A liquor cup flew through the air and smashed against the wall.
Soon after, a thunderous shout cut through the room.
“Are you messing with me right now?! Do you have any idea how much money I pour into this place? How is this acceptable?!”
Hwang Yusan. Leader of the Bangdal Merchant Group.
He was a man considered a nightmare in every brothel.
Chiyeong Pavilion’s manager, Jo Jeok, rubbed his hands together obsequiously.
“Sir, we’ve done our absolute best...”
“Absolute best? You call seating me with these ragtag whores your best? The liquor’s cheap swill, the food’s poorly seasoned! And you dare call this your best?! You might fool beggars with that mouth of yours, but you won’t fool Hwang Yusan’s. It’s obvious you’re trying to cheat me, so how dare you utter the word ‘best’?!”
Unable to contain his rage, he snatched up a liquor bottle and hurled it straight at Jo Jeok.
Jo Jeok ground his teeth behind his back.
Deep down, he wanted to thrash the man and kick him out... but he couldn’t.
Without the liquor supplied by Hwang Yusan, no brothel in the region could last even ten days.
Moreover, the money he lavishly spent in a single visit outstripped what a hundred ordinary customers could provide.
Today was just another grueling day to earn that payout.
“Is it that hard to satisfy me?! I told you I’d pay any amount!”
Even as he shouted, Jo Jeok knew exactly why Hwang Yusan was carrying on.
He wanted Chiyeong Pavilion’s top courtesan, Seo Yo.
But Seo Yo was bedridden and in no condition to entertain.
There was no way to satisfy him.
After racking his brains, Jo Jeok finally made his choice.
“...Everyone out.”
The moment those words rang out, the courtesans sprang up and fled like they’d been granted amnesty.
Hwang Yusan, who had been bellowing moments ago that they were ugly hags he didn’t want near him, grew even redder in the face now that they were truly gone.
“You, you bastard, how dare you—”
“Sir.”
Jo Jeok cut him off.
“...Just wait a moment, and I’ll show you something you’ve never experienced before.”
.
.
.
As Hwang Yusan barely suppressed his boiling fury, the door quietly slid open.
His sharpened gaze locked instantly onto the new courtesan who entered.
Soon, a tongue-clicking sound filled the room.
“You’ve finally crossed the line, manager.”
It wasn’t Seo Yo who had entered.
She was a woman whose plain face ranked among the least appealing even among the brothel’s low-tier courtesans.
“Enough. From today onward, I won’t supply this brothel with anything—”
“—This girl is called Baekran.”
Before he could finish, a low, slow, somehow provocative tone interrupted him.
The unfamiliar courtesan carried herself with a composure that belied her looks. Without the slightest hesitation, she approached him directly.
Swish, swish—.
Her fingertips smoothly undid the front of her garment. The movements were utterly unhesitant.
At first, Hwang Yusan smirked derisively at the reckless display.
He had no desire to stoop to her level with such pathetic antics.
Sleep with the whore once and shut her up?
Pass.
“You won’t bring Seo Yo... and now...”
But his words never reached their end.
Baekran shed her clothes.
What was revealed was sleek black leather clinging along limbs as smooth as a deer’s.
From her toes to her thighs, from her fingertips to her upper arms—a bizarre outfit that hugged her like a second skin.
It was attire utterly unlike anything seen on a brothel courtesan.
Moreover, the body it concealed was the polar opposite of her face: voluptuous and sensually perilous.
Was this courtesan’s body truly so stunning?
Or did the outfit make her seem so?
Like a fox’s fur extending differently from its legs to its torso, so too did this leather-clad courtesan exude that same effect.
Beastly yet dignified, a profane beauty belonging to no place.
Hwang Yusan’s pupils trembled.
His mind reeled.
He even forgot what he’d been about to say.
It made no sense.
The old him would never have spent a single coin on such an ugly wench.
Yet that resolve crumbled helplessly before the outfit and Baekran’s aura.
“...Hah.”
It covered her body, yet it was so utterly vulgar.
Vulgar, vulgar beyond measure.
And yet, why wasn’t this vulgar shock unpleasant?
What would it feel like to embrace that woman?
“...Ah...”
In that instant, his breath caught.
Six years. Hot blood surged into his long-dormant lower regions for the first time.
“...Hahaha.”
His eyes reddened. He couldn’t tell if it was rapture or shock.
His heart pounded, and time, stalled somewhere within him, began to flow again.
How long had it been since he’d felt strength down there?
Hwang Yusan knew that the hundreds of thousands of gold he’d poured out, the frustrations he’d piled up and vented—all of it had been for this sensation.
And right now, there was no time to waste.
Melting into such vulgarity was shameful, but reason had already fled.
“...Come...”
Hwang Yusan murmured dazedly.
“Come here... Baekran.”
.
.
.
A few days later.
Brothel manager Jo Jeok, sweat beading coldly on his face, shoved open the gates of the Bangdal Merchant Group without hesitation.
“Merchant Bang! Where’s Merchant Bang?!”
Bang Biyeon, who had just sat down to breakfast, set down her spoon at Jo Jeok’s rudeness and chuckled softly.
“What brings you so early in the morning? By the way, how were the goods we supplied?”
“More!!”
Jo Jeok shouted.
“Give us more! Those clothes—I mean those clothes!”
Those clothes.
The ones even the brothel courtesans had turned away from.
Shaped to cling like it squeezed the body, mocked as brazen, shunned as embarrassing.
Of all people, low-tier courtesan Baekran had worn them.
Her plain face had made her desperate and bold enough to don them before the customer in a do-or-die gamble.
The result was a storm.
Hwang Yusan lost his mind first.
A few days later, Baekran’s name drew more summons than even Seo Yo’s.
The other courtesans finally coveted the outfits too, but Jo Jeok could no longer wrest them from Baekran, who had overnight become a money-making demon.
“Merchant Bang... those clothes... please make more! No, everything left in your warehouse! Name your price!”
Jo Jeok couldn’t contain his excitement as he yelled.
“Shh.”
Bang Biyeon covered Jo Jeok’s mouth.
Jo Jeok realized and lowered his voice. Something about a premium strategy, right?
After mulling over the news Jo Jeok had brought, Bang Biyeon soon flashed a broad smile and whispered to someone.
“...Looks like we’re going to get rich, Young Hero Han.”
****
“Done?”
At Han Seojin’s words, Cheongwol snapped back to reality.
Deep within his dantian, she had implanted her own inner energy.
Gazing at his handsome form, Cheongwol nodded.
“...Yeah.”
Only now did she feel at ease.
When only Dang Soran’s energy had settled in his dantian, she’d been furious.
What infuriated her most wasn’t just the presence of that energy... but how astonishingly refined it was.
Dang Soran had genuinely cared for Han Seojin.
She’d played it off as a joke on the surface, but Cheongwol could sense the truth through her intuition.
As Han Seojin had said, it wasn’t a mere prank.
It was devotion, tender sincerity.
Perhaps that single strand of energy held enough care to spare him ailments for life.
And that very sincerity irked Cheongwol the most.
Because Dang Soran wasn’t the type to do this normally.
...You think I’ll let you take him?
That was why Cheongwol had unhesitatingly passed on the purest inner energy she had cultivated.
She felt no qualms about pushing back.
She had no doubt her feelings were far deeper, heavier, and truer than Dang Soran’s sincerity.
Right now, no friend was more precious to Cheongwol than Han Seojin.
Han Seojin straightened up and rolled his shoulders.
“Phew. Guess I’ll have to come up with excuses for the uncles.”
“...”
Cheongwol felt a twinge of guilt.
The energy she’d just transferred was something any martial artist would gratefully accept with both hands, but he wasn’t one.
She’d burdened the man who just wanted a quiet life with yet another complication.
“I-It won’t be noticeable unless you’re a master. The energy’s faint... and you’d have to probe closely...”
But even as she spoke, Cheongwol knew that wasn’t the issue.
The mere fact that the Tang Clan of Sichuan’s energy emanated from his body was extraordinary.
A man who wasn’t even Tang Clan kin, bearing their energy?
And upon closer inspection, Dang Soran’s energy at that?
...That alone might be explainable somehow.
Say he’d received a favor from Dang Soran, for instance.
...But Emei Sect energy too?
Emei heart arts could be taught to men, but the combination would strike anyone as odd.
And on closer look, it wasn’t just any Emei energy—it was Cheongwol’s own.
Most in the Central Plains might not distinguish it.
But on Mount Emei, some certainly could.
The sect leader or her master.
They would know whose energy it was. Whose intent.
“...”
Cheongwol realized she’d need to prepare her words carefully too.
Soon, she wouldn’t be able to hide her connection to him.
...And yet, did it really matter that much?
What was wrong with making a friend?
She’d lived on Mount Emei, so having friends from there—what was strange about that?
...As long as the basement and their games stayed hidden, there’d be no problem.
Just keep secret the fact that she submitted to him in such vulgar ways.
“A-Anyway, let’s go, shopkeeper. We need to reach Mount Emei by tonight.”
Cheongwol said this to Han Seojin and examined his face again.
Hah, she let out a sigh.
...She really hoped no women would flock to him now that he was so handsome.
.
.
.
A few days later.
Her fears passed without incident, surprisingly.
Cheongwol had snuck off Mount Emei during her confinement.
But Muwol Satae and her master praised the loyalty behind her actions.
Her month-long search for Dang Soran had even been romanticized across the Central Plains as noble friendship.
Cheongwol didn’t bother correcting the tales.
Let them believe what they wanted.
Also, few women made a fuss over Han Seojin’s looks.
He drew more glances than before, but nothing annoying.
Above all, no women approached him with flimsy excuses.
If any did, Cheongwol planned to check them out.
She couldn’t stand by as her friend got roped in by some weirdo.
“...You’re gonna come find me every day like this?”
Cheongwol had been keeping watch on the Leather Room from afar today too, then slipped out at a good moment.
“Nothing much else to do.”
Pretending nonchalance, she brushed it off casually, then stroked the fur of the donkey tied in front of the shop as if she hadn’t come to see him.
Han Seojin quietly sighed and continued his work outside the shop in silence.
His thick forearms, the sweat trickling down his neck—it kept drawing her eyes.
Cheongwol swallowed without realizing.
Still, she wondered.
Was he just working as usual today, or preparing her gift?
Asking felt petty, but not asking made her itch inside.
In the end, she had to speak up to distract herself.
“By the way. You cut your hair?”
Clack. Han Seojin’s hands paused.
He looked up at Cheongwol for a moment, shooting her an incredulous glance.
“...You’re just noticing now?”
...She’d known from the start.
She clearly remembered her breath catching the moment she saw his face after he’d slaughtered the bandits.
But too embarrassed to admit it, Cheongwol bluffed.
“Looks neat. I think it suits you.”
“...Thanks.”
“What do the villagers say?”
“The uncles say it makes me look dashing, handsome, that sort of thing.”
“...And the women?”
Han Seojin shrugged.
“...Nothing special?”
A smile tugged at Cheongwol’s lips.
Too good. What a relief.
If he stayed single forever like this, she couldn’t ask for more.
Then they could play like this for life.
Still, she couldn’t help but wonder.
Why weren’t they coming?
Why weren’t they chasing Han Seojin?
Had everyone gone blind?
He was so handsome now.
...Well, a face didn’t put food on the table.
Who’d fall for a poor guy like him?
As Cheongwol petted the donkey, she glanced at Han Seojin and couldn’t hold back her bubbling feelings, tossing out a tease.
“Shopkeeper.”
“Yeah?”
“...Good thing you’re poor, shopkeeper.”
Han Seojin shook his head again.
“Leave me alone. I don’t even know what I’ll say if your master shows up.”