Chapter 9

Chapter 9

The Madman Appears Again

Dawn with darkness laid.

Jin Myeong was sitting cross-legged without fail on the wide rock at the peak of the back mountain.

He deeply inhaled the cold air holding night dew and circulated qi.

“Huu...”

Though still an energy too shallow to call grand internal energy, thanks to two consecutive days of training the tightly blocked qi and blood had opened quite smoothly.

Feeling the turbid qi inside the body escaping with every exhalation and the body becoming lighter, Jin Myeong slowly opened both eyes.

“...”

And he immediately descended the mountain.

Returning to the shop, Jin Myeong headed straight to the dawn market with the mother this time too.

“Aigu! It’s that young man from yesterday! Came even earlier today!”

“The young fellow who ghost-like picks only the good ones, came again today!”

As soon as they entered the market, several merchants greeted the mother and son warmly.

They were the vegetable wholesaler and butcher owner who had stuck out their tongues at Jin Myeong’s extraordinary eye yesterday.

But Jin Myeong didn’t even glance at their affectionate greetings.

He only moved his steps straight toward the stall with an indifferent and sullen face as always.

“Aigo, sorry. Our kid isn’t good at being friendly······. Really sorry.”

At Jin Myeong’s such appearance, the mother following behind was startled and flustered.

Fearing the merchants might get upset and get angry at the son’s rudeness, she apologized instead.

But contrary to the mother’s worry, the merchants’ reactions were completely different.

“Aei, madam! What’s there to apologize for! On the market floor, as long as the person who came to look at goods looks at the goods well, that’s enough!”

“Right, right! Rather than a man being all talk, bowing and chattering, doing his own work silently and firmly like that is the real deal! Completely a man, a man!”

The merchants laughed it off heartily.

On the market floor, the eye that recognizes good goods at a glance is treated far better.

Rather, some merchants even looked with pleased eyes as if liking the attitude of not caring about others’ glances.

“...”

Jin Myeong didn’t even pay attention to whatever the merchants chattered behind.

He immediately approached the corner of the stall and roughly flipped the nets hidden behind the stacked boxes.

They were so-called special A-grade ingredients the merchants had secretly set aside to pass to long-time regulars or high-end restaurants.

“Heo, hehe! Really a ghost, a ghost! How did he find the ones tightly hidden underneath at a glance again?”

Even though his stall became a mess, the merchant rather stuck out his tongue while smiling awkwardly instead of getting angry.

But seeing that sight, the mother turned pale.

“Aigo, boss! How sorry. Our kid messed up the whole stall······.”

The mother at a loss hurriedly began tidying the surroundings.

“······.”

The hand of Jin Myeong who had been selecting the best ingredients paused for a moment.

He looked down quietly at the mother’s back who was squatting on the floor and hurriedly clearing the things he had messed up.

In the Blood Cult’s main kitchen of his previous life, it was all too natural.

There was no reason for him as a chef to care about anything other than cooking and ingredients.

The places he passed, the traces he messed up, were things the numerous underlings cleaned and organized on their own.

So even after coming to this unfamiliar world, he had done as he always did.

But the one doing the organizing was his own mother.

“...”

One corner of his chest became strange again.

Jin Myeong silently put down the vegetable net in his hand and quietly approached the mother’s side and squatted.

Then he began helping with the organizing.

“...?”

The two eyes of the mother clearing the boxes widened.

“Aigo, madam! It’s fine, it’s fine! Leave it! Whether I’ve done business once or twice, anyway I’ll clean it all up again later so just leave it!”

The merchant desperately waved his hands and dissuaded, but Jin Myeong pretended not to hear and silently tidied the surroundings of the stall back to original.

The mother blankly looked at Jin Myeong’s side profile like that.

He was a son who had lived trapped in his own closed world all his life.

That child was gradually changing.

Though still with a blunt and indifferent expression, that one small action stirred a quiet emotion in the mother’s chest.

“Jin-myeong···”

Feeling the tip of her nose tingling, the mother sat side by side with the son and finished organizing the remaining boxes.

Soon Jin Myeong who finished organizing stood up from his seat again and selected an enormous amount of ingredients that looked at least three times more than yesterday.

“Ji, Jin-myeong. Is it okay to buy this much?”

The mother was anxious but in the end had no choice but to open her wallet pushed by Jin Myeong’s stubbornness.

*

10 AM.

In front of the restaurant was noisier than yesterday.

“Oh my god! We’ll definitely be able to eat today, right?”

“I went back just smelling it yesterday! I’m so excited now!”

Dozens of foreigners lining up from before opening time.

The whole alley was noisy from them each holding smartphones and filming vlog videos while chatting.

That wasn’t all.

Even neighborhood residents who felt curiosity at the strange sight of foreigners crowding joined the line in threes and fives.

“No, honey··· what on earth is all this?”

The parents looking outside beyond the glass door couldn’t hide their dazed expressions.

A crowd forming a bustling scene from before opening time, an unfamiliar scene they had never experienced even while doing business all their lives.

The gaze of the parents who had been blankly looking outside this time headed toward the kitchen inside the restaurant.

“······.”

They wanted to help the son who said he would trim all those many ingredients alone, but Jin Myeong’s stubbornness showed no sign of breaking.

Tata tatata tatatak!

Seogeok, seogeok!

Knife cuts so fast and precise as to be invisible continued without rest.

The vegetables and meat piled up were quickly sliced into uniform thickness and size as soon as they passed through Jin Myeong’s hands.

“How can the hands be that fast···”

The mother muttered lowly as if she couldn’t believe it.

Tata tatata tatak!!

The back of the son continuously doing knife cuts was already soaked with sweat.

“...”

The child they had regarded only as an existence to protect all their lives, to be that dazzling.

At that wondrous scene, a strange emotion was welling up from one corner of the parents’ chests.

Soon.

Tak.

Jin Myeong who perfectly finished even the last ingredient trimming and sauce blending put down the knife on the cutting board.

He raised his head and glanced at the parents standing blankly in the hall.

Then he nodded toward the mother.

It was the signal that all preparations were finished.

“Ah, aht! Uh, yes!”

The mother who suddenly came to her senses at the son’s indifferent signal hurriedly took short steps and approached the restaurant entrance.

She took one big deep breath and grabbed the door handle.

Ding!

“Oh, please come in...!”

As soon as the mother opened the glass door, customers poured in like a tide.

In an instant the 7 tables were fully packed.

Even strangers who weren’t groups naturally shared tables and filled empty chairs.

Hwaaaaaaaaak!!

Inside the kitchen, a bright red pillar of fire surged toward the ceiling with a roar.

At that sight, exclamations and cheers burst out all at once among the customers.

“Oh my god! Look at that!”

“Amazing chef!”

The customers all raised their smartphones high and were busy capturing the fire show unfolding inside the kitchen in video.

With the surging fire pillar as background, they raised thumbs and took selfies with playful expressions, and even bumped shoulders with unknown people sitting at the next table and burst into laughter.

“Noodles!”

“Uh, yeah! Got it!”

Following Jin Myeong’s instruction, the father was continuously turning the noodle-pulling machine on one side of the kitchen.

The work of boiling the noodles poured from the machine in boiling water, and quickly rinsing in cold water to make them chewy.

Jin Myeong glanced sideways at the machine noodles the father had pulled.

‘Tsk, indeed lacking compared to hand-pulled noodles. The texture is also regrettable.’

By Jin Myeong’s standards, it was noodles far insufficient.

But to handle the explosively pouring orders like now, he had no choice but to borrow the efficiency of the machine thing of this world.

Judging that the flavor of the fried chunjang could sufficiently cover the taste, Jin Myeong silently concentrated only on the wok work.

Chwaaaaaak!

The hot jajang sauce just fried poured over the bowls containing noodles.

“It’s out! Enjoy your meal!”

The mother ran around the hall like crazy.

Thanks to Jin Myeong’s fast speed, the turnover rate of customers emptying the food and standing up was also tremendous.

As soon as empty seats appeared, the next customers waiting outside entered and filled the seats.

Amid that chaos.

The eyes of Jin Myeong turning the wok in the kitchen strangely sank.

‘Cooking such a tremendous amount all at once is··· truly a long time.’

Decades ago, the bottom days of the Blood Cult kitchen.

It was the first since that time when he had hung dozens of house-sized cauldrons for the many Blood Cult protectors and soldiers and crazily cooked rice and fried meat.

After gaining fame as a chef and becoming the Blood Demon’s exclusive chef, he had only done small amounts of cooking to satisfy only one person’s taste.

‘Different from that time when I concentrated only on taste.’

Jin Myeong’s gaze headed toward the parents moving busily.

In the hall the mother was continuously clearing the pouring empty bowls, and on one side of the kitchen the father was desperately boiling and scooping noodles.

“...”

The affection of blood relatives he had never felt in his previous life was gradually moving Jin Myeong’s heart.

‘To solve the debt, I’ll have to continue this nonsense for a while.’

Into the mind of Jin Myeong who was silently frying jajang like that, the bizarre face of the man he met under the streetlight last night suddenly flashed.

‘Was it Park Gi-bal.’

He had seen through at a glance the fact that the soul inside his shell was different.

‘What kind of person is he on earth. A hidden eccentric pretending to be a madman, or truly a madman with divine skill.’

Even amid the thoughts leading one after another, Jin Myeong’s wok work continued.

*

Around 5 PM.

“Sorry! Ingredients all ran out!”

The father who went outside the restaurant continuously bowed and shouted toward the waiting line.

Today too all the prepared ingredients had bottomed out.

Despite preparing three times more amount than yesterday, it was insufficient to handle the flocking crowd.

“Really sorry! Not a single remaining ingredient so we can’t take any more orders today!”

At the father’s repeated apologies, the alley was instantly covered in sighs and cries.

“Ack! No!”

“Uncle! I really waited an hour and a half here? If no noodles, can you at least mix rice? Yeah?”

“You don’t do delivery here either! No takeout either?”

“Please! One more, please just one more!”

“What? Sold out? Goddamn...”

In the end, the sighs and regret-filled complaints of customers who had to turn their steps without eating today too were continuing.

*

Late evening when the day had completely darkened and all organizing finished.

Jin Myeong was sitting crookedly leaning on the old plastic chair in front of the restaurant.

“······.”

The gaze of Jin Myeong who had been staring at the empty alley with no human presence with indifferent eyes momentarily stopped dead at one place.

“······!”

Far away, in front of the bright convenience store light located at the end of the dark alley.

A middle-aged man of skinny build wearing a dull trench coat and with unkempt hair was standing alone.

The man who had said bizarre words to him last night, Park Gi-bal.

His gaze was fixed toward beyond the glass window of the bright convenience store.

“······.”

Jin Myeong propped his chin and watched the back of that bizarre man stuck to the convenience store window with interesting eyes.

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