Reincarnation of the Martial Emperor

Chapter 30: I sold blood with my friends.

For the first few days, many people flocked to the gate, forming a bustling crowd.

As long as they were not from the direct line, there were no restrictions on the notice I had posted.

So, the children of the collateral branches and the subordinate trading companies, and even the children who made a living by begging in the back alleys, came flocking.

As if they had coordinated somewhere, they all expressed their respect for the Jaegal Clan.

A man with slanted eyes recited the achievements of their relief efforts, which he had memorized, and a man who smiled blandly praised the excellent character of a certain Jaegal.

They didn't know that it was having the opposite effect on me.

Were there really no talented people in Wuchang? As I was cursing ‘damn it, damn it’.

That man came.

The man who just stood there without a word, his hair long and flowing.

The boy, whose body looked like it would break if touched, who was constantly staggering from lack of strength, asked me with a heart full of resentment.

-How much will you give me?

Thirst.

The boy was as dry as a mummy in every way.

But the boy did not hide the desolation within him.

While revealing all the flames of his heart that sought to be endlessly filled before me, he endured this moment, which must have been more desperate than anyone else’s, by standing tall without bowing his head.

The boy, who was looking at me with those flames, soon spewed poison from his mouth.

-It’s a transaction anyway, isn’t it? If the higher-ups pretend to treat the lower-downs preciously, what they want is obvious.

A meat shield, or another form of sacrifice.

Since he did not believe in kindness without reason, he could not see the miracle that had come upon him as a miracle.

At that young age, he had already learned that what came back every time he desperately believed was black hatred.

I did not know how much he had rolled and crawled to arrive here.

It was just that I saw the dark Black Way in my eyes, and so a pleasant laugh flowed out.

Perhaps to the boy right now, this laugh would look like that of a butcher.

“Being fattened up to be eaten is a fate that befits a delicious beast. Don’t worry. You are a person, not a pig.”

The mummy-like boy let out a smirk.

His lean, rustling smile made his face look like a creaking wooden doll.

You little brat.

There were few times in this Martial Emperor’s life that I had gotten goosebumps on my arm.

“Just say what you have to say. There’s no need to coax and soothe me like this. Who do I have to kill after learning martial arts?”

The Black Way had already reached a severe stage.

If one was human, emotions would burst out in some way, but the boy right now had none of that.

A contract killing.

Even though he would clearly know the consequences if he got involved in such a thing, he was throwing away his own life as if it were someone else’s business.

Now, it was hard for me to laugh as well.

“Give me a hundred nyang. If I die, you can find Hyeryeong in Bokang County and deliver it. If you insist on continuing to act like a gentleman, please process it as an advance payment. I beg you.”

The boy bowed his head deeply.

I was so dumbfounded that words wouldn't come out.

Of course, people became shameless when they were cornered.

When you were struggling and chased by life, you forgot your dignity and swallowed your pride.

But right now, my face was not contorting because of the boy's shamelessness.

He dared to put a price on his own life.

He spat out the memories held in his heart and the connections that would be entangled in the future.

With that emotionless face that seemed to know nothing of what he was doing, of how hideously he was being broken.

I thought about just letting out a stream of curses, but I managed to compose my emotions.

“I sold blood with my friends.”

At my words, the boy’s expressionless face tilted.

“At first, everyone cried. We were careful not to tear the same spot again. When the lines drawn with a stone knife, one by one, turned into a spider’s web, the Yang family boy died first. Next was the Gang family boy. Then the Lee family boy.”

What kind of lives would they have lived if they had survived?

“I thought I could never get used to it, but at some point, we stopped crying. We would cut, wipe, and lie down, that was all. We were too young, so we didn’t know back then. That the thin gruel we bought by selling our blood couldn't replenish it. That we were getting closer and closer to the death we wanted to avoid.”

The boy asked abruptly.

“How old were the children?”

“The youngest was three. The leader was seven.”

“If they were that young, pity would have worked.”

“It was a world where you couldn’t even beg back then.”

That was what the flames of war of the great battle between the Orthodox and Demonic Factions were like.

An era of men with swords.

A Jianghu where the Heaven and Earth Net was frequently spread in broad daylight.

Baengrang Village, which was cleared away by the Pressure of the Cooking Tower.

In a world where even adults were begging to survive, the best thing for young children was to hide in caves.

We were lucky to have survived, and most of the kids had their heads damaged by the poison mist, so they just giggled even as they were dying.

“Later, I learned that buying and selling the blood of young boys was forbidden by imperial law. And I also heard the true value of a young boy's blood from the black market merchants. In the end, we took up our swords. We cut down all the black assassins who had used us.”

“We? Did you just say we?”

The first emotion that appeared in the boy’s eyes was disgust.

It must have been pathetic to see me sitting in a palace-like mansion, wrapped in silk clothes, imitating a miserable life.

Soon, I smirked, untied my belt, and threw open my robe, then froze awkwardly.

Right. There were no scars to show.

Damn it, when would I finally get used to the fact that this body wasn't that body?

“Hmm, I got too immersed. It was something I saw in a book.”

The mummy-like boy chuckled again.

“Where in the works of Confucius and Mencius is there something like that?”

No, to think he had even learned to read.

Was he some young master of a fallen noble family?

“You are selling your blood like those foolish children right now. Even though you know that what you get with that blood is meaningless. Are you not afraid?”

“There are more frightening things in the world than that.”

“For example?”

The boy’s gaze became desolate again.

He didn't want to talk.

It meant he knew that there were many people in the world who liked to judge and gossip about other people’s stories.

But what should I say?

But what should I say?

It felt like child’s play.

The Black Way was a den of demons with endless stories.

I, a man who had lived his entire life amidst the sorrows of the thirty thousand disciples, could see through the boy’s sadness just by looking at those desolate eyes.

Moreover, hadn't the boy already kindly dropped a clue?

“Hyeryeong…… She must be a trustworthy person to whom you can entrust the price of your life. Since you called her by her first name, she must be a sister or a lover.”

I neatly arranged the untied robe and fastened my belt.

“A man with your kind of guts wouldn't be trying to die just to marry off his younger sister. Rather, you would have tried to protect her while you lived. A hundred nyang… a hundred nyang.”

That boy’s hundred nyang was clearly money he needed right away. Newest update provıded by n0velfire.net

If he was trying to support someone, giving up his life would be the worst choice.

Soon, a few hypotheses came to mind.

A suitable bribe to turn a government courtesan back into a commoner.

If it were to avoid labor, it would be the tribute for four people, so that couldn't be it.

Could it be that he was trying to kill someone?

But it was a little too much for a contract killing fee.

If not that, then hmm?

Just then, it came into my sight.

The countless bloodstains that had spread like small grains on the boy’s sleeve.

It was clearly the trace of having covered someone’s cough.

Only then did I nod my head.

Consumption was one of the most difficult diseases to cure.

If you commissioned a skilled physician, a hundred nyang would be more than enough.

“Consumption. It’s a terrible disease that commonly befalls women who have suffered in the harsh cold. Is it your mother?”

“Don’t talk.”

Hmm, a common story.

I had finally found the boy’s yellowed resentment.

If you covered a boil with pus because you were afraid to cut it, it would only become a bigger boil.

I took up the knife.

And without hesitation, I cut a straight line through the boy’s pus.

“For what will the mother who survived like that live for now? Is the mother’s life, saved by her son’s fragile life, truly a life? At the very least, it wouldn’t feel like living, even if she were alive. Because she’s a mother. Because that’s the heart of a parent with a child.”

“I told you to shut up—!”

Since I had cut it horizontally, I did it vertically once more.

“What about the sister? If she finds out that her mother was saved with the life her brother threw away, will she be able to sleep with that guilt? Why didn’t I die, why couldn’t I hold onto my brother back then, how much longer can she endure with that sorrow? A year? Two years?”

Everything he had been holding back all this time flowed from the boy’s eyes.

Yellowish pus.

A festering resentment.

All the pitiful things about the boy, who had endured without even knowing that his own soul stank.

“Sob… with this body… with this body, I can’t do anything anymore……”

The boy’s body, which had turned into a mummy from not eating properly for a long time.

I just calmly scanned it.

“Still, you can prostrate yourself.”

The boy, who had been sobbing while standing, looked at me blankly.

Now that the pus was squeezed out, it was time to cover it up.

“Do you know why they use the expression ‘spit out’ when they curse?”

As I looked at the boy’s eyes, which were full of questions, I smiled whitely.

“Because it’s indescribably refreshing. That’s why you habitually spit it out. That dark something inside.”

The boy, who had realized that my pointing finger was aimed at his own chest, soon looked up at the sky blankly.

The boy did not hesitate, and soon, a monstrous roar that seemed to make the Jaegal Clan leave echoed out.

“Shit! Shiiiiiiiiit——!”

Finally, I smiled.

A man of the Black Way had to be able to curse heartily.

That was the point that differentiated us from the Orthodox Faction bastards who fanned themselves and pretended to be gentlemen.

Towards the boy who had finally passed my test brilliantly, I opened my mouth solemnly.

“Do you know of the Nine Bows?”

Nine forms of prostration.

If the boy truly knew how to read, he wouldn't be ignorant of what this meant.

In Confucianism, the bond between a master and a disciple sometimes held more meaning than the bond of heaven.

“In this wide Jianghu, there is no master bold enough to ask his disciple for a contract killing after forming a master-disciple bond. Unless he’s a pretty crazy bastard.”

I smiled again.

“And as you can see, I am perfectly sane.”

The boy’s two eyes shook ceaselessly with questions.

“Why… why would you go this far for someone like me……”

Pfft.

“Just as there is no particular reason to dislike a person, there is no reason to like one either. I took a liking to you, and that’s all there is to it.”

The boy’s back, which had been heaving with sobs, slowly fell.

The first bow was Keishou.

The second bow was Tonshu.

The third bow was Koushu.

As the boy completed up to the Shukuhai, I couldn't help but look at him strangely.

What was this?

If he held such a strict level of etiquette, he was surely no ordinary person.

But I soon shook my head.

Before finding a reason, this was the first master-disciple bond that I, the Martial Emperor, had ever formed, and I had to stand under the heavens and bless the boy.

“Yes, it is good to meet you. What is your name?”

The boy’s two eyes, which had now been imbued with warmth, looked at me clearly.

“It's Ryeo-un of the Cho Family.”

Cho Ryeo-un.

Good. The name was really good.

“Far away. Cast your gaze and look as far as you can.”

Following my gaze, Cho Ryeo-un looked at the plains beyond the castle far away.

“Yes. Do that. Look as far as possible and embrace the magnanimity of a man.”

Thump.

I threw the martial arts uniform I had prepared for him.

Damn it. The phoenix pattern embroidered on the back made me frown again.

“Wear this martial arts uniform and come by the hour of the rabbit tomorrow.”

“Really… is this really not a dream?”

Well…….

“Think of it as finding a gold nugget on the street.”

From today, you are this Martial Emperor's great disciple.

Please become a greater Martial Emperor than me, and become a martial artist who can curse at the Sword Saint.

Yes.

That's what it takes to be my great disciple.