Denied
There was no wrangling. Baek Yeo-hae and Dancheon Hak never asked why I had knelt down alongside them, and I never offered a reason either.
As if bound by a silent pact, the three of us knelt before the Patriarch's Hall in identical posture and pleaded for mercy.
"Please forgive me!"
"Please forgive us!"
Baek Yeo-hae, Dancheon Hak, and I — none of us spared a thought for the others as we prayed for absolution before the hall.
Perhaps Dancheon Hak and I had been the spark. Several dozen clan members who had until now only traded nervous glances crowded in behind Baek Yeo-hae, then flung themselves flat in perfect unison, with the rigid discipline of soldiers on parade.
"Please forgive us!"
It was a magnificent sight. That so many would cast themselves to the ground for the plea of a single woman meant Baek Yeo-hae, mistress of the clan, had built up no small store of goodwill in her time.
"Please forgive us!"
This went on for a long while.
"Enough."
At last the change came: Dancheon Gang moved his heavy tread out of the Patriarch's Hall. He emerged bearing the weight of a mountain, his gaze sweeping over every one of us. It passed lightly over Baek Yeo-hae, then settled on me and Dancheon Hak.
"What is it you would have me forgive?"
"……"
Dancheon Hak and I, as if by prior agreement, kept our mouths shut and gave no answer.
"You beg forgiveness, yet have done no wrong?"
"Patriarch——"
Holding back Baek Yeo-hae as she made to step forward, Dancheon Hak came out in her place.
"Father."
"Speak."
In all my life, I believe it was the first time I had ever seen Dancheon Hak's face so taut. He swallowed drily and went on.
"Mother joined hands with Elder Iljang entirely for my sake. If there is guilt, its root lies with me. So forgive Mother, and punish me in her stead."
With that, Dancheon Hak flung himself flat to the ground.
"No! No, Patriarch! I am the guilty one! Hak has done nothing wrong!"
Fearing the least stain might fall on Dancheon Hak, Baek Yeo-hae hurriedly pushed past him and prostrated herself in front of him.
"Hak is innocent. It was all my doing — all my fault!"
Like a scream torn from her chest, her voice would not stop even as she lay prostrate.
"……"
Having watched the whole performance from an arm's length away, the honest way to put my impression would be to say I was a little envious of that mother and son.
The Patriarch's gaze turned to me.
"And why are you there?"
Truthfully, I didn't quite know myself. But neither had I taken my place here without a plan. So I spoke what was on my mind.
"To propose a trade."
The instant the words left my mouth, I could feel it — the Patriarch and every member of the clan staring at me as though I had gone mad. Even Dancheon Hak and Baek Yeo-hae.
When a man begging forgiveness starts talking trade, something like undisguised interest surfaced on Patriarch Dancheon Gang's face.
"A trade, you say?"
As if in answer to his question, I gave a small nod and continued.
"It was I who discovered that Elder Iljang was a spy of the Demonic Cult. That much is simple fact."
"And it was I who rendered the greatest merit in removing that spy. Though my uncle Yeo-baek was the one who took his head, no one alive could deny that the largest share of the credit was mine."
Of course, reciting such facts now was no mere bid for credit.
"Judging by all of that, I say this: Mother is no spy."
Baek Yeo-hae was a woman who had perished together with the fall of the Dancheon Clan — which meant I knew, beyond any doubt, that she was no agent of the Demonic Cult.
But Dancheon Gang shook his head.
"It is not such a simple matter."
As if I didn't know that.
"Which is precisely why it is a trade."
Unbowed by his authority, I held his gaze.
"I have rendered great service to this clan, and so I make my request of the Patriarch: pardon my mother's guilt."
"You would cover fault with merit?"
"I would."
Perhaps the proposal was unexpected; a flicker crossed Dancheon Gang's cold expression.
"Do you understand the meaning of the words you have just spoken?"
"I understand them fully."
If her guilt were pardoned, my merit would vanish along with it. It meant the two canceling each other out. Put another way, I was offering myself up for Baek Yeo-hae — discarding, for her sake, a golden chance to steal a march in the contest for succession. In a household where no one was ignorant of the history between that woman and me, bewilderment and disbelief settled over every face.
A silence held for a moment. Then the answer came.
"……So be it."
The expression Dancheon Gang wore as he declared it was truly difficult to read. For all my pride in having a sharper eye than anyone, I could not tell whether the emotion in his gaze was approval or disappointment.
"This matter shall be set aside, unpursued. Let every member of the clan know it so."
With that, Dancheon Gang vanished into the Patriarch's Hall without a backward glance. When a man of absolute authority declares a thing, the matter is concluded. Baek Yeo-hae's guilt was pardoned.
Baek Yeo-hae came toward me. I could not tell whether her faltering, unsteady steps came from spent strength or from awkwardness. When our eyes met, confusion was all that filled hers — no doubt because she could not begin to fathom my behavior.
I understood her. If even I could not precisely understand myself, how was she — another person entirely — ever to manage it?
Words were born inside her and dissolved again, one after another. I could tell as much from her face alone. And at last…… the single phrase that survived after all the rest had melted away slipped from her lips.
"……Well then. For now, let me just say thank you."
How very like that woman Baek Yeo-hae. And hearing it, laughter rose in me unbidden. I didn't understand my own heart either — it simply happened.
"Yes."
When I lifted my head, the sky was clear. In any case, the dark clouds over the Dancheon Clan's future had lifted, and peace had arrived. For now, that was enough.
Looking back, that is how it was. The first goal I set after my regression was victory in the contest for Young Patriarch. I had wanted to bend the course of that stream — the greatest fork in the road of my former life.
I had no great complaints about the life of Myeong-gae, but I had wanted to try living a different one. I had wanted to seize by force the things that might, perhaps, once have been given to me. There had been grander ambitions too — becoming Alliance Leader and turning back the Great War of Righteousness and Evil, or bringing the Yakseon Heart Decision to Grand Completion and standing as the Number One Under Heaven — but I cannot deny that my first goal was winning the Young Patriarch's contest.
Weigh the reason, and it comes to this: I could not shake the thought that if my elder brother Dancheon Hak became Young Patriarch and, in time, Patriarch, he would stand as a stumbling block in the path of the man who meant to become Alliance Leader and stop the Great War.
But I know Dancheon Hak has changed a great deal. No — perhaps he was always this man, and the me of the past simply never learned who he truly was. Either way, one truth admits no denial: the Dancheon Hak I had imagined at the moment of my regression and the Dancheon Hak I know now are two different people.
If that future came round again — Dancheon Hak as Young Patriarch — would he be an obstacle in my life? Honestly, my answer now is that I no longer know. And a shade more honestly, I might say the odds lean toward no. I have come to know him as a man who carries his own sense of justice and the poise befitting the heir of a great house.
If I must strain for another reason I had wanted the seat, then — there was also the wish to drag the Dancheon Clan out of the shadow of ruin that would arrive ten years on. That, in truth, is why my heart has grown so tangled of late.
If the Great War of Righteousness and Evil erupts, few clans will remain standing amid its flames — but I will be the one to stop that war. I will make it so it never happened at all. And Ilcheon-sal, who would have presided over the clan's destruction, was cut down long ago; it is only right to judge that the shadow once draped over the Dancheon Clan has been swept away for good.
Which leaves the question. Having regressed, why should I become Young Patriarch at all? No — before that. Do I truly wish to be the Young Patriarch of the Dancheon Clan?
It would be a lie to say I feel nothing for the seat. Yakseon had said it: achieve the Amplification of the Fourth Stage of the Yakseon Heart Decision, and that in itself is Governing the Family.
And so I had reasoned: with the Fourth Stage Amplification, I had achieved Governing the Family within the realm of my own self. If I took that attainment as my footing and seized the seat of Young Patriarch, I would complete Governing the Family in truth. I know full well that the Governing the Family Yakseon spoke of never meant a patriarch's seat. But I know, too, that my heart chose to read it that way.
Yes. I must admit it. I had simply wanted to resolve the deprivations of my former life. I cannot deny that rather than pressing forward through my regression, I had been trying to fill the deficiencies of the past.
But at the same time, there is something I came to understand upon entering the Harmony Realm, as my spirit expanded. If I claimed the seat of Young Patriarch with the attainment I hold now, would it truly fill the void the past left behind?
"……"
It would not. My heart told me so — or perhaps it was the spirit that blossomed when I reached the Harmony Realm. It said I needed to return everything to a blank page. That I must go back not to the heart of the young Dancheon Myeong, bent on soothing old deprivations, but to the heart of Myeong-gae, the beggar who had once resolved to become Alliance Leader.
So I looked at my present situation through Myeong-gae's eyes — the man seasoned by a thousand experiences, who had boasted comprehension and insight beyond anyone's. Becoming Young Patriarch. And not becoming it. Which would serve my grand design? The hour to weigh true gain against true loss had arrived.
The moment I recalled the life of Myeong-gae, the answer came more easily than I expected.
"I will withdraw from the contest for Young Patriarch."
"What did you say?"
"I have no intention of becoming the Patriarch of the Dancheon Clan."
That I had come straight to the Patriarch's Hall, out of the blue, was built on exactly this chain of thought.
At present, though I have not reached Grand Completion, I have mastered the Dancheon Sword Formula — my clan's hereditary art — through to its latter half, and entered the Fourth Stage of the Yakseon Heart Decision. By the measure of the murim, I would be rated as standing somewhere between the threshold of the Harmony Realm and proficiency within it.
From the standpoint of a man who has memorized every name on the Thousand Selections of the Jianghu Register, it remains a level I can only call meager. The masters already known to the world who surpass me are the extraordinary hegemons themselves — and once you count the eccentric talents and hidden virtuosos, the reclusive sages, the mysterious sects, and the concealed experts of the Heavenly Demon Cult as well, mine is a level that would struggle even to set foot on the Thousand Selections' list. That is my strength measured as it stands, with background and potential set aside. Such is the breadth of the jianghu world.
The Dancheon Clan is a splendid house, and the seat above it — the Patriarch's seat — is surely a splendid one. But at the same time, I know the seat of Patriarch does not underwrite my martial path. And I know, too, that the road to the Number One Under Heaven lies not in becoming the Dancheon Clan's Young Patriarch and someday its Patriarch, but in bringing the Yakseon Heart Decision to Grand Completion.
There is a Fifth Stage of the Yakseon Heart Decision — the realm Yakseon himself attained, the realm in which he contended for mastery with the Number Ones of his own age. Yet judging from the information I have gathered, I doubt the Fifth Stage alone could contest the title in today's murim. It is simple common sense that the martial arts of jianghu men advance with the times. I might manage the last seat among the Ten Greatest Masters Under Heaven, but the Number One Under Heaven? Not a chance. My judgment is that this much falls short of what it takes to rise to Alliance Leader and turn back the Great War of Righteousness and Evil.
Therefore I must attain the Sixth Stage of the Yakseon Heart Decision. I will set foot in the uncharted realm even Yakseon never reached, and seize for myself the name of Number One Under Heaven.
Having long since laid out every plan, I had already charted the road to the Fifth and Sixth Stages to be walked once I took the seat of Young Patriarch. But judged coldly, here is the truth: reaching those stages would inevitably require wandering the whole world over. I would entrust the clan to those I could trust, attain the Sixth Stage, and become the Number One Under Heaven. With that power I would raise the clan into the Number One Clan Under Heaven, and become Alliance Leader. And with that power, I would stop the Great War of Righteousness and Evil. A perfectly rational plan, is it not?
And so there was no hesitation in the voice with which I declared myself in the Patriarch's Hall.
"I will withdraw from the contest for Young Patriarch."
"What did you say?"
"I have no intention of becoming the Patriarch of the Dancheon Clan."
I spoke it as though proclaiming it to Dancheon Gang himself. It felt liberating, and it felt bittersweet; if I had to weigh the two, liberation ran a little heavier. I consider it a choice without regret.
After a moment, Patriarch Dancheon Gang opened his mouth.
"Denied."
For the first time in my life, a plan gone awry left me glad. Because for the first time, I felt my existence had been acknowledged by the Patriarch.