A dozen or so carriages raced in a single line.
The dragons painted on the carriage walls looked as though they might ascend to the heavens at any moment.
Martial artists passing by respectfully cupped their fists toward the carriages. In Wuhan, there was only one person who could use carriages emblazoned with dragons.
Sure enough, the carriage at the head bore the flag symbolizing the Murim Alliance Leader.
The carriages came to a stop before Musojang.
The doors of the ten carriages lined up in a row opened simultaneously.
Jin Paecheon stepped down from the seventh carriage. From the remaining carriages, the warriors of his escort guard alighted.
On an official procession of the Murim Alliance Leader, a dozen identical carriages moved together like this so no one could tell which one he was riding in.
When Jin Paecheon got out, the heroes guarding the front of Musojang all cupped their fists and bowed at once. They had been keeping watch there ever since Cheonae Geosa was ambushed.
“We greet the Alliance Leader!”
Receiving the martial artists’ welcome, Jin Paecheon entered Musojang. The warriors guarding the courtyard also greeted him with proper courtesy.
At the very least, the martial artists gathered here respected and followed Cheonae Geosa more than they did the Murim Alliance Leader.
Having heard of the Alliance Leader’s arrival, Cheonae Geosa came outside.
“I greet the Alliance Leader.”
Though they were old friends, since they were in the presence of the heroes, Cheonae Geosa showed the utmost courtesy due to the Alliance Leader.
“Is your body feeling any better?”
“Thanks to your concern, I am well. Come, please step inside.”
The two entered the building. Only after Cheonae Geosa dismissed everyone around them did they speak comfortably.
“I should have come sooner. I’m sorry.”
“Not at all. I’m grateful you came despite how busy you are.”
Hwa Yulcheong clasped Jin Paecheon’s hand. His hand was so dry it felt like gripping a withered branch.
Jin Paecheon handed him a small box he had prepared from within his robes.
“What is this?”
When Hwa Yulcheong opened the box, there was a small medicinal pill inside.
“It’s a Blood-Replenishing Pill.”
The Blood-Replenishing Pill was medicine taken after losing a great deal of blood, the best possible remedy for restoring vitality after an injury.
“Why did you bring something so precious?”
“What could be more precious to me than you?”
“Thank you. I’ll take it properly.”
“Take it now. Otherwise, won’t you sell it later and use it to help people? Take it in front of me.”
Their gazes tangled in midair. Jin Paecheon did not back down.
“Very well.”
Hwa Yulcheong took the Blood-Replenishing Pill on the spot and circulated his true qi through one full cycle.
Since there was no better medicine for an injury, Hwa Yulcheong’s complexion improved at once.
“Thank you.”
“No need for thanks.”
“It’s been so long since we last met. Will you have a drink?”
Jin Paecheon shook his head.
“Drinking after taking medicine? Don’t be ridiculous. I’m fine.”
“Then at least have some tea. I brewed some earlier.”
While Hwa Yulcheong prepared the tea, Jin Paecheon looked around the interior.
Nothing had changed since the last time he had come. The furniture, the desk—everything was old and cheap. He was the kind of man who spent all the money he had on the poor.
The martial artists who had come out of their own volition to protect him spoke to the life he had lived.
It was hard to believe that such a person was behind a conspiracy.
Hwa Yulcheong brought the teapot to the table.
To think a moment would come when he had to wonder whether poison had been put in the tea.
“How long has it been? This is the first time since we met after the three-party summit, isn’t it?”
Hwa Yulcheong remembered their last meeting precisely.
“You were quite worked up that day.”
“I was?”
I was worked up? Jin Paecheon could not quite remember whether he had been. Hwa Yulcheong, on the other hand, remembered that day clearly.
“That day, you spoke more about the Young Cult Leader than about the Demonic Cult Leader or the Evil Dao Alliance Leader. You said he would become terrifying once he grew.”
He remembered. Perhaps, to him, it had sounded like excitement. Or perhaps he really had been excited. Hwa Yulcheong was the only person to whom he could honestly reveal such feelings.
“That Young Cult Leader is in Wuhan.”
Hwa Yulcheong’s hand, which had been lifting a teacup, stopped. A look of surprise flashed across his face above the cup.
“Is that true?”
Jin Paecheon told him the facts as they were.
“There are people who forged and sold the Divine Cult’s hidden weapons. The very same hidden weapons that were used to attack you.”
“The Young Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult came all the way here personally because of that?”
Hwa Yulcheong looked as though he could not understand.
Jin Paecheon recalled what Geom Mugeuk had told him.
Fight with the truth. Then you may see something that only you, Alliance Leader, can recognize.
“That is not the only reason.”
Jin Paecheon showed his hand first. He had not come here to play a battle of wits.
“They suspect you are behind it.”
Hwa Yulcheong looked as though he did not know how to take those words or how to react to them. In the end, he let out a hollow laugh.
“Why would the Demonic Cult try to frame me with such an absurd accusation?”
Hwa Yulcheong did not even ask, Surely you don’t believe that, do you? It seemed he naturally assumed Jin Paecheon would not.
“Then was the ambush on me related to that matter as well?”
“There is a high possibility.”
“It seems those bastards are plotting some scheme.”
The word scheme struck Jin Paecheon in the chest as though it had lodged there.
Whose scheme is this?
Geom Mugeuk’s? Hwa Yulcheong’s?
Jin Paecheon rose from his seat and walked to the window.
Hwa Yulcheong remained seated, watching his back.
For a moment, silence flowed through the room. Jin Paecheon’s back, different from usual, forced a single question.
“Do you suspect me?”
Compared to the difficulty with which the question had been asked, the answer came immediately.
“How could I? I’ve watched your life from your side all these years. It’s just… why would that clever man frame you with such an absurd accusation, as you put it? That thought keeps coming to me.”
But Hwa Yulcheong was looking precisely into his friend’s heart.
“No. You are wavering right now.”
Jin Paecheon did not deny it.
Not denying it at this moment.
This was exactly what Geom Mugeuk had intended. If he held tightly to the truth and faced the other man, he thought, at the very least he would not be swept away.
Jin Paecheon honestly revealed his feelings.
“Yes, I admit it. The Young Cult Leader is someone who has given me that much trust.”
If it had not been for Geom Mugeuk, he could say with certainty that he would never have suspected Hwa Yulcheong. Even if clear evidence had emerged, even if a joint petition written by him had appeared, he would have believed his friend.
Because of Geom Mugeuk, he was now doing something he absolutely should never do to a friend.
He was tearing down, in a single morning, the trust they had built over a lifetime.
“Do you remember the day we first met?”
At Jin Paecheon’s question, Hwa Yulcheong answered.
“How could I forget?”
Hwa Yulcheong added, his gaze filled with regret for the past.
“My life changed when I met you that day.”
Jin Paecheon, who had been looking out the window, slowly turned and looked at Hwa Yulcheong.
Was it because this situation pained him so much? Hwa Yulcheong said something he had never once said to Jin Paecheon all this time.
“Do you know why I have lived helping people like this?”
Other than his great and chivalrous nature, Jin Paecheon wondered what other reason there could possibly be.
“It was because of you.”
“Because of me?”
“Before I met you, I was not the sort of person who sacrificed himself for others to this extent.”
And yet, the reason he had lived such a life was something Jin Paecheon had never imagined.
“I wanted to become a friend worthy of you.”
“!”
It was a fact Jin Paecheon had not known. He had never once said anything like this before.
“I was always the little bird trying to keep pace with a stork until its legs split.”
Hwa Yulcheong’s gaze was directed at Jin Paecheon’s teacup, from which he had not taken a single sip. That look seemed to be saying this:
I lived my whole life like this because of you, and now you suspect me after listening to the words of a demonic man?
Because he did not argue or question him, that gaze looked all the more sorrowful.
Jin Paecheon calmly bade him farewell. He realized that his own emotions had grown too intense, and he could no longer look at him rationally.
“I sincerely hope the day comes when I can apologize to you from the heart. Then, take good care of yourself.”
As he slowly moved and passed by his side, Hwa Yulcheong spoke.
“You may suspect me, but suspect the Young Cult Leader as well. That Young Cult Leader is a terrifying man who can drive this much of a wedge between you and me.”
With genuine concern, Hwa Yulcheong conveyed his heart to his friend.
“I am fine, so please be careful.”
* * *
Jin Paecheon stood in a pavilion in Cheongunrim.
It was the very pavilion in the bamboo forest where he had previously met Geom Muyang. Today, too, fog lay thick over the place.
Geom Mugeuk arrived there. The person who had contacted him and asked to meet was Jin Paecheon. Since he had met his friend, he thought it was now time to meet Geom Mugeuk.
Geom Mugeuk climbed up into the pavilion and stood side by side with Jin Paecheon.
“On my way here, I kept thinking about what the wisest choice I could make would be.”
“Did you find an answer?”
“Yes, I did.”
Their gazes, which had been directed toward the fog, turned to one another. Jin Paecheon’s eyes were still searching for the truth.
“Trust. Whatever you may think of me, Alliance Leader, I decided I must trust you. I should tell you everything. That way, there will be no misunderstanding between you and me. That is the conclusion I reached.”
No matter how clear and deep his eyes were as he spoke, it was not easy for that heart to be conveyed to Jin Paecheon as it was now.
“Sometimes it is precisely because of trust that the truth becomes obscured.”
It was a statement that applied to both Geom Mugeuk and Hwa Yulcheong.
“I am on my way back from meeting that friend.”
Geom Mugeuk already knew. It had been an official procession, after all.
“I told him everything honestly.”
“And what did he say?”
Geom Mugeuk was curious about Hwa Yulcheong’s reaction.
“I thought he would be angry, but he did not get angry.”
Geom Mugeuk thought that if Hwa Yulcheong had responded so calmly and composedly, then nothing could have been learned. But precisely because of that, there was something Jin Paecheon had discovered.
“Rather, while looking at that friend worrying about me, I realized one thing.”
Jin Paecheon’s gaze turned to Geom Mugeuk.
“That friend has never once gotten angry at me.”
Jin Paecheon spoke again, as though emphasizing it.
“We were friends for decades, yet that friend never once got angry at me. Astonishingly, I realized that today. Yes, it could be so. He is a friend with such a good nature, after all. Then do you know how I was?”
Geom Mugeuk smiled as he said,
“You must have gotten angry often, Alliance Leader.”
Though age had now tempered him and he controlled his emotions well, he had originally been a rough and domineering man.
“No. I never got angry at that man either.”
It was a result surprising to both Geom Mugeuk, who was listening, and Jin Paecheon, the person concerned.
“When I think of my temper in my youth, it was impossible. I thought about it on the way here. Why had I never once gotten angry at that man?”
And Jin Paecheon found the answer.
“Because that friend always matched my mood.”
Jin Paecheon had never once seriously thought about this in his life. He was a good-natured friend, and so he was comfortable to be with.
“When I was the successor, and even after I became the Alliance Leader, he always adjusted himself to me. If I became angry, he became angry with me. If I was happy, he was happy with me.”
In a word, he had been a truly good friend.
“But when I thought about it, that friend had never once revealed his own emotions to me. Neither joy nor sadness. Not even irritation.”
If that had been his original nature, then it might have made sense.
“He is a man who does not spare his tears for the poor. When he sees injustice, he grows angrier than anyone. And yet he has never expressed those overflowing emotions to me.”
Jin Paecheon asked Geom Mugeuk with eyes that demanded an answer.
“Because I am the Alliance Leader? Because he found me difficult?”
Jin Paecheon was agitated, and this was the first time he had ever spoken so much to someone. He truly had not expected that someone to be Geom Mugeuk.
At last, Geom Mugeuk, who had only been listening, opened his mouth.
“Is that not why you were able to come this far?”
“!”
“There was no reason for the relationship to be ruined, and you steadily built a friendship over decades, did you not?”
Even as the Murim Alliance Leader, how could he not feel the discomfort of suspecting an old friend? And this was a distortion in the relationship he had discovered on his own. Jin Paecheon’s suspicion turned back toward Geom Mugeuk.
“Are you not the same, treating people with fine words?”
Geom Mugeuk calmly persuaded him.
“If I were not the temporary Cult Leader but the real Cult Leader, then you would be right to suspect that our cult orchestrated this situation. I am someone skilled at sowing discord and quite good at petty schemes. But as long as my father is the Cult Leader, we do not use methods like this. My father would simply push his way in. ‘Go on, try to stop me,’ he would say.”
He could not deny those words. The Geom Ujin he knew was such a man.
“Moreover, he would not create a situation like this.”
Geom Mugeuk delivered the news to Jin Paecheon.
“The old demons who broke the Forbidden Demon Decree are coming here.”
“!”
Jin Paecheon knew better than anyone what the Forbidden Demon Decree was. It was an edict that had been passed down in the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult for hundreds of years.
He had judged that the reason they did not kill the Demonic Cult experts who had committed crimes and instead left them alive was ultimately to use them one day when a battle against the Murim Alliance broke out.
“To have broken the Forbidden Demon Decree means they disobeyed the Cult Leader’s command. To use such people to plot something? If that is what you think, then you have misunderstood my father greatly.”
It was a moment when the old demons’ breaking of the Forbidden Demon Decree worked in his favor.
Jin Paecheon, too, agreed with Geom Mugeuk’s words.
“Who is coming?”
“Mayeomgun and Baekgol Honma are coming.”
Jin Paecheon’s expression hardened. If mishandled, they were men who would raise a storm of blood.
“Why are they coming?”
“We did not send them, so how would I know? But what they are best at is killing people, so they must be coming to kill someone.”
A cold energy flowed out from Jin Paecheon’s body.
Even until now, he had maintained his composure for the sake of the Alliance and the orthodox murim, despite his anger being on the verge of exploding. And now even criminals of the Demonic Cult were coming?
Toward that cold fury, Geom Mugeuk said something startling.
“I believe you know whom they are coming to kill, Alliance Leader.”
“I do?”
To Jin Paecheon, whose expression had gone beyond surprise to absurdity, Geom Mugeuk asked. If their goal was to split the main cult and the Murim Alliance apart.
“Whom would they have to kill for you to be unable to endure it?”
Absolute Regression Chapter 643