Chapter 841

Tang Sadok led Jeok Cheongang and me to a pavilion deep in the Inner Court and told us to let him know if we needed anything or found anything uncomfortable.

“Then I’ll be going…”

“Wait.”

At Jeok Cheongang’s quiet call, Tang Sadok froze like a statue. Though he still hadn’t recovered, he’d been hurrying to leave the pavilion.

He slowly turned around and struggled to squeeze out a voice that wouldn’t come.

“May I ask why you called me…?”

Jeok Cheongang stared at him in silence, his gaze deep and still. Then he spoke.

“Forget it.”

“Pardon?”

“I said forget it. Everything you’ve seen and heard up to now.”

Myriad-Poison Asura, my ass. The man standing before Tang Sadok was Jeok Cheongang, the Fire King.

The current Sect Leader of the Fire Gate Clan—a long-established sect of utter thugs who popped up just when people had nearly forgotten them and turned Murim upside down.

For over three hundred years, the sect had gone around setting fires across the land. Yet when his own residence caught fire, Jeok Cheongang had wiped out more than a thousand Demonic Cult members. He was hypocrisy incarnate.

A bead of cold sweat he hadn’t even noticed forming rolled down Tang Sadok’s neck. He swallowed hard and answered.

“O-of course. This junior will forget everything he saw and heard.”

“Forget? You didn’t see or hear anything in the first place. What’s there to forget?”

“Ah.”

“Be careful, all right? Read the room.”

As Jeok Cheongang whispered, he gently massaged Tang Sadok’s neck. Something about the sight was oddly familiar. Then I remembered the high school bullies who used to hang around the alleys when I was in elementary school. They’d acted exactly like that.

The problem was, those bullies had been about seventeen. Jeok Cheongang was at least a hundred and seventeen.

Did he just knock a hundred years off his age?

He clearly wasn’t new to this.

The low voice. The half-lidded eyes. Even his choice of words was perfect for the situation.

“This old man’s been in a bit of a bad mood lately. Now, suppose a certain kind of story starts making the rounds in Murim. How do you think I’d feel?”

“I-I think you’d be displeased.”

“Not just displeased. It’d ruin my whole day. I’d lose my damn mind.”

“I-I’m sorry, Old Master.”

“Your late father, the Poison King, and I knew each other reasonably well. I wouldn’t say we were close friends, but he was a man I could trust to watch my back.”

The Poison King had died a few months earlier at the hands of the Western Heaven Demon Lord, who had been after the Myriad-Poison Ring. He’d been the Grand Family Head of the Sichuan Tang Clan and Tang Sadok’s father. Before that, he’d been one of the Ten Kings, a hero who had helped bring the Great Faction War to a victorious close alongside Jeok Cheongang.

“He had a gloomy streak, but he was smart and quick on the uptake. One day, he poisoned the liquor I was about to drink. Then he saw the Thunderbolt Saber King getting the hell beaten out of him and casually knocked over my cup. Do you know what happened after that?”

Tang Sadok answered hoarsely.

“Yes. You said you’d let it go that once, then suddenly beat my father up three months later…”

“Do you know why I did that?”

“N-no. My father was still wondering about it until a few years ago.”

“I was in a foul mood that day, and there was no one else around to hit. So I hit him.”

“……!”

“That’s the kind of man I am. Starting to get the picture?”

Tang Sadok’s jaw dropped. After more than fifty years, he’d finally learned why his father had been beaten up. I opened my mouth on instinct.

“Isn’t that just a madman?”

“……”

“……”

“Ah.”

A suffocating silence fell. Jeok Cheongang stared at me without a word, then slowly parted his lips.

“Get out.”

“What?”

“Get out!”

“Y-yes!”

At Jeok Cheongang’s thunderous shout, Tang Sadok looked at me with the relieved expression of a man whose fifty-year-old indigestion had finally cleared up, then shot out of the pavilion like a streak of light.

No—he ran away.

Leaving me behind.

Is he a lizard?

But I could hardly blame him when I’d just made such a huge, spectacular mess all by myself. I steadied my breathing and spoke calmly.

“Old Master, it’s a misunderstanding.”

“What is?”

“All of it. From beginning to end.”

“Our sect’s rules say anyone who spouts bullshit from beginning to end gets beaten twice as much.”

“……Is that really one of the sect’s rules?”

“It is.”

“What lunatic—no, what esteemed person came up with that rule?”

“I did. Just now.”

Well, I’m fucked.

If excuses weren’t going to work, it was time to adapt. I dropped to my knees so fast you’d think Hyuk Mujin had possessed me.

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re admitting it faster than I expected.”

“I’ve still got a lot of life ahead of me. I can’t get beaten to death here.”

“Unlike you, this old man doesn’t think he has much life left.”

“Why not?”

“The brat who’s supposed to be my Disciple called me a madman. I ought to go off and die, don’t you think?”

I cautiously raised my bowed head. Jeok Cheongang’s massive pecs looked like they were at least an E-cup.

He’d regained his youth and sharp mind through Bone Transformation.

Rather than going off somewhere to die, a man built like that could tell everyone except me to drop dead.

“No, Old Master. You’ll live a long life. Though you already have.”

“I see. But you look like you’ll die young.”

“Please don’t say that. It hurts my feelings.”

“I’m the one whose feelings are hurt. I shaved off a perfectly good head of hair and went all the way to Nanman pretending to be a monk, and you dare stab me in the back like this?”

I cautiously raised my head.

Then sunlight poured through the window and flashed off Jeok Cheongang’s forehead in a surprise Solar Fist attack. I reflexively squinted.

“Whoa. That’s bright.”

“……”

“Ah, sorry. And I’ve always been grateful for how much you care about me, Old Master.”

“Too late.”

“Someone once said the best time to start is when you think it’s too late.”

“When you think it’s too late, it really is too late. Whoever said that nonsense must’ve died ages ago.”

“Then I’m sorry again.”

“Before I do anything, let me ask you one thing.”

Jeok Cheongang looked down at me calmly.

“To this old man, you seem closer to a Little Immortal than a human. So if you die, can you come back to life?”

“Why would you ask such a terrifying question…?”

“I’m simply curious.”

“But why are you curious about that…?”

“You said you came from the realm of immortals. Surely you must be different in some way.”

“I die. I really die.”

“Even the you in the realm of immortals?”

“I die there too. I’ve only got one coin. This was my one and only last life from the start.”

“You’re saying strange things again.”

Come on. Why was he asking me that?

My knees went weak. I sprang to my feet and bowed deeply to Jeok Cheongang. Once didn’t seem like enough, so I did it twice.

And as soon as I knelt again, I remembered something I’d briefly forgotten.

“Are you holding a memorial service?”

“Ah.”

“Clench your teeth. Let’s get this over with.”

Whoom.

Before he’d even finished speaking, the air split with a tremendous roar.

I squeezed my eyes shut on instinct and suddenly thought of Hyuk Mujin. If I made it out alive, I resolved to treat him much better than before. Then I gritted my teeth and swallowed a breath.

Hngh…!

And in that instant—

Tap.

Whoosh!

A faint touch brushed my forehead as a fierce gust of hot wind whipped my hair around.

Huh?

As the hot wind died down, I opened my eyes in confusion and saw Jeok Cheongang pressing a finger to my forehead, sighing heavily with an irritated look on his face.

But his eyes held affection, and the joy of seeing me again.

“You little monster. Stop making such a fuss and get up already.”

“What?”

“If you’re going to do it, do it properly. Like…bowing, for instance.”

I blinked dumbly. Jeok Cheongang glanced toward the window, where sunlight streamed in, and muttered:

“Sure is a nice day.”

I didn’t know why I suddenly laughed.

No—that wasn’t true. I already knew.

Today. The day before yesterday. Maybe for a long time now.

“Haha.”

“You little brat. What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing. Let me give you my bow. I’ll make it a proper nine-bow ritual.”

Jeok Cheongang flinched at the mention of the nine-bow ritual, then scoffed.

“We’ve never formally established a Master-Disciple bond. What’s the point of that empty ceremony? Just behave yourself from now on.”

He was right. Jeok Cheongang and I had never formally become Master and Disciple.

An old man who had come out into the world to eliminate the Disciple who had once been like family to him needed a new successor to carry on his sect’s teachings. And a young man struggling to stay alive needed greater strength.

They had come together because each needed what the other had. The nine-bow ritual meant nothing to them. It was an empty ceremony.

Yes. That was how it had been.

But…

It stings a little, hearing him say it.

At some point, what had once felt natural began to sting, and what had stung began to feel natural.

And I wasn’t the only one whose feelings had changed.

“Later.”

A single word reached me.

Jeok Cheongang kept his gaze on the sunlit window. His eyes seemed fixed on something far away.

“When the time comes, if everything returns to its proper place…”

His voice faded and scattered into the breeze.

But I heard him clearly.

The rest of what he’d left unsaid—not with my ears, but with my heart.

And that was enough.

At least for today.

“Old Master.”

“Why are you calling me?”

Jeok Cheongang answered without turning his head. Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to face me.

“Old Master.”

“What? Why?”

His reaction was exactly what I’d expected, and it made me laugh out loud. Then I said the words I’d kept in my heart for a long time.

“It’s good to see you again. And to have you still here, close by.”

“……!”

“I’m back.”

The tension went out of Jeok Cheongang’s rigid shoulders.

He slowly turned to look at me, his expression impossible to read.

As if he’d never once had to decide what face to make at a moment like this, he forced a frown and twisted his lips awkwardly.

But everyone learns through experience.

No matter how much a person denies it, no matter how unfamiliar it feels, they can’t hide what’s in their heart.

That was true even of the man who had lived for more than a century with a hot, hard mask over his face—the face Murim had named the Fire King.

“Wel…”

His voice faltered. His expression was a strange tangle of feelings he still didn’t know what to do with.

But the next moment, his stubborn eyes curved into a gentle arc.

His voice reached me like a soft breeze, as warm as the sunlight.

“Welcome back.”

We smiled at each other.