Episode 7: The Busboy Goes Wild
The three of them sat across from me, taking turns with the threats and cheap mockery they clearly felt obligated to say.
“Our dear Jaha, that’s probably your last drink. Hurry up and finish it.”
“Still, this little bastard’s a man, I’ll give him that. Came all the way here, drinking like he owns the place, boldly calling for Chae-hyang. If I’d known he was such a ‘real man,’ I’d have beaten him half to death last time. I regret holding back.”
“If you regret it, just fix it now. He already screwed up Dong-gwak’s hand, after all. Getting thrashed today won’t even be unfair. Right, Jaha?”
I listened to them yap, then held up the Dugang wine.
“You want some?”
None of them reached for a cup. They clearly suspected I’d poisoned it.
Fine. I drank alone.
“Done? Then let’s go.”
“Yeah, get up already.”
I didn’t bother answering. I just kept drinking, occasionally studying their faces one by one.
Silence is the most efficient way to set the mood.
Before long, even they ran out of lines. Now they were finally starting to feel that something was wrong.
After all, a busboy shouldn’t be able to sit calmly, drinking in front of “scary men” like them.
Even in their eyes, there wasn’t a trace of fear in my attitude.
Not that there was much wine to begin with. After I drained the last of it, I picked up my sickle and spoke.
“My dear hometown friends… am I really that funny to you?”
Even I found myself ridiculous. Was I really this pathetic in the past?
“You always were pathetic.”
They drew short blades—assassin’s knives, longer than a dagger but shorter than a sword.
“We were just going to rough you up again, but you had to make it big.”
“We’re just responding fairly. You already messed up Dong-gwak’s hand.”
I laughed like a madman. They laughed too, lips curling. For a moment, it really did feel like a group of drinking buddies sharing a joke.
Hehehehehe…
Then, suddenly, I raised the sickle.
Startled, all three thrust their knives forward.
In that instant, I gathered energy at my thumb and flicked upward.
PAANG!
The low table flipped.
By reflex, the three blades stabbed downward.
THUNK. THUNK. THUNK!
Their blades punched straight through the overturned table.
I kicked the table hard with my right foot as I stood.
KWANG!
The table slammed into them and shoved them backward. As their balance broke, my sickle came down low, aiming for their lower bodies.
Their legs, sticking out wherever, writhed like snakes.
I decided they were snake heads and swung the sickle accordingly.
The Master of the Sickle
After Jaha Inn burned down, I’d done a bit of everything just to survive.
One of those jobs was tending graves.
I spent my days cutting the overgrown grass around tombs, season after season, always with a sickle in hand.
At some point, in the middle of that mind-numbing work, I had a sudden epiphany about sickles as weapons.
There’s probably no one else in the jianghu who attained enlightenment on a weapon while trimming grave grass.
A sickle is basically a single-edged blade, closer to a saber than a sword. The edge curves back, so you have to control the rebound. All of that—every angle, every pull—was etched into my body.
To put it simply—
I’m a master of the sickle.
I hacked and slashed like I was cutting weeds.
Knees, insteps, ankles, calves, toes—anything that moved like a snake’s body. Arms that stuck out past the edge of the table got sliced too.
“So these useless limbs are the ones that stomped on me, huh?”
Screams overlapped chaotically.
“Aaaaargh!”
In an instant, the room was in an uproar.
Every so often, I’d kick the table into their faces again, using it like a battering ram.
Each kick produced three, heavy thuds.
Efficient. One-sided. A clean beating.
By the time the sharp-tongued madam opened the door, the three were completely broken—no fight left in them.
The room was a wreck—food, dishes, and blood everywhere.
I turned to her, sickle still dripping red.
“Auntie, bring me some more of that idiot-grade third-rate Dugang wine.”
She glared at me.
I pointed the sickle at her mouth.
“I usually don’t hit women. But you should think before you open that pretty mouth again. First, bring the wine. Then bring anyone else who wants to end up crippled. And if you start flapping that smart mouth again, I’ll split it with this.”
I don’t touch women who haven’t trained martial arts— not unless there’s a very good reason.
That rule covered both Chae-hyang and this rude madam.
But threatening them? That was just a hobby.
Once she was gone, I cleared the shattered table away and looked down at the three writhing on the floor.
The scattered food all over them made for a nice finishing touch.
I smiled.
“Laugh, you bastards. You’ve got someone this ‘funny’ right in front of you—what are you frowning for?”
They couldn’t laugh anymore.
So I laughed instead.
“Congratulations on your ruined legs. Enjoy the long recovery. Be grateful I didn’t kill you.”
At my merciful words, all three clamped their mouths shut.
I shifted my tone, letting just a hint of madness show.
“Hey, you sons of bitches. If you want to live, you gotta say something. Or should I just finish you here?”
“Spare us.”
“Let us live.”
“Let’s end it here. We never meant to kill you.”
I nodded.
“Oh? Is that so?”
Their lines were quick and perfectly synchronized. Like listening to a chorus.
I yanked one of the knives out of the shattered table and took it in my left hand.
“Nice teamwork. Your mouths, at least, have mastered a joint technique.”
From the hallway, I heard many feet now— dozens, by the sound of it.
Looked like Maehwa-ru had finally deployed every fighter they could scrape together.
Amid the noise, a familiar voice cut through.
“Move.”
The corridor fell quiet.
Cha Seong-tae stepped in and took in the scene.
His thin eyes narrowed to slits, as they always did when he smiled or frowned. Right now, they were doing both.
“Jaha,” he said, voice flat. “You’re going to get yourself killed like this.”
“Get killed, huh?”
“Yeah, idiot.”
I stared at his ugly little eyes… then gathered qi in my left hand and flicked the knife.
SWIISH!
Before his hand could reach his face, the knife reached it first.
The of the blade struck him cleanly in the eye.
THUNK!
“Gaaah!”
Seong-tae toppled backward with a scream.
I raised my bloodied sickle toward the men filling the corridor.
“An eye for an eye. Anyone else?”
Seong-tae staggered back to his feet, blood streaming from one eye, but his voice was still steady when he shouted orders.
“Report to Madam at Ihwa-ru. The rest of you—surround the building outside. Don’t let him out.”
He drew the long sword at his waist with a sharp metallic whisper.
SHRING!
I looked at his blade and echoed his earlier line right back at him.
“Seong-tae, think before you act. You’re the one who’s going to die at this rate.”
He said nothing.
“You’re supposed to be the sharpest guy in Ilyang. Does this look like I just got ‘lucky’ to you?”
“You think these three just happened to trip and fall into the food? That I accidentally wrecked their legs?”
“If you don’t want to die, use that brain of yours.”
He hesitated, sword in hand, trapped between pride and survival.
I turned to the men clogging the hallway.
“Look at it this way. If the great Cha Seong-tae got wrecked in one move… what sense does it make to order you lot to ‘block my escape’?”
“Here’s the deal: if you keep blocking that hallway, I’ll show you what it looks like when Seong-tae dies first.”
The threat wasn’t aimed at the lackeys.
It was aimed at him.
And it landed.
“Everyone downstairs,” he barked. “Wait at the entrance.”
“Jaha, you probably want to talk to our house mistress, right? Here to make us apologize? Or are you really just planning to drink and leave?”
I met his gaze.
“Madam Jo needs to come.”
“Then I’ll send for her. She’ll be here soon. We’ll wait together.”
He checked his palm; it was soaked in blood.
“You blind?”
He blinked and wiped at his eye with a cloth.
“Doesn’t seem like it. I can still see.”
“Good for you. Bring more wine. We’ll drink while we wait for Madam.”
Seong-tae turned to the madam trembling at the end of the corridor.
“Bring liquor. No food. We’ll move to the next room. Jaha, let’s change rooms. You’re not going to kill these guys, right? Let them get treated. We’re all from the same town. No need to start killing each other.”
I glanced back at the three men. They were already half-conscious, lying in their own blood and spilled side dishes.
Seong-tae’s way of handling things was clearly different from the grunts under him.
Even with blood pouring from one eye, he was still managing the situation.
The sharp-tongued madam shuffled forward and silently gestured toward the neighboring room, lips clamped shut. I’d threatened to rip them open earlier, after all.
Life at the bottom has a certain… delicate survival instinct.
I stepped into the empty room and laid my red-stained sickle on the table before sitting.
A moment later, Seong-tae came in, eye wiped clean as best as he could manage. He sat opposite me with a long sigh.
“What, did you stumble on some great fortune or something? What the hell is all this?”
Before I could answer, a young girl’s voice sounded at the door.
“Bringing in the wine.”
“Come in.”
I saw the bottle and snorted.
It was Dugang wine again—but the seal was completely different from the one they’d given me earlier. This one looked much more expensive.
“This the real first-grade stuff?”
Seong-tae nodded.
“Ah, did we send out third-grade by mistake? My bad. We give that to the riffraff to turn a profit. This is the real first-grade Dugang. I’ll pour.”
“So I’m riffraff?”
“Not anymore. My mistake.”
I snatched the bottle from his hand, broke the seal, and plunged my nose into the mouth of it while glaring at him.
“If there’s poison in this, I’m pouring it up your nostrils.”
He reflexively grabbed his own nose.
“I’m drinking it too, why would I poison it? Madam Son, there’s no poison, right?”
Madam Son, still lingering in the hallway, stuck her head in and shook it.
No.
She mouthed the word without a sound. He frowned.
“You mute now? Use your words. No poison, right?”
She slowly dragged a finger across her lips— a reminder that she was under orders to keep them shut.
“Told her I’d rip that mouth open if she talked,”
I remarked.
Seong-tae nodded.
“Then keep it shut if you like your face, Madam Son.”
She bowed to both of us and vanished back into the corridor, still hovering just out of sight.
Even Seong-tae had no idea how long Madam Jo would take to arrive.
“Madam Son’s tongue can be a bit sharp,”
he muttered, then raised his voice.
“Madam Son, go fetch Chae-hyang. Tell her to pour drinks.”
Her footsteps echoed away.
He poured the Dugang into two cups and sighed.
“I’ll drink first. My head’s spinning.”
“Go ahead.”
I watched him drink, then took my own swallow.
Once the alcohol hit him, his gaze sharpened again.
“You always this good in a fight? Never heard a rumor like that.”
“Grandfather told me not to fight, so I held back. A few times.”
“…That kind of lie doesn’t work on me. Anyway, I’ll apologize for last time. My men humiliated you. I can understand why you’d do all this.”
“Thanks. You bastard. Understanding and everything. Really big-hearted of you.”
I snorted.
He kept talking—filling the air with babble, buying time.
I rolled up my sleeves.
“Come to think of it, I’m getting pissed off again. Hey, Seong-tae, you bastard. That how someone apologizing is supposed to act? Maybe I should break a few things so your tone improves.”
When my hand closed around the sickle again, his face went white. He dropped to his knees.
“I’m sorry. I sincerely apologize. I’ve never knelt to anyone in my life. I’m doing it now. I’m sorry. Truly.”
The speed of his transformation would put top-class masters to shame.
While he stayed bowed, head low, someone else arrived at the door.
Chae-hyang.
The moment she saw Cha Seong-tae kneeling, her pupils shook like an earthquake.
“Pour the drinks,”
he snapped at her without getting up.
“And I told you to watch your expressions. Relax your eyes.”
Face frozen, she moved naturally toward his side.
“You crazy? Sit over there. Who said you could pour for me? Get your head on straight.”
Her complexion turned ghostly pale.
As she sat beside me, I glanced at her and said, simply:
“Oh. You came?”
There are two kinds of people in this world:
Those who hold grudges— and those who don’t.
As for me…