Chapter 4
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 4
Chapter Title: Facing Past Sins
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A feast of flesh bulged from the seams of his ill-fitting training uniform. He moved toward the training grounds like a toddler taking his first steps.
With each and every step, the internal energy scattered throughout his body stirred, struggling to filter out the thick clumps of impurities that had accumulated.
Haa, haa.
His breathing quickly grew ragged, though only a quarter of an hour had passed. A cycle of cloying sweetness and dryness filled his mouth.
Honestly, it was far from pleasant.
In his past life, he had lived on the brink of death, practically washing his face with sandstorms every day. To think he had returned only to find himself tumbling on the coarse sand of a training ground.
Only a quarter-hour has passed. Whats with all the fuss?
The nagging began then.
Dont make me laugh. You think a punk like you can make me acknowledge you?
The faint scent of alcohol drifted from somewhere. It was the aroma of Geumjoncheong, a liquor I quite liked. And here he was, drinking his fill while ordering me around.
Oh, dear sister. How could you leave this world trusting a boy like that?
Drunk, he now invoked Namgung Bans mother. For some reason, anger flared within me. My uncle should not have said such things. But hearing his words gave me a new drive.
I was tenacious. I had endured all the worlds scorn. I would not be broken by something like this.
He had returned to the family he so despised.
At the same time, he had been reborn in the body of a child who knew nothing of martial arts.
The Great Young Lord, his older brother whom he had assumed grew up happier than anyone, turned out to have been in the same predicament as him.
He did not know why the heavens had given him this chance, but he decided to sweetly accept his fate and follow its course. He would live his life as both Namgung Byeok and Namgung Ban.
He would not hesitate to pioneer a new path while preserving the old.
With that thought, I clenched my teeth.
Haa, haa.
His internal energy was depleted.
Hooo, hooo.
His stamina was gone.
His head, which should have been facing forward, kept drooping, and his shoulders, which had been pumping furiously as he ran, ached as if they were dislocated.
Just as he was pushing past his limits, on the verge of collapsing.
Stooop.
Just when he felt so exhausted he couldn't even lift a finger, An Baek called a halt to the training.
Well continue tomorrow. Try not to dishonor my sisters name again.
Haa, haa.
I was too breathless to even reply.
Staring up at the spinning sky, I lay sprawled on the ground, sensing the presence of others gradually fade away.
At the same time, I felt a clear energy envelop my entire body. The scattered specks of internal energy were drawn together.
This was the result of practicing the Great Expansion Art through practical application, learning it with my entire being. It made my waterlogged-cotton body feel a little lighter. The specks of internal energy revitalized my exhausted frame, and the dantian, which held an amount of energy the size of a chestnut, began to rotate fiercely, expanding in size. Albeit only by a fingernails breadth.
Perhaps this internal energy also knew.
It knew it had to struggle relentlessly to keep its master alive.
It was a terribly pragmatic energy, an energy that resembled me.
I was reminded once again what it meant to be worked to death.
Just as I was tenacious, so was An Baek.
He didnt see me as a mere fourteen-year-old nephew. He seemed to treat me as his equal.
I didnt know whether to be happy about this treatment or cry, so I just ran for dear life.
Come to think of it, the Namgung Byeok of my past life had been lean, with at least some densely packed muscle. He must have unconsciously picked up some external martial arts by observation, driven by the need to survive from a young age.
Perhaps that was why he had no concept of transforming a weak body into a normal one.
My whole body screamed, and I was not used to the relentless pain, like being beaten with a club on a hot summer day. It was a different kind of experience from my years spent living by the sword on blood-soaked battlefields.
Being driven just as hard as in my past life, I briefly regretted my decision to accept my fate. Of course, it was only for a moment.
For over a month, the daily routine did not change.
An Baek, who had declared his focus was on trimming my fat, ordered me to run and run again, as if he intended to keep his word. He acted as if it were his lifelong wish.
Whenever I clenched my teeth and endured until my pathetic body staggered or lost its balance, he would grant me a break with infuriatingly perfect timing.
Though that break was barely half a quarter-hour, just long enough for a sip of water.
Run again.
At An Baeks mechanical command, I started running again without a word of protest. It was a repetitive routine.
Of course, there was something I looked forward to more than those ridiculously short breaks.
Around the time the morning sun climbed higher, warming my back, and my breathing grew labored.
Your meal is served.
If I had to name one thing better than my past life, it was the food. How could the rations I ate in the military compare?
The nanny would set the table and call for me.
Considering I only started eating like a human after becoming a Commander of a Thousand, the Namgung Family was truly in a class of its own.
Its on a whole other level.
Three meals a day appeared with clockwork precision, and watching the nanny smack An Baek on the back, insisting that I must not miss a meal, I realized the world I knew was not the only one.
Nutrient-rich meals were prepared to restore my exhausted body, along with a cool, sweet tea brewed from medicinal herbs of mysterious origin. Though the effect was subtle, these herbs also faintly enhanced my internal energy.
Barely a month had passed since Id woken up, yet the curses that used to flow from the mouths of the nanny and the maids had noticeably decreased.
If you were to ask why, the first reason was that I demanded nothing of them. The second was their anxiety, not knowing when my lost memories might return and I would begin tormenting them as before.
It was tinged with a desperate hope that, should I revert to my scoundrel days, I would remember how diligently they had served me.
Then, one day.
An Baek, who never let a day pass peacefully, told me just what kind of scoundrel I had been.
Cutting off all the maids hair just because they braided yours wrong.
My past transgressions.
Flipping the table after they went to the trouble of preparing a meal was a given.
The sins I had to bear.
Climbing onto the backs of the stablehands in the stables and whipping them.
The wounds rooted in the past.
You also ruined our sisters memorial service table, didnt you?
I had to squeeze my eyes shut.
He had only listed three or four things, but I was already suffocating.
I have to ask again.
Just what kind of life did you live, brother?
Not to mention hitting people when you were displeased, and constantly preying on the pretty maids. And it goes without saying you gambled away the fortune and jewels your mother saved for you in a single day, and got into fights with thugs
For a mere fourteen-year-old prodigal, the severity of these transgressions was staggering. It was painful just to listen.
Enough, enough.
Why? I havent even gotten started.
Thats enough. Stop.
How selfish. Youve conveniently lost all those memories, leaving only the innocent victims to suffer.
It was a taunt, but I could not retort.
It was too severe to be dismissed as mere mischief.
And I was not shameless enough to feign ignorance.
Therefore.
I will set things right.
I had to take responsibility.
It was not a responsibility someone else could bear. Now, I, and no one else, had to shoulder it.
And.
Without apologizing to those whose hearts I had wounded.
Without seeking forgiveness for the transgressions of the past.
I could not move forward.
In my minds eye, I saw a laughing Namgung Byeok. And with him was Lady Baek, Namgung Byeoks mother and now my own.
To approach those two, I first had to become someone I could be proud of.
An Baek had been in a foul mood for the past few days.
He had taken in his nephew, thinking him a wild, untamed brat who would give up in three or four days, but the boy had already lasted well over a month.
Now, it seemed less like he was enduring and more like he was enjoying it.
This was not the picture he had imagined. The boy was supposed to be crying and throwing tantrums, refusing to continue.
Just as he was haranguing his nephew as usual, thinking the boy was stubbornly holding on out of some paltry pride and tenacity.
His nephew asked him to recount his past wrongdoings, one by one.
How foolish.
Why would he want to dredge up memories he had already forgotten?
What good could possibly come of it for him?
But for An Baek, there was no better or more excellent means of tormenting his nephew.
So, about the time you slapped the nannys cheek
That day, his nephew went to the nanny and bowed his head in apology. He did so for days on end, until the evasive nanny finally accepted his apology.
And when you whipped the backs of the stablehands in the stables
The next day, he went into the stables, thick with the stench of horse manure, and sincerely asked the stablehands for forgivenessno more, no less. He even helped with the chores of the stablehands, who were clearly uncomfortable.
That horse manure stench was truly awful.
And those maids you tried to assault are still mentally scarred Theyre probably in the slums around the Namgung estate, barely able to afford gruel.
His nephew reached out and asked to borrow money. An Baek had scoffed, but the boy offered his position as the Great Young Lord of the Namgung Family as collateral. After he went that far, it was hard to refuse.
After emptying An Baeks pockets, he gave the money to the nanny to distribute, so the terrified maids could live a little more comfortably. He said it was a consideration, in case seeing his face would make them faint again or some such nonsense.
Every time An Baek witnessed such scenes, his expression grew strange.
He once again recalled something his nephew had said.
Be on my side. Wholly on my side. No matter how much others may blame, belittle, or slander me, be my unwavering ally. That is my wish.
At the time, he had responded with a scoff.
But his nephew had told him to prepare himself, for he would definitely make him acknowledge him.
A change began to stir in his heart.
It was faint.
Truly faint.
But like a small ripple in a calm lake caused by a single pebble, it was gradually expanding.
And An Baek, too, began to slowly, ever so slowly, melt into that change.
Without even realizing it himself.