Chapter 5
Chapter 5
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 5
Chapter Title: House Murong (4)
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The past came flooding back.
The conversation he'd had with his brother when he visited the Martial Alliance amid headaches from Neng Heng's demonic energy.
"Alliance Leader, you don't look so good."
"Haven't washed my face."
"...I have no face to show you."
"Are you drunk? What's with the sudden change?"
"It's not the alliance members wearing you down. You've suffered enough heartbreak from your family since childhood."
"Cut it out. Even calling me 'Alliance Leader' formally gives me chills."
"You punk! Chills?"
"Heh heh."
"Good grief, how are you still unable to distinguish between public and private at your age?"
"That's just how I am."
"Why not quit being Alliance Leader and take over as patriarch? At least the workload would lighten up. They say people age fast after sudden retirement."
"True, it'd be better than the Martial Alliance. No one to complain if I beat the crap out of those who don't listen."
"..."
"Just kidding. Hand it over to Daeho properly."
From then on, his brother joked around calling him the family patriarch too.
It had been a joke, pure and simple. But it seemed it hadn't been a joke to his brother.
"Who asked for any of this?"
Joint patriarch.
Not content with treating a mere bastard son—shunned by the family—like a brother, he'd even elevated him to joint patriarch.
"...Damn it, making me all sentimental."
Murong Cheon wiped the corner of his eye with his fist.
Shedding embarrassing tears after all these years.
Carefully setting down the spirit tablet, Murong Cheon extinguished the incense and stepped out of the ancestral hall.
"Have you finished your business?"
"Yeah."
Sensing the unusual mood, Old Man Gwak spoke even more cautiously.
"I'll escort you to your room."
The two resumed walking.
Whooosh.
The wind felt cold.
His chaotic heart refused to settle. Then again, he still hadn't come to terms with suddenly landing twenty years in the future.
Just then, a girl's shout rang out from afar.
"Hey! You just got here, didn't you? You crazy bastard...!"
The girl trailed off. Old Man Gwak had silently waved her off.
Panting with rage as she glared at Murong Cheon, she pounded her chest and spun away.
Murong Cheon paid no mind to their exchange.
It felt like a hand from underground—his brother's—had grabbed his shin and was shaking it wildly. His legs felt impossibly heavy.
How much time passed like that?
"Get some good rest, young master."
"Hm? Oh, thanks."
"Would you like something to eat...?"
"I'm fine. Go rest."
Old Man Gwak felt perplexed watching him nod weakly. The young master's demeanor had been utterly opposite from before, something he'd noticed earlier.
Normally, he'd urge him to eat more and put on some weight, but now didn't seem the time.
"I'll take my leave then. Rest well."
"Sure."
After sending Old Man Gwak away, Murong Cheon got off the bed and sat on the floor. The chill rising from the cold ground sharpened his mind.
The clearer his mind became, the more his jumbled thoughts crystallized.
"Brother."
Even after turning forty and fully escaping the Heavenly Punishment, the Murong Heon in his memories always wore a sickly pallor.
"Father and the uncles committed unspeakable acts under the pretext of family crisis. I have no face to look you in the eye."
As a child, whenever his brother saw him wasting away day by day, tears would flow.
Back then, his brother had seemed repulsive too. Shedding tears up front, only to wag his tail at that carrot-dangling old man who could hardly be called a father.
But on the day the family secret art was completed—when the elders tried to kill him to eliminate loose ends—he let go of all his hatred upon seeing his brother's actions.
"Even beasts cherish their young! Since when did our house devolve into a trash heap worse than any unorthodox sect of the Black Way?!"
His brother, in genuine fury, had been ready to strike down father and uncles alike.
Had his brother's talent not been extraordinarily rare in Murong history, the elders might have exiled him.
"Or maybe killed him too."
Afterward, that so-called father fell ill and died, and his brother unleashed his hidden prowess without restraint, suppressing the uncles and claiming legitimacy as the eldest son to become the young patriarch.
That was when it began.
From that point, he and his brother started overhauling the rotten house from the roots.
"And yet..."
Beside his brother's beaming smile floated the bold, likable face of his nephew Daeho.
Unlike the other nephews, he had his father's upright and resolute character—the one he'd truly seen as a son.
"Uncle! Take care of your health and come back in a year! By then, Sujing will be talking!"
The kid, barely more than a boy, had laughed like a man of fifty, which had always amused him.
"Daeho, it wasn't a year—it's been over twenty."
A sigh escaped him.
"Better off dead than seeing you like this."
Whether heaven's prank or something else, he'd returned to this land in the body of his great-great-grandson.
Gazing at the ceiling with a troubled expression, his face gradually hardened.
"No, that's not right."
Better off dead?
True, the thought had crossed his mind briefly.
But considering it seriously, this was a chance from heaven.
"Whether divine mischief or the ancestors' grace, I've come back. Whatever the reason, I can't leave the house like this."
How much hardship had he and his brother endured to reform it?
They'd expelled anyone guilty of corruption, kin or loyalist alike. They'd straightened the flabby laws and systems, elevating the weak warriors' skills and spirit to the pinnacle of northern martial arts.
After becoming Martial Alliance Leader, war had kept him too busy, but his brother had filled the gaps.
"I can't give up. I won't."
He'd find out everything.
Why they'd moved from Yonyeong to Hobuk, what House Hoyeon was, how his brother and Daeho had died.
And how the current descendants were faring.
"To do that, first..."
He recalled the household buildings he'd glimpsed earlier.
"Doesn't look like we're in any spare state. Fine, that happens."
Murong Cheon looked down at his body.
"The real problem is this."
This body—his great-great-grandson's—was far from normal, no matter how he looked at it. Forget muscles; even the organs were frail.
Everything inside and out was an issue. Just a little movement left him breathless, as if he were ill rather than untrained.
"Born the Murong eldest son, yet never properly learned even a scrap of martial arts?"
Murong Cheon closed his eyes and examined his body from within.
A moment later.
"Huh?"
He jolted in surprise.
"What is this? This freakish state?"
Staring blankly at his lower abdomen, Murong Cheon closed his eyes again and peered inside.
Same result.
"The dantian is squished?"
The dantian was the core for storing qi—essentially a reservoir for energy.
Yet this reservoir was bizarrely deformed. It was tiny enough to make him gasp, but the shape was even worse.
"How is this possible?"
Qi moves and shapes according to will.
Naturally, the dantian forms through persistent focus and awareness of qi.
Once formed, it grows with its owner, varying by person but generally rounding out as it develops due to denser qi.
"Not even properly squished—it's just sloppy. How...?"
Had the family not noticed the dantian's state?
He hadn't either. It wasn't his original body, and his qi sense was so weak the dantian barely registered.
"Unbelievable."
Beyond that, leaving the eldest son's body like this without even calling a physician was odd. No matter the money woes, it was no state to ignore.
Murong Cheon's eyes narrowed.
It felt like he'd been dropped into a world that shouldn't exist. A disconcerting place where Martial Alliance Leader Murong Cheon's common sense didn't apply.
"The key point is, I have to live in this era."
He was still dazed, but he couldn't just bash his head on the ground and die.
To avoid death, he had to live.
As always.
"So first, fix this body."
Body ailments sour the temper and unsettle the mind. The sages weren't wrong: a healthy body houses a healthy spirit.
"Damn it."
He bit his lip unwittingly.
"...No matter what, I still have to relearn that damned technique?"
Dismantling and reforming an existing dantian was incredibly hard.
Not impossible, but time-consuming with low odds of success.
But "that study"...
If it was that one, which placed body and qi under perfect willful control from the start, he could easily dismantle the old dantian and rebuild.
"Brain Gate Heart Technique."
House Murong's most forbidden secret art.
Originally, no human should learn it. Eight or nine out of ten who did went mad or died with brains turned to mush; survivors aged rapidly and lasted less than a year.
No wonder rumors called it a demonic art.
"Damn it all. Maybe it'll be easier this time."
At under ten, he'd encountered the Brain Gate Heart Technique and mastered the basics in nearly a year.
Entry wasn't the issue. The more he practiced, the more he felt his mental capacity expand—it was remarkable.
The problems were the bouts of madness, unruly emotions, and splitting headaches.
That torment and loss of control had driven countless suicide attempts.
"It'll be fine. As a kid, I dove in blind—that was the problem."
Of course, practicing now wasn't risk-free.
"I'll do it. Can't wait years, don't want to."
Decision made, he acted.
But first, something else.
Pondering briefly, Murong Cheon sprang up.
The sudden motion made his vision spin, but it couldn't deter his resolve.
"First, see Sujing."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Stepping outside, the world had grown darker still.
Damp and chilly weather. With his body like this, it felt even colder.
Pulling his collar tight, Murong Cheon recalled Old Man Gwak's words.
"Acting Patriarch, was it?"
His memory of Sujing was just her cute baby face.
No real conversations, but he felt an odd affection—amplified by the absence of his brother and Daeho.
"Why Acting Patriarch instead of full Patriarch?"
He felt tense, excited. A strange mix.
"This must be it."
Smaller than before, but the layout resembled the Yonyeong estate.
"So small."
Murong Cheon's wistful gaze cooled.
"This is the house's reality, huh?"
As he raised a hand to knock on the office door—
Bam!
A rough thud echoed from the main gate afar.
"Hey! Open up!"
Murong Cheon frowned instinctively.
What was that pig-squealing racket in the dead of night?
Bang bang!
"Here for the debt! Open the damn gate!"