It was just past noon.
Around the time when Gu Yangcheon would be training in the cave.
At that same hour, Mihyoran—the lady of the Gu family and owner of the famous trading company Baekhwaju in Zhongyuan—was facing her husband.
Creak, clack.
From behind, the sound of a water wheel gradually drifted through the quiet atmosphere.
Three teacups sat upon the table.
Faint steam rose from two of them.
Mihyoran extended her pale, unwavering hand and lifted her teacup.
After silently drinking a sip to wet her throat, she looked at her husband and opened her mouth.
“Did you have a good talk?”
Her voice was as flat and even as ever, but her expression was cold enough to be called frigid.
Knowing this, Gu Cheolun offered no proper answer and subtly averted his gaze. Watching him, Mihyoran added,
“However well you shared words, you left the child’s eyes bruised blue.”
“...”
“Do you have anything to say about this?”
The calm question, as if she would at least hear an excuse, felt all the more frightening.
The aura emanating from Mihyoran, an ordinary person without a shred of internal qi, was no ordinary thing.
So much so that despite the faint heat radiating from Gu Cheolun, the room felt as though the temperature had dropped coldly.
Gu Cheolun let out a rare, brief cough and spoke toward Mihyoran.
“Something happened.”
“Of course something should have happened. Otherwise, there would have been big trouble.”
“...”
What kind of big trouble? He did not know exactly, but Gu Cheolun could tell it was definitely not the good kind.
Mihyoran let out a deep sigh at his appearance.
“Seeing the child’s expression, it seems to have resolved well, so I will not say much… but I am rather disappointed that you made that precious face like that.”
Precious face?
Gu Cheolun looked at Mihyoran with a strange expression.
Because while Gu Yangcheon was his son, he did not have a face that could be called precious.
“There was a reason it could not be helped.”
It could not be helped. Those words were likely true.
The energy Gu Yangcheon had been emitting at the time was closer to a fighting spirit disguised as internal qi.
Gu Cheolun had immediately recognized it as the same energy he had felt from Paejon in the past.
Seeing that Gu Yangcheon was using two types of energy on top of harboring power that could explode at any moment, his body had moved before his mind.
He could not simply stand by and watch his son die.
However, he simply did not feel the need to explain this in detail to Mihyoran.
Hearing that, Mihyoran said to Gu Cheolun,
“Do you ever have a reason that *cannot* be helped?”
“…This matter truly could not be helped.”
At Gu Cheolun’s words, wrinkles formed on Mihyoran’s fine forehead.
“Did you not promise me you would not injure him?”
“I approached it as sparring, so that too was unavoidable—”
“You said you were going to talk, not that you would spar. Was this ‘conversation’ by any chance a conversation of bodies?”
“Ahem.”
Gu Cheolun finally let out a cough and took a sip of tea.
Seeing that, Mihyoran felt stifled, yet also a slight lightness.
Because she felt the weight surrounding Gu Cheolun had lessened slightly.
*He has grown a bit lighter.*
Feeling that, she was currently holding back further anger.
That aside, leaving a blue bruise around the child’s eye was something Mihyoran found rather intolerable.
*Where on that child is there a place to hit?*
Yet the reason she was not fully expressing this anger was that if she spoke of it, she was no different from herself, who had kept the child at a distance out of guilt and fear; she was merely refraining from spitting on her own face.
Fortunately, the attitudes of the women who had jumped up, seeming ready to draw their swords at the sight of the child’s condition, were not unpleasant in Mihyoran’s eyes.
The way they had looked as though they would draw their swords immediately was not unpleasant to Mihyoran.
The woman called Geom Muhui already had a fiancé from the start, so Mihyoran had given her high marks.
As for the other women around him, there was somewhat of a variance.
Several women came to mind.
First, the one receiving the highest score was the daughter of the Murong family. Xuefeng, was it?
The rumors that reached her, combined with the way she subtly pulled strings from behind the scenes without drawing attention, pleased Mihyoran.
She would have been dangerous as an enemy, but Mihyoran could immediately tell that her actions were mostly for the benefit of her son’s future.
In other words,
It might be because she resembled Mihyoran herself.
It was also because she was the daughter of that ‘Murong family.’
Because among the women who had followed Gu Cheolun around in the past, there had been a daughter of the Murong family.
Of course, she was a completely different woman from the Murong Huia that Mihyoran knew.
If forced to compare, she had a similar feeling to Mihyoran’s own daughter, Gu Huibi.
*Several women, indeed…*
Mihyoran smiled slightly inwardly at the words that had suddenly come to mind.
She had been worried that Gu Yangcheon seemed to be struggling, but he seemed to be doing reasonably well.
His luck with women seemed not bad either.
However,
*In this regard… he takes after his father too much.*
If that was another worry, then it was indeed a worry.
Having too much luck with women was also a step on the path of future hardship.
In that regard, Gu Yangcheon’s path of hardship was quite clear.
Gu Cheolun was not the type to care about such things, but Gu Yangcheon did not seem to be the same.
Moreover, each and every woman entangled with him possessed a ridiculous background; thinking of that, all Mihyoran could do was subtly pull some strings from behind.
“…So.”
At Mihyoran’s words, Gu Cheolun’s head moved.
“Did the child look at ease?”
That was the most important question.
Had that child perhaps grown even a little more at ease because of it?
Mihyoran gazed calmly into Gu Cheolun’s eyes.
Gu Cheolun’s eyes still looked heavy, but a minute difference could be felt.
Accepting that gaze, Gu Cheolun carefully spoke.
“I do not know.”
In his thick, heavy voice, something faint was paradoxically mixed in.
“Whether such a small matter could change anything. I still do not know.”
“Did you not ask the child?”
Whether he had improved somewhat. Had he not asked?
At Mihyoran’s words, Gu Cheolun shook his head.
“I did not ask.”
“Why?”
“I do not know that either. However.”
Mihyoran lent her ear to Gu Cheolun’s words.
Because she could sense he was hesitating for some time.
“The third son… looked at me and called me Father.”
“…!”
In a way, it was only natural.
For a child to call his father ‘Father’ was a natural thing.
But that natural thing contained many meanings upon closer inspection.
Mihyoran examined Gu Cheolun’s face.
Though no change in expression was still visible, Mihyoran could see his pupils trembling faintly.
“…What about you?”
“I do not know. I am still too incompetent a person to know all of that.”
“...”
He did not deny it.
In Mihyoran’s eyes, Gu Cheolun was an outstanding figure as the family head, but sorely lacking as a parent.
Of course, the same could likely be said of Mihyoran herself.
“It is difficult.”
At Gu Cheolun’s quietly uttered words, Mihyoran nodded inwardly.
And she spoke, looking at Gu Cheolun.
“It is late.”
“...”
“It is very late. You should have realized it was difficult a little sooner.”
Not just a little, but much, much sooner. Both she and Gu Cheolun.
This was Mihyoran’s regret.
If she had realized this just a little earlier, things would have been better… but she had not been able to.
That was Mihyoran’s regret.
“…Therefore. Try to learn it even now.”
“I shall try.”
Gu Cheolun hesitated briefly before answering thus.
With those words, it would be fine for now.
Because Gu Cheolun’s words of effort were not spoken to escape, but truly meant as they were.
Having heard all that, Mihyoran slowly rose.
If there was one wish.
—He called me Father.
Just as Gu Yangcheon had uttered the word Father to Gu Cheolun.
*Someday.*
Someday, she too…
Thinking up to that point, Mihyoran closed her eyes.
Because the thought felt somewhat arrogant.
Having cleanly erased the attachment that was not an attachment, Mihyoran bid her husband farewell without showing it on her face and left the room.
Left alone, Gu Cheolun drank the remaining tea and closed his eyes.
Though various thoughts filled his mind, when gathered together, his worry was ultimately one.
*It is difficult.*
This thing called a relationship.
Because the sin weighing heavily upon him was so ponderous.
Might this too, in the end, be another karma he had been turning away from?
Gu Cheolun comforted himself with such thoughts.
—It is late.
As Mihyoran had said, it was a worry that came far too late.
Now, rather than finding it difficult, he had to choose something else.
“...”
Soon, Gu Cheolun carefully opened his eyes and quietly watched the door Mihyoran had exited through.
Slosh.
He began to fill the teacups.
First, he filled the teacup before him, then began to fill the one across from him as well.
It was a strange thing.
Mihyoran had already left the room.
After filling that teacup, Gu Cheolun spoke.
“I apologize for making you wait.”
For words spoken to thin air where nothing seemed to be, it was far too sudden.
However.
Creak.
As soon as Gu Cheolun’s words fell, the door Mihyoran had exited through opened, and someone entered.
It was a middle-aged man wearing black martial robes.
He was a figure Gu Cheolun knew.
He was a martial artist called Bi Jeok, the head of the famous family in Xi'an—the Xi'an Bi family.
Confirming him, Gu Cheolun rose.
To offer a greeting.
However. It was not a greeting directed at Bi Jeok.
Gu Cheolun had been waiting.
For the person who would enter behind him.
Realizing this, Bi Jeok entered with an awkward expression and carefully stepped aside.
So that someone else could enter, and indeed, the figure Gu Cheolun had been waiting for entered the room, passing Bi Jeok.
Gu Cheolun assessed the entered figure.
He was a young martial artist.
He appeared to be of an age similar to Gu Cheolun’s own child.
He gave the impression of having just passed his twentieth year.
From the martial robes he wore, one could faintly tell he was a blood relative of the Bi family.
He was likely the child of the Bi family head standing beside him.
Therefore, under normal circumstances, he would have shown courtesy to Bi Jeok first.
But Gu Cheolun’s head bowed first to the young man who had entered ahead.
Because the figure who had entered first held a position far higher than the Bi family head.
“I greet the venerable elder.”
At that attitude, a strange emotion flickered in the young man’s eyes.
“Remarkable. We have not even been introduced yet.”
“Thank you for coming despite such a sudden request.”
“Well now… if you act like this, there’ll be no fun in teasing.”
He had planned to start with some teasing, but alas.
Smirking, Paejon approached Gu Cheolun and plopped down across the table.
“Long time no see, Gu family head. It is rather difficult to count how long it has been. While I’m at it, let me reintroduce myself.”
Paejon spoke, lifting the teacup that had been prepared in advance.
“I am called Paejon Biju. And.”
Paejon’s eyes turned to Gu Cheolun, and Gu Cheolun had already been looking at Paejon even before that.
“I am your son’s teacher.”
With those words, a heavy atmosphere began to permeate the room.