Chapter 1086

To put it kindly, he had an open, easygoing face. Put it less kindly, he was the sort of young man you might forget soon after meeting him.

He was neither tall nor short, with a natural air that let him blend in wherever he went.

Perhaps that was why no one had thought of the title Sword Saint when they saw the young man beside Zhuge Feng, who had returned to his family after a lengthy absence.

“Oh, there you are.”

Mae Jonghak finally turned around and smiled at Zhuge Feng.

His eyes were deep yet clear, and his smile seemed to put anyone who saw it at ease.

While the world was gripped by turmoil and anxiety, the Murim Alliance Leader—who ought to have borne a heavier burden than anyone else—continued in an almost childlike tone.

“I wandered around for a while and got bored. Then I started walking wherever I felt drawn, and somehow I ended up here.”

“You came here without knowing where you were?”

“I did.”

“This garden and everything within roughly a hundred jang¹ of it are part of the Family Head’s Hall. Even our family’s direct descendants need my permission to enter.”

“Is that so? I did think something was a little odd. I could sense people hiding here and there, and there were all sorts of mechanisms and formations, along with quite a few arrays.”

Zhuge Feng could only let out a hollow laugh.

“Is something good happening?”

“Not at all. I just find this funny.”

The Zhuge Clan was a place even the greatest thieves in the world wouldn’t dare try to break into.

The Heaven-Stealing Thief, who was said to be capable of stealing from heaven itself, had once had the nerve to enter the Zhuge Clan’s Family Head’s Hall. He promptly got caught in its mechanisms and formations and wandered for over a month.

At the time, he was the greatest thief in the world. In the end, the Zhuge Clan’s martial artists rescued him on the merciful order of the previous Family Head. Released with nothing but skin and bones left, he had this to say:

“Break into the imperial palace, and you’ll be tortured to death. Break into the Sichuan Tang Clan, and you’ll be poisoned to death. But break into the Zhuge Clan, and they’ll rob you down to your soul and let you starve to death.”

And so the Three Forbidden Places were born, leaving a painful lesson for the thieves who came after him.

Of course, it had now been proven that even the Zhuge Clan’s Family Head’s Hall—where the greatest thief of the age had nearly starved to death—was powerless before the greatest swordsman in the world.

“My apologies. If I’d known this was the Family Head’s Hall, I would’ve asked permission.”

“I was in a meeting at the time.”

“Does the door stay shut if the homeowner isn’t there? I could’ve asked the people hiding around here to let me in.”

“Even if you had asked, would they really have opened it and said, ‘Goodness, where have you been all this time?’”

“True enough. It’s not as if I could tell them I’m the Alliance Leader.”

As Mae Jonghak scratched the back of his head, Zhuge Feng shook his own.

People called Zhuge Feng a bit of an eccentric, but compared to the man before him, he couldn’t hold a candle to him.

“So, what were you doing here?”

“Taking in the scent.”

“The scent?”

Zhuge Feng cocked his head.

Though he had been the Family Head for many years, he had visited this garden only a handful of times.

Part of the reason was that he spent most of his time studying and researching mechanisms and formations. But the place was also far too rugged to call a flower garden.

“As you can see, this garden is full of nothing but mulberry trees. There isn’t much to look at, and they don’t smell especially nice.”

“That’s not so. Everything in the world has its own scent. These mulberry trees are no different.”

Mae Jonghak added quietly, “Nor are the plum blossoms that must be blooming somewhere beyond my reach right now.”

Something in his faint voice made Zhuge Feng fall silent for a moment. Then he asked carefully, “Do you… want to return to Huashan?”

“I always have. But not at a time like this. I know where I need to be.”

“Then…”

“I just miss those peaceful days. That day I lay in the sunlight, in a forest thick with plum blossoms.”

Mae Jonghak reached out and stroked a nearby mulberry tree.

Perhaps because of the unseasonable cold, its branches drooped without a single fruit. It looked much like the world did now.

“One day, this mulberry tree will bear fruit too. Don’t you think?”

“It will. No—I’ll make sure it does. With my own hands.”

Mae Jonghak gave a faint smile at Zhuge Feng’s firm reply.

“Your hands are precious. Put them to work elsewhere. Rough work like this calls for a swordsman like me.”

“…!”

Zhuge Feng’s eyes trembled as he understood what Mae Jonghak meant.

A year.

Short, if you called it short. Long, if you called it long.

Now, at last, the results of the work they had pursued more fiercely than anything before were drawing close. He could feel it in his skin.

Even Zhuge Feng, who already knew every step and turn of the plan, was shaken.

“Alliance Leader, do you mean…”

“We can’t keep taking hits forever. So many people have endured and waited for so long.”

“Then, at last?”

Mae Jonghak nodded quietly.

“We can’t let this chance pass us by. We may never get another.”

“…!”

“You’ve worked hard, Family Head Zhuge. Without your efforts, we wouldn’t have this opportunity today.”

Zhuge Feng managed to steady himself. He took a deep breath, then replied, “No. It’s thanks to everyone’s sacrifices, great and small.”

He looked down at his hand, still trembling.

It was rough and coarse.

Like the hand of a martial artist who had spent their whole life training.

Gone were the slender, delicate hands of a man who had learned only the minimum martial arts required of a Family Head, hands whose calluses had slowly faded away.

Ever since the dark cloud of Dark Heaven had spread across the world, he had waited for this day.

The day he could prove why he had spent so long away from home.

“Have you decided who will stay and who will leave?”

“Yes.”

“You know what your mission is.”

“How could I not? I’ve been waiting for this moment all along.”

“The preparations are complete. Everyone under heaven is ready.”

Mae Jonghak stressed the final words, then pulled a rolled-up sheet of paper from his robes and held it out.

“This is…”

“Chief Song gave it to me before I left Henan.”

Mae Jonghak’s absence was currently being kept an absolute secret. At the mention of Song Ho, Chief of the Hidden Shadow Pavilion, Zhuge Feng’s gaze grew intent.

“What’s on it?”

“The names of the spies still in our ranks, along with the people who’ll join you and a rough map marking where you’re to meet them.”

As Zhuge Feng unrolled the letter and read it for himself, delight flashed in his eyes.

“Just as I thought…”

“It took the Hidden Shadow Pavilion, the Beggars’ Sect, and the Lower District Sect working together. Chief Song personally selected everyone involved, so there’s no need to worry about the secret getting out.”

“I thought as much. I’ll carry it out without the slightest mistake.”

“Everyone’s worked hard to cultivate this field. We can’t let birds or insects peck away at it.”

“Don’t worry. Getting here was painful and hard, but I’ll finish the harvest in one swift stroke, without a single mistake.”

“I trust you.”

Mae Jonghak took the letter back from Zhuge Feng and channeled internal energy into his hand.

Whoosh.

Flames of Samadhi True Fire engulfed the paper, and ash scattered on the wind.

Mae Jonghak had burned the letter against any chance of it being found. Watching him, Zhuge Feng clasped his hands together with utmost respect.

He already knew it was time for the greatest swordsman in the world to leave.

“Travel safely, Alliance Leader.”

Zhuge Feng bowed with sincere respect.

When he raised his head again, all that remained were hundreds of mulberry trees trembling in the cold wind.

“What a hurry. He left without even saying goodbye.”

Zhuge Feng gave a quiet chuckle and reached out to touch a drooping mulberry branch.

These trees were said to have been planted by the Zhuge Clan’s ancient ancestor, Zhuge Wuhou, and were one of the clan’s symbols. But the story the common folk liked to repeat was nothing more than a rumor.

Wuhou followed Emperor Zhaolie of Han² to settle in Bashu.³ There’s no way the mulberry trees he planted himself could be thousands of li⁴ away, in Hubei.

These mulberry trees had been planted by Zhuge Wuhou’s descendants, who laid the foundation for the Zhuge Clan as it stood today.

They had planted them to carry on the Zhuge family line—and to remember their great ancestor.

No one knew what had become of the hundreds of mulberry trees that must have remained in Shu Han, which had ultimately fallen after Zhuge Wuhou’s death.

But their roots lived on in a new land.

As long as a single seed remained, the line would not end.

“What matters is the people, not the land.”

Murmuring softly, Zhuge Feng brushed the frost from the branch.

“When I come back, I hope you’ll be bearing fruit.”

With one last faint smile, Zhuge Feng turned and walked away without hesitation.

A few moments later, he came upon the people tearing through the Inner Hall, worried their Family Head might have been assassinated in the privy. Without warning, he said, “All right, start packing.”

“What? Packing what now?”

“Wait, you haven’t finished packing yet?”

Before the bewildered group could make sense of what he meant, he hit them with another thunderbolt.

“I said pack your things! The Zhuge Clan is leaving this place immediately!”

At that moment, a few of them thought that damn Family Head might have been better off getting assassinated in the privy.

Yet a smile they couldn’t understand tugged at Zhuge Feng’s lips as he dropped that bombshell.

May fortune be with you, Alliance Leader. And…

Just a little longer. Please, hold on just a little longer.

Blazing Flame Divine Dragon Jin Taekyung.

With that desperate wish in his heart, Zhuge Feng gazed far to the west.