TSBIRBV Ch 300

Chapter 300. Rumors of the Rivers and Lakes (4)

A customized martial name, you say? Yes, yes—make it a grande, no syrup, light on the ice. Don’t stir it, shake it.

Who said you couldn’t choose your own martial epithet?

As long as you poured in enough effort, at the right time, with the right intensity—anything was possible. No, it had to be possible.

Yegyeol’s eyes gleamed fiercely as he ordered,

“Bribe the storytellers to spread tales of ‘Je Haryang, the Heavenly Thunder Cloud Dragon.’ Sell the rumors through the Hao Clan’s information network, and make sure it reaches the Beggars’ Sect too.”

Then, as if that wasn’t enough, he added shamelessly,

“Oh, and write a song about it. Give the street kids some sweets and teach them the lyrics.”

Samrang’s expression twisted in disbelief.

“We’re really mobilizing the sect’s spies just to feed your ego, Young Master?”

“If you report it to Senior Brother, he’ll approve it immediately,” Yegyeol said casually, stroking Beambeam’s golden scales.

Samrang had no retort for that—because it was true.

If she were from the modern world, this was the exact moment she would have mentally pulled out the resignation letter she’d kept tucked away in her heart.

But unfortunately for her, this was the martial world—where once you swore loyalty to a lord, you were bound until death.

Our great Senior Brother’s basically working for a black company too, she thought dryly.

Its name: the Heavenly Demon Cult of the Ten-Thousand Great Mountains—infamous across the Central Plains as a den of monsters.

Samrang rolled her eyes silently.

The entire martial world was being fooled.

Heavenly Thunder Dragon, my ass. More like Thunder Tiger, or at best, Lightning Squirrel.

And yet, she herself was about to fan the flames of the deception.

She smiled thinly. “I was known for my silver tongue as a child, you know. I even worked as a courtesan on my lord’s orders once. Rumors or songs, just leave it to me.”

Yegyeol blinked. “It feels weird when you don’t argue back…”

“Our lord told me to follow your instructions,” Samrang replied with a shrug.

Lighthearted as she seemed, her loyalty was as unshakable as Mount Tai. Yegyeol was glad she was flexible-minded; if she hadn’t been, she would’ve tied him up in the Ten-Thousand Great Mountains rather than helping him escape.

“Ah. The lord also asked to see you tonight,” she said. “He seems to have somewhere he wants to take you.”

“Got it.”

Even after revealing that he and the Black Ghost were one and the same, Haryang had not summoned Yegyeol since.

He had refrained for Yegyeol’s sake—so that his disciple could focus on the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly.

He wanted to shield him from the bloodthirsty young martial artists swinging real swords in the ring. But since he couldn’t, he at least avoided becoming a distraction.

Yegyeol felt a pang of disappointment.

He still hadn’t told Haryang about the “strengthening through intimacy” theory—that sharing physical energy increased one’s power and endurance.

The timing just… never seemed right.

After the Dragon-Phoenix Assembly. I’ll tell him then. Definitely.

With that private vow, Yegyeol followed Samrang to the manor where his senior brother was staying.

The quiet place, wrapped in moonlight and mist, always carried a strange, tranquil air—reminding Yegyeol of the Azure Hall deep in the Ten-Thousand Great Mountains.

Perhaps because both places shared the same master.

“You’ve come,” said a calm voice.

The man sitting there looked like a painting—composed, ethereal.

“Come, sit.”

The cushion beneath Yegyeol was warm, as if preheated by internal energy. He couldn’t help but smile faintly at Haryang’s thoughtfulness as he sat down.

“I heard you won again today?”

“Yes,” Yegyeol replied proudly, straightening his back.

“I wish I could have seen it myself,” Haryang said with an apologetic smile. “But I had somewhere to go and could only hear from Hongyeo afterward.”

“Where did you go?”

A faint, graceful curve formed at Haryang’s lips.

He pushed something across the table.

It was a bundle of papers tied together with string—too crude to be called a proper book, yet the faintly visible script on the exposed page looked… strange.

Is this a cipher?

“Nothing much,” said Haryang. “I just thought it might be useful to you.”

Yegyeol accepted it in surprise and flipped through a few pages.

Even to an untrained eye, it was no ordinary document.

The writing resembled the ledgers used by the Qinghai Trading Guild, but where item names should have been, there were indecipherable symbols and distorted characters.

Then, Yegyeol’s gaze caught a seal stamped on the inside cover. His eyes widened.

It was the same symbol engraved on the jade token that Eon Chaegwol had given Haryang.

“Wait—this is the secret ledger of the Eon Clan, isn’t it?”

Haryang didn’t answer, but his quiet gaze was confirmation enough.

“Things like this don’t just roll around on the ground,” Yegyeol murmured.

“It took some effort, but it wasn’t impossible,” Haryang replied evenly.

He was far too calm for someone who had just handed over a clan’s deepest secret.

This is basically the senior brother version of ‘Oh, I just found it lying around,’ huh?

“Don’t tell me—you used that jade token from the gambling den?”

Haryang nodded. “Yes. When the Martial Alliance began their investigation, I noticed the clan head had hidden something away. Using that token, I retrieved it.”

If it were harmless, the Eon Clan wouldn’t have hidden it so well. Clearly, this ledger contained their most fatal weakness.

“I wish I could’ve gone with you,” Yegyeol said, unable to hide his pout.

“You promised to bring me victory, didn’t you?” Haryang smiled.

Yegyeol’s lips curled despite himself, remembering their morning together.

“You were busy. Leave the rest to your senior brother,” Haryang added gently.

Yegyeol fell silent, realizing Haryang had a knack for turning disappointment into sweetness.

“I just… really enjoyed that gambling den with you,” he mumbled, ears turning red. “I’m not upset.”

“I know,” Haryang chuckled softly. “But there were things I didn’t want you to see.”

Beneath the warmth in his voice was a faint, hidden displeasure.

If even patient Senior Brother was irritated, what on earth did the Eon Clan do?

“What happened?” Yegyeol asked carefully.

“It ties back to the missing villagers of Yeogok, the case you asked the Black Ghost to investigate,” said Haryang.

“What?” Yegyeol blurted, too startled to notice that Haryang referred to the Black Ghost in the third person.

On his way down from the Ten-Thousand Great Mountains, Yegyeol had joined Yeonso So in Jiangnan, where they found the body of the alchemist of Geumeo Hall—dead from poison.

The nearest settlement was Yeogok Village. The locals said a man called Master Hwang had bewitched the villagers, leading them away.

The alchemist had been sent there on the villagers’ request—and never returned.

Unable to find a lead, Yegyeol had traveled to Wuhan and asked “the Black Ghost”—Haryang in disguise—to search for the missing.

Using the Black Spot’s vast network, Haryang had tracked down the kidnapped villagers scattered across the Central Plains and managed to send some back home.

But not all of them.

“There were some we never found,” Yegyeol recalled. “Did you find clues about them?”

“Yes.”

Haryang opened the ledger and pointed at one page.

“I haven’t deciphered the entire code yet, but this word stands for Yeogok Village. And the character beside it means ‘harvest.’ This mark here indicates a number.”

As Yegyeol counted the strokes, his expression darkened.

“It matches the number of missing villagers we couldn’t find…”

“Exactly. They took only those with certain… uses, and scattered the rest across the land,” Haryang said.

“To make it look like a random slave trade?”

“Perhaps,” Haryang said with a bitter smile. “But wicked deeds cost money, and plenty of it.”

“Then what kind of wicked deed could justify kidnapping people and selling the rest for profit?”

“I can only speculate for now,” Haryang said calmly.

But that was a lie.

He had seen this kind of code before.

Not meant for secrecy, but for efficiency—a simplified cipher used by those who needed to write quickly and often.

By demonic physicians and their disciples.

So someone truly succeeded in continuing the legacy of the Demon Physician.

Among the Yeogok villagers, the elderly and sick had been left behind, while the healthy young disappeared without a trace.

Haryang remembered exactly the kind of people who selected their “subjects” that way—and why.

I’ll need to dig deeper.

He was cautious by nature, but now that Yegyeol was involved, his caution doubled.

In a way, it was a blessing that his disciple had entered the martial world; the brighter his path, the safer he was.

Still, once the Eon Clan realized their secret ledger had been stolen, they’d know someone was onto them.

They would never suspect the Heavenly Demon himself had come all the way to Wuhan—so for now, he had time.

That’s the window I’ll use.

Haryang’s gaze softened as he studied Yegyeol’s face.

If not for this disciple, he would never have set foot in this place. Fate had aligned too neatly, almost unnaturally in his favor.

In the past, when he had locked himself away from the world, he might not even have noticed such a conspiracy.

And even if he had, he wouldn’t have cared. He’d had nothing worth protecting back then.

“Just don’t forget what you promised me,” he said quietly, wrapping his hand around Yegyeol’s.

“The Dragon-Phoenix victory?” Yegyeol teased.

“In exchange for doing whatever you wish—”

Yegyeol’s eyes widened as he finished the sentence for him, almost instinctively.

“—I’ll stay safe, within Senior Brother’s sight.”

“You remember,” Haryang murmured with a sweet smile.

He tilted Yegyeol’s chin up and drew him closer.

Yegyeol closed his eyes, expecting a kiss—only to feel a soft brush on his forehead and hear a low chuckle.

Opening his eyes to Haryang’s amused expression, he pouted, then grabbed his neck and pulled him in.

If I want something, I take it.

The Heavenly Demon, caught off guard, only laughed and closed his eyes, yielding to the kiss. Being devoured by his bold disciple was, as always, a rare delight.

When they finally parted, Yegyeol’s lips were flushed and glistening.

“I know how to tease you too, Senior Brother,” he whispered.

With a mischievous grin, he left the room before Haryang could react.

He heard the man call “Yegyeol!” behind him, but didn’t turn back.

He was determined—at least until he reached the front gate.

Maybe I could go back. Just for a bit. Pretend to resist.

As soon as the thought hit him, he regretted leaving. He wanted to turn around, grab Haryang’s wrist, and tumble back into bed.

But Haryang’s words echoed in his mind—he might not see him again until after the tournament.

“No, no. This is one step back for two steps forward,” Yegyeol muttered, convincing himself as he strode briskly out of the manor.

He’d only made it about five minutes down the road when he stopped dead in his tracks.

Should I go back?

A normal person with pride would never think that—but Yegyeol wasn’t normal. He had no use for pride in front of his guide. Pride didn’t make you look cool; it just ruined the moment.

Having made up his mind, he spun on his heel—

“Yong Master Mun!”

Samrang’s voice cut through the night. She emerged from the shadows, hurling something his way.

“Get down!”

Almost at the same instant, a man shot out from the opposite side—a middle-aged swordsman with a ghostlike face.

Yegyeol recognized, with a jolt, the faint traces of a much younger man’s features.

The Heavenly Dragon of Wudang.

The man’s sword danced through the air, cutting through Samrang’s thrown weapon and pressing forward in the soft, spiraling flow of Taiji.

“Tsk.” Samrang clicked her tongue, glancing at Yegyeol in desperation.

She was trained for assassination and ranged combat—up close, she was at a disadvantage.

And the enemy was none other than Wudang’s foremost swordsman.

If he got close, she wouldn’t stand a chance.

But she couldn’t retreat—because Yegyeol was behind her.

She’s stuck because of me, Yegyeol realized instantly.

Yet he hadn’t frozen out of confusion.

There was another presence—more than one, in fact.

“So,” said a calm, cold voice, “we meet again at last.”

Yegyeol turned—and saw a white-robed old Daoist, immaculate to the point of obsession.

His former master.

Baekyang Zhenren.

TL NOTE – If I used “Hero” in front of someone’s name (like Hero Peng, Hero Tang, or Hero Namgung), it doesn’t mean “superhero” or “movie protagonist” — it’s actually a translation of the Korean honorific “대협 (Dae-hyeop)”, which means “Great Chivalrous One.”In Murim / wuxia settings, it’s a respectful title for a martial artist admired for righteousness, skill, and integrity — kind of like saying “Master,” “Sir,” or “Respected Warrior.”