TSBIRBV Ch 86

Chapter 86 The Trading Lord Is on Leave (3)

Yegyeol’s voice, catching his senior brother in the act of slipping away, held a trace of laughter.

Even his eyes, fluttering and slow to open, were smiling.

“Oh dear.”

Pausing at the door, Haryang clicked his tongue with brazen nonchalance for someone caught trying to flee.

“Caught.”

“The lullaby… you have to sing it.”

Why a lullaby, when he sounded sleepy enough to die?

At the odd fixation, Haryang gave a wry smile.

He had planned to fetch a chair on his way back, but Yegyeol patted the space beside him on the bed.

“Here, right here.”

With a faint knit of his brows at the awkwardness, Haryang sat at his disciple’s side.

Summoning up the lullaby heard a few times in childhood and pondering how to begin, he felt Yegyeol suddenly take his hand.

Interlacing their fingers and squeezing, as if to say “hurry up,” he looked up at Haryang, and a light warmth circled Haryang’s face.

Then a slow, simple melody flowed from him. Hummed in a low register, the lullaby sounded rather sweet.

“There’s really nothing senior brother can’t do.”

Half‑drowsy, Yegyeol mumbled.

“You dry hair well… sing lullabies well… you’re kind. What can’t you do, really?”

As the words trailed into a mutter like talking to himself, Haryang stroked the back of his disciple’s hand and replied,

“I’m glad it looks that way.”

Truly, it was a relief.

“Because it takes no small effort.”

—

Since returning from Sichuan, Yegyeol had become his old self again — if anything, even more affectionate and clingy.

As if that night of the lullaby had been a turning point, he glued himself to Haryang at once.

“Kangaroo. Koala. Wallaby.”

That was about the summary of Yegyeol these days. Haryang accepted it without hesitation when Yegyeol clung or pounced into his arms.

Jinyeong wore a perturbed face whenever he saw them; Samrang was too absorbed in researching a tailor‑made stealth technique for Baembaem to care; and Hongyeo was… simply Hongyeo. He seemed to have little interest beyond tending to Red Thunder.

Even so, by Yegyeol’s observation, the most inattentive of his senior brother’s three subordinates was not Hongyeo but Samrang.

As for the most important person — his senior brother — ever since Yegyeol’s return from Sichuan, he had been uniformly gentle.

Before leaving Cheonghae, when Yegyeol had been avoiding him, faint fissures had shown; now they were hidden once more.

But they had not vanished entirely.

Along with relief, a very slight displeasure had taken root.

“—So this time, through the post‑purchase index Namgung recommended, I secured a contract for the trading company.”

Chattering away, Yegyeol spoke before a Haryang lost in thought.

Senior brother was exceedingly busy, so eating three meals together was difficult. Even while Yegyeol stayed in the manor, Haryang kept coming and going somewhere. Still, when both were at the manor, he always saved at least tea‑time for conversation, even if he missed meals.

Now, to “pretend to conceal” matters concerning the Black Ghost, Yegyeol was laying out the company’s achievements.

The “innocent disciple” his senior brother knew could not very well say he had gone to Sichuan and spent a night of burning flesh with a ruffian of the demonic way. As a means to hide that deviance, he tried to chatter as much as possible about the company — giving precisely that impression.

At first, he had thought he could bluff it with a straight face; but, as with all his plans, variables arose.

“I didn’t even do this when I was in school.”

The feeling of doing something he hadn’t done even then made him flush with shame. Worse, Je Haryang was the sort to sincerely commend even if he came in dead last — which only made it worse.

“Of late, your time in Sichuan has grown long,” Haryang said with a laugh, tilting his head.

“Did you smear honey there?”

Knowing full well why he was flitting to and fro through Sichuan like a mouse to a granary, the tease had bite.

Like someone startled to the core, Yegyeol’s shoulders jumped — but he answered in a voice carefully feigning calm.

“It’s probably because I’ve gotten to know a number of people. For the company’s sake, one can’t treat anyone lightly.”

Tossing out a lie without even wetting his lips, he let his gaze drift, as if to advertise his guilt.

“It’s a delight to hear your circle grow. It seems the Namgung clan’s young lord is fond of you.”

Haryang’s tone was somehow lukewarm.

Inwardly, Yegyeol exulted.

‘So he’s miffed that the Black Ghost is being hidden so neatly, is he?’

His senior brother was like those peaks of Kunlun. To start an avalanche, Yegyeol stomped, threw stones, poured hot water.

Gradually, the results were showing.

“I’ll be away from Cheonghae for a while, so I’m relieved that my disciple won’t be lonely.”

“…Pardon?”

The unexpected line broke Yegyeol for a moment.

“Something has come up; I must go far.”

“When… will you be back?”

“I mean to return within a month and a half, but it may be longer.”

Haryang’s face, lifting the teacup, was unchanged.

‘Ah — but at least the Black Ghost will be in Sichuan… right?’

No; it seemed not.

“Where in the world are you going…?”

The Central Plains had no airplanes or cars, but there was Red Thunder, a peerless steed.

Twice, thrice as fast as ordinary horses, with tremendous stamina; if the rider’s strength held, it performed at a level to rival Lü Bu’s Red Hare.

With such a Red Thunder, how could it take a month and a half?

“Hangzhou.”

Hangzhou? Yegyeol blinked.

They were in Cheonghae — and he was going to Hangzhou?

In modern terms, just below Shanghai. The westernmost edge of the Central Plains.

‘Even Red Thunder can’t solve that.’

Hearing “to Hangzhou,” he felt in his skin that he truly would be apart from his senior brother for a month.

“Wasn’t senior brother busy?”

He didn’t know Je Haryang’s “main job,” but he did know he ran a separate identity as the Black Ghost. Living as if he had two bodies — when and how would he go to Hangzhou, and why?

‘Then the Black Ghost must have special reasons to leave the Sichuan branch unmanned.’

On the verge of tears, Yegyeol slumped over the table.

“Gyeol?”

When his disciple sagged like Baembaem, Haryang called out in alarm.

“If senior brother leaves… I’ll be so lonely.”

“You’re not telling me not to go?”

“How could I…?”

‘So much for producing cinnabar‑red wood, for now.’

A pity.

He had been handling goods through the black market and socking away slush funds, but the performance figures were plunging toward the red; the prime mover that had hauled them back to black was the cinnabar‑red wood.

He had even secured a stand of sea‑tangle trees this time. As soon as he heard from Samrang, Yegyeol had been raring to go test making refined-soaked wood.

It was a fine way to vent surplus power and make money.

“If I’m absent from Cheonghae, will you be in Sichuan?”

Yegyeol recalled chapter one of the book written with the tears of senior espers:

“Let’s see… was the title something like ‘How a Wise Esper Behaves to Avoid Burdening the Guide’?”

“While you’re away, I’ll devote myself to company affairs so nothing arises to worry you.”

Senior brother looked at him, perhaps impressed by his mature statement — yet the twitch at the corner of his mouth… did not look like pride or admiration.

“And with that face, as if you’ll die of sorrow?”

At his prodding, Yegyeol’s lips trembled as he elegantly raised his cup. In the tea’s reflection, even he could see he had no hold on his expression.

Senior espers were no help at all.

“They should’ve taught ‘How a Cunning Esper Properly Burdens a Guide’ — how will this saintly method ever seduce a guide?”

“…Is it that obvious?”

“I’m reminded anew that you’re such an honest child.”

At that, the liar suffered.

He was the greatest swindler under heaven — honest? To Yegyeol’s mind, his senior brother was the guileless one, a dangerous state.

‘I’ll be the one to protect him.’

In Je Haryang’s life, one liar — Yegyeol — was enough.

“Don’t mind me; laugh as much as you like.”

Kind and considerate as ever, Haryang half-turned and shook silently, perhaps thinking his laughter might wound Yegyeol.

It even sounded like muffled sobbing. For once, Yegyeol cursed an esper’s sharp hearing.

‘He isn’t a man who laughs often — so seeing him that happy, it was right to speak plainly, wasn’t it?’

Having rationalized it, Yegyeol waited for him.

When Haryang finally turned back, composed, he met a second crisis: Yegyeol, cheeks puffed in a sulk. But like the battle‑hardened martial man he was, he quickly gathered himself.

“Let’s see…”

At his plain, unjoking tone, Yegyeol’s ears perked.

“You’ve worked hard, so you should take a vacation. Don’t you think?”

“A… vacation?”

Yegyeol blinked.

“Will you come with me?”

At his words, angelic trumpets sounded.

“If you’re willing, that is.”

The proposal felt strangely careful. Without a second thought, Yegyeol nodded.

“Good, I’d love that.”

He was a bit dazed. Like expecting cotton candy and getting popping candy bursting in the mouth.

‘Together?’

Trying not to look too giddy, he repeated,

“Truly, I’d love that.”

Haryang started to tease him, then pressed his lips shut.

The young disciple he cherished was smiling with an unguarded face.