TSBIRBV Ch 91

Chapter 91 Heaven above, Suzhou–Hangzhou below (3)

“Come take what you’ll eat today.”

Since the one called Disciple Mun had died, Je Haryang walked like a doll, hollowed out.

Still obedient, yet his spirit seemed to wander far away.

Jinpal was displeased that his master had ordered him to keep silent about what was in “it.”

He wanted to see a man living vividly enough to despair vividly. From the moment the demonic physician had said that what Je Haryang held was not despair but the residue of what he could not let go, Jinpal had been unable to endure his curiosity about how the man would look when truly broken.

Today again, Jinpal watched Je Haryang. Even with a master’s orders, the night was absurdly long and dull. Yawning as he leafed through the demonic physician’s writings, Jinpal heard a stir and lifted his head.

Among the sleeping Kunlun disciples, one wriggled up and approached Je Haryang.

He was the one who had cried most when the fellow Je Haryang had struggled to save had died. He also looked the youngest of them and seemed the most fragile emotionally.

While the young Taoist rifled through his breast, the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon did not move.

For the past few days, Je Haryang, upon returning to the cell, had collapsed like a puppet with its string cut and slept. His disciple’s death had driven him to a spiritual brink, and the demonic physician’s experiments had hounded him physically.

Seeing that at this rate the Cloud‑Dragon might not wake, Jinpal was about to act when Je Haryang awoke.

He struck out before he could even see who it was. Pushed to the limit, the palm Je Haryang lashed out reflexively sent the young Kunlun Taoist half‑flying into the wall.

“Cheong‑u… disciple?”

Recognizing who it was, Je Haryang’s lips moved.

“Forgive me. Forgive me.”

After checking the state of this Cheong‑u several times, Je Haryang asked,

“Were you hungry?”

How nauseating must it be? Wasn’t that food, until yesterday, something that had gone into the mouth of the dead?

The Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon had only just regained what was his; no matter how hungry, the sight of a young Taoist snatching what had been awaited—laughable beyond measure.

Jinpal both felt a surge of disgust and elation at the fact that this was the bottom of Kunlun, who strutted as orthodox—only this much.

“Y‑yes. Yes.”

Pale, the young Kunlun Taoist nodded. Even as he watched Je Haryang’s face, he hid the rice ball behind his back.

“It’s all right. I’m all right, so at least you eat.”

Cheong‑u ate the rice ball with no hesitation.

As if afraid the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon might snatch it, he stole glances at him again and again. Perhaps to ease the young disciple’s mind, Je Haryang turned his body and forced his eyes shut.

“Why aren’t the others waking?”

With this much commotion, someone should have stirred. Suddenly, Jinpal realized his master must have had a hand in this.

Had he tipped off the young Taoist that there would be food in the Cloud‑Dragon’s breast? Or—

“In any case, such a sly one.”

Jinpal clicked his tongue.

From that night on, the Kunlun disciple, Cheong‑u, rifled through his senior brother’s breast every day.

“Disciple Cheong‑u. You don’t need to sneak food—here it is…”

The Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon was endlessly indulgent with the thief.

Watching him give away what was precious without stint, Jinpal clicked his tongue.

“Don’t eat it. You mustn’t eat it…”

Cheong‑u’s mind had grown markedly unstable of late.

Having to some extent completed the experiments he wanted, the demonic physician had forced all the Kunlun disciples—save Je Haryang—to learn demonic cultivation.

“Starve them until they memorized the mnemonic formula; after they’d done so, inject into them the inner force of one who had forcibly learned demonic cultivation.”

He had said it was to observe how the inner force honed by Kunlun’s orthodox training would clash with demonic cultivation.

Some tried to bite their tongues, but no one so skilled at handling people as the demonic physician would let them slip so easily.

Some exploded and died as demonic cultivation clashed with the qi they had built in Kunlun. Cleaning up chunks of flesh and erasing the smell of blood, they even had to move the prisoners’ quarters. By chance, Je Haryang and that disciple named Cheong‑u ended up in the same room.

It was surely the master’s working.

“It’s all right. It’s all right…”

The Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon patted his disciple’s back a few times, then shut his eyes and turned away. He did not give it from the start because, when he did not steal it, that disciple became especially anxious.

“Um, s‑senior brother.”

Cheong‑u called to Je Haryang, but he did not turn.

“Truly, I… that is… there is a reason. Senior brother.”

“I know. You must have been hungry.”

The Cloud‑Dragon murmured the words that had now become habit.

“It’s all right. It’s all right.”

Jinpal watched quietly, a calm before the storm. And in the end, the incident came.

The young Taoist named Cheong‑u was found dead with his head driven into the cell wall.

The Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon, who had gone back earlier than Jinpal, was howling.

On the wall was written, in blood, a message:

“Though you may not believe me, this junior did not covet senior brother’s meals out of gluttony.

I overheard what the demonic physician said.

Since the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon does not break easily, he would lace the food with drugs.

Check daily if he has eaten; if any remains, force him to eat.”

From that line, Jinpal understood what move the master had played.

Truly a vicious man. With no talent at all for martial arts, yet to have won the Lord’s trust—he was as befit him.

“I was afraid.

But I could not endure that they would seek to humiliate senior brother.

So I was always hungry.”

At the same time, Jinpal was afraid.

Because he knew that, to the demonic physician, he was not much different from that Kunlun disciple who had just died with his head against the wall.

“I miss my master. I long for my mother.

Now even I can see Kunlun.

I do not know how long I can remain whole and myself.”

“I can see Kunlun,” was it.

Jinpal recalled what the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon’s fellow, who had died first, had said.

“Senior brother is a beam of Kunlun; please take care of yourself and forgive this weak disciple who cannot overcome demonic cultivation.”

Broken utterly, Je Haryang could not rise for a time. Taking in the sight, slowly, like a pine clinging to a cliff’s edge now snapped pitilessly, Jinpal wondered quietly.

Had the master drawn the sketch expecting it to come even to this?

A mere ordinary man, he could not possibly know the master’s true intent.

On the day the fire of the Hell‑Prison was transplanted into the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon’s body, Jinpal was summoned and went to his master.

Before the demonic physician sat one of the Kunlun adherents. Though his limbs were free, he surrendered his body without resistance, muttering over and over,

“Hungry… I’m hungry.”

“Are you hungry?”

The master lifted the Kunlun adherent’s chin and asked.

“Though you received the Heavenly Demon’s grace, since you cannot swallow properly, you must be starving.”

The demonic cultivation injected into him gave rapid progress in exchange for hunger. It had been selected for its relative stability—as far as demonic cultivation went. That the dull orthodox fools, ignorant of deep intent and arrangement, would be its beneficiaries stirred in Jinpal even a faint pity.

The Taoist, who had gone days without food, gazed hollow‑eyed at the demonic physician.

“I—I want to do well. I’m hungry. No—hungry.”

“You are not as obedient as the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon—why should I trust you with food?”

At the master’s question, the man only sobbed silently. Leaving him to snivel for a long time, the demonic physician gestured to Jinpal.

As he approached, the master asked him,

“How fares the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon?”

“He is holding out comparatively well.”

“A test subject with such sinew will be hard to find again; keep him breathing by any means.”

Over his master’s shoulder, Jinpal saw a strange light rise in the eyes of the man who had been mumbling “hungry.”

“By your command.”

The demonic physician, who had sown the seed of turmoil, smiled with the mildest face imaginable.

Guessing his master’s intent, Jinpal rushed out and hurried to the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon. Unlike the first time he’d seen him, the man looked much diminished.

“Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon.”

Je Haryang, who had been about to pass by, halted at Jinpal’s call.

“Come take what you’ll eat.”

The way he stopped, stock‑still, was much as it had been the first day.

Neater than the others, noble to the core—only his eyes, once always black and muffled, were now bloodshot red.

“Did you… did you know?”

Having asked, Je Haryang gave a short, bitter laugh—as if he found himself ridiculous. The sneer suited his pallor with something faintly chilling.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Jinpal smiled, curling his lip. If he didn’t at least pretend to be bold, it felt as if the red flames nested in the Kunlun Cloud‑Dragon’s depths would devour him.

“…Did you know it would come to this?”

Stubbornly, the man repeated the question.

“Why—did someone snatch what I gave you to eat?”

Jinpal jeered. He did not want to admit that he had been, even for a moment, overborne by a mere prisoner.

“If so, I must inform my master and have those who coveted your food beaten.”

Je Haryang was silent; Jinpal proffered the prepared rice ball.

He asked, one last time,

“Do I have the right to refuse?”

“Will a mere prisoner dare refuse a grace bestowed by the Sun and Moon Divine Cult?”

“Then tear me into a thousand, ten thousand pieces instead.”

“Well now,” Jinpal whispered.

“You already seem quite in pieces.”

Je Haryang held out his hand without a word. As Jinpal set the bamboo‑wrapped rice ball upon his palm, the tension that had bristled down his spine ebbed, replaced by a sadistic thrill.

Let him be angry, let him despair—he could not lift a finger against Jinpal. This was the heart of the Sun and Moon Divine Cult, and the whelp had had his reverse scale torn out.

After a second prisoner was found dead with his head against the wall, the Kunlun captives were gathered again into a single cell—for easier watch.

Among those who flopped like fainted bodies, one moved and stopped before Je Haryang.

Late at night, Je Haryang woke to his disciple’s hands, frantically rifling over him where he lay.

From past experience, Je Haryang did not strike out, but asked calmly,

“Disciple, what is this?”

But the other was no longer in a state where conversation was possible.

“Now—now it’s my turn, isn’t it?”