Who Is She?
The young man who approached—Yi Yeok's elder brother, Yi Pyeong—seemed to radiate a dazzling light. It was the sort of presence that would draw every eye in a bustling marketplace or on a battlefield alike.
"You've grown so much. When I heard you'd returned, I couldn't have been happier."
Yi Pyeong smiled easily, and even that smile shone with a brilliance that seemed to scatter the storm clouds overhead.
Warmth like a spring breeze and a radiance like the midday sun rolled off him together. An ordinary person—say, the blood relatives crowding around him now, the household servants, the live-in retainers—could hardly have done anything but adore him and stand in awe of him all at once. This was the presence of a Suseonja, a cultivator who had reached the summit of his art.
Yi Pyeong spread his arms to embrace his younger brother. Yi Yeok stepped back, evading his hands.
"What's this? How can a brother be so cold? Are you embarrassed?"
"Is there even any brotherly affection left between you and me?"
"That stings. However long we've been apart, you and I are still bound by the same blood."
Yi Yeok spoke in a low voice. "I was far too young back then."
"That's all right. Everyone has a childhood. What matters is that you've matured now."
"That's not what I mean. I'm not a naive child anymore. So tell me—how did you take what was mine, how do you intend to give it back, and who was that woman?"
A flicker of agitation crossed Yi Pyeong's face. But Yi Yeok was the only one who caught it.
"...Now that you've returned, I'll make you the head of the Yi Clan. The master of a house that will stand proud not only over Unsoseong but across the whole world."
"I never wanted any such thing. And even if I had—do you really think I'd need your help?"
Yi Pyeong forced a smile and studied the faces around him. When he confirmed that most of them were watching with the eyes of people beholding a generous elder brother patiently enduring a troublesome younger one, he relaxed a little.
"Little brother, whatever could have made you so angry? I hear you had a terrible quarrel with Father. Come with me to see him. Let us apologize together. If your elder brother stands beside you, Father will pretend he has no choice but to forgive you."
"If you want to grovel, go grovel to your heart's content. It's no concern of mine."
Yi Yeok turned away at once. Ju Taek and Sorim bowed politely to Yi Pyeong, then hurried after him.
Yi Pyeong laughed and glanced around. "My brother has always been quick-tempered. He left home so young that he never had the chance to learn proper manners and decorum. If he showed any discourtesy just now, I ask you to forgive it generously."
The relatives, servants, and retainers who had crowded around raised their voices as one, denouncing Yi Yeok's rudeness and praising Yi Pyeong's brotherly magnanimity.
Yi Pyeong offered measured replies and smiled softly, but beneath the surface, his thoughts were churning.
That boy... does he know something?
He had believed the secret of 'that day' eleven years ago was known to only two people: Yi Pyeong himself, and 'that woman.' Now it seemed Yi Yeok remembered it as well. The question was how much he knew.
Yi Pyeong dismissed the crowd on the pretext of fatigue from his journey. Even after returning to his quarters, it took several long, deep breaths before he could finally calm his heart.
* * *
With careful hands, Sorim helped Yi Yeok change his clothes. She stole glances at his expression again and again before finally working up the courage to speak.
"Young Master... are you all right?"
"Why do you ask?"
Sorim bowed her head as she fastened his belt, hiding her anxious face. "You seem... in poor spirits, after meeting the Eldest Young Master."
Yi Yeok was silent for a moment before answering. "However accurate your guesses, however true what you saw—never let it pass your lips carelessly."
Seized with fear, Sorim dropped to her knees at once. "This girl has spoken above her station."
"Get up. I'm not scolding you."
Sorim rose and began adjusting his clothing with even more careful hands.
"It's not because you're a maid. It's the same for everyone. Speak the truth carelessly, and you may pay a bitter price for it. Fortunately for me, I learned that lesson more than ten years ago."
Sorim turned his words over in her mind before speaking. "This girl does not know what happened back then. My aunt does not seem to know the details either. But... this girl knows that the Young Master is not the person people say he is."
"What other people say doesn't matter. I'll be leaving here soon, but you'll remain. If anyone curses me or insults me, you may join them in it."
Sorim's face went pale. "How... how could you ask such a thing of me?"
Yi Yeok answered evenly. "Because a person must belong to the flock."
With a wave of his hand, he dismissed Sorim, who stood there with a bewildered expression.
As he lay in bed, Yi Yeok recalled the sight of Yi Pyeong, whom he had not seen in eleven years.
He was different in a way I can't quite name. His aura was overwhelming. It wasn't bluster, or a deliberate attempt to intimidate—it simply poured out of him, natural as breathing. It felt as though the very blood in his body had been replaced.
Yi Yeok rolled over.
Nothing like me at all... so the gap between training and true martial cultivation is this vast?
Unbidden, memories of 'that woman' surfaced as well. Seeing Yi Pyeong today had let him confirm it: she, too, had been a Suseonja.
* * *
Yi Yeok had been no more than six years old, and yet he had been utterly bewitched by that woman's beauty. She seemed like an immortal maiden descended from some wholly different world beyond the heavens.
Before the young Yi Yeok even realized what he was doing, he had followed her out of the house, drawn along in her wake. As she commanded, he fetched the object she desired from the hidden sanctum that only members of the family could enter.
The woman stroked his head in praise, then pricked his wrist with the tip of a slender, gleaming silver needle.
Yi Yeok felt no pain at all. With a smile that was beautiful yet somehow alien, as though it belonged to nothing of this world, the woman gathered the single drop of blood welling at his wrist into a crystal vial and carried it away.
That was his last memory. When Yi Yeok came to, the entire household was in an uproar. The treasure passed down through generations of the family had vanished.
Soon the still-dazed Yi Yeok was discovered, and by the time he fully came to his senses, he had become the thief who had stolen and destroyed the family's heirloom.
A few years ago, Yi Yeok had asked the Old Man about the incident. Unusually, the Old Man had answered with a grave, serious expression.
Within the body of every person, he said, dwelled a single drop of Hidden Blood.
Hidden Blood rarely stirred. One person, riding a carriage as a woman, saved a child on the brink of death only to die with a burst heart; another manifested superhuman strength on the battlefield; another erupted with tremendous latent power at the crossroads of life and death.
All of these were miracles born when the Hidden Blood sleeping somewhere within the body awoke.
But Hidden Blood was a double-edged sword. With good fortune, it granted strength one could never ordinarily muster—and it could even elevate a Suseonja's cultivation to vastly greater heights. With bad fortune, it killed its bearer. And in most cases, the two outcomes arrived together.
Still, even the Old Man could not say for certain whether that woman had truly taken Yi Yeok's Hidden Blood. Hidden Blood usually had no effect on the body whatsoever, and most people died without it ever stirring once. There was no way to find it by any means—and taking it from someone was all the more impossible.
"Who in the world is that woman?"
Yi Yeok murmured without realizing it.
"Why the family's treasure... and why my blood... could she really have taken my Hidden Blood?"