TSBIRBV Ch 204

Chapter 204. Forgiveness (6)

“There is no way. He died twenty years ago.”

Jeok Nogae’s words were firm and final.

Namgung Un inclined his head with equal solemnity.

“Yes. I heard the same from Baekyang Jin-in of Kunlun.”

“Baekyang Jin-in?”

Jeok Nogae rolled the name across his tongue.

“If I recall correctly… he was the disciple of Baekun Jin-in, the former sect leader of Kunlun.”

In the current martial world, Baekyang Jin-in was not an especially weighty presence. Among the Kunlun disciples bearing the ‘Baek’ generation name, it was Baekun Jin-in, the head of the sect, who was the most prominent.

And yet, Jeok Nogae could never forget Baekyang Jin-in.

“Last year, the Namgung clan acquired a spiritual beast known as the Thousand-Year Thunder Serpent. But before they could harvest its core, it was stolen by the Demon of Yin-Soul Ghostfire. Thus I led the Changgoong Flying Swallow Unit and pursued as far as Qinghai. In seeking Kunlun’s aid for the demon hunt, I met Baekyang Jin-in. During that conversation, I happened to hear a report: a disciple of Kunlun had gone missing after fighting against the Yin-Soul Ghostfire Demon.”

Jeok Nogae listened to every word without even breathing. He seemed both an eager listener and one seeking to weigh the truth of the tale.

“Baekyang Jin-in told me that the missing youth bore a striking resemblance to a disciple who perished during the Kunlun Blood Calamity years ago. Astonishingly, the boy not only looked the same, but even bore the same name. He wondered whether that child had somehow returned to him.”

Jeok Nogae’s eyes narrowed.

“And what of it?”

His voice carried a scoffing incredulity. Namgung Un’s brows twitched.

“Do you perhaps know something more of Baekyang Jin-in?”

“Of course I do.”

Jeok Nogae grinned, revealing crooked yellow teeth.

“I know that bastard never truly cared for that dead disciple in the first place.”

Jeok Nogae remembered the beggar boy he had once guided all the way to Kunlun.

The memory lingered because it had weighed upon his heart.

Had fate bound them more closely, that boy might have become a disciple of the Beggars’ Sect. The child who could not even read, yet memorized passages by rote just to approach his benefactor—his yearning ignited a flame within Jeok Nogae’s long-withered chest.

The request of the youthful, barely grown Je Haryang had been only this: that the young beggar live in peace, do as he wished, and grow amidst people who cherished him.

Whether he understood that wish or not, Yegyeol had still journeyed across the Central Plains, following Jeok Nogae all the way to Qinghai.

Even when his toenails tore away from endless walking, the child uttered not a single complaint.

Jeok Nogae, a man who had lived as a beggar all his life and now, in old age, should have been enjoying grandchildren, did not know how to treat such a child. He cut open the shoes that pinched his swollen feet and told him to ride upon his back, but the boy refused.

“I can walk.”

“Does it not hurt?”

“But if I become a burden, you can always put me down and leave me. That is why I must be a companion, not a burden.”

Though Jeok Nogae had believed himself well-versed in every sorrow and tale of the world, he could not withstand the weight of those words.

In the end, he adjusted his pace, resting often so the boy might hold to his resolve. When he slept, Jeok Nogae infused him with energy, eased his knotted muscles. It must have been agony, but the boy endured like a stubborn little mule.

At first, Jeok Nogae had thought him an impudent brat. But as they traversed the Central Plains, he began to feel as though he had gained the grandson he never knew.

When at last he entrusted the boy to Kunlun, his feelings were bittersweet.

Had Yegyeol so much as looked back, Jeok Nogae might have asked, Would you rather come to the Beggars’ Sect instead? But the boy’s gaze was fixed only upon Je Haryang, who walked beside Baekun Jin-in.

Ah well, live well then.

It had simply not been fated.

So Jeok Nogae left with only those words of blessing.

Unless he went seeking, he heard no more of Yegyeol. The boy was too weak to make any mark in the martial world.

He began training too late. His bones and sinews were ordinary, and after years on the streets, it was a miracle he wasn’t crippled. Still, Kunlun’s Daoist practices would at least teach him health-preserving arts. His old age would not be plagued with pain.

Qinghai was far, and though Jeok Nogae was old, he was still in his prime as a martial artist. As an elder of the Beggars’ Sect, he was endlessly busy. Yet he thought, perhaps when the boy came of age, he might pay a visit.

He won’t exactly welcome me with open arms… but maybe he’ll at least greet me with that sulky face of his.

The thought always brought a smile.

It felt like only yesterday.

But before Yegyeol reached maturity, dire news came from Qinghai.

The Demonic Sect was on the move.

That day, the gourd hanging on Jeok Nogae’s staff cracked clean in half. It was his begging bowl, his rice bowl.

“Damn, ill-omened.”

Restless and uneasy, he could not sit still. Just then, a messenger returned from Qinghai and thrust a bamboo tube marked with a great red character into his hands.

“It is urgent!”

Jeok Nogae’s hands trembled as he unrolled the scroll. He half expected to see Kunlun’s destruction written there.

And indeed, when he read the words, his eyes widened.

It was a name he never thought to encounter again.

“A blood calamity has struck Kunlun. Though the sect leader and his foremost disciple fought to the death and inflicted losses upon the Demonic Sect, the retreating enemy set the main hall aflame. Baekun Jin-in gravely injured. A disciple named Mun Yegyeol died in place of the Kunlun Dragon. All surviving disciples taken captive.”

Jeok Nogae had never expected to see Yegyeol’s name thus recorded. The boy had been far too weak to carve any great deed into the martial world. That weakness had even reassured Jeok Nogae, once. And now, to read this…

With a snarl, he crumpled the paper in his fist.

“Kulun has fallen. The sect leader gravely injured, the able-bodied all taken prisoner. Report this to the Alliance and demand reinforcements.”

But the Demonic Sect did not march further into the Central Plains. They withdrew to the Ten Thousand Great Mountains, as though their only aim had been to shatter Kunlun.

Though war still loomed, Jeok Nogae rushed to Qinghai.

He meant to console Baekyang Jin-in, who had lost a disciple, and pour a drink at Yegyeol’s grave.

Yet when he arrived, he was told that the boy had been cremated with other disciples who had no kin, and their ashes scattered.

“There was no one left to visit his grave, so no grave was made.”

Baekyang Jin-in, aged by ten years overnight, spoke with a hollow voice.

Jeok Nogae understood—when corpses lay piled like mountains and blood flowed like rivers, there had been no time.

But still.

But you were his master, were you not?

In Xining, stories of Baekyang Jin-in’s virtue abounded. How he had painstakingly gathered the sundered remains of a disciple torn apart by a demonic fiend, laid them to rest with his own hands, and returned them to grieving parents.

So Jeok Nogae had climbed Kunlun Mountain with hope in his heart—only to be met with disappointment.

That other disciple had parents, was of standing. Yegyeol had none.

Damn bastards.

The poor, the powerless, the orphaned—they always suffered.

He could not cause a scene at Kunlun, not as an elder of the Beggars’ Sect. Instead, he spat at the threshold and descended the mountain.

If I were still just a beggar, I would’ve grabbed that Daoist by the throat for his neglect.

Swallowing rage and grief was nothing new, but that day it was crushing.

Years passed. Baekun Jin-in begged the Martial Alliance for aid in rescuing the disciples taken to the Ten Thousand Great Mountains. Again and again, the Alliance refused.

At every council, Jeok Nogae spat froth as he demanded that the Righteous Factions honor their duty.

“But what if the Demonic Sect strikes the Central Plains while our forces are away?”

“The Ten Thousand Great Mountains have never once fallen to outside attack.”

“And what of those already captured? Can you swear they yet live?”

The endless quibbling made plain: not one of them was willing to bleed for Kunlun.

Kunlun had given its all to drag down the Demon Sect, and the Alliance could not even raise a finger.

Jeok Nogae was sickened.

“Now I see why the Demon Sect struck Kunlun and withdrew.”

All eyes turned to him as he rose.

“They want to tear the martial world apart. To show that even beneath the banner of the Martial Alliance, the Nine Great Sects and Five Great Clans cannot cooperate when faced with loss.”

Silence fell.

“If Sichuan’s Tang Family were attacked tomorrow, who would rise? The Qingcheng Sect? Emei? Or would the other great clans just make excuses?”

Jeok Nogae’s derisive snarl echoed in the chamber. The Alliance leader began to protest, but Jeok Nogae was already striding away.

“I am leaving.”

Even knowing it was only self-indulgence, he could not stop.

He expected a beating for making such a scene, but instead, the irascible Sect Leader of the Beggars’ Sect declared that Jeok Nogae’s temper made him the perfect successor, and named him heir.

As future leader, Jeok Nogae lived frantically busy years.

When thoughts of that stubborn child returned, he sought word of Je Haryang, but found none.

Surely he is dead as well.

And then, years later, as Sect Leader, Jeok Nogae received an unexpected guest.

“It has been a long time.”

It was Je Haryang.