Chapter 416: Chapter 416

“Keueugh…”

He felt his consciousness slowly returning.

Starting from his toes up to his fingers.

He moved while recollecting the sensations one by one.

It was the same that they didn’t move as he wished, but at some point his senses returned and he slowly regained consciousness.

Bi Cheon-ung slowly opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw was a shabby ceiling.

It seemed like a place similar to when he was living as a servant in his childhood.

Because it was torn and worn here and there, it couldn’t even block the raindrops. The walls didn’t seem to do their job properly, to the point that when the wind blew, it would completely wrap around his body.

Also, it smelled terribly bad everywhere.

He wondered if a person could even live in a place like this. He even felt that the shabby warehouse where he slept while living as a servant would have been better.

Why is he in such a place?

But before that, what caught Bi Cheon-ung’s mind was.

“I am… alive.”

A dry voice rang out.

His mouth was so dry and parched that he desperately wanted to drink water.

It felt as if he was in the middle of a desert.

“Here!”

At that time, a clear voice stimulated his ears.

Startled without realizing it, Bi Cheon-ung turned his head.

Beside him was a young girl. A child so small that she seemed to be just barely ten years old.

The clothes she wore were so shabby they looked like rags, and a foul stench reeked from her as if she hadn’t washed for a long time.

Her hair was so tangled that one wouldn’t think it was the appearance of a human.

Her skin was red and inflamed in various places as if she had contracted a disease.

The moment anyone saw this young child, she was in such a miserable state that it would make them want to chase her away even if it meant taking up a whip.

Bi Cheon-ung reached out towards the water the child handed him.

“You were… sleeping for a really long time. I think it’s been over ten days.”

The child smiled brightly while saying those words.

Because of the red spots on her face, even that smile was hideous, but Bi Cheon-ung calmly nodded and was organizing the situation.

“Where is this?”

“It’s Hochon (Tiger Village).”

“Hochon?”

He had never heard of it.

Therefore, not knowing exactly where he was, Bi Cheon-ung frowned.

At that, the child let out a short groan, “Ah!”

“It’s Sichuan!”

“…Sichuan you say? I came quite far.”

He rode a horse from Tibet.

He ran for days on end until the horse collapsed from exhaustion.

Even so, he didn’t think the distance would take him to Sichuan, but it seemed he had come much farther than he thought.

Having organized his thoughts, Bi Cheon-ung turned his head.

A somewhat rough place for a young child to live alone.

He looked around wondering if there were other adults, but except for the two people in this place, there was no presence of anyone else.

Is she an orphan?

Just because she was an orphan didn’t exactly make him feel sympathy.

To begin with, Bi Cheon-ung was also an orphan, and children who lost their parents due to war or poverty, or were abandoned by their parents, were commonly seen anywhere in this world.

Bi Cheon-ung’s mind was not easily moved enough to arouse sympathy over such a thing.

He got up from his seat.

“Keugh!”

However, his whole body ached and it was hard to even stand up properly. These were wounds he got from Cheon Mun-gwang of all people, so they were not shallow enough to recover in just a few days.

His internal injuries were also unspeakable.

If he didn’t heal them by circulating his energy, he might become crippled.

Bi Cheon-ung frowned.

“Are… you okay?”

“…”

Bi Cheon-ung didn’t answer.

The child’s worried eyes and expression didn’t enter his eyes. Since he grabbed a sword and lived, he was someone who had never let it go even once.

For such a person to not even be able to stand properly was identical to offering his neck to the enemies aiming for him.

Bi Cheon-ung looked around to find his sword.

But he couldn’t find it anywhere he looked.

“Where did… my sword go?”

“Um… that is…”

The child mumbled and couldn’t answer properly. As if she had committed some fault, she continuously checked Bi Cheon-ung’s mood.

“I… I sold it…”

And then she bowed her head deeply.

As that single remark dug into his ears, Bi Cheon-ung let out an absurd chuckle. He was thankful for her saving him, but she sold his weapon?

Dumbfounded by the absurd words, he was at a loss for words.

“You sold it?”

“Yes… the thing is, we had nothing to eat… if I didn’t at least sell that… both you mister and I… it felt like we would both starve to death…”

Bi Cheon-ung let out a chuckle at the sight of her bowing her head as if feeling guilty. A martial artist wouldn’t sell their sword merely for a meal.

Furthermore, his sword was a precious item bestowed by the Martial Emperor that its price couldn’t even be measured.

“…How much did you get?”

“T… ten iron coins.”

“Ha…”

A treasured sword that couldn’t be bought even with billions of gold for a mere ten iron coins?

Killing intent swirled in Bi Cheon-ung’s eyes.

He wanted to twist this child’s neck right away.

But was it because anger flared up?

He choked up and blood surged.

Blood soaked the floor profusely, and for a moment his head spun and he collapsed. Sprawled out on the shabby bed, Bi Cheon-ung barely held onto his blurring vision and ground his teeth.

“Damn it…”

His single word ringing out quietly, he closed his eyes again.

* * *

“It’s a quiet village.”

“Isn’t it bigger than expected?”

Entering the village, Jang Sam-tae looked around. He thought it was just a small village of slash-and-burn farmers, but the entire size of the village was considerable and it seemed to lack nothing.

There were good quality inns established, and the market street was also quite large.

Why hadn’t he realized until now that there was such a large village on the path crossing from Sichuan to Guizhou?

“Hochon you say? Even the name is interesting.”

“They say people here lived by hunting tigers a long time ago. So they say that’s how the name came about.”

Ju Jiyak explained with her eyes sparkling.

Actually, it was a village Ju Jiyak had discovered while journeying in Sichuan with her father last time.

It was a story she heard from the people of nearby villages back then, and she hadn’t even thought that an explanation she wasn’t particularly interested in would be used in a place like this.

“Really? How fun. A village that hunted tigers.”

“Is that why? Everyone’s build is no joke.”

A village that made a living hunting tigers.

That’s why the builds of the young men in the village looked sturdier than in other villages. Just looking at their fists, it seemed they could easily overpower one or two local thugs nearby.

Also, the clothing of the people passing through the market street was interesting too, as quite a lot of people could be seen wearing tiger furs. Even if it wasn’t a tiger, perhaps because there were many hunters, they were draped in beast furs all over.

Most of them looked like fairly well-off people. Even the occasionally seen ordinary people didn’t seem to be starving, seeing how their complexions were good.

They were people who lived by hunting.

They were naturally not short of things like meat.

“It seems everyone is living well.”

“That’s not necessarily the case. Look over there.”

Sa Do-hak pointed at the scenery seen out the window.

It seemed to be a fact that most people wore good clothes and their lives were not impoverished. However, where there is a bright side, there is naturally a dark side as well.

At the end of their gaze, a young child was seen.

Perhaps her skin disease was severe, her whole face was red, and because she hadn’t properly eaten for a long time, she was skin and bones like a mummy.

The sight of her walking staggeringly looked very unstable, and as if trying to beg from the people around, she tried to approach them but people wouldn’t even look at her.

Rather, there were even those who lifted sticks trying to swing them at her.

If the child hadn’t been startled and run away, she would have already been hit a few times.

“That’s too much…”

Dan So-mi clenched her fists looking at that sight.

It was because the child’s figure overlapped so much with her own figure in the past. She wanted to jump out right away and help, but the carriage brushed past faster than Dan So-mi thought and left that place.

“Isn’t it too much?”

Panting in anger, Dan So-mi looked at Ju Jiyak and Hong Jinrang.

The two children also nodded in a daze.

“It seems she has some kind of disease.”

Dan Woo-hyun also thought of the child and opened his mouth.

Her skin was severely festered.

Yet the reason she couldn’t get treated was likely because she didn’t have money. Since a face that makes even surrounding people turn away is practically no different from a monster, it was also natural for them to beat and chase her away.

Dan Woo-hyun quietly looked at Dan So-mi.

Perhaps she was very angry, she was panting and holding onto the window. Bothered by the child who had already disappeared from view, her eyes were continuously directed towards that place.

“To hit such a child, everyone is really too much.”

“…”

Dan Woo-hyun recalled things from a long time ago.

When he first met Dan So-mi, she was naked and starving, and didn’t even have vitality in her eyes.

He felt that perhaps that child just now resembled Dan So-mi at that time the most.

Because Dan So-mi also knew that well, she might have been needlessly worrying even more.

Dan So-mi, who had been staring out the window for a long time, turned her head and looked at Dan Woo-hyun.

With her eyes sparkling brightly, she came over and hugged him tightly in his embrace.

She didn’t say anything or get angry.

It looked like an action to calm her surged-up heart thinking about the past times.

Dan Woo-hyun also accepted it without saying a word.

He patted her back and stroked her head.

With just that, Dan So-mi was somewhat regaining her calm.

“That child… will we be able to meet again?”

“If there is a connection, we will be able to see each other again.”

“…I want to buy her something delicious.”

“Haha, alright. Because sharing food is a pleasant thing.”

Dan So-mi squeezed Dan Woo-hyun’s collar tightly.

It felt like she was suppressing the urge to run to her right now.

As if knowing those feelings, Dan Woo-hyun soothed Dan So-mi’s uneasy heart with a smile.

“We will soon be at the inn!”

At that time, Jang Sam-tae’s voice was heard.

Glancing out the window, a large inn could be seen. Although it was large, it wasn’t overly flashy and looked like a place with a good atmosphere.

At the main gate, there was a stone statue modeled after the figure of a tiger, which seemed like the symbol of Hochon.

Dan Woo-hyun looked at that inn.

“A good wind is blowing.”

Feeling the gently blowing wind, he opened his mouth like that.

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