TSBIRBV Ch 302

Chapter 302. Rumors of the Rivers and Lakes (6)

“Be careful, Young Master Mun.”

Back-to-back with him, Samrang’s voice came out through gritted teeth.

If it hadn’t been for the Mountain-Air Poison, she would’ve already dragged Yegyeol out of there. But entangled with Wudang’s foremost sword, she’d been pinned down instead.

She didn’t blame anyone else—it was her own shortcoming.

Still, the humiliation burned.

“It’s fine.”

Yegyeol’s tongue brushed across his dry lips, excitement glittering in his eyes.

Long ago, Baekyang Zhenren had been an insurmountable mountain.

If he’d wanted to remain in Kunlun, he’d had to cling to him with every breath.

Though Baekyang rarely spoke harshly, Yegyeol had known better than anyone that his master had never truly welcomed the late-arriving disciple.

So he had trudged up the frozen slopes with his frail body, scooping up handfuls of eternal snow to carry down the mountain.

Baekyang had called it “training.”

And yet Yegyeol had never once thought it unjust.

He had only worried that returning too late might draw his master’s ire—

and at most, he had once wished, in a fit of petty spite, that the old man’s pine tree would freeze to death before he did.

Now he knew better.

Baekyang had never intended to teach him anything.

He had never been a teacher worth reverence.

But at least I got my small revenge, Yegyeol thought.

The white pine Haryang had transplanted to the courtyard of Qinghyeong Pavilion had been struck by lightning and died—

a storm that had raged the night Yegyeol lost control.

Remembering it now, he almost laughed.

To face Baekyang again with a clear mind and the power to fight back—

what fortune greater could there be?

“Will you not grant your junior even three seconds of courtesy?”

His tone was mocking, but his eyes were cold.

Baekyang replied evenly,

“Though you’ve been brainwashed, there’s no reason to yield to a dog of the Demonic Cult.”

There was no mercy in his voice, though no overt malice either—just conviction.

The old Taoist’s sword cut through the air with terrible speed, aimed straight for Yegyeol’s heart.

Samrang tried to intervene, but Yonghyeon Zhenren swiftly cut between them, separating her from her charge.

Her movements were broad and open, and in that momentary lapse, she realized her mistake too late—she’d lost her position.

Baekyang did not even shout the name of his sword art, as younger warriors so often did.

He simply advanced, blade first, without hesitation.

But Yegyeol recognized that sword technique immediately.

Taihe Dragon-Slaying Swordsmanship.

The very essence of Kunlun itself—the noble and majestic art, graceful yet fierce, like a dragon coiling through the clouds.

As it flowed from Baekyang’s hands, Yegyeol’s eyes widened.

His heart pounded.

Not with fear—

but with anticipation.

Like a film slowed to a crawl, he could see every trajectory, every subtle motion.

Not only the arc of Baekyang’s sword, but even the way he placed his steps.

That was unmistakably the Cloud-Dragon Eight Forms—the dance of a dragon gliding among clouds.

How strange.

Why could he read it so easily?

“Young Master Mun! Move!”

Samrang’s shout broke through his trance.

In the next instant, time snapped back into motion—Baekyang was directly in front of him, his blade already descending.

Yegyeol looked straight into the oncoming strike.

Samrang, still fending off Wudang’s foremost sword, bit back a scream.

He looked completely unhinged.

She had seen his recklessness before—his fearlessness that bordered on suicidal.

But this—this was madness.

Damn it!

The sword’s pressure split the air, a cold wind slicing past her head.

She tried to lunge toward him, but the moment she turned her back, Yonghyeon’s blade came for her life.

Bound by the poison, she could only trip him up with a desperate throw of a hidden dagger—barely enough to slow him.

She couldn’t retreat, couldn’t protect herself.

Yet she didn’t stop.

She sprinted toward Yegyeol, intent on tackling him to the ground, to shield him with her own body if she had to.

“You little rat!”

Her hair snapped in the wind—severed strands fluttered as the burning pain of a slash tore across her back.

A back wound was disgraceful for a martial artist, but Samrang didn’t care.

She wasn’t a warrior—she was a killer.

Still, even her grit couldn’t close the distance fast enough.

Baekyang was already upon him.

“…Ah.”

Yegyeol’s eyes fluttered open wide as the blade’s cold wind brushed his cheek.

He hadn’t moved to dodge.

He had stood there on purpose.

A thin line of red slid down his face.

And yet, his lips curved faintly upward.

As I thought.

He could see it—Baekyang’s sword path.

The moment the old master unleashed the Taihe Dragon-Slaying Sword, Yegyeol had been struck by a deep sense of déjà vu.

It was as though he could already tell where the man would move, how he would strike.

To confirm it, he had deliberately stepped into the sword’s path—just barely out of fatal reach.

A single sheet of paper’s width separated the blade from his body.

His cheek was cut, but his heart remained untouched.

It was like reading a musical score and knowing exactly which note came next.

“Fortunate, aren’t you?” Baekyang muttered, still unaware of what was happening.

But behind his mask of calm, humiliation smoldered.

Yegyeol smiled inwardly.

I want to toy with him a little longer.

Now that he was sure of his victory, a mischievous urge surfaced.

Between them lay a grudge that no dead pine could ever bury.

“I have a trick or two of my own, Master.”

He feigned caution, as if bluffing.

Baekyang sneered.

“Then show me!”

His sword flared with killing intent.

The white aura tinged faintly with blue flame—Kunlun’s purest, coldest qi—rushed toward Yegyeol like a devouring storm.

But Yegyeol evaded every strike.

It wasn’t because Baekyang was weak.

Far from it—among all the martial artists Yegyeol had fought in Murim, Baekyang was second only to Je Haryang.

He was a master on the cusp of transcendence, already brushing the realm of enlightenment.

It’s not that he’s slow—it’s that I already know.

Yegyeol had been born in Hangzhou, but he had grown up in Kunlun.

He had spent his youth chasing the shadow of a man who wielded Kunlun’s sword more perfectly than anyone—

his senior brother.

Haryang…

A weak laugh slipped out of him, even as he fought to hold it back.

His chest, though, was beyond control—pounding wildly with exhilaration.

Even now, his senior was saving him.

“How… how is this possible?”

Baekyang finally faltered.

No matter how he struck, Yegyeol slipped past the edge of his sword as though he’d already foreseen it.

By all logic, the boy should’ve collapsed long ago.

Yet there he stood—bored, almost mocking.

Even a street performer’s sword dance would be harder to read, Yegyeol mused.

Baekyang, for all his skill, was a scholar of the sword, not a warrior.

He perfected Kunlun’s techniques within the safety of his sect, honing precision over unpredictability.

And so, Yegyeol could read him like an open book—

the placement of his feet, the swing of his wrist, even where his gaze would land next.

But there was no need to explain that to him.

Even if they had once shared a sect, Baekyang was no Je Haryang.

He wasn’t even a Jeokroe.

“The old pine,” Yegyeol murmured softly, “stayed green until it died.”

That white, beautiful tree—the symbol of Kunlun’s eternal snows—had always lingered in his memory.

He had hauled buckets of melted snow until his hands went numb and red.

He had hidden in the shadows, watching Baekyang teach other disciples, mimicking their movements in secret.

Baekyang had never once told him to stop hiding.

He had known Yegyeol was there.

He had simply chosen not to acknowledge him.

The boy from Hangzhou’s slums had no talent for martial arts—but he was perceptive.

He had always sensed Baekyang’s disdain.

The techniques he stole, the words he learned by himself—they all felt like ill-fitting clothes.

Baekyang’s teachings were never meant for him.

Then, he had only felt it.

Now, he knew.

“But people,” Yegyeol said, his mouth curling into a smirk, “are different.”

Baekyang froze.

“What are you… you couldn’t mean—”

His lips trembled.

Every morning at dawn, he checked on his precious white pine.

But one day, he’d opened the door to find it gone—vanished without a trace.

No sound, no marks, no clues.

An ancient tree, uprooted from Kunlun’s depths as though plucked from the world itself.

Not even Baekyang could guess who could’ve stolen it.

Yegyeol offered no answer.

He simply decided to show him.

Golden lightning flared in his eyes—

the power that had lived within him since rebirth coursed to his fingertips.

The air thrummed, his brown hair rising as if in a storm.

Sensing the threat, Baekyang instinctively drew back.

It saved him.

The golden bolt struck not his body, but the tree beside him—

and with a deafening crack, it split apart, burning black, collapsing into ashes.

Exactly like the white pine in Qinghyeong Pavilion.

The sound was so loud even Wudang’s foremost sword glanced over mid-duel.

“How—how can you still move? You were poisoned!”

Baekyang’s voice trembled in disbelief.

Yegyeol smiled faintly.

“Well,” he said, raising his hand as golden sparks danced across his fingers,

“that’s because what I use—”

He flexed his hand, and thunder rolled.

“—isn’t internal energy.”