TSBIRBV Ch 191

Chapter 191. The Venomous Viper Will Not Endure (2)

Yegyeol murmured in response to her words.

Among the few facts widely known to outsiders about the Demon Sect was this: they revered martial might. Only the strongest could be leader.

“The Magician told the Sect Lord that the Lord—your Senior Brother—would be his sword and spear. Yet to the Sect Lord’s eyes, he was already no different from a rival.”

A rival? If Haryang had ever been given the choice, he never would have sought to be Heavenly Demon.

Yegyeol clenched his teeth.

“Under the guise of testing his loyalty, the Sect Lord cast him into death-traps again and again. Yet he returned alive each time. It would almost have been kinder had he vanished when he went missing, never to return.”

Yegyeol should have shouted, should have cried out that such words were unforgivable. But his voice faltered, hollow.

Was Samrang right—would it have been better if Haryang had died then?

He pressed his lips tightly together.

“The Sect Lord may have sought to bind him, but the Lord did not simply watch idly.”

Samrang exhaled a long sigh.

“When our sect raised the long-prepared Great War between Demon and Righteous, he slew the young sect heir of the Weiji clan, one of the Demon’s Eight Great Houses, now vanished. He made it appear the Deputy Sect Lord’s doing, thus igniting civil strife.”

The Ten Thousand Great Mountains were a natural fortress, yet even such a bastion could collapse from within.

“The Magician realized his hand in the affair, but did not expose him. For to admit it would be to confess that the very blade he forged now hovered at the Sect Lord’s throat. The Magician was a madman who lived only to see his masterpiece complete. Victory in the Demon–Righteous War, which had nearly been won, faltered.”

“A relief, then.”

“Perhaps.”

At Yegyeol’s murmur, Samrang laughed coldly.

“The Magician commanded him, using loneliness and sorcery, to annihilate Kunlun with his own hands.”

“Why? For what reason?”

However powerful Haryang had become, how could one man erase one of the Nine Great Sects?

“To sever all attachment. To erase Je Haryang the man. He thought that once his mind crumbled, the sorcery would seep into him. But… sorcery is not my field, so I cannot say more.”

“So what did he do? My Senior Brother—how did he act?”

Yegyeol himself had little attachment to sect or clan, but Haryang was different. He revered his master, the Sect Leader of that time.

“No matter how strong he had grown, he had no defense against loneliness and spellcraft. He could only obey.”

And in those moments, Yegyeol was not there at his side.

He regretted bitterly how easily he had cast away his life, thinking it would help Haryang.

If he had stood there instead, would it have hurt less than what Haryang endured?

“I heard that before he reached Kunlun’s gates, at the mountain’s foot, he met his old master—the Sect Leader, Baek Unjin. But afterward, he claimed no memory.”

Yegyeol’s body tensed. Baek Unjin, elder brother to Baek Yangjin, was famed for a character as upright as a blade.

“Was that when he was cast out?”

Biting his lip in agitation, Yegyeol asked. Samrang shook her head.

“When he awoke, Baek Unjin had vanished, and with him the golden seal that bound mind and body. Though he had destroyed his own dantian, his inner force remained. Returning to the mountains, he killed the Magician.”

Yegyeol clenched his jaw, swallowing back a cry. Even as he once was, his Senior Brother would never have spared such a man. What tormented him was that he could do nothing to avenge him.

Never in his life had he felt such raw, searing hatred. It burned within, red so fierce it turned blue, scorching black his belly. His eyes flickered gold at the edges, then black again.

Samrang, tracing the Lord’s past with downcast eyes, did not notice the change, missing it by a hair’s breadth.

“The Sect Lord quickly realized he had broken all seals. He cast him from the cliffs of the mountains. But in the cave of the former Heavenly Demon, he perfected his martial path, attaining liberation from demonic taint.”

“And so he returned, slew the Sect Lord, and became Heavenly Demon.”

“Yes. That was three years before he found you. This is the fourth year.”

“And after?”

“…He went to Kunlun. They barred the gates against him. Months later, Baek Unjin passed away, leaving a will that expelled him utterly. A final command that he never again set foot on Kunlun’s snowy peaks.”

“Never again set foot on Kunlun…”

Struggling to keep calm, Yegyeol’s face twisted with anguish.

So that was why Haryang had sought to send him to Kunlun. Because the master he revered had left behind a dying wish that the fallen disciple never return. So that, even if hatred bloomed in him and he wished Yegyeol dead, his disciple would still be safe.

“Afterward, he lived only by duty. Through secret negotiations with the Martial Alliance, he ended the Demon–Righteous War. He rebuilt Kunlun time and again, in secret.”

“So that is why the Cheonghae Trading Company existed.”

The reason the Heavenly Demon carried a merchant’s title that seemed ill-fitted suddenly made sense, and Yegyeol’s head spun.

“He had founded it earlier, but yes. He laundered funds through it, sending some to Kunlun.”

Yegyeol at last found the link between Baek Yangjin and Haryang. His thoughts sank.

How did it feel, to build a place for your disciple to return to, when you yourself could never go back?

If only half the cruelty that had raked across his life had turned upon Yegyeol, he might have welcomed it. Yet Haryang had remained nothing but gentle, nothing but his warmest dream. Yegyeol, drunk on his Senior Brother’s tenderness, let time slip by in his embrace.

“If Baek Unjin left such a will—that you may never return—how did you find me there?”

Swallowing guilt and fury, Yegyeol remembered: Haryang had found him by the river at Kunlun’s foot.

If he had been so rejected—abandoned even by his master at last—should he not have turned his face away forever?

“Each year, on the day of the Kunlun Massacre, he returned to Cheonghae, to pour libations for the dead. That day, he found you.”

“Why on that day, and not his master’s memorial?”

Yegyeol’s voice sank low.

“…He never said.”

Samrang’s testimony was stripped of his feelings. Even as closest aide, she knew only the surface of events. Yegyeol had to imagine for himself the rage, the grief, the despair Haryang must have felt.

Even tracing their outlines suffocated him. His tears dried up, his chest burned to ash.

Agony.

Even a fraction of what his Senior Brother endured was more than Yegyeol could bear.

“And so… for three years he has been Heavenly Demon.”

“…In truth, I suspect longer.”

Her lips barely formed the words, whispered so softly it was almost soundless. Yet Yegyeol froze, struck as if by lightning.

“Whenever he traveled through the Central Plains, whenever he neared Kunlun, I believe he went.”

“Why do you think so?”

“Else, how would he have known, so swiftly, the very spot from which Kunlun could be seen at a glance?”

Yegyeol squeezed his eyes shut.

That his Senior Brother, prisoner of the Demon Sect, might have spent half a lifetime yearning for those snowy peaks…

That as Heavenly Demon, keeper of the Demon Sect bound in its mountains, he might forever long for the land he could not set foot upon…

Yegyeol, who had spent his second life ever wandering toward Kunlun, understood all too well the heart of the man who could not.

And that understanding was despair.

“Leave me… alone, a while.”

His voice was heavy, sunken.

“I will come for Baembaemi in half an hour.”

Samrang withdrew silently.

Yegyeol sat, cradling the serpent in both hands, gazing out the window.

A flawless garden lay outside. Trees, stones, streams, blossoms—composed in perfect harmony. Beauty enough to make one forget where they were.

Yet no tears fell from Yegyeol’s face. Contrary to Samrang’s guess, he did not indulge in sorrow. He had too much yet to do. Much indeed.

“Senior Brother.”

The moment Haryang returned, Yegyeol rushed into his arms. He embraced him at the waist, clinging close. Without a tremor, Haryang steadied him, stroking his hair.

“…It seems you have spent a pleasant day.”

For a moment, it was as though he had returned to a month ago, when his disciple still knew nothing.

“If you greet me so, then meeting Baembaemi and Samrang must have pleased you.”

Still, it was strange to hear that name fall from Haryang’s lips.

It’s like watching him make a finger-heart…

Yegyeol grinned.

“More because I missed you all day.”

Haryang’s tone was as calm as ever, but Yegyeol would not be caught in the snare.

“Were you very busy?”

He spoke as if he had not wailed and hidden his face only days before.

Haryang answered in a low voice.

“You need not force yourself to act as before.”

“As before?”

Yegyeol tilted his head, feigning incomprehension. Haryang narrowed his eyes. His clever disciple was deliberately playing ignorant.

“Then, as you said yesterday—pile snow in the courtyard for me.”

Did you not promise you could? His lashes fluttered as he asked.

“If you wish it.”

Cold could be conjured with ice arts, but to keep it from dispersing required arrays and reconstruction. Plants unsuited to frost would die, even rare blooms of the Western regions unseen in the Central Plains. At a word from Yegyeol, they would be uprooted.

And still his demands did not end.

“Also, plant the tree from Kunlun. Oh—but not just any. From my master’s courtyard, the one he cherished.”

Between the mountains and Cheonghae lay a desert. To transport a living tree would be no small feat, costing dearly. Worse, to steal it from Baek Yangjin’s courtyard would mean sneaking into the very heart of the Nine Great Sects and leaving unseen.

Yegyeol knew this full well, yet asked shamelessly.

“And wear again the white robes, with the blue trim. White suits you best, Senior Brother.”

He slipped his hand slyly inside the black collar. Since coming here, Haryang had worn only dark hues. To Yegyeol’s eyes, stripping him bare still seemed what suited him most.

But how could he confess such a thought aloud?

“You will, won’t you?”

Lifting his head from his embrace, Yegyeol smiled.