Chapter 3: The Demon Emperor Has Returned (2)

Chapter 3: The Demon Emperor Has Returned (2)

It was now the middle of the night.

Kang Jin-Ho gazed at his mother by the bedside, quietly dozing away. It had been decades since he last saw her. Once upon a time, he thought that he would break down in a flood of emotional tears after finally seeing his mother again. But now that she was here... All he felt were panic and a sense of awkwardness.

In a way, this reaction was inevitable. Even though he had roamed around in gangho for decades, his mother must have been 'frozen' in this era. The 'mother' in his imagination would've changed little by little throughout the years, so it was unsurprising to see some discrepancies creep up between that version and his real mother.

It was the same story with his father. His father arrived a little later than his mother. While maintaining a grave expression, he quietly observed his son before letting out a sigh. “You should've been more careful, son.”

That was the first thing Kang Jin-Ho heard from his father in decades. He almost burst into hollow laughter at that. But that was because he felt an emotion beyond what he could verbally describe. An emotion that he had been too immature to understand in the past.

His father's heart ached from concern toward his son and at his own powerlessness, but he lacked the eloquence to put this emotion into gentle-enough words, which ultimately forced him to sound like a gruff old man. However, Kang Jin-Ho could fully understand his father's sentiments.

Kang Jin-Ho slowly got up from the bed. The IV needle stuck to his right arm got in the way, so he unhesitantly yanked it out. He could already picture the nurse biting his head off for doing this, but the excuse of the needle falling out while he slept should take care of that. Besides, something else was more important to him right now.

Kang Jin-Ho slowly crept out of his room, making sure not to make any noise while doing so. He avoided walking past the nurse's station and climbed up the stairs to reach the hospital's roof. Dull aches continued to shoot up from his waist, but it would be embarrassing to call this level of pain too torturous to endure.

Kang Jin-Ho opened the door to the roof and stepped outside, and the cold night winds dug into his body right away. He raised his head to look up at the sky without a star.

A night sky filled with nothing but pitch-black darkness entered his view.

'I'm really back.'

It finally felt real to Kang Jin-Ho that he had returned to the modern era. The sky he could see right now belonged to the 'present,’ the one he used to see all the time.

‘Was it all a dream ’

‘How did I come back ’

‘No, wait. Maybe, everything I've experienced was just a dream ’

Kang Jin-Ho quietly chuckled to himself. Dream, was it? Such things couldn't be a mere dream. He reached up and grabbed at the empty air. He could sense the energy flowing within the atmosphere through his fingertips. He shouldn't be able to sense stuff like this if his experiences had been just fragments of a dream.

What seemed even more puzzling was that he had returned to the past. Kang Jin-Ho had died in his 35th year. Yet, his current age was eighteen. He had somehow rewound nearly two decades' worth of time to end up in the past.

'Although it's a good thing...'

Not once had Kang Jin-Ho felt happy to be alive after the age of twenty. Soon after growing out of his teens, the only bright period in his entire life, his whole family had been killed in a horrific car accident. He had been the sole survivor, but he had still had to pay the far-too-high cost of becoming a paraplegic.

Kang Jin-Ho had endured fifteen years of misery as a disabled man, and in the 35th year of his life, he had ended things permanently. But when he had reopened his eyes, he had found himself in a 'new' world called Zhongyuan. His new life in this foreign land had been another series of misery, incomparable to the modern era when it came to harshness.

As if fate itself was trying to drive him into the pits of pure torment, seemingly endless trials and tribulations had continued to hinder his life. He had resisted the pain and fought back against the trials until he had eventually found himself as the leader of the demonic cult. And somehow, at the end of it all, he had returned to the present.

Kang Jin-Ho couldn't wrap his head around his current dream-like reality. In this world, he no longer had to watch out for blades aiming for his life during his sleep. He no longer had to endure the barbaric era where it was considered normal to murder other people for one's benefit. Oh, just how badly had he longed for this peaceful era back then!

Kang Jin-Ho softly muttered the resolve buried deep in his heart. “An ordinary life...”

‘Just like everyone else.’

‘To be able to laugh sometimes and to be able to cry...’

‘To be able to get angry, to be able to argue...’

‘I wanted to live like that; I wanted to chase after my own happiness...’

‘An ordinary life.’

‘Just like everyone else, my own ordinary life.’

“Haha...” Kang Jin-Ho started to laugh. It felt awkward, but his laughter didn't want to stop. “Hahahaha!”

His raucous laughter spread out to the night sky. He laughed until his gut began to hurt. It didn't take him long to realize that the pain wasn't caused by the laughter but by his wound opening up. As such, he tapped on the pressure point to stop the bleeding.

'The sky...'

Kang Jin-Ho looked back up at the night sky. The sky above looked clogged, with all of its stars hidden away. Most people wanted to escape from that polluted sky, but he felt solace simply by looking at it. Soon, a smile bloomed on his face.

***

“It's okay to eat food now, Mr. Jin-Ho.”

Kang Jin-Ho's expression became stoic at the nurse's words. “Food, you say?”

The nurse continued. “You'll be given liquefied food initially. Aside from that, you can also try simple drinks.”

“Drinks, too?”

Clunk!

A metallic clunk and laughter halted his steps.

“Here.”

Kang Jin-Ho wordlessly stared at the little kid offering the can of cola in his way.

The kid started explaining herself. “I thought you looked so pitiful, glaring so hard at the vending machine like that. So, let me buy you one.”

Kang Jin-Ho flatly refused. “I don't accept goodwill without reason.”

“I told you, I thought you were pitiful. There's your reason.”

“I'm not pitiful.”

“Nope, you looked really pitiful just now.”

Kang Jin-Ho was left somewhat speechless.

‘I'm pitiful... ’

He couldn't even remember the last time someone had said that to him. No one had dared to call him 'pitiful' after he had begun mastering martial arts, after all. But now, this little kid called him exactly that. However, his mood didn't sour at all. That was because he didn't sense any malice from the kid based on his observation. No... it was more like a gesture of pure goodwill, rather than sympathy or pity

The kid asked him again, “Aren't you gonna take it?”

“I don't accept a...”

“If you don't want to, fine. I'll just throw it away. I don't drink cola, you see.”

Kang Jin-Ho was stunned. “You'll throw it away?”

“Yup.”

“But, that'll be a waste...”

“We ain't gonna drink it, so how could it be a waste?”

“...”

“Should I throw it away, then?” the kid asked while taking the can to the nearby rubbish bin.

Kang Jin-Ho quickly pondered his options before extending his hand. “I'll take it.”

“Heh.” The kid smirked and handed the can of cola over. Grabbing the can with the dew condensed on the surface during their chat rewarded Kang Jin-Ho with the sensation of refreshingly cool metal.

Clunk...

The kid bought a pack of juice from the vending machine and then addressed Kang Jin-Ho with a grin on her face. “We can't drink here, though. Eating and drinking in the hospital's corridors are prohibited, you see? You should head to the lounge.”

“Oh...” Kang Jin-Ho nodded. If that was the rule, then he should abide by it. However, the kid didn't follow her own advice and headed elsewhere instead. A bit puzzled now, he asked her a question. “Where are you going?”

“I don't like the lounge, you see. I wanna go outside and drink my juice.”

“Outside?”

“Yeah, by the bench in front of the hospital,” said the kid.

Kang Jin-Ho nodded. “I see.”

He agreed that the hospital garden bench would be a better option than the indoor lounge. He also spotted a structure resembling a pavilion when he looked down at the garden from his room upstairs.

Kang Jin-Ho wordlessly followed after the kid. The way this unfamiliar kid waddled a little as she walked seemed slightly awkward, yet it also comforted him somewhat. She certainly felt different from Zhongyuan’s children, at least.

This kid was spunky, yes, but she wasn’t rude.

.

‘What illness does she have ’

Kang Jin-Ho wondered. Although his curiosity was piqued, he chose not to pry. He knew from experience that asking about one's illness out of morbid curiosity would only leave behind extra scars in one's heart.

The kid entered the well-maintained garden in front of the hospital and plopped down on a bench.

1. King Sejong the Great's face graces South Korea's 10,000 won notes.