Chapter 29
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 29
Chapter Title: Debate with the Demon (2)
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Namgung Humyeong was delighted to see Yuyeon after such a long time, her limbs all intact and her face free of any scars.
Yes, as a born man of the martial world, he was content if a runaway child returned with limbs whole, no disfigurement on the face, and all ten fingers accounted for.
Enlightenment or growth through running away?
Pfft, who runs off to gain something like that? If you want enlightenment, shut yourself in closed cultivation. If growth is your aim, then train diligently. Run away fretting over pursuers, and the enlightenment you're chasing will flee right along with them.
That was the firm conviction of Namgung Manor Lord, a vagabond among vagabonds who had witnessed countless young ladies and masters from noble clans bolt for so-called "jianghu exploits."
Of course, Yuyeon had gained enlightenment.
In any case, the three agreed to the Manor Lord's suggestion and moved to the annex to continue their conversation.
The Manor Lord's thinking had nothing to do with the chill in the air or worries of Yuyeon and Heo Jeongwon catching colds outdoors. He had simply bought expensive tea to serve them, so naturally, he wanted them to drink every last drop.
They entered the quiet annex guest room that Namgung Humyeong had provided to Heo Jeongwon.
This annex had been newly built with a specific guest in mind: Old Master Heo Jeongwon.
He had now reached the Rejuvenation Stage, extending his lifespan and restoring his youth, so he was no longer an "old" master. Yet just as Yuyeon had recognized him, Namgung Humyeong had identified him at once during their private meeting.
In Heo Jeongwon's annex guest room, Yuyeon and Heo Jeongwon sat facing each other across the tea table.
Thus, three beings in three hues—Yuyeon, Heo Jeongwon, and even the living corpse nestled in the parasol—gathered around the tea table, resuming their Daoist debate.
For reference, the Manor Lord had keenly sensed the mood and realized it was not his place to intrude. He promptly left to handle his backlog and process Yuyeon's return.
"You said you were leaving to find your own place. Did you find him?"
Yuyeon racked her brains.
Should she answer honestly, or deflect?
Instinctively, she first pondered ways to slip out of this situation. But her opponent surpassed her in every respect.
Divine sense, spells, physical techniques, raw power—all of it.
No tool she possessed or trick she could pull would work against him.
And crucially, Yuyeon had come here to check on the safety of the Namgung family.
If she bolted right in front of him this time, what might happen? On the surface, they called each other brothers, but who knew what lay beneath.
Yuyeon resolved to engage in a genuine Daoist debate with him.
If she could fathom his intentions, she could decide whether to flee or politely decline and depart.
"I set out to find my place, but I did not find it."
"Why not?"
"Before leaving to seek my own place, I realized I first needed to tidy up the place I had previously abandoned."
Heo Jeongwon savored Yuyeon's response. So that's why she had returned. Yet there were still parts left unanswered.
"When you left, it seemed you cast everything aside so lightly. How did you come to that realization?"
"It only looked like I was abandoning things lightly. In truth, I merely judged that departing to inquire of myself was appropriate, and to convince myself otherwise, I feigned that attitude."
"And how did you realize that?"
Yuyeon could hardly say she had retrieved her runaway letter, heard her father's heartfelt lament inscribed there, and felt a surge of shame... and that inexplicable, sticky bond of family.
In any event, it was too embarrassing to admit, and relaying the contents vividly would be too burdensome, so she settled for a single line.
"I gazed upon the sea, and there I saw the waves."
That was the nature of Daoist debates.
It wasn't that immortals idly spouted vague, abstract notions or couched their words in metaphors during conversations.
Part of it was that experiences and insights could not be fully conveyed in mere words, but there was another reason as well.
Among cultivators, few truly knew their own Dao heart with clarity, and there were no fools who went blabbing even about the vague outlines they had grasped.
To know a cultivator's Dao heart was tantamount to knowing their weakness.
Suppose someone had coalesced a Dao heart of "never stealing from others."
What if you secretly arranged circumstances to tempt them with a powerful, priceless item? Worse still, what if you placed them in a situation unsolvable without theft?
If their Dao heart held firm, all well and good. But the instant greed prevailed, a crack would form in their Dao heart.
Progress in cultivation would stall, and in the long term, it might even regress—a bloodless way to eliminate a rival.
In other words, the moment you understood your opponent's Dao heart more precisely than they did, you held their lifeline in your grasp.
Thus, they spoke in ambiguities, concealing their true intentions while exchanging thoughts on the Dao.
"Hoh, the sea and its waves... The time was too short to have reached the sea and returned, unless you took a boat."
In essence, a Daoist debate—attempting to gauge an opponent's Dao heart through words—was nothing less than a fierce duel between cultivators, staking their lives without drawing blades.
"It couldn't have been just a boat ride and back. That peculiar parasol catches my eye as well. Where did you get it?"
"In a remote mountain valley, I encountered an arrogant yao beast possessed by a Demonic Dao cultivator. We clashed, and I claimed it."
A highly condensed answer, but she hadn't lied recklessly.
After all, the divine sense she once held exclusively was now his as well—and far stronger, at that. For the first time in her life, Yuyeon was experiencing the reverse: having her thoughts infiltrated as she had always done to others.
Ah, shaman elder. So this is how it felt. Not particularly sorry.
'Wait a minute—I've been the only one answering so far. This isn't a debate; it's an interrogation.'
A truly cunning Rejuvenation Stage cultivator. Pretending at debate while prying only into what he wanted to know—utterly devious.
"Hoh, mountains climbed and seas beheld. What a grand adventure."
Of course, her suspicions about the divine sense were purely Yuyeon's own thoughts.
For Heo Jeongwon, an average cultivator of the True Naming realm, a superior probing a junior with divine sense was simply basic etiquette.
That was how all his Rejuvenation Stage seniors had behaved.
Knowing she had answered with sincerity and without falsehoods, he saw his chance and turned the questioning back on her.
"Senior, I've been the only one grilled here. I have a question of my own. Why were you already at the Namgung Manor?"
Yuyeon deliberately addressed Heo Jeongwon not as "uncle," but as "senior."
The effect was tremendous!
Heo Jeongwon took a hit to the heart.
"Ahem, I am no senior of yours. What is strange about my presence at the manor? As the uncle who named you, it is only natural that I celebrate your birthday and..."
"Do you intend to take me to the cultivation world?"
"Indeed, that is correct. I have awaited this day for eight long years to bring you there. What say you? Come with me to the sect's main branch and embark upon the true path of cultivation."
Yuyeon had returned precisely to settle affairs at the Namgung Manor—the place she had left behind—so she had no real reason to refuse Heo Jeongwon's offer.
She held no spite toward the cultivation world. Yet having no reason to refuse did not mean she would blindly follow his wishes.
That was not why she had come.
"I have no desire to go to the cultivation world."
Yuyeon's words were resolute.
At that, Heo Jeongwon sensed a misalignment. Yes, there was a discrepancy between him and Yuyeon.
"I do not wish to tread a path paved by another. I already have my own road, and my own steps are enough."
Only now did he perceive it, and though Yuyeon had grasped it as well, she paid it no mind.
"Your own steps are enough... You failed to find your place, yet you have gained direction."
Heo Jeongwon fell into contemplation at Yuyeon's words.
He had fathomed her aversion to the cultivation world.
In truth, he understood her far better than she realized. Thus, he pinpointed the root of that sentiment at once.
"Very well, I see you have your own aspirations. Now I must ask what I cannot avoid.
Was your return after departing truly just to tidy up the past?
You have confronted your own heart, yet you still turn away from the crucial matter."
At those words, Yuyeon felt the inner demon she had forcibly suppressed amid their smoothly flowing exchange rear its head once more.
Do you have the right to say that? Isn't it all your fault?
Storm winds whipped through her once-calm heart, unleashing torrents of rain.
"Suppose the place you returned to had been swept away by some colossal force into ruins while you were gone. How would you bear that guilt and rage?
Have you resolved that? You still avert your gaze from that koan."
"What does that have to do with my refusal to enter the world of cultivators? You're simply coveting this cursed talent of mine!"
As the inner demon stirred and roiled her mind, Yuyeon's speech—always so composed and proper—grew rough for the first time.
Her fine brows furrowed, and she felt an inexplicable blaze of fury surging toward her upper dantian.
Heo Jeongwon was unsurprised by Yuyeon's impassioned outburst.
Instead, a faint smile played on his lips as he took another sip of tea. There was not the slightest tremor in his demeanor as he savored the clear tea's aroma.
"The flames within you burn so fiercely. Once a child dying from the True Sound affliction, now you burn yourself alive, unsure how to handle this fire demon."
Still, it is fortunate that I was by your side both times.
"It is true that I coveted your talent. I believed it would open a new path for me, and so I waited these past eight years. You asked why I was at Namgung Manor. In truth, I have been here all along. Forgive my deception."
Heo Jeongwon briefly lowered his head.
Yuyeon found the admission perplexing. If so, then he had witnessed not only her appearance but her very act of running away. Why, then, had he not seized her?
It would have been the perfect moment for an abduction, if that was his intent.
"But my watching over you was not for possession. It began that way, yes. Gradually, however, I found myself gaining insights simply from observing you—though not even for those insights.
I simply took joy in watching the child I saved grow, in pondering what choices you might make."
To reveal one's true heart so directly in a Daoist debate was exceedingly dangerous.
A Daoist debate was the process of divining each other's cherished Dao hearts—a contest waged over one another's lifelines.
"From the moment I ascended to cultivation, I always wished to protect my clan. Just like you. I wanted my own place there.
I wanted their recognition. So I resolved to cultivate, raising my realms time and again. Each time, seeing my clanmates celebrate filled me with incomparable joy."
As Heo Jeongwon so candidly laid bare his Dao heart, Yuyeon grew flustered.
Of course she did—she had viewed him as an adversary. Handing one's enemy the means to seize their lifeline was folly. Unless, that is, they did not see them as an enemy.
"Yet I failed a breakthrough once and lost that sentiment, birthing an inner demon in its place. I came to believe my cultivation alone was everything. I forsook my clan, severed human bonds, and walked alone. But at the end, all value had slipped away, leaving only a parched heart."
This was the koan of the emotionless tribulation he had harbored—a warning and counsel offered to Yuyeon.
It was a koan all too familiar to her.
"But watching you stirred a whirlwind of emotions in my heart. At first, I dismissed it as mere serendipity.
I observed you strolling, analyzing formations, performing your peculiar solitary antics.
I lived in anticipation of your actions and choices the next day. Naturally, your image etched itself upon me, bringing rain to my barren heart.
And so, on the night you departed Seobong County, I realized the gravity of what I had done."
Yuyeon gradually came to understand the purpose behind his act of fully exposing his Dao heart.
He was simply unburdening his inner demon and Dao heart, but in truth, this was him sharing his hard-won insights on the emotionless tribulation—at the stake of his very life.
This was why cultivation was called a solitary path, and why true master-disciple bonds could never exist in the cultivation world.
A cultivator's insight was no mere accidental proposition.
An insight was a pillar upholding the Dao heart.
To illuminate another's Dao heart was to stake one's life. For those seeking lifespan extension and transcendence, sacrificing for another was utterly inconceivable.
"Because of the words I left behind, you could not fully embrace your birthplace and family as your true home.
That sin is entirely mine.
Seeing you depart this place of your own accord filled me with self-loathing and fervor, and unbeknownst to me, the emotionless tribulation I bore fell away."
Thus had he ascended to the Rejuvenation Stage. Yet he could take no joy in it.
He had saved a child's life, but in the same stroke, he had derailed that child's entire existence.
He had passed on the ordeal of his inner demon to an innocent youth.
I remained at Namgung Manor for that reason. In truth, I intended to guard this place until your return.
Years on end, until the day you came back to this manor and confronted the heart demon I had wrought.
I even thought the lifespan gained in Rejuvenation was for this purpose, vowing to do so until my dying breath.
Heo Jeongwon could not voice those trailing thoughts and let them pass silently in his mind. They were merely his own resolve; Yuyeon need not know.
Yet even as he swallowed his words, Yuyeon glimpsed his Dao heart and divined his inner truth.
"Fortunately, you are clever and, unlike me, shall walk your own path—that is what you say in returning. And in a mere fortnight, no less.
Admirable. You have made the right choice.
I went out to meet you precisely to convey this.
If I caused you unease, forgive me."
Until now, Yuyeon had assumed the tear stain was from her wet nurse.
It fit her character. The others likely thought the same.
But with Heo Jeongwon's heart now palpable in her grasp, she realized he was the one who had unwittingly stained the letter.
Tormented by his inner demon, he had heedlessly left for Yuyeon what he himself had craved: a single character bearing the meaning of awakening, enshrined in her name.
It was his heartfelt wish—and his deep regret.
Time had passed, and in the end, he had received from Yuyeon the very awakening he had so desperately longed for.
Yet he did not return to his clan to claim the position he had once aimed for. Instead, that night, the first thing he did was unfold Yuyeon's letter.
And, unaware that the character within had blurred from tears, he mulled over his belated remorse.
Yuyeon's fire demon subsided.