Chapter 78
Translator: penny
Chapter: 78
Chapter Title: Sword Emperor Baek Rihyeon
Sword Emperor Baek Rihyeon.
Cheon Suyeon's husband, and the bastard who ultimately decorated my final moments.
Honestly, I felt no resentment toward him for killing me, nor any burning desire for revenge.
It was karma for the deeds I'd committed in the first place, and in truth, the one who had influenced my death far more wasn't Baek Rihyeon, but that scum Cheon Woojin.
'If it weren't for Cheon Woojin. If there hadn't been that unification of righteous and demonic paths, I never would've died to some Sword Emperor.'
Even if it hadn't been Baek Rihyeon, my death was inevitable anyway.
By then, I had barely a scrap of internal energy left, and I was riddled with severe internal injuries.
But putting that aside, seeing Baek Rihyeon's face just soured my mood for entirely different reasons.
'His face alone pisses me off. His personality too.'
-Lecherous Demon Mok Jimyeong. Do you have any last words?
Those were the words he'd spat right before killing me.
His eyes blazed with pure hatred, yet his mouth played at refined composure. That duplicitous personality of his was what I loathed.
'At least if he'd cursed me out properly.'
Baek Rihyeon was the poster boy for the two-faced hypocrites I despised above all else.
"...Gaga?"
Lost deep in my thoughts, I barely registered Moyong Hui calling me cautiously from the side.
Snapping back to reality, I belatedly turned to Baek Rihyeon with a smile.
"Ah, yeah. Nice to meet you. I'm Mok Jimyeong."
He bobbed his head again in a bow, sneaking glances back and forth between me and Moyong Hui.
Like he was sizing up the situation.
Moyong Hui called it mature, but to my eyes, he just looked sly and scheming.
'The kid's got no innocence left.'
Of course, he'd been hawking wild herbs since he was five, so one could say he'd grown up fast. But knowing his future as I did, everything about him grated on me.
Still, I couldn't let that show here.
I gave a casual nod and smile, and Moyong Hui jumped in.
"Hyeon-ah, everything okay lately? You holding up alright?"
"Uh... yeah... I've been fine...."
Even as he claimed to be fine, his face darkened noticeably.
Anyone could see something was up.
It wasn't poor control of his expressions.
On the contrary, he was controlling them masterfully—deliberately telegraphing it.
'Tsk. Really rubs me the wrong way.'
Why not just come out and say it straight: Something happened. I need help. Instead of this roundabout bullshit?
The kid had been rotten from the start.
Moyong Hui didn't pick up on it, though, her voice laced with concern.
"What's wrong? Something happen?"
"No... it's nothing...."
Watching the exchange just made my chest tighten with irritation.
Made me want to flick his forehead for no damn reason.
I stepped back a pace, tuning out their conversation to scan the surroundings instead.
That's when my eyes fell on the wild herbs the kid was peddling.
'Come to think of it, why the hell is this guy selling wild herbs?'
Today made it official, but I'd always figured out how Baek Rihyeon and Cheon Suyeon ended up together.
If he'd kept up his friendship with Moyong Hui, getting engaged to her daughter Cheon Suyeon wasn't strange at all.
By my recollection, Baek Rihyeon and Cheon Suyeon had a thirteen-year age gap.
She was twenty, he thirty-three when they got engaged.
'And that's when I claimed Cheon Suyeon.'
Not the point. The real question was why this bastard was slumming it here like a beggar.
'What about the Baek Ri Clan? Or is it just Baek Ri Family now?'
The Five Great Families, pillars of the Orthodox Faction, were currently the Moyong Family, Sichuan Tang Family, Namgung Family, Hebei Peng Family, and Shandong Eok Family.
But soon, during the Great Orthodox-Demonic War, the Shandong Eok Family would fall, and the Baek Ri Family would claim their spot.
As the Baek Ri Sega.
And by my memory, Baek Rihyeon had been the head of the Baek Ri Sega....
'So why's he out here playing pauper?'
At his tender age, he was rail-thin, hawking herbs in the market like some street rat.
This was a sega. A great family clan.
The Baek Ri Sega.
Sure, they went by Baek Ri Family now, but even so, it dwarfed my own Mok Family Clan.
So why was this kid living hand-to-mouth?
'What the hell? Did something happen? Wait, more importantly... this punk hasn't even begun martial arts training?!'
Sword Emperor Baek Rihyeon.
When he'd killed me, he hadn't cracked the Ten Strongest Under Heaven list yet—but that was just youth.
I'd been fifty-one then, making him thirty-nine.
Still shy of forty.
'The average age on the Ten Strongest was pushing seventy.'
Of course he hadn't made it.
I and Sword King Namgung Chan had been the babies of the group....
'I'd clawed my way there on the Blissful Creation Art, while that Namgung Chan punk rode his pedigree.'
From what I'd sensed, Baek Rihyeon and Namgung Chan's skills had been a dead heat.
Among the others teetering on the Flower Realm's edge had been Cheon Woojin, but as the Martial Emperor's whelp, he was the exception.
'Baek Rihyeon and Cheon Woojin had an eighteen-year gap.'
Hell, Baek Rihyeon had married Cheon Woojin's own daughter.
Different generations entirely.
Point was, Baek Rihyeon had been the top dog among his peers, the one pegged to become the World's Greatest Martial Artist.
And yet....
'He still hasn't started martial arts?'
Even probing with a trickle of qi, there wasn't a whiff of training.
Malnourished to boot—he was skinnier and frailer than kids his age.
Direct descendants of the Five Great Families—like Namgung Chan or Moyong Hui—typically got prenatal qi infusions.
By three or four, they'd mimic forms; by five at the latest, formal initiation.
'It shapes the bones and meridians.'
Earlier was always better.
I'd started at five myself.
Standard for any clan with enemies in the martial world. Past that age, your talent ceiling plummets....
'So what the hell is this kid?'
A year's delay in early childhood is massive.
This was three.
And with no clue when he'd even begin, he was starting at a crippling deficit.
Yet he'd touched the Flower Realm's brink before forty?
'A true prodigy? Or... some special karmic encounter like mine?'
Couldn't say.
I didn't even know why he was slinging herbs here.
But suppose he was a once-in-a-generation genius, innate talent eclipsing even Martial Emperor Cheon Seonwoo.
And even after starting years late—his potential chipped away—he'd hit those heights?
'Sigh....'
Tough call.
Leave him be? Nudge his talent to bloom sooner? Or snuff out my future foe right here?
'Hm. No need to kill him, right?'
I didn't know his talent or opportunities, but letting history roll naturally, Baek Rihyeon had never bested me.
In another ten or twenty years? Maybe. But would I be sitting idle?
He wasn't my age peer; he couldn't match me.
Killing was off the table....
'Wait. This bastard... he married Cheon Suyeon.'
The overlooked fact sparked like flint.
Baek Rihyeon had known Moyong Hui since childhood.
But their age gap was sixteen years.
In about three years, Moyong Hui would wed Cheon Woojin—when this punk was eleven.
Of course she'd always see him as a little brother, no romance there.
But had he felt nothing for her?
The stunning big sister who'd saved him as a kid.
More than enough to spark his first love.
'Proof's in Cheon Suyeon's face.'
I'd mistaken Moyong Hui for her daughter at first glance—the two were near twins.
If they'd been strangers, fine. But three years of familiarity?
'Too damn obvious.'
Bachelor into his thirties, then weds a woman thirteen years his junior.
At that realization, sparks flew from my eyes.
'A potential rival down the line?!'
As my thoughts tilted toward elimination, Moyong Hui spoke up to me.
"Gaga. Think it's okay?"
"...Huh?"
Too deep in my head—I'd caught nothing.
She knew it, puffing her cheeks adorably.
"You've been lost in thought this whole time!"
Her voice, tinged with coquettish charm, melted my foul mood in an instant.
Unthinkingly, I glanced at Baek Rihyeon—the root of it all.
'Huh? What's with his face?'
He was glaring at me, displeased, before hastily schooling his features upon eye contact.
Too late. I'd seen it all.
'Oh ho. No way...?'
Eight years old was young, sure—but old enough to know better.
Especially a market brat who'd eaten his share of sidelong glares.
Meaning he knew exactly what "Gaga" implied, and why she'd gone all coy.
And still shot me that look?
'You little shit. Jealous?'
Suddenly, things got interesting.