If Necessary (1)
Three days had passed since I returned to the Gu Family after the Nine Dragons Gathering.
It had also been three days since I discovered that I could use the Heavenly Demon’s demonic arts.
Over the past few days, I had repeatedly circulated the Nine Flames Wheel Technique whenever I found time to train, but I could not sense any demonic energy within my body.
That was certainly fortunate, but I remained on guard, wondering if I simply failed to notice demonic energy lying dormant inside me.
“Those damned bastards are making me suffer even after I died and came back to life.”
The training ground beside my residence was filled with heat pouring from my body.
Since I was only at two stars at most, it was hardly threatening heat.
“…My body still isn’t ready to rise to three stars.”
My understanding and proficiency in handling internal energy should have risen long ago.
However, both the amount of internal energy I currently possessed and the body that had to contain it were still far from being properly formed vessels.
In the end, repetitive training was the only answer.
Thanks to that, I had also been suffering from muscle pain for days on end….
I opened the door to the heat-filled training ground and stepped outside.
A spring breeze brushed past me. Thanks to it, my overheated body quickly cooled.
“Hey! Isn’t there dust right in front of you, too?”
“Ho ho ho ho….”
“…Hm?”
What in the world was going on this time?
Beside the Sword Venerable, who was sweeping the courtyard, stood a familiar figure. He was over eight cheok tall, with broad, outstretched shoulders. In stark contrast to his snow-white hair, which revealed his age, the muscles beneath his clothes were bulging as though they might tear through the fabric.
There was no need to confirm his identity. That figure was Elder Yi.
“No, honestly, shouldn’t you sweep a little harder? Look at this, look at this. There’s a whole heap of dust here.”
“Ho ho ho….”
…What was that crazy old man doing?
Elder Yi stood beside the Sword Venerable, pointing here and there with his finger and offering unsolicited advice.
In all my years, I never thought I would see the Sword Venerable being berated for not knowing how to clean…?
“Look at this. You’re making it obvious that you’ve never held a broom in your life.”
What was I supposed to call the way he picked out every little flaw, even finding specks of dust so fine that they could barely be seen unless one enhanced one’s vision with internal energy…?
‘…For now, it’s just incredibly irritating to look at.’
The Sword Venerable and Elder Yi had both enjoyed their prime in the same era.
I had never thought they would not know each other.
But what kind of scene was this supposed to be?
“Elder Yi, what are you doing?”
“Oh! Yangcheon, you’re here.”
“…No, why are you suddenly bullying Senior Wi?”
The Sword Venerable had asked me to call him by his name, but as someone who knew his true identity, that was something I could never do, even if I died.
“This old man can’t even sweep properly. Tsk, tsk. If you’re being paid for this work, you can’t do it like this.”
No matter how I looked, I could not see a single speck of dust…?
“It looks clean to me….”
“Hey! Isn’t the residence in this state because you do everything so halfheartedly?”
What kind of ridiculous fault was he picking?
For the record, the residence looked perfectly clean to anyone.
Not only the other servants but even Wi Seol-a had paid close attention to cleaning it.
‘Why is Elder Yi acting like this? Is he perhaps making fun of the Sword Venerable?’
No way. Surely an old man who was, after all, an elder of a great family would not be fooling around like this.
‘…Is the Sword Venerable all right?’
The Sword Venerable, wearing his usual benevolent smile, did not appear particularly bothered.
He merely continued sweeping in silence.
“Ho ho ho ho….”
Surely, a man renowned as the Sword Venerable throughout the Central Plains had to be capable of casually overlooking even a disturbance like this….
“Ho ho ho ho!”
‘No, he’s angry.’
Looking closely, I could see veins bulging on his forehead in the shape of a 十.
I decided it would be best to leave immediately and hurriedly tried to slip away, but Elder Yi caught me.
“Are you on your way out of training?”
“Yes. As you can see.”
“Hmm….”
“Why do you ask?”
“Nothing. Your escort was waiting over there earlier.”
Elder Yi pointed toward the entrance leading into the residence.
“Muyeon?”
I had told him I would be training, so why was he waiting instead of coming to find me?
I had clearly told him that if something came up, he should enter the training ground and call for me.
“Thank you. I’ll be going, then.”
“You’re leaving…?”
“Pardon?”
I was about to head toward where Muyeon was when Elder Yi stopped me with a strangely plaintive voice.
“Yangcheon, aren’t you perhaps hungry? This old man happens to have something very delicious….”
“Young Master finished his meal earlier.”
The one who cut Elder Yi off was none other than the Sword Venerable.
“W-Well! How dare you interrupt when your blood relative is speaking!”
“Elder Yi, what in the world is wrong with you…?”
As I called out to Elder Yi, who seemed strangely desperate, I suddenly felt a chilling sensation.
‘What is this icy feeling…?’
Perhaps because I had just finished training, my heightened senses had picked up on something.
It was the back of the Sword Venerable, who was diligently sweeping the ground with his back turned behind Elder Yi.
‘…Hmm.’
The Sword Venerable would never do such a thing, but his back seemed to be telling me that it would be best if I cleared out of there as quickly as possible.
…In that case, I had better leave quickly.
“Elder Yi, something extremely urgent has come up for me.”
“If that’s the case, then this old man will come with—”
“Anyway, take care.”
I did not wait to hear the rest. I felt that something bad would happen if I stayed any longer.
Dodging Elder Yi’s hand as he tried to grab me again while saying something else, I quickly fled.
******************
After Gu Yangcheon left, only Elder Yi and the Sword Venerable remained in front of the training ground, and a strange silence settled over the area.
Even then, Elder Yi kept glancing around and inspecting his surroundings.
‘There are too many trees in front of the wall. Should I go over the roof of the residence…?’
…He was mapping out an escape route.
Seeing one of the Three Venerables of the world sweeping the floor of someone else’s residence with a broom had stirred up a mischievous streak in him, despite his age.
So he had teased the man a little too much. That was also simply Elder Yi’s temperament—he acted first without considering what might happen later.
Thanks to that, he was experiencing a sense of crisis he had not felt in years.
‘…That was too much.’
The Sword Venerable, Wi Hyogun, now lived while pretending to be a benevolent old man, but to Elder Yi, who knew his past deeds and personality, his current appearance was nothing short of terrifying.
‘The Sword Fiend who drew his sword first whenever he faced the Unorthodox Faction.’
To the Unorthodox Faction, the man hailed as a symbol of the Orthodox Faction was a killer and a sword fiend.
The Sword Venerable had never shown the slightest hesitation when punishing evil people.
“Guryun.”
When the Sword Venerable called Elder Yi by name, a chill ran down his spine. It was a sensation he had not felt in a very long time.
“Ahem…. Senior, are you angry? I was only joking around a little. Thanks to me, Yangcheon didn’t become suspicious for no reason….”
“That child is truly fascinating.”
“…Hm?”
“He is different from the day before yesterday, different from yesterday, and different again today.”
The Sword Venerable suddenly said something unexpected to Elder Yi, who had been wondering where he could flee most quickly.
The Sword Venerable was thinking of Gu Yangcheon.
‘Every day, he is different.’
When the Sword Venerable first encountered Gu Yangcheon, his impression had been that he was merely a male descendant of the Gu Family.
Gu Yangcheon had given the Sword Venerable, who had judged his character based solely on rumors and outward appearance, no small amount of enlightenment. But that was all.
The fire qi contained within his body was nothing special compared to the blood relatives of the Gu Family, and even when compared with children of the same age from other great families and sects, his talent belonged far down the list.
A child of the Gu Family. Nothing more.
That was how the Sword Venerable had seen and thought of Gu Yangcheon.
‘But what about now?’
He thought of the glimpse he had just caught of Gu Yangcheon.
Unlike when he had first seen him, the fire qi in his dantian had neither grown noticeably hotter nor increased greatly in quantity.
It was simply stable.
Among the Orthodox Faction’s cultivation methods, the Gu Family’s technique was said to be the most violent, rivaled only by the Peng Family’s.
It was no easy thing to circulate such fierce power steadily through one’s dantian.
That required instinct, and thus belonged unquestionably to the realm of time and talent.
Considering Gu Yangcheon’s age, however, the word “time” did not fit.
That was unquestionably the realm of talent.
“I can’t sense anything particularly extraordinary, but the energy contained within his body is beyond what someone his age should possess.”
“I was quite surprised myself when I saw him again after such a long time.”
“…Are you saying he wasn’t like that the last time you saw him?”
“Was it about three months ago? He did a little horse stance, then ran off saying he couldn’t do it anymore.”
A child like that had suddenly changed within a few months.
Even the intensity of his current training could not be compared with the past.
According to what his guards and servants had told him, aside from eating, sleeping, and taking the briefest rests, he spent all his remaining time training.
And the training was extremely intense.
The Sword Venerable, who watched Gu Yangcheon from nearby, knew best that his actions were not a deception.
“What could have awakened that child so suddenly?”
It was only natural for people to change as the years passed.
But there was always a reason when someone changed so suddenly.
That was an immutable law.
What had changed Gu Yangcheon so completely? The Sword Venerable found himself wondering.
“Senior, you always think too much.”
Watching him, Elder Yi clicked his tongue.
It seemed that with age, the man had accumulated nothing but useless thoughts.
“If something is good, then it’s good. Why must everything always be so complicated?”
Elder Yi felt as though his greatest worry had finally been lifted.
‘What will happen if First Elder finds out?’
The unpleasant face of the old man surfaced briefly in his mind.
He was the one who opposed Gu Yangcheon becoming family head, criticizing both his temperament and his talent.
At the same time, he had slyly been introducing his own blood relatives to the family head. The sight had been so irritating, but now Elder Yi felt completely refreshed.
“Senior, don’t think too deeply about it, whatever it may be.”
There was no way Elder Yi’s words could resolve the Sword Venerable’s heart demon.
Even less so if it concerned his family.
“Thank you.”
Knowing that Elder Yi meant well, the Sword Venerable thanked him.
“Ahem…. Well, I’ve seen your face, so that should be enough. I’ll be going now….”
“Where are you going?”
“Well, I’ve seen your face and that brat Yangcheon’s face, so I should go take care of some business….”
“Guryun, haven’t we yet finished discussing something important?”
“What do you mean…?”
Elder Yi stopped speaking at the ominous aura he felt.
An indescribable force lurked in the Sword Venerable’s smiling eyes.
“Didn’t you say you would teach me about sweeping with a broom? I am still curious about that.”
Only then did Elder Yi remember how he had teased the Sword Venerable earlier to his heart’s content. Since the conversation had shifted to Gu Yangcheon, he had thought the man was letting it go.
But he was not.
‘What a petty man….’
The moment the Sword Venerable took a single step, Elder Yi launched himself toward the roof behind him.
It was the escape route he had calculated in advance.
******************
—Boom! Boom!
“Are they doing construction somewhere? Why is it so noisy?”
“I heard yesterday that they were renovating one of the family’s buildings. I assume that must be it.”
“Really? They must be doing fairly extensive work if the noise reaches all the way here.”
I thought I sensed a strangely familiar aura, but I shut it out of my mind.
Construction or whatever it was was not what I needed to worry about right now.
As I approached the entrance, Muyeon was fidgeting with an expression that plainly said, I have something important to give you!
When I asked what was wrong, Muyeon handed me a letter.
The brief message contained exactly what I wanted to hear.
[I accept the commission.]
I looked at the written words and grinned.
There was no need to wonder what they meant.
The letter had been sent by the Hao Sect.