Chapter 3

The Seomun Clan wasn’t famed for martial prowess, but for virtue and reputation. People even said that in Woonhan, where the Seomun had settled, no one went hungry.

As for Cheon-oh, he was the son of Seomun Jeonghye, the clan’s only daughter.

After a clandestine romance with a mysterious outsider, she fell pregnant, only for her lover to vanish without a trace. With no suitable prospects, Jeonghye raised the child alone. Despite the scandal, she and Cheon-oh’s grandparents showered the boy with love, ensuring he would grow up in the warm embrace of his family.

That idyllic future shattered when the boy turned seven, and his father’s true identity, a secret better left buried, was ripped into the open.

It was an operation orchestrated by the White Chivalry Alliance, who coveted the newly discovered luminous pearl vein within the Seomun Clan’s Mount Woonhan. Eager to find a weakness to exploit, the Alliance scrutinized every member of the clan, eventually unearthing the identity of Jeonghye’s vanished lover. He was the Lesser Cult Leader of the Demonic Cult, the sworn public enemy of the orthodox martial world.

The fallout was swift and merciless.

Overnight, the Seomun Clan was branded a wicked faction that had sold its daughter to the Demonic Cult for power. Without a chance to defend themselves, they were besieged by fifty enforcers from the Alliance.

The executioners dragged everyone out, brutally impaling them on wooden stakes before dousing them in oil and burning them alive.

They smashed the clan’s historic pillars, tore down its walls, and caved in its cloud-like roofs.

Even the pond, once likened to a heavenly paradise, was poisoned, and every last servant, bloodline or not, was slaughtered.

Cheon-oh’s survival was nothing more than sheer chance.

Sixty years ago, his great-grandparents had crossed paths with a formation master who helped them construct a hidden underground vault beneath the estate.

Wait, looking at it today, it seems Cho Yoon was the one who set up that formation, Hayoon mused. That definitely wasn’t in the original novel. Whoever the author is, they sure loved packing in useless backstory.

Scrubbing the dirt-stained silk cloth between his hands, Cho Yoon glanced at the child’s ruined clothes. Stained with murky brown vomit, they were completely unsalvageable. The boy’s violent retching was the inevitable result of surviving for an entire week on nothing but emergency fasting pills, a crude mixture of compressed grass and grain.

When the enforcers had stormed the estate, Jeonghye had hastily emptied the vault, hiding its contents elsewhere before shoving Cheon-oh inside.

“No one will find you down here,” she had pleaded. “Once it goes quiet outside, count to one hundred thousand in your head. Do not come out before then. Promise me, my dear baby.”

Gently prying his clinging hands away, she sealed the door and marched out to face the invaders. Because she refused to utter a single word about her son’s whereabouts, she met an unimaginably agonizing death.

Fortunately, the formation perfectly masked even the faintest trace of the boy’s presence. Failing to find him, the enforcers set the estate ablaze and departed. When Cheon-oh finally emerged after obediently waiting as his mother instructed, the very first thing he witnessed was the total annihilation of his home and the charred remains of his family.

Staring at that gruesome massacre, Cheon-oh swore vengeance.

Shortly after, he willingly surrendered himself to the Demonic Cult when they came for him, tempering his body and soul through the 108 Hells, a trial from which no one had ever survived. Thus he was reborn as the cold-blooded, merciless villain of the martial arts novel, a man destined to drown the world in a sea of blood.

That was the tragic backstory of Joo Cheon-oh, the final boss of The Returned Hero.

Conversely, despite his grandiose lore, Cho Yoon was a completely useless minor character in the original work.

Honestly, why do authors always default to torturing the female characters first? It was always the same cheap fantasy: rescue a pretty girl in distress and bask in her one-sided admiration and love.

Cho Yoon’s sole purpose in the plot was to act as a one-time debuff removal service, curing one of the protagonist’s heroines of a lethal poison before vanishing from the story entirely.

While he hadn’t appeared since, the novel had still been ongoing. Perhaps he was slated for a late-game return. Otherwise, there was no reason to give Cho Yoon such overwhelming power and such elaborate lore. There was even a plot hook where Cho Yoon took an interest in the protagonist, who had somehow known his exact secluded location. It was highly likely Cho Yoon would return later as a dependable ally.

Regardless, impulsively scooping up Joo Cheon-oh, the source of all evil in the novel, was an act that completely shattered the story’s foundation. The single greatest advantage of transmigrating into a novel was knowing the future, and Hayoon had just destroyed that advantage with his own two hands.

Wait a minute.

As Cho Yoon dressed Cheon-oh in fresh clothes, his hands abruptly stilled. Isn’t this actually a good thing? If he never goes to the Demonic Cult, never unites the unorthodox factions, and never becomes the Sovereign of the Underworld… then the Cult stays relatively quiet, and the protagonist can smoothly overthrow the corrupt martial world, right?

Swallowing dryly, Cho Yoon stared at the child. With raven-black hair, the boy slept soundly, completely oblivious to his current predicament.

Honestly, putting a little kid through that kind of training is crossing the line. It’s straight-up child abuse. Martial arts novels are way too desensitized to child abuse.

Naturally, the boy would want revenge. He had every right to. But did he really need to join the Demonic Cult to achieve it? He was destined to be the final boss; surely he could handle a little revenge without the Cult’s backing.

The Immortal Healer, Cho Yoon, was an absolute powerhouse who had reached the Profound Realm. Having achieved the Reversion to Youth and the Returning to Simplicity, he had lived for nearly two hundred years while maintaining his youthful appearance. He was a living legend.

And Jeong Hayoon, who had possessed Cho Yoon’s body and inherited all his abilities, was a proud graduate of a South Korean education university. Therefore, it was only natural for him to think:

I mean, I haven’t actually been assigned to a teaching post yet… but surely I can raise him better, right?

Tying the ribbons of the boy’s robes, Cho Yoon straightened his posture. The moment the gentle, comforting touch vanished, the quiet child gave a pained whimper and let his head loll to the side. Startled, Cho Yoon hurriedly grasped the boy’s scarred hands. Staring down at him, he meticulously pieced together every vague memory he had of Cheon-oh from the novel.

His mind raced for a long while as the steady bubbling of boiling herbs filled the room.

***

The first time Cheon-oh opened his eyes, a lukewarm liquid was already slipping past his lips. His vision was blurry, but the lack of glare suggested he was in a darkened space. A beat later, he registered the rhythmic, jolting motion of his body. Wrapped in something soft and warm, he realized he was leaning securely against someone’s chest.

His hazy mind struggled to form coherent thoughts. Just then, something slipped into his mouth and gently pressed down on his tongue, a wooden spoon. Cheon-oh’s throat bobbed reflexively as he swallowed.

“That’s right. Drink it just like that. You don’t need to force yourself to wake up.”

Through the haze, a gentle voice drifted over him like a cool breeze. Yielding to it, Cheon-oh closed his eyes once more. A trickle of unswallowed liquid escaped his lips, but it was quickly caught by what felt like a cotton cloth pressed to his cheek.

“Sleep a little longer. That way, I can…”

…arrive without you noticing. The last part was muttered so softly that it failed to register.

For some reason, his earlier memories refused to surface. Where am I going right now? That was his last thought before sleep reclaimed him.

When he opened his eyes for the second time, his surroundings were much clearer. He was nestled in someone’s arms inside a covered wagon. The stranger smelled strongly of medicinal herbs and didn’t seem particularly broad-shouldered. Yet even when the wagon rattled violently over the rocky path, Cheon-oh felt no impact at all, proof that the arms holding him were anything but frail.

His thoughts fractured and faded.

His body felt as heavy as wet cotton, leaving him with only enough strength to blink.

A white veil and fine strands of white hair cascaded around him, rippling like waves on the surface of a lake. As if sensing that he’d awoken, the mysterious figure patted his back in a soothing rhythm.

“It is not yet time to wake. You may sleep a little longer.”

At those words, exhaustion washed over him like a flood. Offering no resistance, Cheon-oh let his eyes drift shut. His heart felt serene, almost tranquil. I’m sure something happened. I’m sure I was supposed to do something…

Somehow, he felt that staying exactly like this would be perfectly fine.

It wasn’t until two full days later that Cheon-oh finally regained his senses and truly awoke.

A pleasant lethargy, like the aftermath of a deep afternoon nap, suffused his body.

The chirping of mountain birds and insects mingled with the nearby babble of a flowing stream.

The damp, pristine scent of forest air and medicinal herbs tickled his nose.

Slowly sitting up, Cheon-oh winced at a delayed sting and looked down at his hands, meticulously bound in white bandages. The lingering aroma of herbs and honey suggested a medicinal salve had been applied underneath.

Bewildered, he surveyed his bed and the room around it. One entire wall of the small space was lined from floor to ceiling with densely packed medicine drawers. The Hanja written on each compartment were beyond his schooling, but the rich scent of medicine permeating the air was unmistakable.

A bamboo-lattice window sat near his head, while a low table bearing a book and an oil lamp rested at the foot of his bed. From the quilt spread on the floor to the sparse furnishings, everything was painfully rustic.

The only object of apparent value was a single zither standing upright beside the medicine cabinet.

For Cheon-oh, raised in an elegant and wealthy household, it all felt utterly foreign.

“Wh…” Where am I?

He tried to speak, but the words caught in his throat. Instead, a dry, raspy wheeze slipped out, leaving him flustered. Terrified something was wrong, he hurriedly felt his neck. The only pain came from his bandaged hands. His throat felt perfectly normal to the touch.

Just then, the wooden door creaked open, followed by a pair of unfamiliar voices.

“O-oh, he’s awake! Noona, he’s awake!”

“He is? Hey, why are you sitting up? Lie back down.”

Two children walked in, one carrying a basin and the other a tray. Dressed in white martial arts uniforms, the boy and girl trotted to Cheon-oh’s bedside. Before he could react, they grabbed him and firmly pushed him back down.

“H-hold still for a second. You’re… really hurt, so we have to change your medicine,” the boy stammered.

“It might sting a bit, but bear with it,” the girl added.

“Noona, should we j-just take his clothes off entirely?”

“Yeah. Hey, I told you to stay still!”

Before Cheon-oh could process what was happening, his ribbons were untied and his top was stripped away, exposing his emaciated chest. Surprisingly strong, the two held him fast despite his struggles.

They unwound the cotton bandages from his hands and wiped away the sticky salve, chatting as if this were routine.

“Master’s medicine is amazing as always. Look how much it’s healed already.”

“Phew… It doesn’t even look like it’ll scar. Thank goodness…”

“He woke up exactly when Master said he would. Aren’t you hungry?” the girl asked.

“W-we brought some rice porridge,” the boy chimed in. “Eat. I-if it’s too hard to hold the spoon, I’ll feed you.”

“What about his knees and legs? Should we strip those too?”

At the sharp sting in his hands, Cheon-oh frowned. At the girl’s last remark, his eyes widened in panic. Ignoring him completely, the two continued debating whether to take off his trousers.

“No…” There was no need for that.

Trying to stop them, Cheon-oh forced his mouth open. His throat felt as though it were tearing apart, but he was determined to push the words out.

However, another sound from the doorway made him snap his mouth shut and instinctively look up.