The Return
Dan Hyunwoo paused mid-step on his way home.
‘I thought these kinds of feelings no longer remained inside me.’
Even during missions, his heart had always stayed quiet, yet now it began to pound wildly.
The closer he drew to the house, the faster it raced.
It seemed he was nervous after all.
Still, Dan Hyunwoo continued forward with a calm stride.
The old walls of his hometown greeted him just as they always had.
When he ran his hand along them, memories surfaced of racing around with friends, the wall serving as their boundary.
It was the line that separated his friend’s house from his own.
And once he rounded this wall, his home would come into view.
His family had run a well-known silk shop in Hangzhou. His father and relatives were weavers who produced the highest quality silk.
Danhwa Silk Shop and Danga Manor, creators of Hangzhou’s finest silk.
The family estate, Danga Manor, stood just beyond this wall.
“Hoo…”
Dan Hyunwoo let out a light sigh, releasing the tension that had built up in his chest, then took the final step.
The Danga Manor he had longed for all this time appeared before his eyes.
But that wave of longing lasted only a moment.
Dan Hyunwoo’s eyes narrowed slightly.
‘Why does the house look like this?’
The sight that greeted him was nothing like what he remembered.
The front gate was covered in thick spiderwebs, as if it hadn’t been cleaned in years.
The roof was riddled with holes where tiles had broken and fallen away.
Worse, moss had overgrown the walls.
It looked like an abandoned house.
Not a trace remained of the home Dan Hyunwoo had missed so dearly.
He approached slowly, his steps unsteady.
The closer he got, the clearer it became just how long the place had gone without care.
The house was nearly devoid of any sign of life, radiating a desolate, eerie atmosphere like a true ruin.
Dan Hyunwoo’s eyes trembled faintly.
Without realizing it, he bit down hard on his lip.
His father had always been gentle in temperament, but when it came to work and household maintenance, he was uncompromising. This state of disrepair should have been impossible.
Something must have happened. There was no other explanation for the house to end up like this.
A sense of unease began to coil in his chest.
Dan Hyunwoo fought the urge to fling the door open and instead knocked lightly.
As a son who had run away and returned after twenty years, he still felt a psychological resistance to barging in.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The wait for someone to answer felt like an eternity.
Yet even after enduring that long stretch of time, no one came.
Dan Hyunwoo knocked harder.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The warped doorframe, neglected for so long, let out a painful creak.
Still, the desolate house remained deathly silent.
With his lips pressed tightly together, Dan Hyunwoo knocked once more.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The door still did not open.
Unable to wait any longer, Dan Hyunwoo grabbed the door handle.
Creak.
At that moment, the door opened just a crack.
A boy slipped out through the narrow gap, as if trying to prevent anyone from entering.
His face was exhausted and dark.
It was an expression Dan Hyunwoo had seen countless times in the Mumyeongdae.
The face of someone gripped by fear.
The pale, haggard boy looked at Dan Hyunwoo and spoke in a trembling voice.
“I’m sorry. We still don’t have the money. Could you please wait just a few more days?”
“Ah……”
A sigh escaped Dan Hyunwoo before he could stop it. He squeezed his eyes shut.
The boy’s words explained everything.
‘Twenty years is enough time for mountains and rivers to change twice over, but I didn’t want to imagine the worst…’
Emotions surged violently within him.
It took a long time to regain control of his shaking heart.
No, he hadn’t truly regained control.
He was barely holding onto enough reason to endure it.
His family had never been extremely wealthy, but they had lived comfortably enough.
Building a respectable estate in Hangzhou, where land prices were worth their weight in gold, meant they had no financial worries.
And yet the family had fallen into ruin.
They were in so much debt that creditors were now showing up at the door.
‘What on earth happened after I left!’
Perhaps it had been a mistake not to worry more. After all, they had both a proper manor and a thriving silk shop.
If he had known this would happen, he should have checked on them at least once.
He should have ordered one of his subordinates who gathered information for the Mumyeongdae to look into Danga Manor’s situation.
Regret crashed over him, striking his jaw and chest with brutal force.
His clenched fist trembled. It wasn’t enough; blood began to seep from his bitten lip.
The boy stared at Dan Hyunwoo with frightened eyes as the man struggled to contain the emotions welling up inside him.
The atmosphere was different from usual.
Since they had come again today about the unpaid debt, the boy assumed the man was barely holding back his boiling anger.
Dan Hyunwoo barely managed to open his eyes, enduring the collapse of his heart.
The boy realized that, contrary to expectation, there was no ferocity in the gaze directed at him.
Dan Hyunwoo reached out and gently stroked the boy’s head.
“You’re handsome. Are you by any chance Dan Seoyeon’s son?”
“……?! How did you know?”
“You look exactly like your mother. I am your uncle.”
“Uncle? You mean the uncle who left home twenty years ago?”
“That’s right.”
The boy—Eun Doyun, Dan Seoyeon’s son—widened his eyes.
An uncle who had suddenly appeared.
He had only ever heard the name. No one even knew if the man was alive or dead.
Both his grandfather and grandmother had missed him terribly, but after deciding he must have died somewhere in the martial world of the Dosan Sword Forest, they had eventually stopped even speaking his name.
Yet now that very uncle stood before him.
Eun Doyun stared at Dan Hyunwoo for a long moment before suddenly exclaiming and turning around.
“M-Mother! I’ll bring her right away!”
“No need. Let’s go in together.”
Dan Hyunwoo had hesitated for a moment about crossing this threshold.
But now he stepped over the front gate without pause and entered the house.
Dan Seoyeon set down the bowl of porridge and let out a deep sigh.
Her mother was still holding on, but her father had grown noticeably weaker lately.
It was because he could not accept the reality that the Danhwa Silk Shop had collapsed and Danga Manor had fallen into ruin.
Her father stared blankly into empty space with unfocused eyes.
His vision had deteriorated so much that he could barely make out human shapes.
He was no longer himself.
Not only his body, but his mind had half left him.
Perhaps it was his spirit, not just his mind, that had been broken when the silk shop he had built over a lifetime crumbled.
Because of that, he hardly ate anything these days.
Today, he had taken only two spoonfuls of the thin rice porridge she had struggled to prepare before refusing to open his mouth again.
Her sighs grew heavier and heavier. Dan Seoyeon forced herself to stand.
She opened the torn paper door riddled with holes and stepped out. Her gaze turned toward the wooden veranda.
Whenever she was tending to her father, Doyun would always sit there, worrying about his grandfather.
But Doyun was nowhere to be seen on the veranda today.
“Where did that child go?”
Dan Seoyeon called toward the inner room.
“Mother, have you seen Doyun?”
“Isn’t Doyun always on the veranda?”
“He’s not there, so I’m asking.”
“Doyun is missing?”
The paper door across from her flew open and her mother, Jin Yeongyeong, rushed out in a panic.
Jin Yeongyeong’s face was pale, cold sweat beading on her forehead.
Ever since her son Dan Hyunwoo had run away twenty years ago, the mere sight of someone missing from the house triggered a panic that made her break into a cold sweat.
“I’ll search the rooms.”
“I’ll check the backyard!”
As Jin Yeongyeong looked everywhere and still couldn’t find Eun Doyun, a wave of anxiety suddenly washed over her.
“It couldn’t be those Gu-Ryong-Pa bastards again, could it? The only time Doyun disappears without a word is when they come looking for us.”
“What? You’re saying Doyun went to face them again?”
“No matter how much I tell him not to, he sneaks out whenever they show up. What am I supposed to do?”
“Those men are so vicious!”
No matter how often she warned him, whenever the Gu-Ryong-Pa appeared, her son would go out on his own.
He did it because when he appealed to their sympathy as a child, they would hesitate, at least a little.
Of course there were days when sympathy didn’t work, but Eun Doyun never gave up and continued to confront them.
It seemed to be the only thing he could do for a family he felt was of no help to.
“This won’t do. I’ll go look for him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. If you go out there, they’ll only get worse. I’ll go instead.”
“Mother, you just focus on taking care of Father. I am the only daughter and the head of Danga Manor now. I will handle the family’s affairs.”
Even though she had an older brother named Dan Hyunwoo, Dan Seoyeon referred to herself as the only daughter.
Jin Yeongyeong did not argue the point.
She already believed her son was dead.
Having boldly declared herself the head of the family, Dan Seoyeon ran toward the front gate.
But her legs were shaking violently.
She had spoken bravely only to reassure her mother.
She ran in a half-dazed state out of fear for her son, yet she knew all too well how terrifying the Gu-Ryong-Pa were.
In fact, her father had once been stabbed when the gang chose action over words as a threat.
It hadn’t been a fatal wound, but the incident had carved a fear into his heart that would never fade for the rest of his life.
Yet her son still slipped out whenever they came.
This time, Dan Seoyeon resolved firmly, she would scold him severely so he would never do it again.
“Mother!”
At that moment, Dan Seoyeon saw Eun Doyun running toward her and let out a sigh of relief—only to freeze.
Someone was following behind her son.
‘Gu-Ryong-Pa? Don’t tell me they’re not going to let it slide today? This is bad. Father’s condition is especially poor right now.’
The fear that her father’s condition would worsen from the shock tore through her chest.
He might not even survive the impact.
Her father had grown that frail.
Out of long-conditioned terror, Dan Seoyeon’s eyes instinctively moved to the sword at the man’s waist.
If he drew that blade, Danga Manor might not survive to see tomorrow.
Yet even in her fear, Dan Seoyeon steeled her gaze and looked at the man’s face, determined to protect her son at all costs.
Whether she was cut by a blade, threatened, or slapped until her nose bled, it was something she—the pillar of this family—had to endure.
As long as she alone bore the burden so the family could face tomorrow safely, she could harden her heart.
She met the man’s eyes.
“……?!”
A strange sense of déjà vu washed over her.
The man’s face was unfamiliar, yet somehow not unfamiliar at all.
The more she looked, the more familiar it became.
She could tell even from a distance that it was identical to the face of the older brother she had searched for so desperately.
Dan Seoyeon’s steps slowed, her throat suddenly tight.
She had thought he was dead.
No, he should have been dead.
She remembered her brother had run away when he was only in his mid-teens.
“Is it really you, Brother?”
She couldn’t believe it, yet she spoke the words anyway.
If he wasn’t a ghost or a dead man whose soul had returned, he would answer.
Her dazed mind was a chaotic mess of impossible thoughts, repeating only the words meant to confirm what she couldn’t believe.
But it seemed she wasn’t seeing things.
“Hyunwoo!”
Her mother pushed past Dan Seoyeon, calling out to her brother as she ran.
The old woman’s shoes had fallen off, leaving her barefoot.
She didn’t seem to feel any pain as she ran across the rough ground.
Blood seeped from the soles of her feet as she sprinted straight toward Dan Hyunwoo.
Dan Hyunwoo’s steps quickened as well.
His legs broke into a run, carrying him to his mother. For the first time in twenty years, he pulled her into a tight embrace.
She was lighter now, her body covered in wrinkles, but her embrace felt exactly as it had twenty years ago.
It was warm.
Compared to his grown self, she was small, yet her embrace still felt wide.
This was what a mother’s arms felt like.
Everything had clearly changed, yet so much remained unchanged. He felt both relief and a strange melancholy.
Why had he thrown away something so precious so easily?
Why had he turned away so coldly, only looking toward the martial world?
Those complicated emotions surged up, crushing the inside of his mouth before spilling out as sound.
“Mother, I missed you.”
His mother showed no sign of anger at his words.
Tears came before speech, and her trembling voice followed after.
“Hyunwoo, Hyunwoo! Is this a dream or reality? Is this really my son Hyunwoo?”
“Yes. It is I, your unworthy son Hyunwoo. I have finally come home.”
“You were alive. You were alive all this time. Thank goodness. We thought for certain you must have died.”
“I never contacted you once in twenty years. It’s only natural you would think that. I am truly sorry.”
“My son! My son, what is there to be sorry for? As long as you’re alive, that’s enough. Thank you for coming back. Sob…”
“I’ve returned safely, so please don’t cry.”
“Are you really back for good this time? You won’t disappear without a word again, will you?”
“No. From now on, I will stay with my family.”
“Thank goodness. Thank goodness. Sob… sob…”
Dan Hyunwoo’s chest felt tight.
The years of unfilial behavior had brought his mother to tears like this.
Yet he himself could not hold back his own tears.
He had tried to endure it.
He had thought about saying he was back and smiling awkwardly.
But his chest had clenched tight, and the tears he tried to suppress were now streaming endlessly down his cheeks onto the ground.
Neither Dan Hyunwoo nor Jin Yeongyeong let go of each other.
As if they would never part again.
As if the hand stroking his head would continue forever.
With great effort, Dan Hyunwoo asked his mother, who showed no sign of releasing him.
“Mother, where is Father? Could it be that…”
“No. He just fell asleep. He’ll open his eyes in the evening. He’ll be overjoyed to know you’ve returned. Even in his dreams these days, he calls your name.”
At the words that his father still called his name, emotions surged once more from deep within Dan Hyunwoo’s chest.
He couldn’t find the words to speak.
“I have committed… far too great…”
An unforgivable sin of unfilial conduct.
Seeing her son unable to continue, his mother, who understood his heart completely despite the decades apart, gently stroked his back and spoke with the same warm voice and touch she had used when he was a small boy.
“It’s all right. You’ve returned safely. Your father will forgive you.”
At those words confirming his father was safe, the tears he had tried to hold back flowed freely once more.
He felt an overwhelming sense of relief.
The thing he had feared most, the worst possible outcome.
‘It hasn’t happened. I must thank the heavens. Truly, I am grateful.’
Even if the family had fallen and the manor was in shambles, it didn’t feel tragic.
No matter how ruined the house had become, as long as his family was here, it was enough.
As long as everyone was safe, that was all that mattered.
What had been lost could be regained, and what had disappeared could be refilled.
Dan Hyunwoo was confident he could rebuild the family.
After all, he was the one who had placed an emperor on the throne and led the Great Ming into an era of peace and prosperity.
But he still had to ask.
“Mother, what happened while I was gone that the house ended up like this?”