“Ah…….”
This must be what people mean when they say your mind goes blank.
Sweat was pouring down my entire body.
At the same time, a sour, filthy liquid was seeping out as well.
“It wasn’t a lie. Wow. Seriously…….”
I couldn’t even think of anything to say.
I had actually learned the Taeguk Five-Elements Dual-Intent Internal Method.
Through the Director of Immortal Healthcare’s illegal private tutoring, the acupuncture points on my back and chest were blasted wide open.
I thought I was going to die.
My mouth is small, but the feeling was exactly like someone ramming a massive gimbap down my throat—except through my meridians.
My blood vessels felt like they were going to explode, but the Celestial Dragon Divine Lord didn’t stop.
While tears and snot blurred my vision from the pain, he said:
Pain makes you grow faster.
He was definitely not a healthcare director—more like the director of an illegal surgery clinic.
He sealed my pressure points, and I couldn’t even speak while spending several days in that place.
But the effect was maxed out.
Yellow gunk poured out of my entire body.
Every time I circulated the small circulation, my blood vessels became harder and broader.
I had good bones, but because I had lived so long in this rotten world, my body had rotted along with it.
The moment the torturous small circulation ended, I opened my eyes.
And there was my room.
I had definitely seen the sun rise and set multiple times, but no time had passed at all.
“How does this make sense? It doesn’t, right?”
In the empty room, I let out a hollow sigh.
No one answered.
But thanks to the small circulation, a faint internal core was forming in my lower abdomen.
My shirt was soaked with yellow filth.
Dream and reality had become one.
The circulation method of the Taeguk Five-Elements Dual-Intent Internal Method had been engraved completely in my mind.
And as a bonus, he had taught me a martial art called Taeguk Five-Elements Dual-Intent Fist.
He said only someone who operated the Internal Method could use it.
He said that with training, not only my fists but any weapon I held would become freely controllable.
Faced with all these extraordinary things, I asked him:
Where exactly are you from?
Then the Celestial Dragon Divine Lord smirked and asked me:
Isn’t there anything that comes to mind when you hear “Taeguk”?
When I blinked, he struck a majestic pose and said:
“Former headmaster of the Wudang Sect, who fought the Devil Sect Leader for three days and four nights and sent him to the afterlife, current Alliance Leader of the Martial Alliance, and also the recipient of 3,233 Jade Emperor Ascension Awards? Please. As if…….”
It sounded like a ridiculous lie, but none of it could be verified.
But his skill was real.
The high-priced illegal tutoring had unbelievably potent effects.
No wonder people in Gangnam loved expensive tutoring.
“Ugh. Is all this the accumulated filth inside my body?”
My face twisted at the stench-soaked liquid smeared on my white shirt and sweatpants.
Even bleach wouldn’t save these—they were basically rags now.
I stood up.
Everything in this world was coated in bullshit, but the sense of reality was 100%.
Even if this was a dream, just having regressed again made me feel like I owned the world.
“Wow… poverty really wallpapered this place.”
This was the shabby little room I was assigned the moment I entered middle school.
Under the rusty tin roof, it boiled in summer and froze into icicles in winter.
An old computer and the 4-megabyte KT internet line my father installed so I could listen to online lectures came into view.
Because we lived in the countryside, it was connected through a telephone line.
It had only been installed a month ago.
“Celeron 500, 64 megabytes of RAM, 4-megabyte graphics card, 10-gigabyte hard drive, pirated Windows 98 and Hangul 97…… Haah, an artifact from ancient Gojoseon……”
Stored memories surfaced naturally.
The monitor was a bulky 17-inch CRT.
My most valuable possession at the time.
Seeing the computer made reality settle in again.
As the morning sun rose, the room began to heat up.
It was summer break, but there were no supplementary classes.
Back then, supplementary classes during vacation had been abolished for the first time due to protests by the teachers’ union.
No more summer classes.
“Let’s wash up first.”
The stickiness of my body was unbearable.
The musty smell filled the entire room.
I grabbed some clothes and reached for the door.
“Tae-san~ breakfast is ready~.”
My mom’s voice came from outside.
‘Mom…….’
Hearing my mom’s warm voice again after dying and coming back—nothing in the world felt more precious.
Even when I failed the bar exam and drifted around Seoul like a vagrant, she never abandoned me.
Morning and night, she texted me to make sure I ate.
She always said she was grateful just to hear my voice.
Back in my childhood, during summer break, her voice sounded like nagging.
When I stayed up late reading novels or playing games, mornings were annoying.
But now?
“Ye~s, Mom. I’ll wash and come!”
There was a tiny detached bathroom attached to the outer room.
Dad had built it because my twin sisters were going through puberty in the main house.
“Breakfast~! Mom’s food~!”
This wasn’t some sad convenience-store cup rice or low-grade cafeteria meal from Seoul.
This was mom’s love-filled meal, grown from the garden with her own hands.
Just remembering it made my mouth water.
I walked into the shabby bathroom.
“Did I… get taller? In the meantime?”
Unbelievable, but after coming out of the dream’s illegal tutoring, I was slightly taller.
Maybe because of the great circulation, my shoulders were broader too.
The reflection in the bathroom window felt slightly unfamiliar.
“Kyaa~ look at this bouncy skin.”
It was completely different from the thick, dull skin I’d had before I died.
Now, my complexion was pale and smooth, bouncing when poked.
My body was stuffed with premium collagen, practically glowing.
It didn’t feel like my body anymore.
“Is all this gunk really what was inside me?”
Clinging to my firm skin was a thick layer of yellow and black sludge.
The illegal tutoring in the dream had insane results.
Shhhhhhhh—
Cold water splashed over my body as I scrubbed with soap.
It was so filthy I had to lather up several times.
The cold water was refreshing.
It was groundwater, so cold it snapped my mind awake.
I bathed with reverence.
Then I put on my shirt and shorts and headed to the main house.
“Ah! This is great~.”
This was the ancestral home my ancestors had built generations ago.
Mountains spread generously behind and to both sides.
The century-old tiled house and the lawn Mom lovingly cared for came into view.
To one side was the outdoor faucet where I used to get doused as a kid.
Dad’s tractor parked by the gate felt nostalgic.
The blazing sunlight declared peak summer.
“Haaayaah.”
I stretched long and inhaled deeply.
It wasn’t the dusty, suffocating Seoul air.
My lungs felt scrubbed clean.
THIS was the charm of living in the countryside.
I slipped into the forgotten warmth of my hometown.
“Son. Are you sick?”
“What? No~ the sunlight is just nice.”
“Come in quickly. The soup is cooling.”
“Yes!”
I saw Mom.
She looked tired, probably just back from the orchard.
But she smiled when she saw me.
In elementary school, she was the prettiest among all the moms.
Even now, with her simple, graceful look, she didn’t resemble a countryside lady at all.
“Mom!”
I called out and ran over to hug her tightly.
My unusual show of affection startled her.
“What’s this~ you’re a grown man~ creepy~.”
Mom, now shorter than me, teased playfully.
“Mom’s the prettiest in the whole world~.”
My voice automatically turned childish.
“Pff, your dad isn’t the only one who’s blind, I see.”
She laughed, wrinkles at the corners of her eyes.
Once famous in our village and even the township for her beauty, she had long since bowed to time.
But to me, she was the most beautiful woman in the world.
“You’ve always been fragile, so don’t overwork yourself. No matter how I look at it, you’re not suited for countryside life.”
She wasn’t.
She had graduated from Hongik University’s Fine Arts Department—one of the most elite art programs in Korea.
Before coming to the countryside, she had never even pulled a single weed.
Now she was a farmer.
Every time she worked too hard, she’d be bedridden for days.
“What do you mean ‘not suited’? Everyone only survives because farmers exist.”
“Wow! How lucky is Dad? Mom, you must’ve sold the country in your past life, right? There’s no way Dad saved the world or anything……”
“What? Hohohoho! Fine, yes—I’m the princess of Nangnang who sold the country.”
Her boisterous laughter, which I hadn’t heard in so long, made me happy.
‘Mom… from now on, I’ll make sure you walk only on flower paths.’
In the past, I used to complain to my kind mother at this very time.
I’d get annoyed every day at the lack of meat on the table.
I grumbled about my small allowance.
And I never helped with farm work, using my studies as an excuse.
Now my heart was overflowing with guilt and remorse.
“Son. No matter how much you love Mom, can we eat now?”
“Ah! Sorry. I was hugging Mom without Dad’s permission.”
“Hoho. That’s right. Your father gets jealous like crazy~.”
And so Mom and I sat at the table.
We sat on the cool main-floor wooden deck, with a refreshing breeze blowing.
A bowl of hearty farmhand rice, savory snail soybean paste stew, chilled bean sprout kimchi soup, fresh cucumbers with chili paste, dried anchovies, and ripening young radish kimchi—that was the whole table.
My eyes sparkled.
What a priceless meal.
My skull had been smashed and I’d almost inhaled the scent of incense at a funeral—yet now I was here.
If I hadn’t won the regression lottery, I would never have tasted Mom’s love again.
I scooped a spoonful of chilled bean sprout kimchi soup and put it in my mouth.
“Wooooow! Mom, this is amazing! It’s spicy and refreshing—perfect for a hangover! Mom, forget farming and open a restaurant! If you opened a bean sprout soup place, it’d go viral!”
“Hangover? Since when does a boy who’s never drunk know what that tastes like?”
“Hey, your son’s all grown up. Of course I know alcohol.”
“Son, your lies really do take after your father.”
‘It’s not a lie though……’
Back in college, I was known as a decent drinker.
Sure, I had rewound time, but I was a thirty-year-old who knew the taste of hangover soup.
But seriously—why is this family so poor?
The old kitchen, the patched-up flooring—everything popped out at me.
It was no different from when I came down to the countryside before I died.
The height of poverty.
Everything—from the twenty-year-old mini fridge Mom bought when she got married, to the old rice cooker, to the worn chopsticks in my hand—was old.
Now that I was finally seeing the house clearly, tears blurred my vision.
‘I need to make some money……’