After the rain let up, it took a full three days before they set out again.

During that time, Cho Yoon couldn’t shake his discomfort at burdening a family that was already struggling, so he poured effort into improving the health of the six household members he’d imposed on. By the time he left, even the grandmother—who’d been unable to rise from her bed due to arthritis—walked out to see him off.

Cheon-oh had resolved to find a way back once he became independent, but there wasn’t a single clue as to where to go or what to do yet. At most, it seemed the only option was to hover around the protagonist or endure until the story ended.

However, since Joo Cheon-oh, one of the characters who drove the main axis of the original story, had grown up so splendidly, it would be difficult to expect the ending he originally knew… In the end, there was only one choice, but since his heart weakened everywhere he went and he kept giving away medicine and everything else, he couldn’t know if it would be okay.

Furthermore, a big incident always occurred whenever he came down from the mountain, so could he really follow the protagonist’s path quietly and watch? It was utterly hard to guarantee.

Anyway, that was a matter for later; right now, the journey with Cheon-oh came first. It seemed his disciple also had an exceptional talent for grabbing his master’s attention so he couldn’t think of anything else. To explain the origin of this judgment, one had to go back a few days.

The day after the somewhat subtle conversation took place, Cheon-oh was extremely normal.

It was the complete opposite of Cho Yoon, who had stayed up the entire night.

What on earth did ‘this is enough’ mean, and what was the reason for asking if he would treat him?

And why on earth… why was he suddenly conscious of Cheon-oh coming close?

By the time he finished thinking all sorts of answerless thoughts, it was already time for dawn to break. Although he had a convenient body that no longer needed sleep, mental fatigue couldn’t be ignored. But Cheon-oh said nothing more than that, and Cho Yoon’s awkwardness also subsided little by little to match. He even felt a vague sense of guilt, thinking he had been too sensitive.

Letting his guard down completely after they set off again was Cho Yoon’s biggest mistake.

He should have taught him that when hunting, one must aim for the vital point to deal a fatal blow while taking advantage of the moment the opponent relaxes.

“About the King of Green Forests consuming Master’s honorable body… was it that time during the competition when Master killed the Gu poison?”

“Hm? That is correct.”

Cheon-oh’s first question that shook Cho Yoon—or the fourth if counting the sleepless night spent with eyes open—flew in out of nowhere while crossing the Wulong River.

Though called a river, its width reached a lengthy 4 li because they were crossing where it split into the Min River leading to the sea.

Even if he could run on water using lightfoot skills, he didn’t want to attract unnecessary attention, so he waited for the boat time.

While crossing the still unstable water surface on a small ferryboat by paying extra, Cheon-oh, who had been quiet until exactly the halfway point, suddenly opened his mouth.

“Did you give him blood as well?”

“No, that man only needed the shock of killing the Gu poison to subside, so I used saliva.”

It was one of the few experiences where he actively used ‘Cho Yoon’s’ ability.

Remembering he had tried hard to cover it up exquisitely because it would clearly be a big problem if others saw, he thought that martial artists who surpassed the Unrestrained Realm were close to superpowers, just like when he used his breath.

Come to think of it, what happened to Baek Ho-cheol? He said Hui retrieved him while he was trapped in the Sichuan Tang Clan’s prison… Well, does it matter? The probability of a supporting character used to measure the protagonist’s combat power appearing more than twice is slim.

While Cho Yoon was acting coldly toward someone else’s elder as always, a bomb fell abruptly from his own kid.

“…Did you kiss him?”

“…What did you just say?”

Looking at Cheon-oh with a momentarily stunned feeling, Cheon-oh, sitting in a corner of the small boat, looked up at Cho Yoon as if gauging his mood for a moment, then turned his head to avoid his eyes.

Seeing the child who always answered his master’s words keep his mouth shut tight, it seemed he was extremely dispirited, so no words came out at all.

Was it that? The kind of thing where kids ask their teacher who their first love was or if they’ve had their first kiss?

No, if so, why ask so gloomily? And why of all people that unhygienic mountain bandit…

Cho Yoon, lifting the hand he had clasping behind his back to touch his forehead briefly, composed himself and answered concisely.

“No, I did not.”

“Then how did you do it?”

“I grabbed his jaw to force his mouth open, then spat inside.”

Ah, there is such a method.

Looking at his face, it was clearly visible what Cheon-oh was thinking.

It seemed Cheon-oh had imagined Cho Yoon going around kissing anyone for the sake of treatment. Was it because he knew nothing except the basic knowledge Cho Yoon taught him while living exclusively in the mountains? If he thought his master might have misused the kiss he taught as ‘one of the expressions of affection,’ it seemed possible to react like that.

After thinking he had grasped Cheon-oh’s feelings in his own way, Cho Yoon relaxed again, and as a price, he had to take a direct hit from another bomb a while later.

“Did Senior Brother also consume Master’s saliva in the same way as that man?”

Cho Yoon, who ended up spending a night renting a villa of the Hao Sect in the wealthy district of Quanzhou, Fujian, which was bustling with trade, was writing a letter quickly leaning on an oil lamp. Cho Yoon’s hand, which was writing sentences like ‘I am a bit late because I was stranded by the typhoon,’ ‘I think I will arrive within a few days,’ ‘Did Sa-hyeon arrive first?’, stopped abruptly. Even if thirty 4th-grade elementary school students tried to interrogate his private life persistently all at once, the pressure would feel less than this.

Cho Yoon closed and opened his eyes quietly, suppressing the urge to cry, and finished the letter feigning tranquility.

It was truly fortunate these days that he had a flat voice and an unwavering expression.

“It is a private matter of your martial sibling, so I cannot tell you in detail, but at that time I used blood, not saliva.”

“Then did you self-harm?”

“I squeezed my hand to extract blood, so it cannot quite be called self-harm. I tell you in advance, but analyzing my body or applying this constitution to your body is impossible.”

“I do not wish for such a blasphemous thing.”

Then what on earth are you curious about?

Cho Yoon, having finished the letter, put down the brush and blew on the paper. Checking the quickly drying ink, he lifted his gaze to look at Cheon-oh opposite him. He failed to notice the faintly furrowed brow stemming from a puzzled mind.

“I just… asked because I was curious. I apologize.”

“It is not something to apologize for. I just wish to know the reason why you keep asking such things.”

Cheon-oh, who looked at Cho Yoon’s mood in reverse after throwing the question, quickly became dejected at Cho Yoon’s faintly cracked expression. Since he reacted to every little thing like that, Cho Yoon couldn’t even interrogate him properly.

“…I do not know well.”

I’m going crazy…

But what could he do when he said he didn’t know with such a gloomy face? Questions are bound to run out someday, and since it was just embarrassing because the content was unexpected, not difficult to answer, it seemed the only way was to prepare his heart and accept it for the time being.

“If you have curiosity about anything, it is right to ask the one who can answer. However, think slowly about what you ultimately want to know.”

“…Is it really alright to ask?”

“…There is nothing I cannot answer.”

Although warning lights were somehow buzzing in his head, no matter how much he thought about it, objectively there was no reason to stop Cheon-oh’s questions. Since all he had done since coming here was child-rearing with all his might, no particular corner to be reluctant about or experience to hide came to mind.

Of course, he would have to keep quiet about things like ‘novel possession,’ ‘villain,’ or ‘way to return’… but looking at the direction of the questions Cheon-oh had thrown all along, it didn’t seem he was interested in things external to this world.

Here, Cho Yoon overlooked one more thing.

“I remember you saying that enough time has passed for all those who know about Master’s constitution to die and then some. Who were they, and exactly how many years have passed? Could they have recorded matters regarding Master or informed others?”

That the time Cho Yoon remembered in detail was only the 12 years since ‘Hayoon’ entered, and he didn’t really know all of ‘Cho Yoon’s’ past before that.

Thinking it wasn’t difficult to answer, he received a difficult question as soon as he said there was nothing he couldn’t answer. It was a mystery how he ended up with a disciple who exceeded expectations every time like this.

In the first place, ‘Cho Yoon’s’ memories only entered his head like a chain reaction when there was a triggering event. Since it wasn’t his life but someone else’s, unless a big incident occurred like when he went to the Sichuan Tang Clan, he didn’t bother trying to recall them.

But this was Cho Yoon’s personal circumstance.

To Cheon-oh, the current Cho Yoon would be everything.

Still, it seems he asked because he was worried about me. The kiss seems a bit off the point, but well… he’s still young, so that could happen.

Cho Yoon, sighing deeply, soon smiled inwardly with satisfaction and racked his brain hard. It took some time to trace memories that weren’t his. Even more so for a person who lived in the mountains without knowing the passage of time like the Immortal Healer.

“I do not know the exact elapsed time, but it must have been well over a hundred years. No, in the first place…”

—Anyway, you are lacking from one to ten. How do you intend to live without this older brother?

In an instant, a line of auditory hallucination brushed past Cho Yoon’s ear. The fresh scent of newly sprouted shoots, the smell of wind rushing in after swimming between leaves, hair the color of tree bark tickling the back of his hand, and the sound of cheerful laughter.

Sensations vivid as if they happened just yesterday covered Cho Yoon all at once, then slipped away in an instant as if someone hurriedly snatched them.

From the mouth of Cho Yoon, who was sitting blankly, a small voice flowed out, its will unknown.

It was a name from the distant past that no one looked back on, that should have remained buried.

“…Wol-ryang…”