Let us review the events so far.
The estate he had poured his retirement fund into had been swindled from him.
As it turned out, said estate belonged to an elder brother he knew from his hometown.
Said elder brother's family had gone completely to ruin, leaving only the children behind.
And on top of that, he was currently embroiled in a property dispute with those very children over whose land and whose house it was.
Remarkably, all of this had happened in the span of just two days.
'How did I end up here?'
Was retirement not supposed to be about peace and quiet, leisurely days, and contentment in simple living?
He had slaved away under a wretched superior and even accrued the merit of saving the martial world—so why had everything turned into thunderbolts from a clear sky, dumbstruck disbelief, and blank-eyed stupor?
Unless someone was using sinister dark arts to curse his future, this should not be possible.
Could it be you, Alliance Leader? Are you secretly performing some heinous ritual in your office using the Esoteric Sect's forbidden arts?
"......You've been muttering to yourself for a while now. The Alliance Leader? Heinous......?"
"You don't need to know."
Jin Cheong-un looked up at the sky and sighed.
"Hoo, take my advice—never retire."
"......?"
He had been avoiding her eyes ever since she called him uncle, and only now did he meet her gaze. Though he did look at her like she was a peculiar creature.
In any case, upon reflection, this was not entirely a wild coincidence.
Eldest brother had been the firstborn of a prosperous merchant family. It was only natural that Jeong Manor would be the finest estate in the village.
So it followed naturally that he, looking for a decent estate in his hometown, would settle on Jeong Manor.
'What I didn't expect was that eldest brother had stayed in the village, and that his family's ruin had put the house deed in the hands of a swindler.'
And so fate and chance had intertwined......
Binding the Jeong siblings and himself together.
Jin Cheong-un looked at Jeong So-so with a complicated expression.
'They say daughters take after their fathers. Looking at her like this, there is a resemblance.'
Honestly, the man should have at least reached out if times were hard.
No—he probably had no way of reaching out. And even if he had, he probably would not have.
'I was too late.'
He had deliberately cut off all interest in Yinghua Village.
He had vaguely thought he would return someday in the distant future, yet turned a blind eye to everything connected to the school.
And the others probably...... the others?
"That."
Jin Cheong-un pointed at the altar where the memorial tablet sat.
"The dried flowers, incense, and liquor in front of that tablet. What's the story? Did you put them there?"
"Hm? Oh, starting a few years ago, things like that would appear every now and then. I think some of the former students were leaving them when I wasn't here...... I just cleaned them away whenever I came to sweep."
For an instant, Jin Cheong-un's expression went blank.
He slowly turned toward the altar, and a dry laugh slipped from his lips.
'I thought nobody had come......"
How many of them had visited? Whoever they were, if he stayed here, perhaps the day would come when they crossed paths.
Whether it would be a welcome reunion remained to be seen.
"In any case, the state of the school is......"
Jin Cheong-un looked around and let out a short sigh.
It was shabby.
The floor creaked with every step, a musty smell of mildew hung in the air, and the walls and pillars were peeling or cracked in places.
"You've been maintaining this place by yourself all this time?"
"Yes, though it's only been about four or five years since I started doing it alone...... Why do you ask?"
"It's aged terribly. Somehow the inside looks even worse than the outside."
That offhand remark stung Jeong So-so for a moment.
This was a place she had poured her heart into cleaning, carving out time she did not have.
She had lost count of how many times she had wrestled with a hammer and nails herself because there was no money to hire proper repairs.
After her father had fled, she had fought tooth and nail to protect this school on her own.
"......I did my best to maintain it."
"Must have been rough."
Jeong So-so paused.
"What?"
"I said it must have been rough. They say a well-kept house can last a hundred years, but without people tending it, things fall apart in no time."
Jin Cheong-un crouched down and pressed his fingers against the cracks in the wall.
"Earning money, keeping house, looking after a sick brother, and on top of that managing a place this run-down—at your age, there's no way that was easy."
"Um......"
"Tsk tsk. You did well. Good grief, all this dust."
"I-it was nothing."
A sudden lump formed in Jeong So-so's throat, and she clutched the hem of her skirt tightly.
It was the first time. The first time 'you did well' felt less like pity and more like praise.
They were words tossed off without much thought, but...... or perhaps that was precisely why. Her nose stung out of nowhere.
"Thanks to you, I'll have less work to do. I thought the whole thing would be demolished, but if it's this much......"
Jin Cheong-un dusted off his hands and stood, turning to survey the building.
"We can get away with repairs instead of building from scratch."
If they had to rebuild from the ground up, so be it—but if it could be preserved, he wanted to preserve it.
This place held memories for him, too.
'Above all......'
Jin Cheong-un's fist clenched tight.
'It saves money.'
The most important issue!
With no money coming in anymore, if he could save, he had to save every coin he could!
Jeong So-so's face brightened.
"You really are going to reopen the school?"
"Just reopening isn't enough."
"Then what?"
"Might as well aim to make it the greatest martial arts school in the world, don't you think?"
Jin Cheong-un looked up at the sky.
The lush mountain behind them and the clear sky stretching above it opened his heart right up.
—Cheong-un. Will you protect the children and our school from now on?
Late as it was, that was exactly what he had come back to do.
Yes, he had a duty to carry on the Blue Cloud Martial Arts School. Yet he had cast that duty aside. For well over a decade.
No words could serve as an excuse. If he wanted to deflect even a fraction of the blame down the road, he had to make the Blue Cloud Martial Arts School far grander than it had ever been.
"The greatest school in the world? But we're just an ordinary school in the countryside......"
"Where does it say a countryside school can't become the greatest in the world?"
After all, this was Jin Cheong-un—the boy from a backwater school whom the great sects and prestigious clans had all looked down on, and who had surpassed them all to become the Alliance Leader's closest confidant.
He was retired now, of course!
And he had beaten the Esoteric Sect only to get swindled by a common con man!
And the school was practically a ruin on the verge of collapse! But still!
He had taken the Esoteric Sect Master's head—was becoming the best in the martial arts school business supposed to be harder than that?
"So-so, you said your dream was to reopen our school, right? Now that I'm here, that dream is guaranteed. So it's time to dream bigger."
"Ah......!"
The look in Jin Cheong-un's eyes was brimming with conviction.
Seeing it, she felt a warmth rise in her own chest.
"Yes! I'll help with anything I can!"
"That's the spirit!"
"The greatest school in the world—the Blue Cloud Martial Arts School!"
"Now that's the kind of energy I like!"
"Just say the word! What should we do first?"
"Repairs, obviously."
"Right!"
"Recruit students too."
"It is a school, after all! And then?"
"Hm."
"......?"
"......"
Silence fell.
"Don't tell me you have no plan......"
CREEEAK! CREEEAK!
The torn window paper rattled in the wind.
A decrepit building.
A yard overgrown with weeds.
A ruined gate.
The gleam in Jeong So-so's eyes, who had been standing there dumbly, gradually faded.
***
Back at Jeong Manor.
Seated before the dinner table, Jeong So-ryong glanced sideways at Jin Cheong-un.
'So he has a connection to Father.'
Could such a coincidence truly exist in this world?
His sister could be careless at times, yes, but she was suspicious by nature and slow to trust. If she said it was certain, then it was certain.
'A man who will cure my body and fulfill my sister's dream of reopening the school.'
Jeong So-ryong's eyes sparkled.
Though they shared no blood, could he not be trusted at least more than the real relatives who had coldly turned their backs on the two siblings?
'I finally have a trustworthy adult. An uncle.'
But......
Something seemed a little off.
"Plans! You need plans for everything!"
"If you pay someone and let them handle it, they'll do a fine job. Why do you need a plan for......"
"That's how accidents happen. You have to be thorough. First, I know a carpenter. For the mason, it'll be cheaper to hire separately......"
"......"
"Are you listening? Oh, and I'll look into a seamstress for the interior work."
"......"
"There's a smithy in our village, but the Jeong Family Smithy in the next village over is more reputable. We should go with them......"
"I heard you, so can we at least eat first?"
"You can listen while you eat."
"......"
Jeong So-ryong looked back and forth between his sister and his uncle.
Why was his uncle utterly cowed by his sister, unable to utter a peep?
Was it not supposed to be the other way around?
"We need to draw up a budget first. And have you reported the reopening to the government office? Don't tell me you haven't."
Jin Cheong-un cleared his throat once and assumed a deliberately solemn tone.
"Well water does not intrude upon river water. The authorities and the martial world have never meddled in each other's affairs."
"You said you retired, though?"
"......"
From the school all the way back to Jeong Manor.
And all through dinner.
Jeong So-so's words—sharper than any master's blade—pierced Jin Cheong-un's lungs, and he was being carved to ribbons.
'Wait, shouldn't someone her age know nothing about anything?'
This would not do.
At this rate, his authority as both school master and uncle would crumble!
Jin Cheong-un drew in a deep breath and bellowed.
"How impudent!"
"......?"
"Is that any way to speak to your elders?! I sit here quietly and you disrespect your own uncle!"
"You told me earlier that I was making you feel old and not to treat you like an uncle."
"......"
Jin Cheong-un's decisive strike was utterly demolished by Jeong So-so's counter. Truly a one-move defeat.
He felt a little wounded.
Was this what they meant when they said to beware of children, women, and the elderly? Jeong So-so was both young and a woman—she was all but invincible.
"Hang in there."
"......?"
Jeong So-ryong, eating his meal beside them, offered his condolences with a placid face.
Jin Cheong-un's expression soured.
'Eldest brother. What happened to these children of yours?'
He had heard the boy was only ten. Was this right?
The Jeong siblings...... he was starting to feel, quite honestly, a little afraid.
"By the way, what did you used to do at the Martial Arts Alliance, Uncle?"
At Jeong So-ryong's sudden question, Jeong So-so also glanced over.
Jin Cheong-un answered listlessly.
"I was a guard."
"Were you strong?"
"Passable."
"Then...... why did you retire so young? The Martial Arts Alliance is the place every martial artist dreams of."
A dream? Was the Alliance really such a place?
'I'm not so sure about that.'
For some, perhaps.
Not for him, though.
"Nine times out of ten, martial artists retire because they got hurt."
He had actually decided before that, but he glossed over it.
At that, Jeong So-so flinched in alarm.
"You were hurt? How?"
"I fought one very bad man and a few hundred of his subordinates."
"......What? A few hundred?"
"Enough to blanket an entire mountain. Our side was down to twenty, so I was cutting down three or four at a time with each swing......"
"Wow, really?"
"It's the truth."
"I believe you!"
"......"
A few hundred. How could twenty people possibly fight a few hundred?
"Let me ask something too."
"Of course."
"Where on earth did eldest brother go, leaving just the two of you?"
In that instant, the room went silent.
Before long, Jeong So-so picked up her chopsticks again and spoke as though it were nothing.
"He ran away."
"......Ran away?"
"Yes. Left us behind in the middle of the night."
She explained the circumstances in a matter-of-fact voice.
"So let me get this straight."
"Yes."
"Debts piled up, eldest brother ran, and shortly after, the debt collectors started coming down hard?"
"Yes."
"......"
That was not the kind of man he was.
......He was about to say that, but then realized these children must have thought the same thing more than anyone.
'That's not for me to say.'
They had lived with him since birth. They surely knew him better than someone who had not seen him for over a decade.
Tap, tap, tap.
Jin Cheong-un drummed his fingers on his folded arm.
'Even so, still.'
Debts. Debts.
Wait—debts?
......On this house?
"Hold on. Don't tell me the collateral for the debt on this house is......"
"Ah, th-that's......"
"You can't be serious."
Jeong So-so nodded heavily.
'The land is mortgaged?'
Now there were debts on top of everything?
The back of his neck went stiff in an instant.
But right at that moment.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
The sound of someone pounding violently on the front gate echoed through the house.
"Jeong So-so! Get out here! The Black Tiger Gang is here!"
Jeong So-so's head whipped around.
Her face had gone deathly pale.