Oejunghyeop (2)
Oejunghyeop (2)
The Tang Clan divided their search party into three.
Dang Myeon, the leader of the Medicine Hall, and the remaining hidden weapon experts took charge of searching the Tanggata region. The rest of the family members and Tang Clan warriors who hadn't reached a deep level of martial arts waited at Dangsan mountain, just in case Yuryeon arrived.
Dang Gyeom, So-young, the late-joining leader of the Dark Iron Unit, Woo Hyo, and Dohwa headed toward Daepa Mountain, where Jegal Yuryeon had last been.
Sabak, sabak—
Four sets of footsteps climbed the steep mountain path busily.
Dohwa's steps were like walking on water—quiet and light—but the faces of Dang Gyeom, So-young, and Woo Hyo, who followed behind, were filled with tension.
'The remaining energy is unusual. It must be a master. Leader of the Dark Iron Unit, prepare for an ambush.'
'I follow the Clan Leader's command.'
The two exchanged a conversation with their eyes. They were a lord and subject who had been together for a long time. It was only natural that their coordination was perfect.
On the other hand, So-young's eye technique achievement was shallow, so she stumbled a bit, but she didn't feel much anxiety. The reason was that she had become able to unfold the Rain of Flowers Filling the Sky according to her own level.
'I trained with Dohwa-unni. Assuming defeat would be rude.'
They had become much closer over the past few days. Ever since Dohwa told her to call her 'unni' like Yeong-yeong did, So-young called Dohwa comfortably. Though her attitude had become even more cautious.
So-young fiddled with the hidden weapon in her bosom and looked at Dohwa, who had stopped walking.
She was talking to a deer that had walked out of the darkness. It was one of the mysteries of the Gangho.
"Are you saying you definitely saw her climbing this mountain?"
-U-u-u-ung-
"Thank you for telling me."
The deer made a strange cry and wagged its white tail. Dohwa stroked the deer's antlers once and asked the mountain.
She bent her knees and placed her hands on the ground.
The green light in her eyes illuminated the dark mountain path, and her characteristic divinity and composure permeated the air. Dohwa asked in a soft voice.
"Mountain, oh mountain—our friend, the skeleton of the world. Won't you tell me what you saw?"
The desolate mountain path shook faintly.
In an instant, a sharp wind blew strongly.
The dense trees that covered the moonlit night shook their branches, making sounds. It was the way mountains that weren't as spiritual as Dangsan conveyed their own voices.
-I humbly report to the Mountain Deity. The girl Dohwa-nim was looking for went down to the village below with a man wearing a tiger skin, who had a long vertical scar on his face.-
"Thank you. Now, rest again......."
Dohwa drew out the end of her sentence, stroked a tree with her slender fingers, and asked Woo Hyo.
"Hyo-ya, is there a village below here?"
Dohwa's gaze was directed toward the basin below the mountain, wrapped in fog. Woo Hyo, who had examined the direction, nodded and answered.
"Yes, Supreme Patriarch-nim. There is a village called Yugok-hyeon below...... but I heard that no one has lived there recently."
Yugok-hyeon. As the name suggests, the village hidden between the winding valleys had been a place so desolate that people had left one by one long ago.
Dohwa looked down at the place and said.
"She is there."
* * *
"It's this way~ If you go this way, it comes out~"
Jegal Yuryeon had never once asked Wi Ja-heon for directions. Looking up at the sky, her appearance as she walked forward without hesitation on a path she was seeing for the first time felt mysterious.
She stopped walking at the entrance of Yugok-hyeon.
A village where moss grew over thatched roofs, and weeds were more rampant than human presence beyond the fences.
Yuryeon crossed the village and stopped in front of a simple but neatly managed thatched house. Wi Ja-heon sent a look of astonishment.
'I didn't tell her the location of the house, yet how.......'
He had considered it the recklessness of a child when she refused his guidance and took the lead.
'Now I see, I understand.'
Wi Ja-heon only then smelled the subtle scent of tea. It was the incense pouch hanging from her trouser hem. The ring on her little finger was also impressive. A thin band with a bamboo forest pattern drawn on it.
'It's Jegal Yuryeon. The apple of the Jegal Clan Leader's eye.'
Reading the will of the heavens, Tianji-zi (Heavenly Secret Child), and the Cheonmun Susu (Heavenly Gate Hanging Hands) that reads the heavens through star clusters.
Wi Ja-heon thought.
There are rumors in the Gangho that aren't exaggerated, after all.
Twinkle!
Starlight stretched long at the corners of Yuryeon's eyes. It must be the gaze that reads the will of the world.
Jabak, jabak.
Yuryeon stood in front of the house and was about to knock on the door, but men emitting a fierce aura poured out from inside. They were the elites of the Nokrim Yukchae.
"Chaeju-nim!"
As they raised their weapons and sent looks of vigilance, Jegal Yuryeon adjusted her bundle and waved her hand brightly.
"Nice to meet you. You are friends of the Oejunghyeop, right~"
"......?"
The men were flustered.
To offer such an innocent greeting in front of the murderous bandit group of Daepa Mountain? Even if she was a companion of the Chaeju-nim, it was an extraordinary occurrence. They all had the same thought.
She's a crazy woman.
Or, a great master.
At the same time as their vigilant gazes turned to pity. Wi Ja-heon opened his mouth with a heavy voice.
"Put them away. She is a guest. How is So-hee?"
"She is the same. She lost consciousness just a moment ago and barely......"
Wi Ja-heon's complexion darkened. He said he had to go check on his daughter's condition and hurried into the room. A strange silence flowed between Jegal Yuryeon, who was left in the yard, and the members of the Yukchae.
A girl smiling brightly, and rough men.
The combination was bound to be strange. The silence deepened. The Nokrim Yukchae consisted of six people.
They started whispering while looking at Yuryeon.
"What do we do......? The Chaeju-nim didn't bring her here to sell her, right? She's incredibly pretty, though."
"Talk sense. Even if we loot, we don't do human trafficking. There are things humans can do, and things they shouldn't do."
"Then what is she."
"".......""
Even after talking for a long time, they couldn't reach an answer. One guy with a shiny bald head jumped up. Saying he would ask her himself. Leaving behind the murmurs of 'Oh!' from those around him.
Mumo (No-Hair) asked.
"Little girl. Do you even know where this is......?"
"Of course I know. It's the Oejunghyeop's house, right? You robbed me, but you returned the Analects, and I'm here to help the daughter of a kind man who only hit me a little bit."
"......Guys, the sick one was right."
"Looks like he brought her because he intended to take her back when the sun came up. Phew—"
Only then did the members of the Nokrim Yukchae gather around her one by one.
They were bandits, but in their eyes, there was no greed or madness of those who harm people. Instead, only deep sorrow and devoted loyalty toward someone were filled.
"Hey, young lady...... no, Miss. Since you said you were hit, I'm saying this, but......"
One of the members spoke with difficulty.
"Our Captain looks fierce and terrifying on the outside, but he is a truly soft-hearted person on the inside."
"He was originally a woodcutter in this village."
"Even when looting, he never killed anyone. He always made sure to leave them enough money to get back home safely."
"He had to earn the medicine money to cure the young lady, but he said he didn't want to take someone's life for it......"
The six people's words continued smoothly as if they were one body. It was a strange bond that only those who had overcome many hardships together could show.
"So, please don't hate our Chaeju-nim too much. I will apologize on his behalf for you being hit."
Mumo finished speaking last.
Yuryeon's eyes were still twinkling like starlight. She sat on the wooden floor of the desolate house and understood people's hearts. Yuryeon smiled brightly.
It was a smile with deep dimples. Her eyebrows, mixed with white hairs here and there, also curved softly.
"Ziyue (The Master said), 'To err and not to reform, this is indeed to err.' It means that doing wrong and not fixing it is what is truly called a mistake."
A smile that could ease the guilt of many people.
She was one of the Wulin Five Flowers. Called Cho-hwa (Second Flower).
It was named so because it was a beauty that soothed the heart in slow time. The bandits didn't know about Jegal Yuryeon and that nickname, but they felt a similar feeling.
Even her words were like that.
"It's fine if you do well from now on."
Yuryeon's sharp nose caught the moonlight and twinkled. She fluttered her airy silk clothes and pointed to the entrance of the village.
"It is possible now."
The one who listens to the words of the heavens has come.
Hwa-a—
The scent of peach blossoms mixed thickly in the cool night breeze. Dohwa stood there, looking at Jegal Yuryeon and the bandits with a faint expression.
"Huk—!"
Mumo was surprised and fell down with a thud! under the wooden floor. The others were no different.
"It's not human energy, her ears are long! It's the Jang-i clan......"
"The Martial God has manifested."
"Everyone was ashamed of their own path. The heavens have already read that heart. Even though the outer path you walk is rough, if the heart is upright, the path bends inward again. Isn't that so?"
Yuryeon's words were drawn out long. Dohwa, with her back to the moonlight, affirmed her words.
"......That is correct. These are not eyes that have killed people. Regret is mixed in their breath, and their eyes are full of pain."
Dohwa thought of Dalma and Sambong. Poor friends who were trapped in the shackles of grace and resentment, and could not live their remaining lives comfortably even after ending the blood feud.
The ones in front of her were the same.
Because they were not a high-ranking Gangho like Sambong and Dalma, that misery was even more prominent.
The Gangho was such a heartless place. A place where nobility is determined by power. A land where it is not uncommon for a father who cared for his child to become a bandit who exploits merchants and commoners.
"There are miracles in such a Gangho, too. We call it a predestined connection (Gi-yeon). It has come to you."
The one who listens to the words of the heavens.
* * *
The room was cool.
That is because it is a room where no human breath can be felt. On the bed, Wi Ja-heon's daughter, So-hee, was breathing heavily, as if her breath would cut off at any moment.
Jeolmaek-jeung. A disease where the paths necessary to continue life are blocked or severed.
If it is not the Seolhwadan of the Divine Physician, it is a disease where it is natural to die without passing adulthood. Countless medicinal herbs go into just maintaining life.
Most of the medicine that can be obtained is only with power.
That was the status of miraculous medicine in the Gangho. A precious item that allows you to get a few years ahead of others. It was not something you could get just because you had a lot of money. It had to be power and fame.
Even if it is power and fame built as a heretic, fame is fame.
'Damn it.......'
Wi Ja-heon shook off the thoughts that seemed to be defending himself.
He exploits others' blood-like money to save his daughter's life. Although he didn't take lives directly, there must be countless people who walked the path of ruin because of him.
It was right to carry all that guilt.
Wi Ja-heon knelt down and held So-hee's ice-cold hand.
The rough and violent man's hand trembled.
"Dad......?"
At that moment, So-hee's closed eyelids fluttered and opened.
"Dad, did you go and hit people because of me again? Don't do that...... I'm okay. The doctor said if I'm lucky, I'll get all better. I saw a rainbow in my dream again yesterday."
"......Yes. You will get all better. Dad has brought the medicine."
Wi Ja-heon's voice became wet. Even if it is the Jegal clan, they cannot obtain the Seolhwadan.
The Divine Physician is dead, and the last Seolhwadan was in the hands of the Namgung. Nevertheless, he grabbed the rope that had come down in front of him with the feeling of a drowning man grasping at a tree (Ikjabansu).
That is what hope is.
A rope floating on the vast ocean is meaningless. Even knowing that, one grabs it and prays. Wi Ja-heon's words right now were like that.
It was that very moment.
Clatter—
Two women opened the door and entered.
The room instantly became warm with a five-colored fragrance.
"The Master said. 'To err and not to reform, this is indeed to err.' It means that doing wrong and not fixing it is what is truly called a mistake."
"The ancient one......?"
"I said she would come, didn't I? The one who listens to the words of the heavens."
The rope floating on the vast ocean tightened.