Chapter 47
Chapter 47
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 47
Chapter Title: Response
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Wi Sowol returned with reluctant steps, dripping with lingering attachment, and immediately sought out Jang Rok.
The moment she found him, Wi Sowol extended her wrist.
Just in case, she intended to check his pulse.
Jang Rok gave a wry smile but offered his arm to Wi Sowol anyway.
'......Impossible.'
Too much innate true energy had been depleted.
If Wi Sowol's internal energy had all been from the Firm Chastity Heart Method, it might have been different, but the Great White Light True Qi couldn't substitute for innate true energy.
'Great Return Pill.'
The Great Return Pill that Master Yeol Han had chosen as a way to revive the Yujin Dojo.
The Great Return Pill's effect was akin to the Small Life Return Pill.
It could revive even those on the brink of death and restore exhausted vitality.
Even if innate true energy was fully depleted, as long as there was a breath left...
"Miss."
"......"
"It's too far to Mount Song."
"...I know."
It wouldn't work.
There wasn't nearly enough time.
Wi Sowol let go of Jang Rok's wrist listlessly and plopped down beside him.
She hugged her knees to her chest.
To Jang Rok, she looked like a child curling up to protect itself from harm.
"Shall I tell you a story from the old days?"
"Suddenly?"
"Wouldn't it be unfair if I were the only one who knows your past, Miss? Besides, I'm curious about Chun Si too."
Strangely, though Jang Rok suggested talking, he stood up from his seat.
"It'd be odd to just chat idly, so let's talk while cooking. I'll teach you how to make Ilpumgwa."
Wi Sowol followed Jang Rok to the kitchen.
The yaodong homes of Shaanxi's Loess Plateau were dug into cliffsides or underground. In the latter case, like other courtyard houses, they had a central courtyard to let in sunlight.
Being underground, the only connection to the outside was that one courtyard.
Thus, prep work for cooking was often done in the well-ventilated, sunlit courtyard.
"First, we'll prepare the pork and chicken. Miss, please wash the vegetables and make the egg dumplings."
As if keeping his earlier promise to make Ilpumgwa for her, all the ingredients were ready.
Wi Sowol did as Jang Rok instructed. Egg dumplings were made by wrapping filling in egg-based wrappers instead of dough, and her small hands deftly shaped them into neat, attractive dumplings.
She was naturally good with her hands, and it wasn't her first time anyway.
"Was the friend you came with someone you met in Chun Si?"
"Yeah, something like that. He just suddenly stuck to me."
"Haha, if your bond reached all the way to this distant place, you were bound to meet eventually. His martial arts were impressive too. No shortcomings as your friend."
"Really? He still seemed sorely lacking."
"That's because you're exceptionally special, Miss. Ah, that's enough egg dumplings. Next, make the tofu pouches."
"Okay."
Jang Rok had recognized right away that Hwang Bo Yun was from the Hwang Bo Clan.
But he didn't pry.
Because Hwang Bo Yun wasn't the important one.
"You were curious about good and evil, weren't you, Miss?"
"Still am."
She had a bit more grasp on it now, but good and evil remained hazy.
Jang Rok could well empathize with that feeling.
"Me too. It wasn't always like this, but at some point, it got complicated."
His hands trembled as he finished with the pork and took up the chicken.
"As a kid, I thought I'd just live like this, cooking and all."
The tale of the boy who became an assassin began to flow from Jang Rok's lips.
"My father was a chef. Nothing grand, just for an ordinary inn, but he owned it too. The earnings weren't bad."
It was a bit surprising.
She had assumed assassins were raised from infants bought and trained, but apparently not always.
Jang Rok had childhood memories of his father.
"Then the inn went under. Because of slander from a new inn that opened up. Father took on debt and died unable to pay it. I grabbed the kitchen knife he left behind and charged in. Got beaten black and blue."
The story didn't feel like someone else's to Wi Sowol.
Didn't it sound just like her and the beggar kids?
Perhaps that's why Jang Rok called her "Miss" and treated her with such courtesy—he saw his younger self in her.
"That's when I learned about the Assassins' Gate. More precisely, they found me."
"Recruitment?"
"Something like that. They call it scouting. The Assassins' Gate seems to kill easily, but they carry out their kills with surprising caution. 'False Benevolence Killing.' That's what was always written on the scroll hanging in the place where I trained to become an assassin."
The Three Paths Assassins' Gate's creed was False Benevolence Killing.
Killing those who pretended to be righteous was their mission.
Thus, even when setting out on a kill, they verified if the target was truly a hypocrite.
The new inn's owner had his name on the Assassins' Gate's list, and the assassin on the mission had scouted Jang Rok for final confirmation.
"The inn owner died. Poisoned. I saw it. And I told that assassin, 'I want to be like you.'"
To young Jang Rok, that assassin was an executor of justice.
Stepping in where even the authorities turned a blind eye, upholding righteousness.
To Jang Rok, that felt like true good.
"And so I became an assassin. Of the Three Paths Assassins' Gate. Luckily, I had some talent, and rose to Seven Kills in the River Heart Abyss."
In that process, Jang Rok killed many people.
He couldn't even remember the number.
Didn't care to.
They were bad guys anyway.
If killing them made the world better, that was enough. No need to nitpick every detail.
Finding the next target was hard enough.
"I asked people about good."
Jang Rok had overheard Wi Sowol's conversation with the Nether Luo Sect Lord on the carriage roof.
Not intentionally, but he had.
He'd also heard her discuss it with the Weird Physician or Pure Void Daoist in between.
But whenever such a topic seemed to arise, Jang Rok subtly steered the conversation away.
Out of shame.
Because he couldn't face it squarely.
"I thought good meant eliminating injustice."
"Like your father's death?"
"Yes. If Father's inn failed because our skills were truly lacking, the food tasteless, facilities poor—reasons like that—I wouldn't have been angry. Father wouldn't have died that way. But ruining it through slander, fabrication, threats, interference... that's different. That's unfair."
He became an assassin to eliminate such injustices.
That strong conviction drove Jang Rok all the way to the upper echelons of the Three Paths Assassins' Gate.
A position where he could choose his own missions independently and even overturn them based on his judgment.
That was the rank of elite assassin in the River Heart Abyss.
"I never felt guilt. Laughably, I felt pride. Believed without doubt that I was righting someone's wrongs and benefiting the world."
The doubt began at a certain funeral.
The kill had been flawless.
The target was undeniably a hypocrite, embezzling vast sums behind the scenes.
But at the target's funeral, people were weeping.
According to the Assassins' Gate criteria: hypocrisy.
Yet the target had used the embezzled money as if it were his own to aid the city's poor.
Was that truly hypocrisy?
Earning money through unjust means, then spending it on the dying—was that good or evil?
Jang Rok began to waver.
His first mistake came soon after, a first for Jang Rok who had never erred since his trainee days in the unranked upstream Shangchuan Mountains and Waters.
—Was my father someone who deserved to die?
The blunder born of newfound anguish.
When he encountered the target's daughter, instead of flying at him in rage, she had asked that.
Tears streaming as she asked.
Jang Rok still couldn't forget that face.
The moment their eyes met, the girl about Wi Sowol's current age.
Jang Rok felt something in his heart crumble away.
In the end, he couldn't answer.
And fled like a frightened man, face pale as a ghost.
He killed to punish hypocrites.
But was that death truly fitting punishment?
He sought to erase injustices.
Yet his actions birthed new ones.
He aimed to punish hypocrites.
But killing in the name of punishing hypocrisy was itself hypocrisy.
Jang Rok could no longer wield his blade.
Only then did he realize why the Assassins' Gate was unorthodox.
From that day, he left the Gate.
"The Assassins' Gate doesn't tolerate deserters. Pursuit followed. When I thought I was dead, I met the physician."
To him, who had lost the will to live, the Weird Physician said:
—You've killed so many. At least try saving lives before you die.
And so Jang Rok became the Weird Physician's guard.
"What a... pathetic story."
Thud.
As Jang Rok's tale ended,
so did the cooking.
A pot layered with greens, radish, dried beans, bamboo shoots at the base, then pork, chicken, fried tofu pouches, and egg dumplings piled atop.
Pour in broth and boil—that completed the Ilpumgwa.
The celebratory dish representing Zhili,
said to have been named by the emperor himself after tasting it. Over time, it became popular even among commoners.
And this Ilpumgwa was the last dish Jang Rok's father had made for him.
"Jang Rok."
"Yes, Miss."
"I don't know if the kills you carried out were good or evil."
The two sat before the hearth with the pot.
Wi Sowol's voice mingled with the crackle of flames and bubbling broth.
"Good or false good, I don't even know if there's a clear line between true good and fake. Whether such a line exists at all."
Even if it did exist and Wi Sowol found the answer, she had no way to tell Jang Rok.
So there was only one thing she could do.
"Instead, I'll walk the path you couldn't."
Leaving the kitchen, Wi Sowol stepped into the central courtyard of the yaodong.
Time had passed; the sun dipped low, filling the courtyard with sunset glow.
"Show me. The boy working at the inn, the Seven Kills assassin, the Jang Rok after deserting. The steps you've taken."
Jang Rok followed her words as if entranced, stepping into the courtyard.
He had no internal energy left.
His body, nearly drained of innate true energy, felt heavy.
But those steps felt light.
Jang Rok walked.
Like a child, like an assassin, like an ordinary man.
Some steps were innocently clumsy, as if he knew no martial arts; others stealthily covert; still others majestic, like the world's greatest master.
All manner of footwork had melded into his life.
The boy running the inn with his father could tell the guest type by their gait alone.
The elite River Heart Abyss assassin mimicked countless people, adapting his steps.
And the guard living to protect another created steps for protection for the first time.
Even when his body gave out and he collapsed,
the footsteps continued.
From Jang Rok to Wi Sowol.
From the man who had let go of everything to the girl just setting out.
Jang Rok watched Wi Sowol's movements.
His steps were perfectly reproduced on her tiny feet.
Like a dream.
Like a dance.
Infused with internal energy, her steps traced dazzling patterns.
In her light yet powerful gait, Jang Rok saw his entire life.
Finally, the sunset faded, leaving only white moonlight to illuminate the courtyard.
In the moonlight's center, Wi Sowol imprinted Jang Rok's traces into her own steps.
His life would live on, melted into her footsteps.
"Deer Form Step."
The steps inheriting Jang Rok's form.
The sole solace Wi Sowol could give him.
"I won't change the name."
"...Isn't it too modest a name......?"
"No. It's enough."
"I see..."
Jang Rok didn't notice the tears streaming down his cheeks.
Not even the sensation on his skin.
His mind floated in profound elation.
Finally, he wanted to repay the gift he'd received.
"Miss."
With his sole remaining legacy.
"When I die, use my body for dissection."