Chapter 6. The Daughter’s Scarier?! (1/2)

Chapter 6. The Daughter’s Scarier?!

“So he came to you, too.”

Peng Ga Ho was scared out of his mind, when someone suddenly talked to him from behind while he packed provisions. When he looked back, he saw Nangong Yubin, who had a big grin on his face.

“What?”

“You’re trying to go, too, right?”

“Where?”

“Qilian mountains. (祁連山)”

(TL: )

Peng Ga Ho cursed in his mind.

“What? Someone come from your family, too?”

“Yeah. I asked if I could go, like you did, and got rejected.”

Nangong Yubin shrugged.

And opened his mouth.

“I figured that you were going to go, if I was going to do it, too. So I waited here for a while, so we could go together.”

If someone figured out someone else’s thoughts, that person was bound to get annoyed.

Peng Ga Ho obviously felt annoyed, and mumbled a bit under his breath. Then he asked a question.

“You can go by yourself, can’t you? Why try to go with me?”

“Our opponent is the Demon Church. It can be quite troublesome to go there alone safely. To be more accurate, I’m a little scared.”

“Fufu, so you need this big brother’s help. You think you’ll become a little more confident if you go with me?”

Nangong Yubin nodded with a smile at Peng Ga Ho’s arrogant words.

“You’re right. I do need your help.”

“Hoh?”

Peng Ga Ho, who wasn’t expecting Nangong Yubin to admit it immediately, put on an evil smile on his face, while stroking his chin.

“I didn’t expect you to be so truthful like that. I like you. This big brother will listen to you, and travel with you.”

“Thanks.”

Even though they were both from the five great families, they weren’t really well-acquainted with each other.

But based on today’s events, a sticky bond would form that would tightly link the two together.

The two formed a plan to escape the school, and went back to their own dorms.

After separating with Nangong Yubin, Peng Ga Ho, at his own dorm room, became a little worried about something.

‘Should I tell him? Or should I just go?’

If he just disappeared all of the sudden, that guy would definitely get worried.

Peng Ga Ho thought of Cho Ryu Hyang a bit, then immediately wiped the boy off his mind by shaking his head.

If he told his friend that he was going to the Qilian Mountains to fight the Demon Church, his friend was bound to get worried.

He didn’t want to get his friend get worried like that.

‘Meh, I’ll just tell him when I get back.’

When he thought of boasting about his adventures at the Qilian mountain to Cho Ryu Hyang, he got excited already.

* * *

How long could a person stay awake without sleeping? If a person didn’t have a body trained with martial arts, he or she would only be able to last about 4 days.

Then how long could a little boy, who didn’t even learn martial arts, be able to stay awake without sleeping? It’s a little hard to know, but it can be assumed that he or she probably wouldn’t even be able to manage two days.

“Young master! Young master! You have to eat!”

Grandpa Jang, who took care of Cho Ryu Hyang, couldn’t sleep very well the last two days because he was so anxious.

The young master brought some piece of paper back home, and started working on some sort of math equation without even eating.

Because there was an event similar to this in the past, the man thought this would pass after a while.

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But this time it was different.

The young master, who would solve even the hardest of problems in one day, was holed up in his room for over four days. He was mumbling to himself while writing down something on the paper.

When the old man lifted the paper a little bit, he discovered that it was filled with complicated numbers and symbols, layered on top of each other.

Even looking at it was this hard, but the young master already made several of these papers already. The papers were all sprawled on the floor.

“Young master, you should eat.”

“……..mm. Just put it there, grandpa.”

Looking at the young master, who said those words with absentmindedly, the old man sighed.

“This won’t be tasty anymore if it cools off, young master. You see, I brought a chicken for you because you didn’t look too well.”

“………I’ll eat it later. Just put it there, grandpa.”

Grandpa Jang shook his head. He sat himself down on the ground on his knees, and spoke sternly.

“I must see you eat it all with these two eyes of mine today, young master.”

Cho Ryu Hyang sighed, and fixed his glasses when he heard grandpa’s resolute words.

He was so close to getting it, and he didn’t have time to waste on things like this. It felt like he could get the answer if he just played around with the numbers more, and if he got interrupted like this, it would be troublesome.

Cho Ryu Hyang opened his mouth without taking his eyes off the paper.

“I’m not going to die if I skip just one meal, grandpa.”

“Do you know how many times you said that already, young master?”

“How many?”

Grandpa Jang, looking at the boy, who was speaking with absentmindedness, once again sighed. Even though the young master was smart, he usually forgot about anything that was usually deemed useless to him.

“You refused 5 meals already, young master. This old man can’t even sleep because he’s so worried about you.”

Cho Ryu Hyang flinched, and took his eyes off the paper, while scratching his head.

“…….It’s already been that long?”

Speaking of, it felt like he hadn’t slept for a few days.

Once he realized this fact, his head spun. He suddenly became very dizzy.

After managing to come back to his senses, he took a look at himself with the copper mirror. What he saw truly surprised him. His tired eyes became red from stress, and his hair was all bunched up from the excess oil.

After looking at himself for a while with an open mouth, he smirked a little, and took off his glasses.

“Looks like I’ll have to wash myself first, actually. I’ll eat after, grandpa.”

“Young master…….”

“Sorry for getting you worried. Grandpa should go rest as well.”

When grandpa heard Cho Ryu Hyang speak in a sorry tone, he quickly wiped his sore eyes with the back of his hand, and spoke.

“No. I’ll go fetch water for you myself. Please, eat.”

Cho Ryu Hyang couldn’t refuse grandpa, who forcefully sat the boy on the table with the food. Cho Ryu Hyang felt very sorry for the old man, as the old manservant looked as haggard as he did.

Cho Ryu Hyang’s chest tightened when he looked at the steaming food laid out in front of him.

‘Did I approach it wrongly?’

He was so close to getting it, he felt as he could actually touch it. But the thing refused to show itself.

The unwound formation the teacher drew for him.

This formation, whose name Cho Ryu Hyang didn’t even know the name of, was actually an incredible object. It seemed simple because teacher drew it in mere minutes, but that was a huge misconception.

There were arrays upon arrays of numbers that intertwined with each other in the paper. It felt like these arrays had neither a start or an end.

It was hard to even decipher the numbers that were put on the outside, but when one managed to look inside the formations, there were things that would shock someone to no end.

There were countless changes regarding the numbers happening all at once within, constantly.

“About eight…….”

But it’s not like there were no gains during the past four days.

The movement of the formation.

Cho Ryu Hyang managed to find the order of the arrays, and also figured out the changes within the formation.

Variables (變數).

Cho Ryu Hyang found out about the existence of variables.

‘Eight variables.’

Cho Ryu Hyang put his thumb on his aching temple, and smiled.

It was hard enough solving equations that had one variable.

But there were 8 of them.

If there were this many of them, of course the calculations wouldn’t move along smoothly.

So he changed his way of approaching the problem. It wasn’t something that he really wanted to do. A truly simple, stupid plan. He was just popping in random numbers into the variables, and found the answers that way.

Because of that, the time he took to decrypt the formation took too long.