Baeksang’s voice remained calm despite the Beast Miao King’s sudden, uninvited arrival.
“You already know, don’t you, Palace Lord?”
The Beast Miao King smiled bitterly.
Baeksang was right. A considerable number of tribal chieftains had turned against him, but he was still the master of the Nanman Beast Palace. Within the Inner Palace, at least, he knew Baeksang’s every move.
“You spent quite a while in the underground prison. What did you and that boy have to talk about for so long?”
“……”
Baeksang faltered as he remembered his conversation with Jin Taekyung. Only for a moment.
“I told him he would be executed at noon two days from now, in front of everyone.”
“And?”
“I told him no one could stop it.”
The remark was aimed squarely at him. The Beast Miao King’s eyes darkened.
“Do you truly believe that?”
“Of course.”
“And if I refuse to let it happen?”
“The Palace Lord stands at the forefront, nothing more. The authority to decide Nanman’s great affairs belongs solely to the Tribal Grand Council.”
Baeksang spoke quietly, then went on.
“Have you forgotten the oath our ancestors made hundreds of years ago, when they gathered beneath a single banner on this land?”
“……!”
“The outcome will not change. Tomorrow, the final Tribal Grand Council will take up the execution of the Han Chinese Jin Taekyung.”
The Beast Miao King regarded Baeksang with a grave expression. He knew the balance of power had already tipped. But if he had given up on Jin Taekyung, he would never have come here.
“Is that all?”
“Twenty tribal chieftains, myself included, have already agreed. If you defy the will of the Tribal Grand Council and choose another course…”
“That is not what I’m asking.”
The Beast Miao King cut off Baeksang’s words and continued with a sigh.
“Did you tell Jin Taekyung about Hwi?”
“……!”
A crack appeared in Baeksang’s impassive expression. It had been true in the past, and it remained true now: after decades of wearing an iron mask, only the child he could no longer keep by his side could shake him.
The Beast Miao King knew that better than anyone.
“I haven’t planted anyone in the underground prison. I only suspected it. Seeing how shaken you were, so unlike yourself, confirmed it.”
“How…”
“How could I not know? We’ve spent our whole lives together.”
Baeksang fell silent. We. The word struck him with unexpected force. Once, it had come naturally to them both. Now it felt strange.
And yet…
Grind.
“That was when you and I stood on the same path, Palace Lord.”
The Beast Miao King shook his head.
“We still do. We have never once parted ways.”
“It’s too late.”
“It isn’t. We’re still sworn brothers, bound together in our hearts. Even now, we can put right what went wrong.”
“To me, those bonds belong to a distant past.”
“And you’ve been trapped in that past all this time, little brother.”
“……!”
“I remember that day too. How could I forget the day a child more upright and radiant than anyone vanished from this land?”
Baeksang clenched his teeth. The memory was painful even to summon.
Yet he knew something else, too. When the truth of that day had come to light, someone had been just as furious and grief-stricken as he was.
None of it had done any good.
“Neither of us could do anything. The evidence of their crimes was gone, and everything was buried beneath the peace that followed.”
Countless footprints left on a sandy shore vanished when the next wave rolled in.
But Baeksang remembered. He had etched the faces of those who turned away from his child in danger into his flesh and bones, and turned them over in his heart ever since.
He had believed they were all walking side by side across the vast sandy shore called the Central Plains. In truth, his people had been sent ahead simply because they were foreigners.
“I can’t forget any of it, and I can’t undo it. So why do you…!”
Baeksang stopped as his voice began to rise. Sorrow had settled over the Beast Miao King’s face.
“Do you think I’ve forgotten? I’m a sorry excuse for a father who had no choice but to outlive his children.”
More than fifty years ago, the Beast Miao King’s children had been among the ten thousand warriors who went to the Central Plains. They never set foot on Nanman soil alive again.
“I still regret it. What if I hadn’t become Palace Lord of the Nanman Beast Palace? What if I hadn’t gone to the battlefield? What if I’d at least refused when they asked to fight alongside their father?”
“……”
“You’re right, little brother. We were powerless. We burned with anger and howled with grief, but there was nothing we could do. We had to return to Nanman. Everyone was too exhausted to turn away the peace that had finally come after ten years and begin another war.”
The Beast Miao King let out a hollow laugh. At the time, Nanman had been only one power among the Outer Lands, and the gap between it and the Central Plains was vast.
Even against the Zhongnan Sect alone, Nanman had been at a disadvantage.
Venerable Wusang, the Sect Leader of the time, had earned the respect of many through his bearing as a Great Hero. When he died in the final battle at Great Snow Mountain, countless sects and martial artists came to Mount Zhongnan.
“I merely made a choice. Between the dead and the living, between revenge and the greater cause.”
What followed was known to everyone.
The Beast Miao King led the survivors home to Nanman and faced a flood of accusations from those who had lost family.
“My life was filled with regrets. But I never regretted that choice—not even once. Because we united as one, grew stronger and more prosperous than before, and gained the power to hold the criminals of the past to account.”
Baeksang’s face hardened at this story he had never heard before. Yet as he looked at the Beast Miao King, something he could not understand stirred in his eyes.
“But you’ll side with the Central Plains again.”
“Yes,” the Beast Miao King answered without hesitation. “I will.”
“Why in the world…”
“Because burning down an entire forest over one diseased tree would be foolish.”
“……!”
“We need to uproot what made the tree sick. If we set fire to the forest instead, those flames will reach us next.”
The Beast Miao King went on with a sigh.
“Once it was the Demonic Cult. Now it’s Dark Heaven. We fought to protect the forest. This land is part of it too.”
Neither the people of the Central Plains nor the people of Nanman would acknowledge it, but the Beast Miao King knew. Though they lived far apart, they shared the forest called the world.
And…
“You know it too, Baeksang.”
The man who understood it best was his sworn younger brother, looking back at him now with wavering eyes.
“I know. I know that no matter what this foolish older brother says, none of it will reach your ears. You will say that it is an old affair you no longer even remember, and that the Baeksang of that time died a long time ago.”
The Beast Miao King’s children had been killed by the Demonic Cult, but Baeksang’s only child had been sacrificed because people he had believed were allies turned their backs on him.
His anger toward the Central Plains was bound to run deeper and wider.
But the Beast Miao King had watched Baeksang for a long time. He had already guessed.
“If you don’t stop now… you’ll regret it. You regretted the past, you regret the present, and you’ll regret what comes next.”
Baeksang wanted to tell him he would have no regrets.
For Hwi, the child who had been his whole world, he could do anything.
Let them call him a vengeance fiend while he lived. Let them call him a Fiend after he died. He would smile and walk this path all the same.
Then why…
Why? Why in the world?
Why would the thought he had repeated hundreds and thousands of times in his heart over the years refuse to pass through his lips at this very moment?
He had already gone too far to turn back. So why?
Why are you doing this, Baeksang?
As Baeksang put that question to his hollow heart and found no answer, the Beast Miao King’s quiet voice reached his ears.
“I could step down as Palace Lord.”
Baeksang’s pupils shook at the unexpected words. But the Beast Miao King continued in a calmer voice than ever.
“You heard me. If you want me to, I’ll give up the position right now.”
Baeksang struggled to make sense of it. If the position became vacant, one of the remaining Great Chieftains would be appointed the new Palace Lord through the Tribal Grand Council.
But with Heugung and Yohi both gone, the meaning of the Beast Miao King’s offer was clear.
“You would make me, of all people, the new Palace Lord?”
“Yes. That’s what I said.”
“Palace Lord. Have you gone mad?”
“Of course not.”
The thirty-two tribal chieftains held the real power in the Nanman Beast Palace, but the authority of the Palace Lord’s title could not be ignored. To offer it now, of all times, was absurd.
“What in the world is this…”
Baeksang stared at him, unable to understand. Then he fell silent.
Something about the Beast Miao King’s manner—so calm, so unlike him—had brought a realization.
No. Surely not.
The thought flashed through Baeksang’s mind. At the same moment, the Beast Miao King slowly spoke.
“Half a shichen1. Half a shichen1 is enough. Open the way for them.”
Half a shichen1. Them.
That was all Baeksang needed to turn suspicion into certainty. He asked, his voice seething, “Why? Why would you go this far?”
The Beast Miao King’s answer came without the slightest tremor or hesitation.
“Because they came to help us. Just as we once did.”
“……!”
“And I’ll help you. As I always have.”
It’s too late for that.
Baeksang spat the words inwardly and moved to summon the Captain of the Guards waiting outside.
Or tried to.
For some reason, he could neither take a step nor part his lips.
Baeksang closed his eyes. A voice he should have let go long ago still echoed in his ears.
How much more blood do you intend to spill, Baeksang?
The figures moved through the darkness in silence, keeping out of sight.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
They shot in the same direction, so fast that the wind split around them and leaves trembled in their wake.
By the time anyone noticed, it was already too late.
Swish. Thud.
A body stiffened and fell. One of the figures caught the torch from his hand and moved his lips.
“Open the underground prison.”
Fwoosh.
The wavering torchlight revealed Yayul Mok’s face.
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