Chapter 67
Chapter 67
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 67
Chapter Title: Upholding
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The very next day after Paeguk Sect had been turned upside down.
Wi Sowol strode boldly through the sect grounds without a care.
The sect had been flipped, sure, but a promise was a promise.
Besides, she was now an undeniable honored guest of Paeguk Sect.
Even Mount Hua Sect had treated her as one and bestowed an elder plaque, but that had been thanks to her master the Weird Physician's influence.
This time, though, it was all her own doing, from start to finish.
She could enjoy it with a clear conscience.
But then.
"What?"
"I-I'm sorry. The matriarch has issued a confinement order. No one's to enter until it's lifted."
Wi Sowol had gone to find Jin Dam-seon, only to receive a polite dismissal.
Even a murim power couldn't reject the central plains' teachings of filial piety.
In fact, murim clans enforced it even more strictly than the secular world.
With martial arts adding real force to the patriarch's authority, it created absolute power.
Paeguk Sect's leader's family seemed no exception.
And Jin Dam-seon was still just a boy not even fifteen yet.
In this situation, his grandmother's word was law.
"I see."
But Wi Sowol had no intention of backing down quietly.
If a child couldn't keep a promise, it was up to the parents to step in—that was the way of the world.
'Fine. I'll take her for all she's worth.'
As the Weird Physician had said.
It's fine to squeeze the rich ones dry.
Wi Sowol etched her great master's teachings into her heart and turned to leave, but Hwa Geum-bi was no pushover.
"Instead, the young master will honor his promise, so discuss the details with the staff. Orders have already been sent to the Medical Corps and Hye Min Pharmacy."
"...Sly as a fox."
She'd been ready to uproot one of Paeguk Sect's pillars.
But they'd beaten her to the punch.
She could still make a fuss if she wanted.
But there wasn't much point in pushing that far.
"You can at least let them know I'm here?"
"Mm, I can sneak that much in."
The guard's eyes brimmed with fondness for Wi Sowol as he spoke.
Partly because of what she'd done for Paeguk Sect, but the direction of that goodwill suggested it was more about the figure she'd been on the battlefield the day before.
Back then, unlike now, she'd been bare-faced, mask off.
In the end, Wi Sowol turned away with a lingering unease.
But she had zero intention of playing along with Hwa Geum-bi's script.
Her next stop was the Enforcement Hall.
With the sect leader away, the Armory Chief in rebellion, and the Central Shadow Hall Master and Dark Pavilion Lord's authorities partially suspended.
The one truly commanding Paeguk Sect right now was Enforcement Hall Master Gun Wan-geuk.
Thus, the Enforcement Hall was the sect's true nerve center.
Handle it with the staff?
Ridiculous.
Wi Sowol went straight to the top.
"Enforcement Hall Master. I demand physicians and medicine be dispatched."
She pitched her voice low and firm, stating her case with gravity.
A kindly smile graced Gun Wan-geuk's face as he regarded her.
The feat that tiny girl had performed yesterday was still vivid in his mind.
As Gun Wan-geuk rose, his shadow fell over Wi Sowol like a mountain peak.
He was a giant just shy of six feet two inches tall—186 cm.
Her crown was perfectly framed in his gaze.
"So it shall be. Dispatch as you need. Just keep records and report them."
"...Understood."
This easily?
She'd thought, since he was so dutiful about separating public and private, it might not go smoothly.
Now that it had, something felt even more off.
Unable to shake the unease, Wi Sowol blurted out a question she hadn't planned to ask.
"Not curious where it'll be used?"
"I've confirmed why the young master summoned you. Leaving the slums to rot because of the Armory Chief's treachery wouldn't be righteous."
Wi Sowol gazed steadily up at Gun Wan-geuk.
As she tilted her head back, he murmured "Ah" softly and bent his knees to meet her eye level.
Just like an adult speaking to a child.
"...That's not it."
"Hm? Is it not?"
"'Righteous' just struck me as an odd word."
"Does it seem out of place for us black path unorthodox folk to speak of righteousness?"
"I didn't say it was that bad."
"Just a joke."
Paeguk Sect jokes weren't funny.
That was Wi Sowol's full impression, but the Enforcement Hall officer present thought differently.
In Paeguk Sect, there was a saying: never joke before the Shadow Lord.
He doesn't get them, so you'll end up in shackles, dragged to Enforcement Hall.
He might be the only one in Paeguk Sect to witness Gun Wan-geuk's humor.
No one would believe him, though.
As the officer sweated bullets, desperately playing invisible with near-divine breath-holding.
Gun Wan-geuk and Wi Sowol's conversation continued uninterrupted.
"Not entirely wrong, though. Righteousness for black path unorthodox? Ill-fitting words."
"Eh, some unorthodox places I've seen had decent values."
"Oh? Which?"
"Nether Luo Sect."
Gun Wan-geuk felt a subtle sting to his pride.
He couldn't say why, but Wi Sowol drew his eye unusually.
Not just her looks, though he couldn't deny that—there was an inexplicable pull.
Probably gratitude for the debt he owed her.
A personal one, separate from his position as Hall Master, to be repaid later.
Yet here she was saying Paeguk Sect had shamed itself while fellow Twelve Black Thrones Nether Luo Sect had left a good impression...
"Though they were still unorthodox."
"And why's that?"
"They tried to lock me and Master up. Planned to hold us a bit then let us go. Probably because their patient was their son—made them nervous."
Gun Wan-geuk's lip quirked up slightly at her explanation.
The officer's fragile enlightenment on breath-holding shattered; he gasped in sharply.
Fortunately, not enough to disrupt the two.
"Still, Nether Luo Sect's doctrine had its insights."
"Life is Struggle, right."
"Exactly."
Gun Wan-geuk absently reached to stroke his chin beard with his right hand, then froze.
Taking time to get used to it.
His brow furrowed as he thought that.
"Can I go now?"
"...No. Something on my mind. Got time? Let's talk a bit more."
She'd started at dawn's crack anyway—plenty of time.
The slums needed quick action, but preparations would take time regardless... As Wi Sowol mulled that, her eyes caught the officer's desperate camouflage.
No matter how he hid, he was plain as day to her—like reading palms.
"First, send someone to the Medical Corps and Hye Min Pharmacy. Can I borrow him for an errand?"
"Go ahead."
The Enforcement Hall officer vanished as a mere messenger.
Alone now, Gun Wan-geuk picked up where he'd left off.
"Nether Luo Sect's Life is Struggle. Three Paths Assassins' Gate's False Death Kill. Our own canon has such golden precepts."
"Like what?"
"Never Abandon Lack. Don't ignore or neglect your own shortcomings."
Paeguk Sect was born from endlessly seeking and filling its deficiencies.
The founding master had sought various teachings to shore up his weaknesses, uniting them into the sect.
Confucius's "no shame in asking those below"—don't be ashamed to ask.
Daoism's "pretending to know what you don't is illness."
Never Abandon Lack embodied that learning mindset, a life wary of arrogance.
"But truth be told, our canon no longer follows that teaching."
Gun Wan-geuk muttered bitterly.
The precept that had captivated him, the one he'd vowed by upon joining Paeguk Sect, had paradoxically vanished from its very grounds.
"Life's about filling those lacks, isn't it."
Gun Wan-geuk lost himself in his own words.
"Paeguk Sect wasn't like this before. Three factions existed, but we crossed freely, seeking to fill our gaps. That's how I learned my arts. But now..."
The factions had drifted apart.
New disciples didn't seek other factions' arts directly; they learned from same-faction seniors or just manuals.
Such learning was inevitably shallow.
Still, it had benefits.
Unlike unified training, faction rivalry spurred growth desire.
Individual disciples' power grew faster than before.
But while Paeguk Sect gained raw strength, its forward momentum weakened.
"I've prattled on. Just meant don't lose that beginner's heart."
Gun Wan-geuk rose, carefully removing a scroll from the wall behind his seat.
Never Abandon Lack.
Paeguk Sect's founding heart inscribed there.
"We heal because we are healers. The path ahead brims with hardship, but its end is surely beautiful. Fill your lacks and press on. My personal gift. No need to take it."
Wi Sowol studied the scroll's characters intently.
Impeccably neat script.
Its strokes held more feminine grace than manly vigor.
She knew little of calligraphy.
But personally, she loved it.
"Who wrote it?"
Gun Wan-geuk smiled subtly.
"The one I mentioned before."
"...Then."
"Not the matriarch."
Wi Sowol felt she'd seen Gun Wan-geuk's current expression in her past life.
From whom?
Right.
It resembled the face of someone who spun tales of himself as if they were others' stories.
"I'll take it as liked. You're free to go. Kept a busy girl with my nonsense. Forgive me."
"It's fine. Got a nice gift out of it."
Not from that venomous woman, so not bad.
Wi Sowol, pleased the scribe wasn't Hwa Geum-bi, tucked the scroll securely.
'War trophy.'
She even gripped it by hand, lest it slip from her belt.
'Gotta brag to Boyun.'