TSBIRBV Ch 6

Chapter 6. The Departed Must Return (5)

The manor nestled halfway up the mountain was serene, yet its stillness felt somehow out of place. It was the kind of terrain where a bandit’s den might have stood, not a refined estate.

In the secluded courtyard of this isolated estate, a man paced in silence. At first glance, he appeared to be an ordinary scholar—neatly dressed, mild in bearing. But when he moved, the faint glimpse of rough, uneven scars beneath his collar betrayed another story.

He turned his head when a woman in black approached.

“Where have you been?” he asked.

It was unusual for Samrang to go out.

“I went to Hongye.”

Her answer was slow—almost too slow, just enough to be irritating.

“Hongye? For what reason?”

“The lord ordered me to bring a physician. Politely.”

Her tone was casual, but the implication of “politely” leaned more toward abduction than invitation. There wasn’t the faintest trace of tension in her voice.

“A physician? Then… the patient has awakened?”

The man’s brow furrowed deeply.

The man their lord had brought back in his arms had looked as though he would die at any moment—his life hanging by the thinnest thread.

But a physician now? Could it be that he had survived?

“Every doctor we brought said it was hopeless, so I thought I’d just keep him breathing a little longer. But he actually lived.”

Samrang tilted her head, as though amused by the irony. She was no stranger to the line between life and death, and she had a keen sense for who would cross it. This was the first time her intuition had failed her.

“If I’d known this would happen, I should’ve become a doctor instead of an assassin. ‘Samrang, the Divine Healer of Qinghai!’ Doesn’t that sound grand—and profitable?”

Her companion groaned and shook his head.

“There’s no way you were the reason he survived. Even the so-called gods of medicine gave up on that one.”

He couldn’t make sense of it. Truthfully, nothing about the matter had made sense from the beginning.

Their lord visited Kunlun once a year. Though he never ascended the mountain itself, he would always stop by the riverside at its foot, pour out a drink, and stay until dusk before leaving.

But this time, when Je Haryang went as usual with a fine bottle of wine in hand, he found a man collapsed by the riverbank. Before anyone could stop him, the lord had rushed forward and lifted the stranger into his arms.

At first, Jinyeong had thought the man was a corpse. He didn’t realize otherwise until Haryang leapt away with him, shouting orders to fetch a physician to their Qinghai estate.

To see their master—who usually paid physicians no mind—so desperate to save a dying stranger was something Jinyeong, who had served him longest, had never witnessed before.

“For someone to have survived the Kunlun Massacre is already absurd—and that he appeared on the very day the lord went there? Isn’t that too much of a coincidence?”

Samrang clicked her tongue at the man’s sharp frown.

“Jinyeong, you think too much.”

“And you think far too little.”

Her companion’s rebuke barely seemed to faze her. She merely shrugged, unbothered.

“What’s there to worry about? If it turns out to be a problem…”

Her voice trailed off, her expression twisting into a faintly mocking smile.

“The lord will take care of it himself.”

It was a cold thing to say about someone whose life she had personally helped preserve.

“If I thought the lord would, I wouldn’t be worried!”

Jinyeong’s frustration broke through. Their master was a man with too many ghosts tied to him, too many lingering attachments. In all the years he’d served him, Je Haryang had brushed every one of them aside—except this time.

“This is different. You can feel it too.”

Samrang’s lazy eyes curved slightly, her tone still infuriatingly calm.

“Then watch and wait. You remember, don’t you?”

“Remember what?”

“That the only one who decides anything here… is the lord.”

She gave that last piece of advice as she walked away, her unhurried steps light against the courtyard stones. Her warning, soft and detached, carried no real weight.

Jinyeong exhaled, shoulders sagging.

“If this turns out to be a trap set by those righteous sect bastards… Gods, I’m the only one losing sleep over this.”

Muttering to himself, he glanced toward the main hall where his master stayed. Je Haryang hadn’t left the “guest’s” side since the day he’d brought him back.

“We’ll have to return soon…”

He rubbed his temple, sighing. But as Samrang said, the decision was not his to make. If the lord wished to remain in this remote manor, they would stay. If he wished to challenge death itself to save a dying man, then even grabbing the Grim Reaper by the throat was part of a servant’s duty.

Please, let nothing go wrong.

With that silent prayer, Jinyeong turned and walked the opposite way from where Samrang had gone.

“This patient was blind, you say? And bleeding from the eyes?”

The physician waved a hand before Yegyeol’s face, incredulous. Yegyeol followed the movement dutifully, though boredom itched beneath his polite facade.

“Five separate physicians all gave the same opinion,” Haryang replied coolly from the side. “They didn’t know each other. None could have conspired.”

Yegyeol turned his head slightly toward him. His senior brother looked different—dressed not in Kunlun’s pristine white robes, but in dark blue silk fit for a merchant.

More than that, the air around him had changed. The gentle humility that once defined Je Haryang had been tempered into quiet authority. He carried himself like someone used to giving orders—and being obeyed.

Well, he was always destined to become the next sect leader. If not that, then at least Kunlun’s foremost sword.

Even so, the shift unsettled him. He swallowed it down.

“Well then,” the physician said cheerfully, “the patient must’ve taken his medicine faithfully. A remarkable recovery.”

Thank heaven the man was an optimist. Even in twenty-first-century Korea, with modern technology and guiding protocols, Yegyeol’s rate of recovery would’ve been considered miraculous.

Our resonance is too perfect.

He didn’t need equipment to confirm it.

A rampaging esper surviving was already a miracle in itself. But this? This was beyond that.

They hadn’t even kissed, hadn’t even exchanged energy directly. All they had done was hold hands.

And yet he was healing at an impossible rate.

If this were Korea, my senior brother would be classified as a high-grade guide—someone whose compatibility testing would be restricted for political reasons.

Yegyeol stared at his unblemished hands. It all made sense if Haryang was an S-class guide.

Even if an esper outranked a guide in level, their synchronization could multiply the efficiency of guiding a hundredfold. And if the guide was highly ranked to begin with—well, the results spoke for themselves.

No matter what, he had to stay close to him.

Matched guides were a once-in-a-lifetime miracle for espers. And this wasn’t Korea—it was the Central Plains. There were no centers, no databases of resonance patterns.

If he lost Haryang, he’d have to scour all of Zhongyuan, touching strangers one by one until he found another match.

I’d sooner search for a needle in a blizzard.

Even if he dedicated his life to it, he wouldn’t cover a fraction of the land. And by then, he’d likely be dead—his body collapsing under the strain of uncontrolled power.

Yegyeol hid his desperation behind a faint smile.

Even if Haryang had been expelled from Kunlun, they were still master and disciple. Accepting guidance from him was akin to committing a taboo—a betrayal of one’s sect.

If word ever got out, both of them would face severe punishment.

A disciple coveting his senior brother—what greater scandal could there be?

Would Haryang ever accept it? If he refused… could Yegyeol really be content with only holding hands?

I don’t know.

But one thing was certain—he couldn’t afford to let go, not for the sake of some dusty moral code.

As their eyes met, Yegyeol smiled sweetly, the very picture of innocence. He didn’t remember much of his past self, but he was certain—Haryang favored those with kind hearts.

“As long as you avoid bright light, your eyes will recover completely,” the physician said.

Yegyeol tucked away his thoughts, watching him pack up his tools and wipe his hands with a damp cloth.

“When that bear of a man slung me over a horse, I thought I’d die before reaching here,” the physician joked, face now flushed with ease.

“Ah, I see my instructions to bring you here politely were… misinterpreted,” Haryang said mildly. “Still, the patient’s condition was dire. I hope you’ll forgive the offense.”

He handed the physician a pouch heavy enough to make him bow repeatedly before departing.

Yegyeol couldn’t help but marvel. The man he once knew had been upright to a fault—righteous, almost naive. But this Haryang moved with the easy grace of someone accustomed to the world’s games.

How strange, Yegyeol thought, that time could change even the purest man.

The door shut firmly behind the departing physician. Haryang turned back, his face shadowed with unease rather than relief.

“Senior brother?”

He looked up as if roused from deep thought, his dark eyes still stormy, unreadable.

So unfamiliar.

“You don’t need to worry,” Yegyeol said softly. “The doctor said I’m fine.”

“Of course I’m glad you’re well. But I can’t shake the feeling that something’s wrong.”

The shadow of his tall frame fell over Yegyeol, heavy and enclosing.

“What if there’s something we’ve missed?” he murmured, still holding Yegyeol’s hand.

Yegyeol could only smile faintly. If Haryang kept holding his hand like this, he could probably live to a hundred without ever falling sick again.

There was no way to explain guiding to him—not here. If he tried, it would sound like sorcery at best, or corruption at worst.

If I said I could stabilize my qi with a kiss, he’d think it was some lewd cultivation technique.

And yet in this world, masters could split stone with bare hands, walk on water, even fly through the air—and that was considered normal.

“I’ll be fine. I have you, don’t I?”

The words were sincere.

Any esper with a guide who cared this much could never truly die.

Some complained that guiding robbed them of free will, that it forced life into them when they no longer wanted it. But for those who had none—who withered away, body and soul, because they were alone—those complaints were pure luxury.

Guides could live without espers, but espers without guides inevitably died—slowly, miserably.

Yegyeol had seen it often at the Ability Center. He had been lucky—his powers sealed the moment he awakened, giving him time to find control. One esper had warned him never to release that seal until he found his matching guide.

“How long will I have to stay in bed?”

He tried to sound casual, though he was testing the waters.

Since waking, the only people he’d seen were his senior brother and the occasional physician.

If he was to understand what had happened—or what kind of world he’d returned to—he needed information. But Haryang said almost nothing.

He hadn’t asked how Yegyeol survived, nor spoken much of himself, aside from that single line: I am a merchant now.

“Well…”

Haryang’s response came slow, deliberate. In his gaze, shadowed by the candlelight, the pause stretched long and heavy.

“When you’ve eaten well, rested well, and fully recovered… we’ll discuss it then.”

…Is this imprisonment?