Chapter 999: Live a Good Life (12)

Hyung Taejak’s mind went distant.

No—why is there a Mystical Realm master here?

A Mystical Realm master isn’t some rare beast or spirit herb you bump into once in a while.

Even if you only count the well-known names of Mystical Realm in this vast Central Plains, it’s just nine people—sure, people guess there are at least that many more hiding their realm, but still, the number of known Mystical Realm is exactly that.

For there to be a reclusive master who’d reached Mystical Realm in a backwater charity clinic like this—what kind of absurd situation was that supposed to be?

Whether Hyung Taejak liked it or not, Yeom Hwiyoung raised one finger.

“All right. First lesson in becoming good. A good person keeps money relationships clean.”

“Huh?”

“Repeat it. One. A good person keeps money relationships clean.”

“A-a good person keeps money relationships clean.”

Hyung Taejak repeated Yeom Hwiyoung’s lesson.

He had no idea what being a good person had to do with “clean money relationships,” but if a Mystical Realm master said so, then that was how it had to be.

Yeom Hwiyoung smiled in satisfaction, then stuck his hand out.

Hyung Taejak was still sitting there after getting dunked in the pond, so he reached out, thinking Yeom Hwiyoung was going to pull him out—

And Yeom Hwiyoung scowled and slapped his hand away.

“Who said you could take my hand? Give me my money. Money.”

“...Huh?”

“Tch. You’re hopeless. Even when I tell you how, you don’t know how to become good? I just taught you. What does a good person have to do?”

“Keep money relationships clean......”

Hyung Taejak still didn’t understand what being good had to do with money relationships.

Maybe his face showed it, because Yeom Hwiyoung’s mouth curved.

“Right. Borrowing money muddies people. When you borrow because times are hard, you’re grateful and willing—but when it’s time to pay back, you start feeling like it’s a waste. People’s slyness is like that by nature, isn’t it? So if you want to become good, you have to clean up your money relationships first.”

It wasn’t wrong.

If it hadn’t been said by the very person trying to collect, it would’ve been downright persuasive.

But when a creditor says it, it only feels like a trick to squeeze out repayment—because that’s how people are.

And that, too, was exactly why money relationships had to be clean. Look—right now, isn’t he thinking, This is the kind man who lent me money, but he’s scheming to get it back, and feeling his irritation surge?

“I-I don’t know how I’m supposed to get five strings of gold... ah, right—the signboard, I’ll give you the signboard. It’s that—what was it—a masterpiece by some famous calligraphy craftsman, KGH.”

Hyung Taejak clutched his solar plexus.

Because even if it was just a smooth pond pebble, if it nailed you dead center in the solar plexus, it hurt like hell.

And at the same time, his insides turned cold.

A pebble that had been sitting still jumped up on its own and struck his solar plexus—this had to be the Mystical Realm master’s divine feat, some method of making a projectile obey the will.

Of course, strictly speaking, it wasn’t.

Among the known Mystical Realm masters, only Ximen Surin could properly wield blade-flight like that, because it took long practice and was hard to use in real combat.

Yeom Hwiyoung had only flicked a stone at the right angle—but the martial art he’d mastered was so tyrannical that he simply sent it by twisting the very direction of force with Heaven-and-Earth Great Shift.

Of course, he’d used inner power outside his body, so it was still a Mystical Realm feat.

“Kid, you’ve got a long way to go if you want to become good.”

“B-but why? If you sell that writing to rich men who understand calligraphy, you can get more than five strings......”

“Sure—if you take it to nouveau-riche types in Beijing or Jiangnan and sell it. There are people who go insane over ‘rare writing.’”

“Then... then wouldn’t that mean you, I mean, you too, sir, would profit......”

“Hey. So you want me to collect the money I lent you by carrying a signboard all the way to Beijing and selling it? Is it right for the lender to do the legwork just to get paid? You’ve got a long way to go if you want to become good.”

“Still... it’s a profitable thing.”

“Just to make a little more gold, I’m supposed to go all the way to Beijing and back? The labor is labor, and what about the time? My time is far more precious than that little gold. Yeah.”

“‘That little gold’......”

“Anyway, if you want to become a good person, you have to pay back the money first, right?”

“Don’t worry about the payment—if we send the signboard to the Evil Path Thug Grand Coalition, they’ll definitely pay—ah! Sir, I’ll carry the signboard back myself and settle it face-to-face—!”

PLOP. PLOP. He tossed stones.

Hyung Taejak clutched his solar plexus again.

Yeom Hwiyoung’s face twisted hard.

“No. Where do you think you’re going? You’re the one who borrowed money.”

“I-it’s just that our Evil Path Thug Grand Coalition might refuse to pay, so I’ll settle it face-to-face—”

“Stop your bullshit.”

“Th... yes......”

That was such obvious bullshit that anyone would’ve heard it as bullshit, so Hyung Taejak bowed his head low.

Watching him, Yeom Hwiyoung’s mouth curled up on one side—an infuriating smile.

“A man’s word is worth a thousand gold. If a man puts words in his mouth, he has to keep them. You said you want to become good—if you’re a man, you have to keep it even if you stake your life.”

“T-that’s... it doesn’t have to be that far—”

“But if you’re not a man—more precisely, if you’re a eunuch—then you can change your words and people will just go, well, he’s a eunuch bastard, what do you expect. So if you want to take it back, say it now. I’ll make you not a man. But didn’t you just say something?”

“I absolutely want to become a good person!”

Yeom Hwiyoung nodded, satisfied.

“When my mother gave me my name, she told me to become someone useful to the world. And now an Evil Path demonic master bastard wants to become a new person—helping him is also something useful to the world, isn’t it? So I should gladly help our junior change his heart, right?”

“Yes......”

“You can’t leave Jagwi County until you’re good enough, in my eyes. If I didn’t allow it and you still leave this town? I’ll mobilize every method I have and kill you. You understand what that means, right?”

Hyung Taejak broke into a cold sweat. Luckily, he was soaked through from the pond, so it didn’t show on the surface.

What could he do? If he wanted to live, he had to crawl.

“Now—if you understand, repeat after me. Second lesson in becoming good. A good person has to have a heavy mouth.”

“A good person has to have a heavy mouth!”

“Why do you think I live with my strength hidden? Because I wanted to live quietly, just doing good things. But now you found out, didn’t you? Still, it’s fortunate. You want to become a good person. But what if you say you want to become good and your mouth gets light?”

“I’ll take this to the grave!”

“Good. I gave you two precious teachings today. Keep at it. Devote yourself with the resolve that if you can’t become good, you’d rather die. In truth, you will actually die, but.”

“I’ll devote myself with the resolve to die!”

Yeom Hwiyoung nodded along.

“Then get rid of the signboard quickly and tell them to send the money. If it’s Taehwa County, load it on a boat and send it—shouldn’t take long.”

*****

Yeom Hwiyoung mentioned in passing that it should be loaded on a boat and shipped.

But even aside from that, if you wanted to transport something like a signboard, water transport was overwhelmingly more convenient.

From Jagwi County to Taehwa County, you could ride the Yangtze’s waterways and reach it in one stretch, and since you’d be going downstream, it was relatively fast and safe.

Most of all, you had a certain freedom in terms of cargo size.

Just imagine trying to move a massive signboard with eleven characters stamped on it like a door.

First, loading it onto a cart wouldn’t be easy; if people pulled it, it would be hard and take forever; if animals pulled it, animals were expensive.

And on top of that, the crude ancient wheels of this primitive era had no shock absorption, which did the cargo no favors at all.

So if you were going to deliver a signboard that big to the Evil Path Alliance, it was basically water transport or nothing from the start.

So Hyung Taejak did exactly that.

There were two ways to move freight by water out of Jagwi County.

Either you found a boat headed to your destination and paid them to take it, or you hired a shipowner who had nothing to do and sent them to your destination.

The first was cheap, but inconvenient in all kinds of ways.

If it was a common destination like Wuhan or Jiangnan, boats were easier to find—but for a route like Taehwa County, where there wasn’t much traffic, how long were you supposed to wait and guess when a boat would pass?

And even after you handed it off, there was the next problem.

Freight received mid-route was often not managed properly, and sometimes it was even forgotten and left sitting somewhere.

The second method was expensive, but certain and fast—but?

If you recruited a shipowner in Jagwi County, they were inevitably someone from the Seol Family Trading House or the Taecheong Merchant House.

And what did that mean?

It meant Qing could come and go as she pleased, like it was her own home.

No—more accurately, they welcomed her even more enthusiastically than they would at her own home.

“Ah—Miss, you’ve come! Goodness, why did you come all the way here? If you’d stayed at the Trading House, we would’ve gone right there and—bam!—escorted you!”

“No, a person has to come if the boat’s going to come, right?”

“What couldn’t we do to escort you, Miss? Everyone here is ready to lift the whole boat and carry it to come get you!”

What is this—does suck-up talk spread by contact?

Well, anyway, it meant they were that happy to see her.

“Anyway, it’s loaded right now, right?”

“Yes, Miss. This way.”

Inside the cargo hold of a small cargo boat.

Qing started untying the cord binding the plain cotton cloth wrapped around the signboard.

And then—the grand, majestic writing on the signboard was revealed!

But it didn’t apply to Qing.

To her, it was just standard handwriting with nothing particularly surprising about it, but these pseudo–Central Plains ancient people couldn’t stop freaking out.

Because of that, I can’t even write freely.......

Not that I have any reason to write, anyway.

Qing hoisted the signboard up.

Then she turned the written face downward and slapped the back of it with her palm—THUMP THUMP.

A thin wooden panel separated—TUK—and dropped to the floor with a surprisingly light sound.

Then she flipped the signboard over—and the eleven characters, which had been written in that grand brushwork, had been swapped out so cleanly it was like a magic trick.

「The Evil Path Thug Grand Coalition」

Some letters were big, some letters were small.

Some letters were round, some letters were sharp, and some were hard to even recognize.

The letter spacing was a disaster, so the letters were always about to fall apart into separate words, and even though the signboard was wide and roomy, she had no idea why the letters were crammed forward.

And then—oh, for fuck’s sake—she’d stuck only the very last letter way out at the end, so it sat there all by itself.

Looking again, she started laughing.

Seen like this, it almost felt like a treasure too precious to send to those Evil Path bastards.

They said memories lived in the heart, but proof was something you kept so you could look at it sometimes and remember.

But what could she do. She’d come this far.

Next time she could just hold a second World’s Greatest Writing Contest......

Assembly was the reverse of disassembly.

Qing wrapped the signboard—missing its panel—back up in plain cotton cloth and tied it down tight with cord.

Then the signboard went into a box.

The panel that had fallen to the floor—TOK TOK TOK TOK—she snapped it in half, then in half again, tucked the pieces under her arm, and trotted out......