Predictions and Past Grievances
"For now, the Geum Udo needs to be a bit more flexible. And it's not about swinging it unconditionally fast and hard—timing it precisely to the moment is what's important. That's why you're getting off-balance just from me slightly disrupting your rhythm."
Geum Jongha shrugged his shoulders, but Ryeon didn't stop there and kept going.
"And the Geum Udo sword style puts more emphasis on predicting your opponent's movements than reacting to them..."
Geum Jongha's eyes widened as he listened quietly to Ryeon. Wondering if she'd talked too long, Ryeon quietly shut her mouth, but Geum Jongha hurriedly waved his hand.
"Keep going!"
"I was going to stop if it was hard to hear."
"Ah, it's not hard..."
Ryeon muttered to herself.
"Hmm, if I tell you and you have some great realization, won't I be the only one losing out...?"
At those words, Geum Jongha shot to his feet and unleashed a tirade.
"No, no! Isn't this why we spar—to learn and master it? And talking about it? Weighing gains and losses here? That's the act of a petty small-minded person! Besides, I'll tell you things too!"
He'd spoken so quickly that Geum Jongha's face flushed red as he panted heavily.
Ryeon stared straight at him.
"Then... should I keep talking?"
"Yeah!"
"Hmm. The Geum family sword style falls apart completely if your prediction is wrong."
"...Are you saying I predicted wrong? That you moved in a way that tricked my prediction and I really fell for it...?"
"Not that. I just moved to make you predict wrong, and you totally bought it."
"...!"
Geum Jongha's mouth fell open in shock.
Unable to bear watching, Yeo Un whispered softly.
"What if he starts crying...?"
Hwaryun muttered in response.
"Isn't he already?"
Ryeon pouted her lower lip. Crying just from getting a bit beaten in a spar and hearing this?
Yeo Un replayed my words all night and had a realization!
With that thought, she glanced at Yeo Un, who quickly straightened his sitting posture and gave a slight smile.
Meanwhile, Geum Jongha's servant fidgeted anxiously beside him. His face looked like he might die of worry that his young master would cause some incident here.
Ryeon decided it was time to get to the main point.
"Anyway, more importantly, I have something I'm curious about."
"Huh?"
She has something she's curious about instead of verbally thrashing me...?
Geum Jongha looked at Ryeon with somewhat dazed eyes.
"Why on earth did you request this spar?"
"...!"
His dazed expression shattered in an instant. It was the look of someone who'd been ambushed by an assassin out of nowhere—utterly wronged.
Then, fumbling his lips, he gestured toward his servant.
"Yes?"
"...Go."
"Young master?"
"Go over there!"
Geum Jongha practically snapped in frustration, but the servant just alternated worried glances between Ryeon and him before reluctantly stepping back a few paces. Only at Geum Jongha's urgent waving did he retreat another three or four steps.
Geum Jongha then glanced at Hwaryun standing beside Ryeon.
It was a signal to send his servant further back too, but Ryeon quickly grabbed Hwaryun's hand tightly with one hand and looked at Yeo Un sitting next to her.
"Hwaryun's like my little brother, so it's fine if he hears. And Taoist Yeo Un is my friend."
"No... he's my... Never mind. Fine."
Geum Jongha's lips twitched in extreme grievance before he spat it out.
"O... Our father was upright and honorable, but you guys keep saying stuff..."
"...?"
Ryeon tilted her head.
"Who's 'you guys'?"
"You guys! The Danmok family!"
"When did we? Say what?"
Ryeon stared at Geum Jongha.
For the first time since their second bout, Geum Jongha gathered his momentum and yelled.
"You keep saying our father killed your father!"
"That's true, but we've never said anything about it!"
"I-It wasn't on purpose! But you called him a vicious coward..."
Ryeon bristled too.
"Who! When! Where!"
Ryeon slammed her palm on the table. Geum Jongha flinched.
"Th-That..."
"And it is true! Our father had been injured ever since fighting Blood Valley! And that year when you sent the challenge letter, our family was ambushed too. You knew all that and still insisted on the duel..."
"I didn't know!"
the boy shouted.
Ryeon took a deep breath, then replied slowly.
"Even if you didn't know, our dad's already gone."
"Ah..."
Geum Jongha, about to shout something, opened and closed his mouth like a fish before falling silent again. His face flushed red once more.
But this time, it was a mix of unspeakable shame and guilt.
Ryeon stared at him steadily before letting her shoulders slump.
Her father's face was blurry. By years, it had been about twenty since she'd last seen him.
Even after turning back time and defying death itself, she couldn't exchange a single word with her father. The thought turned her heart black and white.
But.
"Our dad's gone now, but..."
Ryeon pressed firmly around her ear. For some reason, she felt more exhausted now than during the spar.
"Still, we've never said anything. Not once."
The duel was fair, and Danmok Hyeon-seong's death was an accident—what was there to say? Even harboring nowhere-to-go anger and hatred, the Danmok family had never spoken of it.
* * *
The space without the children felt not just cold, but awkward.
Though facing each other, Geum Jeokgeol remained silent. Without Wijicheong's somewhat softened expression between them, they might have turned to stone.
Danmok Cheon-gi broke the suffocating silence.
"The Geum family head has grown greatly."
It sounded like looking down on him. But Geum Jeokgeol nodded slowly, without offense or false humility.
"If my parents saw, they'd faint. How did you grow the family so much in Hangzhou?"
There was an omission in Geum Jeokgeol's words: in Hangzhou with the Danmok family.
The two fell silent again. Only Wijicheong quietly tilted her teacup.
A bird flew over their table, pecked a bit at the snacks, and flew off.
Geum Jeokgeol frowned awkwardly, staring in the direction the bird had gone.
"...I didn't expect Jongha's spar this time to be with Hyeon-seong's daughter."
Pale as if never seeing sunlight, small and frail from not growing properly. Geum Jeokgeol had known at first sight of Danmok Ryeon. Among the rumors swirling in Hangzhou's underbelly, he'd already heard that Danmok Hyeon-seong's daughter had been ill for a long time—but perhaps even the whisper that she might be time-limited wasn't entirely wrong.
"So you're saying you were going to match him with the Outer Hall Leader's daughter who just set out from Henan?"
"Yes."
"You didn't request this spar knowing Ryeon's condition? You speak as if you only just learned."
Danmok Cheon-gi's voice was somewhat dry.
Geum Jeokgeol's eyebrows trembled fiercely, but he neither affirmed nor denied.
Instead, he brought up something else.
"Yes, suppose we did know and requested it anyway. Then what?"
"...What?"
"If we knew and did it anyway, why did you, Supreme Family Head, put a child who just barely got out of bed onto the sparring stage?"
Geum Jeokgeol tried to speak calmly, but his voice trembled by the end. Heat rose from his neck, slowly reddening his face.
Danmok Cheon-gi gaped in disbelief before letting out a hollow laugh.
"...Unbelievable. You're asking us that?"
"One word that the child isn't in condition for a spar would have ended it—why not?"
"When one of the martial world seeks spar with us, we do not refuse—that is the way of the righteous martial sects!"
"Even if you lose your heir to that 'way'?"
"You bastard!"
Danmok Cheon-gi's thunderous shout made the air hum, and birds flapped away in panic from afar. The surroundings froze like ice.
Wijicheong quietly gazed at Danmok Cheon-gi. Receiving his daughter-in-law's look, he drew a deep breath. The scars on his face writhed chaotically.
"You dare say such nonsense? You, who grew the Geum family thanks to that?"
It was a declaration that without the early death of the Danmok family's young lord, the Geum family would never have risen.
Geum Jeokgeol's face burned at the words.
But not because his efforts and the Geum family's growth were belittled.
"Yes, you say I grew the Geum family. That's right. What was a humble dojo known only to our neighbors in my parents' time, I grew to this. Then back then... how was I, a child from an unknown dojo, supposed to know the private affairs of the Danmok heir?"
Geum Jeokgeol's fingertips trembled.
He finally shot to his feet and cried out.
"Who in Hangzhou knew that fact back then! No one! Because you hid it!"
It was a scream.
Danmok Cheon-gi's neck stiffened.