Chapter 41

Part 16: Heavenly Slaughter Star 

[This child was born under the Heavenly Slaughter Star.]

It was like a bolt from the blue.

[No matter what anyone says, his fate has already been decided.]

It was an unavoidable sentence.

[This child’s life will surely become a path of piling mountains with corpses and making seas with blood.]

It was a story far too terrible.

Those words, spoken to the mother by the old woman who had served as the midwife, tore the mother’s heart apart.

[You must make a decision.]

In the old woman’s eyes dwelled an unmistakable mysterious profundity.

She was no ordinary person.

The old woman’s hands were covered in sorcerous tattoos engraved in a foreign language.

‘It is not Sanskrit, and it is a language even I do not know.’

Yeon Sang-hyeon thought.

[…Do you already believe that I must kill the child?]

The mother was a beauty enough to shame the moon.

She possessed such graceful beauty that it was difficult to believe she had just given birth to a child.

However, her complexion was terribly dark.

Right now, she was being urged to kill her own child.

[…He must be killed.]

The old woman hesitated as she examined her complexion, but in the end, she spoke in a resolute tone.

[Even for the sake of the world.]

It was not a matter in which personal feelings could come first.

[My child…]

The mother looked at the baby.

Tears brimmed in her beautiful eyes, which could be called phoenix eyes.

‘Must I die…?’

Sang-hyeon asked.

‘…Because I was born under the Heavenly Slaughter Star?’

But his voice did not reach them.

After agonizing over it again and again, the mother opened her mouth.

Tears were flowing down her cheeks, but she was filled with a dignity no one dared to approach.

[This is an order.]

Her solemn gaze turned toward the old woman.

[Find a way to let this child live.]

The old woman bowed her head deeply and received the command.

She had to accomplish whatever her master desired.

The sorceries she had learned over more than a hundred years flashed through her mind.

[I will… raise this child with my own hands and make certain he grows into an upright and kind child.]

‘Mother, who said those words, left my side far too early.’

Sang-hyeon said.

But they still could not hear his voice.

Because this was a dream.

A dream that had long lain asleep within his unconscious.

A memory he had forgotten until now.

***

Before he knew it, the background had changed, and the scene moved on.

[Young Master must not kill a person, no matter what happens.]

The old woman said in an earnest tone.

[If that happens, all the sorcery I have placed upon you will shatter and collapse, and Young Master’s fate will once again fall beneath the Heavenly Slaughter Star.]

The old woman, whose face had already been full of wrinkles, seemed to have aged several decades in only those few years.

It was a sight that plainly showed just how much spiritual power had been consumed for the sorcery capable of deceiving the Heavenly Slaughter Star.

[You need not worry.]

Yeon Sang-hyeon’s mother smiled brightly.

[This child will become a man of letters. He is only two years old, but he already holds books in his hands and refuses to put them down. He is an astonishingly intelligent child.]

Through the crack in the door, young Yeon Sang-hyeon could be seen lying on his stomach and reading a book.

The old woman looked at him with gentle eyes for a moment.

But soon, she could only look at her master with pity.

[My lady… I am an old woman who has devoted everything to you, so I do not mind dying at any time. If I die for your will, then that is a great blessing. Even if I were to die hundreds of times, I would die gladly.]

The old woman’s voice trembled.

[But you, my lady…]

Sang-hyeon’s mother smiled beautifully.

Yet for some reason, there was not much vitality in her face.

[How much time do I have left?]

Dew formed at the corners of the old woman’s wrinkled eyes.

The thin, bent body of the old woman trembled.

[There was no need to use even your life as the price for the great art.]

Anger colored the old woman’s voice.

[If we had merely used the lives of worthless things, the lives of dregs who only gnaw away at the world, then you, my lady…!]

Yeon Sang-hyeon’s mother firmly shook her head.

[I cannot use another person’s life as the price to save my child.]

[But if you had taken the lives of those who treat other people’s lives carelessly, then even Heaven would not have dared to blame you!]

[Even if Heaven forgave it, I could not accept it. That would be shameful.]

The old woman sighed and prostrated herself on the floor to show respect.

The old woman’s master was firmer than anyone, and she possessed boundless goodness.

That was why the old woman, who had feared no one in her life, had devoted the rest of her remaining years to serving her.

[…Then how much of my life remains?]

The old woman did not raise her head.

Her tears fell onto the marble floor, leaving stains.

[…It will be difficult for you to live beyond two more years.]

Sang-hyeon’s mother slowly approached and embraced the old woman.

[That child will never harm people. Our Sang-hyeon’s fate will be protected at the price of my life. A mere star in the sky cannot control Sang-hyeon’s destiny.]

The old woman sobbed.

[Young Master will grow into a truly magnificent person. Surely, surely, he will become a great scholar.]

***

The child grew up healthily.

He grew into a child who respected life, cherished people, and loved nature.

With his mind, he thought of what was right, and with his mouth, he spoke good words.

He was so clever that he even helped his mother save the lives of countless people.

But in the end, that day came.

[Sang-hyeon, my Sang-hyeon, will you listen to one last request from your mother…?]

Young Sang-hyeon lay beside his mother and held back his tears.

[…Of course, Mother.]

Since Heaven’s will was stern, Yeon Sang-hyeon’s mother should not have lived beyond two years. Yet she displayed a will to live that was almost superhuman.

It was all for the sake of her child.

It was so that her child might grow up properly, even if only a little more.

But even that had a clear limit.

Now, she was preparing to meet her end.

[From now on, you…]

Could she, as a mother, dare tell a child who had to inherit the Sword Clan that he must never hold a sword?

Or should she tell him that he must never kill a person, and that he should continue living only as his mother had taught him?

Would that be a good last will?

She closed her mouth.

Instead, she looked at her one and only beloved child.

Her gaze as she looked at young Yeon Sang-hyeon, who was tightly holding his mother’s hand in his small one, was filled with affection.

The eyes of the Yeon Sang-hyeon she saw looked exactly like her own.

Within those large, sparkling eyes, there was only a gentle and warm energy.

What advice did this child need?

Her son was growing exactly as she had so dearly wished.

He was a child as clean and clear as dew on a blade of grass at dawn.

Sang-hyeon .

Just like his name, he was a bright and wise child.

Feeling an ache spread through her chest, she smiled as brightly as she could.

[…It is enough. Mother only wanted to say this to you.]

Squeezing out her final breath, she hugged Sang-hyeon tightly.

[Mother truly loves our Sang-hyeon.]

Then she breathed her last.

Tears burst from young Sang-hyeon’s eyes.

The clan was filled with the wails of those who grieved her death.

Everyone in Luoyang mourned.

There was no one living in Luoyang who had not received her grace.

Every person in the Central Plains who had heard her name even once grieved.

Even among those who did not know her name, there were countless people who owed her their lives, and none of them failed to know her epithet.

Yak So-yu.

At the age of twenty-seven,

she appeared in the world as a descendant of the Medicine Immortal.

She created medicines that were highly effective against the three most terrible plagues spreading at the time, and she publicly revealed their preparation methods without hiding them.

Those preparation methods used only common medicinal ingredients that could be found in fields and mountains, allowing even the poorest people to obtain the medicine.

The medical texts she organized and published during her lifetime alone numbered twenty-five sets, amounting to more than a hundred volumes.

Regardless of wealth or poverty, noble or lowly birth, or the height of one’s status, she accepted as disciples only those who had talent and conviction.

Thus, she taught countless disciples and sent them into the world to care for the unclothed and starving common people.

Her name rose as high as the imperial palace, and though the imperial family repeatedly requested that she enter as an imperial physician, she refused and remained by the side of the common people.

The number of people she had saved and aided throughout her life could not even be counted one by one.

Thus, the people praised and worshiped her, calling her Kṣitigarbha Bodhisattva, while some even said she was the manifestation of the Medicine Tathāgata.

A virtuous person unlike any other in the world departed from this realm just like that.

Everyone said that Heaven had needed her and taken her away early.

In her honor, the imperial family had shrines built throughout the entire Central Plains, so wherever one went, one could see a shrine that enshrined her.

Every year on the first day of the first lunar month, the people formed lines before the shrines to pray for their families’ health.

***

Yeon Sang-hyeon, who had been watching that sight from afar, resumed walking along his path.

Suddenly, something caught on his foot, and he looked down.

What broke with a cracking sound was nothing other than a human bone.

And that was not the only bone buried in the ground.

The entire path he walked was made of white bones.

He raised his head and looked around.

Corpses that had not yet even rotted formed mountains, and in the distance, blood flowed in rivers.

The sky was dyed red, yet the sun could not be seen, and only wind like blades battered him.

He looked down at his hands.

They were hands stained with blood.

It was not the blood of only one or two people.

Blood flowed and flowed, soaking the ground.

Perhaps the river of blood flowing in the distance had begun from his hands.

He began walking again.

Now, there was no longer any path by which he could turn back.

All he could do was continue walking the path he had begun to walk.

That path was one no one walked.

It was a path no one dared to walk.

[I will… raise this child with my own hands and make certain he grows into an upright and kind child.]

He had already died once.

Then he had been revived by The Ruler Of Darkness.

The great art his mother had performed by staking her own life had already been broken in vain.

[Mother…]

The end of that path could not be seen.

And his steps did not stop.

Now, no one would be able to stop his footsteps.

[Mother, I am sorry.]

He advanced through the wind that seemed sharp enough to cut flesh.

The sound of the wind sounded like the wailing of ghosts.

Swept away by the bitterly cold north wind, that whispered apology soon vanished without a trace.