TSBIRBV Ch 181

Chapter 181. Pillow-Side Litigation (8)

Cradling Yegyeol lightly in his arms, Haryang began to walk at an unhurried pace.

In that moment, Yegyeol’s body tensed. He had no qualms about being carried, but what unsettled him was that Haryang so casually exposed his back even while facing the clear enmity of Namgung Un and Hwang Geolgae.

What if someone suddenly sprang forward and drove a blade into his back?

For the orthodox sects, the Heavenly Demon was an existence that provoked irrational rage. Whole sects had been toppled on nothing more than suspicion of collusion with the Demonic Sect. He was the great evil itself—pervading the martial world, the perpetual nemesis lurking in the Shishan Range, reborn each time the Martial Alliance crumbled and rose anew.

Yegyeol clenched the fist hidden within his sleeve. He had never once doubted Haryang’s martial skill, nor thought his composure was born of arrogance. Yet even so, he could not bring himself to watch silently if someone sought to strike his Senior Brother’s back.

Please…

His teeth ground together. Namgung Un’s gaze was fixed upon them with a fevered intensity—bloodshot eyes beneath disheveled hair, a trickle of crimson running from the corner of his mouth. He no longer looked the scion of a great clan but a revenant born of battle.

Yegyeol could only pray that Namgung Un remained still. For if not, the world might soon bear witness to the first esper in history who dared to lay a hand upon his own guide.

Stay where you are… I beg you.

Fortune or misfortune, Namgung Un did not move. He only stared, unyielding, while Hwang Geolgae had long since closed his eyes, unable to watch the scene unfold.

Not until Haryang’s steps carried them far beyond did Yegyeol breathe again. His Senior Brother, whether aware of the turmoil within him or not, continued forward more slowly than usual. Namgung Un’s gaze clung to Yegyeol until the very end.

[ …I will. ]

The whisper of a voice transmission, faint as though it might snap, brushed against Yegyeol’s ear. His arms, looped around Haryang’s neck, almost tightened of their own accord.

[ I will save you. No matter what. ]

Don’t save me!

Never in his life had Yegyeol regretted his lack of martial training so bitterly as now. To be unable to send back a single sound transmission—when even in his previous life he had no great desire for the martial path—felt unbearable. He lowered his head, feigning deafness to Namgung Un’s vow.

When at last the figures of Namgung Un and Hwang Geolgae vanished from sight, Yegyeol whispered into the chest that held him:

“Senior Brother…”

It was but a quiet murmur, yet in the narrow alley his voice seemed to echo.

“You still call me that,” Haryang replied. His face, half veiled in shadow, revealed no clear expression. Yet to Yegyeol, his tone carried a trace of solitude.

How should I ask it?

His teeth sank into his lip. Was he truly… truly the Heavenly Demon?

“…Is what they said… truly the truth?”

Haryang continued on in silence, offering neither answer nor denial.

Yet the arms that held him were as steady as ever—broad and unshakable, a shelter where he might rest his entire life without fear of collapse. Yegyeol had chosen this embrace as his refuge. Nothing had changed—yet everything had been overturned in a fleeting instant.

“Senior Brother…”

At the mouth of the alley, where light spilled not far away, Haryang came to a halt.

The marketplace beyond was a clamor of sound—the laughter of children trailing after their parents, the drunken humming of a man already sodden with wine. None of them had the faintest inkling of what had transpired in this shadowed passage. Ordinary life bustled just a step away, yet Yegyeol could not take that step.

“Close your eyes for a while,” Haryang said softly, reaching toward him.

“W–wait! Please, just wait!” Yegyeol cried, but the man who had always heeded his every plea did not stop this time.

“When you wake, much will have changed,” Haryang murmured.

His wide sleeve fell over Yegyeol’s face. Before he could utter another word of protest, his consciousness sank into darkness. The skewer of candied hawthorn he had clutched slipped from his hand, striking the earth with a dull sound. The sugar glaze shattered, and the crimson berries rolled over the dirt.

After feeling for Yegyeol’s pulse, Haryang lowered the hand that had covered his face. The young man lay quietly, eyes closed, seeming utterly at peace despite all that had just occurred.

Again and again Haryang brushed through his disciple’s hair, then pressed his ear against his chest.

Thump… thump…—the slow beat of a heart.

The Yegyeol he had finally grasped was slipping from his hold. He had long feared the day this would come. Yet he had never thought it would be today.

When the disciple who had promised to wait in the teahouse was gone, panic unlike him had seized him—grabbing the boy at the counter by the collar, demanding to know where Yegyeol had gone. When he traced the faint trail of the Thousand-Mile Pursuit Incense he had secretly placed upon him, racing through the streets in dread… he had prayed, not today, not yet.

But fate had not listened. Yegyeol now knew everything.

One day…

Haryang clenched his fist. He had always known this day would come. No lie could endure forever. He had learned that lesson early—when he discovered the man he believed his father was no true kin, when he learned his mother’s illness was madness, not frailty. When the wet nurse who promised to return soon abandoned him in an alley of Hangzhou.

Since then, Haryang had become adept at lies. He lied to dying brothers in the Magus’ experiments, soothing them with promises that Kunlun would come, that the martial world had not forgotten them. They all knew his words were false.

And yet they learned to lie in turn—saying they would play for a fortnight upon their return, that they had hidden wine to drink in secret, that they wished to see their hometowns once more. Lies were all they had left to cling to, until not one remained but Haryang himself.

“…Ah.”

The scent of blood filled his nose. Looking down at his palm, he clicked his tongue. If he was not careful, it might stain Yegyeol.

Suspending him gently in the air, Haryang tore a strip from his own sleeve, wiping away the blood. Already the wound knit shut, leaving no scar. He incinerated the soiled cloth with a flicker of flame, then bore Yegyeol carefully upon his back. Adjusting the arms looped around his neck again and again so they would not slip, he stepped into the street.

The sunlight was dazzling. The faces of the passersby, bright and easy. Perhaps because Yegyeol had wished for this outing, the day had been fine from morning on.

Though he knew the young master of Namgung and a Beggar’s Sect elder lingered somewhere behind, Haryang walked with no haste, as though unwilling to wake the boy upon his back.

The sight of him carrying Yegyeol with such care drew unconscious smiles from those who passed. Haryang noticed none of them. His every thought, every sense, was fixed wholly upon the one he bore.

“You wished so to see the performance, and yet you sleep so soundly. What am I to do?” he murmured, glancing at the distant city gate. He longed for the road to never end, to walk on and on with Yegyeol upon his back, idly chatting of trifles, treasuring the warmth pressed against him forever.

As he stood there steeped in thought, he clicked his tongue. “So in the end, we missed the troupe’s performance.”

Adjusting Yegyeol more firmly upon his back, he sighed. “My poor Yegyeol will be disappointed. What shall I do?”

And then, as if sharing some grand secret, he whispered: “Ah. I could simply summon the troupe myself.”

The solution was plain, yet his smile never brightened. No matter how he spoke, no matter if he laughed or wept, Yegyeol could not answer—he himself had stilled his voice. Perhaps for a very long time, perhaps forever, Yegyeol would never again look upon him with the same eyes, chatter in his ear, or smile at him as before.

Yet it was a burden he must bear.

“…Forgive this unworthy Senior Brother,” he murmured, brushing the cheek resting against his shoulder. “I could not grant you even this one simple wish. Still, forgive me. Hate me if you must—but someday…”