옥기린 Pang Dae-san. The Most Beautiful Man in the World Pang Dae-san.
Pang Dae-san hated this alias.
He was utterly sick of it.
It was just a name given to him because he was good-looking and had a nice face.
Anyone who would smile and accept such a nickname definitely wasn’t fit to be a martial artist.
Pang Dae-san was twenty-two.
At just twenty-two years of age, he had already reached the mid-peak of his martial arts journey. Truly, a prodigy sent from the heavens, and an extraordinary achievement even among the recent martial artists.
But what? Oki-rin? The Most Beautiful Man in the World?
Could there be such humiliation in this world?
Just look at that Namgoong Shin-jae guy.
That Namgoong Shin-jae, who barely scraped by in the early peak stage, had the title of Sword King.
It meant he was a contender for the next Sword King.
And he was even a year older than Pang Dae-san!
He’s the Sword King and I’m Oki-rin, huh!
So, Pang Dae-san started to get a little twisted.
However, due to his fundamentally sincere nature, he didn’t go completely off the rails.
Instead, he just forgot what it meant to have decent manners around women.
In truth, it wasn’t all Pang Dae-san’s fault.
Pang Dae-san was the best groom material in the martial world.
First off, he was handsome. He had a nice voice too.
He was the firstborn of a family that was among the top five influential families in the Central Plain.
Moreover, the Pang family was famously the only one among the Five Great Families without any arranged marriages.
Of course, they were still a bit smug about looking down on the other big families, labeling them as “greedy, lowly, and foolish.”
The Pang family needed nothing trivial beyond true love when it came to marriage!
But you guys don’t, huh?
On top of that, Pang Dae-san was a master.
And he was supposed to become an even greater master in the future.
He had looks, status, wealth, and skills all in one.
As a result, every moment he was awake and even during moments he occasionally dozed off, he attracted the gazes of every woman within his vicinity.
The ones who merely watched him were better off.
Everywhere Pang Dae-san walked, all sorts of trash were thrown at his feet.
From embroidered cloth scraps to scented pouches, daggers, and even some ridiculous undergarments.
Thus, Pang Dae-san never bowed his head.
He simply walked straight ahead, keeping his gaze fixed.
Some bolder women even attempted to ram into him headfirst.
The fact that they thought they could accidentally bump into a peak master already showed they had lost their minds.
In their inflated egos, they thought if they fell over, he would catch them before they hit the ground.
Pang Dae-san watched the women who dove to the ground and couldn’t decide whether to smile or scoff.
In any case, Dae-san had suffered extreme harassment from women since he was young.
It was the peak of extreme suffering.
So in front of women, Pang Dae-san gradually became rude.
He lost his manners.
It meant he didn’t care, so they should back off.
Actually, A-Qing’s approach to Pang Dae-san didn’t surprise him.
He had been through all kinds of crazy events, claiming they were unique dating strategies.
He even had a rough classification system for them.
If we were to categorize A-Qing, we could say she combined strategies of “sassy women” and “funny women.”
The success cases of his “funny woman” strategy were few and far between, so he had to concede one point to A-Qing.
He laughed for the first time in ages.
A-Qing was unexpected.
Imperfect jokes, huh.
Then came the “tough woman” strategy.
But the level was a bit, well, more like something a back-alley thug would say.
And then, wham!
What’s this?
Is it some ridiculous love story like, “You’re the first woman to hit me!”?
As a result, Pang Dae-san got really pissed off.
His voice, already low, dropped even further in anger.
“I’ve dealt with all sorts of insane women, but…”
There was an eerie chill in his voice.
Reacting to that chill, A-Qing’s Heaven’s Kill opened its eyes.
A-Qing thought that the bloodshed was stress relief for her wounded heart due to martial world matters.
A proactive solution, so to speak.
However, in reality, it meant she would become a real crazy woman dominated by the desire to kill when activated.
It’s a passive impulse for slaughter.
When one is caught in the grasp of Heaven’s Kill, they take pleasure in massacre and bloodshed.
“Why are you so mad? Hehe, how about your nasty little tongue? What, does a lower voice make for a good argument? Hehe.”
“Don’t imitate me.”
“Why? What’s the deal? You wanna hit me?”
Not even a single nation could keep up with modern Koreans in terms of being irritating.
Pang Dae-san shook with rage.
His erupting fury engulfed him.
“I will not tolerate any more insults.”
“Do you expect to handle some insults? I crave a bite of sashimi!”
Clank! The sound of blade against weapon rang sharp.
“Did I strike first? Self-defense? You wanna truly test me, huh? Well, you got some good blades but you wanna spew hot air?”
“I won’t kill you. But I will cut that noisy tongue of yours.”
“Think you can cut? Go ahead. Bring it on-”
A-Qing stuck out her tongue.
Her unusually red tongue flicked playfully.
“Bring it on, bring it on-”
But that tongue was sticking out a little too long.
Seriously, what’s the deal with not knowing when to stop?
What kind of crazy lady is this?
At this point, Pang Dae-san felt more deflated.
His rage exploded and he drew his weapon, but the fact that A-Qing was causing more chaos just made him feel inferior.
Yet he couldn’t just back down.
His pride as a mid-peak master wouldn’t allow it.
So he thought he just had to show a fraction of his power…
That was the moment he thought that.
A-Qing’s sword was enveloped in sword energy.
The shimmering white threads flailed like a dance.
It was a sword move typical of a late-peak master.
Pang Dae-san looked at A-Qing’s face.
Seeing her shamelessly flick her tongue made him feel even more embarrassed.
But then, looking at her youthful face, she seemed like she was just on the verge of escaping the girlhood stage, leading him to another thought.
If he could break through the wall that led beyond the supreme peak towards a higher realm…
He would reach a transcendent level referred to as the Realm of Transformation.
And if he could surpass that Realm of Transformation?
At that moment, the body would reclaim youth for just one time, a concept known as Reverse Flow and Return to Youth.
Therefore, a warrior who had gone through Reverse Flow and Return to Youth wasn’t just an average human wearing a mere skin but a monster of the human realm.
Battles can only take place between equals.
Humans can’t fight monsters.
It would just be one-sided violation.
“May I ask, which side do you belong to?”
“What? Stopping here? You’re some jerk who stops mid-crap.”
How can that even be considered a woman’s words?
But thinking of her as a peak master who had achieved Reverse Flow and Return to Youth, it seemed to make some sense.
Now that I think about it, didn’t my grandmother speak like that too?
They say women just ramble as they age.
“I’d like to introduce myself again. I am Pang Dae-san of the Pang family.”
“I’m A-Qing.”
Before he knew it, the respect had flipped.
A-Qing smiled cheerfully, thinking, “This guy’s scared.”
Indeed, in the martial world, the strong are the law.
—–
Pang Dae-san’s misunderstanding couldn’t last beyond a few moments.
A-Qing constantly exuded ignorance from the moment she opened her mouth.
Not ignorance, rather just basic common sense was the issue.
For someone oblivious to the situation, it would be the same at all times.
In truth, Pang Dae-san didn’t even know why he was misunderstanding anything at this moment.
So, the misunderstanding was easy to clear up.
Then Pang Dae-san faced a new crisis.
Wait, does that mean this crazy lady is stronger than me?
“Excuse me, how old are you, Young Lady?”
“Me? I’m…”
A-Qing pondered for a moment.
Saying she was in her mid-thirties felt a bit strange.
Even if she said it, no one would believe her.
There should’ve at least been someone pretending to believe her.
Yet treating a girl who was just a kid as an elder felt a bit off as well.
A kid.
Considering A-Qing’s real age, a young man in his early twenties was still a kid who hadn’t even gone to the military yet.
This was a shared common feeling among modern Koreans.
Besides, just because she lived well doesn’t mean she’s better than him.
“I’ll let you go first.”
“I’m twenty-two this year.”
“I’m twenty-five.”
“…Really? Is that true?”
Pang Dae-san’s skeptical eyes shot daggers.
“They say I look young for my age.”
“Really?”
“Well.”
Lying builds bad karma over time.
Claiming to be in your thirties might technically be true, so she could push that lie boldly forward.
No one would believe her anyway.
However, if asked about the age of this body?
What’s the point of building bad karma over such a trivial detail?
A-Qing answered honestly.
“…Honestly, I don’t know. I’m around seventeen, but I don’t know if I’m just mature or actually twenty-five.”
“How can you not know your age? No.”
Pang Dae-san thoughtlessly asked back, then suddenly waved his hand.
A-Qing was the ‘child in a blue outfit.’
It was also the nickname of a woman known as a peak master from the Spring and Autumn period, the Moon Lady.
They say the Moon Lady only wore blue.
According to history, she appeared suddenly during a crisis in the Yue state and taught the famed Moon Lady Sword Technique.
However, the technique was so miraculous and difficult that no one could master it properly.
They could only barely create a form by imitating what their eyes could see. Even that was a remarkable skill.
The Moon state, armed with that power, attacked and destroyed the Wu state.
In the end, A-Qing, the character from that story, became an idol for female martial artists in the martial world.
She was also an icon for women dreaming of adventures.
Such an obvious name was used by this woman.
And if she didn’t even know her own age?
Pang Dae-san began to misunderstand once again.
Could it be that she was an orphan wandering about!
But this misunderstanding proved to be a tough nut to crack.
He certainly couldn’t ask her if she had parents.
A-Qing might very well have been serious at that moment.
A girl growing up alone could feel awkward when asked about origins or ancestors.
A family name isn’t merely the first character of a name, but pride of one’s roots and lineage.
It seemed she grew up without knowing those things at all.
And that uncultured, vulgar behavior!
Such ignorance was akin to being a simpleton!
“No, I made a slip of the tongue. My apologies.”
“What? Why did the mood suddenly change?”
A-Qing tilted her head in confusion.
It felt oddly uncomfortable.
What is this? Is another state of manifestation about to hit me?
“Enough. You seem around the same age, so let’s just be friends.”
“Same age, huh…”
Pang Dae-san had never heard someone his age call him that before.
What’s up with this vocabulary? A little off, maybe?
Despite that, A-Qing had her own little scheme.
It was obvious he came from a wealthy family.
If she could become friends with him, she was sure to get free meals!
Being his little sister wouldn’t look good, after all,
Then again, it wouldn’t be appropriate to call this kid “older brother.”
“You got that? If so, we’re friends now! Got it, Sang?”
Pang Dae-san was flustered.
With the gender differences, how could she be so casual?
“Uh, Young Lady? No matter how friendly you say it, it’s still too casual.”
“If I say ‘Sang!’ then you respond ‘Qing!’ Got it? Sang?”
“No matter what, the difference between men and women is still…”
“Hey, in friendships between friends, there’s no gender distinction!”
“Usually, isn’t it the opposite?”
Then A-Qing confidently threw back her response.
“Right. Even if we say there are no friends between men and women, overcoming that is true friendship, right?”
“Hmm?”
That actually sounded somewhat logical.
“Got it? Sang? Sang? Sang? Sang?”
She was one unbelievably relentless and loud woman.
It was clear she was determined to keep going until he replied.
Pang Dae-san reluctantly complied.
“…Qing.”
“Your voice is too soft! Say it louder! Sang?”
“…Qing.”
“I can’t hear you! Sang?”
“Qing!”
“Sang?”
“Qing! Qing! I got it, so stop pestering me! Please!”
Pang Dae-san raised his voice.
A-Qing smiled with satisfaction.