Chapter 60
Part 10: Descendant of the Hegemon
As the Medicine King stepped through the main gate of Wongakjeong, he spotted the Fourth Young Master and his subordinates coming down the forest path.
"Grandpa Medicine King!"
The Fourth Young Master ran over with a smile and threw himself into his arms.
"Oof, you little rascal. Acting like a child when you're already so grown. You'll break this old man's back."
Contrary to his words, the Medicine King, who was unbelievably hale and hearty, lifted the Fourth Young Master right up and hugged him.
"But are you leaving already? You're not going to 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, "Of course I'd like to, but all of a sudden I have so much to do. I'm sorry."
The Medicine King stroked the Fourth Young Master's head.
"Yes, yes. Then next time, come to see this old man instead of that damned disciple of mine. Understand?"
The Fourth Young Master laughed brightly.
"Haha, Grandpa Medicine King. That's not a very funny joke."
"…No, it wasn't a joke."
The Medicine King muttered, but the Fourth Young Master had already reached the main gate.
"Then, Grandpa Medicine King! I'll see you again next time!"
The Medicine King laughed heartily and waved him off.
He watched as all of the Fourth Young Master's subordinates, who had respectfully offered their greetings, passed through the main gate.
"Well, well."
He shook his head from side to side.
"That rascal Sang-hyeon must have stirred him up."
He rubbed the goosebumps rising on his forearms.
"He is so full of drive that even killing intent is overflowing from him. Blood really never lies."
He began strolling back down the forest path.
"Then I suppose I should put in a bit more effort too."
***
The Fourth Young Master walked down a dark corridor.
The sun had long since set, but not even a single oil lamp could be found in that corridor.
Nor could any maids or servant girls be seen.
It was a space entirely devoid of any sign of human presence.
If not for the floor without a speck of dust and the splendid interior decorations faintly revealed even in the darkness, it would have been easy to mistake the place for a ruin.
With courteous steps, the Fourth Young Master reached the end of the corridor.
"This young one is Bi."
There was not a trace of warmth, and when he opened his mouth, white breath escaped.
"Mother."
Then a woman's voice came from beyond the papered door.
"Come in."
It was a voice in which no warmth could be felt.
Normally, a maid would have opened and closed the door as a matter of course, but in the residence of the Tang Retired Supreme Lady, there were no maids or servant girls.
"Then this young one shall enter, Mother."
The Fourth Young Master stepped inside and felt a chill even colder than the outside, where the north wind blew.
He went no farther and knelt near the closed door.
"There is vitality in your face. Did something good happen?"
What had appeared to the Medicine King as killing intent seemed to appear to the Tang Retired Supreme Lady as vitality.
"Yes, Mother. Eldest Brother has finally set his mind and decided to end his seclusion."
There was no answer.
But the Fourth Young Master said all that he had come to say.
"And so, this young one also intends to begin moving in earnest."
Still, there was no answer.
The Fourth Young Master remained prostrated with his hands respectfully gathered, waiting for his mother's words.
After a long time passed, the voice of the Tang Retired Supreme Lady came from within the darkness.
"…That child, Sang-hyeon, has decided to become the Young Clan Lord?"
Her voice contained faint, yet unmistakable surprise and shock.
The Fourth Young Master was also startled by his mother's voice.
However, the boy worked hard not to show it and answered calmly.
"Yes, that is so. From now on, this young one intends to do his utmost to support Eldest Brother's nomination as Young Clan Lord."
Silence fell once again.
The Fourth Young Master watched the white breath escaping from his mouth and waited for his mother's words.
"…Will you be able to assist that child well?"
The Fourth Young Master gave a bitter smile.
"This young one knows well that Eldest Brother is like a great roc, while this young one is but a mere kingfisher, but…"
The Tang Retired Supreme Lady cut him off.
"That is not what I meant, Bi."
Bi was the Fourth Young Master's childhood name.
The Fourth Young Master bowed his head deeply.
"This young one shall listen closely to Mother's words."
His mother asked him, "Bi. You believe that child to be so gentle and good-natured that you have resolved to become his blade and his poison. Is that correct?"
"You have seen through me correctly."
"You have not seen correctly."
The Fourth Young Master lowered his head.
"Please grant me your teaching."
Those who had only seen the Fourth Young Master's usual charming behavior would have found this sight unfamiliar.
A conversation exchanged from a distance in a space filled with nothing but cold air and not a single point of light, in a tone so detached it almost felt cold.
Yet this strange sight was the way this mother and son communicated.
"Bi. Your love for your brother overflows, and because of that, there is something you cannot see."
The Fourth Young Master quietly waited for his mother's words to continue in the darkness.
"Sang-hyeon…"
The voice of the Tang Retired Supreme Lady as she called Yeon Sang-hyeon's name contained faint fragments of emotion tangled together in a complicated knot.
The Fourth Young Master's life experience was too short for him to easily guess what those emotions were.
"That child's life is an unending succession of struggle, and that child's life is like the Asura Realm. On the path he has already walked, corpses have piled up into mountains, and on the path he will walk, blood will form a sea."
The Fourth Young Master could not understand a single thing his mother said.
Was the Eldest Brother he knew truly the same person his mother was speaking of?
"Bi. 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."
Even so, he did 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 firm support to hold up a heart that is breaking apart and scattering."
When his mother's words ended, he bowed his head deeply and answered.
"…This young one shall engrave Mother's words deeply and never forget them."
"Yes. That is enough."
That meant all the time allowed to him was coming to an end.
"Then, this young one shall take his leave."
"Yes. This mother is also busy with what the Medicine King requested of me."
The Fourth Young Master offered a bow with all sincerity toward the direction from which his mother's voice had come.
"Bi."
His mother spoke to her son as he was crossing the threshold.
"If you wish to accomplish great things, you know well that you must first govern your own house properly, do you not?"
It was the needless worry of one who had not properly fulfilled her role as a mother.
A clear smile appeared on the Fourth Young Master's lips.
"Please do not worry. This young one has already begun cleaning."
The Tang Retired Supreme Lady's voice came again.
"Remember what blood you have inherited."
The Fourth Young Master bent his waist deeply in reply and withdrew.
As her son's footsteps faded into the distance, all that remained to the mother was silence and cold.
In that space where no one else was present, the Tang Retired Supreme Lady's soliloquy scattered forlornly.
"…The promise I failed to keep with Sister So-yu. And the promise with him."
The woman's shadow looked up into the empty air.
"I hope that at least you can keep those promises…"
***
An underground space somewhere in the Luoyang Sword Clan.
Sitting in a chair and swinging his feet, the Fourth Young Master asked, "How was it, seeing Eldest Brother in person?"
His Head Maid lowered her head and answered, "I realized that everything I had learned and studied about him was meaningless."
"Right?"
The boy wore a pleased smile and spread both hands wide.
"Now that Eldest Brother has decided to end his seclusion, the seat of Young Clan Lord of the main family is as good as his."
He climbed onto the chair and clapped his hands.
"In that case, what we must do has already been decided."
The eyes of the subordinates gathered there all turned toward him.
The boy bared his teeth and looked down at them.
"On the day Eldest Brother ascends to the seat of Young Clan Lord, the ones standing closest to him will be us!"
Everyone gathered their hands and shouted.
"Loyalty!"
There were no objections, no defiance.
Their voices echoed through the underground space.
Of course, there were also those who could not gather their hands or answer.
The boy lightly jumped down from the chair and approached one of them.
"…What do you think?"
There was a maid there with her face covered.
Seated in a chair, her entire body bound, 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 assisted him all day.
With her face smeared with tears and snot, she pleaded something to him.
"Hm? What was that?"
He removed the gag blocking her mouth.
"Master! Master! It wasn't me! I am innocent! How could I ever dare to do such a thing to you, Master…!"
The Fourth Young Master's dainty finger pressed against her lips.
"It's all right. I know. You have nothing to worry about."
The Fourth Young Master's lips covered her full lips.
She could not understand what was happening, but she did her utmost to respond to him.
Their tongues intertwined, and their saliva mixed.
When the Fourth Young Master pulled his lips away, a silver thread connecting their mouths gleamed.
"Hehe, how cute."
The Fourth Young Master stroked her charming face.
"Master. I…!"
Her eyes widened as if they would burst.
Blood vessels bulged, then burst with a popping sound, pouring down as tears of blood.
"Kuhuk…?!"
When she coughed, blood poured from her nose and mouth, dirtying the boy's face.
But the boy did not so much as blink. He only stroked her soft cheek.
Her body began to tremble uncontrollably and convulse.
The blood vessels across her entire body stood out blue, and her skin began turning a deep purple.
Soon, her skin melted while giving off yellow smoke, her flesh bubbled and boiled, and beneath it, her skeleton, turning black, was revealed.
And so her once-voluptuous body collapsed, leaving behind only a puddle of strangely colored blood.
The boy breathed in the terrible stench that stabbed at his nose and ordered his subordinates.
"Execute all the spies."
"Loyalty!"
Before the echo had even finished, the heads of those tied to chairs fell, and blood spurted upward.
Among them were servants, maids, stewards, and warriors.
The boy looked around the hall, now 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, they had been left alone in order not to unnecessarily provoke the Second Young Master and Third Young Master.
He climbed onto the chair where the maid had been seated and declared.
"This is a warning to those who have looked down on me until now."
As his mother had instructed, he remembered the blood flowing within him.
"I am the descendant of the most brutal clan that once ruled Sichuan through terror, and I am the legitimate heir of the most renowned house beneath the Imperial Family of the great Central Plains Nation."
It was an awakening, and a rite.
"Now this Sword Clan will no longer be able to ignore our existence!"
A thunderous shout followed, mixed with madness and killing intent.