Descent of the Demon Master

Chapter 647 Healing (2)

Chapter 647 Healing (2)

“Mm...?”

Choi Yeon-Ha moaned while lazily opening her eyes, her expression deeply distorted.

'What is going on?'

She couldn't immediately figure out the current situation. Although, it wasn't as if something bad or weird had happened here. It was simply the case of unfamiliarity: since she hadn't enjoyed such a deep and relaxing sleep in a long time, waking up from a restful slumber proved to be an alien experience.

The commonly-accepted belief stated that waking up from such a relaxing sleep should result in feeling refreshed, but Choi Yeon-Ha felt the exact opposite. Her entire body felt as sluggish and unwilling as a wet sponge.

However, she welcomed such feelings. She hadn't felt them in a long while, after all. Not having the greatest sleep helped her get off the bed with minimal fuss, but that feeling was temporary. After washing up and getting in the car to go to work... Her mood would crash, and she'd feel like sinking into the floor.

This drowsy state was preferable. Although it was much harder to wake up now, energy would return in force once she was fully awake. Choi Yeon-Ha knew this from experience. In that case, why was she puzzled like this? There could be only one cause.

'How did I wake up?'

She wouldn't normally be able to wake up, let alone sit up like this, with such terrible exhaustion. So, for her to wake up without anyone's help? Wouldn't the pig fly and the sun rise from the...

Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dooooong!

'Ah. So that was why.'

Choi Yeon-Ha groaned softly. Now that her mind was a bit clearer, she could hear the loud doorbell noises trying to pierce her hearing. Not only that, but even her phone was vibrating with enough force to rip itself apart, too!

'Urgh... Eun-Sol! Please stop!'

This pattern of behavior could only be produced by Han Eun-Sol. As Choi Yeon-Ha's manager, he had figured out the most optimal ways to wake her up in the morning. In short, he had developed an uncanny ability to pick only those things Choi Yeon-Ha hated the most! Like right now!

Choi Yeon-Ha's irritation level instantly soared through the roof from the ear-piercing doorbell and the incessant vibration of her phone.

“Fine! I'm awake now, okay?! I'm coming, so hold your horses!”

Choi Yeon-Ha jumped off the bed. After unhappily putting on a T-shirt and a pair of leggings stored next to the bed, Choi Yeon-Ha stomped her way toward the suite's entrance. She roughly yanked open the door to reveal Han Eun-Sol and his deeply-worried face staring back at her.

“Noona! Are you alright?! What happened?”

“What happened where?! And what's the matter with you! Who's alright?! What!”

“I mean, I went to your suite only to find it in the middle of being fixed! And you've already moved room for some reason! Did something happen last night? And I couldn't find the bodyguard, either!”

Choi Yeon-Ha flinched.

'Oh. I forgot to tell Eun-Sol about moving rooms...'

She suddenly imagined how panicked Han Eun-Sol must've been after waking up in the morning, and that cooled her anger in the blink of an eye. Even if everything was too hectic last night, making a phone call wouldn't be that hard, anyway.

Although Han Eun-Sol not waking up during last night's commotion didn't make much sense to Choi Yeon-Ha, those people were fully capable of creating nonsensical situations without batting an eyelid, so...

“You...!”

...And then came another reminder of Choi Yeon-Ha's personality being twisted. Even though she wanted to apologize to Han Eun-Sol in her heart, her mouth began spewing not-so-apologetic words instead!

“...You! Didn't you tell me you were worried and would constantly monitor the corridor?!”

“W-well, that's, uh...” Han Eun-Sol stumbled back unsteadily. “I did set my alarm and everything, noona. Honest! But it's like something had come over me! I couldn't hear the alarm and slept like a rock until this morning. I'm really sorry...”

Choi Yeon-Ha sympathized with Han Eun-Sol. She definitely did. She might be having a hard time in this foreign land, but that story also applied to Han Eun-Sol. And that was why she was always grateful for everything her manager had done for her.

So, Choi Yeon-Ha rolled up all of her gratitude into one explosive yell. “This is why I can't trust you to do anything! How can I when you can't even keep your promise?!”

And she instantly regretted doing so.

'Aaaaaargh! Imma sew my lips shut one of these days!'

Why did she keep putting up this facade of a nasty person when she knew she could be nice to other people?

However, Han Eun-Sol formed a resolute expression that screamed, 'Your attack will not get through my defenses'. “I get it, so please wash up quickly, noona. We need to head back to the filming location. We're already late as it is.”

“Fine! I got it.” Choi Yeon-Ha tutted loudly.

“Oh, and by the way...”

“What is it?”

Han Eun-Sol narrowed his eyes. “Did something good happen, noona?”

Choi Yeon-Ha subtly flinched. “W-what are you on about?”

“Well, your complexion looks so much better, you see? Rather than better, it's more like... You looked wane and pale yesterday, but your face is noticeably rosier this morning? Like you got your blood flowing again? Were you exercising, noona?”

“What exercise are you even talking about? Why would I bother so early in the day? Besides, you can probably tell I was asleep just now, can't you?”

“I had to ask, you know. You suddenly look so much better, after all. Did you touch up your cheeks before opening the door? They are ruddy and stuff.”

Choi Yeon-Ha shook her head. “That's enough nonsense from you. Come in already.”

“Eh?” Han Eun-Sol blinked his eyes and pointed at himself. “You... want me to enter your room?”

“That's right. Or you wanna keep standing there?”

“N-no.”

Choi Yeon-Ha coolly turned around and headed back into the suite, only to stop dead in her tracks. Han Eun-Sol, uneasily following behind her, also had to hurriedly stop and wonder what was up this time.

'Where did he disappear to?'

Choi Yeon-Ha had temporarily forgotten about Kang Jin-Ho's presence while urgently waking up to speak to Han Eun-Sol. The man who should also be in the room was... nowhere to be found?

'He's not the type to abandon someone and leave the first thing in the morning, so... No, wait. This is actually for the best.'

When Choi Yeon-Ha thought about it, she made a careless slip just now. Even if Han Eun-Sol was like her little brother and a manager who needed to know everything about her, it was not cool to let him know that a man had spent the night in an unmarried woman's room!

Something like that was ripe for a misunderstanding. It'd be better for Kang Jin-Ho to show up outside the suite first, and then...

That was when Choi Yeon-Ha heard a subtle little noise. Her head snapped violently in the direction of that sound.

'Did that come from... the bathroom?'

No, it couldn't be.

There was no way! He must not! It must not happen!

Unfortunately, the bathroom door was firmly pushed open to trample on all of Choi Yeon-Ha's ardent praying. And from inside the slightly-misty bathroom's interior, Kang Jin-Ho emerged half-naked with a towel wrapped around his lower half. And he was even casually tussling his wet hair, too!

“Good morning, you two,” said Kang Jin-Ho.

“...!” Choi Yeon-Ha's cheeks ominously twitched.

Why did he always have to...

'Why do you always have to show up at the worst-possible timing with the worst-possible appearance?! Why! Why can't you fail at least once?!'

That was when Choi Yeon-Ha suddenly remembered the guest behind her and freaked out. She hurriedly turned around to find Han Eun-Sol still standing there... just as she had feared!

'...Heol?'

Choi Yeon Ha had never seen Han Eun-Sol's eyes so wide open before in their time together as a talent and a manager!

'Hah? Were Eun-Sol's eyes always that large?'

Indeed, his eyes seemed a bit... excessively open right now. That appearance alone was enough to explain how massive Han Eun-Sol's shock was. Eventually, his attention-grabbing massive saucer-sized eyes slowly shifted to the side. Choi Yeon-Ha's gaze naturally followed him. And what she saw at the end of his gaze was...

A bed with messy sheets tossed all over the place; a woman's robe discarded equally messily on the floor. And then, there was Kang Jin-Ho, clearly emerging from the shower. There was also the matter of the suite's spare bed that even a blind man could see hadn't been used. At all.

The final clincher was... Choi Yeon-Ha and her rosy, nay, flushed cheeks!

After confirming all these suspicious elements with his wide-open eyes, Han Eun-Sol's expression gradually grew indescribably weird.

His slightly-trembling lips finally parted agonizingly slowly. “...She's finally gone and done it. Yessir. She sure has...”

Not only that, but apparently rather passionately, too...!

***

There were various ways to drive a man insane. Guo Liqin knew that fact only too well.

Thanks to the quirk of his profession, which usually involved handling unsavory matters, Guo Liqin experienced countless such cases. Many of his clients asked him to spare the targets' lives and 'just' make them go crazy.

Various restrictions, such as the rights to inheritance or some other complicated reasons preventing the death of targets, meant the clients wanted the still-living brain-dead idiots they could control.

Since Guo Liqin's job was to fulfill his clients' wishes, he had personally participated in making targets go insane. So yes, he knew plenty of methods. Actually, he knew too many. So many that he'd sometimes agonize over his choices! He could inject qi directly into the target's brain and destroy it. Or crush the target's limbs piece by piece and drive the poor fool into madness from sheer pain.

However, Guo Liqin's favored method out of so many had to be psychological torture. Gradually making the target go crazy through such a method was deeply entertaining to him. Besides, it had another benefit of not leaving any visible traces on the target's body. So, he usually went with this method.

Such was his love for this type of torture that he even took a course in psychology! When his colleagues heard about how Guo Liqin had taken up psychology, they b*tched about how he should stop focusing on making his targets go mad and consider seeing a therapist first instead!

Maybe they were right back then. Maybe he should've listened to their advice. Why the sudden change of heart? Because Guo Liqin was quickly discovering that everything he had learned was utterly useless!

The simplest yet the most-perfect torture method was right here! He was experiencing it himself in full might!

'I... I still can't move!'

Indeed, his body was still paralyzed. He couldn't even flick a finger. All Guo Liqin could do was breathe like a living corpse. The sense of loss from having his body's mobility stolen away, even though his mind was functioning perfectly fine, was gradually forcing him into a mental dead-end.

At first, Guo Liqin panicked. After a short while later, he tried so damn hard to stay resolute. And then, an extremely-powerful fear he couldn't win against ruled over every part of his mind.

What about now, though? He was anxious. Not scared, just anxious. Indescribably so, too. Such was the severity of this anxiety that he could barely keep himself together. Dying like this didn't scare him. No, it was the anxiety of spending the rest of his life stuck in this paralyzed state that ruthlessly crushed him.

'N-no, there's no way. It can't... end like this, right? Right?'

Guo Liqin desperately suppressed the incessant anxiety-inducing thoughts whispering in his mind. And then, he kept trying to move his eyes, the only physical part of his body still under his control. However, his eyes had been open since the night before, so they had become dried and bloodshot. Moving them by even a tiny bit felt like sharp daggers were mercilessly stabbing his eye sockets.

However, he still didn't stop. If his eyes had also been paralyzed, Guo Liqin would've really lost his mind!

His wandering vision could see the gigantic silhouette of a man that surely couldn't have belonged to an actual human being.

'N-no, he can't be that man, right?'

Obviously, Guo Liqin had heard the rumors of a martial artist boasting such a massive physique before. However, this man and the rumored martial artist couldn't be the same person. Why would such a renowned warrior be here, anyway?

Just as Guo Liqin's thoughts had reached there, the giant sitting on an equally-huge chair suddenly broke his silence. “I know this is what is expected of all servants, but... Still, isn't this a little unfortunate? To think I must keep my eye on an insect like this fool while my master is focusing on his reproductive activity...”

“Sir Vator,” Zhang Dajing grimaced softly.

“What is it?”

“...No, it's nothing, sir.” Zhang Dajing couldn't bring himself to say anything other than groan under his breath.

He might have reached a point in his relationship with Vator where they could chat unreservedly with each other. However, it was still rather rude to say, 'Sir, you got beaten up while saying that, so how could you repeat yourself again?' to his superior.

“Mm? Looks like you have something on your mind, Zhang Dajing.”

“Well, uh... Isn't it fine for a young couple like them to engage in reprodu... Kuh-hum, I mean, isn't it fine for them to do the deed, sir?” Zhang Dajing caught himself nearly using the same term as Vator and hurriedly mumbled his way out of this precarious spot. His gut feeling told him never to mouth that term in the open if he could help it!

“That's what I'm saying!” Vator crossed his arms in front of his chest and tutted disapprovingly. “Disappointingly lacking in masculinity, I say! Why couldn't he confidently say we must monitor this fool while he's working hard to sire healthy offspring? What is so embarrassing about saying that?! My master needs to remain confident and manly regardless of the situation facing him!”

“Well, uh... Mm,” Zhang Dajing grimaced again after failing to figure out how to respond. He quickly realized that maybe he should refrain from discussing this particular academic field (?) with Vator. “B-by the way, sir?”

“Mm?”

Zhang Dajing hurriedly changed the topic. “Why can't this fool move? Was he fed drugs to paralyze him?”

“Drugs?” Vator burst into manly laughter. “A martial artist ingesting drugs, you say? Even if we're talking about a third-rate nobody, they'd have to ingest enough drugs to instantly kill an elephant to become this paralyzed. Before that happened, their stomach would explode from overeating first!”

After having a good laugh at Zhang Dajing's expense, an unreadable smirk formed on Vator's face as he glanced at Guo Liqin.

“What's more important, though, is... Why has my master captured this fool?”

Zhang Dajing tilted his head in puzzlement.