The journey with Pyeonjung was more enjoyable than anything.
In the carriage he drove so skillfully, I cultivated the Heavenly Demon Body-Protecting Art, and we stopped at inns with good food to eat. As on the way there, whenever there was a place with beautiful scenery, we stopped the carriage and looked around together. We saw a rainbow rising beyond a waterfall, and over a cup of wine, I listened to him talk about the life of a coachman.
And so, when we arrived at Maga Village, I even paid him the cost of returning.
“There are many rough demonic practitioners here, so it would be dangerous to take on passengers for the return trip. This money is not for you, but for you to buy your children a set of clothes, so do not refuse my sincerity.”
Pyeonjung looked as though he had far too much he wanted to say, but he offered only this in return.
“I only look forward to the day when I may serve you again.”
I might never see this man again, but one never knew where human ties might lead. Perhaps someday I would find myself climbing into the carriage of a white-haired Pyeonjung.
“Return safely.”
After sending Pyeonjung back, I entered Maga Village.
“Ah, wonderful! This smell!”
The distinctive scent of Maga Village greeted me. Only then did I truly feel that I had finally returned home.
“Young Cult Leader!”
The person who spotted me from over there and came running was Jo Chunbae of the Pungryu Tavern. He ran over so eagerly that I worried he might trip and fall.
“Innkeeper, have you been well?”
“When did you return?”
“I just arrived. Seeing our innkeeper first thing upon my return makes me think my luck will be excellent today.”
“Oh, please don’t say such things! What am I, after all?”
Though he waved his hands in denial, he was smiling broadly. Seeing Jo Chunbae as well made it truly sink in that I had returned.
He had been on his way to the Pungryu Tavern with ingredients loaded onto a cart.
“You buy the ingredients yourself?”
“Of course. I choose every fresh ingredient myself. Now, let us go.”
Just as Jo Chunbae was about to push the cart, I had him sit on it.
“Let’s sit together and go.”
I sat side by side with Jo Chunbae at the front of the cart.
Jo Chunbae blinked and asked,
“If we both sit, who will pull the cart?”
“We pull it with our hearts.”
Thinking I was joking, Jo Chunbae laughed and said,
“I’ll push it for you. Please ride my cart for the first time!”
At the very moment he tried to get down from the cart, the cart began moving on its own.
“Oh my! It’s moving by itself!”
Of course, I was using void-object manipulation to move the cart. Jo Chunbae seemed fascinated, exclaiming in wonder again and again.
“I started working at taverns from a young age and have experienced all sorts of things, but this is a first for me.”
“To tell the truth, it’s a first for me too.”
“Is it all right to use the Young Cult Leader’s precious internal energy for something like this?”
“That precious internal energy is always being used on trash. If anything, this is the most precious use it has seen.”
Jo Chunbae looked at me and said,
“If I were a martial artist, I would certainly have served the Young Cult Leader.”
“I would hate that.”
When Jo Chunbae stiffened, worried that he might have misspoken, I smiled and said,
“Then there would be no Pungryu Tavern, would there? Even without you, innkeeper, I have many subordinates.”
A deep smile formed on Jo Chunbae’s lips.
And so we arrived at the Pungryu Tavern.
I went up to the second-floor seat where I always sat and drank.
“You still keep this place empty?”
“Yes. It is a seat for the Young Cult Leader and special guests.”
“Isn’t this a loss for you, innkeeper?”
“I lived my whole life struggling desperately not to take such losses. Now I ought to have a little fun like this.”
Jo Chunbae looked with satisfaction at the signatures of the Demon Venerables carved into the wall.
I looked there with him, then was startled.
“Father left one too!”
“He came about a month after the Young Cult Leader left the cult.”
“Did he come alone?”
“Yes. He came twice, and both times he came alone.”
I imagined Father sitting here alone, drinking wine.
Leaving his signature there could not have been easy for him. How could I not like him for this? Father was Father after all.
“Will you have a drink?”
“I must pay my respects to Father first. I’ll stop by later.”
“Then I will see you later.”
After leaving the Pungryu Tavern, my steps quickened. Seeing Father’s signature made me want to see him even more.
* * *
In front of the Heavenly Demon Hall, Jeokyeon, the captain of the guards, was waiting.
It seemed the news of my return had already been conveyed.
He quickly looked me up and down, checking whether I had been injured.
“I am relieved you have returned safely.”
He must have been angry that I had sent the guards back and gone to the Jiangxi Branch alone, but his eyes were filled with relief that I had returned unharmed.
“You need to get used to things like this. The road ahead is very long.”
“No matter what you say, it is not something easily gotten used to.”
He was right. If I died, they would have to bear all responsibility.
I asked Jeokyeon as he was about to turn away.
“How is your eye?”
“It is fine.”
“Let me see.”
Now he obediently removed his eye patch without protest. Looking at the red energy in his eye, it seemed his cultivation had progressed in the meantime.
“Once you get through this hurdle, you will enter the stage where the pain decreases.”
I placed my palm over Jeokyeon’s eye and infused him with gentle internal energy.
“I believe I will be the first to know when the Young Cult Leader’s martial realm changes.”
“Does it feel different?”
“Yes. It feels different again from the last time you examined me.”
His eye was sensing even the subtle changes that I myself could not feel.
“When on earth do you cultivate?”
“I may look like I’m lazing around, but I’m surprisingly diligent. Even on the way back, I cultivated the entire time while riding in the carriage.”
Though I said that, I did not think the change came from cultivating the Heavenly Demon Body-Protecting Art in the carriage on the way there and back.
Had it not changed when I watched the sunset with Pyeonjung? Had it not changed when I placed a coin in Ju Yang’s hand? Had it not changed when I listened to the hardships of Branch Leader Ho Gyeong?
I still believed it.
When life changed and people changed, martial arts changed as well.
* * *
At last, Father, whom I had wanted so much to see, was sitting far ahead.
I strode along the Path of Blood and walked to the foot of the grand chair. Father was guarding our cult in his unchanging form.
“I have returned. Have you been at peace during my absence?”
I greeted Father with proper courtesy.
Whenever I go out and return, I always go to see Father first. I have done it several times already, and I offer the same greeting, but each time I feel something different, and the heart with which I face him changes. As time passes, I am more and more glad to see Father, and I like him more.
“Whenever you go out, you return with blood on your hands.”
In Hunan and in Jiangxi as well. There was no room for excuses.
“Is that not because I take after Father?”
A sneer brushed Father’s lips. How glad I was to see that sneer after so long.
Father, too, had changed a great deal from before. He had once been someone who looked down from that grand chair from beginning to end.
“Let us go out and walk a little.”
These days, he liked walking with me like this.
I followed Father out of the Heavenly Demon Hall. We walked together along the narrow path laid through the rear garden.
“I met a good coachman and learned of many inns with skilled cooks. There were hidden delicacies in places I never expected. Later, I will take you to all of them.”
I did not speak of the people who had died by my hand. He would have received reports of everything that happened through the Tongcheon Pavilion anyway. What I wanted to tell Father were things like this.
Where the scenery was beautiful, where one could find a teahouse with a good atmosphere, how people lived. Just as Father had come out from his grand chair to this rear garden, I now wanted to go out with him into the Central Plains.
“Do you know how much interest Yeomwangchae has been charging these days? They are madmen.”
I also told him about Yeomwangchae and relayed the conversations I had with the warriors of the Demon Sword Corps.
“If Father personally sends a gift to the Demon Sword Corps, their morale will rise greatly.”
“I shall.”
When Father answered so readily, I could not help but put on an act.
“You discriminate far too much.”
“What discrimination?”
“You are too different when I am the Second Young Master and when I am the Young Cult Leader.”
“I should be. Only then will you know how precious your position is. Why? Shall I treat you as I did before?”
“You mean the days when Father’s finger wind nearly punched a hole through this handsome face? I decline!”
It felt so good to move into a new relationship with Father.
Father stopped walking for a moment and gazed at Daecheon Mountain in the distance.
And what I most wanted to say to Father was this.
“Next time, let us go somewhere to enjoy ourselves.”
“If I move, the gangho will be startled.”
“Let them be startled. Stop guarding the Heavenly Demon Hall and now… go guard your own life, Father.”
For an instant, I felt Father’s back flinch.
I do not want Father’s emergence into the murim to become a war. I want Father’s emergence to be a joyful journey.
“I say this because I want to have fun with you, Father.”
Father merely gazed silently at Daecheon Mountain far away.
Yes, how could Father not want to go out? The weight of that seat could not be known unless one had sat in it.
“The Fist Demon has gained a daughter.”
“I was surprised as well. I did not think Master would make such a decision.”
“You did not intervene?”
“I do enjoy meddling in all sorts of affairs, but not this one. It is a matter between parent and child. How could I dare interfere?”
“It was unexpected.”
Father could hardly be the only one who was surprised.
“He looks as though he would live well even if left alone in the world, but he was lonely. What do you think? Would you like to have a daughter too, Father?”
For some reason, Father obediently nodded.
“What if I disappeared and you gained a daughter?”
Father nodded even more firmly.
“That is too much!”
It felt good to play the fool in front of Father after so long.
“Follow me.”
Father led me deep into the rear garden of the Heavenly Demon Hall. After passing through all sorts of defenses that forbade outside intrusion, and then through a series of secretly laid formations, I was finally able to see our destination. It was my first time coming here, and I was startled when I saw what was written on the signboard.
Heavenly Demon Treasury.
He had brought me to the treasure vault of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
“Ah! This is my first time here.”
I followed Father inside.
Countless weapons flashed with sharp edges, and spiritual medicines and spirit herbs tempted people with all manner of fragrances. There were also innumerable dazzling jewels such as luminous night pearls and poison-warding pearls.
Since I was a martial artist, the first things my eyes went to were naturally the weapons and spiritual medicines.
There were swords, sabers, and spears, of course, but also axes, wheels, sickles, rulers, fans, brushes, needles… Every sort of divine weapon and wondrous armament was on display. Each and every one was a divine weapon that would stir up a storm of blood if it appeared in the murim.
That was not all. As for spiritual medicines, they did not even deal in thousand-year snow ginseng here. The highest-grade spiritual medicines and spirit herbs, on the level of ten-thousand-year snow ginseng, were classified and stored according to whether they possessed yin or yang properties.
There were also spiritual medicines stored separately. Eight in total.
“These here are spiritual medicines that will be immediately distributed to the Demon Venerables if war breaks out.”
Not only that, there were poisons and hidden weapons to be used in war. The hidden weapons were forbidden hidden weapons banned from use in the murim, and the poisons were weapons of mass slaughter that could take hundreds or thousands of lives at once. Even the costly Formless Ultimate Poison was here by the bottle; simply seeing how many poisons had been prepared made my heart grow cold. If war broke out, these poisons would go straight to the Poison King, would they not?
And was that all? On one side, protective armors were piled up. Piled like this, they might at a glance look like cheap martial garments from the marketplace, but each one was a protective armor difficult to obtain in the murim. These too would be distributed to the Demon Venerables and the heads of each organization if war broke out.
Father had been steadily preparing for war.
Father, I respect you more than anyone, but war alone must not happen.
Father, too, knew that I felt this way. Even so, the reason he was showing me this was to persuade me. To say this was the path you and I must take.
Then Father said something unexpected.
“Choose one from among these.”
Truly unexpected words followed.
“It is my gift to the Young Cult Leader.”
Because it was a gift I had not anticipated, I was all the more moved.
After becoming the Young Cult Leader, I had heard “Young Cult Leader” countless times, but now I felt as though I had truly become the Young Cult Leader.
“May I really choose anything here?”
“If you become the Heavenly Demon, it will all be yours anyway. Though of course, for now, it is only one.”
Choosing one from among these precious treasures was enough to make my heart tremble. Which among them would be the most helpful to me?
I passed by the weapons and spiritual medicines and walked elsewhere.
“Where are you going? There are no spiritual medicines there.”
Father naturally thought I would choose one of the spiritual medicines. Since I had the Black Demon Sword, the greatest sword after the Heavenly Demon Sword, I had no need for weapons.
“Since you showed me that side first, I somehow feel there must be something better over here.”
I continued walking as I looked through the items in the treasury. There truly were all sorts of things. There was a cushion that replenished yin energy, and an incense burner that invigorated yang energy. There was also an iron doll that performed martial arts through mechanical devices, and a statue of a beautiful woman that danced. The iron doll’s martial arts seemed as though they would be peerless divine arts, and if the statue danced, it seemed as though it would display peerless footwork.
But I kept walking past them.
There were all sorts of precious, splendid, and wondrous things, but none of them drew my heart.
Just as I was about to turn back, something caught my eye.
It was a square lump of metal the size of a palm.
“What is this?”
“It is called a Secret Coffer.”
If it bore the name coffer, that meant it was a box, but I could not see a lid anywhere.
“What is it used for?”
“I do not know either.”
When I looked back at Father, he shook his head with an expression that said he truly did not know.
“It is an object that has been passed down in our cult since some unknown time. Nothing has been discovered about where or how it is used, and only the words that it will open only for one who has a bond with it have been passed down.”
“What about you, Father?”
Father nodded.
“To me as well, it was nothing more than a lump of metal.”
It opens only for one who has a bond with it.
Could this feeling that drew me to it now be that bond?
I wanted to choose this. More than anything else, this dull lump of metal drew my eye.
Even though I knew full well that I was more likely not the one with that bond, there was this feeling in me that wanted to choose it from among all these treasures. I did not hesitate long.
“I will take this.”