Chapter 23: To the Confucian Forest (4)
The man spoke with a look of bafflent.
“What are you talking about! You just kicked out!”
“Huh?”
Mun Eunji rubbed her eyes and looked at the man again.
No matter how she looked, the person in front of her now was not the slacker who had been here just monts ago.
The slacker’s grotesque appearance had been so striking—it was impossible to mistake soone else for him.
“Liar!”
Wi Yeonho let out a soft chuckle and said,
“Don’t believe if you don’t want to.”
“...Really?”
“I said it’s true.”
“Good heavens… how can soone change like that in such a short ti…”
Mun Eunji stared at Wi Yeonho with a dazed look.
The skeletal face and body that had looked like it was made of bones were nowhere to be seen. Instead, the man standing before her had firm muscles faintly visible beneath his clothes.
Moreover, though he couldn’t be called an absolute beauty, his face beneath the tightly tied hair was quite handso.
Could soone really change that much in such a short span?
“What happened?”
“Well, I ate well and got plenty of rest. That’s all.”
“Liar.”
“This world is a cruel place. Even when you speak the truth, no one believes you.”
“Are you even human?”
“Well, I did get along with ghosts for a bit.”
Mun Eunji let out a deep sigh.
Whether he was human or not wasn’t the issue.
What mattered was that the person in front of her was a dreadful slacker—and that the solid body he now had was built by mooching off als from the manor without spending a single coin.
The more she thought about it, the more irritating he seed compared to a mont ago. Just how much rice had he consud to bulk up those muscles?
It was undoubtedly a baffling occurrence, but Mun Eunji had grown up hearing tales about countless bizarre people in the world, so she could brush it off with a ‘so be it’ attitude.
If anything, when you thought about it, walking around in that previous state had been more astounding than this transformation.
Mun Eunji spun around so sharply the wind whistled.
“Follow .”
Wi Yeonho followed behind her.
It was unbearably annoying, but it was only right to at least earn his als. This wasn’t a place where he could laze around to his heart’s content.
Mun Eunji led him to a well in one corner of the manor.
And there, around the well, were laundry bundles stacked in bamboo baskets—so many that they could only be described as ‘a ridiculous amount’.
Mun Eunji smiled.
“All you have to do is wash these.”
“All of this?”
“It’s not that much, right?”
“Not that much?”
Wi Yeonho looked at the piles of laundry surrounding the well.
Wi Yeonho figured even if he did laundry for an entire year, it wouldn’t amount to this much. No—it definitely wouldn’t. He found even changing clothes botherso, and once he put sothing on, he wouldn’t take it off for a month unless soone forced him.
Even back ho, it was routine for a servant or his mother to co by every three days or so and practically wrestle the clothes off him to get him changed.
“This is what my als cost?”
“That’s right.”
“It’s not like I sprinkled gold dust on my rice!”
“All the other guests do at least this much work!”
“Liar!”
Mun Eunji smiled sweetly.
“Don’t worry. This is all you have to do for today.”
“For today?”
“Did you think you’d be resting tomorrow?”
“...”
“Well then, I’ll leave it to you! Make sure you wash them clean! If anything isn’t spotless, I’ll make you wash it again, so you better do a good job!”
With that, Mun Eunji turned and slipped away.
‘Let’s see how you like that!’
She grinned smugly.
She had an absolute aversion to lazy people.
She couldn’t stop her father from letting him stay, but there was no way she was going to allow him to loaf around.
Especially considering how tight their finances had beco lately, she couldn’t afford to be feeding a freeloading mouth like his.
Having grown up around those who held diligence and sincerity as virtues, Mun Eunji saw Wi Yeonho as nothing short of a walking sin—a human parasite.
“If he doesn’t finish, he can keep working after sunset! Even better if he gives up and leaves!”
She humd a tune cheerfully.
But what she didn’t see was the expression on Wi Yeonho’s face behind her.
‘You think you can ss with ?’
Wi Yeonho smirked faintly.
“You’ve misjudged the wrong person, miss.”
Though she had whispered under her breath, her voice reached his ears loud and clear.
Wi Yeonho looked at the piles of laundry.
He briefly considered botching the job to get back at her.
But that would’ve felt wrong to Mun Yuhwan, who had taken him in without any strings attached.
“I really have changed a lot.”
In the past, he wouldn’t have cared about Mun Yuhwan’s circumstances.
But Baek Muhan’s teachings—pounded into his body with fists—had made him aware of things he had never paid attention to before.
In that sense, Baek Muhan had truly done a good deed for the world.
“Well, anyway, I should earn my keep.”
Wi Yeonho slowly approached the well.
“Hm?”
Mun Eunji called out to Somin, who was just stepping out of Wi Yeonho’s room.
“Somin.”
“Yes, unni!”
Somin hurried over to her.
Smiling, Mun Eunji gently patted Somin’s head.
Somin was a child who lived near the manor. After her father had passed away recently and her family fell on hard tis, the manor had taken her in as a servant-in-training.
“I’m sorry, but could you take the al for that room to the well?”
“Huh?”
“He should be busy doing laundry right now. So could you bring his al out there?”
“But... there was soone inside the room.”
“What?”
“It didn’t seem like the sa guest as before. There was soone else.”
“Oh, soone else…”
Wait a minute.
If Somin didn’t realize the slacker had changed his appearance, she might’ve mistaken him for a completely different person.
Then... does that an that man really is in the room right now?
Mun Eunji hurried to the room and flung the door open.
Bang!
As soon as she saw who was inside, she shouted.
“What are you doing here!”
At that mont, Wi Yeonho was sitting on the bed, eating with the blanket wrapped around him.
At the very least, shouldn’t a person get out of bed to eat?
“It’s alti.”
“How could you co back and eat when you haven’t even finished your work? Did you really think I wouldn’t bring your food?”
Wi Yeonho replied bluntly.
“I did finish.”
“Don’t joke with .”
“I’m not. I really finished.”
“I said stop joking.”
“You think I’ve been fooling people all my life?”
Wi Yeonho shrugged and continued eating.
Mun Eunji furrowed her brow.
“...Did you really finish?”
“Yup.”
“I’m sure you just rushed through it.”
“As if I would.”
“If I go check and it’s sloppy, you’re doing it all over again!”
“Do as you please.”
Mun Eunji was fuming.
How could soone be so lazy, yet every word that ca out of his mouth managed to grate on her nerves?
“Ugh!”
She stord out of the room and ran toward the well.
‘He probably just dunked everything in water and called it done! I’ll make him redo it imdiately!’
But when she reached the well, sothing completely unexpected awaited her.
Mun Eunji’s eyes trembled as if an earthquake had struck her gaze.
Laundry ropes stretched crosswise over the well, and the clothes were hung in perfect rows and lines, neatly organized.
“Huh?”
She approached the laundry with a dumbfounded look.
A large quilt caught her eye.
“...Was this always this color?”
The quilt, which had once had a yellowish tint, now glead a pristine white.
Even when Mun Eunji had scrubbed with all her strength, she’d never been able to remove that dingy hue—but now the quilt looked like it had just been bought.
“How did he manage all this...”
She looked around in a daze.
Spotless white laundry stretched out in perfect lines. So bright it almost hurt her eyes.
“This can’t be…”
This had been the trap she’d prepared to trip up Wi Yeonho.
Normally, she would have called in dozens of people on the weekend just to get through this load.
And yet, in less than two hours, he’d done it all perfectly by himself?
Fine.
Let’s say he sohow did manage to finish the laundry.
But what’s with these colors that looked newer than new?
Even if she spent three whole days scrubbing a single quilt, it would never co out that clean—so how could he have made that many laundry items look so spotless?
Mun Eunji couldn’t even begin to guess, but Wi Yeonho had handled it all with an absurdly simple thod.
He had tossed every visible piece of laundry into the well, then used Fiery Sun Inner Force to boil the entire well dry.
To soone who hadn’t learned martial arts, it was simply astonishing. But to soone who had trained in martial arts, hearing such a thing would make them foam at the mouth and faint.
The first unbelievable fact was that he could release enough Fiery Sun Inner Force to boil an entire well. But even more outrageous than that—was that he used such a trendous power just to do the laundry.
Of course, Mun Eunji didn’t know anything about martial arts, so all she could do was be stunned.
She ran back to Wi Yeonho’s room, flung the door open without a word, and shouted.
“What did you do?!”
Wi Yeonho glanced at her and let out a soft laugh.
“Why? Sothing’s wrong?”
“I’m asking how you managed to finish all that laundry in such a short ti!”
Wi Yeonho answered nonchalantly.
“You told to do it alone, so I did it alone. Why? Was it not sothing one person could do? Then why’d you give that job to ?”
“...T-That’s not what I ant!”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Wi Yeonho grinned.
And that grin scratched right at Mun Eunji’s nerves.
“D-Did you call soone for help?”
“Well, that’s not the point, is it? The important thing is, I finished today’s work, and now it’s ti for to rest.”
He smiled and added,
“So would you mind leaving now? I’m a little tired and need so rest.”
“Ugh…”
“What? Do you have more to say?”
“No.”
“Then goodbye.”
Wi Yeonho pulled the blanket over himself and lay down. Mun Eunji stood there watching, grinding her teeth. She felt wronged, furious, and irritated—but had nothing to say.
After all, she had been the one who said, “Just do today’s work.”
She couldn’t take back her own words.
Mun Eunji shut the door and stepped outside.
“Aaaargh! I’m so mad!”
Tears welled up from sheer frustration.
“Tomorrow! Just wait until tomorrow!”
As she walked away, flinging curses under her breath, Wi Yeonho smiled.
“A fiery one, that girl.”
Well, so what?
There was nothing she could do ‘today’.
Wi Yeonho leisurely tugged the blanket over his head.
And slowly drifted into sleep.
But, as with everything Wi Yeonho did, this incident didn’t end so cleanly.
That evening, rice cooked with water from the well gave off a vile stench so foul that it tornted everyone in the manor.
Of course, no one ever imagined for a second that Wi Yeonho was the cause of it all.
And Wi Yeonho, having done his part, actually scolded Mun Eunji for bringing him such stinky rice.
Poor Mun Eunji could do nothing but grit her teeth in silent rage.
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