A Mother's Rage and a Son's Resolve
The sound of crashing and clattering echoed as countless household items flew across the floor.
“Aaaaaagh!”
A woman’s scream, thick with fury, left the servants holding their breath in terror.
“My lady.”
“What?!”
At Eon Jungmi’s sharp, irritated reply, the young servant trembled violently as he answered.
“Lady Yoo says her body feels too weak and painful to move right now.”
“What?!”
The servant instinctively squeezed his eyes shut even as he spoke. Just as expected, a burning pain exploded across his cheek.
Slap!
The man’s head snapped violently to the side before he collapsed to the floor.
Even though it had been a long time since Eon Jungmi stopped training in martial arts, she still possessed the naturally strong physique unique to the direct line of the Eon Clan. Her strength far surpassed that of ordinary people.
“Lady Yoo? She says? Are you telling me my rank is lower than that bitch’s?!”
“I-I’m sorry!”
The servant bowed his head low, feeling deeply wronged, but he realized Eon Jungmi needed a target to vent her rage on. All he could do was press himself flat against the floor.
“Aaaaaagh!”
While Tang Sanlong had been happily heading off to Guya-rim, Eon Jungmi received news that Tang Gihyo had been injured.
For three whole days, Tang Gihyo had remained unconscious. When the culprit was being investigated, the words that finally spilled from his lips the moment he woke up were more than enough to make Eon Jungmi’s eyes roll with madness.
“Tang Sanlong!”
In her current state, she wanted nothing more than to storm over to Yoo Yang-hee right this instant and snap her son’s arms and legs one by one, just like he had done.
“Aaaaaagh! That mere concubine’s spawn dares to refuse when I demand to see her?!”
However, no matter how much of a troublemaker her son was, and no matter how little attention the clan paid her because of it, Eon Jungmi was still the second official wife who had gone through a proper marriage ceremony with the clan leader.
She was not someone Yoo Yang-hee could simply dismiss as a concubine, nor was she a person Yoo Yang-hee could meet whenever she pleased.
At some point, Eon Jungmi had completely forgotten that fact.
Perhaps that was why her words and actions were growing more and more extreme.
“She should be groveling at my feet, and yet she dares ignore me? How dare she?”
“Your voice is carrying outside. Please restrain yourself. Everyone, get out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Creak.
At that moment, the door slid open and a massive man stepped inside.
He stood over six feet tall, and his build was easily twice that of an average adult male. But it wasn’t just fat—he was a middle-aged warrior whose entire body had been forged through rigorous muscle training.
This was none other than Tang Gihyo’s father and the leader of the Inryong-dan, one of the Tang Clan’s five major martial forces—Tang Woo.
His fierce, bulging eyes and roughly grown beard alone were enough to instill pressure in anyone who faced him.
Yet Eon Jungmi paid it no mind and shouted at him.
“What happened?!”
She was asking Tang Woo, who had gone to negotiate directly with the Tang Clan leader about this incident.
“Obviously we’re forming an execution squad to kill him, right?”
Facing her gaze, which brimmed with expectation, Tang Woo shook his head as if he were sick of her.
“Try saying something that actually makes sense.”
Eon Jungmi’s eyes had already rolled back more than halfway.
“Why doesn’t it make sense?! Our Gihyo is in that condition! If we can’t kill Tang Sanlong, then at least that damned Yoo Yang-hee bitch—kyaaak!”
Slap!
Tang Woo’s hand, as large and heavy as a pot lid, struck Eon Jungmi across the face.
Though she was sturdier and taller than most women, the blow sent her flying like a leaf in the wind.
Tang Woo clicked his tongue in irritation and shook out his palm.
“I told you to watch your mouth! This is Tang-gata! Not that damned Eon Clan. Haven’t I told you countless times never to forget that the clan leader’s eyes and ears are everywhere here?”
“Are you really afraid of that puppet leader? Huh?”
It was true that the current clan leader’s power was being pushed back by the branch families, but there was a reason the balance was still maintained.
“Puppet? Puppet? The puppet you speak of is the strongest expert in the current Tang Clan. And the Yoo Yang-hee you want to tear apart is the woman who formally married that leader! She is his second wife! No matter how much she’s looked down on, do you really think the clan leader will sit still if you touch her?”
At Tang Woo’s words, Eon Jungmi bit her lip so hard it bled.
“Then what exactly are you planning to do about Tang Sanlong, the one who put our Gihyo in that state?!”
“He’s already been sentenced to exile in Guya-rim. They say it’s difficult to impose any harsher punishment.”
“What? Not the death penalty?”
Since when was the death penalty some dog’s name?
A direct descendant like Tang Sanlong would not receive the death penalty unless he sold out the entire Tang Clan, caused a massive bloodbath, or became a public enemy of the murim.
No matter how much of a troublemaker Sanlong was, he was still a direct line member.
One of the heaviest punishments given to such direct descendants was either forced seclusion or exile to Guya-rim.
And between the two, exile to Guya-rim was considered the harsher sentence.
If it were the death penalty for something like this, even the other branch families would surely react with, “For that? Really?”
“Death penalty?”
No matter how united the branch families claimed to be, the representative families of each branch were secretly keeping each other in check.
In fact, the other branch families had been subtly mocking Tang Woo by bringing up how Tang Gihyo had been beaten by Tang Sanlong. Because of that, his mood was extremely foul.
“That stupid bastard!”
The more he heard the mockery, the angrier Tang Woo became at his own son than at Tang Sanlong.
He had been fed expensive spiritual medicines since childhood and possessed sufficient talent, yet he still lost to Sanlong.
This wasn’t carelessness. It was simply a lack of training.
And anyone could see that the root cause was the woman standing right in front of him.
“It’s because you kept spoiling him that he got beaten by that worthless troublemaker!”
“So you’re saying this is all my fault?”
“Then are you saying it’s mine?”
Tang Woo fixed his disheveled hair with an irritated expression and continued.
“Besides, it’s Guya-rim. How long can that worthless brat last? It’d be lucky if he doesn’t die. He’s probably crying and begging for his life at the entrance right about now!”
The clan leader would likely try to change Sanlong’s punishment to seclusion instead, but Tang Woo had no intention of accepting that. He had already reached an agreement with the elders and the five branch families.
“There will be no compromise with the clan leader!”
No matter how displeased he was with Tang Gihyo, the boy was still his only son.
“So stop needlessly provoking Lady Yoo and just play the part of a caring mother who looks after her son!”
“Where are you going now?!”
“Tsk.”
Tang Woo clicked his tongue and left the house. Eon Jungmi, her eyes bloodshot, glared at the maid.
“Hiiik!”
The maid was terrified she might get hit too.
After staring at the frightened girl for a long time, Eon Jungmi finally spoke.
“Bring me a brush and paper. I need to send a letter to the main family.”
“Y-yes, my lady!”
The maid scurried away as if fleeing, terrified Eon Jungmi might raise her hand. Left alone, Eon Jungmi violently bit at her fingernails.
“If you won’t do it, then I’ll have to move myself.”
For her son’s sake, she had decided to take action.
“Uuuuuuu……”
Tang Sanlong stared at something with intense concentration.
It had been a little over a week since he entered Guya-rim, yet his appearance made even beggars look well-dressed by comparison.
Contrary to what Tang Woo and the others had predicted, Sanlong was actually doing quite well in Guya-rim.
In his previous life, he had once been trapped inside a Gate for nearly a month with almost no water or proper food. Compared to that hell, Guya-rim had plenty of water, and although the food wasn’t great, it was still obtainable.
“Huh…? Huh? Wait—!”
Crash!
The stone bowl in front of him shattered as if it had exploded, spilling its contents all over the ground.
“Dammit! Shit! Seriously!”
A string of curses finally burst from Sanlong’s mouth.
“It lasted pretty well for the past few days.”
The bowl he had painstakingly carved from stone had reached the end of its short lifespan.
And once again, he realized why no one used stone soup bowls.
“Guess I need to find a proper spot today.”
Sanlong brushed off the past like the wind and slowly gathered his belongings.
“Not bad, if I do say so myself.”
Looking at the bag he had woven from grass, Sanlong gave a satisfied smile and began wandering through Guya-rim once more.
After camping out for the past several days, the constant presence of insects, poisonous creatures, and the cries of wild animals had kept him too tense to sleep properly.
“I need to sleep if I want to survive.”
There was a limit to how much he could recover his fatigue using his mental cultivation method.
Primarily because both his internal energy reserves and proficiency were still pathetically low.
“My internal energy amount is straight-up third-rate.”
It was so bad it made the term “third-rate” feel like flattery.
Although consuming the poison of the Eung-hyeol-sa had dramatically increased his internal energy compared to before, it was still third-rate at best when compared to his siblings.
“Can’t fall asleep.”
Fighting off drowsiness, Sanlong continued moving diligently.
“Huu……”
The conditions for human habitation were stricter than expected.
There needed to be a water source nearby, and walls and a roof to block drafts and external threats.
“Any decent caves are probably deep inside Guya-rim.”
For an entire week, Sanlong had climbed rocky mountains searching for caves, but he couldn’t find a suitable one.
They were either too small, or too far from any water source—there was always some flaw.
He wanted to follow the riverbank, but the direction the water flowed led deeper into Guya-rim.
“I didn’t come here to be punished just to die.”
According to the Guya-rim Chronicles, unless one had reached the Baekdok Shingong stage, one must never enter the deepest regions.
Ah, what was the Guya-rim Chronicles? It was a handbook that organized all information regarding Guya-rim.
You could call it required reading for anyone from the Tang Clan.
The former troublemaker Sanlong had ignored it completely, so he was only now reading it belatedly.
“If I can’t find one, I’ll just have to make one.”
In the end, he settled on a rocky mountain at a reasonable distance from the water.
“Is this the spot?”
Sanlong arrived at the place he had planned to use if he couldn’t find a cave.
The first things that caught his eye were two massive boulders with a space between them.
It looked like it could easily be three square meters.
“It’s not just a little… I’ll have to do a lot of work to make this livable.”
Just thinking about the process ahead made him sigh involuntarily.
How did he know the process? Even the Sanlong from his previous life would rather not remember.
But as a close-range dealer who somehow survived as a common C-rank hunter, he had been forced to learn all sorts of miscellaneous skills. He had built hidden shelters like this many times before.
Thanks to that, it had helped him find work early on, but once the one-button instant shelter modules appeared, everything he learned became pointless.
“Still, the current me has decent dexterity.”
In his previous life, he had been unbelievably clumsy with his hands.
In this regard, he could clearly feel the difference that came with being born with Tang Clan blood.
After roughly completing the blueprint in his head, Sanlong spread his fingers.
“Hup… Sadokjo!”
A Tang Clan claw technique!
Since he didn’t have a shovel, he planned to dig with his bare hands.
“Aaaagh!”
But because his training had been sloppy, his fingers bent at horrible angles and chaos ensued.
“Ugh, dammit……”
Sanlong cleanly abandoned the plan to dig with claw techniques and started making other tools instead.
Just like the blocky world game he used to play on the computer in his previous life, he crafted a stone axe and a pickaxe.
“Never thought I’d actually be making Paleolithic tools.”
It was a masterpiece born from the combination of his past-life memories and his current-life dexterity.
One day… two days… one week… two weeks…….
Building the shelter took far longer than expected.
During the day he had to stop to gather fruit or hunt poisonous creatures for food, and at night he couldn’t see well enough to work. So he had to focus everything on daytime hours.
His original plan had been to diligently consume poisonous creatures and herbs to increase his internal energy, but the only thing he had done for the past month was build this shelter.
“Still, the end is in sight.”
To think it took a whole month to create this tiny shelter.
What had once been nothing but two huge boulders had now become a cozy little hideout.
“Dun dun duuun~ dun~ dunnn~”
A humming tune naturally flowed out as he opened the door and stepped inside.
Sanlong inspected the result he had created with his own two hands over the past month.
On one wall was a fireplace.
On the other side, he had moved stones, spread mud, and covered it with grass to create a soft bed. There was a door that allowed easy entry and exit, a roof that could block moderate rain, and piles of mint placed throughout the shelter to keep most insects away.
“I could live here for the rest of my life.”
He would need to do maintenance, but that was exactly how he felt right now.
“Now that the shelter is done, I should explore a bit farther out.”
He still hadn’t discovered everything written about in the Guya-rim Chronicles.
“I need to train my body too… Look at this mess.”
After living in Guya-rim for over a month, his belly had grown a little softer, but his physique was still far from what one would expect from someone of a martial family.
Thin arms and legs paired with a protruding stomach.
It was the classic body type of a middle-aged man who didn’t exercise and only drank.
“External arts are just as important as internal energy training.”
Sometimes the reason internal energy grew slowly was because of a weak external foundation.
That was why balanced training of both internal and external arts was the most recommended method in the murim.
“Since I don’t have any equipment, I’ll have to do bodyweight training.”
When he searched through his past-life memories, there were plenty of useful training methods.
“All that desperate effort I put in just to get a better job and become stronger is finally paying off in this new life.”
Sanlong’s real training in Guya-rim was about to begin.