Chapter 60
Part 10: Descendant of the Overlord
As the Medicine King entered the gate of Wongakjeong, he saw the Fourth Young Master and his subordinates coming out along the forest path.
“Grandfather Medicine King!”
The Fourth Young Master ran over with a smile and hugged him.
“Goodness, you brat. You are all grown up, yet you still act like a child. This old man’s back will break.”
Contrary to his words, the Medicine King, who was so hale and hearty that it was hard to believe, lifted the Fourth Young Master up with ease and embraced him.
“But are you leaving already? You will not stay and play with this old man a little longer?”
The Fourth Young Master hopped down from the Medicine King’s arms.
With an innocent smile, the boy said,
“I would, of course, like to do that too, but suddenly there is so much I must do. I am sorry.”
The Medicine King stroked the Fourth Young Master’s head.
“I see, I see. Then next time, come to see this old man instead of that damned disciple of mine. Understand?”
The Fourth Young Master laughed brightly.
“Haha, Grandfather Medicine King, that is not a very funny joke.”
“…No, it was not a joke.”
The Medicine King muttered, but the Fourth Young Master had already reached the gate.
“Well then, Grandfather Medicine King! I will see you again next time!”
The Medicine King chuckled and waved his hand.
He watched as all of the Fourth Young Master’s subordinates, who had respectfully greeted him, passed through the gate.
“Well, now.”
He shook his head.
“There is no doubt that that brat Sang-hyeon has stirred up a storm.”
He rubbed the goosebumps rising on his arms.
“He is so full of spirit that killing intent is overflowing from him. As expected, blood does not lie.”
He began strolling along the forest path again.
“Then I suppose I should put in a little more effort as well.”
There was not a trace of warmth in the air, and when he opened his mouth, white breath escaped.
“Mother.”
***
The Fourth Young Master walked down a dim corridor.
The sun had long since set, but in that corridor, not even a single common oil lamp could be found.
There were no maids or servant girls to be seen either.
It was a space utterly devoid of any human presence.
If not for the floor without a speck of dust and the splendid interior decorations faintly revealing themselves even in the darkness, it would have been easy to mistake the place for a ruin.
The Fourth Young Master reached the end of the corridor with courteous steps.
“This humble son, Bi, has come.”
Then a woman’s voice came from beyond the papered door.
“Enter.”
It was a voice in which not a trace of warmth could be felt.
Ordinarily, a maid would naturally have opened and closed the door for him, but in the quarters of the Grand Madam of the Tang household, there were neither maids nor servant girls.
“Then this humble son shall enter, Mother.”
When the Fourth Young Master stepped inside, he felt a cold deeper than the chill outside where the northern wind blew.
He did not approach any farther and knelt near the closed door.
“There is vitality in your face. Did something good happen?”
What had seemed like killing intent to the Medicine King appeared as vitality to the Grand Madam of the Tang household.
“Yes, Mother. Elder Brother has finally made up his mind and decided to end his seclusion.”
There was no answer.
But the Fourth Young Master said everything he had come to say.
“And so this humble son also intends to begin moving in earnest.”
Again, there was no answer.
The Fourth Young Master respectfully placed his hands together and bowed low, waiting for his mother’s words.
After a long time passed, the Grand Madam of the Tang household’s voice came from within the darkness.
“…That child, Sang-hyeon, has made up his mind to become the Young Patriarch?”
There was faint surprise and shock in that voice.
The Fourth Young Master was also startled by his mother’s tone.
But the boy carefully showed no sign of it and answered calmly.
“Yes, that is so. From now on, this humble son intends to do his utmost to support Elder Brother as the Young Patriarch.”
Silence fell again.
The Fourth Young Master watched the white breath escape from his own mouth and waited for his mother’s words.
“…Can you support that child properly?”
The Fourth Young Master gave a bitter smile.
“This humble son knows well that Elder Brother is someone like a great roc, while I am merely a small bird, but…”
The Grand Madam of the Tang household cut off his words.
“That is not what I mean, Bi-ah.”
Bi-ah was the Fourth Young Master’s childhood name.
The Fourth Young Master bowed his head deeply.
“This humble son shall listen carefully to Mother’s words.”
His mother asked him,
“Bi-ah. You believe that child’s nature is so gentle and kind that you have resolved to become his blade and his poison. Is that not so?”
“You have seen correctly.”
“You have not seen correctly.”
The Fourth Young Master lowered his head.
“Please teach me.”
Those who had usually seen the Fourth Young Master’s charming and playful manner would have found this side of him unfamiliar.
A conversation exchanged from a distance, in a space filled only with cold and not a single point of light, in tones that felt almost chillingly detached.
Yet this strange scene was the unique way this mother and son communicated.
“Bi-ah. Your heart is so full of love for your elder brother that, instead, there are things you fail to see.”
The Fourth Young Master quietly waited in the darkness for his mother’s next words.
“Sang-hyeon…”
In the Grand Madam of the Tang household’s voice as she called Yeon Sang-hyeon’s name, faint fragments of emotion were tangled together in a complicated knot.
Because the Fourth Young Master had little experience in life, he could not easily guess what those emotions were.
“That child’s life is an endless succession of struggles, and that child’s life is like the Asura Path. ‘On the path that child has already walked, corpses have formed mountains,’ and on the path that child will walk, blood will form seas.”
The Fourth Young Master could not understand a single thing his mother was saying.
Was the elder brother he knew and the person his mother spoke of truly the same individual?
“Bi-ah. That child does not need a blade, nor does he need poison. He himself is already the sharpest sword, and he himself is already the deadliest poison.”
But he tried his utmost to remember his mother’s words.
That was his filial piety, and his trust in his mother.
“What that child needs is a sturdy support to hold up his heart as it breaks and scatters.”
When his mother’s words ended, he bowed his head deeply and replied,
“…This humble son shall engrave Mother’s words deeply and never forget them.”
“Yes. That is enough.”
That meant all the time granted to him had come to an end.
“Then this humble son shall take his leave.”
“Yes. This mother is also busy with the matter the Medicine King requested of me.”
The Fourth Young Master bowed with complete sincerity toward the direction from which his mother’s voice had come.
“Bi-ah.”
His mother spoke to him as he was crossing the threshold.
“If you intend to accomplish great things, you know well that you must first govern your own household properly, do you not?”
It was the worry of a mother who had not properly fulfilled her role as a mother.
A clear smile appeared on the Fourth Young Master’s lips.
“Do not worry. This humble son has already begun cleaning.”
The Grand Madam of the Tang household’s voice was heard again.
“Remember what blood you have inherited.”
The Fourth Young Master bowed deeply in response and withdrew.
Once her son’s footsteps faded into the distance, all that remained to the mother was silence and cold.
In that empty space with no one present, the Grand Madam of the Tang household’s soliloquy flowed out sorrowfully.
“…The promise I could not keep with Sister Soyu, and the promise I made with him.”
The woman’s shadow looked up into the empty air.
“I hope that at least you can keep those promises…”
***
Somewhere underground in the Luoyang Sword Clan.
Sitting on a chair and swinging his feet, the Fourth Young Master asked,
“How was it, seeing Elder Brother in person?”
His head maid bowed her head and answered,
“I realized that everything I had learned and studied about him was meaningless.”
“Is that not so?”
The boy smiled happily and spread both hands wide.
“Now that Elder Brother has decided to end his seclusion, the position of Young Patriarch of the main house is as good as his.”
He climbed onto the chair and clapped his hands.
“Then what we must do has been decided.”
The gazes of the subordinates gathered there focused on him.
The boy revealed his teeth and looked down at them.
“On the day Elder Brother ascends to the position of Young Patriarch, we will be the ones standing closest to him!”
Everyone clasped their hands together and shouted,
“Loyalty!”
There was no objection, and no insubordination.
Their voices echoed through the underground space.
Of course, there were also those who could neither clasp their hands nor answer.
The boy lightly hopped down from the chair and approached one of them.
“…What do you think?”
There was a maid there, her face covered.
Seated on a chair and bound from head to toe, she twisted her body and shouted something, but because of the gag in her mouth, its meaning could not be understood.
“Yes, yes. You agree with me too.”
The Fourth Young Master personally removed the hood covering her face.
The one whose face was revealed was the plump maid who had attended him all day.
With a face smeared with tears and snot, she appealed to him about something.
“Hm? What did you say?”
He removed the gag blocking her mouth.
“Master! Master! It was not me! I am innocent! How could I ever dare to betray you, Master…!”
The Fourth Young Master’s playful finger pressed against her lips.
“It is all right. I know, so you have nothing to worry about.”
The Fourth Young Master’s lips covered her plump lips.
She did not understand what was happening, but she did her utmost to respond to him.
Their tongues tangled, and their saliva mixed.
When the Fourth Young Master pulled his lips away, a silver thread stretched and shone between their mouths.
“Hehe. How adorable.”
The Fourth Young Master stroked her charming face.
“Master, I…”
Her eyes grew so wide they seemed about to burst.
The tiny blood vessels reddened, then burst with a popping sound, pouring down as tears of blood.
“Guhk…?!”
When she coughed, blood spilled from her nose and mouth, dirtying the boy’s face.
But the boy did not even blink and merely stroked her soft cheek.
Her body began trembling uncontrollably and fell into convulsions.
The veins throughout her entire body bulged blue, and her skin turned a deep purple.
At last, her skin melted while giving off yellow smoke, her flesh bubbled and boiled, and beneath it, her bones—turning black—were exposed.
In that way, her voluptuous body collapsed, leaving behind only a lump of blood of a strange color.
Smelling the terrible stench that stabbed at his nose, the boy ordered his subordinates,
“Execute all the spies.”
“Loyalty!”
Before the echo had even ended, the heads of those bound to chairs fell, and blood surged upward.
Among them were servants, maids, stewards, and warriors.
The boy looked around the hall that had become a sea of blood and smiled brightly.
“Now that we have decided to step forward in earnest, we cannot leave the rats alive.”
Until now, he had left them alone to avoid unnecessarily provoking the Second Young Master and the Third Young Master.
He climbed onto the chair where the maid had been sitting and declared,
“This is a warning to all those who have looked down on me until now.”
As his mother had advised, he was remembering the blood that flowed within him.
“I am the descendant of the most ruthless family that once ruled Sichuan through terror, and I am the legitimate bloodline of the most renowned house beneath the Imperial Court of the great Central Plains.”
It was an awakening, and a return to his rightful place.
“Now this Sword Clan will no longer be able to ignore our existence!”
A thunderous roar mixed with madness and killing intent followed.