Chapter 137
Chapter 137
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 137
Chapter Title: I Must Say This
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I returned to the White Pavilion and lay down on the bed.
My body was exhausted.
I wanted to rest even a little, but strangely, my mind was wide awake.
‘…He looked like he had something he wanted to say.’
Even though he had finally ascended to the throne of the Western Heaven Sovereign as he desired, the brief glance the Dark Venerable gave me wasn’t one of pride or satisfaction.
It was longing.
Or perhaps loneliness.
What on earth could that mean?
I had no idea.
But I couldn’t very well ask anyone about it.
In the end, I closed my eyes quietly, trying to clear my thoughts.
….
Just as my mind began to grow drowsy.
“Are you there, Young Branch Leader?”
Suddenly, voices—Dang Gon’s and Gui Jegal’s—came from outside the door, accompanied by footsteps.
What were these two doing here all of a sudden?
I straightened my disheveled clothes and flung the door open wide.
“What’s going on, all of a sudden?”
But Dang Gon was huffing and puffing, while Gui Jegal was smirking beneath his mask.
“Do you have any liquor? The stronger, the better.”
“I’ve got some stashed away, but why do you look so pissed off?”
“Why do you think?”
Dang Gon glared at Gui Jegal with axe-like eyes.
Gui Jegal’s smirk deepened.
“Uhuhu! I played a little prank on him.”
“A prank?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of prank?”
Suddenly, Gui Jegal stepped back a pace from Dang Gon and shouted in a solemn tone.
“Departed souls, how dare you wander the living realm and threaten my comrades! I shall not yield this path until a blade pierces my heart—”
“Drop dead, you bastard!!”
Dang Gon’s face was beet red as he swung his Fierce Wind Whip.
It was so ferocious I half-worried it might shatter Gui Jegal’s skull.
Even if Gui Jegal’s head could take it, I couldn’t stand my room getting trashed.
I quickly flicked a hidden weapon to deflect the whip.
“If you’re gonna fight, take it outside! Why are you causing chaos in my room!”
“Look at that bastard’s antics! How could I not lose my temper?!”
Gui Jegal had already slipped behind me and was grinning ear to ear.
“In the name of Fierce Wind Knight Dang Gon! In place of Yama himself, I shall guide you wandering spirits of the nine heavens back to the underworld!!”
“Dieeee!”
Dang Gon’s eyes had rolled back in rage, swinging his whip with single-minded intent to tear Gui Jegal apart.
But the whip was repeatedly blocked by my hand, while Gui Jegal nimbly dodged and kept taunting him.
Steam was practically rising from Dang Gon’s head now.
“Why do you keep interfering?!”
“Because this is my room!”
“I don’t care about that—hand over that rat hiding behind you! Or I’ll keep swinging!”
“Ugh, stop being a nuisance and take it outside! Fierce Wind Knight Dang Gon! Even if it means a blade through my heart, I swear on your name to guide you back outside!!”
“You drop dead too, you Young Branch Leader bastard!!”
“Kyahahahaha!”
Crash! Bang! Clatter!
Dang Gon rampaged, while Gui Jegal and I dodged this way and that, teasing him….
A commotion erupted in the White Pavilion.
「That Fierce Wind Knight guy—watching him get teased day in and day out, he’s got some real punch to him.」
「And he forgets all about it the moment he turns away—how good is his temperament?」
「Of all people, he had to cross paths with the Young Branch Leader—」
「No, wait—hasn’t that Gui Jegal gotten even more vicious now that he’s latched onto the Young Branch Leader?」
The lingering spirits carried on their peaceful chatter, utterly unfazed by the daily spectacle.
“Huff… huff… huff…! You damn humans! If I don’t bury you two somewhere on the back mountain, I’m not human, I tell you!!”
When someone flies into a rage, their stamina runs out fast.
It was a miracle no fire spewed from Dang Gon’s mouth as he gasped for breath.
“Aw, come on—if you’d bury someone just for a little teasing, there’d be no living souls left in this world.”
“You’re worse than that Gui Jegal bastard! Always sniping from the sidelines, scraping away at a man’s nerves!!”
“Shouldn’t you be used to it by now?”
“That’s because you come up with a new way to grate on me every time! What the hell do you have in that head of yours to have an endless bag of tricks like that?!”
Good question. I found it pretty amazing myself.
Maybe he had a book in there called ‘101 Ways to Rile People Up’.
“What can I do when they keep coming to me? Gotta use ‘em.”
“Argh, that mouth of yours!!”
“And while we’re on the topic—if I got buried, you think that’d be the end of it? I’d probably come back as a ginger ghost and nag you even more from the sidelines.”
“Fuck!! That’s exactly what pisses me off—you’d totally do it!”
Dang Gon grumbled as he plopped down into a chair.
He seemed to have no more steam left to huff.
I chuckled and sat across from him.
Gui Jegal tried to sit next to Dang Gon but got the evil eye and sidled over to me instead.
“Mind if I sit next to you, Young Branch Leader?”
“What, you think you’ll die if you sit there?”
“You’re my boss, so you’d be fine, but as a colleague, he looks ready to rip my head off and bury it.”
“Then go ahead and try.”
“Thank you! Uhuhu! In that spirit, allow me to introduce a very special guest!”
Gui Jegal plopped down beside me and pulled out a gourd I hadn’t seen before.
The sloshing sound was music to my ears.
“Isn’t this Crystal Chamber brew?”
“Oh! You recognized it just from the sound?”
“I’ve been curious about the taste.”
“Hehe! A true connoisseur. But this isn’t just any Crystal Chamber—it’s made from the grain of that bumper crop four years ago.”
My eyes lit up.
My mouth watered.
“You can bring out something this good?”
“When else would we open it if not on a night like this? With your fame now shaking the four seas, the timing is perfect!”
“Grrreat! The Wind Transformation Pavilion Master truly is a loyal retainer!”
“It’s all thanks to your brilliant leadership, Young Branch Leader.”
“Well, I suppose it is.”
“Hahaha!”
“Umheuhuhu!”
“…….”
Dang Gon shook his head in disbelief at the weirdos he had to deal with.
But even he, the biggest liquor lover here, was getting excited and licked his lips.
Uncorking it filled the room with a rich grain aroma.
The liquor pouring into the cups was crystal clear.
Glug glug!
Three cups filled up, and we toasted lightly.
It burned just right—potent as expected.
The fatigue from the day melted away.
“Grrrh! No wonder it’s counted among the three great liquors!”
The Sichuan region boasted some of the Central Plains’ most fertile soil, and its crops were renowned for their flavor.
Naturally, the grain wines from here were always top-tier. Crystal Chamber was one of them.
“So, what’s the point of all this? Bringing out liquor this pricey makes me think you want to discuss something at length.”
“We didn’t come to discuss anything specific—”
Dang Gon and Gui Jegal exchanged a very brief glance.
In that split second, a whole conversation passed between them.
I could easily guess the content just from watching.
‘You say it.’
‘No way, you say it.’
‘I said you.’
‘You rampage like thunder on the battlefield—why chicken out here?’
‘Teasing’s your specialty. So you do it. Or do you want to test a broken pot?’
Who’d believe these were middle-aged men over forty?
In the end, Dang Gon lost the staring contest.
With Gui Jegal smirking and fanning himself nonstop, the hot-tempered one cracked first.
“Damn it.”
Dang Gon seemed embarrassed just to broach the topic, downed another cup, and bellowed like he was cursing.
“…Thank you.”
Pfft!
The completely unexpected words made me burst out laughing.
Dang Gon’s face turned scarlet—worse than when he’d been teased earlier.
“What’s that all of a sudden?”
“Honestly, it’s still embarrassing as hell and makes my skin crawl… but as former vice commander of the Gale Force, I felt I had to say it.”
Dang Gon’s tone grew serious. His ears were still red, but his sincerity came through clearly.
I smiled brightly.
I lifted the gourd and refilled his cup.
“I’ve always said—I just did what needed doing.”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you, Young Branch Leader, cleared the resentment, injustice, and grudges we carried all that time.”
Gui Jegal chimed in.
For the first time, his eyes—hard to read behind the mask—shone with genuine earnestness.
Dang Gon continued.
“From the day the Gale Force disbanded, our time froze right there.”
“…….”
“We were always bound to that moment. We never thought to escape it. No—we couldn’t. The Gale was our life, our everything, our very souls.”
“…….”
“And the Branch Leader was the same. The Nine Dragons Branch Family was created because we couldn’t forget the Gale in the first place.”
I recalled something Dang Gon had once said.
The Nine Dragons Branch was just a facade. A smokescreen to rekindle the Gale.
You could tell from the names ‘Silent Wind’ and ‘Wind Transformation’ alone.
Silent Wind held their hope of one day becoming a gale once more, flowing quietly.
Wind Transformation embodied their will to become the wind itself again.
“And you, Young Branch Leader, set our frozen time in motion again.”
“…….”
“Your promise to make the Gale blow once more set our hearts ablaze, making every moment we charged forward pulse with vigor.”
Gui Jegal nodded and picked up.
“The North Sea Tyrant fell. We led the vanguard. The martial artists who once watched us warily for fear of our revival now acknowledge us—praise us, even. Sure, selfish motives and ambitions lurk beneath, but they can no longer deny our existence. All thanks to you, Young Branch Leader.”
Gui Jegal’s eyes crinkled in a smile.
And then.
Click!
He reached for his mask and slowly lowered it.
A horrific face scarred by burns was revealed.
Before the injury, he must have been a handsome man, beautiful enough to make ‘flower-like visage’ seem understated.
I wasn’t surprised.
I’d already suspected as much.
Probably a wound from the incident surrounding the Gale Force’s disbandment.
“For the first time in over a decade, these scars that tormented me no longer hurt.”
“…….”
“I wanted to thank you once more.”
“It’s not just us.”
Dang Gon stood.
Gui Jegal put his mask back on and rose as well.
Whoosh!
In that instant, a gust of wind blew from somewhere, flinging open every door in the White Pavilion.
Slam!
Slam slam slam! Slam!
The main gate flew open. The entrance doors too. Windows swung back, revealing the outside clearly.
There, the warriors of the Nine Dragons Branch Family stood in formation.
The men of Silent Wind Pavilion and Wind Transformation Pavilion.
Former Gale Force warriors or those who inherited their will—all clasped fists toward us.
“We see you, Young Branch Leader!”
“We see you, Young Branch Leader!!”
Their unified shout struck my heart hard.
My chest pounded.
Thud…!
Dang Gon dropped to one knee and bowed his head.
Gui Jegal followed in prostration.
Thud!
Thud!
The Silent Wind and Wind Transformation warriors knelt one after another.
Thud!!!
Every warrior, retainer, and servant of the Nine Dragons Branch Family prostrated in unison.
“…….”
I quietly gazed at them.
In this moment, an emotion beyond words stirred in my heart as well.
I couldn’t quite name it.
But one thing I knew.
What the visitors had sent to the Dark Venerable was respect.
But what these men sent me was something entirely different.
Loyalty.
And trust.
Their loyalty and faith in me were thick within it.
Dang Gon cried out.
“You, Young Branch Leader, are our Divine Gale, no different from a typhoon—”
Divine Gale meant the most wondrous of winds.
Typhoon, the wind born when all gales converge.
“As that wind, protect us, lead us, and blow fiercely upon us.”
“Then we shall become your arms and legs to follow, your poisons and hidden weapons to fill the skies, your flames and steel to sweep foes as a raging gale!!”
Their heads bowed deeper.
Only Dang Gon lifted his, gazing up at me with steadfast eyes.
“We offer our loyalty to you.”