My Dad Is the Strongest Under Heaven
Chapter 46
Chapter 46
- A Wife’s Promise
A few promises?
As Yeo Woonhwi tilted his head in question, Peng Seoyeon held up two fingers.
“Two things. You only have to promise me two things.”
“Tell me.”
“First, when you’re on a dangerous mission, stay as far back as possible. Ideally, you wouldn’t take dangerous missions at all, but if you must, you have to promise me that.”
“But always doing that is a bit…”
“Hmph!”
Peng Seoyeon pinched her brows into a deep frown.
Rather than looking intimidating, she looked utterly adorable in Yeo Woonhwi’s eyes.
A smile crept across his face despite himself, but he tried his best to pull the corners of his mouth down.
Now was not the time for that.
Meanwhile, Peng Seoyeon continued, scowling with all the ferocity she could muster.
Beside her, little Yul-i mimicked her mother’s stern expression, making it even harder for Yeo Woonhwi to hold back his laughter.
“I’m not saying this to hurt your feelings, but someone who doesn’t know martial arts would only get in the way at the front lines anyway. For the sake of the other martial artists, this is much better.”
She pressed on, speaking faster than usual.
“It would be far more helpful if you focused that time and energy on making the best tactical decisions for the White Wolf Troop.”
She wasn’t wrong—assuming Yeo Woonhwi truly knew nothing of martial arts.
Today, Peng Seoyeon seemed utterly determined.
“The other troop members might not say it out loud, but they all wish for the same thing. So promise me. Promise you’ll do that.”
“Promise, promise!”
Before he knew it, Peng Seoyeon leaned in close, her large eyes sparkling as she practically forced the promise upon him.
At her side, Yul-i dutifully repeated every word her mother said.
Ugh.
Yeo Woonhwi was remarkably weak against his wife whenever she acted this resolute.
“Haha. Good grief. All right, I promise.”
“Good. And the second one is very easy.”
Soon, what came out of Peng Seoyeon’s mouth caused Yeo Woonhwi’s head to tilt in bewilderment.
Just what could this second request possibly be?
At the same time.
“Is that so? Haha.”
“You find this amusing?”
Inside a neatly arranged room, a man with sharp, handsome features chuckled lightly.
Seeing this, Peng Kyung-ho scowled.
He spoke in a frustrated tone.
“Are you really fine with this?”
The man smiled warmly.
“With what, Father?”
“Those White Wolf bastards openly rejected you right in front of everyone, didn’t they?”
This tall, distinguished man was none other than Peng Kyung-ho’s son, Peng Do-hwan.
At his father’s words, he answered nonchalantly.
“Well, naturally they had no other choice.”
“Hmm? What do you mean by that?”
“Think about it. It was a gathering to reward the White Wolf Troop after they returned with an unimaginable achievement. Making such a proposal in front of everyone was far too hasty. Moreover, if they had jumped at the offer right then and there, would the Patriarch have been pleased? Certainly not.”
Peng Do-hwan continued with an easy demeanor.
“And Lady Seoyeon would have felt that her husband was being insulted, which would have displeased her greatly.”
“Haha…”
“No matter how you look at it, the timing was ill-advised. Having just performed great merits and been released from house arrest, the White Wolf Troop wouldn’t want to get on the bad side of either the Patriarch or the young lady.”
“Hmph. Yes… hearing you put it that way, you are right. Indeed, your father was shortsighted.”
Peng Kyung-ho was not a man of deep, intricate schemes, but he was reasonably quick on the uptake.
He had simply overreached due to a momentary surge of greed and impatience.
Listening to his son’s calm analysis, he realized once again how foolish he had been.
Seeing his father reproaching himself, Peng Do-hwan offered a slight smile.
“How could I not know that you did it all for my sake, Father? Still, hearing the story does make me a bit curious.”
He was referring to the White Wolf Troop.
Not only had they turned down his father’s offer, but they had also firmly declared their desire to remain under their current captain. That was unexpected.
Did they really need to go that far? Something felt strange.
He knew the White Wolf Troop better than anyone.
At his son’s words, Peng Kyung-ho nodded as well.
“Indeed, looking at them today, the atmosphere among them felt strangely different. How should I put it… It felt as though they had found their center. As if they had a true rallying point.”
“It seems something must have happened.”
What could it be?
It certainly couldn’t be because of that scholar who was little more than a figurehead.
“Then what should we do? Are you just going to leave that fellow, who doesn’t know a lick of martial arts, to remain Captain of the White Wolf Troop just because he’s a son-in-law?”
Peng Kyung-ho looked at his son with a troubled expression.
“It will be far too long before the Grand Young Master becomes Patriarch and the position of Captain of the White Tiger Squad opens up. And as for aiming for the White Martial Troop, Elder Koo is still hale and hearty.”
“And you were the one who rejected the Patriarch’s offer for the White Wolf Troop’s captaincy in the first place, Father.”
“Th-that was because back then, I thought the White Wolf Troop were nothing more than a bunch of unruly ruffians with brute strength.”
In truth, Peng Kyung-ho was largely to blame for how complicated things had become.
A few years ago, when Peng Mugang had made the unprecedented offer to appoint Peng Do-hwan as Captain of the White Wolf Troop, Peng Kyung-ho had stepped forward and vehemently opposed it.
To the point of embarrassing Patriarch Peng Mugang himself.
With the father objecting so fiercely, the proposal was ultimately dropped, and Peng Mugang never brought it up again.
Peng Do-hwan had also obediently yielded to his stubborn father’s wishes after a few arguments.
So for Peng Kyung-ho to bring up the matter first now was, in many ways, quite shameless and borderline comical.
Originally, they had planned to wait quietly, even if it took time, until Grand Young Master Peng Seojin became Patriarch or Elder Koo retired.
However, when the White Wolf Troop—who used to do nothing but cause trouble—unexpectedly rendered such distinguished service and drew the attention of the entire Murim, Peng Kyung-ho promptly changed his mind.
He had pushed too aggressively, leading to the current predicament.
Peng Do-hwan was also lost in thought.
As a martial artist of the Peng Family, becoming the captain of one of the Three Great Martial Squads that represented the clan was a tremendous honor.
Naturally, Peng Do-hwan coveted that position as well.
Especially the captaincy of the White Wolf Troop.
The White Wolf Troop had always been a special place to him.
Both in the past and in the present.
He had only been held back by his father’s opposition.
Had it not been for that, the position of Captain of the White Wolf Troop would have been his long ago.
Though his father had changed his mind in a blatantly transparent manner, whatever the reason, his father no longer opposed it. Peng Do-hwan wanted to take the captaincy of the White Wolf Troop even now.
Of course, Peng Do-hwan was also astonished that the White Wolf Troop had managed to sever the neck of the Extreme Evil Laughing Demon, one of the Absolute Great Evils.
No matter how much he thought about it, it remained a mystery how that had been possible.
Yet in the Murim, life and death hung on a single moment of carelessness.
The Extreme Evil Laughing Demon was human after all, so he reasoned it wasn’t entirely impossible.
“Hmm.”
“Is there no other way?”
“At times like this, wouldn’t a direct approach be far better than any special scheme?”
“A direct approach?”
“Yes. A method that makes him realize his own inadequacy and step down on his own accord. In other words…”
Peng Do-hwan smirked.
Upon hearing his son’s explanation, Peng Kyung-ho also broke into a satisfied smile and nodded in agreement.
‘What on earth is going on? Why in the world am I…’
In one of the private training grounds of the Hebei Peng Clan, Noh Ilbong wore a thoroughly flustered expression.
He couldn’t fathom how he had ended up in this situation.
Why on earth was he supposed to teach martial arts to the man standing before him?
It was simply dumbfounding.
Of course, when asked the other day, he had nodded without thinking, but that had only been because he was caught off guard and agreed reflexively.
Facing Noh Ilbong, who was looking at him with an utterly lost expression, Yeo Woonhwi smiled faintly.
“I leave myself in your capable hands, then.”
“Is there really any need to learn from me? Aren’t there many martial artists in the White Wolf Troop who are far more skilled than I am?”
“Well, it seems someone thought it wouldn’t look very dignified to learn from my direct subordinates.”
“Who?”
At Noh Ilbong’s question, Yeo Woonhwi pointed toward a corner with his finger.
There stood Peng Seoyeon, holding Yul-i’s hand, hiding behind a wall and covertly spying on them.
“Ha, haha…”
Only then did Noh Ilbong piece together how the situation had come to this.
“Still, there are plenty of other martial artists… Why specifically me?”
“Because aren’t we fairly close?”
“W-we are? Surely not.”
If anything, he was the person in the Hebei Peng Clan who avoided and dreaded Yeo Woonhwi the most. To call them close?
Noh Ilbong couldn’t begin to understand why he would think that.
In truth, Yeo Woonhwi had asked him before Peng Seoyeon even demanded that he start learning basic martial arts.
He had felt that it was about time he learned the foundational martial techniques of the Peng Family.
Afterward, he hadn’t had the time due to matters concerning the White Wolf Troop, but with his wife’s insistence, he had seized the opportunity to visit Noh Ilbong again.
Seeing Noh Ilbong’s reluctant expression, Yeo Woonhwi asked:
“Do you not want to?”
“N-no, that’s not it.”
“That’s a relief.”
What else was he supposed to say? “Yes, I hate it”?
“It’s… just that this situation is so out of the blue, I’m quite bewildered.”
“Well, since things turned out this way, I’m counting on you.”
Yeo Woonhwi lightly stretched his body and said:
“I’ll handle the basic conditioning myself, so just demonstrate the fundamental martial techniques of the Peng Family one by one for me.”
“Understood. Will that be all?”
“Of course.”
He supposedly knew no martial arts, yet he claimed he would skip the basics and only wanted demonstrations of the foundational techniques…
To Noh Ilbong’s ears, Yeo Woonhwi’s words sounded suspiciously like asking for help to slack off.
Everyone already knew Yeo Woonhwi possessed remarkable stamina, having earned the nickname ‘Ghost of the Running Course.’
Even so, beginning martial arts training from scratch at his age was hardly a promising endeavor.
Thus, Noh Ilbong readily nodded along with Yeo Woonhwi’s request.
‘Right. This is actually better.’
It would be far more of a headache if Yeo Woonhwi tackled it with fierce ambition, claiming he would become a grandmaster from now on.
Because the chances of that happening were practically zero.
In martial arts, building the foundation from a young age was of paramount importance.
One also needed to accumulate internal force steadily to maintain balance.
So while he was indeed still in the prime of his youth, it had to be said that starting martial arts now was far too late.
If he were unaware of that and set lofty goals, the one tasked with teaching him would find it utterly exhausting, regardless of how the student felt.
Fortunately, it seemed Yeo Woonhwi was well aware of his own limitations, which was a relief.
While avoiding getting entangled in this in the first place would have been best, now that things had come to this…
“Understood.”
Quickly organizing his thoughts, Noh Ilbong let out a brief sigh and spoke.
“Well then, I shall demonstrate them one by one from the beginning. Should you have any questions, I would appreciate it if you saved them until after the demonstration.”
“Very well.”
Noh Ilbong drew a wooden saber and began to execute the fundamental techniques of the Peng Family before Yeo Woonhwi.
“Mmh. Good. Very good.”
Watching them, Peng Seoyeon wore a satisfied, slightly proud smile.
It was a bit curious why he wasn’t teaching the absolute basics from the ground up, but that was up to the instructor, so there was no need for her to interfere.
What mattered was that he had taken the first step.
If her husband trained diligently like that for over ten years, Peng Seoyeon figured he might at least look the part of a martial artist.
Then, he would possess enough strength to defend himself to some extent.
That was what mattered.
After all, the moment one thinks it is too late is often the earliest time to start.
And so, Yeo Woonhwi officially began his martial arts training.
Haap! Taat!
Noh Ilbong performed the Peng Family’s techniques with all the dedication he could muster.
Even at this moment, Noh Ilbong had no idea.
Just how drastically this twist of fate would change his life.