Geom Mugeuk could feel Chwima’s resolve.
He had made up his mind to kill everyone involved in this affair.
Once he had made that decision, it was not one Geom Mugeuk could intervene in, nor should he. This was the decision of the Demon Venerable.
Geom Mugeuk looked at Ian. Her face was flushed as she stared at Chwima. Ian, too, was sensing it instinctively—what Chwima had resolved to do. The resolve of a Chwima all the more terrifying because he was not drunk.
Geom Mugeuk looked at Han Seol.
‘Do you feel it?’
How could Han Seol not feel Chwima’s emotions? She simply could not understand them.
‘Why is he going this far?’
It did not seem like the sort of relationship that warranted this. If she had truly been a woman he loved, he would not have lived apart from her. They had merely exchanged letters and liquor once or twice a year. Was that not the full extent of their relationship?
Humans were creatures who deceived and fooled others even while staring straight into their eyes, so what could there possibly be in a relationship where they had not even seen each other’s faces?
Still, there was one thing she agreed with.
“It is true that there are questions surrounding the Plain Lord’s death.”
Geom Mugeuk said to her,
“Please help us so that the Ice Palace can actively resolve this matter.”
“What is it you want?”
Geom Mugeuk looked at Chwima. He intended to leave this matter entirely to him.
But Chwima’s reaction was unexpected.
“You decide, Young Cult Leader. The smarter person should use his head.”
“You made such a splendid deduction just now, though.”
“That was only because I knew that person well.”
One could tell Chwima was intelligent simply from the fact that he could make such a judgment.
Chwima looked at Geom Mugeuk and spoke with his eyes.
—Take me to those bastards.
Geom Mugeuk answered with his eyes.
—I will. Without fail.
Geom Mugeuk said to Han Seol,
“Please grant us just one request. We need no other help. Only that one thing.”
Han Seol was curious. What kind of request was it that he would say only one?
“Please join our investigation team, Young Palace Mistress.”
At the completely unexpected request, Han Seol’s eyes widened.
“Let the four of us solve this!”
Chwima and Ian were deeply impressed.
If Han Seol joined them, there would be no need to make separate requests of her from now on. If they moved together with her, they would be able to handle most matters within the Ice Palace.
It was truly a moment where, if a demon asked, “What is your wish?” one answered, “To have you.”
And hidden within this request was one more intention of Geom Mugeuk’s that Ian and Chwima did not know. Since the Blood King might target her, he intended to keep her close.
“Are you saying that sincerely?”
“I am.”
The words of refusal rose all the way to Han Seol’s throat. Mingling with others was something her instincts rejected.
Even so, the reason she did not refuse immediately was that she, too, had begun to think the Plain Lord had not taken her own life. If that was the case, then for the sake of the Ice Palace as well, they had to find the culprit.
“I am already helping you, am I not?”
“You are not helping us as one of our own, are you?”
“!”
He was right. When she had accepted this proposal on her own authority, she had told her mother that she wanted to find out what kind of person the Young Cult Leader was. To be more precise, she had wanted to show that she could see through the exaggerations in the rumors about him.
‘Become one of them?’
Han Seol looked at the three of them with a strange, renewed feeling.
It was a truly bizarre combination. That excessively beautiful subordinate had come all the way to the Northern Sea to save the husband of a woman who had given him a single cup of water.
Chwima, who was abstaining from drink, said he would take revenge for someone with whom he had exchanged liquor and letters from time to time.
And that swindler-like Young Cult Leader, praised as a transcendent being, was asking her to join them.
Han Seol shook her head with an expression that said she could not understand. But her decision was the opposite of that gesture.
“Very well. I will join you. However, I have a condition.”
“Name it.”
“As we handle this matter, you must not hide anything from me.”
“Very well. I will tell you everything without omission. In return, promise me this. You must not avoid it because you do not wish to hear it. You must not complain that your ears hurt.”
And so Han Seol, too, became a member of the group investigating this incident. But the great mountain she truly had to cross began now.
“Then move your residence at once. I think you can stay with Ian.”
“Move my residence?”
“Why are you so surprised? From now on, we are one family, so of course we must sleep together, eat together, and think together.”
One family? Han Seol regretted her decision to join them. Merely allowing herself to become one of the same group had been a significant decision for her.
‘Just what do you want from me?’
Though he sensed that resistance, Geom Mugeuk pretended not to notice and said to her,
“There is a power that comes from the experience of eating and sleeping together. Take this opportunity to experience it once.”
Han Seol looked at Ian. He wanted her to sleep with that woman? She had never slept in the same room as another person before.
In this situation, Geom Mugeuk attended to Ian.
“I’m sorry for deciding without discussing it with you first.”
“No, I’m fine with it.”
Ian said to Han Seol,
“Please grant me the honor of being with you, Young Palace Mistress.”
Chwima also added a word.
“This is an important matter to me, so please yield this once, Young Palace Mistress.”
She was not inclined to, but in the end, Han Seol permitted it.
“Fine. Let us do that.”
It was not because of the two of them. Han Seol had only just begun her sparring match with Geom Mugeuk. She would prove, without fail, that Geom Mugeuk was someone who swayed and used people with words.
“What do we do now?”
Not only Han Seol, who had asked the question, but Chwima and Ian as well were at a loss. What were they to investigate now? Should they meet more people around her? Or should they examine battlefield records?
Fortunately, Geom Mugeuk was standing before the path they had to take.
“We must question it. Why the Plain Lord? Of all the many people in the Ice Palace, why did they have to kill the Plain Lord of Baekju Snowfield?”
And Geom Mugeuk found that answer in one person. Since Han Seol was present, he spoke respectfully.
“I believe the Demon Venerable already knows that answer.”
The gazes of the two women turned toward Chwima. Everyone was surprised, but Chwima was the most surprised of all.
“You say I know the reason?”
“Yes. You may not know who killed her, but you must know why she was killed.”
“I don’t know.”
Chwima was flustered, as though he had been accused of being the culprit, but Geom Mugeuk was firm.
“No. You do know.”
There was a reason Geom Mugeuk thought so.
“The Plain Lord had no problems within Baekju Snowfield, nor was she someone who had learned powerful martial arts. She had neither power, grudges, nor secrets. Then what reason could there be?”
The reason he had said Chwima knew was contained in these final words.
“Her death is surely connected to liquor.”
* * *
Only when the carriage entered the North Blood Sect did Yang Jung finally feel relief.
‘I’ve returned home.’
The carriage stopped only after reaching the great hall deep within the inner compound.
Yang Jung stepped down from the carriage. His father had not returned in the same carriage. It would have been natural for them to ride together and exchange various words.
He was angry. Yang Jung understood his father. To him, the North Blood Sect was more precious than his own child. Since this incident had caused great damage, it was only natural that he would be angry with him.
On the other hand, once Yang Jung actually returned home, his resentment toward his father faded.
When an exchange of hostages had been demanded, his father had abandoned him, but he had still made a deal with the Northern Sea Ice Palace and saved him. In any case, he had survived, and that was enough.
His father was alone in the great hall. He had dismissed all the warriors who usually guarded the place.
‘He means to reproach me for my mistake.’
He would not want to damage his son’s honor in front of his subordinates. Feeling his father’s consideration, his heart softened even more.
“Father.”
His father stood with his back turned in silence, looking out the window. Today, that back felt more unfamiliar and frightening than ever.
Yang Jung shifted all responsibility to the Demonic Cult without hesitation.
“I truly did not know the Demonic Cult bastards would intervene.”
At that, the North Blood Sect Leader asked coldly,
“Why did you tell them?”
“What do you mean?”
“The location of the laboratory.”
In that instant, Yang Jung’s heart sank. He had forgotten. He had told them every place where the people they had captured might be held.
‘I told them to survive. You refused the hostage exchange and abandoned me, so I did it to survive!’
But ordinarily, the two of them did not share such frank conversations.
Suppressing the emotions that surged within him, Yang Jung said what Geom Mugeuk had told him to say.
“I did it to lure them there and capture them. If the laboratory had been moved, I believed you would surely have prepared a secret measure against intrusion at the place it was moved to.”
But it did not work on his father.
“If he threatened to kill you and you had no choice but to speak, you should have told him a place that was not the laboratory. You should have insisted that you knew only that place, and no other.”
“It was a matter of life and death, Father!”
Yang Jung offered no excuses. It would have been good if the scolding had ended around this point, but the real reproach began now.
“Because of you, Hwang Su died.”
Hwang Su was the person who had been conducting the experiments there.
‘So what? Are you saying that bastard’s death is more important? More important than this son of yours surviving?’
It was something he had been storing up in his heart all this time. But he could not say it. It would surely only provoke his father’s anger further. His father would dismiss it as childish whining from someone who could not distinguish public affairs from private feelings.
“I was wrong. I will never make such a mistake again.”
But his father did not forgive him.
“Leave.”
“!”
“Go to Zhejiang and do not return until I tell you to.”
Zhejiang was far too distant from here. To Yang Jung, being told to leave for Zhejiang was no different from a declaration of death.
Yang Jung was shocked by the realization that his father intended to cast him out.
His father had made his two sons fight over the succession. His father had not placed all his trust in his eldest son. That was why Yang Jung had held hope. He, too, could become the successor.
And so he had truly done every kind of thing.
For the North Blood Sect, and for his father. He had done things that should never be known to the world.
But now he understood. He had not been dreaming together with his father. The dream had been his alone.
“I refuse. I will not leave!”
Yang Jung screamed. Until now, he had been too afraid of his father to reveal his true feelings properly, but he would no longer hold back.
“I did everything you ordered me to do. If you told me to kill, I killed. If you told me to kidnap, I kidnapped. And now you tell me to leave? I refuse!”
‘You used me as much as you pleased, like a hunting dog. If your child is a hunting dog, then what does that make you, Father?’
Those were words he could not bring himself to say aloud. But considering what was about to happen, it was a resentment he might as well have voiced.
Puuuk!
With the sound of flesh tearing, Yang Jung’s words and movements stopped.
His head lowered, and he stared at the bloodstained blade protruding through his chest. Was it because he was too shocked? It did not hurt.
Though he had seen so many times what it looked like when a sword pierced a person, the sight now was terribly unfamiliar.
Who could it be? If it was someone who could enter this place?
When he slowly turned his head to look behind him, the person who had stabbed him was the first person who had come to mind.
It was Yang Seok, the eldest son of the North Blood Sect and his elder brother.
His brother, who had always regarded him as a thorn in his eye during the battle for succession, was more than capable of doing something like this.
The person Yang Jung could not understand now was his father. That father, silently watching this scene. His brother would never have dared commit such an act without his father’s permission. He had been told to kill him if he said he would not leave.
“……If you were going to do this, why did you save me?”
To the question full of resentment came a cold reply.
“Because I could not allow the blood of the North Blood Sect to die by another’s hand. It can die only by our hands.”
It was nonsense. If so, he should have agreed to the hostage exchange. Instead of killing him, he should have sent him to Zhejiang by any means necessary. If he refused to go, he should have persuaded him. He should have sealed his blood points and sent him away. If he was his father, then that was what he should have done….
Yang Jung’s resentment ended there.
Puuuuk!
The sword was ripped out harshly, and Yang Jung collapsed as blood gushed from his chest, dying on the spot.
Ju Gyu and Hwang Chu, who had been kidnapped together with Yang Jung earlier, had already been eliminated as well.
The North Blood Sect Leader said to Yang Seok,
“The Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult has begun investigating this matter while staying at the Ice Palace.”
“We will cut off every loose end that could lead back to us.”
“The life and death of our sect rests on this. Handle it with care.”
“Leave it to me.”
After Yang Seok left, the Lord of the North Blood Sect looked down at his dead son. His heart ached. But it was a pain he could endure. If the North Blood Sect were to collapse, that would be unbearable.
* * *
The Drunken Demon was walking about the courtyard.
‘I know the answer. The answer is inside me.’
Geom Mugeuk’s conjecture seemed plausible. She was not someone who would have earned another’s grudge. If she had been caught up in a plot, then surely it would be one related to liquor.
While pacing like that, the Drunken Demon took out the letters exchanged with her and read them. Then, after walking again, the Drunken Demon stopped and read another letter. Looking up at the sky, thinking this and that, then walking once more.
Ian was watching the Drunken Demon from the window inside the room.
“Lord Drunken Demon seems to have a great deal on his mind.”
Han Seol gave no answer and merely sat on the edge of the bed. She had not even unpacked the belongings she had brought.
“Do you regret it? Deciding to come with us?”
Han Seol only sent her a cold look, still saying nothing.
Ian stopped trying to speak to her and looked out the window again.
It was grave outside, and grave within. As for Geom Mugeuk, the one who had given both of them such heavy worries, he had stepped away, saying he had somewhere to go for a while.
Just then, Han Seol abruptly spoke from behind her.
“Does it not occur to you that you are being deceived?”
Ian turned her head and looked at Han Seol.
“By the Young Cult Leader?”
Han Seol nodded.
Ian could tell how Han Seol saw her. She thought Ian was being deceived and used by Geom Mugeuk.
Ian considered simply giving her a smile and leaving it at that, but decided she should not. It was fine if Han Seol thought that of her, but Ian could not stand for her to think that of Geom Mugeuk.
“Perhaps.”
Though she answered as if admitting it readily, that was the beginning of “teaching her who Geom Mugeuk truly was.”
“By being deceived like that, I cured the side effects of the martial art I had learned. I never said it aloud, but they were side effects that troubled me greatly.”
Ian did not reveal the specifics of those side effects.
“By being deceived like that, I learned swordsmanship I would never have dreamed of, and became the head of an organization I would never have dreamed of leading. By being deceived like that, I even became the adopted daughter of someone I would never have dreamed of calling father.”
Han Seol was not curious what swordsmanship it was, nor what organization it was, but she was curious who this father was—someone Ian said she could never have dreamed of in her lifetime.
“Who are you speaking of?”
Ian answered honestly. It was not a secret anyway.
“The Fist Demon, one of our cult’s Demon Venerables.”
At the words that Ian was the Fist Demon’s daughter, Han Seol was startled.
‘This woman is the Fist Demon’s daughter?’
Was that why the Young Cult Leader cherished this woman? No. Ian was saying that it was because she had met the Young Cult Leader that she had been able to become the Fist Demon’s daughter.
“By being deceived like that, I became drinking companions with the Hwangcheon Pavilion Master and the Demon Army Lord, and the person who was going to become the next Demon Venerable became a squad leader in the organization I lead.”
Not a single thing she continued to say was ordinary, so Han Seol began to suspect Ian might be lying. But would she dare lie so openly to her? About things that would be revealed if she looked into them?
“And now I am conversing with the Young Palace Mistress of the Northern Sea Ice Palace. If I had not been deceived by our Young Cult Leader, my life would have been spent standing guard in front of a door.”
Ian’s gaze was clearer and calmer than ever.
“If that is the life one lives while being deceived, isn’t it rather fine?”
It was not merely to clear up her misunderstanding about Geom Mugeuk. If it had been someone else, Ian might have let it pass.
Yet strangely, she wanted Han Seol to know properly. Even though this chilly Young Palace Mistress was not the sort of person Ian would normally like.
“It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? Sometimes I can’t believe it either. There are many times when I wonder if this is a dream. That’s why I told you before to try trusting him once. Ah, I suppose I should put it differently now.”
After a brief pause, Ian said,
“Try being deceived by the Young Cult Leader once.”
Their gazes became entangled in midair. Han Seol could not understand it, nor could she believe it. And yet, in Ian’s clear eyes as she looked at her, she could sense no falsehood.
At that very moment, the Drunken Demon hurried into the room, looking for Geom Mugeuk.
“The Young Cult Leader? Where is the Young Cult Leader?”
“He went out, saying he had something to attend to. What is it?”
The Drunken Demon was somewhat agitated, and with good reason.
“The answer was inside me!”