Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Did That Fellow Also Come to This World?

Ding!

The mother opened the door of Jin Myeong Gak with a bright expression and entered.

“Honey! I went to the bank.”

“Was the processing done well?”

“Of course! Settled all the overdue interest clean, and paid back a lot of the principal too.”

The mother took out the bank receipt from her bag with a voice choked with emotion and showed it.

The father received the receipt and confirmed the numbers several times as if he couldn’t believe it.

“Haha··· man. Just a few days ago it was pitch black in front of my eyes. This all feels like a dream.”

When the father couldn’t take his eyes off the receipt, the mother continued in a highly excited voice.

“Ah, guess what happened at the bank?”

“What happened?”

“The female employee at the counter suddenly asked if I was the boss of Jin Myeong Gak!”

“Really? The bank employee recognized you?”

“That’s what I’m saying. She said she saw all our shop videos and even the broadcast of that Myeondosa or whoever. Moreover she asked if the chef turning the wok in the kitchen was my son, and made a fuss saying the skill was no joke at all.”

A proud smile spread widely on the mother’s mouth.

“She was envious saying our Jin-myeong is super popular on the internet these days··· how good I felt inside.”

“Hahahaha! Our Jin-myeong has already become a neighborhood celebrity! Living and receiving such treatment thanks to the son even at the bank! Hahaha!”

The father laughed with an expression of owning the whole world.

He was a son who had lived all his life receiving only others’ sympathetic gazes.

The fact that such a son had now become an existence receiving others’ envy was making the parents’ chests overflow.

The parents’ gazes headed toward the corner of the restaurant hall as if by agreement.

There, Jin Myeong was sitting crookedly leaning on the chair looking into the smartphone as usual.

“...”

On the glass door of Jin Myeong Gak today, a sign was hung despite the early time.

[Business closed today]

It was a decision the parents forcibly made worrying about the son who had worked without rest for several days.

Because of that, regretful sighs were heard from outside.

“Oh my god, today closed?”

“Aigo, is today a rest day? I specially made time and came to eat this house’s jajangmyeon.”

People who had been glancing inside beyond the glass door had to turn around with dejected expressions in front of the door.

Some customers even entered the restaurant out of regret and asked about the situation.

“Boss! Why aren’t you doing business today? By any chance did the ingredients already all run out?”

“There, then you’re doing business tomorrow, right? I’m returning the day after tomorrow so I have to eat unconditionally!”

“Aigo, it’s been closed since yesterday, by any chance nothing happened at home, right? Did that young chef get burned somewhere?”

At the baptism of questions heard at any time, the father couldn’t even leave the front of the door and had to explain one by one like a parrot.

“Aigo, sorry! Tomorrow we’ll open unconditionally!”

“No, nothing happened! No one is injured either! Just trying to let our chef rest fully for one day today because he overdid it too much!”

But as soon as they turned around, another group of customers came and knocked on the glass window throwing the same questions.

In the end the father who couldn’t endure wrote large question-and-answer style phrases in big letters and stuck them on the glass door with a tak.

[Q. Will you do business from tomorrow? / A. Yes! Normal business from tomorrow!]

[Q. Nothing happened at home, right? / A. Nothing! No one is injured!]

[Q. Ingredients exhausted again? / A. No! Just the joints ache so resting one day!]

Seeing that, the mother let out an awkward laugh.

“Resting doesn’t really seem like resting.”

“Still, them coming looking so eager to eat our food is something.”

“Right.”

‘Tsk, just turning the pot a bit for a few days and the joints ache this much.’

Jin Myeong was outwardly swiping the smartphone screen, but in fact he was carefully drawing up the energy he had gathered even weakly inside the body.

The warm qi that started from the dantian lightly circulated along the meridians of the whole body riding the fine breathing.

Especially he was intensively soothing the ligaments of the right wrist that had swollen from excessive overwork and the shoulder muscles, gradually melting the clumped stagnant blood and heavy fatigue.

While quietly recovering his body and regulating his breathing like that, Jin Myeong’s gaze glanced toward the middle of the hall.

The appearance of the parents rejoicing like children after returning from the bank.

‘Money is truly a strange thing.’

Jin Myeong turned his gaze back to the smartphone.

But a small smile was hung on the corner of his mouth looking at the screen.

Like that inside the restaurant of a peaceful and leisurely afternoon after a long time.

A moment later, the mother who changed clothes came out and lifted the remote to turn on the power of the TV hanging on the hall wall.

“Oh my, they’re doing that just now.”

A cooking survival program that was carrying the hottest topic across cable and terrestrial recently was playing.

It was a broadcast where renowned chefs and hidden masters of cooking gathered in a flashy studio and received harsh judging.

“I heard this program is that popular these days. The restaurants of the chefs who appeared there are said to be as hard to reserve as picking stars from the sky.”

The mother sat at the hall table filling napkins and couldn’t take her eyes off the screen.

In the screen, chefs full of tension were carefully holding out their plates toward the judges’ seats.

“Anyway that judge··· is really tall and handsome. Was the name Namgung Wi? The face is handsome too but he’s too scary when evaluating cooking.”

“Namgung Wi? A unique name.”

“······!”

The finger of Jin Myeong who was looking at the smartphone and circulating qi stopped dead for a moment.

The energy circulating the meridians momentarily roughly fluctuated and almost reversed.

Jin Myeong who regulated his breathing slowly raised his head and cast his gaze toward the TV screen.

“······.”

In the screen.

A man sitting with legs crossed in an arrogant appearance in the middle of the judges’ seats was being close-upped.

Wearing an expensive suit of deep navy color and hair neatly swept back.

Seeing that appearance, Jin Myeong’s two pupils shook greatly.

‘···Namgung Wi.’

There was no way to mistake it.

Despite the younger face and the disappeared beard, that gaze was clearly Namgung Wi, the Martial Alliance Leader of his previous life itself.

At that time, the mother opened her mouth as if admiring while looking at the TV screen.

“If the word delicious comes out of that person’s mouth even once, that restaurant becomes a huge hit that day. To the extent that people flock from all over the country and line up but still can’t eat.”

“Oh, an amazing person.”

“Moreover the appearance is overflowing with nobility, doesn’t he look exactly like a real chaebol family’s young master who has never suffered once? The speaking manner is overflowing with elegance too.”

Even at that moment, anger, shock, and competitive spirit surging in Jin Myeong burned as if they would swallow his whole body.

‘Did that fellow also··· come to this world?’

The appearance of Namgung Wi arrogantly folding his arms was flickering inside Jin Myeong’s sunk pupils.

At that moment extreme killing intent wrapped Jin Myeong’s whole body.

“···Huh?”

“...!”

The parents who were chatting while watching TV simultaneously shrugged their shoulders.

It was a bizarre pressure as if the skin was being pricked with a needle.

The mother who was rubbing her forearm in the chilled air casually turned her head and looked at the corner of the hall.

“······!”

The face of the son who was usually blank and languid was terribly distorted.

“Eh, oh my? Jin-myeong. Why are you like that?”

The mother asked in surprise but Jin Myeong’s two eyes were fixed only on Namgung Wi in the screen.

“Ho, honey!”

The father who saw the son’s face distorted with anger was also startled like the mother.

He had never seen the son’s face so scary and fierce in his life.

He suddenly got scared whether another seizure had come to the son’s unsound mind.

The gaze was toward the TV.

“...!”

Because of the TV?

The father quickly picked up the remote and firmly pressed the power button.

Tuk.

In an instant the TV screen turned off.

“······.”

But Jin Myeong’s gaze was still fixed toward the turned-off TV screen as if nailed.

“Honey··· why is our Jin-myeong suddenly like that?”

“Probably tired because he overdid it for several days. Jin-myeong, stop for today and go in and rest a bit. Okay?”

At the father’s words, only then Jin Myeong slowly blinked his eyes and withdrew the killing intent.

“...”

Jin Myeong stood up from his seat.

Then he moved his steps slowly toward the restaurant room.

“...”

“...”

*

Deep night.

In the darkness of the restaurant hall.

Tak, tak, tak.

Jin Myeong was searching for information about Namgung Wi with his phone.

[Genius gourmet critic and chef, Namgung Wi. His perfect elite course.]

Born as the child of a prestigious family operating a leading food company, he boasted an extraordinary brain from childhood, an aristocrat who only walked the elite course.

Moreover a near all-rounder genius with nothing lacking whether study or exercise.

Above all, the epithet that appeared without fail in every article about him was ‘the man with the tongue of a god’.

“...”

Is it just coincidentally a similar person.

“No...”

In Jin Myeong’s thoughts it was clearly the same person.

But he couldn’t be sure.

Jin Myeong scrolled the screen and played one video clip from a famous OTT platform.

In the video Namgung Wi was conversing with renowned foreign chefs in fluent foreign languages and discussing the essence of food.

His taste was picky as rumored, and the evaluation of food was cold and sharp without blood or tears.

The more he watched the video, the more conviction came that it was the same person as the Namgung Wi Jin Myeong thought of.

-Even though Namgung Wi chef seems cold when evaluating, his usual personality is said to be a real angel.

-Have you seen him going to each of the eliminated chefs after the broadcast and warmly advising? Really sweet.

-Having skill, appearance, wealth and even personality··· isn’t he really a scam character?

Seeing the comments on the video, Jin Myeong let out a hollow laugh.

“···Ridiculous.”

That cruel Demon Tongue is being revered as a gourmet saint with good personality in this world.

The public of this era was going crazy over his every move through YouTube and broadcast media.

The position the name Namgung Wi held in the cooking world was at a considerable level.

“······.”

In an instant strong killing intent settled in Jin Myeong’s pupils again.

‘My cooking wasn’t harmonious? Lacking one piece to be satisfied?’

Even with the current body condition, cutting Namgung Wi’s neck is easy.

Just by looking, he’s just an ordinary person different from the Martial Alliance Leader days.

But that wasn’t true revenge.

The only way to repay the humiliation he experienced was one.

‘I will make that well-spoken tongue of yours kneel before my cooking. Strip that hypocritical mask, and thoroughly make you submit so you can never act arrogant in front of cooking again.’

In the darkness Jin Myeong’s momentum swirled terrifyingly.

To subdue the absolute taste, he must not be satisfied with the current level.

The current jajangmyeon that makes neighborhood people and foreign tourists go crazy is only a level that works for ordinary people.

Jin Myeong immediately began researching like crazy searching for the cooking method of jajangmyeon and the chemical actions of this world’s ingredients.

The absolute temperature where chunjang reacts with oil and draws out the most perfect flavor, the timing of controlling the onion’s moisture to condense the sweet taste to the extreme, even the golden blending ratio of flour and starch to overcome the limit of machine noodles.

He began drawing the blueprint to build his own perfect jajangmyeon by grafting modern scientific cooking theory onto the senses of his previous life.

But to perfectly realize all that, above all the body had to keep up.

To handle the extreme flame and wield the wok like his own limbs, this body was far insufficient.

“Huu······.”

Jin Myeong who put down the smartphone sat neatly cross-legged on the room floor.

His breathing was becoming much rougher than usual.

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