Chapter 994: Live a Good Life (7)

Late at night.

In the side room across from the Supreme Sect Leader Hall of the Priestess Order Temple, faint sounds of deep sleep quietly spread—soft snoring, breathing, the occasional long drawl of air: Hrrrng... sss... hooo... sss...

And sure enough, Qing was sprawled out with her arms and legs stretched in total freedom, while Jayeo clung to Qing’s torso like a squirrel—both of them sleeping like rocks.

If anything, it was a scene that proved an old saying was flat-out wrong.

You know the saying: The one who gets hit sleeps stretched out; the one who hits sleeps curled up.

But what was the reality?

The one who did the hitting slept with body and mind refreshed, enjoying the deepest sleep.

And the one who got hit?

If they could even curl up and sleep, they’d be lucky. Instead, they couldn’t fall asleep, tossing and turning, injustice blazing inside them like a furnace—there was no way they could sleep.

On top of that, their nerves were sharp as needles. A single stray thread of pillow fuzz brushing their cheek, a single wrinkle in a nightgown pressing their skin—every tiny sensation was unbearably uncomfortable.

That was exactly the state Hyung Taejak was in, lying in the group ward of Sasa Medical Academy.

He couldn’t sleep.

He couldn’t sleep.

If you summed up why a person couldn’t sleep, it always came down to three cases.

One: you swallowed something that kept you awake.

Two: your body hurt.

Three: your mind hurt.

And Hyung Taejak matched all three.

His coin pouch had been stripped, but with a single silver piece he’d managed to hide away, he’d stubbornly bought an elixir anyway—one that cleared the mind and eased internal injuries. Which meant its primary effect was, of course, driving sleep away.

And on top of that, his body hurt.

There wasn’t a single joint or muscle that hadn’t been hit. Everything throbbed without end—though if you got hit one hundred and eight times, you were bound to get hit evenly.

It hurt too much to sleep.

So what happened in the daytime stayed crystal clear.

*****

“T-the money backer? About... taking over the medical academy—because of circumstances, it looks like payment might be delayed, so first we take it over and then somehow—”

“Already? If you’re like this from the start, how am I supposed to trust you with the medical academy? If patients flood in later and you need money immediately, are you going to ‘have circumstances’ and cut corners on medicine costs? Are you going to just keep taking everything on credit?”

Hyung Taejak’s face flushed red.

Did even an Evil Path demonic master know that what he’d said was humiliating?

Of course not.

His face was red from rage.

How dare this bastard—how dare you crush me like this when someone as high as me lowers myself and begs, when I’m swallowing my pride and saying something this pathetic—how dare you!

Hyung Taejak only piled on more anger—an attitude you could call very “demonic master,” perhaps.

But surprisingly, that kind of person was everywhere.

The type who thinks: I humbled myself enough to ask, and you dare refuse me?

By temperament, he would’ve lashed out or threatened.

But he was in terrible condition—he couldn’t throw hands.

And he couldn’t threaten, either. This was someone else’s territory. He couldn’t give those Priestess Order women any pretext.

So he had to swallow it.

Hyung Taejak might look truly pathetic.

But in the Evil Path, being able to clamp down and endure your temper like this already made you a fairly useful talent.

Of course, the ones who couldn’t control their anger often died before they ever became masters—so if you were an Evil Path master at all, you were supposed to be good at controlling rage.

So Hyung Taejak’s expression turned crafty.

“S-so... it really can’t be helped? A full year of operating funds might be a little difficult.”

“It can’t. You should obviously have that much stockpiled. That way, if something happens, you can still try to work out a solution for a whole year.”

“I-it’s hard to prepare immediately. Isn’t it enough if we deposit a year’s budget long-term? First we put down two months’ budget, then fill the rest gradually...”

In other words: he wanted to pay in installments.

Yeom Hwiyoung held back a laugh.

They’d been stripped of eighty strings. Of course they had no money.

“Two months is too little. Hm... Still, you should have at least six months’ budget prepared. Then—six months is thirty strings, plus twenty strings as expansion funding. Try to prepare fifty strings.”

“About that expansion... first we take over the academy, get settled, and then, ahem...”

Yeom Hwiyoung looked at him like it was unbelievable.

“No—your whole pitch was that you’d expand the academy further and carry out the greatest charity work under heaven. I thought it’d be better run by a bigger organization than mine, so I figured, fine, I’ll hand it over. Is this really how the Evil Path Alliance handles business?”

“No, it’s not like that. Our Evil Path Thug Grand Coalition isn’t running only this one project. And it’s not that we won’t do it—we just need to understand how the business runs first, then—”

“Hah...”

Yeom Hwiyoung sighed heavily.

Then he folded his arms, tapped at his forearm with an index finger, and put on a show of “thinking.”

And then—

“Let’s just stop. A real man’s word is worth a thousand gold—once it leaves his mouth, he has to uphold it with the weight of a thousand gold. But you’re changing your story already. How could I trust you?”

“Wait! Wait—don’t decide so fast. I’m not the person who can decide this here. I’ll go back to headquarters and explain it as best I can. Huh? Just—just give me a chance, okay?”

“Good grief...”

Yeom Hwiyoung’s deep sigh stabbed right into Hyung Taejak’s gut.

*****

Reliving it again, Hyung Taejak couldn’t take it anymore—he kicked his blanket off.

“Ugh—ghhh...”

The pain surged in and he could only tremble.

But it wasn’t just physical pain.

His mind hurt.

It hurt too much.

So much that the physical pain felt like nothing.

And that mental pain turned into rage—aimed at the greatest enemy under heaven, that Wagyu bastard he couldn’t even cool down by chewing to bits.

That bastard. That dog bastard. That orphaned bastard—

How could someone be that wicked?

A martial artist’s pride was sacred. Better to die than to let your pride be damaged. And it was a rivers-and-lakes taboo to dirty even an enemy’s death.

But that bastard—Wagyu, Li Kui, whatever—

Just thinking about that iron mace bonking his head BONK BONK made his skull ring and his teeth grind.

If he hadn’t chosen to “rest” back then?

He would’ve died in the ugliest way imaginable.

The whole world would’ve laughed.

They were trying to spare him and he still couldn’t take the hint, so his head burst, didn’t it?

Or—

How hard was his head to endure getting bonked like that by an iron mace...?

After someone’s been bonked BONK BONK BONK BONK, even dying from it would only make them a joke.

That had been one of the reasons Hyung Taejak had no choice but to “rest” in such a disgraceful way.

But surviving didn’t change the result.

Now he was the pathetic bastard who’d played unconscious because he wanted to live—

And Hyung Taejak wanted to die.

“Wak—kgh...!”

Kicking the blanket off again, he clenched his teeth as the delayed muscle pain slammed into him, blood vessels swelling red in his eyes.

At this point, there was only revenge.

No matter how much of a laughingstock he’d become for clinging to life, it was still better than dying.

Because the dead were mocked forever, but the living still had chances.

All he had to do was catch that bastard—Li Kui—and kill him.

People of the Central Plains had always showered endless praise on revenge-takers who succeeded in the end, no matter how much humiliation they endured along the way.

So once he fully recovered, he’d charge straight to Tianzi Mountain and take that bastard’s throat.

If the vile bastard hadn’t “ambushed” him with that iron mace, he never would’ve lost that badly in the first place.

And then he’d salt that head, make it into a necklace, and wear it around his neck—letting all under heaven know his revenge.

But before that—

He had to report this horrific disaster to the Grand Leader.

And even worse: he had to report that they needed fifty more strings.

How—eighty strings of gold, then fifty strings, and before that a disgraceful defeat, then playing dead—

How was he supposed to present this?

Hyung Taejak wanted to die again.

Desperately.

But the living had to live.

“Haaah—kgh...!”

Kicking his blanket off yet again, he grit his teeth against the pain.

The rest of the night was unbearably long.

*****

Evil Path Alliance Central Hall, Grand Conference Room.

The Alliance’s leadership was in the middle of a meeting, gathered around a crude map. (A precise map, after all, was treason just to possess.)

On the map, a horizontal line from Jiangxi Province west to the Wuling Mountain Range was clearly drawn—and from the Wuling Range, a vertical line ran north through the middle of the Musan Mountain Range to the Yangtze.

And across the top, written in stylish calligraphy:

‘Evil Path Thug Grand Coalition Yangtze Expansion and Waterway Control Plan’

This was the Coalition’s mobile supply line—linking two newly expanded territories: the Greenwood Bandits’ Wuling Mountain Range region, and Sasa Medical Academy in Jagwi County.

Sasa Medical Academy was only a charity clinic—

But strategically, it was a massive achievement.

Just then—

KNOCK KNOCK.

Someone rapped on the conference room door.

“Grand Leader, a letter has arrived from the Golden Hawk Unit Commander.”

A letter from the very person who’d gone to take over the medical academy.

“Oh? Yeah? Did he swallow the academy cleanly? Since things have come to this, shouldn’t our Evil Path Alliance get praised for doing something good too?”

Bu Anpyeong snickered and unfolded the letter.

But then—

“To the respected Grand Leader of the Evil Path Thug Grand Coalition, I dare submit this.

This wretch who deserves death has dared to live and take up the brush. As a defeated commander, I should come to you and beg for death in person, but I am currently grievously wounded and unable to move. In my heart, I would drag this broken body to you crawling if I must and beg forgiveness, but delaying by that many days would only be a greater nuisance, so...”

Bu Anpyeong’s eyebrow twitched.

The way it was already dragging on from the first line—this looked exactly like the kind of rambling preface a screwup wrote before launching into excuses.

And the contents that followed were, unsurprisingly—

“We lost eighty strings.

Bandits robbed us and those bastards are bad bastards. Cowardly bastards, cowardly methods, hiding their strength like cowards. Absolute fucking bastards.

So we couldn’t buy the medical academy, but I tried to haggle and bring it down to fifty strings, you see?

So please send fifty strings so we can buy the medical academy...”

“...You brain-dead bastard...”

Bu Anpyeong let the curse slip in a low voice.

Eighty strings? Fine. You could lose it.

Eighty strings was enormous, sure, but compared to the Coalition’s total income, it wasn’t even that much.

And what? He haggled it down to fifty? After blowing eighty strings?

Fine—let’s say haggling was “good.” If you’d scraped together eighty strings and lost them, even one string mattered.

But.

If things were this bad, he should’ve come in person to report.

Not send a single letter through a messenger.

That was the point where Bu Anpyeong’s rage ignited.

If he came in person, would anyone get so furious they chopped his head off?

Even if he’d ruined everything, if he’d come to report in person, Bu Anpyeong might’ve comforted him instead of scolding him.

(At least, that’s what he thought now. In the moment, who knew what would’ve happened.)

You didn’t run, you came all the way here—good. A man takes responsibility for his mistakes—good, you’re manly, let it go... that sort of thing.

But after botching it this badly, he just tossed a letter full of excuses?

“Grand Leader? What kind of letter is it that you’re reacting like that?”

Bu Anpyeong silently held out his hand.

Chief Strategist Officer Sun Ung took the letter—and from the very first line, his face turned into a funeral mask.

A moment later, a deep—

“Hah...”

“What news is it, Chief Strategist Officer?”

Sun Ung silently held it out.

Treasurer-General Gwan Chiseong took the letter—

And the color drained from their face in real time, turning them ghost-white.

Because it was eighty strings of gold.

Eighty strings.

Eighty strings...

The Grand Leader, the Chief Strategist Officer, the Coalition’s martial artists—every last one of them treated gold like it was nothing.

Every administrative wing and every combat unit held out their hands and demanded money, and they always said the same outrageous thing:

Do you know how much money we bring in?

But if income was money, wasn’t spending also money?

The Coalition brought in enormous sums.

And enormous sums went out.

How many masters were in the combat units? How many personnel besides them?

Those Evil Path bastards caused trouble every day—you had to clean it up. That meant keeping officials sweet with expensive “courtesies.” And headquarters was needlessly huge, buildings too tall—maintenance costs rotated endlessly.

And now—eighty strings.

On top of declaring they’d pour five strings a month into the medical academy, on top of adding budget for the first-stage reconstruction of the Greenwood region for strategic expansion—

Eighty strings.

Eighty strings...!

“M-my—my—my money, my money...! Nghk.”

And then—

THUMP.

The Treasurer-General clutched the back of their neck and collapsed on the spot.

Why it was the Treasurer-General’s money specifically was unclear.

But in any case—

Regrettable!