Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Jin-chwa Jackpot!

The Westerner who had been slurping the noodles soon began making a fuss while scraping up even the remaining sauce on the bottom.

“...”

A faint sneer brushed the corner of Jin Myeong’s mouth as he indifferently watched that noisy and frivolous reaction.

‘Those born with that bloodline are naturally loud in their gluttony.’

Suddenly, one memory from his previous life flashed through Jin Myeong’s mind.

A great merchant who said he came from the Western Regions had once stopped by the Blood Cult by chance, tasted the dish Jin Myeong served, and made the same uproar.

That Westerner had begged Jin Myeong, saying he would give him a fortune of gold to go with him to the Western Regions.

Of course, it ended in a commotion because the Blood Demon got angry and tried to cut that person’s neck.

“One more! Please!”

He pointed at his own mouth with a heavily twisted pronunciation.

Even without fully understanding the words, he could tell it was a request for more.

“Tsk.”

Jin Myeong clicked his tongue shortly and stood up from his seat.

It was bothersome, but he couldn’t ignore someone craving the food he made so much.

It also went against a chef’s duty.

Jin Myeong entered the kitchen again.

And...

Tak.

A large bowl heaped with double-portion jajangmyeon was placed in front of Michael’s eyes.

“Oh, my······.”

He rushed toward the bowl again this time.

A moment later.

“Haa···”

Michael, leaning back in the chair, blankly stared only at the ceiling while clutching his belly that seemed about to burst.

Soon coming to his senses, he abruptly stood up and poured out a noisy reaction toward Jin Myeong while shaking both hands wildly.

With thumbs up, beating his chest, blowing kisses into the air, and all kinds of exaggerated gestures, incomprehensible exclamations poured out.

The Westerner who had been making such a fuss then stuck his face toward his smartphone left alone and spouted a heated speech for a long while until his veins stood out.

“...”

Jin Myeong was only looking at that frivolous appearance indifferently with his chin propped.

Soon, Michael, who had calmed his excitement, suddenly held out a small plastic piece from his pocket to Jin Myeong.

“······?”

Jin Myeong looked down at that thin piece with a sullen expression.

Soon he recalled what it was.

A credit card.

But he had no idea how to operate the card terminal.

“...”

When Jin Myeong stood without moving at all, the Westerner nodded his head with an expression as if he had noticed something.

“Aha!”

He quickly took out four 10,000 won bills from his wallet and held them out to Jin Myeong.

“Keep the change! You are amazing! Jin-chwa jackpot!”

It seemed to mean no change was needed.

Normally one bowl of jajangmyeon was 7,000 won.

Double portion 10,000 won.

Together 17,000 won.

But it was 40,000 won.

“...”

Jin Myeong’s brow narrowed as he looked down at that money.

Not a beggar...

As the number one chef under heaven, the compensation he received was only a fair share for the value of the food.

He took only two bills and took out 3,000 won from the cash box to hold out to him.

“No need for sympathy.”

“...?”

The Westerner who tilted his head for a moment soon made an impressed expression.

“Oh···”

Whatever he thought, he immediately started chattering again.

“My name is Michael! Ma-i-keul! Me Famous!”

The Westerner pointed at himself with a finger and called his name clearly, then immediately shoved the smartphone he was holding right in front of Jin Myeong’s eyes.

“Bro, let's take a selfie! You are the best chef!”

The form of suddenly sticking close to his side and putting an arm around his shoulder was roughly a trick to leave a photo together, which he could notice.

Jin Myeong slightly furrowed his brow as if bothersome, but didn’t bother to push away the arm wrapped around his shoulder and made an indifferent expression.

“Smile!”

Click!

Michael smiling brightly with teeth fully exposed.

Jin Myeong’s gaze fixed on the smartphone screen.

“...”

Unreadable characters were rising at a crazy speed from one side of the screen.

To Jin Myeong blankly looking at that dizzying screen, Michael suddenly held out a thumb.

“You! Number one!”

He raised the thumb high and smiled brightly.

Then he kept tapping the comment window on the phone screen with his index finger.

Probably saying people were going crazy over his cooking.

“I will be back!”

“...”

Michael waved his hand until the moment he left the restaurant, then soon disappeared outside.

Ding!

In that way, the Westerner who had been chattering noisily for a long while left the shop.

“Tsk. Annoying fellow.”

Jin Myeong looked down at the two empty bowls that were clean to the bottom and clicked his tongue shortly.

But a strange feeling.

In his previous life, he always cooked risking his life.

He did his utmost to survive by satisfying the picky tongues of absolute beings like the Blood Demon or the Martial Alliance Leader.

So for him, cooking was always a continuous series of tension and fear.

But now it was different.

The Westerner who had been shocked and eaten roughly the moment he put the food he made into his mouth.

Where would there be greater satisfaction for the one who served the dish than this.

‘Not bad.’

It was blowing a strange sense of fulfillment into Jin Myeong’s chest.

‘This world······ might be quite interesting.’

Jin Myeong sat leaning deeply into the chair and quietly groped through the shallow memories of Lee Jin-myeong scattered in his head.

This unfamiliar world was a vast place that couldn’t even be compared to the Central Plains he had devoted his whole life to.

It was a huge world of gourmet where ingredients from countries tens of thousands of li away arrived overnight, and countless kinds of food as many as the stars in the sky overflowed.

As an absolute chef who had devoted his life to cooking, he felt a strange academic zeal and competitive spirit wriggling in his chest.

“...”

Lost in thought, Jin Myeong casually put his hand into his loose pants pocket and pulled out one smooth and flat rectangular object.

It was the original body owner’s smartphone.

In an instant, one voice flashed through his mind.

‘Jin-myeong. If you get lost or someone bullies you, you have to press this number 1 firmly. Got it? If anything happens, unconditionally find mom first with this phone.’

The mother’s appearance of repeatedly teaching over and over so that her unsound son wouldn’t become a lost child in a harsh world.

At that affectionate memory, his expression became strange.

‘Truly a bizarre and interesting object.’

He lightly swiped up the center of the screen with his finger.

Then the firmly closed black screen brightened brightly.

Following the instinctive sensation remaining in his body, Jin Myeong as if entranced pressed the YouTube app with the red play symbol drawn on it.

And clumsily searched for food-related videos.

Soon videos began pouring out from within the screen.

Meat of the same kind grilling on a huge cast-iron plate, spices he had never seen before, and foreign chefs who trimmed ingredients in the blink of an eye using flashy tools.

“...”

Jin Myeong propped his chin and stared piercingly at the screen.

He became deeply immersed in the interesting scene.

Just when he was so absorbed in the endless world of gourmet that the palm-sized screen showed that he didn’t know time was passing.

Ding!

The restaurant door opened and the father and mother who had gone to the hospital returned.

Fortunately it seemed it wasn’t the worst situation, as both people’s complexions looked much more comfortable than when they left.

“The doctor said the big crisis has passed, but still, absolutely don’t overdo it for a while. Understood?”

“Okay, okay. Anyway, Jin-myeong alone...”

The steps of the parents entering the shop with worried faces momentarily halted.

The two people’s gazes, as if by agreement, fixed on the two empty jajangmyeon bowls sitting alone on the table.

“...Huh?”

“Huh? What’s that?”

Two empty jajangmyeon bowls were sitting alone on the table.

“Cus, customers······ came and went? No, who on earth the food······?”

The father inhaled empty air and alternated his flustered eyes between the hall and the empty kitchen.

The two looked at each other with dumbfounded expressions as if they couldn’t understand this situation at all.

“...”

Soon the parents’ gazes, as if by agreement, headed toward Jin Myeong sitting in a corner chair and indifferently looking down at the smartphone.

“Jin-myeong, by any chance here······ no, never mind.”

The mother moved her lips as if to ask Jin Myeong something, then soon sighed and closed her mouth.

Because of the resignation that asking would be useless anyway.

No matter the situation, the son wouldn’t properly explain this situation.

The two, unable to even guess what on earth had happened, just stood blankly sunk in absurdity saying it was something even a ghost would cry over.

“...”

Jin Myeong faced the two people’s bewildered gazes toward him blankly but didn’t bother to try to explain.

He just stood up from his seat with an indifferent face, stacked the two empty bowls placed on the table, and went toward the kitchen with slow steps.

“...”

“...”

They only blankly watched such a son’s back.

*

Late evening.

A single room attached inside the restaurant.

Jin Myeong, covered with the blanket, entrusted his face to the bluish light the smartphone emitted alone in the darkness, deeply immersed in the foreign cooking videos on the screen.

At that time, the father’s sigh was heard from behind his back.

“Sorry. Because I’m lacking, I’m only making you suffer.”

“Don’t say that. An acquaintance of mine said they’d look into a cleaning job for me. So let’s cheer up together.”

“...Yeah.”

The parents’ conversation continued behind his back, but Jin Myeong didn’t move an inch and only quietly stared at the screen.

“...”

And late at night when everyone had fallen into deep sleep.

Jin Myeong, confirming the parents’ even breathing, quietly lifted the blanket and left the room.

Standing in the middle of the dark restaurant hall, Jin Myeong slowly kneaded his right wrist.

‘Tsk, to think the bones and muscles are in this shape.’

Moreover, no internal energy either.

No matter how much the number one chef of the unorthodox, to freely handle a heavy wok, at least minimal internal energy had to support it.

Just frying two bowls of jajangmyeon had already hit the limit of this frail body.

‘Even for cooking, I need to fill this empty dantian.’

Jin Myeong sat cross-legged on the floor and quietly closed his eyes.

And he tried to draw up the mental method in his memory and circulate qi.

But soon he furrowed his brow and opened his eyes.

The air inside the restaurant stained with the exhaust and grease of the modern city was far too turbid and muddy to gather qi.

Jin Myeong stood up without lingering and went outside the restaurant.

The place he headed was a low neighborhood hill located behind the restaurant building.

Late at night with no human presence, all sides were submerged in pitch-black darkness, and only artificial streetlights erected sparsely faintly illuminated the mountain path.

Originally it was a low hill that wouldn’t even count as a light walk, but with Lee Jin-myeong’s extremely frail body, even that was a harsh ordeal.

“Heok···! Heok···!”

Even while climbing the slope relying on the phone’s light, breath rose to the chin and cold sweat poured down the spine.

Barely arriving at the wide rock at the mountain peak, Jin Myeong’s legs gave out and he plopped down.

“Huu...!”

While regulating his short breath and casually turning his head, a strange light settled in Jin Myeong’s two eyes.

“...!”

The scenery below the mountain looking down from the dark mountain-top rock was completely different from the nights of the world he had known all his life.

Lights of various colors.

The cityscape shining brilliantly while forgetting the night was emitting a far more bizarre and overwhelming vitality than the scenery of the world he had looked down upon from the peak of the number one spiritual mountain of the Central Plains in the past.

But soon he shook off the deep thoughts and sat neatly cross-legged on the rock.

Of course, the energy of this mountain was also turbid compared to the clear spiritual mountains of the Central Plains in the past.

But it was much more breathable than the tightly blocked restaurant interior.

“...”

Jin Myeong, with his back to the brilliant city lights, slowly closed both eyes and erased distracting thoughts.

He began carefully pushing the fine energies scattered in nature, drawing them strand by strand, into the empty dantian.

In that way, his breathing continued long in the darkness.

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