TSBIRBV Ch 205

Chapter 205. Forgiveness (7)

“He lived.”

So he had lived, after all. Yet Jeok Nogae regretted the words the moment they left his mouth.

The man before him was Je Haryang, and yet not Je Haryang.

An ugly scar ran across that once-handsome face. The distortion was grotesque only because he had once been so striking. And that voice—what was it?

Like claws raking the bottom of the underworld, that hoarse, broken sound was more akin to the shriek of a nightmare specter than any human speech.

“You…”

Beneath the parted robe, his chest was blackened and withered, like dead wood. Je Haryang pulled the garment closed with a careless tug.

“Unsightly, is it not? But I had no choice. To come here, I had to expel the Gu of Solitude.”

“The Gu of Solitude? You mean to say you became its host?”

The old beggar muttered under his breath. More astonishing still was that he had managed to expel it.

“…That hardly matters. Let me speak my purpose first. I must return before the mother of the Gu awakens…”

Clawing irritably at the back of his hand, Je Haryang’s gaze wavered into emptiness. With a ragged sigh, he tore at his own hair.

“The restraints… make remembering difficult. Listen closely… Thunderbombs will be discovered in the Tang Family of Sichuan.”

Not only bound by the Gu of Solitude but also ensnared by Soul-Devouring Arts—astonishing enough. But Thunderbombs in the Tang Family? Those were strictly forbidden by imperial decree.

“…What?”

“When the imperial prince arrives to inspect Chengdu under the Emperor’s command, the discovery will be made. You must dispose of them. Dispose of them. The location is… the Tang Family pagoda—”

It was nothing less than the opening act of a vast conspiracy. A beggar who had dealt in intelligence all his life, Jeok Nogae felt the chill immediately.

The current imperial house sought to trample the power of the martial world. The prince was the Emperor’s loyal hound. Even if the Tang Family had not acquired Thunderbombs, he would twist the matter to his advantage.

Qinghai had already been breached. Next would be Sichuan, then Shaanxi, Chongqing, or Guizhou—holes torn open everywhere. The plot had to be uprooted before it began.

“How do you know of this?”

It was a question born of shock. Je Haryang’s lips curved with a chilling smile.

“Because I placed them there. Yes. It was I…”

Once more his nails dug into his own flesh, raking his arm until it bled, his face a mask of eerie emptiness.

“Stop it. Cease this.”

Jeok Nogae tried to halt him, but Je Haryang only shook his head.

“It is the only way to… keep myself awake. Better this than bleeding out entirely. Forgive me if it offends.”

“Why… why…?”

Jeok Nogae’s words tumbled over themselves. He could make no sense of this man’s actions. No resentment, no rage—only cold, bound duty.

The Je Haryang he had known was a knight-errant, but never like this. What had turned him into such a thing?

“If one preserved by another’s sacrifice became not a hero but a butcher, would not the dead writhe in torment?”

The old beggar’s heart plummeted.

All these years, Jeok Nogae had thought himself the only one who remembered that beggar boy, Mun Yegyeol. The fate of Je Haryang, dragged into the Demonic Sect, had been uncertain at best.

And yet he still remembered Yegyeol.

Even if it were all a trap, still…

“…Very well. I will see to your request.”

“Thank you. I will repay you for this favor.”

Jeok Nogae’s face twisted with heavy emotion.

“No need. Did you not once pay me in full, even when I had only half-completed the task?”

A beggar never returned what fell into his bowl. But before Je Haryang, he could not help but feel ashamed of everything he was.

“I pocketed the change I never gave you then. Consider this my repayment.”

Yes, it had to be so.

Je Haryang cast him a sidelong glance, his thoughts unreadable.

“…Then, may your days be without calamity.”

When he turned to leave, Jeok Nogae acted on impulse.

“Do you not… do you not resent the Martial Alliance for never coming to save you?”

The man’s face twisted like a ghost’s, ravaged and merciless.

“I wished… that no one would ever come to save me.”

He looked like a mourner searching for his own grave, as though nothing in the world could bind him anymore.

“…Have you sought out your junior disciple?”

“…I do not know what you mean.”

His voice drifted far away, not sly, only worn down past all recognition.

“At the foot of Kunlun Mountain, a river winds around the high peaks. They say the dead of the Blood Calamity were burned and scattered there.”

Je Haryang’s expression did not change, but Jeok Nogae felt him listening in silence.

“So… do not go to Kunlun. Do not.”

“Baekyang Jin-in is known as a pure Daoist, but he prized honor above all. He lived too long in the shadow of his senior, Baekun Jin-in. He wished, if not himself, then at least one of his disciples might surpass Baekun’s. But that too failed.”

Jeok Nogae spoke like a bull loosed from its yoke, pouring out truths he alone had pieced together.

“The beggar boy Mun Yegyeol who entered Kunlun’s gates—he was to have been Baekun Jin-in’s disciple. Baekyang stole him away. He thought the boy destined to become sect leader’s foremost disciple. But when he showed no talent in martial arts, he made him nothing more than a servant.”

This truth Jeok Nogae had uncovered only after long and dogged investigation, once he learned that Yegyeol had no grave. Most would never know it. To the world, Baekyang Jin-in was the aloof recluse who refused the position of sect leader and devoted himself to Kunlun’s restoration.

That the young lord of Namgung had been deceived was hardly surprising.

“Yet that same man would later take in another boy, claiming he so resembled his dead disciple that he could not turn him away? Nonsense.”

Namgung Un lowered his eyes, his face tight with unease.

“…Then how did Young Lord Mun become Baekyang Jin-in’s disciple at all?”

“Who can say?”

Jeok Nogae’s mouth twisted in a bitter smile.

“Perhaps only to throw him to the Heavenly Demon.”

Such words, flung against a Kunlun elder, were reckless. And yet Jeok Nogae spoke them before Namgung Un, an outsider of the Five Great Clans rather than the Nine Great Sects.

“…Master!”

“Oh hush, my hearing is not yet gone.”

To Huang Geolgae’s outburst, Jeok Nogae replied with placid calm.

“So then—what else did Baekyang Jin-in spew?”

“He said his new disciple was abducted by a demonic figure, one with whom Kunlun had long-standing enmity. He told me everything in detail and asked for the Namgung clan’s aid in searching for him.”

“Ha! Ha ha ha!”

Jeok Nogae burst into harsh laughter.

“Enmity, he says… convenient word, that. It must soothe him. But the truth…”

In his ashen eyes, a strange gleam flickered.

“…It is all lies.”

Perhaps from Je Haryang’s view, it was enmity. But in truth, when Kunlun admitted him, they held in their grasp the greatest possibility of producing the foremost sword of the age.

A secluded sect in remote Qinghai, rising in an instant like a peak piercing through clouds.

“The Heavenly Demon is not the monster you think him, Namgung Gongja.”

A phlegmy rasp slipped from Jeok Nogae’s throat. After a fit of coughing, the old beggar murmured:

“He… Je Haryang… was once a disciple of Kunlun.”

Namgung Un’s eyes widened.

The Heavenly Demon, a disciple of Kunlun?

“Young ones like you may not know. But your father surely does. Many sought to bury the name, but who could forget the most brilliant prodigy of his generation?”

Huang Geolgae shut his eyes tight. His master had finally gone too far.

“He wore Kunlun’s white robes embroidered with clouds, and strode forth on chivalrous journeys. Though but a boy, his name spread throughout the martial world. Terrifying accomplishments, unmatched nobility of character—people praised him as a genius unseen in a thousand years.”

For one so young to make such a name was nearly unheard of in the annals of the martial world. All believed Je Haryang destined to ascend like a dragon into the heavens.

But peace never lasts.

“Then the Demonic Sect struck Kunlun, killing half its disciples and dragging the rest into the Ten Thousand Great Mountains. Mun Yegyeol was the name of the disciple who died in Je Haryang’s stead that day.”

Namgung Un flinched.

Huang Geolgae had once warned him not to overlay the dead disciple upon another unjustly. And when Namgung pressed him, he had admitted he had no right to say more, only begged to take him to one who did. Thus he had come before Jeok Nogae.

“No one else sought to save him. Kunlun was powerless, and the Martial Alliance closed its eyes.”

Namgung Un shut his eyes tight. Even with this revelation, his chest felt stifled.

If the Heavenly Demon truly saw in Yegyeol the shadow of his savior, then his life would be safe.

And yet…

The Heavenly Demon had clearly borne a possessive passion for him. Namgung Un could still see it—the way Yegyeol, trembling, had walked into his arms, the way the man who held him forced obedience and pressed a kiss to his brow.

Namgung Un had nearly collapsed under that overwhelming presence. A mere twitch of the finger left his meridians twisted in agony. Even knowing it might cost him his sword hand, he had longed to do something—anything—to save Yegyeol.

At first, he thought it was simply shame, fury at failing to protect one he ought to have safeguarded. But now he knew—it was something more primal.

“…Then tell me. How did the hostage become the Heavenly Demon?”

“Do you not simply assume him a villain?”

Jeok Nogae probed. Namgung Un answered with upright poise.

“A sword has no eyes. A sword has no thought. Thus the one who wields it must see clearly, must think.”

His fingers drifted unconsciously along the sheath of his blade.

“And so—I must know.”

Namgung Un bowed deeply toward the old beggar.

“Grant your teaching to one so dull as I.”