TSBIRBV Ch 69

Chapter 69 The Bride Lies Sleepless (7)

“Yes. That is so.”

She shook her head slowly in dismay.

“Now I finally understand. The ideals that Cousin always spoke of were nothing more than excuses he invented in order to justify whatever he wished to do.”

Tang Seoak flinched and stepped back. His face turned pale, then flushed red, then pale again in cycles.

It had not been that he had made the wrong choices because he wished to walk the right path.

He had simply committed sins, and then pretended to speak of higher ideals only to prove that he was not a wretch of a man who was worth less than filth.

“It was not that you were born lacking and struggling, but simply that you were a foolish man. If only I had revered you a little less.”

Tang Eonbo had committed misdeeds in the belief of Tang Seoak’s so-called ideals.

Because the influence had been so intense, he did not regret it. Thus, he would bear the price of sin.

He only pitied that Tang Seoak, whom he had followed as a guide through life, was bound by such deep self-hatred.

“I will testify for the one I believed in. I will do as Master Tang wishes. So do not concern yourself with someone like me, but run only to save your own life.”

Sitting cross-legged, Tang Eonbo closed his eyes. As if to show he would no longer deal with him, he deliberately turned his face away. Tang Seoak clutched desperately at the prison bars, then staggered back.

He wanted to silence Tang Eonbo forever for daring to speak so loftily while looking down at him. But if Tang Eonbo died, then his half-partner in crime, who bore half his sins, would disappear as well…

Struggling to regain his sanity, Tang Seoak headed outside, only to encounter a woman. Her face, far more aged than the last time he had seen it, was filled with revulsion and wrath.

“Eonbo is…”

“Silence.”

Tang Eonbo’s mother cut him off with clenched fists.

“If you are not insane, how dare you lay hands upon my daughter? Have you forgotten that, though I am married out, I am still a daughter of the Tang clan?”

Grace must be repaid double, resentment tenfold. That was the teaching shared from the elders down to the children of the Tang clan.

“I will never forget this.”

Tang Seoak bit down on his lips in silence and moved aside so she might pass. A few steps further, light streamed down from the staircase.

Though it was Tang Eonbo who was imprisoned, somehow Seoak felt as though he was the one confined in that dark underground cell.

Ignoring the shame within his heart, he turned to his past achievements as pretexts, desperately moving to secure his survival.

He made appeals to the clan head, and he even begged the merchants of the Cheonghae Trading Company to meet with him several times. But once Tang Eonbo’s mother had acted, the clan head dismissed him entirely, and the trading company men gave only excuses that Young Master Mun was away from home.

Namgung Clan, which had both justification and witnesses, did not formally move as Seoak predicted. Instead, it seemed they were merely observing his frantic struggle like a severed tail thrashing.

Day after day, it felt as though he slept and awoke with a blade pressed against his throat. Seoak even found himself tormented by the thought that his cousin might be at ease in her situation compared to him.

Then, new evidence arrived from the Cheonghae Trading Company.

“Letters exchanged with Steward Jin-sam?”

Seoak asked in a hoarse voice.

Indeed, such letters existed.

But whenever he sent by correspondence, the contents were vague. And if Jin-sam was not a fool, then any letter revealing the internal affairs of the trading company should have been destroyed.

But Seoak had not known.

For a long time, Jin-sam had been under the watch of Ye-gyeol, who intercepted Seoak’s letters, read them, and then replied.

In those exchanges, while claiming to keep ties despite growing distant from Steward Jin, Seoak embedded veiled questions about the internal workings of the Cheonghae Trading Company. Among them, there were even letters probing after Ye-gyeol, who at first wandered as though not a company head but some related figure. Other times he hinted at resentment as he mentioned sects like Okhyeongmun and Ikseonmun.

“There is no escape.”

It was difficult to claim forgery, nor that someone else had mistaken him for the sender.

There were not one or two witnesses who had seen Seoak spending time at Hongru Pavilion in Sichuan with Jin-sam, as if they were sworn brothers.

And now, even Eonbo, who might have taken blame in his stead, was out of reach.

In despair, Seoak found himself summoned by Tang Mun-gil, the clan head.

As Seoak entered the chamber, a bamboo tablet flew at his head.

“Go! Go, and for the honor of the clan, end your life with your own hand!”

Though enraged that Seoak had stained the Tang family name after defying orders and rushing into the River Yangtze incident, until that day Tang Mun-gil had never bellowed so furiously.

He had intended instead to punish the relatively insignificant Eonbo, conceal the matter, and avoid presenting the Tang clan as yielding before the Namgung Clan. Because in truth, even a lowly man like Seoak could be made useful as a dog on a leash for the sake of the clan’s direct lineage.

The problem was this fool had left trails of evidence everywhere.

“This is…”

Seoak’s pupils widened as he examined the bamboo slips. They contained proof that he had hired wandering swordsmen in place of the Golden Dragon Stronghold’s master.

“I obtained this evidence in secret. Sooner or later, the Namgung Clan will grasp the truth as well.”

Grinding his teeth, Tang Mun-gil jabbed a finger at him.

“If you are to commit such deeds, you should have destroyed all witnesses and evidence!”

The hiss of his accusation was like a snake spitting through its fangs. Seoak squeezed his eyes shut in shame.

“Because of you, the Tang clan’s honor has fallen into the dirt! The reclusive Emei Sect and Qingsong Sect have begun creeping down the mountains. How will you answer for this sin?”

The hand of Tang Mun-gil, called the Ten-Thousand Blades Venomous Hawk, turned dark blue as he slammed the desk in half. After catching his breath, the clan head barked:

“Get out of my sight.”

Seoak rose on trembling legs. He attempted a bow, but a teacup hurled across the room cut him short.

“Out!”

Realizing at last that denying the charges only dragged him deeper into the mire, Seoak ran to Namgung Un.

“I will confess all.”

“I expected there might be further crimes unrevealed. But what I do not understand is why Master Tang comes in this way. Were you not hiding behind your clan head’s power, offering up scapegoats to wait until the storm passed?”

Though Namgung Un’s words were polite, contempt brimmed in his eyes.

Seoak laughed hollowly. Such perfectionism was the right of a man like Namgung Un, who had been born to possess all. That was why he could never understand one who struggled so desperately, even if by foul means, to stay alive.

Thus excusing himself in his heart, Seoak put on a false mask.

“I committed countless things, all for the Tang clan’s glory. But looking back now, I am filled with regret.”

“Regret… indeed.”

“I will confess everything so that my guilt may be judged by the Martial Alliance. I will also beg Master Mun of the Cheonghae Trading Company for sincere forgiveness.”

If he remained in Sichuan, he might be slain by the clan head’s poisonous mist, leaving nothing more than a few drops of blood.

On the last day he faced Tang Mun-gil, he saw the killing intent in the man’s eyes. To the head of the Tang clan, the simplest resolution would be to kill an outer branch relative who had brought shame to the family name.

Though known as a man of strong familial loyalty, Tang Mun-gil had cast Seoak out of his protection. Seoak had no doubt.

“So, in the end, this was your intent.”

Seoak lowered his eyes without denial.

Better to face judgment under the rules of the Martial Alliance than be butchered by the Tang clan’s own ways.

Even now, when all was lost, Seoak longed to live. He wished desperately to survive, however disgraceful, for only then might he make further designs.

Namgung Un took the man who had come on his own feet, and departed Sichuan. Though Tang clan warriors shadowed him, threatening through the skies, Namgung Un pressed onward with composure until they passed safely beyond Chengdu.

Their destination was Wuchang City in Hubei, where the Martial Alliance was headquartered. For this they needed to cross the Yangtze River.

Bound with red ropes, his acupoints sealed, Seoak sat dejected, staring at the mist rising from the river reeds. One by one, the choices of his past surfaced and sank into the waters.

No matter how he wracked his brain, he could not imagine escape from this fate. Thoughts of whether he could ever restore his reputation, or return to the Tang clan, suffocated him with heaviness.

Inevitably, his memory returned to the woman he had met once upon a time on the Yangtze. Then, as but a lowly Tang clan warrior, he had thought it fortune.

But now, in hindsight, he knew it to be the curse of a lifetime.

“At that time… I should have killed her properly.”

Allowing his weakness to stay his hand, cutting off only her arms, had been the mistake of a lifetime.

Seoak now persuaded himself that his failures lay with others, not within himself. For otherwise, he would collapse under the unbearable weight of all his past choices, drowning in regret and ruin.

Bit by bit, he cut away what was once human within him.

“Young Master, I sense movement.”

The senior retainer fell silent, whispering cautiously. But Namgung Un’s gaze was already fixed in the direction of the sound.

At such a late hour, the sound of festive music was out of place, yet it grew steadily nearer.

Not one voice, but many, singing merrily as they walked.

Through the river mist emerged a boisterous bridal procession. Bright red silks adorned it, yet beneath lay a morbid air, like a tale of spirits stepping loose into the world.

The bride was mounted on horseback, not riding in a bridal palanquin. Namgung Un, struck with recognition, realized it was the same bride he had met on the day of ransoming Master Mun.

Noticing him, the bride drew her reins, approaching slowly.

“Have you not yet met your groom?”

At his question, she smiled, lifting a wooden plaque.

“Yes. That is why I have come to fetch the groom.”

***