CLS-Chapter 201

Chapter 201

There was something like a premonition.

I had received the feeling several times that something was scheming in the shadows. But there was no evidence, and no particular suspects either.

Not just me, but Elder Cho Hyeon said he felt the same thing too.

Hm?

You’re saying that since Elder Cho Hyeon and I felt the same thing, we must have had similar levels of insight?

Uhehehehehe.

I suppose you could say that.

……That’s a joke. Don’t look so serious.

Maybe if it were me now, with time passed and experience and knowledge accumulated, but back then I was just a greenhorn. I couldn’t dare compare myself to Elder Cho Hyeon.

However, the fact that even someone like me felt something similar meant that their movements had changed quite concretely, didn’t it?

Anyway, back then it was… how should I put it?

Like searching for a path in fog?

It felt like we should go this way, but I couldn’t be certain, and yet walking blindly forward felt like we’d get lost—that strange feeling.

That anxiety turned into certainty during what you call the Huashan Great Tournament.

How was it passed down in later generations?

When the wicked attacked Huashan to target the rising stars of the world, the Radiant Martial Lord rose up resolutely and declared, “Those who cannot surpass me shall not dare set even one foot in Huashan?

Keuu……

What a heroic demeanor indeed.

But what do you think it was actually like?

Kikikikikik.

Don’t frown like that. You must be guessing by now. The fact that reality is sometimes quite cruel.

Right?

Good, I’m glad you know.

So let me tell you what happened there. You’ll probably find it interesting after hearing it.

Yes, what happened back then?

I think something happened on the way too, but it’s been so long that my memory isn’t clear.

There was definitely something.

***

Namgung Hye couldn’t smooth her face.

‘I’ll get wrinkles.’

She knew that maintaining an expressionless face was good for stable skin, but she couldn’t help but keep furrowing her brow.

The reason for Namgung Hye’s furrowed brow was obvious.

Wei Yan-ho.

Who else among them could make her feel so bewildered if not him?

Namgung Hye looked up at the cart with a somewhat dazed expression.

There was Wei Yan-ho, who had somehow crawled out from inside the cart and was now lying sprawled on the cart’s roof.

That itself wasn’t particularly strange.

When she had come to the Supreme Heavenly Righteous Alliance with Wei Yan-ho before, she had seen him lying on top of the cart as if it were natural, so there was nothing to be startled about now.

What bewildered Namgung Hye wasn’t Wei Yan-ho lying on top of the cart, but the women guarding his left and right.

‘Lee Seol-hwa is one thing……’

It wasn’t the first time Lee Seol-hwa had shown such behavior toward Wei Yan-ho. Though she never said it outright, hadn’t she already seen her taking care of Wei Yan-ho’s meals and such several times?

As a fellow woman, she often wondered why that person acted that way, but anyway, if someone who had been doing that continued to do so, there was nothing strange about it.

The problem was the woman sitting across Lee Seol-hwa.

‘I can’t accept it.’

Sword Phoenix. By another name, Beautiful Phoenix.

Though Namgung Hye humbly accepted the talk of competing for the world’s greatest beauty, she inwardly believed there weren’t many more beautiful than herself in the entire world.

Having lived without seeing anyone she could definitively call prettier than herself, it was a natural reaction.

However, today Namgung Hye felt her pride in her own beauty shattering to pieces.

She had no idea where that woman sitting next to Wei Yan-ho had sprung from, but to put it crudely, she was eye-rollingly beautiful.

So much so that she could hardly believe such a perfect beauty existed in the world.

She didn’t want to admit it.

She really didn’t want to acknowledge it, but objectively speaking… no, forget objectively, just looking at her, that woman was about three times more beautiful than Namgung Hye.

If she were a man, she thought she wouldn’t trade that woman even if given three Namgung Hyes.

Namgung Hye quietly gripped her thigh.

‘How can such a person exist?’

To Namgung Hye, who had prided herself on her beauty, that woman’s existence was a shock in itself. It was shocking that there was someone who seemed to have gathered all the world’s beauty, and it was also shocking that this woman who was beauty incarnate was sitting next to Wei Yan-ho riding in his cart.

‘Jin Ye-ran, was it?’

Namgung Hye had to make tremendous effort to suppress the fury erupting inside her.

A woman’s beauty is a weapon.

A woman deserved to be treated well just by being beautiful. Yet that beautiful woman, that woman who should have been living with all the world’s men at her feet receiving their praise, was riding in the cart of that inhuman lazy bum.

‘The world has gone mad.’

No matter how hard she tried to understand, she couldn’t make sense of it. It was as absurd a scene as watching a well-crafted opera.

Moreover……

“……Bitter.”

When Wei Yan-ho frowned after drinking tea, Jin Ye-ran looked flustered as she took the tea back and tasted it.

“I must have brewed the tea wrong. I’m sorry.”

For a moment, Namgung Hye almost screamed.

He wasn’t a three-year-old child, yet complaining that tea was bitter!

Isn’t tea supposed to be drunk for its bitter taste anyway!

And even if the tea was completely wrong and bitter as poison instead of tea, there would be men all over the world who would drink it like heavenly nectar if Jin Ye-ran gave it to them.

Such ungrateful complaints!

Namgung Hye trembled, unable to contain her anger.

“Here.”

There was someone who poured oil on the fire.

Lee Seol-hwa put a sweet into the mouth of Wei Yan-ho, who was frowning with all kinds of expressions.

“Hul……”

Namgung Hye opened her mouth without realizing it.

Wei Yan-ho’s expression softened after receiving the sweet, and he lay down with his head on the pillow, purring like a satisfied cat.

At that moment, Lee Seol-hwa wore a triumphant expression, and the incredibly beautiful Jin Ye-ran’s brow furrowed sharply.

‘Stop it.’

Don’t do that.

That lazy bum between you two isn’t a man worth having such a battle of nerves over, people!

Namgung Hye trembled all over.

It was a terrible thing.

From Namgung Hye’s perspective, who felt she absolutely couldn’t view him rationally even if she and Wei Yan-ho were left alone in the world, she couldn’t understand at all why those decent… no, more than decent, those lovely women were acting like that with Wei Yan-ho between them.

This was the world’s misfortune, and every woman’s misfortune.

“What are you staring at so intently?”

Shangguan Hong casually spoke to her.

“Look at that.”

“Where?”

“Look at the top of that cart. Does that seem like a reasonable situation to you?”

“……The end of the world is right there.”

“Exactly.”

As Namgung Hye shook her head, Shangguan Hong also frowned as he looked at the scene.

“I can’t understand how such a thing could possibly happen.”

“……Isn’t he incredibly naive?”

“Naive?”

Shangguan Hong whispered quietly.

“Actually, wasn’t Miss Lee Seol-hwa only at Huashan before coming out into the martial world this time?”

“That’s right.”

“So she has no immunity to men. What other men could she have seen besides the dharma brothers cultivating the Way?”

“Ah……”

Namgung Hye nodded slowly. That was possible.

“Hearing you say that, it’s possible. That Jin Ye-ran person could be the same way.”

When Jin Ye-ran was mentioned, Shangguan Hong looked at the cart with a vacant expression.

“Where are you looking?”

“Ah, I apologize.”

Shangguan Hong’s face reddened.

‘Men, really.’

If she’s pretty, they just like her.

Though she felt unpleasant thinking her rightful attention had been stolen by someone else, Namgung Hye wasn’t discouraged.

Jin Ye-ran might be more beautiful than her, but she had a background that Jin Ye-ran lacked. With her being from the renowned Namgung family, there wouldn’t be many men who would choose Jin Ye-ran, who only had looks, over her.

A man without ambition might do so, but she would pass on such a man anyway.

“I think I need to have a talk with them.”

“What kind of talk?”

“As a fellow woman, I can’t just stand by and watch those people being bewitched by such an unreasonable man. They should at least show some restraint.”

While Namgung Hye was grinding her teeth, there was someone grinding his teeth even more than her.

‘Wei Yan-ho, you bastaaaaard.’

Gong Mu-jin’s heart was burning as he watched Wei Yan-ho readily accepting the sweets his disciple offered.

“Keuuung.”

Even though such things were happening openly, Gong Mu-jin couldn’t bring himself to scold his disciple. In his eyes too, he could clearly see Jin Ye-ran sitting across from Lee Seol-hwa.

Suddenly looking for rouge and powder she’d never sought before, wondering what was going on……

‘Don’t lose, Seol-hwa!’

Gong Mu-jin sent mental support to Lee Seol-hwa.

Honestly, that Jin Ye-ran girl was excessively pretty. The thought naturally arose whether there was any chance of winning in competing with that girl as a woman.

‘What am I thinking!’

Gong Mu-jin shook his head vigorously.

What’s wrong with my disciple!

A woman’s face isn’t everything. Jin Ye-ran is beautiful, but Lee Seol-hwa is beautiful too. And Lee Seol-hwa had a cuteness that Jin Ye-ran lacked.

You have to fight to the end to know who wins!

“……But what exactly am I cheering for?”

If she won that fight, what awaited was Wei Yan-ho.

It was like winning a deadly battle against a powerful enemy only to be given filth as a reward.

But he couldn’t wish for his disciple to lose either.

“Keuuuuung.”

Unable to do this or that, Gong Mu-jin clutched his head.

‘Nothing has gone right since meeting that bastard.’

His good disciple extorts money from him, and out of nowhere he gets cursed and beaten by Cho Hyeon.

Looking carefully, it seemed no one here had benefited from meeting Wei Yan-ho. Everyone was suffering large and small damages. Objectively speaking, he was suspicious enough to be a disaster god bringing misfortune.

And Gong Mu-jin could see another person who had fallen into misfortune because of Wei Yan-ho.

“Hm? What’s that?”

A black dot-like thing was approaching them from far down the road. The dot grew larger and larger, soon taking human form.

“Hm?”

Gong Mu-jin frowned as he looked at the person running toward them like mad.

His appearance, which might have been handsome originally, was dirty with dust and hard to look at, and he kept panting pitifully… but he was definitely a martial artist.

The large sword shape drawn on his martial robes indicated where he belonged.

“I, I’m saved!”

The young man who discovered the group collapsed as if falling in front of them. Seok Mun-cho, who was leading the group, frowned as he looked at the man.

“Aren’t you Peng Dao-ji?”

Peng Dao-ji nodded frantically.

***