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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: The Hidden Dragon of Seochang
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"Steward Do."
"Yes, sir!"
Already tense, he rushed over and bowed his head.
"Take the injured warriors and my siblings back."
"Understood!"
"Get your hand off me!"
Dojin kept his hand firmly over the struggling Soyeon's eyes.
"You bastards!"
Just then, from a distance, Masok came running, screaming at the top of his lungs with a rusty sword held high above his head.
"Take him with you too."
As Masok ran closer, his face turned pale at the sight of the carnage.
The group helped the injured warriors and began to leave the area.
Dojin glanced back once at Mujin, who was walking away, then finally removed his hand from Soyeon's eyes and began to retch.
"Ugh, blech!"
It was no surprise.
He had just witnessed a man being butchered like an animal, accompanied by the first scent of blood he had ever encountered. It was bound to be a shock for someone so young.
"Young Master! Are you alright?"
"I-I'm fine... Blech!"
Seeing Dojin vomit everything he had eaten, the steward glanced back at Mujin, who remained alone, and quickened his pace.
"Let's hurry to the infirmary!"
The steward hastened his steps, trying to escape the screams of the surviving assassins that were sure to follow.
*Clang!*
Mujin stabbed his sword into the ground, and a large piece of gravel split apart, flying into the air.
"Kuh!"
The assassin groaned as he saw the iron sword embed itself next to his face.
"You'd better give me the answer I want."
The assassin's pupils trembled as he looked up at the demonic face questioning him.
"I-If you spare me, I'll tell you everything."
"You want to live, even as a cripple?"
"My life as a warrior is over... but I want to live."
Mujin shook his head at the assassin's honest words.
"I don't have much experience letting those who draw their swords on me live."
In his past life, to be precise, only once.
Aside from the leader of the Sun Moon Divine Cult, he had never spared an enemy.
"If I'm to die anyway, I have no choice but to do my duty."
In that short reply, the assassin seemed to have made his resolve.
"...Come to think of it, I did let one go recently. The Black Vulture of the East, was it?"
At his words, a glimmer of hope appeared in the eyes of the assassin who had just steeled his resolve.
*Slice.*
And just like that, his head was severed.
"..."
*Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.*
Hearing footsteps crunching on the blood-soaked gravel, the assassin whose arm had been cut off managed to push himself up.
"You've been lying there for a long time just because you lost an arm."
"..."
Having seen Mujin cut off his comrade's head with an indifferent expression, he said nothing, his eyes darting around instead.
"The spy from the Cheonghwa Merchant Guild. Right?"
"..."
The assassin's mouth was clamped shut like a clam.
"I might let you live. Think carefully before you answer."
The man who had mercilessly killed his comrades would never let him live.
Frowning, he glanced down at his one remaining left arm.
"Will you really let me live?"
"Probably. If I just kill all of you, more gnats like you will just keep coming, won't they? In the past, I wouldn't have cared, but now it's a bit of a nuisance. So, I should probably leave one alive to scare the other flies off."
The assassin's eyes darted around for a moment before he sighed and began to speak.
He had no other choice.
"Huu. That's right. Bu Cho-yeon. She has been secretly hiring us through the Sarim House. Although the jobs were given through her trusted steward at the Cheonghwa Merchant Guild, she is undoubtedly the one behind it all."
"I see."
With that, Mujin turned away.
"A-Are you really letting me live?"
The assassin instantly regretted opening his mouth.
The moment regret washed over him, telling him he should have fled before uttering another word.
"I told you. Go and spread the word. Tell them how Hwa Mujin of the Yeomhwa Family killed you all. That's the price for your life."
Without looking back, Mujin finished speaking and walked away, disappearing from sight.
The assassin stared blankly at the spot where he had vanished for a long time, then turned to look at the gruesome scene once more.
Only then did the reality of his survival sink in, and his entire body began to tremble uncontrollably.
On his way back to the family estate, many people witnessed Mujin covered in blood.
Not a single person sneered at him as they had before, seeing him walk down the main street carrying an iron sword that looked too heavy for one hand, reeking of blood.
The troublesome nuisance who always caused problems.
The Mad Young Master, Hwa Mujin, was now a respectable warrior, known as the Hidden Dragon of Seochang.
There were not many in Seochang who could sneer at or treat such a warrior with contempt.
"My goodness, look at all that blood."
"I heard the second son of the Cheonghwa Merchant Guild was completely crippled, right?"
"That's not all. They say Young Master Hwa was the one who took care of those Bangho Gang thugs who disappeared."
"Those vicious bastards?!"
"Has his madness finally been cured?"
"Well... when he was young, they said he was a martial prodigy sent from the heavens. Even the Shaolin Temple came to see him."
Countless words were exchanged behind Mujin as he walked past, stained dark red as if wearing clothes of blood.
The day Mujin defeated Cheong Bo-do, the second son of the Cheonghwa Merchant Guild and a lay disciple of the Kongtong Sect.
From that day on, the way people in Seochang looked at and treated the Yeomhwa Family and Hwa Mujin began to change completely.
*Creeaak.*
As he opened the main gate, which still looked old and worn, Masok greeted him.
"Young Master!!"
"Where is everyone?"
"They're in the infirmary. Not a single one of them is unscathed... More importantly... are you alright, Young Master?"
Masok asked, looking at him as if he hadn't just been splattered but bathed in blood.
"I'm fine. Get a bath ready. Are Dojin and Soyeon in the infirmary too?"
"Yes. They were quite shaken, so we took them to the infirmary to help calm their minds and bodies."
Masok replied as he walked.
Calming their minds and bodies.
In the past, he would have scoffed at the idea of children from a martial family needing to calm themselves after seeing a few dead bodies.
Indeed, at Mount Tian, where his sworn brother lived, hadn't the young initiates of the cult witnessed people dying almost daily?
His own master had never hesitated to kill in front of him when he was young.
He was the one who had taught him the firm-handedness required to kill an enemy without fail.
But ever since he woke up in Mujin's body and first saw the two children, they had found a place deep in his heart.
He didn't want to expose these two children, who reminded him of the siblings of the lover he couldn't protect, to the harsh realities of the world.
If circumstances allowed, wasn't it possible to live a full life just by seeing and hearing pleasant things?
The desire to do for these two siblings what he couldn't do for his lover and her siblings.
Mujin did not yet realize that this feeling was the affection of kinship.
As soon as Masok had drawn the bath, Mujin submerged himself in the water.
"Just throw those clothes away. The stench of blood, once soaked in, doesn't come out easily."
Masok nodded at Mujin's words.
And so, a special day for the Yeomhwa Family came to an end.
* * *
In the infirmary, the warriors of the Yeomhwa Family, having finished treatment for their stab wounds, were resting with bandages wrapped around them.
"That was a close call."
As his shaken mind and body began to calm, Elder Jo nodded at the steward's words, looking at the sleeping Dojin and Soyeon.
He clenched his fists tightly, unable to shake the guilt of knowing the two children could have been harmed today.
"Bu Cho-yeon... To think that bitch would stoop to this... I almost lost them both due to my incompetence..."
The steward nodded, looking at the self-reproaching elder.
"You're not the only one. The fault is largely mine."
"But... I still don't understand what that sword art of the Young Master's was."
The steward nodded when the topic turned to Mujin.
"Did you see it too? How he split an assassin in two with a single strike?"
"I saw it clearly. In all my life, I've never seen such a domineering and overwhelming sword."
"Where on earth could he have obtained such a martial art? Did he even have the time?"
"Well... he did run off every time he had a fit, which was more than once or twice... But no matter how you look at it, this doesn't seem like an ordinary fortunate encounter."
Elder Jo's words made the steward speak with a grave expression.
"I knew the Young Master had changed since his fits stopped, but I never imagined it would be this much. It seems his madness is completely cured. But why would the master who taught him martial arts only reveal himself to the Young Master and not to us?"
"There must be a reason. The Young Master hasn't said a word about it either. It can't be someone with ill intentions, right? If a master of such sword arts had approached with malice, our family would have been finished already."
The steward nodded at Elder Jo's words.
"In any case, it was an incredible sword art. If what the Young Master has been saying is true... to possess such divine prowess so soon after starting his training..."
"The Heavenly Martial Body. The heaven-sent talent is finally shining through. Seventeen years... it seems the long darkness is finally lifting."
At the end of their conversation, both men's eyes reddened.
The sorrows of the past years flashed through their minds.
How many difficult years had they endured to protect the family everyone else had abandoned?
They were endlessly joyful that the darkness had lifted and that Mujin, once mocked as the Mad Young Master, had finally found his place.
* * *
A few days passed since the pivotal day that would become a turning point for the Yeomhwa Family.
Mujin was overseeing the training of the two children, who had returned from the infirmary.
"Good."
Mujin felt a surge of excitement watching Dojin lift his leg to avoid his foot, then spin backward in a wide arc.
"Soyeon's turn!"
"Ah!"
To avoid Mujin's foot, which swooped in like a hawk to step on hers, Soyeon shot one leg straight back.
Her movements were flexible, as expected of a young girl, and Mujin smiled before raising his foot once more.
*Whoosh.*
Soyeon kicked her leg up and spun backward to retreat.
"Nice!"
Mujin exclaimed as he watched Soyeon's foot graze past his chin.
"The cold wind."
"Blows downward."
"The coming storm?"
"Swallows heaven and earth."
"Therefore?"
"Pin the enemy's feet as if freezing them, and always maintain a wide range of movement for myself."
"Exactly!"
It was rote learning, but seeing the two children follow along properly, Mujin nodded in satisfaction.
These teachings were not from the Flame Emperor.
The movement technique the two were learning was certainly the Flame Emperor's, but the training methods and footwork were what Mujin had learned from his master in his past life.
A training method for creating space for movement in any situation and overwhelming the enemy.
Even when there was no distance.
Even when surrounded by numerous enemies.
It was a training method for creating the ideal posture and space to execute martial arts under any circumstances, which had been a great help when fighting multiple opponents from the orthodox factions.
"That's enough for today. Go and practice on your own."
"Yes!"
"Okay!"
Soyeon, who still spoke informally, and Dojin, who seemed a bit more mature than before.
Watching the two children run quickly across the training ground, he could see their movements had become quite nimble.
Seeing that the movement technique training he had taught them had not been in vain, he felt the satisfaction of teaching.
*'Master. Is this the joy of teaching someone?'*
*"You'll understand when you have a disciple of your own one day."*
He recalled the words of his smiling master, whom he had talked back to, asking if they couldn't take it easy, only to be beaten to a pulp for his defiance.
At the time, he hadn't understood his master's question: "How can I not push you when you grow as much as you're pushed?"
He had just cursed him internally as a senile old pervert, but now, having lived another life, he was beginning to understand those words.
*'I'm sorry. For letting the lineage of our school die with me. Once I raise this failing family to the top of Sichuan, I will surely continue our school's lineage. And I'll definitely find that damn Swordless Trace.'*
After looking up at the sky for a moment and thinking of his missed master, Mujin grabbed the iron sword propped up in a corner of the training ground.
*Swish! Whoosh! Swish!*
As always, Mujin began to swing the iron sword again.
The sound of the iron sword cutting through the air was so sharp it could be mistaken for the crack of a whip.
It was a sword weighing a full 110 catties, yet as Mujin swung it as lightly as a flexible sword, the muscles all over his body tensed and rippled.
As he began to perform the sword forms, the energy drifting in the air naturally entered through his breath, circulated throughout his body, and gathered in his dantian.
Mujin gradually became engrossed in the sword forms, losing track of time as he swung the sword.
With each repetition of the sword forms, he could feel his body being tempered and his internal energy growing. How could he possibly stop?
Ten days had passed since he returned to a routine of overseeing his siblings' training for a short while in the morning and dedicating the rest of his time entirely to his own training.
Finally, those who had been recovering in the infirmary returned to the family estate.
The warriors and the two elders returned, still wrapped in bandages here and there.
"You've worked hard."
Mujin threw that single phrase at them, seeing that they had all managed to return without anyone dying.
Masok, seemingly bothered by this, stepped forward and spoke.
"Worked hard? They risked their lives to protect the Young Master and the Young Lady from those villains..."
"Who pushed them into that trouble? From now on, make sure you don't go looking for trouble. Why would you seek hardship at your old age?"
With that, Mujin turned away.
At his pointed words, the two elders and the warriors couldn't say a thing, merely staring at the ground with their heads bowed.
*'What kind of fortunate encounter did he have?'*
*'Can a person change so much overnight?'*
Their questions deepened, but now they had no choice but to accept it.
That Hwa Mujin, the future head of the Yeomhwa Family, had now completely regained his sanity.
The day after the family members returned.
A visitor came to the Yeomhwa Family.
"Young Master!! The Taoist Master has arrived!! Young Master!"
Seeing Masok running toward him first thing in the morning, making a fuss, Mujin put down his sword and furrowed his brow.
"Taoist Master? What kind of long-nosed charlatan is visiting here?"
"Aigoo! Please watch your words! It's the Taoist Master who treated you, Young Master!"
Hearing that someone had treated him, he vaguely recalled something he had heard in passing.
That some long-nosed fraud claiming to be from a Taoist lineage of the Wudang Sect had performed some kind of 'spiritual energy treatment' or other nonsense.
"Ahem! I knew there would be an improvement. A few more sessions, and you will be completely cured."
As a Taoist with a white beard reaching his chest and wearing robes embroidered with a taiji symbol appeared from behind Masok, Mujin's eyes narrowed.