TSBIRBV Ch 20

Chapter 20 Grand Ambition (4)

“Well, the Qinghai Trading Company belongs to my lord, so it’s only right for him to do as he pleases.”

Samrang, who spoke so casually, was the kind of person who would snatch something from someone else without hesitation if it meant presenting it to Je Haryang. Hongyeo at least had a sense of propriety, but Samrang was twisted even compared to that, making it hard to find any common ground with her.

What snapped Jinyoung out of his troubled thoughts was the sound of wind.

The sliding jangji doors opened one after another, and Je Haryang quietly stepped inside. The measured sound of his footsteps as he strode in carried something faintly nerve-wracking—like the cold edge of a sharp blade pressing against the back of the neck.

It wasn’t even a rainy day, yet Haryang wore a rain cloak. Perhaps because of its dark color, it was as though a cold night itself had walked into the room. As Haryang undid the fastening of the rain cloak, Jinyoung stepped forward to serve him. Even when he noticed a smear of dark red along one corner of the cloak, no hesitation or distaste showed on his face.

Once the cloak was discarded, the white, refined garments beneath were revealed. The faint cloud patterns woven into his blue belt called to mind the image of Kunlun.

Haryang tied back his disheveled hair into a single neat knot, and without so much as turning his head, he issued an order.

“Samrang. Your guest is waiting for you at Wugwanru. Go.”

“As you command.”

Bowing lightly, Samrang disappeared with graceful steps into the darkness beyond the open door Haryang had left for her. Though no one touched it, the jangji door slid shut on its own.

With a tak, the room became a completely sealed space. Once Haryang had taken his seat, Jinyoung came forward with a warm tea kettle, placing it on the low tea table.

As the pale green liquid began to fill the cup, Haryang spoke without looking up.

“It seems you have something to say.”

Having known him for so long, he could read his subordinate’s habits well. One of Jinyoung’s was to serve tea whenever he had something difficult to bring up.

“Do you truly intend to entrust the Qinghai Trading Company to Young Master Wen? I worry because you’ve forbidden any interference, even if things go poorly.”

Lounging in the armchair and savoring the tea’s aroma, Haryang replied gently,

“Let him do as he wishes.”

“I don’t doubt my lord’s judgment, but… on the matter of the Qinghai Company, I ask you to reconsider.”

Since the day he began serving Je Haryang, Jinyoung had never once questioned the righteousness of the tyrannical path his lord walked. Yet in this moment, he couldn’t help but do so.

It was because he had once seen a beast—long since forgetting what warmth meant—pretend to act tender before a single boy. He had seen how, trusting in that feigned warmth, the boy had approached, been welcomed close, and had his wounds licked clean.

Biting his lip, Jinyoung sank to his knees on the floor and bowed his head.

“I understand that, having been apart for so long, you feel affection—and that, as someone who saved your life, you wish to do anything for Young Master Wen. However, he does not understand the weight of the Qinghai Trading Company.”

He wasn’t making some crude “pearls before swine” remark.

“Even if he were born to a military household, you wouldn’t hand a real sword to a child who has only just begun to walk; likewise, even in the house of a magnate, you wouldn’t immediately give a child—who has only just learned arithmetic—a gold ingot to play with.”

A child holding a real sword is a danger not only to others, but to himself. One who holds wealth he cannot handle is bound to waste it without realizing, or have it stolen by others.

Entrusting the Qinghai Company to Yegyeol meant letting him shoulder all the profits and greed entwined with it.

“Of course, losses can be replaced. If he’s injured, he can be healed; if he spends money recklessly, the treasury can be refilled. But, my lord—”

Jinyoung paused before lowering his voice.

“It is the person who can be ruined.”

Rakes who think their parents’ power is their own exist everywhere. Were they born wanting to harm others from the start?

“A sword with a chipped blade can be repaired easily—but a ruined person cannot be fixed so simply.”

Je Haryang listened quietly to Jinyoung’s concern, then smiled. There was no sign of embarrassment, realization, or even pique in that calm expression.

“You hold quite a bit of fondness for my disciple.”

When he had decided to give the Qinghai Company to Yegyeol, Haryang had assigned Samrang, not Jinyoung, to him—Samrang, a person who wouldn’t blink if he handed Yegyeol the imperial seal itself. Jinyoung, on the other hand, would worry and hesitate.

That was why he’d chosen Samrang—just as there are places where medicine is needed, and places where poison is prescribed.

“I’ve thought many times about what kind of person that child might have become, had he lived.”

Many, many times.

When he was dragged as a prisoner across the burning desert of the Ten-thousand Great Mountains, barefoot.

When, upon hearing that one prisoner would be returned to their origin, he was strangled by the hand of the First Disciple captured alongside him.

When he was handed over to a man called Ma-ui and forced to learn demonic arts, coughing blood from qigong deviation (주화입마).

When he hadn’t seen the sun in years.

When, in a cave full of others like him, he stained his hands with the blood of a fellow disciple who begged to die, unable to bear living any longer…

Endlessly, he thought of his disciple.

When loneliness broke him and made him the hound of his captors.

When he completed his very first mission successfully.

When he killed an escaping orthodox cultivator he had been assigned to watch over.

When he willingly reached for even stronger demonic arts.

When he gained permission to leave the Ten-thousand Great Mountains and, from afar, gazed upon Kunlun Mountain…

Even in moments when despair threatened to make him lose himself entirely, Yegyeol had lived vividly within him.

What began merely as a thrashing of guilt gradually became habit. As long as he was thinking of his disciple, it felt like he could still breathe.

“Because that child told me to live.”

And so twenty years passed. Yegyeol might have been the first to throw himself into danger for Je Haryang’s sake, but he was not the last. Even Jinyoung, before his eyes, had once acted in his stead and suffered grave injury, bedridden for fifteen days. And Samrang—she was one of the most loyal of retainers, having even cut off the breath of her own kin for him.

Yet even so, Haryang could not turn his eyes from that very first starting point.

Because now, he could no longer return to the Je Haryang of those old days.

His grief had been worn down until it was cheap. He would never again cry for another as he had for Wen Yegyeol.

In that respect, there was little difference between a third-rate wanderer numbing his pain with cheap opium and swinging a blade—and Je Haryang, lord of ten thousand horsemen.

“I want to see him more often now.”

Looking Jinyoung straight in the eyes, Haryang repeated what he’d already said before.

“Whatever it is, let Gyeol do as he pleases.”

People can be broken—and still not die.

“…”

Jinyoung opened his mouth several times, but closed it again each time. The truth was, he simply couldn’t put his thoughts into words.

At first, he thought perhaps his lord’s watch over Yegyeol came from the heart of a parent. But that was a misconception.

Raising a child ultimately means that one day they will stand on their own two feet.

But his lord…

Doesn’t it seem as though he wouldn’t mind if that child never stood up at all?

“If Young Master Wen were to resent you, my lord… would you not regret it?”

Haryang gave a clouded smile.

“A troublesome question.”

Regret? How could something as trivial as resentment cause him to regret?

Not long ago, Yegyeol had been a dead man. If, with a beating heart and open eyes, he could pour resentment or hatred onto him—Haryang would find that almost welcome.

“To be honest… I think I would be happy with whatever that child chooses to do.”

Without an anchor, one cannot maintain balance. That was why he had sent Yegyeol to Kunlun in the first place. Only when he could be satisfied simply by knowing they lived under the same sky should he have sent him away.

He should have been protected inside a wall beyond his reach—but now it was too late.

Because this recent incident had made him doubt whether Yegyeol could be safe anywhere but in his own arms.

He would not be able to endure it a second time.

Je Haryang was a weak man. It was a boy he met under the eaves in the rain who had made him so.

“That is why, not you, but Samrang. As there are places for medicine, there are places for poison.”

Haryang’s quiet voice reached Jinyoung clearly enough.

If that had been his intention from the start, then there was no reason for Jinyoung to risk his life offering remonstrance. Yegyeol might feel a tinge of guilt toward him—but in the end, Jinyoung’s loyalty was to his lord first.

At last, Jinyoung bowed his head.

“…As you command.”

Notes:

• Jangji doors (장지문) — traditional Korean sliding doors made of a wooden lattice and covered with thick paper.

• Wugwanru (우관루) — possibly the name of a tea house, inn, or reception building.

• Qigong deviation (주화입마) — in wuxia/murim fiction, a dangerous backlash that occurs when internal energy cultivation goes awry, often leading to injury, madness, or death.

• First Disciple / senior disciple (일대제자) — the highest-ranking student under the same master, akin to the eldest apprentice.

• Ten-thousand Great Mountains (십만대산) — referring to the fictional massive mountain range and seat of a demonic cult in this setting.