Episode 42. Busboy Wins!
Jang Deuksu stared at Hongshin, who had collapsed face-down on the table.
“She fainted just because you called her ‘little sister’? She’s not dead, right?”
I checked the back of her neck, then shook my head.
“By the way, since when did I have a little sister?”
“You didn’t. Now you do. I’m the Black Cat Gang’s boss now.”
“Huh?”
When he looked at me with wide eyes, I repeated it more clearly.
“I’m the Black Cat Gang Lord.”
Thinking back over my recent chaos trail, Jang Deuksu understood right away.
“Ah. Congratulations.”
“You’re too kind. Anyway, this girl’s also one of the Twelve Zodiac Generals—Hongshin.”
“Ah, so that’s why she’s ‘little sister’?”
“We’re both technically Dae Nachal’s disciples now. This whole fight is basically… a contest to see who’s scarier—Dae Nachal, or me.”
Grasping the situation, Jang Deuksu clicked his tongue.
“Considering she passed out instantly, it’s pretty clear you’re scarier. You’ve got yourself a little sister you never asked for—try to treat her decently, huh? She’s pretty cute.”
I snapped my head around to study his face.
“…No way.”
“What?”
“Did you fall for her? Love at first sight? Destiny? Is this your escape route?”
He looked away. “Quit talking bullshit.”
“Hey, Jang Deuksu. Stop right there. Can’t keep a straight face, can you?”
“I’m going to wash dishes.”
He retreated into the kitchen. With him gone, the sound of Hongshin’s breathing was even clearer. The deeper your internal energy, the sharper your hearing.
She stayed limp and motionless, still plastered to the table like a dead mouse.
I glared at her and muttered, “Was the pig spine so good you fainted? ‘So good two people eat and one dies’ level, huh.”
From the kitchen, Jang Deuksu burst out laughing.
“So, did you fully take over the Black Cat Gang?”
“Yeah. There are a few rats trying to be clever, but nothing serious. So Gunpyeong is thorough.”
“That the guy who lost to the kitchen knife?”
“Yeah, that guy.”
“How long are you going to hide who you are?”
“Until I kill Dae Nachal.”
“Always another mountain.”
I spoke to the fainted Hongshin in the most casual tone possible.
“You’ve got ten days left. You can sleep?”
She shot upright like a ghost, answering crisply.
“No, sir. I’ll finish before the ten days are up.”
Jang Deuksu poked his head out of the kitchen and blinked.
Hongshin bowed to him, too. Even though he was chatting casually with me—the fake senior she’d just been terrified of—the fact he knew me meant she’d treat him very carefully from now on.
“Thank you for the pig spine. It was delicious.”
“You’re welcome. Come again.”
“Then… I’ll be going.”
She clasped her fists in a formal salute, and practically fled Chunyang Banquet Hall.
She hurried down the street, then couldn’t resist glancing back through the open door.
The fake senior—me—was staring right at her.
“…”
I slowly raised both hands.
She recognized it at a glance: ten days left, spelled clearly in hand signals.
Then I drew a finger across my neck.
At that, she flinched and whipped her head away.
She walked faster, then faster again, half-running. Every time she heard even the slightest sound behind her, she froze like someone with a severe anxiety disorder and whipped her head around.
“Ack! …Oh. Just a leaf.”
A moment later, something rustled in the bushes. She jumped.
“Senior? Senior, is that you?”
A wildcat burst out and zipped away. Only then did she exhale in relief.
“Not him. Just Senior Wildcat.”
She’d thought about returning straight to the Twelve Generals’ base, but in the end, she ran hell-for-leather toward one of her safe houses.
“I’m scared. Way too scared.”
Any reasonably successful thief has several hideouts, scattered around. Hongshin was no different.
She picked the closest safe house and sprinted for it, determined to get her nerves under control first. It genuinely felt like deviation from qi—her inner demons—had risen all the way up to her throat.
Running faster than she ever had in her life, she tore through a busy market, darted down one alley after another, and slipped into an ordinary-looking home as if she lived there.
“Home really is best. Home is the greatest.”
There was a little pond, a yard, a fenced-in training area, a main house and an annex—cozy, well-hidden. She’d bought it with money from years of ruthless, no-holds-barred thievery.
Even so, suspicion flared almost immediately. She checked every corner of the place.
Even after she confirmed no one was inside, she still sat on the porch and called out, voice trembling with fake cheer:
“Senior? You here? If you’re here, come in and have some tea. Ha, ha… ha…”
“…”
Silence.
Only after she was fully certain it was quiet did she drop the forced smile and examine herself honestly.
“If this keeps up, I’ll go insane. This isn’t right. Get a grip.”
Just then, someone knocked on the front gate.
Knock, knock, knock.
She jolted. “Who’s there?”
Knock, knock, knock.
“Who is it! I’m not buying anything!”
She forced herself to breathe deeply, calming down. Finally looking more composed, she got up and walked toward the gate.
“Ah, Senior? Coming.”
His lightness skill was better than hers. If he’d followed, he could easily have arrived before her. That was the logic she couldn’t get out of her head.
She opened the gate.
A young man she’d never seen before stared at her.
She scowled. “Who the hell are you? Why’d you knock and say nothing, huh? Looking for death?”
He clutched something in both hands, licked his dry lips, and blurted out:
“Ten days left… that’s all he told me! I don’t know anything!”
Then he turned and bolted like a rabbit. No martial arts at all—just desperate civilian flailing.
Hongshin stared after him, blank.
“That little shit…”
Just when it looked like he might actually escape cleanly, he crashed into someone and dropped what he was holding. He scrambled to scoop the silver off the ground and took off again.
“My money…”
A high-pitched ringing filled her skull and she grabbed her forehead.
They say humans adapt to anything.
Hongshin pressed a hand to her pounding chest, took a deep breath, and whispered to herself.
“It’s money I lost in a fair bet. Forget it. Let it go. Not my money anymore. Inner peace… huuu…”
She shut the gate and turned back inside.
“I can always earn more.”
Somewhere far off, someone laughed. The sound stretched unnaturally long, as if the person was running across rooftops while laughing, the voice extending like pulled taffy.
Only someone with superb lightness skill could laugh like that and carry the sound.
Which meant, of course, it was the fake senior.
Slowly, Hongshin pushed her hair back from her face, expression turning grave.
Her eyes narrowed into cold slits; her whole face hardened into something ruthless.
How to describe this?
Closest would be: the gaze of a woman who’s finally snapped.
Eyes gleaming with madness, she said in a chill tone,
“I’ll kill you. I swear I’ll kill you.”
Was this an awakening? Or a declaration of war?
Her next words cleared that up.
“Baekja, Hwang-o, Nok-sul… all three of you are dead men walking. By my hand. Ohohohoho…”
Her laughter stretched out long, eerily similar to the fake senior’s.
How far can one person fall into madness?
Hard to say.
In any case, she’d taken her first step into that world.
Madness is contagious.
Hongshin had never been normal, but the invisible hierarchy of insanity now looked something like this:
Busboy wins.
I hadn’t trained lightness skill like that in a while. My body felt great.
I’d sprinted from Black Cat Street—all the way to Ilyang County—at full tilt, and then from there on to Magnolia Street, where Hongshin’s safe house was hidden.
Helping a junior in the middle of a diarrhea emergency and tailing her back, wondering if she’d need a toilet again—that was all part of training.
Training must never stop.
Especially lightness skill. That needed to hit the highest possible level—fast.
The benefits were endless.
First, it was essential for survival—being able to run away. Second, you could save people in… urgent gastrointestinal distress.
And most of all, once your lightness skill reached the top tier, you could join a group most martial artists didn’t even know existed—a secret society called the Swift Sect (Quai Party).
Since ancient times, there’d always been lunatics obsessed with speed—people who devoted their entire lives to moving fast, and nothing else. They gathered in secret, ignoring sect and faction, just to compare lightness skills.
All for a single title given to just one person:
Fastest Under Heaven.
Among themselves, they used honorifics like Swift Lord, or Lord of the Swift Sect.
No one knew when the group had formed. It started as a tiny, irregular gathering.
But over time, it grew beyond orthodox, unorthodox, and demonic factions alike, becoming a mysterious force even the Martial Alliance couldn’t properly track.
In my previous life, my lightness skill had been good enough to join the Swift Sect…but I never managed to climb to the seat of Swift Lord.
The world is wide, and there are many masters.
Especially those who throw away all killing techniques like old shoes and train only to run faster—beating those freaks at their specialty is no easy feat.
Through the Swift Sect I’d met several great experts.
Bound by birth and background, they couldn’t break from their original factions, but inside the Sect they dreamed of straying from their assigned paths.
I thought of reuniting with those masters, then broke into another full-speed run—back toward Ilyang County.
Nothing in life is free.
You have to become strong and fast before you can even step into worlds most people don’t know exist.
That strange, hidden satisfaction—that’s what makes life fun.
Maybe that’s why I keep running.
Even helping a junior with an emergency bathroom problem has deeper meaning, see?
After the rough, scheming world of the Black Cat Gang, it felt good to stroll with my hands behind my back, smiling.
The construction on Purple Dawn Inn was going smoothly.
As I stood there grinning at the site, Yeon Jaseong came over, white headband tied around his brow. The laborers had told him I was there.
“Sect Lord, you’re here.”
“You’re working hard.”
“Hard? Nah. Around here you can just call me hyung.”
“Of course.”
“So where’ve you been? Brother Seongtae said you went to smash the Black Cat Gang.”
I answered matter-of-factly.
“The old Black Cat Lord had business in heaven, so he left. I’ve taken over his heavy responsibilities. I’ll be going back and forth between Ilyang and the Black Cat base for a while, so you might not see me often.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Any troublemakers while I was gone? I’m a bit worried about Black Line Fort.”
“You know that ponytailed strategist, Sama? He patrols Ilyang pretty regularly with his men. Everyone’s so tense, and they all carry swords, so nobody even thinks about causing trouble.”
“Ah, Sama Bi was here.”
Sometimes I really do forget people exist.
“What about Cha Seongtae?”
At that, Yeon Jaseong grinned and reported.
“He challenged Strategist Sama with a wooden sword and got his ass handed to him. He’s been training hard ever since. Ten fights, ten losses. It’s become a bit of a spectacle—whenever those two square off in the open lot, half the town shows up to watch.”
“Where do they fight?”
He pointed to the wide-open space in front of the construction site.
“Right there. Plenty of room.”
I snorted.
“Idiot. A so-called Life Gate Sect Lord losing every time… I’m embarrassed for him.”
Still, it meant Sama Bi and his crew had settled nicely into Ilyang—that was good news. With their skills, even if Black Line Fort attacked, they could hold the line.
No point hogging a busy man, so I took out my money pouch.
Yeon Jaseong quickly grabbed my arm.
“Hyung, no. Really. You already pay us well, we don’t need more.”
I clicked my tongue and shook him off.
“Tsk, tsk.”
I took out five gold notes from Hongshin’s pouch and pressed them into his hand.
“Keep those. When the time’s right, treat everyone to some drinks. We’re doing all this to live, and if all they do is work, their bodies will break. People need to blow off steam.”
“Isn’t this too much? I’ve never even seen gold notes like these.”
“The Blessing Crew has a lot of mouths to feed.”
He clenched the gold, looking guilty.
“Hyung, I’m sorry. You must’ve worked hard for this money. I’ll use it well—buy snacks, drinks… I’ll make sure it counts.”
“It wasn’t that hard-earned. Spend it freely. I’m off.”
“Take care.”
I waved and strolled away.
Money is for earning—and for scattering.
Which meant for the foreseeable future, I’d be beating up criminals to earn more.
After all, the underworld makes its living sucking the marrow out of ordinary people.
Sometimes the world needs to spin the other way for a while.
Just then, a cheer rose from the construction site.
I couldn’t help but smile a little wider.