TSBIRBV Ch 179

Chapter 179 Pillow-Side Litigation (6)

The very act of speaking such words carried an air of apology. He did not seem a bad man.

Rather… he knows quite a lot, doesn’t he?

Yegyeol hesitated.

Because of the timing, he must have looked as though he were deeply wounded, but in truth the blow landed with no weight at all. For he was that disciple who had died twenty years ago.

So the Beggar’s Sect’s famed intelligence was no idle boast, it seemed. Was it something he had learned from Red Elder, his master?

“I cannot believe it. Please, withdraw.”

By common sense, Elder Hwang’s concern was correct.

Even Yegyeol knew: if a senior esper claimed that someone was their guide simply because the man resembled the one who had died twenty years ago, and bore the same name, he would have been knocked unconscious and dragged to a Center counseling office.

“Before he senses it and gives chase, you must flee. I cannot manage it now, but I swear on the name of the Beggar’s Sect, I will see you reunited with your master in Kunlun.”

“That will not be necessary.”

Yegyeol shook his head. Why leave behind his radiant beloved to meet that detestable old master?

His refusal carried a firm resolve: try to drag him by force, and he would resist and escape at all costs.

“Yegyeol. No. He is too dangerous.”

“And yet you say not a single word of why my senior brother is dangerous, only that I must run from him.”

Even when faced with a guide, at this point Yegyeol’s voice grew sharp-edged.

Namgung Un bit his lip, anxious. But before he could speak, Elder Hwang’s voice reached him first.

“…If you return to him, to that demon, you may die.”

“Even so, I will trust my senior brother, who has ever been gentle and kind to me, rather than those who would kidnap me without a word.”

So saying, Yegyeol deliberately turned his face away from Namgung Un.

“Truly, he is thoroughly brainwashed.”

Hwang Geolgae shook his head. Exchanging a glance with Namgung Un, then nodding as if in decision, he turned to Yegyeol.

“The man you call ‘senior brother’…”

The old man paused a moment, then whispered in sound transmission:

[He is none other than the Heavenly Demon, Je Haryang.]

For an instant it felt as though he had been struck over the head.

What—the Heavenly Demon?

Yegyeol blinked.

He groped through his memory, searching for the definition of that title.

In wuxia tales, the Heavenly Demon was living evil itself. In the real martial world, it was no different.

If one gathered the rumors scattered through the marketplace, the Heavenly Demon was a monster with five heads and six arms, wielding spear and sword alike, practicing demonic arts by draining the blood of youths.

The great devil of heroic tales, the mad scientist of zombie stories, the game master of survival dramas… in the Korea Yegyeol had been reborn from, he would be akin to the head of an anti-government rebellion.

So you’re saying… my senior brother is the villain?

Absurd.

“…The Heavenly Demon, you say.”

Je Haryang was—he was Yegyeol’s hero.

He always had been, and always would be.

He was the one who found a forgotten orphan boy and led him into life.

A genius among geniuses, unmatched in his age, who would raise the name of Kunlun—ever relegated to the margins of great affairs from its remote perch in Cheonghae—to dazzling heights.

He put the safety of his brothers and the salvation of the suffering people above his own body. The young talents he gathered in the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly were so moved by his gallantry that they scattered across the Central Plains, cutting down villains and saving the weak.

In those days, Haryang belonged to all, and so Yegyeol had never dared even to long for him. To hear only of his good deeds was enough to fill his belly. Even the heavy weight of the wooden sword and the master’s cold scolding tasted sweet then.

If not now, then one day, he thought, he would become strong enough to at least stand at Je Haryang’s feet and aid his righteous deeds.

Everyone—everyone Yegyeol knew—liked him.

“…Elder, you must have misunderstood.”

Forcing up the corners of lips that trembled, Yegyeol managed a smile.

Namgung Un reached a hand, calling, “Yegyeol—” but he took another step back.

“Impossible.”

His senior brother had walked only the righteous path, though compelled by circumstance to take a roundabout road.

Yes, in the Demonic Sect he had been forced to learn demonic arts, and so was cast out by the sect…

The Black Ghost business was not something to boast of, perhaps, but to mistake him for the Heavenly Demon was beyond absurd.

“Impossible…”

The denial spilled from his lips again, but this time it carried little strength.

Not because he doubted Haryang, but because he truly knew too little.

Biting his lip, Yegyeol steeled himself. He could not show weakness before these men. If they had gone so far as to kidnap him “for his own protection,” they might drag him clear across the Central Plains.

“Leave me.”

His voice cracked like a whip, lashing both Hwang Geolgae and Namgung Un.

Now he bristled like a hedgehog, every spine raised.

“Once, I owed the Beggar’s Sect a debt. For that reason, I will act as though I never heard today’s outrageous words.”

Though his face did not twist, his composure was fraying.

“Yegyeol…”

Namgung Un took a step forward, but Yegyeol recoiled as though scalded, panting harshly.

“How dare you… call my senior brother the Heavenly Demon? How dare you.”

His hands trembled violently. His stomach churned, bile rising in his throat.

Dying for Haryang—that had been the best choice of his wretched, worthless life. Surely it had.

“Yegyeol?”

At the low call, Yegyeol turned his head slowly.

Haryang was standing there.

“So you were here.”

In his hand he held a skewer of glossy red hawthorn berries dipped in syrup, his expression nothing but awkward and troubled.

“You send me to fetch candied fruit, and I return only to find you playing hide-and-seek.”

Clad in the white robe Yegyeol had chosen for him, he looked less man than immortal. A faint crease between his brows, a voice full of concern, and the gentle gaze turned upon him—

All of it was the Je Haryang Yegyeol knew: upright, kind, and good.

So why… why does he look so unfamiliar?

It was surely the fault of Elder Hwang’s words.

“How did you follow us?”

Elder Hwang, who had only known the Heavenly Demon by likenesses, was struck silent.

To the eye, he was nothing but a stalwart man. In his hand, of all things, he held a treat for children.

Yet here, appearing in an empty alley as if from nowhere, his presence exuded a dreadful aura.

“Surely… he has laid Heavenly Pursuit Incense upon that youth?”

Only those specially trained could sense it. Used most often by assassins, it allowed pursuit even when the quarry vanished. Otherwise, it was smeared upon criminals to mark them.

So: before the youth’s eyes he had been all tenderness, while behind his back he had marked him with incense to trace him.

Elder Hwang’s face hardened at the Heavenly Demon’s obsessive possessiveness.

What kind of disciple of Kunlun was he, that this man clings so?

While the old beggar reeled, Yegyeol fixed Haryang with a desperate gaze.

Last night they had lain together; a moment ago they had laughed on a date. This was the man Yegyeol knew best in the world.

“Senior brother, these people are saying strange things.”

Though it might sound like a child’s tattling, Yegyeol could not help but ask.

“No… no, isn’t it? Senior brother cannot be the Heavenly Demon. Impossible.”

Desperately he searched Haryang’s face. Yet there was no flicker of disturbance, no anger at having his identity exposed.

“Yegyeol, you must not go near him…!”

Namgung Un reached to restrain him. But as he did, cuts bloomed on his fingers as though from a blade, blood spilling down.

“Kh—!”

At some point, a fierce wind had risen.

It was like a storm of knives, severing Namgung Un and Elder Hwang from Yegyeol.

“Ye… gyeol…!”

Each step Namgung Un tried to take forward shredded his clothes and carved his flesh. His hair whipped wildly. Elder Hwang rammed his bamboo staff into the ground to brace himself.

Even so, the invisible force pressed him back until he dropped to one knee.

This narrow alley, windless only moments ago, now howled with an impossible gale. There could be only one source.

Je Haryang.

“To think… to think he has attained such mastery in demonic arts…!”

Elder Hwang’s lament was torn from his chest.

He had met others who sighed, wishing the Heavenly Demon had been born to the righteous instead of the demonic path. But never had he understood it so keenly as in this moment.

Yet Yegyeol, though despair rang out behind him, did not so much as glance back. His eyes never left the man before him—his beloved.

“Answer me.”

The storm whirled through the alley. It tore at Namgung Un and forced Elder Hwang to his knees, yet brushed Yegyeol only as a gentle breeze, caressing his hair.

That tender gap nearly brought tears to his eyes.

And Haryang—alone, as though the storm did not touch him at all. The eye of the typhoon.

“Yegyeol.”

Je Haryang called softly to his disciple.

“Come here.”