Chapter 113: Gyeon's Ten Rounds (2)
Gyeon Sul was drunk from early afternoon.
Therefore, he gulped down unfiltered alcohol recklessly.
Things were such that the young woman, unable to watch any longer, came out of the kitchen and sat next to him to strain the alcohol.
“Ugh~ I’m sorry~ but I can’t help but drink! In the past, I used to gulp it down like this here every single day~”
“You were grandmother’s customer, so it’s fine. There are no other customers anyway. And I let handsome people off.”
The owner, also possessing a good nature, filled Gyeon Sul’s cup.
There were already three empty liquor tubs.
Soon, Gyeon Sul, fully drunk, brought up his own story.
“*Hiccup*—come to think of it…… to me…… I had an older brother, I mean…….”
It was the past tense, ‘had,’ rather than ‘have.’
Chui silently ate his porridge.
Gyeon Sul continued to speak.
“My brother’s name was Gyeon Rang, and I am Gyeon Sul…… My brother was a wolf and I am a dog…… But my brother was extremely short and ugly. His face was completely worn out, his skin was pockmarked, and his back was bent…… while I, as you can see, eh? I am sleek and tall like this. So people said that the brother and the younger brother should swap their names…… or something like that.”
The older brother Gyeon Rang was small and ugly, unlike a wolf.
The younger brother Gyeon Sul was large and handsome, unlike a dog.
Gyeon Sul slumped over the table.
And giggling, he spoke.
“My brother worked under a medicine peddler. He didn’t have the skill to make medicine…… but when the medicine peddler set up a stall, he performed tricks next to it. You know, like a performing monkey. He did that sort of thing. They said a tiny guy like him looked funny…… Me? What did I do, you ask? I didn’t work! I just lived while gambling with the pocket money my brother gave me. I was completely a gigolo itself. Well, even so, my brother always believed in me? Saying, ‘Our younger brother is someone who will do great things someday~.’ Hahaha—”
Chui put down his porridge bowl.
Thud—
He did not have much interest in Gyeon Sul’s past history.
This was because, from the sound of it, it was just a common story about an older brother and a younger brother with a deep bond who missed each other after not meeting for a long time.
However, regardless of that, Gyeon Sul, fully drunk, continued to tell his own story.
“But you see…… my brother had a wife. Uh!? You just thought, ‘Since the brother’s appearance was ugly, that woman must have been ugly too,’ didn’t you? No! That woman was beautiful. She was tall and had a great figure, anyway she was quite famous in this region. Her name was Pan Jinlian…….”
The short, ugly, and moneyless Gyeon Rang had a beautiful wife.
“Well, of course my brother didn’t seduce her with his looks or ability. Apparently, the parents were close and promised to bind the two in an unborn child betrothal or something like that…… but in the year following the wedding, a plague broke out and all the parents of both families died. So it just turned out annoying only for that woman, Pan Jinlian. If they had delayed the marriage by just a year, she wouldn’t have had to be forcibly married to my brother.”
At that, the inn owner filled Gyeon Sul’s cup with alcohol.
“Still, your older brother was lucky. Since he even got a beautiful spouse.”
“Lucky? Well…… I don’t really know.”
Gyeon Sul continued to speak as he gulped down the alcohol.
“As for me, even when my brother and sister-in-law got married, I couldn’t pull myself together and kept living as a scoundrel. I kept freeloading at my brother’s newlywed home.”
“That is a bit disappointing.”
“A lot disappointing, honestly. But you see……”
Gyeon Sul’s eyes looking at the owner narrowed.
“One day, you see. When my brother went out to work with the medicine peddler. I was going out to gamble as usual…… but, sigh, snow was falling heavily that day. It was almost a blizzard. Suddenly I couldn’t see anything in front of me. Since it happened while I was on the road, what could I do. I suddenly got extremely annoyed, you know?”
“If that happens, you wouldn’t want to do gambling or anything.”
“Correct. So I wondered what to do and just decided to go back home.”
“So, did you return home?”
“I went. I shouldn’t have gone.”
Gyeon Sul’s mouth was smiling, but his eyes were not.
“I went home, but there were two pairs of shoes? They weren’t my brother’s shoes, nor were they mine, and judging by the size, it was clear they were men’s shoes. Moreover, they were very expensive leather shoes, I tell you.”
“Oh my, oh my, oh my.”
The inn owner covered her mouth and made a sad expression.
It seemed she had already guessed the catastrophe of this story.
Sure enough, Gyeon Sul spoke with a frown.
“Wondering what it was, I looked around the house. At first, I thought it was a thief. Then I went to my brother’s room in the inner part…….”
“And you went there?”
“Suddenly, the room door burst open and a black-masked man popped out.”
“Oh my!”
The inn owner had a good reaction.
Unlike Chui, who looked blatantly uninterested, she listened closely to Gyeon Sul’s story, revealing her anxious heart through her expression.
“That masked bastard seemed to have learned martial arts. He suddenly kicked my chest hard, and wow—until then, I had never lost a fight to anyone in the marketplace? Yet, even so, that single blow was enough to lay me up sick for three days.”
“What happened to that masked man?”
“Ah, he ran away like crazy. When I opened the room door while almost crawling, my sister-in-law was well, dressed neatly…… but a person who was supposed to have been robbed surprisingly had no wounds on her body. Her clothes were also clean as if she had just adjusted them. Nothing was missing from the house either. In the first place, it’s a household that doesn’t even have jewelry to be lost, so what kind of robber would it be.”
“It’s an affair. That masked man was the lover.”
“Anyone who hears it would find it suspicious, right? Exactly. All one thousand of my subordinates at the mountain fortress said the exact same thing.”
“Oh my? You have as many as a thousand subordinates? That is amazing~”
“It’s not a lie. It’s true. Anyway, that’s not what’s important~”
“Sure. Let’s assume so. So, what’s next?”
“So, after my body fully recovered, I would go out saying I was gambling and then secretly return to lie in ambush. Every single day.”
“Oh my, every single day?”
“Yeah. Every single day. And about a month into my ambush, only then did I find out who my sister-in-law’s lover was.”
“Who was it?”
“That guy was Ximen Qing. The dandy young master kicked out of the Ximen Clan. The leader of the scoundrels in that area.”
“Oh dear……!”
Hearing the name Ximen Qing, anger dwelled in the inn owner’s eyes.
Gyeon Sul smirked and leaned his back against the wall.
“But back then, there was nothing I could do. Ximen Qing, that guy had lots of money, was strong, and had a solid backing.”
“Don’t tell me you couldn’t do anything?”
“Hey—even so, I couldn’t just sit idly by. I told my brother everything. That his wife was having an affair.”
“At least that’s fortunate. Since they could just part ways cleanly. Though it would be a bit hard on his heart…….”
“But it didn’t turn out like that.”
“Eh? Why? You told him that his wife had an affair, so why?”
“Presumably, my brother must have really loved his wife a lot.”
Gyeon Sul scratched his head as if he couldn’t understand.
And then, clicking his tongue, he continued speaking.
“My brother didn’t believe my words. Saying there was no way his wife would do that, and that I must have misunderstood something.”
“How could one misunderstand such a thing!?”
“Exactly. So I said, then let’s lie in ambush together, you and I. I will show you with your own two eyes clearly that son of a bitch Ximen Qing coming to sleep with her. I asked if he would believe my words then.”
“So? Did it happen that way?”
“Well. We did lie in ambush for a few days, but……”
Gyeon Sul’s expression completely rotted.
Then, he gulped down the alcohol in his cup all at once.
“My sister-in-law was quicker-witted than expected.”
“Why? Were you caught lying in ambush?”
“Caught? We were completely reverse-exploited.”
“What do you mean by reverse-exploited?”
“You see, even though my sister-in-law knew that my brother and I were hiding behind the fence in the backyard of the house, she called Ximen Qing.”
“She called her lover even while knowing?”
“Listen. What do you think she did after calling Ximen Qing?”
“Well…… since she knew her husband and brother-in-law were hiding and watching, she wouldn’t have done anything foolish, right?”
“Exactly. Beyond doing something foolish, she did something evil.”
“What did she do?”
“Right there, you see. My sister-in-law called Ximen Qing over and said, ‘My brother-in-law is framing our relationship. The reason I called you is for counseling, and that worry is precisely the fact that my brother-in-law violated me.'”
“Pardon? No, this is completely……!”
“There is no framing like this framing. That bitch Pan Jinlian requested Ximen Qing, ‘My brother-in-law violated me, so please punish the beast who raped his older brother’s wife.’ The reason she called Ximen Qing instead of the government office was supposedly because ‘she was afraid her husband would be shocked if he found out about this’? So saying it must be handled in secret, she cried her eyes out and put on an act of a virtuous woman, and yet……”
“S-so what happened?”
“What do you mean what happened. I was screwed. My brother seemed confused about whether to believe me or his wife.”
“No, still, he should believe his younger brother!”
“Because to my brother, his wife was also an object of love. So it’s like this, in my brother’s mind, he couldn’t imagine at all these two things: ‘that I violated my sister-in-law’ and ‘that my sister-in-law had an affair with another man.’ But one of the two was unconditionally the truth in this situation, right?”
“So what happened?”
Gyeon Sul sighed deeply at the owner’s words.
And he heavily opened his mouth.
“You remember what I said at the very beginning, right? That to me, I ‘had’ an older brother, rather than ‘have.'”
“Ah…….”
The inn owner lamented.
Gyeon Sul picked up his liquor bowl.
“My brother abandoned me. From that day on, he told me to leave the house.”
“In the end, he fell for the frame-up.”
“What could I do. That bitch Pan Jinlian’s brain was better than mine. But you see, this wasn’t the end.”
Gyeon Sul smirked.
“I was kicked out of my brother’s house and was leaving the village…… but a masked person suddenly popped out at the entrance of the mountain path.”
“C-could it be?”
“Exactly. It was Ximen Qing.”
“Why did he come? Don’t tell me……”
“That ‘don’t tell me’ is correct. He drew his sword, saying I must pay the price for insulting him as an adulterer.”
“H-how did it go?”
“What do you mean how did it go. Until then, I didn’t know martial arts. I just ran like hell. Even though my shoulders, back, waist, and thighs were completely hacked up, I stubbornly escaped. In the end, fully covered in blood, I rolled into the waterway below the rice field ridge.”
“Oh dear…… did that guy not chase you?”
“Perhaps thinking I was dead, he just left. Well, even if I was alive, since the weather was extremely cold and it was a deserted place, he probably thought I would die soon.”
“But how did you survive?”
“Well. It was heavenly luck. My master happened to be passing by nearby. That’s how I was picked up, raised, and taught martial arts, and that’s why I’ve just returned to my hometown like this.”
With this, Gyeon Sul’s long story ended.
“Anyway, yeah. Since being disowned by my brother like that, it’s the first time I’ve come to my hometown. I lived without even knowing any news since then.”
“How would your older brother be doing?”
“Who knows. Falling under a woman’s skirt and even kicking out his younger brother, wouldn’t he be living well? No, he must be living well. Still, since I threatened that bitch Pan Jinlian at the end, saying ‘If you betray my brother, you will surely pay the price,’ well…… wouldn’t she have changed her mind? I’d like to think so.”
“Why don’t you go visit him once?”
“Yeah. I was planning to do so anyway. Forgetting all the past bitterness, I just wanted to peek at how he’s living. But since it seems a bit hard to do so sober……”
Gyeon Sul, muttering the end of his sentence, began to gulp down large quantities of alcohol again.
Just then, Chui spoke.
“I have no interest in your story, so tell me more about that guy named Ximen Qing.”
“No, why are you so interested in that guy? I told you. He’s an ‘old friend’ who slept with my sister-in-law. We weren’t on particularly good terms…… eh?”
Right at that moment, Gyeon Sul’s eyes popped open.
The inn door opened and a man entered inside.
He walked in with familiar steps and sat facing the wall without even looking inside.
And Gyeon Sul, staring intently at his back.
Soon, the corners of Gyeon Sul’s mouth curved askew.
“Look who it is. To meet my ‘old friend’ of all places here.”
Unrivaled Spear Ghost