Chapter 243

Hyuk Mujin had been living through days that felt like a dream. Every now and then, he even pinched his own cheek.

“Mujin, are you really allowed to be this happy? This isn’t a dream, is it?”

He had every reason to feel that way.

Just over ten years ago, he had been nothing more than a boy who admired martial artists.

“No, I don’t need to go back that far.”

Even two years ago, he had thought his life was a cesspool.

His work hours were long and boring, and his martial arts had stagnated.

If the person he encountered most often on top of all that was a drunken, good-for-nothing Third Young Master, then anyone who wasn’t the Buddha would have looked at the world pessimistically.

“I held it in and held it in, then finally threw one punch.”

The day he drove his fist into the Third Young Master’s jaw, Hyuk Mujin’s life changed.

Countless battles, one death-defying crisis after another…

The Third Young Master—or rather, his Captain—was like a magnet that drew every danger in the world toward him.

Hyuk Mujin fought through the dangers flying at them from every direction alongside him, and when he finally came to his senses, he discovered that he had grown tremendously.

“Ohhh, power! Power is surging through me!”

“…Patient, come over here. Your crazy spell has flared up again, so it’s time to get punched.”

Bam! Ba-ba-bam!

He had been hit an awful lot, too. There had even been times when he secretly set out a bowl of pure water and prayed without Jin Taekyung knowing.

“Please, please don’t let the Captain hit me anymore. Just take him far away from me.”

Had his prayer been answered?

One day, Jin Taekyung left without warning.

As Hyuk Mujin watched him depart with the Fire King, he felt both sad and liberated.

And at last, the prime of his life arrived.

“You’re Hyuk Mujin?”

“Gasp! Great Hero Wipeng, how do you know me…”

“Draw your sword. Let’s see what you can do.”

He began receiving instruction from the Peak master known as the Ghost Sword, Wipeng.

“Did you say the Jin Dragon Squad?”

“That’s right. It’s where the family’s finest are gathered. I’ve been appointed its Squad Leader.”

“Wow! The Jin Dragon Squad! Congratulations!”

“Pack your things.”

“Pardon?”

“You’re the Vice Squad Leader. This is our lord’s command, so there must not be a single mistake.”

“Gasp. I pledge eternal loyalty to the Jin Family of Taiyuan. Yes, sir! Yes, sir!”

He had become the Vice Squad Leader of the Jin Dragon Squad, the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s finest unit.

A young man who had once dreamed of becoming the Master of the Gatekeeper Pavilion had, in just a year or two, become a martial artist skilled enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with the family’s leading figures.

They truly had been days like a dream.

…At least, until a moment ago.

“You’re Hyuk Mujin, right?”

“……!”

A wild head of hair and a thick, unkempt beard. At the words that spilled from the mouth of a broad-shouldered beggar dressed in rags, Hyuk Mujin’s hands and feet went numb.

That voice was utterly familiar. How had he failed to recognize it immediately?

No wonder the back of his head had been itching strangely…

Where did everything start going wrong?

Was it when he had come to Henan as Jin Wikyung’s escort?

Or when he had accepted his father’s request to inspect the Henan branch of the Hyuk Family Textile Shop?

He didn’t know. There was only one thing he could be certain of right now.

I’m fucked.

As cold sweat slid down his back, he heard the one sentence that turned his journey to Henan into a journey to hell.

“I’ll give you three seconds. Put your head on the ground.”

Unlike the voice in his head screaming that he didn’t want to, his body was honest.

Hyuk Mujin, a rising talent of the Jin Family of Taiyuan and the Vice Squad Leader of its finest unit, slammed his head into the ground with a thunderous cry.

“Yessssss, sir!”

Crash!

A white stone wall, with five or six rooftops visible beyond it.

The large estate where the Jin Family of Taiyuan was currently staying began to draw closer.

“Is this the place?”

“…Yes.”

Hyuk Mujin answered in a half-dead voice. His once-impressive martial uniform was in tatters, and one of his eyes was swollen and dark with bruising.

To borrow the words he had uttered about half an hour earlier, this was the price of blind bravado.

“Oh. You found a nice place to stay. Business must be going well these days.”

I wasn’t the only one who had changed over the past year. Hyuk Mujin had changed, too, as had the Jin Family of Taiyuan’s standing.

The fact that they had rented an entire estate this large with the Star-Array Grand Banquet just around the corner was proof enough.

“Lead the way, punk.”

“Urgh! It hurts, it hurts!”

“I’m kicking you because it’s supposed to hurt, punk.”

I walked along, kicking him in the rear.

Two Jin Family martial artists standing guard in front of the estate snapped to attention. When they saw their superior, their jaws dropped.

“Gasp!”

“Vice Squad Leader!”

Hyuk Mujin subtly looked away and cleared his throat.

“Ahem. Have you been standing watch properly? This gentleman is…”

Shing! Shing-shing!

“You bastard!”

“How dare you do this to our Vice Squad Leader!”

So he really did have some standing among his subordinates, despite being the Vice Squad Leader of some newly formed unit called the Jin Dragon Squad.

I smiled amiably as I looked at the Jin Dragon Squad members pointing their swords at me.

“Put the swords away. I’m with the Jin Family of Taiyuan.”

“Vice Squad Leader, are you all right?”

“Where did this beggar bastard come from, spouting nonsense?”

Hyuk Mujin nodded grimly at his subordinates’ response.

“Not a beggar bastard. He’s the Third Young Master.”

“Pardon?”

“But no matter how you look at him, he’s a beggar…”

I could let it go once, but not twice.

Hyuk Mujin noticed the change in my expression and spoke in a gloomy voice.

“Hocheol.”

The martial artist called Hocheol quickly answered.

“Yes, Vice Squad Leader.”

“Put your head on the ground.”

“……”

Right. That was the bare minimum I could expect from my right-hand man.

Leaving Hocheol behind to converse with the earth, I stepped into the estate. Almost at the same time, I came face-to-face with someone strolling through the courtyard.

“……!”

“……!”

His eyes trembled with emotion.

Even if ten years passed instead of one, he would recognize me. It wouldn’t matter how disheveled I looked.

Blood ties, brothers—that was what they were.

“Well, look who it is.”

The massive man who had been staring at me, frozen like a statue, was Jin Wikyung. A bright smile spread across his entire face.

He strode toward me and opened his mouth.

“Are you a member of the Beggars’ Sect?”

“……”

Brother, my ass.

“I recognized you at a glance, actually.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I’m serious. Did you really think I wouldn’t recognize you, my youngest brother?”

“Do I look like a complete idiot?”

Don’t try to pull that on me. He had even asked what position I held in the Beggars’ Sect.

Jin Wikyung, who had been fidgeting at my reaction, turned to Hyuk Mujin.

“Hyuk, Vice Squad Leader. Didn’t I send you a Sound Transmission earlier? I said I was going to pretend not to recognize him, and asked you to play along.”

“Ah, well, you see…”

“My memory is correct, isn’t it? Right?”

Hyuk Mujin furrowed his brow.

“Ow. Lesser Family Head, why are you stepping on my foot all of a sudden?”

“V-Vice Squad Leader!”

“Aagh! It hurts!”

“……”

He was trying. Really trying.

I didn’t have to look beneath the table to know exactly what was happening.

As I watched the two of them, I suddenly let out a quiet laugh.

They haven’t changed.

Jin Wikyung and Hyuk Mujin.

They were the same two people I had known. They had gained experience and composure after everything they had gone through over the past year, but their core remained unchanged.

The fact that they hadn’t changed was enough.

I wonder what happened to everyone else.

My curiosity was answered before long.

Jin Wikyung explained in detail what had happened from the moment I left, including the whereabouts of those I had yet to meet again.

Lee Seowol was still struggling to restore the glory of the Mount Heng Sword Sect, while Wolhwa was building an entertainment city in the relatively desolate northern region of Shanxi.

And then…

“Cheongpung is missing?”

“That’s right. Not long after you left, he headed to Huashan with the Three Plum Blossom Elites, but apparently ran away along the way.”

That wasn’t going missing. That was desertion.

From what I heard next, Cheongpung’s disappearance had caused quite an uproar.

An Elder with some influence in Huashan had even come personally to ask them for a favor. He had told them to contact him if they saw that Cheongpung bastard.

“The sect’s foremost elder and its young prodigy disappeared one after another, so it was understandable. My heart ached just watching them.”

The Sword Saint and Cheongpung… At this point, shouldn’t I start wondering whether they were actually related by blood?

“Huashan is really doing well for itself.”

“It’s still doing better than our family.”

“Why? Didn’t they wipe out the mounted bandits in the north and continue to prosper? That sounds like they’re doing pretty well to me.”

Jin Wikyung shook his head gloomily.

“Huashan at least has a Sect Leader and plenty of disciples. Our Family Head’s seat is vacant.”

“Oh.”

“Perhaps that’s why it didn’t feel like someone else’s problem. We decided to help each other from now on. Struggling martial factions have to help one another survive.”

So that was how they were helping each other.

I thought of the man who had been missing for years—the Family Head—and soon erased him from my mind.

In this Murim, he might be my father, but I had never even seen his face. He was a complete stranger.

I felt no familial affection for him, much less any desire to see him.

If I see him, I see him. If not, whatever.

Instead, I was far more concerned about Jin Mukyung, whom I’d traded snarls with every chance we got.

“Come to think of it, where’s Second Hyung? Has he gone somewhere?”

Quite a bit of time had passed, but he still hadn’t appeared.

Even if Wipeng was considered to be staying behind to protect the Jin Family of Taiyuan in Jin Wikyung’s place, Jin Mukyung should surely have come…

“He’s in closed-door training.”

“Huh? Again?”

“Still, would be more accurate.”

“…You mean he’s been there this whole time?”

I was dumbfounded when Jin Wikyung nodded.

In martial-arts novels, everyone and his dog spent decades in closed-door training or facing a wall in meditation, but if you actually tried it, you would realize it was almost impossible.

Even a single year would be impossible to endure without extraordinary mental fortitude.

When did Jin Mukyung enter closed-door training?

It had been right after he lost his duel with Cheongpung, so he must have been there for a year and six months by now.

For all that time, he had not taken a single step out of the dark training hall, devoting himself to ceaseless training.

He had survived on water and fasting pills for three meals a day.

“Could the closed-door training have gone on so long that he forgot the date? He might not even know about the Star-Array Grand Banquet.”

“I went to see Mukyung before we left and told him about it. I asked whether he wanted to come with us.”

I didn’t need to hear his answer. The fact that Jin Mukyung wasn’t here was answer enough.

Jin Wikyung continued in a low voice.

“He said he wouldn’t leave until he achieved Great Completion. He told me to pass that on to you.”

Great Completion…

To Jin Mukyung, the Star-Array Grand Banquet was a fruit he could reach simply by stretching out his hand.

As one of the most renowned young prodigies in the Central Plains, if he participated, he could prove his martial arts and gain even greater fame.

But Jin Mukyung had chosen martial arts over the sweet fruit.

He’s an incredible guy.

While everyone else was reaching for the fruit and climbing the tree, Jin Mukyung had turned his back to the tree and devoted himself to training.

And when his training was finally complete, he would possess not the fruit, but the tree itself.

A tree bearing an abundance of fruit.

Yeah. That’s a true martial artist.

I respected his choice. I didn’t know what lay at the end of the path Jin Mukyung had chosen, but I believed its direction was more correct than anyone else’s.

That was enough.

I muttered like a sigh.

“So that’s how it turned out.”

“Are you disappointed?”

“A little. I was hoping the three of us would get together again.”

“Even if those two aren’t here, there are plenty of outstanding masters in the world. Don’t we have the Ten Dragons and Phoenixes right in front of us?”

“I guess.”

At my lukewarm answer, Jin Wikyung smiled faintly.

“Then I’ll have to turn that disappointment into joy.”

“Pardon?”

“I brought you a present.”

A present? I was still staring at him in confusion when Hyuk Mujin rose from his chair.

A short while later, he returned carrying something long, tightly wrapped in thick cloth.

“Do you know what it is?”

Of course I did. The moment I saw it, my heart began to pound, and my fingertips twitched.

It was instinct.

Not the instinct of Jin Taekyung, but of a spearman.

“This is…”

“Fifteen days ago, Elder Jang Taebo handed me this item and said something.”

Shrrk.

As Hyuk Mujin peeled away the cloth, Jin Wikyung’s voice pierced my ears.

“He said he finally understood the hearts of Gan Jiang and Mo Ye.”¹

Vrrrrm.

The spear let out a low hum.