Chapter 24

Chapter 24:

The man said with a bewildered expression.

“What are you talking about! You just chased me away!”

“Huh?”

Moon Eun-ji rubbed her eyes and looked at the man again.

But no matter how much she looked, the person standing before her now was not the food-obsessed creature who had been here just moments before.

How could she mistake that bizarre appearance of the food-obsessed creature when it had been so intensely memorable?

“Liar!”

Wei Yan-ho chuckled and said.

“If you don’t want to believe it, then don’t.”

“…Really?”

“I’m telling you it’s true.”

“My goodness… how can a person change so much in such a short time…”

Moon Eun-ji stared at Wei Yan-ho with a dumbfounded expression.

Gone was the skull-like face and the body that had nothing but bones remaining. In her presence stood a man whose solid muscles could be glimpsed between his clothes.

Moreover, the face visible beneath his tightly bound hair, while not exactly a peerless beauty, was quite handsome.

Could a person really change this much in such a short time?

“How did this happen?”

“Well, I ate well and rested well, so I ended up like this.”

“Liar.”

“What a harsh world. They don’t believe you even when you tell the truth.”

“Are you really human?”

“I did know some ghosts fairly well.”

Moon Eun-ji let out a deep sigh.

Whether he was human or not wasn’t what mattered.

What mattered was that the person before her was a terrible lazy bum, and that solid body of his had been built by eating meals from the estate without paying a single coin.

Thinking about it this way, he began to look even more detestable than before. How much rice had he wasted to build those solid muscles?

It was certainly an incomprehensibly strange occurrence, but having grown up hearing countless stories of peculiar people in the world, Moon Eun-ji could let it pass.

Actually, when she thought about it, wandering around in that previous appearance was more remarkable than this transformation.

Moon Eun-ji turned around with a whoosh as the sound of air cut through behind her.

“Follow me.”

Wei Yan-ho followed Moon Eun-ji as she walked ahead.

Though it was utterly bothersome, it was right to earn his keep. This wasn’t a place where he could lazily loaf around as he pleased.

The place Moon Eun-ji led him to was a well in one corner of the estate.

And around that well, laundry in bamboo baskets was piled up so high it was enough to make one gasp in shock.

Moon Eun-ji smiled.

“Just wash this laundry for me.”

“All of this?”

“It’s not that much, is it?”

“Not that much?”

Wei Yan-ho looked at the laundry piled around the well.

It seemed like even the laundry Wei Yan-ho would produce in an entire year would be less than this. No, it would definitely be less. Wei Yan-ho found changing clothes bothersome, so once he put on clothes, he wouldn’t take them off for a whole month unless someone else complained.

Even when he was at home in the past, it was routine for servants or his mother to come by every three days or so to change his clothes almost forcefully.

“Is this my payment for meals?”

“That’s right,” she replied.

“It’s not like I sprinkled gold dust on my food!”

“All the other guests do this much work!”

“Liar!”

Moon Eun-ji said with a grin.

“Don’t worry. Today you only need to do this.”

“Today?”

“Did you think you’d rest tomorrow?”

“…”

“Well then, I’m counting on you! Wash them cleanly! If they’re not clean, I’ll make you wash them again, so make sure to wash them cleanly!”

Moon Eun-ji left those words and slipped away.

‘Let’s see you get a taste of hardship!’

Moon Eun-ji smiled broadly.

She absolutely detested lazy people.

While she couldn’t stop him from staying due to her father’s orders, she definitely wouldn’t let him laze around doing nothing.

Moreover, considering their increasingly tight financial situation these days, they absolutely couldn’t afford to take in such a freeloader.

Having grown up seeing only those who studied with diligence and sincerity as their motto, Wei Yan-ho was to Moon Eun-ji a lump of sin and a human parasite.

“If he can’t finish it all, he’ll have to keep working even after the sun sets! It would be even better if he can’t endure it and leaves!”

Moon Eun-ji hummed a tune.

But Moon Eun-ji couldn’t see the expression Wei Yan-ho was making behind her.

‘You’re going to make me suffer?’

Wei Yan-ho grinned.

“You’ve got the wrong person, miss!”

Though it was muttered quietly, supposedly impossible for anyone else to hear, it reached Wei Yan-ho’s ears all too clearly.

Wei Yan-ho looked at the laundry.

Ruining the laundry to make Moon Eun-ji suffer would also be a decent method.

But for that, he felt sorry toward Moon Yu-hwan, who had let him stay without any ulterior motives.

“I really have changed a lot.”

In the past, he wouldn’t have cared about Moon Yu-hwan’s circumstances.

But the lessons that Baek Mu-han had carved into his body with his fists made Wei Yan-ho conscious of things he hadn’t cared about before.

In that sense, Baek Mu-han had done something truly good for the world.

“Well, anyway, I have to earn my keep.”

Wei Yan-ho slowly approached the well.

“Huh?”

Moon Eun-ji called out to So-mi, who was coming out of Wei Yan-ho’s room.

“So-mi.”

“Yes, sister!”

So-mi scurried over to Moon Eun-ji.

Moon Eun-ji smiled and patted So-mi’s head.

So-mi was a child who lived near the estate. When her father passed away recently and their circumstances became difficult, the estate had taken her in as a servant.

“Sorry, but could you bring the meal for that room to the well?”

“Huh?”

“He’s probably working hard on laundry right now. So could you bring the meal there instead?”

“But there was a person in the room?”

“What did you say?”

“He didn’t seem to be the same guest as before, but there was a different person there.”

“Ah, a different person…”

Wait a moment?

If So-mi didn’t know that the strange person’s appearance had changed, wouldn’t she mistake him for someone else?

Then does that mean that person is really in the room right now?

Moon Eun-ji rushed to the room and opened the door.

Slam!

After confirming the person in the room, Moon Eun-ji shouted.

“Why are you here!”

Wei Yan-ho happened to be eating his meal on the bed with a blanket pulled over him.

Shouldn’t a person at least get down from the bed to eat? That’s just basic human decency!

“It’s mealtime.”

“How can you come here to eat when you haven’t even finished your work! I would have brought it to you anyway!”

Wei Yan-ho said bluntly.

“But I’m done”

“Don’t joke around.”

“No, I really am done”

“I told you not to joke around.”

“You’ve been fooled your whole life.”

Wei Yan-ho shrugged and went back to eating his meal.

Moon Eun-ji narrowed her brow.

“…Are you really done?”

“Yes.”

“You must have done it carelessly.”

“How could that be?”

“You should know that if I check and find it done poorly, you’ll have to do it again!”

“Go ahead.”

Moon Eun-ji was furious.

How could a person be so lazy that every single word he spoke could grate on someone’s nerves like this!

“Ugh!”

Moon Eun-ji left the room and ran to the well.

‘He must have just rinsed them roughly in water and claimed he was done! I’ll make him do it again right away!’

But when she reached the well, something completely unexpected had happened.

Moon Eun-ji’s eyes shook as if an earthquake had struck when she saw the well.

Laundry was hanging in neat rows and columns on clotheslines stretched across the well.

“Huh?”

Moon Eun-ji approached the laundry with a bewildered expression.

A large blanket appeared before her eyes.

“…Was this originally this color?”

The blankets that had been slightly yellow were now shining with a pure white color.

The blankets that wouldn’t lose their faded color no matter how hard Moon Eun-ji washed them were now as white as newly bought blankets.

“How did he manage to do all this…”

Moon Eun-ji looked around with a dumbfounded expression.

Pure white laundry was hanging in rows. It was so white, it was almost blinding to look at.

“This can’t be…”

This was the laundry Moon Eun-ji had prepared to make Wei Yan-ho suffer.

Normally, it would have required calling dozens of people to work together for a weekend.

But he had completed all that laundry alone, and so perfectly, in less than one shijin?

Fine.

Let’s say he finished all the laundry.

But what about this color that puts new items to shame?

Even if she spent three days working on a single blanket, she couldn’t have made it this clean, yet how could he make all this laundry this clean?

Moon Eun-ji could never have guessed, but Wei Yan-ho had solved all this laundry through a very simple method.

He had thrown all the visible laundry into the well, then used his Solar True Force to boil the entire well.

It was naturally shocking for someone who hadn’t learned martial arts, and if someone who had heard about it, they might foam at the mouth and faint.

First, the fact that he could unleash Solar True Force powerful enough to boil an entire well, and second, the even more astonishing fact that he had used such amazing ability just for doing laundry.

Of course, Moon Eun-ji didn’t know martial arts, so she could naturally only be amazed.

Moon Eun-ji rushed back to Wei Yan-ho’s room again. She opened the door without hesitation and shouted.

“What did you do?”

Wei Yan-ho glanced at Moon Eun-ji and chuckled.

“Why? Did something go wrong?”

“How did you do all that laundry by yourself in such a short time!”

Wei Yan-ho said calmly.

“You told me to do it alone, so I did it alone. Why? Was it something I couldn’t do alone? Did you give me an impossible task?”

“…Of course not!”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Wei Yan-ho grinned broadly.

And that expression grated on Moon Eun-ji’s heart.

“Did you call people to help?”

“Well, that’s not important. What’s important is that I finished today’s work, and now all that’s left is to rest, isn’t it?”

Wei Yan-ho said with a smile.

“So could you leave now? I’m a bit tired and need to rest.”

“Ugh…”

“Why? Do you have more to say?”

“No.”

“Then goodbye.”

Wei Yan-ho pulled the blanket over himself and lay down. Moon Eun-ji watched this scene while grinding her teeth. She felt extremely wronged, angry, and frustrated, but had nothing to say.

Wasn’t it Moon Eun-ji herself who had said he only needed to do that work today?

She couldn’t take back her own words.

Moon Eun-ji closed the door and came outside.

“Argh! How infuriating!”

She was so frustrated that tears were about to well up.

“Tomorrow! Just wait until tomorrow!”

While Wei Yan-ho listened to Moon Eun-ji’s voice fading away as she cursed, he smiled.

“She’s a spirited young lady.”

So what if she was?

She couldn’t do anything more today.

Wei Yan-ho leisurely pulled up his blanket.

And then he slowly fell into dreams.

But like everything Wei Yan-ho did, this matter didn’t end well either.

That evening, the rice cooked with well water without any thought gave off an indescribably foul smell and tormented everyone in the estate.

Of course, no one dreamed that the cause of all this was Wei Yan-ho.

And Wei Yan-ho scolded Moon Eun-ji for bringing him smelly rice after he had worked so hard.

Poor Moon Eun-ji could only gnash her teeth endlessly.