Chapter 503: Side Story 3
Chapter side_3
“By the way, do you really believe it?”
Gwon Mu-jin, who came out of the Hao Sect, looked at Zhuge Yeon.
Gu Mu-ak is certainly an ally, but he is someone who cannot be easily believed. To become the leader of a third-rate organization like the Hao Sect was possible because he had endured and cleared through that much of a carnage.
He is a person with a sly personality without being noticed.
Just looking at Gu Mu-ak using information as a pretext to move Dan Woo-hyun here and there and pocketing his own gains, he was by no means an opponent to be looked down upon.
“In the first place, isn’t it unknown whether the former Sect Leader of the Hao Sect is really in Yueyang? Even more, I can’t even believe that the Hao Sect has failed to chase that fellow until now…”
“It is certainly strange. But half of it won’t be incorrect words.”
“Half?”
“Yes, that the former Sect Leader of the Hao Sect fled, that is.”
Zhuge Yeon swallowed a groan.
That it was the former Sect Leader of the Hao Sect would be certain. However, it is a situation where she cannot be sure whether he really possesses the treasure or not.
“The remaining half?”
“Something must have happened between the two.”
Zhuge Yeon smiled while smoothing her lips.
Gu Mu-ak tried to not show it as much as possible, but there was a feeling of lacking to deceive Zhuge Yeon’s eyes.
‘Of course, I can roughly imagine, but…’
Once, there was a time such a rumor broke out in the Central Plains.
Also, since the Demonic Cult and the unorthodox factions also heard it and moved secretly, Zhuge Yeon believed that most of the things she recalled would be true.
To Gu Mu-ak, it was an embarrassing thing, and therefore he would not have wished to spit those words out of his mouth.
At that moment, Gwon Mu-jin’s sigh was heard, letting out a ‘Haa-’.
“I am asking because I am truly curious.”
“What is it?”
“Just what is the reason you are trying to do this work now?”
Gwon Mu-jin was vaguely guessing the entire situation, but a thought of ‘just in case’ arose. Whether it was that he wanted to block it in advance because a bad thing was about to happen, or whether curiosity dwelt in it.
As he stared at Zhuge Yeon fixedly, seeking an answer, she laughed.
“It’s simple. It’s so boring lately, isn’t it?”
“You are truly driven by interest alone.”
“There should be a zest for living like this at least. Living the exact same life every single day is not fun, not fun!”
Zhuge Yeon put strength into her voice.
Another two years had passed since Dan Woo-hyun returned. The martial world, which had been noisy during that time, was as quiet as a dead mouse, as if it was all a dream.
The Heavenly Dao Society is in a situation of exerting all its strength to recover the influence of the orthodox sects, and the unorthodox sects are also trying to reclaim their past glory by creating a new group.
As a result, such things as fights did not break out, and beating down occasionally appearing bandits or thieves became a daily routine.
It is boring.
Could life be this tedious?
In front of her, who had been expecting whether some incident wouldn’t break out at a time like this, the Hao Sect’s movements were unusual, and in the end she caught its tail and chased after it.
“Now, look! This vital expression! These vital eyes! How great it is!”
Zhuge Yeon took a step closer and thrust her face in.
The moment the woman’s face closed in to right before his nose and her scent wafted faintly, Gwon Mu-jin’s dizziness exceeded the limit, and even his mind grew lax.
Did she realize that?
Letting out a short sound of ‘Ah!’, Zhuge Yeon retreated a step backward.
“Still, you must not fall for me.”
“Who’s falling for you!”
Looking at Gwon Mu-jin raising his voice, Zhuge Yeon winked with one eye. Despite knowing it was a playful behavior, turning red in the face would be something a man couldn’t help.
Gwon Mu-jin sighed once again.
“So are you really going to do it?”
“Of course! Let’s capture the former Sect Leader or whoever and twist their legs!”
“…Wasn’t it just finding him?”
“It’s not fun if we just find him, so let’s release him after capturing. Today is a day I want to see a face growing terrified while chasing his back.”
“…….”
Letting out a ‘Haa-’, Zhuge Yeon wore a rapturous expression.
Her appearance, thinking of what expression he would cry with and what voice he would make, was bizarre to the extent that one wondered if she was really a person of a prestigious orthodox sect.
“That’s why she can’t get married…”
“What did you say?”
“No… it’s nothing…”
She was one who had gone on considerably many blind dates for the past two years due to Zhuge Un’s pestering. However, she had not succeeded even once, and most of the opponents frequently ran away in terror, perhaps due to her personality.
The sight of children of prestigious families counted on fingers in the world shivering and fleeing brought a laugh even thinking of it now.
“So do you know where on earth we must search from?”
“Mmm… first, the marketplace?”
“Do you have certainty?”
“Originally, don’t ruffians walk around the marketplace putting strength in their shoulders, swaggering, and spitting saliva continuously?”
“What on earth is a ruffian to you?”
“Beggars?”
“…….”
“But since there are more of such people on the Hao Sect side, it will be hard.”
“No, I think they won’t be there because you smashed them all up…”
“Is that so?”
Zhuge Yeon swept her hair back with a brush and nodded her head indifferently. That was also because Gwon Mu-jin’s words were not incorrect in the least.
Since she smashed them up the moment she saw the Hao Sect members, by now most of them would be lying on sickbeds, only letting out groans.
“Let’s go first.”
Zhuge Yeon headed toward the marketplace, shrugging her shoulders.
Gwon Mu-jin quietly watched that back figure.
Zhuge Yeon, who was walking down the street vigorously, was certainly more lively than any appearance he had seen recently. This even felt as if she was playing a highly enjoyable and interesting game now.
The moment he realized that, Gwon Mu-jin could not erase the thought that he had been swept up in it.
‘Damn it…’
A sigh leaked out from his mouth.
* * *
It would be hard to even imagine how sweet of a word revenge is. Repaying the grudges of the past. Gaining ecstasy while looking at the twisted face of the one who gave him humiliation is indeed the best revenge, and there would also be no other thing as joyful.
He thinks.
Looking at the dark space, he recalled.
The time when his life, which crawled at the very bottom, began to open up was when he had climbed to the highest place. However, keeping the position was an extremely difficult thing.
Originally, those things called ruffians are not a group tightly bound by loyalty.
It can be said that they are those who, merely for their own interests, do whatever if only the interests match. Therefore, his position was always uncomfortable, and he shivered in terror for fear of having everything stolen.
Thus, he had to flee.
That day when he was betrayed by those he believed in.
He lost many things.
He lost the woman he loved even if only for a time, and the fellow who was his right arm, of whom it was no exaggeration to say was his everything, drove a dagger into his heart.
He fled for dear life.
Thinking that only by living could he repay this grudge, he escaped that place like crazy.
The process of fleeing carrying the money he had hidden was by no means easy, but he seemed to have a strong desire to make those who betrayed him perplexed even a little.
Having barely survived, he wandered the Central Plains aimlessly.
Since the Hao Sect lurked everywhere so he could not even enter villages easily, he continued training while eating and sleeping in the mountains where people did not come and go.
What he met then was a miraculous encounter.
The man took out a single booklet from his bosom.
“Martial God’s Path Classic…”
There is no way to know whether this is the actual Martial God’s martial art. However, since he survived even after learning it because he had good luck, could that not indeed be a revelation from heaven to repay the grudge?
He laughed inside the darkness.
Whomever it is, I shall tear them to shreds and kill them.
Holding such a mind, he held his breath while shining a cruel smile.
* * *
“Yes, how many fell?”
Gu Mu-ak, the Sect Leader of the Hao Sect, looked outside for a long time after Zhuge Yeon and Gwon Mu-jin went outside. Engraving that space where countless people came and went in his eyes, he glanced to the side.
“It is already over twenty.”
“I see…”
Gu Mu-ak stroked his chin with a brush.
It is a thing that broke out in the process of chasing the former Sect Leader of the Hao Sect. Those who were beaten by Zhuge Yeon would only have to recuperate for a day or two, but those who were beaten by the former Sect Leader of the Hao Sect crossed the river of no return.
Was that fellow that strong?
The man in Gu Mu-ak’s head was not so. Although he had some skill since he definitely climbed to the position of the Sect Leader of the Hao Sect, he fell far behind Gu Mu-ak, and was a gentle person who did not perform killing itself.
Was that not why they drove him out?
“Did he obtain a miraculous encounter somewhere…?”
Gu Mu-ak frowned.
The former Sect Leader of the Hao Sect was certainly good-natured enough for many people to follow. Since that personality of taking care of even those at the absolute bottom showed a side different from other successive Sect Leaders in history, those who followed him implicitly were also many.
Gu Mu-ak also followed him.
He would probably be the one who showed the greatest loyalty, excluding Dan Woo-hyun.
But because he was human, and it was also reality that such personality was bound to become a loophole and grow weak in this Central Plains.
The former Sect Leader of the Hao Sect received pressure from the Moyong Family.
At that time, the place where the Sect Leader of the Hao Sect stayed was Henan, and it was also the Moyong Family that found him hidden, threatened him, and began to move the Hao Sect from behind.
Before long, as time passed, the Hao Sect was reduced to a place that merely cleaned up after the Moyong Family, and the situation rushed increasingly to the worst.
Attacks from the Demonic Cult and the unorthodox factions, who found out all such facts, began, and every time that happened, the Moyong Family put its hands behind its back and did not even take any measures.
Despite this kind of thing breaking out while following them, since the Moyong Family turned a blind eye and did not even give any protection, from the Hao Sect’s standpoint, it went to a situation where it would not be strange if it collapsed anytime.
In the end, Gu Mu-ak stood up.
In order to protect the name Hao Sect, he secretly moved surrounding people, and consequently, everything seemed to end by striking down the Sect Leader of the Hao Sect.
Until he fled.
‘He must have come to take revenge on me…’
Gu Mu-ak harbored a sneer.
How bone-deep would that grudge have been carved?
Just looking at him quietly appearing here and killing Hao Sect members one by one, it was unmistakably an intention to tighten the noose on Gu Mu-ak.
But would that be easily possible?
‘You sold the Hao Sect to the likes of the Moyong Family, but I did not.’
Gu Mu-ak held a long pipe in his mouth.
Lighting it, he exhaled a long breath.
White smoke billowed up.
It escaped outside the window thickly and scattered and vanished into the streets of Yueyang.
‘I am different from you. Therefore, you cannot defeat me.’
Gu Mu-ak smirked.
Originally, this fight was no different from victory and defeat already being decided. As long as the Hao Sect worked for the Hunan Dan Family, and as long as they backed the Hao Sect, even if the opponent was by chance the Heavenly Dao Society, it is a fight the Hao Sect has no choice but to surely win.
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