TSBIRBV Ch 150

Chapter 150 Even If You Deceive Heaven, Deceive an Esper (3)

Yegyeol opened his mouth a few times, then shut it again.

Wait—just a few days ago in Tangok, after burning so hotly, why is the Black Ghost saying lines like this now?

He had paced sleepless in his room for nights.

Because his Senior Brother had shown signs of shifting weight toward the relationship between Haryang and Yegyeol, not between Yegyeol and the Black Ghost. That was why Yegyeol had judged his Senior Brother would soon dispose of the Black Ghost.

And yet—what was the meaning of these cryptic words?

“It was a jest.”

The Black Ghost spread his hands as if it were nothing, the best protest one could offer to someone bewildered as though they had misread every emotion.

“A jest… Then was your personal visit, to inform me of the red sandalwood certificate fraud in Cheonghae Trading, also purely for amusement?”

Yegyeol’s voice quivered slightly.

“Hardly.”

The Black Ghost replied lightly.

“Are not Lord Mun and Cheonghae Trading honored guests of Black Spot?”

“…”

“I merely gave you the treatment due.”

Honored guest.

It was true enough. Yet the weight of his favor far outweighed such words. Yegyeol, like a man begrudgingly indebted to an uneasy acquaintance, replied:

“I will surely repay your kindness.”

He tried to draw a line, but the leisure in the man’s face did not fade. Rather, he looked even more amused.

“And how do you intend to repay me?”

The man leaned in, his lips suddenly too close. Trapped in his shadow, Yegyeol hunched his shoulders as if cowering.

“…I don’t wish to repeat what happened with you, Black Ghost.”

“My, you’ve made an entertaining misunderstanding.”

At Yegyeol’s whisper as he took a step back, the Black Ghost’s brows pinched slightly.

“Here, a strand of hair had fallen loose, so I helped.”

He released Yegyeol easily and waved his hand. To prove his words, between his fingers dangled a single fine strand of brown hair.

“…Thank you.”

“Your nape is flushed.”

The teasing tone made Yegyeol belatedly raise a hand to cover his neck.

“Covering it won’t make the color vanish, will it?”

“It will fade soon.”

“Then why bother hiding it? Conceal it, and…”

The Black Ghost trailed off. Yegyeol had the strange impression that Haryang’s eyes had grown darker.

“…it only spurs a rogue like me to imagine what lies beneath.”

“Don’t tease me.”

Yegyeol floundered, not out of offense but from truly not knowing how to respond. At that, the Black Ghost pressed his lips together.

“This… is truly difficult.”

His bloodshot eyes lingered on Yegyeol for a long time, until a rough sigh escaped his lips.

“What is?”

“Observing proper form, I mean.”

The scar across his lips curved faintly in derision.

“I’m an unlearned brute. I’ve no idea how to treat a noble young master like you.”

Yegyeol froze.

The last time they met in the Black Ghost’s guise, he had stormed off after demanding they next meet in more proper circumstances—to show he would not tolerate such loose, irreverent talk of his Senior Brother.

But now, he speaks as if he’d held that rebuke in mind all this while…

It made him seem like a man who, not knowing how to speak, resorted to showering gifts; who fretted alone when no letters came back; and who, upon uncovering the certificate fraud, came rushing headlong.

And then, worried that his own careless attitude might wound the other, he said such things. Yegyeol’s chest churned.

Had he not known the Black Ghost was Haryang, he might have felt guilty.

Truly, I can’t win against him.

Yegyeol let out a faint laugh.

“A noble young master? I am merely… a man blessed with fortune. If it’s a matter of being unlearned, none surpass me.”

The Black Ghost gazed at him steadily.

“I forced my way into a grand martial sect, only to spend years longer than others on mental techniques because I barely knew my letters. My body was clumsy, my frame smaller than my peers, and never once was sword training easy…”

“When one enters a martial sect, do they not assign a teacher?”

The Black Ghost cut in abruptly.

Yegyeol faltered.

Indeed, Baiyang Zhenren had been the one to personally witness Wen Yegyeol’s cremation in the Central Plains after his death.

Before his old master could expose such facts to Haryang, Yegyeol needed to undermine that trust.

“My master was not so free as to tend to disciples without martial talent. It was a great sect, after all.”

Yegyeol subtly defended Baiyang Zhenren. In the Central Plains, openly slandering one’s master was frowned upon—it was like spitting on one’s own face.

But when he cautiously raised his gaze to Haryang, he stopped short. The smile that had clung, at least in pretense, to the Black Ghost’s face had vanished.

He had never been gentle in appearance, but Yegyeol had never before felt such menace as now.

“…I see.”

Yegyeol had told him before that he and Baiyang Zhenren had not been so close, though at that time Haryang had been too busy comforting Yegyeol—who pretended melancholy at not wanting to return to Kunlun—to notice.

This was the first time Yegyeol glimpsed his true feelings.

“A famed orthodox sect that would not even teach a disciple his letters, leaving him to struggle through mental techniques alone… hard to believe.”

“I was simply slow to learn…”

“Impossible. To my eyes, Lord Mun is exceedingly clever. Do not scorn a merchant’s eye. As for mental techniques, they could have been taught by guiding energy along the meridians…”

To hear a once-proud hero prattle of a merchant’s eye felt jarringly strange. Yegyeol masked it well.

“Well, it’s all past now.”

He dismissed it lightly and looked at Haryang.

“So what I mean is—distinctions of high and low birth matter little.”

He touched his chest and smiled faintly.

“Perhaps to you, a Black Spot officer, my life looks pampered. But I fought hard in my own way.”

The rigid lines of the Black Ghost’s mouth softened slightly.

Not a smile, but gentler than when Baiyang Zhenren was mentioned.

“…I truly do not understand Lord Mun.”

At his confession, Yegyeol blinked. Whatever lay beneath, his bewildered face was pure and guileless.

“Did we not begin as nothing more than bodies together? When I asked if my scars disgusted you, you gave an answer I never expected.”

The man drew breath and continued.

“Perhaps that is why I dreamed above my station. But no matter how many nights of passion we shared, to you I was only a substitute for your Senior Brother.”

“That is—”

The ambush of words made Yegyeol’s eyes tremble. Unable to find an answer, his shoulders drooped weakly.

“So when I disparaged him, you left without a backward glance, did you not?”

Yegyeol bit his lips hard—not with intent, but from sheer anxiety.

Sighing, the Black Ghost reached out and pressed his thumb to Yegyeol’s lower lip.

“Even if I am a lowly trader willing to sell my body, do not let me sway you so easily.”

When Yegyeol stilled, the man withdrew his hand slowly, whispering:

“Who knows when I might spend the price you’ve paid me?”

The crooked smile he wore was edged with menace, as if not wishing it to be dismissed as mere threat.

Feigning thought, Yegyeol then answered boldly:

“I will take your warning to heart, Black Ghost.”

As though expecting it, the Black Ghost leaned back.

“But many things have changed for me as well, since the beginning.”

“…And how should I take those words?”

His voice carried a low resonance, enough to mistake for anger.

Yegyeol whispered, small as a child:

“I don’t want to change. More change… frightens me.”

He trailed off, his tone so fragile it felt like overhearing a secret murmur.

Listening, Haryang’s heart quickened with impatience.

“What has changed?”

The Black Ghost coaxed gently.

Like a hunter luring a beast from its den with honeyed fruit, Yegyeol looked at him and answered:

“I found myself wanting to see you.”

The Black Ghost forgot even to breathe.

Those lips, swollen red from being chewed, looked unbearably soft.

“When you spoke ill of Senior Brother, I was so angry that I swore, until I returned from Cheonghae, not to see your face or even exchange letters. Yet when I truly kept away, I felt empty.”

Yegyeol smiled bitterly.

“I don’t know why I kept thinking of that spiteful man… Your gifts dismayed me, I feared Senior Brother would discover my reckless conduct, and yet your letters delighted me. I couldn’t make sense of myself. Then, in the silk market, when I saw you through the bolts of cloth, I thought you an illusion.”

He drew a steadying breath.

“I thought you’d never seek me out again after I’d turned so coldly away. And in that instant, I realized how much I had missed you.”

“Had I not sent that sound transmission, it might have ended badly.”

The Black Ghost agreed in a subdued tone. Yegyeol did not answer, only tilted his head slightly aside as he went on.

“Of course, the dearest person to me will always be my Senior Brother. But…”