N, Nine Trea, Treasures Escort Corps–”

“So? What do you guys do?”

“I–”

Gong Jin-hyeok could not speak properly.

An invisible, intangible energy seemed to squeeze his heart.

His face turned pale, and cold sweat was pouring down his body like rain, as if his whole body had run out of breath.

“Did you think you’d be okay if you touch someone just because they look pretty? What, were you thinking of buying me? So you’re just going to take my clothes off and check me out? Do you still want to do that?”

“No, no— Never.”

“I haven’t lived in the world for very long, but I do know one thing. You have to take responsibility for what you do. If you touch a person, you have to pay a price. What do you think?”

“That’s…”

Gong Jin-hyeok couldn’t answer.

It was because he had an intuition that his fate would change depending on his answer.

It was just a prank.

Pyo-wol looked like a girl, so they were interested, and as a result, obscene words that can usually be shared between men came out.

They want to see if he’s really a man.

They said it would be fun to take off his pants and reveal his nether regions.

They thought there would be no problem.

It was because Pyo-wol was alone and did not appear to have mastered martial arts. If they later apologized by saying it was a joke, they thought it would end without any problems.

‘But what is this?’

Jang Wurak, who played a prank, was now blinded and screaming, and his other colleagues were struggling like worms pierced by chopsticks.

What on earth is this nightmare sight?

He couldn’t understand if they had done something so bad that they deserved this outcome.

That was then.

Bang!

“Hey! That’s enough. There’s a lot of other people here, but the situation is like this.”

Another martial artist, who was sitting on the other side of Pyo-wol, smashed the table and said. His name is Oh Won-hoo. He was a man who had been friends with Nine Treasures Escort Corps for a long time.

When Oh Won-hoo appeared, Gong Jin-hyeok had an ecstatic expression on his face.

“Oh. Sir! Keukhyuk!”

Suddenly, Gong Jin-hyeok screamed.

Chopsticks were lodged in his shoulder, and the figure of Pyo-wol disappeared.

Pyo-wol was standing in front of Oh Won-hoo.

“Why should I stop?”

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