A Grudge Carried to the Grave
An evil man can still be a benefactor to someone.
Song Muyeol, the Jade Sea Saber Demon and the gang lord of a place with the utterly ordinary name Heaven and Earth Society, had done enough in his life to count himself among the wicked.
But not for Ma Yeong. To him, Song Muyeol was the most precious benefactor in the world.
When he was a child, Ma Yeong had been caught stealing a bun because he was starving, and the Beggars' Sect had beaten him so badly he nearly died. It was Song Muyeol, passing by at just the right moment, who saved him.
And Song Muyeol's reason for saving him wasn't anything special either.
He simply hated the Beggars' Sect.
Stinking, noisy, troublesome, bothersome little beggars.
So, to be precise, he hadn't really saved Ma Yeong at all. He'd just beaten the Beggars' Sect disciples senseless.
But none of that mattered.
It didn't matter that it had been cheap compassion from Song Muyeol. It was still the first kindness Ma Yeong had ever received.
A person's turning point was never some grand, profound thing.
Sometimes, something truly insignificant could become the reason you followed someone for the rest of your life.
Song Muyeol was not, as the world believed, some hopeless fool with no plan.
He knew that obtaining the Jade Sea Saber would not be possible through sheer force of his own. So he had been thinking of building an organization, of forming a proper faction.
And while he was thinking that, he looked at Ma Yeong — who followed him around so faithfully, though not very subtly at all — and thought, That bastard's got pretty decent bones.
That was how their connection began.
Ma Yeong was far more talented, and much sharper, than Song Muyeol had expected.
He remembered everything Song Muyeol said, even the things said carelessly and halfheartedly, and had the ability to turn them into something concrete in the real world.
That was a rare gift. A talent entirely separate from martial skill.
So Song Muyeol, surprisingly enough, came to cherish Ma Yeong. And Ma Yeong, in turn, followed Song Muyeol's wishes with absolute devotion.
And now, after Sword Maiden and Baek Jin-ah and Dang Yeong-young had left, Ma Yeong quietly returned to where Song Muyeol's corpse lay.
Song Muyeol was dead. His throat had been pierced, and his body looked utterly miserable in death.
With a hardened expression, Ma Yeong picked up Song Muyeol's severed hand and placed it on the corpse's chest.
Then he reached out and closed the man's eyes, still wide open and staring at the sky.
"Khh... "
At last, a choked sob slipped from him, impossible to hold back any longer.
Tears spilled down his face in a stream.
But when they passed over the wound beneath his eye, they turned to blood-tears and dripped to the ground.
A few more men approached Ma Yeong's side.
They were men in similar straits to his own, subordinates who had sincerely followed Song Muyeol in their own way.
Ma Yeong rose to his feet, bowed to Song Muyeol's dead body, and the men behind him followed suit.
When the bow was complete, Ma Yeong strode over to inspect the surrounding terrain. After a moment, he began digging into the earth.
The other men understood immediately what he intended and joined in at once, until a deep pit was formed.
Song Muyeol's body was buried there, and soil was piled over it.
A small burial mound rose in its place. A pitiful grave with no stone marker, no ornamentation, nothing at all.
Ma Yeong bowed twice more. So did the others.
Then Ma Yeong looked at them and said quietly, "From this moment on, I will be the leader of Heaven and Earth Society."
His eyes burned like fire. The men stared back without the slightest objection.
"We will move to avenge our leader. Our grudge, our vow, is to cut down Sword Maiden, who murdered him, and destroy the Murim Alliance that incited her. We will reclaim the Jade Sea Saber they stole, and find the Rippling Wave Sword our leader sought. Those who will follow me, stay. If your hearts are not aligned with mine, you may leave now."
Ma Yeong's words were solemn.
But no one left. They simply looked at him with resolve in their eyes.
"Good. Then... first, we need strength. We are nothing now. Just a pack of losers who ran away because we were afraid of a single Sword Maiden. But we will not remain losers forever. So we will lie low, nurse our hatred, and build the power to take revenge."
Having said that, Ma Yeong gazed blankly at Song Muyeol's grave for a moment before turning away again.
"We will not return here until our grudge has been fulfilled. Let's go!"
With that, Ma Yeong kicked off the ground and set out, and his men followed after him.
* * *
Sword Maiden Cheon Hyeong-jin returned safely to the Murim Alliance with Baek Jin-ah and Dang Yeong-young, and turned over the recovered Rippling Wave Sword to the Alliance.
Along with it, he reported everything he had seen.
The Rippling Wave Sword had not been acting alone. There had to be some other reason it had shown itself and lured people in all this time.
But the Murim Alliance didn't take the matter very seriously.
They said that if he was really worried about it, they would give him the authority to keep investigating it himself.
That response left Sword Maiden deeply dissatisfied. He clicked his tongue and left the Alliance immediately, returning straight to Mount Hua.
On the way back, Sword Maiden thought of many things.
Of Murim and Murim practitioners. Of the debts and grudges that bound them.
Wasn't there a saying that a tree wants to stand still, but the wind won't let it?
But when he thought about it, even that was absurd.
To expect a tree planted in a windy place to remain still was itself ridiculous.
Wasn't his own life exactly like that? Why, if he had chosen to live in Murim, did he still find the debts and grudges so burdensome?
That was why he mulled over the phrase cutting ties and washing one's hands of the world so carefully.
Could that truly be possible? Could someone who lived in Murim really wash away every debt and grievance except death itself?
By the time he passed through the mountain gate and climbed Mount Hua, Sword Maiden finally felt his heart ease.
Mount Hua. One of the Five Great Mountains, so steep and rugged it was harsh beyond measure — and yet for those who wore Mount Hua's emblem over their hearts, there was no place more peaceful.
So he neatly folded away all the unpleasant thoughts that had been troubling him, pushed them to one corner of his mind, and walked leisurely toward Golden Heaven Palace.
As he went, he spotted two figures approaching from the east peak.
Two women, drawing nearer and nearer.
"Oh? Senior brother. You're back? And early too?"
"Greetings, Martial Aunt Siyeon."
"Yes, that's how it turned out."
Sword Maiden nodded once to Siyeon, who greeted him so politely, then looked at Geumran.
The woman greeting him was Geumran.
She looked like she was in her early thirties, but like Thorn Immortal Mae Yeong-ok, she was actually quite old.
"Did you find the Rippling Wave Sword?"
"Yes. That is how it turned out."
"My, that's wonderful. Then there won't be any more trouble over that matter. Did you kill the Jade Sea Saber Demon as well?"
"Well... yes. That is how it turned out."
"I see. He should have kept his head down, then. Why did he have to go around making trouble?"
Normally, Sword Maiden would have agreed with her.
But for some reason, now he didn't feel like it.
Perhaps it was because of the lingering unease that had stayed with him all the way back.
"Are you going to Golden Heaven Palace?"
"Yes. Since I've returned, I should report to the Sect Leader."
"That's true. All right, then I'll be off too."
Geumran said that, and her disciple Siyeon bowed politely once more.
Then Sword Maiden suddenly remembered something and spoke to Geumran.
"Ah. Right, Geumran."
"Yes?"
"There's a child that Thorn Immortal has been traveling around with, isn't there?"
"Huh?"
Geumran's eyes widened, her expression plainly asking what he meant.
"I don't think it's even a disciple. At least, that's what I heard. But even that doesn't make any sense, does it? It's Thorn Immortal we're talking about."
"Senior brother. Can you be more specific? Is Okma looking after a child? What kind of child?"
Geumran and Thorn Immortal were of the same generation.
Thorn Immortal was of the same seniority as the Sect Leader of Jongnam, and Geumran was of the same seniority as the current Sect Leader of Mount Hua.
That was why Geumran regarded Mae Yeong-ok as her lifelong rival.
Of course, Mae Yeong-ok didn't think the same way.
In truth, this wasn't merely a matter of the present. Ever since they had first stepped onto the Jianghu around the same time long ago, they had been compared over and over again, and those comparisons had only piled up with the years.
Geumran is prettier, but Mae Yeong-ok is better at martial arts.
He was sick to death of hearing that. Of course, these days there weren't many with the guts to say it to their faces anymore.
Still, Geumran was one of the most accomplished women in Murim.
Mae Yeong-ok was simply better than she was; that didn't mean Geumran was lacking.
But when it came to actual martial attainment, it was obvious that Mae Yeong-ok was far ahead of Geumran.
Geumran had long since realized she could never close the gap between herself and Thorn Immortal.
How many days had she spent frustrated and resentful because of that?
So Geumran had chosen another path.
If she couldn't close the gap in her own generation, then she'd hand it down to the next.
Even if she herself failed, if her disciple succeeded, that alone could count as victory for a Murim practitioner.
The problem was that Thorn Immortal showed no sign of ever taking a disciple.
Geumran, through painstaking effort and a stroke of heaven-sent fortune, had managed to take in Siyeon, a genius of the ages, as her disciple early on.
But what was the use of that if Thorn Immortal didn't have a disciple?
And now Sword Maiden was saying it: Thorn Immortal had a child traveling with her.
Sword Maiden told her what he knew, as best he could.
About Baek Harin, who had been with Thorn Immortal when they met.
And about the things he'd heard while bringing Baek Jin-ah and Dang Yeong-young back to the Murim Alliance.
"Ohhh... "
Geumran's eyes sparkled. A smile spread across her lips.
At long last, the time had come to settle an old grudge of her own.
Siyeon was a genius of the ages, a child she had carefully nurtured for a long time.
So now was the chance. The chance to turn everything Thorn Immortal had gained over her around in a single blow.
"Thank you! Senior brother! Ah! Okma is at the Murim Alliance right now?"
"...You mean to head there immediately? Shouldn't you at least tell the Sect Leader before you go?"
"Then senior brother, please tell him for me!"
"Tch. What's the rush? She's probably going to be there for quite some time anyway, so you ought to tell him yourself before you leave."
"Hmm... Fine! Then let's go together!"
And so Geumran took Siyeon with her and followed Sword Maiden toward Golden Heaven Palace.
As for Sword Maiden, he briefly wondered if he had said something he shouldn't have.
* * *