The Child Does Not Return
"Cheon Yomyeong..."
When I roamed the jianghu, the Murim Alliance had been in Hubei. It was a distance that would take half a year round trip by carriage.
I waited.
Even after six months passed, the child did not return.
"Cheon Yomyeong, you..."
But disruptions on a journey are commonplace. Rivers could flood from rain, horses could collapse suddenly, or one might fall victim to pickpockets and lose their funds. The child must have encountered such setbacks.
So I waited another six months.
Still, the child did not return.
"Did you bind me here just to show me this pathetic sight?"
The child did not return.
The door to the secret chamber remained sealed.
In this place devoid of all but darkness, I gauged the passage of time. Before, I could not. How could one sense the flow of hours in such utter blackness and void, I had thought.
I was wrong.
The waxing and waning of heaven and earth's yang and yin ki, the shifting warmth and chill of the air with the seasons—it all felt tangible, within grasp.
A year had passed, yet hunger still gnawed at me. At the hour for my three daily meager meals of rice gruel mixed with husks, my stomach growled mercilessly.
Without mercy.
Suspended in the darkness, I sifted through the past.
There was only one person to seek.
Time had eroded all others from memory. The rest were weaker than I—useless in a moment like this.
"Cheon Yomyeong... Cheon Yomyeong."
I forcibly roused my crumbling thirst for vengeance.
That mere child—what did it matter what became of her?
I had a debt to collect from Cheon Yomyeong.
Yet in the end, memory converged on a single point.
Cheon Yomyeong's loathsome memory was overshadowed by the child's.
In the secret chamber where Cheon Yomyeong had bound me, I saw the gift the child had left behind.
On the stairs where Cheon Yomyeong had descended, an illusion of the child ascending flickered.
I could bear it no longer and cried out into the lightless cavern.
"Do something, Cheon Yomyeong... Leave some contingency. Surely you could manage that much..."
The child did not return.
Not even after more than a year.
Not even as the four seasons cycled and summer came again.
She had sworn to return, yet not even a glimpse of her.
I knew.
"Didn't you pledge even the lives of your descendants to seal the pact with me?!"
Yet I wailed, unwilling to know, unable to bear the truth—that I remained shackled to these chains, that reality tormented me.
Over a hundred years bound, yet now time dragged with excruciating slowness.
"Clear away these wretched chains and deliver what you promised me! Cheon Yomyeong—!"
But the child... did not come.
More time passed.
December. On a frigid winter night, three figures in black climbed a remote mountain path. Their faces were masked, long swords gripped in hand.
The leader at the fore gave a silent signal.
"This is the place. Search every inch."
Their target: a secret cave midway up the mountain slope. Newly identified by headquarters, pieced together from folklore and records.
It must have been thoroughly concealed, evading all notice.
"Entering."
Another signal, and one black-clad operative carefully poured a black liquid at the base of the stone door. The slime from black silkworms reduced friction—opening the door would produce no sound.
The weathered stone door slid open smoothly.
But was it a bust? No signs of life.
The dim cavern felt long abandoned, chilled to the bone.
The black-clad leader murmured lowly.
"Even if we've missed it, it doesn't matter. Find even the smallest clue!"
"Understood."
Their movements were precise and disciplined. The black-clad figures fanned out into the spacious interior.
Soon, they discovered something.
"Leader. Found something suspicious."
At the cavern's end, a man was bound. Long, disheveled hair. Rags for clothes. A pitiable sight shackled in chains that brutally pierced his torso.
Every vital acupoint impaled by iron links.
He must be dead. No one could survive such a state.
"Hm?"
The leader felt an odd unease. Why was this here? The cave had been abandoned for over three years—no maintenance, no supply movements recorded.
Headquarters' intel never erred.
Then who did this? More importantly, those chains. The faint blue glow—that was the hallmark of millennium cold iron.
"Leader!"
Flash—
Suddenly, the corpse's eyes snapped open.
The leader recoiled reflexively, sword at the ready. The Flash Thunder Seven Forms, a sword art that cleaved life sharper than lightning—permitted only to the Murim Alliance's covert Black Shadow Squad.
The leader's icy killing intent surged toward it.
With overwhelming pressure, he demanded, "Who are you? Declare your affiliation and identity."
".......To think."
Yet the man seemed utterly unperturbed.
His parched, cracked voice seeped slowly into the cavern.
He regarded them with utter disinterest.
"It took this long... So very..."
Incomprehensible mutterings.
The leader intensified his aura, resolute.
If uncooperative, he'd demonstrate power.
Without a shout, he thrust. The signature swift stab of Flash Thunder Seven Forms hurtled at the foe.
Sever one arm, and the attitude would change.
Or so it should have.
"Shut your mouth."
"Mmph?!"
In the next instant, the leader's mouth was clamped by the man's hand.
An absurd speed left the leader momentarily uncomprehending. When did he counter? When was I subdued?
He grasped nothing.
He, a peak Super First Rate master.
And this man had every vital point pierced by chains.
Confusion clouded the leader's eyes.
Am I dreaming?
Yet his body reacted on instinct. Grueling training linked his flesh to precise counters.
Leg techniques with his free legs. Five chained kicks targeting vitals.
But all of it was,
"Mmph!"
To the man gripping his jaw, mere futile struggles.
He neither dodged nor blocked.
Kicks that could shatter boulders struck like hammering iron plates—utterly ineffective.
The man intoned, "I ask the questions."
A chilling voice.
Only then did the other two black-clad operatives move. To them, the leader's struggle had created an opening.
Two longswords flew like arrows. Blades treated for matte finish, near invisible in the dark.
Yet even that,
"Gah!"
"Krrk!"
Failed.
Dulled groans echoed twice, blood scent filling the air.
Only then did the leader recall a forgotten sensation. In the Murim Alliance's shadows, handling filthy work, he'd thought fear forever beyond him.
Terror.
His jaw throbbed as if shattering—the man pressed the most agonizing spots.
Another realization dawned on the leader.
This man was intimately familiar with inflicting pain.
A professional. A master craftsman.
At the end of excruciating agony, his jaw briefly freed.
In a trembling voice, the leader gasped, "Who... are you?"
"I am...... Yes."
"How dare you interfere in our operation. Don't think you'll escape unscathed!"
The man's first words were slow.
The leader bought time with threats, probing intent.
Soon, the man continued leisurely, as if the threats were beneath notice.
"From now, rack your brains for why you've come to this cave. I'll give you a full hour."
"What... are you planning..."
But the leader could think no more.
For a full hour, his screams filled the cavern without cease.
After a long time, the man murmured.
"Yes."
He knew how to make mouths open.
The leader held out decently, but that was all.
The poor man spilled everything he knew, finally freed from torment.
Why they came.
Their purpose in seeking clues.
The intel screamed in death throes at the last.
"Th-the Cheon girl escaped! We just suspected she hid in this cave! Please, please..."
"I don't know! Truly! We're chasing that wench too!"
The man drew a deep breath.
Then exhaled.
The rage and hatred trapped within his body gradually subsided.
Not vanished. Merely sinking deep, deeper still.
Later would do. He could unleash it then, as much as needed.
But not now. Not a time to surrender to fury.
He was alive, after all.
He voiced the vow aloud, as if affirming it.
"She's alive."
Jang Cheon draped the neatly folded black uniform from the floor over himself, murmuring once more in his heart.
Alive was enough.
That sufficed.
No matter where she was, no matter the peril, he would go to her.