Jin Paecheon, leader of the Murim Alliance, was confused.
He certainly had faith in Geom Mugeuk. But how was he supposed to believe that Baek Cheongyeong had kidnapped his own granddaughter? He was someone he had been drinking tea and chatting with just yesterday.
“First, please send everyone around us away. In any case, with you here, Alliance Leader, I couldn’t run even if I wanted to. And even if I were lucky enough to escape, you would know exactly where I went.”
It was true. There was no way he would abandon his position as the young cult leader of the Demonic Cult and hide in the mountains. Geom Mugeuk was a man whose destination was clearly fixed.
Jin Paecheon dismissed everyone except the guards he kept closest to him.
Geom Mugeuk slowly looked over the remaining guards. Jin Paecheon could tell that Geom Mugeuk truly believed there might be one of Baek Cheongyeong’s people near him.
“Why? Do these people seem suspicious too?”
“No. I trust your eye for people, Alliance Leader. Now I’ll speak plainly. At Young Master Jin’s request, I was looking into what sort of man Baek Cheongyeong was. I used Miss Jin as an excuse for coming here. From the start, when Young Master Jin asked for my help, we made it look as though I had come because Miss Jin invited me.”
After that, he briefly explained what had happened, but Jin Paecheon still could not believe the situation.
“Do I trust the man who has taught my grandson without incident for ten years, or do I trust the young cult leader of the Demonic Cult? If you were in my place, whom would you believe?”
“Then why are you leaving me be?”
The answer lay in the last thing Geom Mugeuk had said.
—If I had staged this, I would never have ended up in a situation like this.
Jin Paecheon had experienced Geom Mugeuk before, and he knew what kind of person he was. In the rumors that had reached him afterward, Geom Mugeuk had been accomplishing deeds that made one naturally say, “As expected!”
Moreover, for the Demonic Cult to kidnap his granddaughter meant they were willing to risk war, yet there were no signs of war from the Demonic Cult at all.
“Are you truly saying this was Baek Cheongyeong’s doing?”
“Yes.”
“Can you confront him face-to-face?”
“Of course. But he won’t be at his residence.”
Jin Paecheon sent a sound transmission to his swiftest subordinate, ordering him to bring Baek Cheongyeong here.
“If what you say is true, why did Hagun not ask me for help?”
“He must have thought you wouldn’t believe him. You still don’t believe it now, do you?”
“If Hagun had told me!”
“You would have believed him even less. You would have assumed there had been some conflict between the two of them.”
Jin Paecheon could not deny it. It was exactly the sort of situation Geom Mugeuk always spoke of. Because they were close, he could not see properly.
“There is one more reason. Young Master Jin suspected that Baek Cheongyeong had eyes and ears inside the Murim Alliance. It’s the same reason I spoke to you by sound transmission earlier.”
Jin Paecheon decided to consider the matter from the side of believing Geom Mugeuk. After all, it did not seem likely that the man who had already saved his granddaughter once would suddenly try to harm her now.
“Very well. Then why did Baek Cheongyeong kidnap Haryeong?”
“At first, I thought he was aiming for me. But… now I’m not so sure. No matter how much of a thorn in his side I may be, I have doubts as to whether he would make such a huge incident just to drive me away. Since he doesn’t know about the relationship between you and me, Alliance Leader, he must have expected a great fight to break out here.”
If that happened, it would not be a problem between Geom Mugeuk and Jin Paecheon, but would expand into a problem between the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult and the Murim Alliance. There was no way he could have failed to know that.
Geom Mugeuk believed there had to be some reason he did not know.
“Please let me go. I will rescue Miss Jin and find out that reason as well.”
Jin Paecheon closed his eyes and said nothing. Last time, too, he had had no choice but to entrust his granddaughter’s safety to Geom Mugeuk. And now he had to entrust her to him again?
Some time passed like that, and the subordinate he had sent to Baek Cheongyeong’s residence returned, reporting that, just as Geom Mugeuk had said, Baek Cheongyeong was absent.
“Why must it be you?”
“Because this matter was aimed at me. If you step forward, Alliance Leader, he will deny everything by any means necessary. If that happens, we may never find Miss Jin.”
At that, Jin Paecheon shouted angrily.
“How dare you threaten me? I will find my granddaughter myself.”
Jin Paecheon suddenly shot out finger winds and sealed the acupoints of Geom Mugeuk and Ian.
Ian, caught helplessly, was startled, but Geom Mugeuk was not surprised at all.
“Your granddaughter isn’t my blood kin, so what more can I do? Do as you please.”
Jin Paecheon snorted and shouted.
“Now you reveal your true colors. Escort these two to the Alliance.”
“If you touch me, you won’t be able to handle what comes after.”
“Shut your mouth!”
At the Alliance Leader’s shout, the martial artists standing at a distance looked toward the scene.
The nearby guards came and took the two of them to a carriage. As they were being dragged away, Ian spoke urgently.
“What are we going to do if we’re taken away like this?”
“It’s not as if we can fight the leader of the Murim Alliance, is it?”
Unlike her whispering, Geom Mugeuk spoke loudly enough for everyone to hear, as though he were just as angry as the Alliance Leader.
“What about Miss Jin?”
“She’s his granddaughter, so he’ll find her himself.”
“Even so, you have to ask him! You have to persuade him. What are we going to do if we’re dragged away like this?”
“You saw him too, didn’t you? He’s too closed off to do anything.”
Once the guards put the two of them inside, the carriage immediately set off.
Ian could not understand the situation. No matter how frustratingly the Alliance Leader was acting, was he really giving up on Jin Haryeong this easily? Reacting with such irritation? It was not like Geom Mugeuk.
In the moving carriage, Ian asked cautiously.
“That’s not it, right?”
Once only the two of them were inside the carriage, the irritation vanished from Geom Mugeuk’s face, and his usual expression returned.
“Of course not.”
Only then did Ian let out a sigh. Right, of course it wasn’t.
A short while later, the carriage stopped in a deserted place. When they got out, Jin Paecheon was waiting there.
He had acted in case one of the people he had brought along was someone planted by Baek Cheongyeong. If there had been one, they would report that Geom Mugeuk had been escorted to the Murim Alliance.
Jin Paecheon had truly chosen to believe Geom Mugeuk’s words.
Jin Paecheon again shot out finger winds and released the sealed acupoints.
The reason Geom Mugeuk had not dodged the finger winds in the first place and had let them strike him was also because he trusted the Alliance Leader.
Trust for trust. Jin Paecheon said nothing else.
“Save Haryeong.”
Their gazes met in midair.
Geom Mugeuk knew. As the leader of the Murim Alliance, how could it be easy to entrust his granddaughter’s life and death to the young cult leader of the Demonic Cult? Twice, no less.
Geom Mugeuk did not say anything unnecessary either.
“I will bring her back.”
At the sincerity in Geom Mugeuk’s eyes, Jin Paecheon nodded once, then climbed into the carriage. He felt he had made the right choice.
Of course, though he had entrusted this matter to Geom Mugeuk, he himself intended to move in every possible way to save his granddaughter.
Watching the departing carriage, Geom Mugeuk said to Ian,
“Go straight to our cult’s safe house and tell the two Demon Venerables exactly what happened.”
“What about any other message?”
“Leave what comes after to the Demon Venerables’ judgment.”
This was the trust he had in the Blood Heaven Blade Demon and the Fist Demon. A trust that, even without telling them what to do, they would judge the situation properly and move accordingly. His trust in Ian was the same. A trust that she would relay everything that had happened without leaving anything out.
Once Ian left, Geom Mugeuk also launched himself in the opposite direction. From the Alliance Leader to Ian, everyone was moving on trust.
* * *
Jin Haryeong opened her eyes in an unfamiliar place.
It was a house built of logs. Everything in the room was made of wood. The bed she had been lying on was also made by joining whole pieces of timber together, and all the furniture and household items were wooden as well.
‘Why am I here?’
Then she remembered the final moment.
After parting from Ian, she had been walking when the wind blew, and leaves came pouring down upon her. The instant the leaves clung to her body and brushed against her, her vision had suddenly gone black, and she had lost consciousness. Either a soul-bewitching drug had been mixed into those leaves, or some sorcery had been performed using them.
She first checked the condition of her body. Her internal energy had been sealed, but there were no other injuries.
She immediately got up and examined the door first. Even if she could not use her internal energy, she had trained in martial arts since childhood. Thinking that a mere wooden door was nothing, she put all her strength into it, but the door did not budge.
‘This is no ordinary door.’
She realized that it was not simply a common log door.
She examined the walls, floor, and ceiling in detail, but there was no way a room meant for confinement would have a passage leading outside.
‘Was this Baek Cheongyeong’s doing?’
In the current situation, he was the most likely person to have kidnapped her. But even after suffering it herself, she still could not believe it.
‘No matter how much conflict he’s in with my brother, he kidnapped me?’
Just then, she heard someone walking toward the door.
Jin Haryeong lay down again and pretended to sleep. She hoped the person entering through that door would not be Baek Cheongyeong. If he showed his face to her, it would mean he intended to kill her in the end.
‘Please!’
The door opened, and someone came in. A man’s voice soon followed.
“If you’re awake, get up.”
The other party already knew she was awake.
Jin Haryeong sat up and looked at the man. Fortunately, it was a man she had never seen before. He was Chorim, Baek Cheongyeong’s disciple.
When Jin Haryeong stared at him without saying anything, Chorim asked,
“Why do you say nothing?”
“If you were someone worth talking to, you wouldn’t treat another person like this, would you?”
Even with her internal energy sealed, she was dignified. If they had intended to kill her from the start, they would already have done so. They had to be keeping her alive in order to use her.
“Aren’t you curious who I am?”
Jin Haryeong realized that the man before her was the one who had kidnapped her. The scent she had smelled when the leaves flew in was coming from him.
“I’m not curious who you are. What I’m curious about is whether you know what you’re doing. Have you properly staked your life on this?”
Chorim merely smiled leisurely and did not rise to the provocation at all.
“You must be thirsty. Have some tea.”
She was thirsty, but Jin Haryeong did not touch the teapot placed beside her.
“Why did you kidnap me?”
Instead of answering, Chorim personally poured from the teapot into a cup.
“It is tea that is good for the body. You may drink it.”
As if to show that it was not poisoned, he drank the tea first.
Then he poured tea into another cup and held it out.
But instead of taking the cup, Jin Haryeong carefully examined his face, hands, and clothes. Whether it was a clue or a weakness, she tried to find something that might help her escape this place.
Chorim set the teacup down on the table and turned away.
“I will prepare a meal for you soon.”
Only after he left did Jin Haryeong open the lid of the teapot. It was not plain water, but tea mixed with medicinal herbs.
She was so thirsty she wanted to gulp it down, but she closed the lid again. She could not drink it when she did not know what kind of herbs they were.
But she could not keep enduring forever while refusing water and food.
She had truly never dreamed that something like this would happen near the main headquarters of the Murim Alliance. Because she was having a spar with Ian, she had made her guard, Chuho, wait far away. By now, there was probably an uproar as they searched for her.
In that moment of crisis, the first person she thought of was one man. That person was not her grandfather, nor her brother.
But soon, Jin Haryeong rose from her seat and began searching the inside of the room for anything that might help her escape.
Because the people who survived in murim were not those who had reliable people around them, but those who found their own way to live.
* * *
The place I arrived at was Baek Cheongyeong’s workshop.
It was empty, and the first thing I did was pull away the cloth draped over the display stand.
All the dolls had been removed, and only a single doll was left standing there forlornly.
Lying on the floor was the hero doll Baek Cheongyeong had called Geom Mugeuk. All the other dolls had disappeared.
It had undoubtedly been left behind to show me. This was not a doll, but leisure and mockery.
After taking the doll with me, I immediately left the place.
How would I find where Baek Cheongyeong had gone?
First, one thing was certain. At the very least, he would not be that far from the Murim Alliance.
The fact that he had spent time with the Alliance Leader when Jin Haryeong was kidnapped was an attempt to claim his own innocence—in other words, it meant he had no intention of leaving the Murim Alliance.
If so, Baek Cheongyeong was definitely nearby. And he would be in a place where he could best display his power. The forest.
“I’ll find you with Rapid Step!”
I ran at terrifying speed and descended into a nearby forest. After landing, I released my qi.
What I was looking for was not Baek Cheongyeong. What I was looking for was the wooden dolls he had made.
When I first visited his workshop, I had sensed a certain energy then. A profound energy that I never would have felt if I had not cultivated the Nine Flames Demonic Art was smeared here and there.
I was trying to find the energy that had flowed through those wooden dolls. Since there had not been just one or two dolls, I believed I would surely be able to find it.
When I sensed no energy, I ran again with Rapid Step and moved locations. I released my qi again to search for the energy, then moved locations again. In the blink of an eye, I was releasing my qi ten li away. Today, the Rapid Step I had mastered to great completion was truly showing its worth.
How long had I searched like that?
‘Found it!’
I had finally found the energy I had sensed in the workshop.
I slowly walked toward the place where I felt the energy. The dense forest blocked the way, but neither trees nor grass could stop me.
I continued deeper, forcing my way into places where one would wonder whether there could really be a path. The farther I went, the stronger the profound energy became. At the end of that path was a broad space like a plaza.
The moment I stepped inside, I was startled. In that place, arranged like a circular sparring arena, small wooden dolls stood densely packed on all sides.
They were the wooden dolls Baek Cheongyeong had carved in his workshop over the past ten years. Those thousands of dolls looked as if they might grow larger at any moment and rush at me.
I placed the hero doll I had brought with me in the center of the plaza. Then the thousands of dolls took on the formation of attacking the hero doll.
At that moment, a voice sounded.
“I told you, didn’t I? That place is yours.”
Baek Cheongyeong revealed himself and slowly walked out.
Instead of looking at him, I looked down at the hero doll standing alone and answered.
“I thought it would be me too. I do rather like being the center of attention, you see.”