Chapter 29
There was a girl here.
The girl, with pale green hair rolled up on both sides like twin buns, walked along with a little thump-thump, stamping the floor as she went.
Thump-thump!
Snorting and marching along with that stubborn little gait, she radiated a very clear I have complaints aura.
"Hmph! Hmph!"
That wasn’t all.
Her cheeks were puffed out so round that even an angry pufferfish would have bowed down and called her senior in sincere apology.
One side held irritation, the other hurt feelings, and both cheeks wobbled every time she walked.
The girl’s name was Heo Yul.
Twelve years old.
The de facto number one boss of Heo's Medical Clinic, and the apple of White-Haired Divine Physician Heo Injun’s eye.
Heo Yul stomped through the clinic with earth-shaking fury, and she was in a bad mood.
No—really bad.
She came to a sudden stop.
The place she’d arrived at was the main hall of Heo's Medical Clinic—her home.
"Daddy!!!"
Heo Yul gathered her breath from deep in her dantian and fired it straight ahead.
"!? Yu, Yul-ah..."
At that very moment, Heo Injun, who had been opening the door and trying to step inside, flinched as that shrill lion’s roar—no, lion’s yowl—hit him full in the face.
Thanks to the Six Meridians Vitalizing Flow Sword Geom Mujin had taught her, Heo Yul’s lungs were absurdly healthy, enough to easily outshout her father’s, which had been worn down by years of clinic life.
"Wh-what about training? Why are you causing a scene here?"
"You’ve been avoiding me lately!"
Because her dad kept dodging her, Heo Yul had skipped training and made a surprise visit.
"Why would Daddy avoid our little girl?"
"Grrr...!"
A frustrated sound escaped Heo Yul’s mouth.
A few days ago, she’d been kicked out of the house out of nowhere.
- Yul-ah, let’s stay in that annex for a while.
- Huh?
- All right? Come on, let’s move your things first.
- Huh? I didn’t say—
- You want to go right away? Let’s hurry.
Strictly speaking, her residence had merely been moved to a separate annex, but to Heo Yul, who had been eating well and sleeping soundly in her own room, it could only feel like she’d been thrown out.
"Then I can go inside too, right?"
Heo Yul’s eyes gleamed like a marten stalking prey.
"Ahem. I already told you. It’s dangerous because Daddy’s doing research inside."
Heo Injun calmly explained, but Heo Yul’s face only grew more sullen.
Adults often thought children were simple and shallow, but that wasn’t true.
Children were more logical and more perceptive than people believed. They just didn’t know how to express it.
Heo Yul was the same.
She’d lost her mother so early that she barely remembered her, and she’d been raised by her father.
Heo Injun knew Heo Yul well, and Heo Yul knew Heo Injun just as well.
He was trying to look calm, but he was clearly flustered.
His pupils wouldn’t meet hers and kept wandering strangely through the air.
He kept glancing back without meaning to.
By the analysis of her big data, Heo Injun’s reaction was...
Lying!
BEEP—!
The chance this was bullshit was a hundred percent.
He was acting exactly like someone hiding something.
What on earth was he hiding from his own daughter, and why was he even lying to her?
That was suspicious enough, but what Heo Yul was really curious about was something else entirely.
"...Is Uncle Mujin inside?"
In truth, the reason she was sulking had more to do with Geom Mujin than her father.
At twelve years old, she was entering that sad age when a girl’s interest in her dad starts dropping like stock she bought at the top.
"If he’d gone somewhere, there’s no way he wouldn’t have told me..."
"Mm..."
"I practiced my sword moves so much just so I could show Uncle Mujin. And I still couldn’t show him everything."
"W-well, Daddy knows that too..."
At his daughter’s dejected look, Heo Injun swallowed a sigh.
The reason he’d kept her separate and kept avoiding her was for her safety.
No matter how Geom Mujin was stationed right there and had even slapped a pressure-point seal on the child, no parent in their right mind wanted to keep a goema and a daughter in the same house.
And more than anything, he didn’t have the confidence to lie to her without his face betraying him.
"He really left without telling me...?"
Heo Yul Style
Fourth Form
Ranranru (Tears in a Fluster)
It was Heo Yul’s signature move, using (tears) to stir up and stir up again the hearts of her opponent—her parents.
Up to now, her signature technique had boasted a perfect win rate, and its power was truly terrifying.
As Heo Yul looked at him with those glistening, watery eyes, Heo Injun’s resolve wavered like the legs of an old man climbing Mount Gwanak.
She’s this sad... Should I just let her see Sword Master Geom for a minute?
Just a minute wouldn’t cause any real problems.
His resolve crumbled like a half-finished apartment complex built by a contractor who’d skimmed the budget.
Glitter, glitter...
"Hic..."
"W-well, the thing is..."
As Heo Injun’s lips twitched under the temptation gnawing at him, Heo Yul smiled inwardly in triumph.
Heh.
But that was far too early to celebrate.
At last, Heo Injun opened his mouth.
"Songbaek!! Where’s Songbaek!"
"D-daddy!?"
Heo Yul jumped in surprise at words she had never expected.
There was one thing she had failed to take into account.
That was how, as a child grows, a parent’s heart grows with them.
Heo Injun was no longer so weak-willed that he’d be TKO’d by Heo Yul’s tears on the spot.
"Did you call, sir?"
At his summons, Songbaek appeared.
"Until I say otherwise, don’t let Yul-ah come to the main hall."
"Understood."
"Eh!?"
"And take Yul-ah away."
"Eeeh!?"
Heo Yul was lifted up by the armpits.
"Now, let’s go."
"W-wait..! Big Brother Baek!"
"Nope, can’t do it."
There was, in fact, an advanced technique to Ranranru—the tantrum—but it was a double-edged sword that could, if mishandled, buff the parents instead of nerfing them.
In the end, with her signature technique shattered, Heo Yul was hauled off by Songbaek.
"We’re going to the training yard, right?"
".....Mhm."
Dangling from Songbaek’s grip, her limbs swinging helplessly, Heo Yul nodded.
As they headed toward the training yard, her ears suddenly perked up.
"...but... the room... I’m telling you..."
"Ah... don’t... lie..."
She heard whispering from somewhere nearby.
What’s that?
Curious, Heo Yul turned toward the sound and strained her ears.
The ones talking were the female nurses.
"Is it true? That the black-haired guest came out of the old man’s room."
"I’m telling you, it’s true. And not just yesterday—he was there the day before, too, and the day before that as well. I saw it with my own eyes."
The nurse boasted, pointing at both eyes as proof.
Since two men eating, sleeping, and fighting in the same room led to all sorts of awkward complications, the black-haired guest had kept stepping outside each time and ended up being seen.
The black-haired guest.
At the words that meant Geom Mujin, Heo Yul’s interest shot straight up.
"But why does that guest keep coming and going from the old man’s room?"
"Exactly. I thought he’d left days ago because I hadn’t seen him."
As her fellow nurses tilted their heads, the nurse in question wore a strangely lewd smile.
"Why else? It’s because the old man and the black-haired guest every night—"
She pressed her lips close to an ear, and the rest was too muffled to hear clearly.
"Eeeek~! That’s insane, that’s insane!"
"Oh my gosh! That’s totally Biae-ru..! You watch stuff like that all the time!?"
"You girls are awful, pretending to hate it."
Though they scolded one another with their mouths, all of them were blushing with excitement.
Biae-ru (Secret Love Pavilion)?
Secret Love Pavilion?(As in the characters '祕' and '樓'?)
What kind of love were her dad and Uncle Mujin supposedly having?
It was a word she’d never heard in her life, and Heo Yul tilted her head.
Was that related to what her father was hiding from her?
She was at the age where curiosity was impossible to resist.
"Hngggh... gotcha!"
Heo Yul put all her strength into her body and wriggled free from Songbaek’s hands.
"Yul-ah?"
"I can go from here by myself. Big Brother Baek should go do his own thing now."
"But..."
"The patients will start coming in soon, you know."
Songbaek looked back and forth between the clinic entrance and Heo Yul, then finally nodded.
"Don’t go back to the main hall."
"Okay~"
Songbaek hooked pinkies with Heo Yul and made a firm little promise before leaving.
"Ladies!"
Once Songbaek was gone, Heo Yul dashed around to the back of the building.
Songbaek had told her not to go to the main hall, not that she couldn’t head to the training yard, so she wasn’t breaking her promise.
"Hii, hiiik! Yul-ah!?"
"W-what’s going on!"
The nurses were shocked like they’d been caught stealing.
"What is Biae-ru?"
"...Huh?"
"W-where did you hear that word?"
"I heard you ladies talking about it just now!"
"Y-you heard us!?"
At Heo Yul’s bright answer, the nurses all looked like they wanted to bury their faces in a plate of water at once.
Then their eyes darted around as they glared at one another, silently asking how on earth they were supposed to fix this.
"I’m curious! Tell me quickly!"
"W-well, you see..."
Her innocent eyes shredded the nurses’ dark little hearts to pieces.
* * *
Seven days had passed since Geom Mujin brought the child to Heo's Medical Clinic.
The child was still not awake.
"The Taeho Sect has returned."
In the meantime, the Taeho Sect, which had gone out on the punitive expedition, finally came home.
Given how lax the heretical sects were about handling casualties, it was a rather late return.
They had come back after successfully hunting the goema on Mount Mui, but Gangneung was quiet.
There were no cheers or applause.
Normally, they would at least have held a welcoming procession in case the Taeho Sect caused trouble, but this time was an exception.
The Taeho Sect returned to their sect with heavy, sunken energy.
They came back quietly not only because the goema hunt had been a wash, but because the sect leader had been turned into a cripple.
"The Taeho Sect leader’s condition is truly severe."
Heo Injun, who had gone out for a house call to treat them, said as much.
"Not only was his right arm severed, but with qi deviation on top of that, all the channels and acupoints throughout his body have been turned to mush. He’ll probably never regain consciousness for the rest of his life."
Thinking of the Taeho Sect leader’s condition, he shook his head.
No matter how often people called him the White-Haired Divine Physician and whatever else, there was no way he could heal a walking corpse like that.
At best, he could only keep the man alive.
"I heard Taeho Sect Leader An Gojun is a Transcendence master. To do that to him, the beast must be stronger than we thought."
"......"
Heo Injun stroked his chin and looked down at the child, who was sleeping soundly.
"...Soon, the Taeho Sect will be in chaos."
Geom Mujin, who had been silently staring into the distance the whole time, said quietly for some reason.
"Do you mean a succession issue? But he has a son as his heir."
That son had been asking him in such blatant terms how much longer he had left to live, rather than whether he might recover—but he was still the official heir.
"No, that vice leader who came by last time, the one with the surname Jo? He’s probably gonna make a move soon."
"Do you mean Jo Pyeongho? Do you have some reason to think that?"
"Well, he’s got those squinty eyes."
"Pardon?"
Something like a hook appeared over Heo Injun’s head.
Tsk, tsk. A fellow who’s spent his whole life studying medicine really doesn’t know how the world works.
Looks like I’ve got no choice but to teach him a thing or two.
"You should be careful around squinty-eyed guys. Those types are either hiding their strength, their ambitions, or all sorts of really nasty things."
This was a law set by the universe itself.
The moment those squinty eyes opened all the way, the whole place would turn upside down.
"—So if Physician Heo ever wants to take in a squinty-eyed disciple, kick him out immediately."
He was the one discriminating by appearance after being discriminated against for his own looks.
"Mm... I understand."
Heo Injun wore a strange expression.
* * *
And then, the next day.
At last, the child opened her eyes.
"Fuck you, bitch."
"What?"
The atmosphere went cold at that profanity, stripped of any filter whatsoever.