Chapter 86
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 86
Chapter Title: How Could It Be Wasted?
Missing.
Just two simple characters.
But the weight of that word was immense.
After all, it described a state where one's whereabouts were unknown, leaving life or death a mystery.
And the subject was none other than his eldest son.
Yeon Ja-kyeong gazed down at the report before him with a calm expression.
But inside, it was anything but.
A fury burned within him, fierce enough to incinerate the entire world in an instant.
"Summon Gong-hu."
A quiet command directed at his subordinate.
The man who received it withdrew silently.
"Ha Mu-baek..."
Yeon Ja-kyeong murmured the name, his face filled with bewilderment.
"Hao Clan..."
He murmured it again, this time his face brimming with rage.
His thoughts had reached the conclusion that the Hao Clan was ultimately responsible for seducing his son away.
"Such despicable tricks. Damn them all."
Information had reached him through various channels. Several pieces pointed the blame squarely at Ha Mu-baek.
The source was obvious.
The Hao Clan.
Yeon Ja-kyeong, of all people, couldn't possibly be unaware of the dealings between the Hao Clan and Ha Mu-baek.
That was why their schemes struck him as utterly laughable.
He pitied his son for falling for them.
But one thing was different.
The Black Demonic Dormant Blood Curse.
That changed everything.
Who on earth had implanted that demonic thing into his son's body?
It was information the Hao Clan didn't possess.
It appeared only in the report sent by Dong Ju-san.
"I knew their obsession with that child was excessive, but to think it was because of that demonic curse..."
His solitary murmur carried a heavy note of self-reproach.
The first thing Yeon Ja-kyeong did upon reading the report on the Black Demonic Dormant Blood Curse was to examine his own dantian.
If it had been implanted in Yeon Baek-ryang's body, he couldn't rule out the possibility that it had been done to his own.
With the resolve not to miss even a single strand of hair, he meticulously scanned his entire body.
Only after repeating the process several times could he finally confirm that his body was clean.
'Why would the Demonic Cult target Baek-ryang...'
He couldn't understand it.
Remnants of the Blood Cult and Demonic Cult surely lingered in corners across the land.
The world was too vast to know every scheme they might be plotting.
But a far more pressing issue loomed.
The matter of his clan heir.
Excluding the youngest, his remaining two sons were hopeless.
Nothing but worthless playboys.
They could live that way only because they were Yeon Clan offspring.
Had they been born into an ordinary family, they would have met tragic ends long ago.
"Just those two..."
Yeon Ja-kyeong murmured, his voice thick with complicated emotions.
He had no choice.
Barring the youngest son, he would have to look among his grandsons, but only one among them met his approval.
And that one had been involved in this very incident, the only one to escape the Demonic Forest first.
An infuriating brat, yet the sole candidate worthy of entrusting the clan to.
Dong Ju-san's report was evidently written with utmost objectivity.
According to it, this mess stemmed from his son's stubborn refusal to heed Yeon Gong-hu's advice.
"Even that child has become a nuisance to deal with."
He had planned to use her beauty as a tool for a political marriage.
But she had slipped under Ha Mu-baek's protection.
And that, too, traced back to Yeon Gong-hu.
His feelings were inevitably tangled in every direction.
"Hoo..."
A deep sigh escaped his lips, one that perfectly captured his current state of mind.
Ha Mu-baek and his group arrived at the Mountain-Crossing Great Wall. Ascending to the ramparts, Ha Mu-baek stared silently at the Mountain-Crossing Demonic Forest.
"What's wrong?"
Han Seol-bing's question prompted him to shake his head.
He glanced at the forest once more before descending from the wall.
Not even his lips twitched, so no one realized he had just exchanged a transmission with someone.
The journey back to the Dragon Training Pavilion was peaceful.
The fierce battles against the jiangshi in the Demonic Forest felt like a distant dream.
The mood had improved dramatically as well.
Even Yeon Ha-min's face, which had always seemed haunted by something, now wore a serene expression.
Life upon returning to the Dragon Training Pavilion continued in the same vein.
Just peaceful days unfolding one after another.
But Ha Mu-baek knew there was still unfinished business.
'I wonder when he'll come.'
Yeon Baek-jin, the vice pavilion lord of the Dragon Training Pavilion.
As the son of the Yeon Clan head, news of this incident would surely have reached him.
"Is the Yeon Clan head really not going to do anything? Even the Hao Clan leaked information."
Perhaps bothered by Ha Mu-baek's nonchalant demeanor, Han Seol-bing asked.
She seemed particularly concerned about the Yeon Clan head.
He offered no particular response.
"Um, Instructor Ha?"
"You know it, and I know it. What kind of man the Yeon Clan head is."
Han Seol-bing nodded slightly.
"He can't hold me accountable. There was never any accountability to begin with."
The head of the Hubei Yeon Clan, Yeon Ja-kyeong.
He never fought a battle he could lose. That philosophy had elevated the Hubei Yeon Clan to the top ranks among the Five Great Families.
Han Seol-bing nodded again.
She knew it well.
"Fighting me would be a losing battle for him."
A simple, crystal-clear statement.
One impossible to refute.
Yeon Baek-jin came to see Ha Mu-baek that very night.
There were no elaborate words.
He simply stared in silence.
"Did my brother pass peacefully?"
The question came after a long silence.
"How would I know that?"
Yeon Baek-jin nodded faintly at Ha Mu-baek's reply.
He had gone all the way to the Demonic Forest himself.
He hadn't expected an easy answer.
Neither Yeon Gong-hu nor Dong Ju-san had witnessed Yeon Baek-ryang's final moments.
They had simply left him behind in the Demonic Forest.
Only someone who stayed with him until the end would know what became of him.
He was certain it was Ha Mu-baek, yet the man denied it.
"I heard there was a clash with the clan warriors at the Demonic Forest."
"A clash? It was just a minor scuffle. We never truly crossed blades."
That was true. Ha Mu-baek hadn't laid hands directly on the Yeon Clan warriors.
"I heard you exchanged quite a few moves with my brother."
"I figured a deep conversation between us wouldn't end well for either side."
That was his response.
Yeon Baek-jin clamped his mouth shut.
He was right.
After all, Ha Mu-baek had extracted the Demonic Cult's curse from Yeon Baek-ryang's dantian.
"Understood."
A calm reply tinged with resignation.
In truth, it was Yeon Baek-jin himself who had facilitated Ha Mu-baek taking the seventh cohort of the Fierce Dragon Corps into the Demonic Forest.
In a way, he was an accomplice to this incident.
"Ow, it hurts. It hurts so much... Mommy..."
A frail voice cried out in agony. The desperation in it made clear this was no ordinary pain.
"Oh, Hye-ah! Your teeth... what are we going to do about your teeth!"
Dan Mok Un-roe and Dan Mok Un-hye.
Their mother, Yeo Hwa, paced anxiously, wringing her hands in distress.
For about a month now, Dan Mok Un-hye would occasionally writhe in pain deep into the night.
What affliction could plague such a small, delicate body, tormenting her like this?
After Dan Mok Un-roe entered the Dragon Training Pavilion, they had visited a reputable physician with the money he sent, but all shook their heads.
They couldn't even identify the illness.
It was no different from the previous doctor they had struggled to consult, who also claimed ignorance of the cause.
They lacked the funds to seek out the most renowned physicians.
What if even those experts were stumped?
She couldn't squander the hard-earned money her son sent.
All Yeo Hwa could do was hold her daughter tight through the long night, soothing her that it would be okay, that she would get better soon.
Her eyes were red and swollen with tears.
Thus passed another endless night, and as dawn broke, Dan Mok Un-hye finally drifted into exhausted sleep, her breathing ragged.
The pain seemed to have subsided at last.
Another day went by.
How many more such days lay ahead?
Yeo Hwa's face grew more haggard with each passing day.
A few days later, Dan Mok Un-roe returned home after a long silence.
Ten days had passed since completing the Demonic Forest expedition and returning to the Dragon Training Pavilion.
He had finally received a day of rest and come home early in the morning.
The sudden trip to the Demonic Forest had left him unable to even send word.
"Mother!"
Dan Mok Un-roe shouted loudly from the front of the house as he entered.
His mother greeted him with a joyful face but quietly raised a finger to her lips.
A gesture to be silent.
Startled, Dan Mok Un-roe stepped inside cautiously.
There lay his beautiful little sister, Dan Mok Un-hye, sleeping peacefully.
It had been over a month since his last visit.
Truly, it had been ages.
His sister was still as pretty as ever.
Having a sister himself, Dan Mok Un-roe fully understood why Instructor Ha occasionally doted on Ha Seol-ran.
He would probably do the same.
A faint smile crossed his face at the thought, but it soon twisted into something else.
His sister looked even thinner than before.
Only then did he properly take in his mother's appearance. She too had grown gaunt.
"M-Mother..."
Dan Mok Un-roe hesitated before speaking.
He worried they might have scrimped on food to save the money he sent.
Reading her son's concern, Yeo Hwa offered a gentle smile.
"Roe-ah. Your mother and Hye-ah have been eating well and living comfortably on the money you've worked so hard to send."
Her kind, maternal voice nearly brought tears to his eyes.
He could sense the exhaustion in it.
"Then why do you both look like..."
Dan Mok Un-roe couldn't finish his sentence.
His mother regarded him with eyes full of worry and complexity.
Having made up her mind, Yeo Hwa let out a long sigh first.
"Hoo."
"Mother."
"Yes. Lately, Hye-ah has been quite ill."
Those brief words twisted Dan Mok Un-roe's face in anguish.
It was the natural reaction to hearing that his tiny little sister had suffered greatly.
"Not every day, but every few days or so. She cries out in pain at night and can't sleep. It happened the night before last, but she slept well last night. Maybe she knew you were coming. I can't remember the last time she slept this soundly."
His mother gave a faint smile.
"What did the physicians say?"
At Dan Mok Un-roe's question, she shook her head.
"Every one of them just says they don't know."
This was no different from before he joined the Fierce Dragon Corps.
Back then, they had said the same.
He had hoped a better physician might pinpoint the cause.
"Then let's go to the biggest clinic in Wuchang..."
Dan Mok Un-roe spoke urgently, but his mother replied.
"No. There's no guarantee even they can diagnose Hye-ah's illness. We can't waste the money you've earned through such hardship."
"It's for Hye-ah's health—how could that be wasting it?"
Dan Mok Un-roe asked, his voice choked with emotion.
"I'm afraid we'll just hear the same thing: they don't know the cause."
At his mother's answer, Dan Mok Un-roe clamped his mouth shut.
A little while later, Dan Mok Un-hye awoke from her nap and was her usual bright self.
She ate well too.
Dan Mok Un-roe spent the day at home.
His sister didn't fall ill while he was there, but his steps felt heavy as he headed back to the Dragon Training Pavilion.
What had driven him to join the Fierce Dragon Corps? His family.
There was a desire to grow stronger, but earning money to support them was equally vital.
Yet his sister was sick.
Very sick.
And no one could identify the cause. Not even the physicians.
It was enough to drive him mad.
How had things come to this?
His head hung low, shoulders slumped.
His mind was a whirlwind of chaos.
As he made his way back to the Dragon Training Pavilion, memories of recent events surfaced.
Yes, for a time, Yeon Ha-min had worn a similarly worried expression.
It had looked burdensome.
But after the Demonic Forest trip, it seemed resolved.
She had returned to her old self.
And then.
He vividly recalled the instructor asking if she felt relieved, and Yeon Ha-min replying, "Thank you."
It was the instructor.
He had clearly resolved Yeon Ha-min's worries.
Everyone had thought so at the time.
The reason Dan Mok Un-roe recalled it now was simple.
Now, he had worries of his own.
Concerning the health of his one and only blood kin.
'Come to think of it...'
He remembered the day Ha Mu-baek first visited their home.
The instructor had spotted Dan Mok Un-hye's illness at a glance.
If so.
A spark of hope ignited in Dan Mok Un-roe's chest.
His shoulders straightened. He lifted his head.
Strength filled the steps of Dan Mok Un-roe as he headed toward the Dragon Training Pavilion.