The Longest Night
The window near the bed where young Yeongso lay had opened. Freezing winter air rushed into the room. Even as she watched it happen, Yeongso couldn't utter a single word.
"I couldn't bring myself to ask them to close the window. Doing so would have let them know I was awake. And if, by some miracle, I survived until the next day, I would have told my parents who did it..."
"Rather than taking that risk, those bastards would have walked right in and killed you on the spot." Because they couldn't leave a witness alive. Banya sneered coldly. "Damn bastards. This is why I loathe the Orthodox Path so much. To think those so-called elders would try to kill a sick child the moment her parents turned their backs."
Banya found it irritating that they had opened the window just to keep their own hands clean. "If they were going to abandon their humanity anyway, they should have at least shown the decency to snap your neck cleanly. Instead, they left a child to freeze to death in the cold all night."
"If they had done that..."
"Of course, your family would have turned the world upside down to find the assassin."
Yeongso smiled faintly. "I was so terrified. Fearing that the elder might peer through the open window, I quickly pretended to be asleep. I closed my eyes and counted. How high did I have to count to be safe? I think I counted to a hundred."
Carefully opening her eyes a crack, young Yeongso scanned the room. The darkened room was completely silent. Only then did she realize that the brazier, which the maid was supposed to replenish with charcoal every two hours, was slowly dying. The warm compress inside her blanket was also losing its heat.
"I realized the maid wouldn't be coming that dawn... Shivering, I pulled the blanket over my head. That was all I could do."
The open window wasn't even far away. It would have taken only two steps of a child's stride to reach it from the bed. Feeling unable to do even that made her feel more miserable than ever.
"That night... must have been the longest night of my entire life. I prayed to every god I knew. I begged them to let me live. I promised that if I could just survive to see my parents' faces the next day, I would be a good child for the rest of my life."
Her desperate pleas gradually turned into sobs. Young Yeongso still had so many things she wanted to do. She wanted to see the bustling night markets, gaze upon the mountains and seas, and learn martial arts like her older siblings.
"Later, I cried out of sheer resentment. Do they think I wanted a body like this? I only have ten years to live, so why can't they even wait for that?"
Young Yeongso eventually lost consciousness before the eastern sky could brighten. The next morning, unable to shake an uneasy feeling, Gang-ssi Buin returned to the clan early, only to find her youngest daughter cold as ice. Horrified, she checked her daughter's breathing and pulse, finding only a faint, lingering spark of life.
"My mother held me tight and wept silently. And then, she noticed it. A window, positioned in a very subtle, deliberate spot, was open."
It was a clear act of malice. The maids who had vanished despite the matriarch's strict orders the day before, the freezing cold brazier—everything pointed to a single truth. Someone within the Baekri Sega wanted young Yeongso dead as quickly as possible.
"I didn't know it at the time... but it seems the elders had always resented how much my mother focused on nursing me. Even though she never once neglected her duties as the matriarch."
The moment she saw the window that one of the elders must have opened, something shifted inside Gang-ssi Buin. Even with her precious daughter's life on the line, she had hesitated to bring a notorious member of the Unorthodox Path into the clan estate, keeping it as an absolute last resort. The moment rumors spread that the Sword Ghost had crossed the clan's threshold, she and her child could be cast out with nothing, let alone curing Yeongso. The reputation of her husband, her five other children remaining in the clan, and her own maiden family would be dragged through the mud.
"Do not cling so desperately to a hopeless child." Even when she felt resentful during clashes of opinion with the elders, Gang-ssi Buin had tried her best to maintain her manners toward the family elders. Yet, this was the result of her efforts.
"As soon as my condition stabilized a bit, my mother placed guards summoned from her maiden family by my side and set off on a long journey alone."
The rest went exactly as Banya had said. One day, waking up from a nap, Yeongso locked eyes with a man looking down at her. Half of his face was concealed by a mask, but he possessed an undeniable elegance and was exceptionally tall.
"He couldn't stay at the clan under the name of the Sword Ghost. So, my master became a guest of the clan under a new identity as a distant relative of my mother."
"So Perfected Man Choi of the Yongro Sect was indeed just a cover."
"Yes... His head disciple is sworn sisters with my mother. When my mother begged him to lend his name without asking any questions, he agreed."
A patient who had suffered from the Nine Yin Severed Meridians for seven years couldn't suddenly recover overnight for no reason. That was why they needed to set up an Orthodox master, even if it was just a facade.
"After half a year, I was able to get out of bed and walk on my own two feet. Another half a year after that, I became as healthy as any other child my age." Normally, the Sword Ghost's role would have ended there.
"I was the one who held my master back when he tried to leave the clan."
Her master's swordsmanship was so beautiful and powerful it seemed otherworldly. Over the past year, Yeongso, utterly captivated by her mysterious master, had yearned to become strong like him.
"'It's not a very good idea to make me your ideal.' That's what my master said. Yet, he also admitted... that I possessed a rare and exceptional talent."
"Mm, I've heard enough." Banya suddenly acted as if he wanted to wrap up the conversation. Yeongso, whose cheeks were flushing a peach-pink at the fond memory of her master, was utterly bewildered.
"But you told me your story all the way up to when you parted with your master and became the Renju of Cheonsaryeon."
"No, this is the perfect stopping point. If I hear any more, my stomach is going to turn." Banya actually pressed a hand to his solar plexus and grimaced. "I am a natural genius recognized by the Sword Ghost... That's what this is about, isn't it? If it were me, I would have written it down or had it painted to hang in the main hall of Cheonsaryeon, but you are remarkably composed, wife. Is it because you're so used to hearing praise?" Banya began to tease her again in his usual sarcastic manner.
"But you are the one who surpassed your master. They say that in the entire history of the Unorthodox Path, there are few as great as Hwa Banya."
"Yes, but even that is said with the exclusion of the Sword Ghost." Banya poured himself some tea and emptied the cup in a single gulp. Having barely managed to calm his anger, he couldn't risk triggering a deviation of qi. Yeongso decided to heed her husband's wish to stop the conversation there.
"...Are those clan elders still alive?" Banya asked out of the blue. "The ones who opened the window sixteen years ago."
"Yes."
"All of them?"
"Yes, all six of them are in good health."
"Good. Let's go kill them on a nice day."
Yeongso's eyes widened. "Kill them?"
"...Is that a no? Right, I'm bound by Seowangmo's restriction. Then you should finish them off yourself."
"Why is the conversation suddenly jumping to that?"
"Do you not want to?" Banya tapped his fingers against his knee. "If you're worried about going to hell, we can borrow the hands of the Heavenly Killing Star. That guy is definitely going to hell anyway. He knows it himself. Since his soul is already forfeit, we might as well ask him to kill six more."
Yeongso understood her husband's underlying meaning a moment later. "Thank you for being angry on my behalf. But I have no intention of taking the elders' lives. I will accept your feelings... only in part."
When she said that, Banya stared at her with a look of utter incomprehension. "You're talking nonsense."
"...Pardon?"
"Anyway, so you're saying you won't kill the clan elders yet. Fine, I'll let them live a little longer." For a while after that, Banya kept muttering shocking things to himself, like, "Or maybe I shouldn't kill them, but just castrate them instead?"
Yeongso looked back and forth between her husband and The Secret Manual of Bedchamber Cultivation, Volume Two. Now that we've discussed the first topic, all that's left is... She couldn't help but feel tense. As far as she could remember, the first consummation was to be conducted blindfolded. By shutting off sight, the remaining senses would be heightened to their absolute limits.
"Shall we move, wife?" Banya said, shedding his outer robe. "Since we've chattered away with our upper mouths, it's time to use our lower mouths."