After meeting my father, I went straight to the Medical Devil’s clinic.
He happened to be treating a critically ill patient. The patient must have been badly injured, for the entire area was awash in blood. The first scent I had noticed upon my return had been the metallic smell of the Iron Workshop; the next was the smell of blood.
“Is there anything I can help you with?”
“I’m fine.”
I stood at a distance and watched him work. Covered in blood, the Medical Devil was doing everything in his power to save the patient’s life.
Whether it was the Iron Workshop’s Master Guo or the Medical Devil, people who had reached the pinnacle of their respective fields gave off a similar feeling. Their determination and concentration, their resolve to save a life no matter what, resembled Master Guo’s when he was determined to forge a fine sword.
At last, the Medical Devil finished the treatment that had felt like an entire battle and walked over to me.
“Have you been waiting long?”
“Not at all. Is it really all right for me to watch the miracle of a dying man coming back to life for free?”
“He was going to live anyway.”
After going to so much trouble to save him, how could that be true? It was the good fortune of having the Medical Devil as his physician that had saved his life.
The Medical Devil washed his hands and face with water he had drawn in the corner of the clinic. Seeing his painfully thin arms made me feel sorry for him.
“I’m sorry I haven’t visited more often, using my busy schedule as an excuse.”
“Don’t be. Seeing you once in a while is enough. I’ve been hearing plenty about you. Every time I do, you make me grateful that I chose correctly.”
“It’s all thanks to you, Medical Immortal.”
“How are your eyes?”
“No problem at all. If anything, I can see too well.”
“That’s a relief.”
Once I had made up my mind to kill Yelu Han, I wanted to see him.
One reason I had come to the Medical Devil was to gather my courage after hearing my father’s words—“Absolutely impossible.” If I followed my heart, I would tell him that I intended to kill Yelu Han starting now, but that was something I had to do only after receiving my father’s permission.
“Since you’ve come all this way, have a cup of tea before you go.”
“Gladly.”
I talked with the Medical Devil about this and that. I had wanted to tell him everything I had been unable to mention until now, but another patient arrived, and I had no choice but to leave.
“I’ll come visit again.”
“You’re busy. There’s no need.”
I would definitely come back soon.
* * *
The next person I went to see was the Blood Heaven Blade Demon.
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon had planted the Blood Heaven Great Saber in the courtyard and was sitting with his back against it, practicing qi circulation. The heat of his training still lingered in the air around him. Even while I had gone out to fool around with the Fist Demon, the Blood Heaven Blade Demon had never stopped training in martial arts.
“Elder! I’m back.”
In contrast to my cheerful greeting, as though I had returned home in glory, the Blood Heaven Blade Demon received it with the same indifference he might have shown someone he had seen the day before.
“If you’ve returned from a long journey, you should rest. Why have you come here?”
“Why do you think? No matter who else I might neglect, I have to come greet you. And there are some things I need to report, too.”
“What report?”
I sat down opposite the Blood Heaven Blade Demon.
“I have become the Fist Demon’s disciple.”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon glanced at me but said nothing.
“What is this utterly unenthusiastic reaction?”
“What kind of reaction were you expecting?”
“You became someone’s disciple without asking my permission? You should have shouted in anger. Or said, ‘If you’re going to become a disciple, you should become mine.’ Or gotten jealous.”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon then said something unexpected.
“There is no Demon Venerable other than the Fist Demon who would take you as a disciple.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Personality-wise.”
“What about you, Elder?”
“I like disciples like Daeryong. Disciples I can work as hard as I please and teach.”
“Ah! Poor Inspector Seo.”
“That’s the price he pays for grabbing another man by the trouser leg.”
He was referring to the beginning of their master-and-disciple relationship, when Seo Daeryong had gotten drunk at the Pleasure Tavern and grabbed the Blood Heaven Blade Demon by the trouser leg.
Of course, I knew that despite talking like that, the Blood Heaven Blade Demon cared deeply for Seo Daeryong. Otherwise, he would not have chosen him as the next Blood Heaven Blade Demon.
“If I took you as my disciple, I’d develop a stress-induced illness in less than a month.”
“I can’t deny that.”
“On the other hand, the Fist Demon wouldn’t.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he has no intention of driving anyone hard in the first place. If the Cult Leader and I are fire, he is water.”
I had thought the Fist Demon was fire, like my father, but the Blood Heaven Blade Demon saw him as water. Perhaps he was right. Maybe being fire and water was precisely why he got along so well with my father.
“To be honest, I was worried you might feel hurt.”
“Worried that a narrow-minded old man might sulk?”
“Narrow-minded? You simply care about me very deeply.”
“That would have been true before. The me from before I met you would certainly have felt hurt.”
“And now?”
“Now I’ve changed. Because of you.”
“Because of me?”
“Do you think a narrow-minded old man like that could go with you? How can you say such a thing?”
“……!”
I had never dreamed he thought that way.
“After forming a bond with you, I began to look back on myself. You constantly spurred me on. At first, you irritated me. Later, you astonished me. And now, you are making me move.”
“Is your training part of that as well?”
“Yes. I have a feeling that if I keep swaggering around, relying only on the skills I already possess, I’ll be swept away by the wind and rain. You have already begun your ascension.”
When I first met him, he had told me that a dragon ascending to the heavens was bringing wind and rain with it. At the time, he had meant it as a metaphor. Now, those words had become reality.
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon gazed at me with a serious look in his eyes, and I did not make some flippant remark about being a loach as I had in the past. His words were right. If we swaggered around relying on what we could already do, we would all die.
That was why we had to keep moving forward.
“I’ll use the first of the thirty-three requests I can make of you.”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon blinked and asked,
“Thirty-three requests? Did we ever make such an arrangement?”
“Of course not. I decided it myself because I think I’ll need your help thirty-three times over the course of my life. Before you grant all thirty-three requests, you’re not even allowed to catch a cold. Understood?”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon gave a helpless little snort of laughter. It was a selfish demand, but it also contained my wish for him to live a long life.
“What is your request?”
“Please persuade my father.”
“The Cult Leader? How?”
“I want to obtain his permission to kill Yelu Han of the Evil Path Alliance.”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon did not look surprised. He was so calm that I wondered whether it was really all right for him not to be surprised at all.
“Why aren’t you surprised?”
“Because you’re a madman. I figured you might do something like this.”
“Isn’t this the wind and rain brought by an ascending dragon?”
“No. This is simply madness.”
“Please let me commit this madness just once.”
“First, tell me why. Why are you trying to kill him?”
I told the Blood Heaven Blade Demon that Jisaeng, the Golden Pig, one of Yelu Han’s subordinates, was using the Immortal Vegetable to lead the young people of the martial world to ruin.
I could not tell him about the Medical Devil’s revenge. That was an intensely personal matter.
“If that’s your reason, the Cult Leader won’t grant permission.”
“That’s why I’m asking you.”
After a brief pause, the Blood Heaven Blade Demon asked,
“If he gives permission…… are you confident you can kill him?”
“I’ll have to try.”
“His subordinates are formidable enough, quite apart from him. And if things go wrong, this could escalate into a war between our Holy Cult and the Evil Path Alliance.”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon was worried as well that war might break out.
“Is it worth taking such a risk?”
“These young people have only just entered the world, yet those thoroughly corrupted men deceive them, force them to commit all manner of evil, and eventually send them to die as cannon fodder or drive them to take their own lives. You ask whether it’s worth doing? Yes. It’s worth it.”
Even without my promise to the Medical Devil, Yelu Han’s evil deeds would continue.
In my previous life, I had been too preoccupied with obtaining the materials for the Grand Ritual to pay much attention to the Evil Path Alliance. Even so, rumors had continually reached my ears about the crimes committed by Yelu Han’s subordinates.
If fate had placed me before him at this point in time, I believed it was right to deal with him now.
“Why was someone like you born in our Holy Cult? Why weren’t you born as the son of the Martial Alliance Leader?”
“Perhaps so I wouldn’t have to fight you, Elder.”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon let out a soft sigh.
“There is someone in the Evil Path Alliance who can help me.”
“Who?”
“The heir to the Evil Path Alliance, Bisein.”
Bisein would certainly help me, if only to repay the debt from our past connection, and he would make an excellent ally.
After pondering for a moment, the Blood Heaven Blade Demon said the same thing the Fist Demon had.
“To change the Cult Leader’s mind, all eight Demon Venerables will have to step forward. If you can demonstrate enough ability to accomplish that, the Cult Leader will have grounds to relent of his own accord.”
Because these were the opinions of the two people who knew my father best, my heart grew heavy.
“It’ll be difficult to gather all Eight Demon Venerables. The Demon Buddha and the Poison King support my older brother, so they won’t help me right away.”
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon pulled the saber from the ground and said,
“Are those two truly the only ones who will refuse?”
As he went inside, he added,
“Your real relationships with people may be beginning only now.”
* * *
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon’s prediction proved correct.
The One-Blossom Sword Venerable rejected me outright. Her refusal was as clean as her swordsmanship.
“That won’t do.”
The reason for her refusal was equally straightforward.
“Second Young Master, I’ll be honest with you because it’s you. I don’t want to fall out of the Cult Leader’s favor over something like this.”
I could understand. Ever since her youth, no one had respected my father more than she did. She had no desire to approach him with a request he would absolutely refuse.
“I understand, Senior.”
To be honest, I had expected the One-Blossom Sword Venerable to refuse to some extent. I felt I was one step farther from her than from the other Demon Venerables. Apart from sparring, I had never had the opportunity to form a deep personal relationship with her.
“Are you disappointed?”
If I answered too stiffly, I would truly hurt her feelings.
“Yes, I’m disappointed. That’s too much!”
The One-Blossom Sword Venerable smiled.
“Please understand.”
Only then did I smile as well, half joking and half serious.
“I understand. Is my father some ordinary man? I know how much pressure you’re under, Senior.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
“I’m sorry, but this may not be the end of it. I may come back to try to persuade you again.”
“I figured as much.”
Yet even obtaining the support of someone I considered a step closer to me than her proved difficult.
The next person I visited was the Drunken Demon. As soon as I asked him to persuade my father, he suddenly began pretending to be drunk.
“Ah! The alcohol’s suddenly gone to my head.”
The Drunken Demon buried his head in the drinking table and pretended to fall asleep.
When I began drinking silently, he said from where he lay facedown,
“I’ll grant any other request. What do you want? I’ll buy you drinks for the rest of your life if that’s what you want. Do you need money? Shall I go to the Valley of Evil and beat those bastards up again?”
“Forget all that. Persuade my father.”
The Drunken Demon, who had been pressing his face into the table, suddenly sprang up and leaped into the lake with a splash.
He swam wildly from one end of the lake to the other like a madman, then climbed back up to the pavilion. He returned to his original seat with water dripping from his body and said with a grim expression,
“I’d rather quit drinking.”
The Drunken Demon quitting alcohol? I could only let out a hollow laugh.
“Is it that difficult?”
“What will the Cult Leader think when I go to him? ‘Look at this bastard. He knows perfectly well that I oppose it, yet he still comes to me and tries to persuade me?’ Besides, the Cult Leader already dislikes me.”
“Why does Father dislike you?”
“He does. The Cult Leader dislikes drunkards, and he dislikes people who use poison, too. He has very clear likes and dislikes. I can’t do it! Absolutely not! I’m sorry, little brother.”
I did not torment him any further. It was one thing if it concerned something else, but this involved my father. How could I not understand? Even if the reason had nothing to do with my father, I could not force someone to do something they disliked.
“If you’re sorry, then quit drinking for ten days starting today!”
“I’ll quit! I’m sorry!”
“Why are you sorry, Brother? I’m the one who should apologize for pestering you with an unreasonable request.”
“This mustn’t damage our relationship!”
“Brother, our relationship won’t suffer because I made a request or because you refused it.”
“Then why would it suffer?”
“When you aren’t honest. You could simply say, ‘I can’t do it because of this.’ Now imagine you agreed just to humor me, even though you didn’t want to do it. If you tried to do something you hated, you’d end up irritated and furious. In the end, you might even come to hate me.”
The Drunken Demon nodded with an expression that said he could imagine exactly that happening.
“You did well to refuse, Brother. I’ll be making plenty of requests in the future, too. Come with me to beat someone up. I’m lonely, so drink with me. Help me persuade that person. You have to be this honest with me then, too. You must never think, ‘I refused him last time, so I should force myself to do it this time.’ That’s when our relationship will truly fall apart. Got it?”
The Drunken Demon stared at me quietly before saying,
“Starting today, you’re the older brother. I mean it.”
“I refuse. What are you talking about, telling the younger brother who lives for the fun of teasing his older brother to call you that? Big Brother!”
“Good grief, what a shameful older brother I am.”
“Being afraid of my father isn’t something to be ashamed of, whatever else might be. I’m leaving. I’ll probably come again over this matter. See you then.”
And with that, I left the Drunken Demon’s residence.
The Blood Heaven Blade Demon had been right. Perhaps persuading the Demon Venerables would be more difficult than persuading my father.
I could not even persuade the One-Blossom Sword Venerable or the Drunken Demon, whom I had considered allies, yet my father would grant permission only if all eight of them went to speak with him? I let out a deep sigh, but this was no time to despair. It was time to find a way.
The next place I headed was where my comrade in battle was staying. I was curious to see how he would react.