Chapter 4
Chapter 4
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Murong Clan (3)
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"……."
Murong Cheon's face, as he stared at the main gate, was dazed, as if his soul had fled his body.
But that lasted only a moment.
"Hey."
"Yes!"
"Did you really bring me to the right place?"
"Y-yes, sir!"
Murong Cheon twisted his face into a grimace and spoke in a chilling tone.
"This is the main house?"
"……Yes, sir."
"If you're lying and get caught, your hand's coming off. This is definitely the Murong Clan?"
"H-how could I dare lie to you, young master? This is your home!"
Jang Gu screamed internally. You know that better than anyone!
In truth, he couldn't even understand why this scrawny debtor had asked to be brought to his own home. He'd just been too terrified to think straight and had led him here.
Murong Cheon glared at the gate with bulging eyes.
This is the main house?
Even a branch family of the Murong Clan wouldn't have been built this shoddily.
The Murong Clan estate before him was utterly, painfully ordinary—a typical manor you'd find anywhere. If there had been spiderwebs clogging the gate or gold leaf plastered over the walls, maybe his senses would have snapped awake.
This is way too normal!
It was the kind of manor you could pass by on any road, in any region.
And that made it all the more shocking. The Murong Clan itself felt no different from any other middling martial family—utterly commonplace.
To Murong Cheon, who had grown up seeing the majestic aura of the clan's longstanding dominance in Yonyeong Province, this manor was a curse in its very existence.
"This can't be real!"
His heart pounded as a whirlwind of emotions surged through him, and images of his unknown descendants—driven out like this—flashed in his mind.
If this is how I feel, how shocked must those nameless heirs have been, forced to relocate like fugitives? It must have hurt them far worse than me.
Yeah, that's right. But…
But still!
This is too much!
Grabbing the back of his neck, Murong Cheon suddenly looked up at where the name plaque should be.
In the world… they don't even have a name plaque.
Every manor displays its name, and the plaque serves that purpose. Yet here, even that was missing.
A rundown shack without majesty, glory, or even a plaque.
Jang Gu glanced nervously at Murong Cheon, who seemed utterly lost, and spoke in a creeping whisper.
"Young master."
"……."
"Um… c-can I head back now?"
"……."
"Young master?"
"Go."
"Pardon?"
Murong Cheon bellowed.
"Don't make a fuss and just go! Get lost!"
"Eek! Right away!"
Startled, Jang Gu waddled back the way he'd come. With every step away, the pain he'd forgotten crept back up.
At the same time, his anger toward Murong Cheon began to rekindle, bit by bit.
Just you wait! I'll skin you alive!
Having sent Jang Gu off, Murong Cheon clutched his head.
"Damn it! This isn't a dream?"
In a way, it was a relief. At least he didn't seem to have become a beggar. But that made the shock even greater…
He released the hair he'd been gripping like he wanted to tear it out and took a deep breath.
"Calm down. Just calm down."
This was reality.
No amount of tearing at his hair or chewing his lips raw would change that.
Glare at the gate with bloodshot eyes all he wanted, reality remained.
He took another deep breath.
It was a day for deep breaths.
Let's go in.
Stop getting shocked. The clan already relocated to Hobuk—that's shock enough.
Maybe this isn't the main house. Could just be a coincidence.
With a somewhat tense face, Murong Cheon knocked on the gate.
A moment later.
"Who is it?"
The hoarse voice carried the frailty of age's scars.
Murong Cheon cleared his throat a few times, opened his mouth to speak, then froze.
Wait.
Come to think of it, what was this guy's name?
Damn it! Should've asked that idiot his name first.
The reality had been too shocking; asking for a name hadn't even crossed his mind.
Then the hoarse voice came again.
"Could it be the young master?"
"Huh? Oh… yes."
Honorifics slipped out unbidden.
Clunk!
The gate opened, and an old man burst out.
He was stooped and gaunt, looking like he couldn't even lift a hoe. But unlike his frail appearance, a deep diagonal knife scar marred his face.
The old man fussed excitedly.
"Young master! Why have you come back so late?"
"……."
"Come inside first. You haven't been drinking, have you?"
"Oh…"
"Hurry to your room and rest. This old servant will bring food right away."
Led by the old man's hand across the threshold, Murong Cheon blurted out without thinking.
"Gwak?"
The old man, Old Man Gwak, smiled.
"It's been ages since I've heard that. Heh heh."
Murong Cheon gaped like a carp.
It's really Gwak?
Gwak Hogun.
To Murong Cheon, he had been the loyal servant and personal guard of his older brother Murong Heon—renowned as Yonyeong's foremost faithful retainer for his unwavering devotion.
Naturally, as the patriarch's guard, his skills had been exceptional. And now, that man appeared as a hunched oldster.
Martial arts…?
Old Man Gwak's limping gait caught his eye.
It wasn't even that of a commoner, let alone an expert. His right leg seemed badly injured, and he lacked even the aura of a master.
No internal energy either.
Murong Cheon halted, staring at him with trembling eyes.
"What's wrong, young master?"
"Gwak."
"Heh heh, just call this old man Old Man Gwak. That's enough."
Murong Cheon stammered.
"Your leg…"
"Pardon?"
"I mean, how's the discomfort?"
"Goodness, speak comfortably. Why use honorifics with me?"
"……Right."
Old Man Gwak chuckled and slapped his thigh.
"No pain at all. Perfectly fine."
Hitting your thigh doesn't make it hurt less.
It's the calf.
Clearly a major injury from ankle to calf. He couldn't tell without closer inspection, but it probably still ached with every step.
Staring silently at Old Man Gwak, Murong Cheon bowed his head without realizing.
This man…
He didn't know the circumstances, but the clan had shrunk to this after relocating to Hobuk.
Yet Old Man Gwak still served as a retainer. Aged as he was, his eyes held the same loyalty as before.
Unshakable devotion across generations.
Damn it.
Sighing bitterly, Murong Cheon lifted his head again.
"Let's go."
"Yes."
Murong Cheon's steps slowed a bit. Not just from fatigue, but instinctively minding Old Man Gwak.
Now it feels real.
Seeing the aged, frail Old Man Gwak, Murong Cheon finally accepted he'd landed twenty-odd years in the future.
Get it together. I'm home. This is the real world now.
Glancing at him, Old Man Gwak cautiously asked.
"Young master."
"Hm?"
"You seem a bit different somehow."
Different? Your clan and you have changed far more.
"I was thinking reality feels like a dream. Life doesn't go as I wish."
Not the words of a youth not yet twenty, but Old Man Gwak responded earnestly.
"That's the way of the world. The jianghu is worse. It's full of villains who kill for boredom or spite, no grudge needed. Parents abandon children, children kill parents."
I know.
He'd learned that brutally before becoming Martial Alliance Leader. Even as a child, his own clan had used him as a guinea pig for forbidden arts.
Blood was blood, even for a bastard son, yet they experimented on a mere ten-year-old boy with incomplete techniques. That was the jianghu.
He and his brother had uprooted that cursed clan.
And now, he beheld the remnants of the clan they'd set on the right path.
Old Man Gwak smiled and continued.
"It's been ages since we've walked side by side like this. Since you're here, shall we go see Lady Sujing together, this old servant and you?"
Murong Cheon froze.
"Who?"
"Lady Sujing. You know she always worries about you, even with her duties as Acting Patriarch?"
A familiar name.
Sujing… Sujing… Wait!
Chewing on it, he blurted.
"That Sujing?"
Old Man Gwak whispered in surprise.
"She's still your elder sister. Mind your manners, young master."
Murong Cheon's ears rang; he didn't hear.
Daeho's daughter?
Murong Sujing.
Daughter of his nephew Murong Daeho, son of his brother Murong Heon—his grandniece.
A year ago, before falling ill, he'd last visited and seen her as a newborn.
No way!
They called Murong Sujing his elder sister. Meaning this body's owner was also his grandniece or nephew.
His brother's bloodline, then.
"Brother—no."
"Pardon?"
"G-grandfather?"
Old Man Gwak's face darkened.
His expression was plain even in the dim light—honest grief.
"You haven't forgotten. The previous-previous patriarch's memorial is in five days."
"……!"
"You must attend this time."
Murong Cheon felt the world spin.
Brother's dead?!
Deep down, he'd known.
If his brother lived, the clan wouldn't be like this.
The truth he'd denied crashed over him like a storm, shaking his heart—like a hammer to the skull.
"Young master? Are you alright?"
"……Ancestral Hall."
"Pardon?"
"Where's the Ancestral Hall?"
No matter how fallen, the clan had history. There'd be an Ancestral Hall for the ancestors.
Old Man Gwak was flustered but couldn't question the shocked young master about forgetting or whatever.
"Follow this old servant."
A moment later.
"Here it is."
A tiny shrine.
Murong Cheon flung open the Ancestral Hall door with force enough to break it.
Rows of spirit tablets gleamed. Too dark to read names.
"Young master, hold on."
Old Man Gwak lit candles deftly. He always carried a fire starter.
Light filled the hall.
"Step out for a bit."
"Yes, young master."
Sending Old Man Gwak outside, Murong Cheon eyed the tablet at the top center.
Murong Hwang.
The Murong Clan had a unique tablet arrangement.
Ancestor Murong Hwang at the top center, then patriarchs of the main line from left to right, row by row as they filled.
Tense, he checked the last row, far right.
Daeho?!
Murong Daeho.
Incredibly, his nephew—his brother's son—had a tablet.
He recalled Old Man Gwak's words.
You haven't forgotten. The previous-previous patriarch's memorial is in five days.
If brother was previous-previous patriarch, nephew Daeho was previous patriarch.
Impossible. Why Daeho too?
Prime of life. Twenty years later, he'd be in his peak as a martial artist. Why dead?
Dazed in shock, Murong Cheon turned left.
"……!!"
He squeezed his eyes shut instinctively.
"Brother."
Murong Heon's name was clearly inscribed. Even eyes closed, it burned into his mind.
He's really gone.
Yes. His brother was dead.
The only one in the clan who treated him as human, as family. And his beloved nephew too.
Murong Cheon opened his eyes and stared at Murong Heon's tablet.
"……Hah."
Despair beyond words.
The reality of this being the Murong Clan, its fall in mere twenty years, the deaths of his cherished brother and nephew—it drained him utterly.
I've come back to life, so why is brother gone?
A tiny tablet standing for his brother—sighs poured like a waterfall.
Memories of talks with brother surfaced.
You busy bastard? Never even visit?
Tell me about it. Should I quit Alliance Leader now?
Heh heh, I'd like that, but too many need your talent that revived the main house.
You did it all, brother. What'd I do?
Serious?
As if.
Hahaha!
His boisterous laugh echoed.
Brother.
Twenty years for the world, a day for him. Too absurd for any expression.
Stroking the tablet bitterly for a long while, Murong Cheon noticed Murong Heon's was finer quality than the rest.
What? Why only brother's new?
He turned it horizontal, vertical.
Then saw the back.
"……."
A tear he hadn't shed in decades fell.
On Murong Heon's tablet back, seventeen characters in bold script:
Martial Alliance Leader (Former)
Bright Martial Sovereign Murong Cheon
Joint Patriarch.