CLS-Chapter 265

Chapter 265

It’s not easy for a person to keep their word. Action is difficult, while words are easy—isn’t that a universal truth?

From that perspective, Wei Yan-ho was never someone who would keep his promises. At least, that’s what Peng Cho-yeong thought. But Peng Cho-yeong still didn’t know Wei Yan-ho well enough.

Wei Yan-ho was the type who might not speak in the first place, but once words left his mouth, he absolutely kept them.

This was the result of Wei Jeong-han’s relentless early education that ‘a man must always keep his word’ combined with Wei San-ho’s joint attack philosophy of treating ‘a man’s word is worth a thousand gold’ as his golden rule.

Wei Yan-ho raised his sword and charged at Peng Cho-yeon.

“Ahhhhh! Young Master Weiiiii!”

Peng Cho-yeong shrieked and leaped in front of Wei Yan-ho. Of course, stopping Wei Yan-ho, who was practically a human weapon, was like a pipe dream, but even if he got beaten and sent flying, it was a hundred times better than his father getting sent flying.

It was the result of tearful filial piety and tearful family love exploding forth.

“Hey! What the hell!”

Wei Yan-ho looked annoyed at Peng Cho-yeong, who had turned pale and jumped in front of him.

He needed to quickly and cleanly deal with that old man before his father arrived, but this annoying pest was buzzing around like a fly, which couldn’t help but irritate him.

“Ugh! Get out of the way!”

He wanted to just blow him away immediately given his temperament, but looking at his face, he seemed to be someone he was acquainted with, so he couldn’t just beat him up. Just as he was pondering what to do, Wei Jeong-han kicked down the door and entered.

“Why! Why again, why!”

Wei Jeong-han wailed.

“Would thorns grow in your mouth if you went a single day without causing trouble! Why are you causing another incident, why!”

Wei Jeong-han’s frustration was exploding.

“You’re usually lazy as hell, but why do you become the most diligent person in the world when it comes to causing trouble! Even someone trying to cause trouble on purpose wouldn’t go around causing as much trouble as you!”

“…No, but—”

“Don’t even try to come out! You’re the type who won’t budge from your room even when told to come out, but the moment I’m away, you crawl out and cause trouble! Trouble!”

Wei Yan-ho felt very wronged.

It was Ho Cheol-san and the visitors who had dragged him out of his room where he was quietly staying. Wei Yan-ho really wanted to stay in his room. But to be misunderstood as if he was producing trouble all by himself—his heart couldn’t help but ache.

“No, I didn’t cause trouble…”

“Talking back again!”

This was unreasonable.

Too unreasonable.

Wei Yan-ho’s lips jutted out in a pout, but Wei Jeong-han just kept clicking his tongue.

“No, I didn’t cause trouble—that gentleman threw the first punch!”

“First punch?”

Wei Jeong-han scoffed.

Jokes should be kept within reason.

The people here all witnessed Wei Yan-ho beating down the Martial King with their own eyes. Would such people pick a fight with Wei Yan-ho?

Unless they were completely out of their minds, no sane person would do such a crazy thing…

“Huh?”

There was one.

Wei Jeong-han, who had casually turned his head and spotted someone who might indeed be out of their mind behind him, widened his eyes greatly.

“Se, Senior Do-wan?”

“…It’s been a while.”

Do-wan Peng Cho-yeon gave an awkward greeting.

‘He might have thrown the first punch.‘

If it were someone else, maybe not, but if it was Do-wan, it was possible. While other people think first then move, Do-wan was someone whose body moved first and head moved afterward.

During the Demonic Cult’s rampage in the past, how many crises did they have to overcome thanks to that thoughtless man’s meddling?

‘He’s not a bad person, but…‘

That made it worse.

If he had bad intentions and cornered people, at least there would be grounds for punishment, but he had no bad intentions and his heart for people was no different from that of the Orthodox factions, yet he worsened situations because he couldn’t control his own temperament—wasn’t Do-wan exactly that kind of person you couldn’t say anything to?

Wei Jeong-han looked at Do-wan with a sour expression, then turned his head back to Wei Yan-ho.

“…”

Wei Yan-ho was pouting with the most wronged expression in the world.

‘Sorry.‘

How was I supposed to know it was this guy? If I had known, I wouldn’t have done that.

Wei Jeong-han smiled awkwardly, feeling apologetic.

“Why, why did you come down?”

“Because you called me.”

“Who did?”

“I don’t know. The people downstairs said a huge crowd had gathered and told me to come down and see. I was just trying to sleep.”

“…Is, is that so?”

Only then understanding the situation, Wei Jeong-han looked around. Those whose eyes met his slightly turned their heads to avoid his gaze.

‘Damn bastards.‘

What kind of chaos did they create while he was away for things to reach this point? Wei Jeong-han began wracking his brains over how to resolve this situation.

He could fully understand why his son was acting this way, but why Peng Cho-yeon was here was completely incomprehensible.

“It’s been a while, Senior Do-wan.”

“Indeed… Is this the first time since then?”

“Yes.”

Watching Wei Jeong-han’s uncomfortable expression, Peng Cho-yeon let out a subtle sigh.

‘Wei Jeong-han, of all people.‘

Wei Jeong-han was someone he’d been quite entangled with in the past. Due to Wei Jeong-han’s near-obsessive personality and his own fiery temperament, the two clashed so often it made the phrase ‘sworn enemies’ seem pale.

Back then, since their backgrounds were so different, Do-wan hadn’t been pushed back and had pressed Wei Jeong-han instead, but…

‘Now I seem to be the one being pushed back.‘

Whether you’re being pushed back or pushing forward isn’t decided by others. Standing face-to-face with Wei Jeong-han, the fact that his shoulders were somehow shrinking showed that the background of Wei Yan-ho alone was completely devouring the background of the Peng Family.

Do-wan rubbed his face with a grim expression.

‘The Peng Family won’t all come forward just because I alone get beaten here.‘

Families were peculiar—when one member suffered somewhere, everyone would step forward to help, but when one member might cause damage to the family, they tended to thoroughly cut that member loose.

Especially when there were already quite a few within the family who disliked Peng Cho-yeon’s declining status due to his personality, who would step forward if he made an enemy of the Guangdong Wei Family?

On the other hand…

Peng Cho-yeon sighed as he looked at Wei Yan-ho grumbling behind Wei Jeong-han.

‘That kid’s father is the one being wronged, so he’ll probably foam at the mouth and go berserk.‘

They say a well-raised son is worth ten families, and Do-wan was feeling that saying acutely.

“What brings you here?”

“Ah? Well, I was just passing by and heard your son was famous these days, so I thought I’d take a look at his face.”

“…But what’s this situation about?”

Do-wan awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

“Well, isn’t it a common occurrence?”

It was just something he’d seen often before and would see often in the future. Unable to find any room for excuses in Do-wan’s answer, Wei Jeong-han sighed deeply.

‘He’s done it again.‘

He’d thought Wei Yan-ho had caused trouble, but if Do-wan was the one who caused it?

Wei Jeong-han sneakily glanced behind him. Wei Yan-ho, who had ‘HEART’ written on one cheek and ‘ACHE’ on the other, was puffing out his cheeks.

“Well, um…”

“It’s fine.”

Wei Yan-ho waved his hand.

Oh, what’s gotten into this kid? Normally he would throw a fit asking if I didn’t trust my own child…

“Everything Father does is like that. What’s so surprising about it? When trouble breaks out, your educational policy is to scold me first and ask questions later, so you don’t need to bother finding excuses.”

“Grrrr.”

Of course.

There was no way Wei Yan-ho would understand something like this.

“Right. I roughly understand the situation. So…”

How should he clean this up?

Irritation crossed Wei Jeong-han’s face.

‘Should I just let him get beaten up, seriously!‘

Thinking about all the things that had happened between him and Do-wan, he wanted to just wash his hands of it and leave, but still, whether it was grudging affection or not, it felt unsettling to let the young punk beat up an adult.

“It seems there was a bit of a misunderstanding.”

“Misunderstanding?”

Wei Yan-ho glared.

“What kind of misunderstanding in the world makes someone swing a sword at another person?”

“…Right?”

“If misunderstandings happen twice, we’ll have a dismemberment murder. No wait, if I hadn’t stopped it, that would have been dismemberment murder! I should turn him over to the authorities!”

Wei Jeong-han nodded, going “Mm-hmm.”

Wei Yan-ho’s words weren’t wrong.

“So why did you do that?”

“…”

Do-wan became like a mute who had eaten honey.

Normally, keeping quiet in such a situation would be absolutely impossible for someone like him, but Wei Yan-ho was like a therapeutic medicine that forcibly controlled anger.

“So what do you want to do?”

“If I got sucker-punched, I should beat him back.”

“Still, he’s an adult…”

“What age matters in the martial world? There’s no order to dying.”

“That’s true.”

Wei Jeong-han was gradually being swayed by Wei Yan-ho’s words.

“And Father, you said so yourself. In the martial world, you must never let yourself be looked down upon. If I just let this slide here, every passerby might think it’s fun and take a swing at me.”

Though that wouldn’t really happen.

Wei Jeong-han sneakily gauged Wei Yan-ho’s mood.

It seemed like Wei Yan-ho absolutely wouldn’t back down until he gave Peng Cho-yeon a thorough beating.

Besides, objectively speaking, wasn’t Wei Yan-ho in the right?

“Then well…”

Wei Jeong-han slowly stepped back. Withdrawing from here would be…

Grab!

At that moment, someone grabbed his arm.

Do-wan looked at Wei Jeong-han with a terrified expression, then began whispering to him quietly.

“Wh, what if you just slip away?”

“As you can see.”

Wei Jeong-han answered indifferently.

“No matter how much I am his father, stopping my son in this situation doesn’t seem right.”

“Th, then what about me?”

“Well, why did you throw the first punch at a kid who was just sitting quietly?”

“Wh, what can I do about my personality being like this?”

“Anyway, I can’t stop him anymore. If I try to stop him without reason, that kid would even hit his own father…”

Wei Yan-ho was instantly demoted to the worst unfilial son. But those words seemed to burden Peng Cho-yeon more than anything else.

“He, help me.”

“There’s nothing I can help you with.”

“I’ll do anything you ask. Just somehow help me get out of this situation.”

Do-wan looked around anxiously with desperate eyes. What would happen if he got beaten by Wei Yan-ho in front of all these watching eyes was being demonstrated by the Martial King right now.

“Hmm.”

Wei Jeong-han looked at Do-wan with an indifferent expression, then opened his mouth.

“Anything?”

“Anything!”

“Hmmm.”

Wei Jeong-han nodded repeatedly, then sneakily approached Wei Yan-ho and whispered in his ear.

As Wei Yan-ho listened to Wei Jeong-han’s whisper, his expression changed moment by moment, then he nodded firmly.

“If that’s the case!”

As Wei Yan-ho stepped back, Wei Jeong-han smiled triumphantly and turned to look at Do-wan.

‘Wh, what did he say?‘

And what was he supposed to do?

Wei Jeong-han quietly walked toward him. With each step Wei Jeong-han took closer, Do-wan felt his blood draining.

Wei Jeong-han walked right up to Do-wan and whispered quietly in his ear.

“Just take one hit.”

“…What?”

“I’ll arrange for it to be handled discreetly in a quiet place.”

“T, take a hit?”

“That kid has such a nasty personality that he’ll never forget being attacked. I negotiated for it to end with just one punch without resistance. But in a place where others can’t see. I can’t do anything more than this for you.”

Do-wan’s mind began spinning frantically.

Getting beaten without resistance versus getting beaten while resisting—which was more advantageous?

Glancing at the commoners watching him with bright, curious eyes, Do-wan’s head nodded weakly. He accepted that either way, the side that attracted less attention would be more advantageous.

“…Please handle it quietly.”

“How could there be any question?”

And so, another victim was added to the list.