Chapter 131 - The Drunks I Have Known

When I entered my office at Yellow Springs Pavilion the following day, Seo Daeryong was waiting for me. The first thing he did upon seeing me was sigh in relief.

“You made it back safely.”

“Why? Were you afraid I’d drown in the Drunken Demon’s liquor vat?”

“You’re not much of a drinker, are you?”

“I can drink plenty. I was just being careful when I drank with you lot.”

“Why?”

“In case I started acting up.”

“You have a drunken habit, Pavilion Master?”

“I do.”

“What kind?”

It was a habit I couldn’t tell Seo Daeryong about. My spirits would plummet endlessly, leaving me profoundly depressed. Had I not met Seo Jin during my years as a wandering martial artist, drink would have ruined me, or I would eventually have gone off drunk to kill Hwa Mugi. I would have died at the hands of his supporters without ever meeting him.

I described the exact opposite of my drunken habit.

“Drinking, singing, dancing. I make a complete spectacle of myself.”

“I can’t imagine it!”

“And I nag my right-hand man endlessly.”

“That, I’d rather not imagine.”

“Now do you understand why I hold back?”

“No, go ahead and drink. Act up in front of us, at least. You need to let out your pent-up anger too, Pavilion Master. This right-hand man will put up with half a watch of nagging!”

Suddenly, I recalled the moment I first met Seo Daeryong: the sight of him entering my room, bringing a gloomy air with him. He had been thoroughly depressed and bitter, yet here he was comforting me.

“We’re getting together again tonight. You should come too, Pavilion Master. Commander Jang will want to see you.”

“All right. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Yes. I’ll just water the plant before I leave.”

Seo Daeryong watered the potted plant by the window.

“Now that the man in charge is back, you’re second-in-command again.”

“What are you talking about?”

“There are hardships the man at the top knows nothing about.”

Just then, Seo Daeryong happened to glance out the window and gave a startled gasp.

I went over to look. Someone was entering Yellow Springs Pavilion. Just as the Wicked Laughing Demon had once crossed that training ground, another Demon Supreme was walking toward us.

Everyone could tell who it was. The liquor bottle dangling from his waist proclaimed its owner’s identity.

Amazingly, the Drunken Demon had come to Yellow Springs Pavilion. A woman followed him: Yeo Bin, one of the Three Great Drunken Warriors of Great Drunken Grove, who had ferried me across the lake.

The investigators and enforcement martial artists passing by held their breath at his arrival.

Ever since I had become Pavilion Master, they had been seeing Demon Supremes here with astonishing frequency—figures they had never once seen in this place before.

Seo Daeryong looked at me and asked,

“Why is it that whenever you go to see a Demon Supreme, they come here afterward? What on earth did you do yesterday?”

“Perhaps he didn’t get enough to drink yesterday.”

“Even though he’s staggering like that?”

Indeed, even from a distance, he was visibly drunk. The Drunken Demon really was intoxicated all day long.

“Go welcome our guests.”

A little later, Seo Daeryong showed the Drunken Demon and Yeo Bin into the office.

“Welcome, Drunken Demon.”

“We meet again, my dear Second Young Master.”

He greeted me affectionately, even addressing me as though I were one of his own.

“After all that drinking together yesterday, shouldn’t we wait at least a few days before meeting again?”

“I’m here on official business today.”

“Have you come to see Do Ho, by any chance?”

“Yes. He may have caused trouble, but he’s still one of mine, isn’t he? We ought to see him once before he’s sent to prison.”

That was an entirely unexpected reason for his visit.

“Not that I’ll be seeing him myself. This woman here will speak with him.”

“Of course.”

I said to Seo Daeryong,

“Show her to Do Ho.”

“Yes.”

He took Yeo Bin outside.

Once we were alone, I said to the Drunken Demon,

“You seemed quite drunk yesterday. Is your stomach all right?”

“No. So let’s have a drink to cure the hangover.”

He lifted his liquor bottle and shook it.

“I can’t. I’m still working.”

“Didn’t I tell you? Everything goes better with a drink. Have some liquor and throw the whole lot in prison!”

“Isn’t indulging himself like that what led Do Ho to cause that accident? It would be one thing if he’d only gotten himself killed, but the problem is that he was unharmed while innocent people died.”

“What will happen to Do Ho?”

“He’ll spend a very long time in prison. I intend to give him the maximum sentence.”

“He’ll have a hard time living without liquor.”

“Then he shouldn’t have caused the accident. But did you really come here in person because of Do Ho?”

“That was an excuse. Have you forgotten? We agreed to call each other brothers.”

Since yesterday, he had brought up calling each other brothers three times. The look he was giving me now was quite earnest, too—enough to make me believe he meant it. But I trusted neither his words nor that look in his eyes.

The drunks I had known were utterly earnest and sincere when intoxicated. So much so that I sometimes wondered why they were telling me quite so much.

Yet once the drinking was over, I would discover that their stories hadn’t meant very much. There were plenty of lies, and they were full of bluster. I would sense that all those tales were decorations for the emptiness within.

What about you, Drunken Demon? Are you the same as them? Are you truly standing precariously at the very edge of that hollow emptiness? Are you merely the ultimate leader of those drunks? If not... why are you so drunk?

“Why do you want to be close to me?”

“Less because I like you than because I dislike the First Young Master, I suppose. He broke my liquor bottle and sent it back. He must pay for that.”

“Why would he send it back broken? He must have known how much it would offend you.”

“How would I know what’s going on in his head? Perhaps I would if we shared a drink.”

“Can you understand someone by drinking with them?”

“Yes.”

“What sort of person am I?”

He looked at me, but his drunken eyes made his thoughts difficult to read.

“That judgment would be meaningless. The man you were yesterday and the man you are now are different people.”

“How can someone change in a single day? I’m the same person I was then.”

“Are you truly certain? Does the Second Young Master look at me with the same feelings now as he did then?”

I couldn’t answer that. I had heard the Blood Heaven Saber Demon call him devious, so strictly speaking, I wasn’t looking at him with the same feelings.

“That’s why I’m suggesting another drink today. Different versions of us, drinking on a different day. Let’s make a different history together.”

Fine. If fate was going to push me into drinking with him like this, then fine. Let’s drink again.

“I’ll be drinking at the Merry Life Tavern tonight. Come there. But there will be several of us, so bring the woman who came with you earlier.”

I intended to learn about the Drunken Demon through Yeo Bin. I also wanted to keep him from controlling the mood all by himself.

“Very well. I’ll bring her.”

Once we had arranged to drink, he looked genuinely delighted. Was it the liquor he liked? Or the prospect of drinking with me? I couldn’t fathom him.

Just then, the door opened, and Seo Daeryong and Yeo Bin returned.

The Drunken Demon rose from his seat.

“I’ll see you later, then.”

“Let me warn you now: there’s nowhere to swim at the Merry Life Tavern.”

I meant that he shouldn’t act up while drunk, but he said he would swim even if he had to dive into his cup, miming swimming strokes as he left the office.

Once the two had left, Seo Daeryong asked urgently,

“What was that about?”

“I told him to come to the Merry Life Tavern, and to bring Yeo Bin.”

“But why?”

“He said he wanted a drink.”

“Aren’t you worried about us at all, Pavilion Master?”

“Who should I worry about? The Demon Army commander? The Blood Heaven Saber Demon’s disciple? My bodyguard Yi An? Who exactly?”

“When you put it like that... there really isn’t anyone to worry about.”

“Scared? You don’t have to come if you are.”

Seo Daeryong sighed.

“As you know, that sort of provocation never used to work on me. My old self would have backed all the way to that door, then waved and wished you a pleasant evening. I had a liver the size of a bean.”

“And now?”

“That bean has swollen until it’s sticking out of my belly. It’s still only the size of a walnut, but I feel as though I could go drink for drink with the Drunken Demon. When you gain confidence in your martial arts and start getting this half-baked arrogance, that’s precisely when you’re most likely to die, isn’t it?”

“You know everything already. There’s nothing left to teach you. Go down the mountain.”

“My old self would have taken that as telling me to depart this world. I’d have clung to your trouser leg and refused to go. But do you know what I’m thinking now? What’s so special about the martial world? What’s so special about the Drunken Demon? I should face him like a man. The worst that can happen is death, right? Those are the crazy thoughts that come to me first. Please stop me. Have I fallen into qi deviation?”

He appeared to be joking, but Seo Daeryong was keeping watch over his own arrogance. This was why clever people survived longer.

“What did Yeo Bin and Do Ho talk about in the interrogation room?”

“Not much. She asked if she could give him a cup of liquor, so I checked it for poison and let her give it to him.”

Was that a custom of Great Drunken Grove? Or did the drink have some other significance?

It happened just then.

An urgent report came from outside.

“Pavilion Master, Do Ho has killed himself.”

Startled, I rushed to the interrogation room with Seo Daeryong. Do Ho lay on the floor with his skull split open.

“He killed himself by smashing his head against the wall.”

At the guard’s report, Seo Daeryong blamed himself.

“Should I have stopped her from giving him the liquor?”

I shook my head.

“It wasn’t the liquor. Yeo Bin probably told him to die through sound transmission.”

“Why on earth would she order him to die? He was going to suffer in prison for a long time anyway.”

Suddenly, I remembered what the Drunken Demon had said.

[“He’ll have a hard time living without liquor.”]

Was that truly why you had him killed? To spare your subordinate the suffering?

“Are you still coming tonight?”

Seo Daeryong looked angry. He must have felt as though he had personally escorted death to Do Ho.

“I’m coming. What’s so special about the martial world? What’s so special about the Drunken Demon? The worst that can happen is death, isn’t it? Don’t try to stop me.”

And this was why clever people sometimes died sooner.

“I think you have qi deviation.”

* * *

Before going to the Merry Life Tavern, I visited my brother.

When I entered his office, he was hard at work.

Being the Heavenly Demon’s flesh and blood didn’t mean we could live idle lives. Just as I had taken on the duties of Pavilion Master of Yellow Springs Pavilion, my brother was handling work handed down from Heavenly Demon Hall.

The vast organization that was the Divine Cult of the Heavenly Demon required countless people to do their jobs in their respective positions, and my brother was better than anyone at managing and running an organization.

Although Geom Muyang knew I had entered, he didn’t lift his head from the towering stack of documents.

“Have you been well? I take it none of those papers tells you to greet a visitor before anything else?”

He ignored me and remained absorbed in his work.

“All right. I know you’re good at doing several things at once, so listen while you work. Why did you reject the Drunken Demon? And even send him a broken bottle?”

His hand stopped for an instant, then began moving again.

“I filled the bottle he sent me with liquor and took it to him. He was delighted with me. He was very angry with you, though.”

As I spoke, I watched my brother’s reactions closely, using the New Eye Procedure to observe his face and body. He probably thought he wasn’t reacting at all, but there were tiny responses.

“Do you know what the Drunken Demon said about you?”

At that, he lifted his head and looked at me.

“That interests you, I see.”

“What did he say?”

“Meet him and ask him yourself. Oh, perhaps he won’t see you?”

I saw his lips move ever so slightly. I realized he had something to say but was holding it back.

‘There’s no reason for my brother to reject the Drunken Demon. Even if there were, he would have accepted him despite it. There’s definitely more to this.’

His reaction made me all the more certain.

“Thanks to you, I got the Drunken Demon for nothing. He came to see me today, too. Said he wanted us to be close. We’re drinking together again tonight.”

My brother’s gaze returned to his documents.

“If you’re finished, leave.”

Normally, he would certainly have delivered at least one icy retort if I came to taunt him like this. But he held back to the very end, as though even a single word might cause a liquor bottle to fall and shatter.

Seeing that reaction alone was more than enough to accomplish the purpose of my visit.

* * *

Shortly after Geom Mugeuk left, the Demonic Buddha entered.

“I heard the Second Young Master was here.”

“He came to probe me. He wanted to know why we rejected the Drunken Demon.”

“Did he know? About the bottle?”

“No. He didn’t seem to.”

Then a startling statement escaped the Demonic Buddha’s lips.

“Then the Second Young Master must remain unaware that it was the Drunken Demon who rejected us, not the other way around.”

The person who had sent a broken liquor bottle in the first place was not Geom Muyang, but the Drunken Demon. The empty bottle he had sent Geom Muyang was broken.

Geom Muyang had interpreted it as a rejection—a sign that the Drunken Demon would not join hands with him.

“Why did the Drunken Demon choose Mugeuk? He could have gone back and forth between us, weighing his options.”

“I don’t know the answer to that either.”

“We must discover the reason and make him one of ours.”

“There is no need to hurry.”

The Demonic Buddha regarded this as an opportunity instead.

“The Drunken Demon is unpredictable. Once he starts stirring things up, even the Second Young Master will find him difficult to handle. Besides, the Blood Heaven Saber Demon and the Wicked Laughing Demon may dislike each other, but they dislike the Drunken Demon even more. In the end, the Demon Supremes the Second Young Master has so painstakingly gathered will be divided. If he gains the Drunken Demon, he will lose one of the others. Perhaps he may even lose all three.”

The Demonic Buddha’s eyes shone with as much certainty as his golden body.

“This is an opportunity to turn our disadvantage around.”

Geom Muyang held back the words he wanted to say.

‘And what will you do if the Drunken Demon simply joins Mugeuk without any trouble?’

But he had had no choice from the moment he received that broken bottle anyway.

He could only hope that the Drunken Demon would make an even greater drunken spectacle of himself than they expected.