Chapter 209

Deep in the night, Tang Jung narrowed his eyes at the sound of the child pacing through the courtyard.

The scrape of feet dragging across the ground seemed unnaturally loud in the still night air.

She isn’t a child who normally walks around making this much noise. Is something hurting her......?

After silently watching her restless movements for a while, Tang Jung eased open the door.

She had gone out in the rain with a body that was hardly healed. Perhaps a fever had risen and was keeping her from sleeping.

When he stepped into the courtyard, he found Tang Sohae standing motionless beneath the crescent moon, staring up at the sky.

“Little one, can’t you sleep? It’s late. Why are you out—”

The tenderness vanished from Tang Jung’s face.

The child’s eyes were unfocused as she gazed skyward. Her expression was hazy, as though she were dreaming.

“......Little one?”

A terrible suspicion struck him, and he called her again.

Tang Sohae did not respond.

She merely breathed softly and evenly, like someone deep asleep.

Tang Jung slowly lowered his gaze.

The child’s small feet were caked in dirt and soaked with blood.

He bit down on his lip and let out a strangled groan.

His own selfishness had ruined her.

No matter what happened, he should never have left her alone.

What did it matter if he reached the heavens?

What did enlightenment matter......?

“This is this old man’s fault. All of it...... all my fault.”

Tang Jung’s mouth trembled as he slowly extended a hand.

Using his inner force, he carefully lifted Tang Sohae into the air and drew her toward him at a gentle pace so she would not be startled.

Then he lightly caught her wrist and pressed a vital point.

As he caught her limp body in his arms, Tang Sohae blinked vacantly before her expression softened with relief and she slipped fully into sleep.

The familiar embrace seemed to put her at ease.

Tang Jung’s hand shook as he wiped the blood from her feet.

Grief hollowed his face.

What good was repairing her body when her torn-apart heart showed no sign of mending?

Seoryak. What in the world do you know......?

Something terrible had clearly happened.

Yet he could not bring himself to question her, not when doing so would mean tearing open a wound that was still dripping blood.

He held his impossibly light disciple tightly against his chest.

The moonlight felt cruelly cold, sharp enough to cut skin.

******

Time flowed on without the slightest regard for human suffering.

Fallen leaves rolled across the ground, announcing the end of autumn. Then white snow covered the world.

By the time everyone had grown accustomed to the frozen earth and biting cold, winter finally retreated and warm winds began to blow again.

Sitting on a tree branch and staring out over a forest where fresh green buds had begun to emerge, Tang Jung tapped his long pipe against the trunk.

He had searched through hundreds of medical texts and made inquiries everywhere he could, only to become increasingly certain of one conclusion:

There was no proper treatment for sleepwalking.

He pressed his fingers against his throbbing temples, then pulled a letter from his robe and read it again.

She’s anxious. Give the child somewhere she can truly feel safe enough to rest.

Tang Jung turned to the next page with a sour expression.

The writing there was considerably more irritated.

I told you to ask her yourself, so why do you keep bothering me? If you can’t even give your disciple somewhere she feels protected, then just die already.

Tang Jung glared at the roughly scrawled words until irritation got the better of him.

He burned the letter to ash.

Over the course of the winter, Tang Sohae’s body had recovered to the point that no one would have believed she had once hovered between life and death.

But the sickness in her heart showed no sign of improving.

The longer the child wandered through her dreams, the more Tang Jung’s insides burned black with worry.

He needed to know what had happened before he could soothe that torn heart.

But he had no way of finding out.

That willful old monster knew the reason and stubbornly kept her mouth shut.

And the normally quick-witted subordinate at his side somehow knew nothing at all.

Tang Jung chewed on the stem of his long pipe before lowering his gaze toward the ground beneath the tree.

“Geunmyeong.”

“Yes, Elder.”

“You truly have no idea what might have happened?”

Tang Geunmyeong hesitated under the gaze of a Tang Jung who was making no effort whatsoever to hide his foul mood.

“......Actually.”

“What?”

“While you were away, the child met an older brother who shares her mother. They traveled together for quite some time. Judging by how devastated she is now, I suspect something may have happened to him.”

“Why are you only telling me this now?!”

Tang Geunmyeong hurriedly bowed at the thunderous roar.

“My apologies, Elder. The child seemed determined not to show how badly she was suffering...... I failed to think it through.”

Tang Jung glared at him, furious, then forced down his anger and pressed him further.

“He truly is her brother by the same mother? Sohae’s mother was hardly some unknown courtesan. If she had another child, there should have been rumors everywhere. This is the first I’ve heard of it.”

“I saw his face myself. The resemblance left no doubt that they share the same blood.”

“So? Is he dead?”

“I don’t know whether he is alive or dead. His background was unclear from the beginning.”

“Unclear?”

“Yes. The very day the child introduced him as her brother, I asked the Beggars’ Sect to investigate him. They found nothing.”

“Even for some insignificant third-rate martial artist, the Beggars’ Sect should at least be able to uncover his hometown. Was he not a martial artist?”

“He was, but he was a third-rate swordsman with almost no inner force. As far as I know, that was also how the Martial Alliance had him recorded.”

Tang Jung fell into deep thought.

If the man had accompanied her the entire time, then he should have been with her when that disaster occurred.

So why had she said nothing about him all this time?

Something felt wrong.

“How strange. She showed this supposed brother to you, Geunmyeong, yet hid him from this old man?”

She was such a tenderhearted child that even her maid’s injuries pained her as though they were her own.

Given her nature, the moment she regained consciousness, she should have asked whether her brother was alive.

Don’t tell me all that nonsense about having to leave was because......!

Tang Jung’s expression twisted.

A sudden suspicion struck him, and he asked again.

“This boy Sohae called her brother. Was there anything unusual about him?”

“Nothing particularly strange. His presence seemed too imposing for a third-rate martial artist, so I tested him once myself. But a single poison-palm strike put him down. He had no resistance to poison either, so I had to give him an antidote pill immediately.”

“What else?”

“......Now that I think about it, he may already have been suffering from internal injuries. The child took all kinds of medicinal ingredients, even concentrated Hundred-Herb Bath extract, to nurse him back to health.”

“Keep talking.”

“He seemed like a decent man. It was obvious the child relied on him greatly.”

The more Tang Geunmyeong explained, the colder Tang Jung’s face became.

“......How could a third-rate martial artist weaker than you possibly be someone she relied on in the martial world? Did that boy carry an old, battered iron sword?”

“I didn’t see the sword itself, but the scabbard was rusty and in poor condition.”

“What?”

Tang Jung leapt down from the tree.

His fist clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

The long pipe in his hand shattered.

At the same instant, a roar like that of a wild beast burst from his throat.

“That......! Seoryak, that damned old monster......! She knew everything and said nothing?!”

Poisonous energy surged outward, melting the surrounding plants in an instant.

Tang Geunmyeong went deathly pale and flattened himself to the ground.

“Elder, please calm yourself. The child may hear you.”

“How am I supposed to calm down when the child ended up like this after traveling with a Demonic Sect spy?!”

“......What?”

Only then did Tang Geunmyeong realize Yeon Ryang’s identity, and his face went equally pale.

There had not been so much as a minor detail that would have made him suspect the man was a demonic practitioner.

The man he had met possessed none of the murky eyes characteristic of such people, nor had he given off any unpleasant aura.

More than anything, it had been obvious that he genuinely cared for Tang Sohae.

If he had merely intended to use the child, he would never have become so furious over the marriage arrangement, nor would he have made provisions to receive regular news about her.

Elder. Could you arrange a way for me to receive news about the child through you?

What do you mean? You intend to contact me directly?

The martial world is a mountain of blades and a forest of swords. If something happens to me, I want to make preparations so that someone can immediately take the child somewhere safe.

......Very well.

Please keep it secret from her.

Remembering the man’s bitter smile, Tang Geunmyeong swallowed hard as he watched his master rage.

When the poisonous energy pouring from Tang Jung was strong enough to melt even stone, he could hardly bring himself to voice his personal opinion that the child’s brother had seemed like a good man.

Tang Jung ground his teeth as though he would kill any demonic practitioner placed before him on the spot.

Then, just as suddenly, all the strength seemed to leave him.

He covered his face.

“So that’s why...... That’s why the child couldn’t tell me.”

“......”

“She was thinking of this old man. She couldn’t even bring herself to say it, so she suffered alone all this time...... How much must such a young child have tormented herself......?”

“Elder......”

“It’s all this old man’s fault...... My sin is too great......”

Tang Jung suffered in self-reproach for a long while before finally drawing a deep breath through his twisted expression.

“Pretend you know nothing in front of the child. Right now, anything we do will only rub salt into the wound.”

“Yes.”

“She won’t recover from this quickly...... Perhaps I should take Sohae to the Bamboo Sea as well. What am I supposed to do with that poor child?”

Tang Geunmyeong studied his anguished master before cautiously speaking.

“Elder. What if we simply returned to the main estate?”

“It’s still too soon. Who knows what kind of trouble might break out if we return now?”

“She may be getting worse because she spends so much time alone. If she could spend time with her siblings, perhaps her condition would improve.”

When Tang Geunmyeong pressed the suggestion again, Tang Jung’s eyes narrowed.

“You’re not the sort to insist on something for no reason, Geunmyeong. Why? Is someone scheming again?”

At the sharp question, Tang Geunmyeong lowered his head and answered carefully.

“Nothing like that. It’s only that we’ve taken so many medicinal ingredients from the medical hall these past months...... Rumors have begun spreading that the child has been reduced to an invalid.”