Sa-yeong cut through the crowd like a ghost and, without slowing, charged straight into her master’s arms.
Cho Yoon—who had wanted to hold her, too—opened his arms readily, only to be pushed back a little by the greater-than-expected momentum. Thanks to Cheon-oh bracing him firmly from behind, he avoided stumbling.
“Master! I missed you!”
“Right, yes. Why did you come all the way out here when the day is so sweltering?”
“Because I wanted to meet you even a little faster. If I had known the news earlier, I would have gone out to Huizhou to meet you.”
“I would have stopped you.”
After adjusting his bamboo hat, which had shaken abruptly, Cho Yoon patted Sa-yeong’s back lightly. The flushed Sa-yeong released the embrace and stepped back. Only then could Cho Yoon afford the leisure to look at his first disciple.
The child who barely reached Cho Yoon’s shoulder before they parted now had only about an inch difference in height. The hair he used to braid every day was cut short at the shoulder line and tied up tightly, and the appearance in a simple indigo martial arts uniform with a peony knot on the sash was truly…
“It seems you have been well.”
“Of course, Master. I have been really well.”
It was splendid.
It was magnificent.
Whatever words he attached were insufficient.
He felt happy anew with a different feeling from Cheon-oh, whose growth he watched every day. Unable to control the laughter inside, Cho Yoon reached out and patted one of Sa-yeong’s shoulders quietly. Just by touching like this, he could tell how hard Sa-yeong had trained in the meantime.
“And it seems you did not overexert yourself as I told you.”
“Yes, Master. It was not hard at all.”
Above all, it was truly fortunate that she was still bright and lively.
Sa-yeong, answering boldly as if boasting of her growth, grabbed Cho Yoon’s hand on her shoulder tightly and pulled it down. The calluses embedded in her palm and fingertips seemed to show her efforts all this while, making Cho Yoon’s chest ache for no reason.
If it hadn’t been ‘Cho Yoon’s’ body, he might have cried and then some.
Sa-yeong, chattering cheerfully while holding Cho Yoon’s hand with both hands—saying she worried a lot because Cho Yoon said he would come during the rainy season, that he should have sent a carriage coming straight here after all, asking to go together since she brought horses, asking if there was anything uncomfortable on the way—glanced at the figure guarding Cho Yoon’s back.
After a beat of pause, Sa-yeong frowned as if fed up and opened her mouth. Somehow, the current face looking utterly sick of it seemed even more like Sa-yeong and looked only cute.
“You grew up awfully fast, huh?”
“It has been a long time, Senior Sister. Have you been well?”
Cheon-oh, who had been standing silently, quietly took a fist-and-palm salute and bowed his head. Sa-yeong, making a face that was hard to tell if it was tearful or annoyed for a moment, turned her gaze to Cho Yoon and spoke as if aggrieved.
“Did you not feed him too well, Master? He did not even train in external arts, yet he has grown disgustingly big!”
“It is because he has a natural frame; would just feeding him make that happen? You have grown unrecognizably big as well.”
“But Hyeon-ah and everyone else grew up so huge. It is to the point where they do not look like my younger brothers.”
“That cannot be.”
They are obviously siblings to anyone’s eyes, so how could that be? Cho Yoon, chuckling at the cute grumbling, looked around habitually even knowing he wasn’t around here.
“I am later than the day I was originally supposed to arrive, but has Sa-hyeon not come yet?”
“Ah, I received a letter saying he just entered Guangdong. He should arrive within three days at the latest…”
Sa-yeong, who had been speaking precisely, suddenly blurred the end of her sentence and showed a troubled look. Cho Yoon had no choice but to ask indirectly what was wrong at the sudden change in his disciple’s complexion.
“Um… originally, I intended not to receive any guests at the Hao Sect while you were staying. But this foolish younger brother of mine caused an accident without even giving me time to handle it, so…”
“An accident?”
Cho Yoon’s heart, which had been suffering from an unknown anxiety all the way from Zhejiang to here, sank for no reason. Whether knowing that sign or not, Sa-yeong carefully broached the subject while escorting her master to where the horses were tied. Cheon-oh, carrying the medicine chest on his back, followed the two silently.
“There were people who accompanied him while crossing down the Central Plains. Originally, they were scheduled to split up in Hubei, but somehow it seems they ended up coming all the way to Guangdong together. He did not tell me this earlier and only informed me when they were almost here. I also heard about it today.”
Ah, what. Was it that?
Cho Yoon, who had no intention of being treated as a distinguished guest from the start, let out a sigh of relief secretly. Sa-hyeon had gone alone to the distant land of Liaoning in the north four years ago, and unlike Sa-yeong, he never talked about his stories in detail even in the regularly exchanged letters, so it was understandable he wasn’t used to contacting immediately whenever something happened.
“If they came a long way together, that could happen. I do not mind. Do not worry about it.”
“I am sorry, Master. When that guy comes, I will tell him properly. And this is about the uninvited guests Hyeon-ah ended up bringing…”
Sa-yeong’s voice, transmitted through the face veil piercing the noise of the bustling crowd, gradually lowered and soon became a clear voice message ringing in his eardrums.
Hearing this, Cho Yoon’s movements stiffened in an instant.
[When I looked into it personally, nothing came up, but since there is the precedent of the Sichuan Tang Clan, I ask out of concern. Is there perhaps any reason you must not encounter the Moyong Clan of Liaoning right now?]
[…The Moyong Clan?]
[Because the people coming with Hyeon-ah are the Young Clan Head of the Moyong Clan and his half-brother. If you think it will be even a little bothersome, I will ensure your paths never cross, Master.]
If it is the Young Clan Head of the Moyong Clan and his half-brother… surely not.
He laughed instead at the news he didn’t want to believe. Cho Yoon, laughing hollowly inside, asked back, denying reality.
[Are you saying Sa-hyeon is coming here bringing Moyong Dan and Moyong Seo?]
[Yes, Master. I do not know why, but it seems they overturned the plan to go to Sichuan from Hubei and crossed the Yangtze River with Hyeon-ah. Perhaps Hyeon-ah does not know the details either, as nothing was written except that they are coming together.]
[Did they accompany each other all the way from Liaoning? What connection did they have?]
[Did Hyeon-ah not convey it in a letter?]
Sa-yeong looked back at Cho Yoon with surprised eyes.
Cho Yoon, encountering an unimaginable incident as soon as he enjoyed the gratifying happiness of meeting his disciple after a long time, just wanted to cry.
It was because Liaoning, where the Moyong Clan was located, was attached to the northeast far away from the Central Plains, and Guangdong was conversely at the southernmost tip. To put it in Korean terms, it was like meeting someone you thought you’d never meet because they lived in North Korea all the way down in Mokpo, South Jeolla Province.
All of this seemed like a massive script designed to force him to receive the karma Cho Yoon had sown.
Preparing his heart or whatever, he wanted to run away immediately, but he had an intuition that even if he left here, it would be difficult to completely escape the protagonist’s sphere of influence.
Cho Yoon swallowed tears past his throat and answered as concisely as possible.
[Not at all.]
[Goodness, I did not know Master was unaware of this. They say Hyeon-ah became close friends with Moyong Seo after winning the Three Treasures Tournament four years ago. They went back together on the way to Hebei, and I heard that even when he was staying at the Peng Clan as a disciple of the Decisive Supremacy Saber Peng Chi-jeong, Moyong Seo often visited him. Even though it is quite a distance from the Moyong Clan to the Hebei Peng Clan.]
It felt like he had been hit properly in the back of the head. A person who brushed past long ago came to mind.
Plum Blossom Nine Swords Guyang Seon.
Sa-hyeon had ended up taking over the role of the person who should have originally won the Three Treasures Tournament and become the protagonist’s companion.
Because Cho Yoon intervened in the path of Nan Wi-jeong, who was returning to Sichuan to deliver news related to a divine artifact, and because Cho Yoon intruded a few years early into Guyang Seon’s life, who should have come to use a heavy sword with the protagonist’s help.
In a way, it was a logic so obvious that it felt foolish not to have anticipated it upon hearing the news of Sa-hyeon’s victory four years ago. The protagonist of
Instead of Guyang Seon, who couldn’t return to Mount Hua, Lim Sa-hyeon ended up taking that spot. My disciple ended up replacing the position of ‘protagonist’s companion.’
Blood drained from Cho Yoon’s face hidden by the face veil.
If the twisted content of the original work couldn’t be perfectly restored, a massive will to reclaim the original path even by bringing in a substitute was felt.
What fate did the original Guyang Seon suffer in that novel?
There was no way the story of a supporting character in a mass-produced novel serialized over several hundred chapters would come to mind in detail now, over ten years later. However, since he was the protagonist’s closest aide, he remembered him fighting strong enemies until he became tattered every time, standing up steadfastly and growing, winning, and getting hurt countless times. The only fortunate thing was that neither a death scene nor foreshadowing implying death appeared until reaching the end.
Of course, ‘getting hurt countless times’ is a problem that cannot be overlooked at all…
If, just if. If this world is truly filling the holes inevitably created in the story flowing differently from the existing one.
Would the role of the ‘original final villain,’ who is walking in step with him right now, also have been taken by someone else?
Is there indeed anyone who can replace Joo Cheon-oh, who became the Sovereign of the Underworld with the meaning of bringing hell to the human world by killing his grandfather, exterminating all who resisted, unifying all those involved in the demonic solely through fear via overwhelming martial power, and leading them to brutally sweep away the massive Orthodox Murim of the Central Plains in one fell swoop?
If there is…
Would that person be no different from a new disaster summoned by Cho Yoon?