Chapter 525: Side Story 25
Chapter side_25
Early at dawn, a boy opened his eyes.
His blank gaze seemed to show that his sleepiness hadn’t faded yet, but nevertheless, he came outside holding a broom. The expression of the boy sweeping the yard after opening the store’s door seemed somewhat full of annoyance.
“Haa… How annoying.”
The boy had an unwilling expression.
Even if it was a store, it wasn’t like there were customers. Very many people lived in this land of Henan, but since he was sweeping the yard in a place no one visited, it was also true that he was unwilling.
If one asked whether his salary wasn’t paid because there were no customers, that wasn’t it either.
The store owner, having money rotting somewhere, was giving him money every month without fail, and that also became this little boy’s lifeline.
He stealthily leaned the broom against the wall and took a seat in one corner.
He fumbled and took out something from his bosom.
It was a long bamboo pipe his father had in his childhood.
It was also his father’s keepsake, and the boy, putting it in his mouth, barely lit it with his short arms and let out a long breath, saying haa-.
Smack!
“Ack!”
“You punk, your bones will rot!”
At that time, a second-floor window abruptly opened and a book struck his head. The boy let out a groan and glared sharply at that place.
A man was grinning and looking down.
“Leave me alone!”
“Don’t act up and hurry up and sweep the yard.”
“Sweep what when there are no customers… Ah, and! Why are you only making me do it.”
The boy suddenly frowned.
The boy wasn’t the only one guarding this store.
Even though it hadn’t been long, wasn’t there a woman too?
However, what that woman did was only about arranging books. It showed a world of difference compared to the boy who took charge of all sorts of miscellaneous tasks.
“You receive a salary, but she doesn’t. Do you want to not receive a salary too? Then I won’t say anything.”
“Ei!”
“Ei?”
“No. I’ll do it! I’ll do it!”
“Hehehe, Ga-yu, Jin Ga-yu. Don’t do other things and move briskly. Because the fate of this store depends on you.”
“Haa…”
Jin Ga-yu, who put the long pipe in his bosom, sighed and picked up the broom again.
Where on earth did things go wrong?
He just wanted to find a job in this Henan, but there wasn’t a single place that would accept him, so he searched and searched until he came in here.
Excluding the fact that the pay was okay, the intensity of the labor was immense.
He had to sweep the yard all day and arrange old books.
Sometimes he even had to transcribe, and since he was forced to learn how to read and write for that, from Jin Ga-yu’s perspective, it wasn’t a very willing task.
Jin Ga-yu, who glanced at the second floor, slumped down in the yard again.
He took the long pipe out of his bosom, put it in his mouth, and lit it again.
As pure white smoke billowed up, Jin Ga-yu frowned as if bored and glanced at the store’s signboard.
“Fortunate Encounter Old Bookstore… I can’t understand it at all.”
Jin Ga-yu frowned heavily.
* * *
“Phew… So noisy. What are you doing since morning?”
A woman frowned with an unwilling expression.
Her hand movements arranging the old books weren’t fast, but they were precise. Seeing her arrange the messily scattered things in an instant, it seemed as if her life here was older than Jin Ga-yu’s.
“Because the kid is acting up.”
“Is it fun to fight with a child like that and win?”
The woman snorted, saying Haa-.
She looked at the man who stealthily came down and sat in his seat with an annoyed expression. That appearance was so unhesitating that it reminded her of someone somewhere, but unlike him, there was elegance in his actions.
“It’s fun, yes… of course it’s fun…”
The man smirked while saying such words.
That faint smile was somehow heterogeneous.
There was something that gave goosebumps even to the woman watching.
“That guy Dan Woo-hyun… It seems he went to the place where you died today.”
Tak!
The woman who was arranging books put them down and remained silent. She, who didn’t say or do anything for a moment, held a smile on her lips for a while before soon opening her mouth quietly.
“Is that so?”
“Pretending to dislike it when you like it…”
“…”
“He probably knows that you’re alive. The wind there would have told him so.”
“Does the wind talk too?”
At the words of the woman, no, Mi-ho, the man blinked his two eyes.
He stared at her for a long time with a dumbfounded expression before unknowingly swallowing an empty wind.
“You’re playing around, playing around.”
“You too.”
“Do you want to die?”
“If you were going to kill me, you shouldn’t have saved me.”
“I saved you because your beauty was a waste, so thank the mother who gave birth to you like that.”
“Oh my, thank you.”
Mi-ho brushed off the man’s words as if they were nothing.
On the contrary, the man glared at Mi-ho with a murderous gaze, which was due to her tone of continuing to speak without losing a single time.
Unconsciously, he scratched his head and sighed.
“Do you dislike me that much?”
“If you had stepped forward in the first place, Young Master Dan wouldn’t have had to go through this. And So-mi wouldn’t have had to cry either.”
“That’s all his karma.”
“It’s your karma.”
Mi-ho knew.
Who that man in front of her was.
That’s why she couldn’t just welcome the current situation.
Because she was certain that if he had dealt with it in the first place, various things wouldn’t have happened.
“Don’t look at me with such eyes too much. That guy is stronger than me. Even if we actually fought, I wouldn’t be able to win… so I considered it best to leave it to him.”
“A sacrificial lamb. Our poor young master- sniff!”
Mi-ho slumped down and sobbed as if she was acting. Perhaps that sight was truly amusing, the man burst into laughter without realizing it and opened his mouth.
“Haha, don’t act up. By the way, have you adjusted here a bit?”
“This level of work is easier than chewing on a piece of sweet candy. It’s quite comfortable. Since there’s nothing else to care about.”
“That’s a relief.”
“But having no customers at all is a problem we need to think about a bit.”
“Hahaha-! Don’t worry about that. They’ll be coming one by one soon.”
The man laughed powerfully while saying such words.
Mi-ho knew that his words were by no means empty talk. Therefore, she looked at him for a long time with a strange expression before slowly opening her beautiful lips.
“Are you really going to pass it down? To that child?”
“When the time comes. Not right now…”
“He must be an incredible child, right? To say you’ll pass down this old bookstore that is like a treasure house…? You, who threw everything else away and solely devoted yourself to this.”
“I’m slowly getting tired of that too.”
The man opened the desk drawer while saying such words.
Inside, a single book without even a title yet could be seen sitting there alone. When he took it out and turned a page, the densely written characters that would make one’s eyes hurt caught the eye first.
Mi-ho knew what that was.
That’s why she watched with a more serious expression than at other times.
Meanwhile, the man continued to turn the pages, and when a blank page with not a single line written on it appeared, he slowly reached out his hand.
A bizarre thing began to happen.
The moment his finger touched the blank page, characters began to be engraved. In an instant, it filled one page and went on to fill another blank page.
The process of going past one character, one line, and one page continued, and the moment he finally reached the end, the man breathed evenly with a deeper smile than usual.
“It’s wonderful.”
“It’s a wonderful life. Because there won’t be anyone who lived as diligently as him.”
“Haha, to me it seems it hasn’t ended yet…”
“…?”
Mi-ho looked at the man with an incomprehensible expression. That one phrase was somewhat unsettling, but since she couldn’t exactly understand its meaning, she was just full of doubt.
“Ah, don’t worry, it’s not that guy.”
“Yes?”
“It’s nothing, hehe.”
The man gave a languid smile.
That was extremely grating, so Mi-ho unknowingly frowned. Every time she heard such a laugh, an impulse to rip apart that muzzle surged up crazily.
Mi-ho barely suppressed her clenched fists and held it in.
Tak!
Soon, the man closed the book.
A book filled to the brim.
Just its thickness alone was considerable.
One wouldn’t even be able to imagine how much content was written inside it.
Because it contained a person’s entire life.
“Did you know that?”
“Know what?”
“That guy named Dan Woo-hyun. That guy is…”
“You made him, and the Heavenly Martial Emperor awakened him?”
“Haha, exactly. You somehow knew it.”
The man nodded with a satisfied expression.
No matter how much he was that man, he couldn’t create a person. But if he used the power he possessed, he could impart his power to a certain extent.
Such a person was none other than Dan Woo-hyun.
And it was the Heavenly Martial Emperor who awakened such talent.
If it hadn’t been for the Heavenly Martial Emperor, Dan Woo-hyun wouldn’t have been able to awaken his Star of Death, and naturally, he might have lived a mediocre life and passed away just like that.
“In the end, the Heavenly Martial Emperor shot himself in the foot. What a foolish guy.”
“Weren’t you the one who created that situation in the first place?”
Mi-ho quietly stared at the man’s face.
Her sharp gaze was full of doubt, as if this person wasn’t the cause of all this situation. However, that was close to certainty, because whether she liked it or not, this man was also an inseparable existence in the connection with Dan Woo-hyun.
However, the man ignored Mi-ho’s words.
He smiled as if whatever story she told had nothing to do with him, then turned his gaze and stared at the book on the table.
“What would be good?”
“…”
“He is no different from my alter ego. I have to give him a good name.”
The man was pondering for a while.
What would be good?
The expression of the man having such thoughts looked more serious and enjoyable than ever before. He even looked like a person who had lived for this day.
Soon, a quiet silence fell.
With Mi-ho also saying nothing and just looking at the man, excluding the sound of sweeping the yard coming from outside, it seemed as if no sound existed inside.
The man, who had been pondering deeply for a long time, soon smirked.
“Good!”
Making a decision, he reached out his hand.
As he stretched his finger toward the book, bizarrely, characters began to be engraved one by one.
A majestic handwriting as if a dragon was soaring up into the sky.
There was strength contained in every single character, making it seem like it even made the beholder feel that imposing aura.
It even looked like something that couldn’t possibly come from a person’s fingertips.
Finally, when everything was over.
Five characters were engraved on that book.
Return of the Martial God.
The man made a satisfied expression. That triumphant smile, more so than ever, was fully laden with the happiness of this man who lived only for this day.
However.
“It’s not like you’re a child…”
Mi-ho shook her head from side to side and sent him a dumbfounded expression.
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