Anticipation
As soon as I returned to the Ju Family, I was summoned straight to the Geomhonjeon, the Lord’s personal hall.
The atmosphere within the estate felt heavy and unsettled.
“……We received word from the Yu Family.”
“……”
My chest tightened at my father’s single sentence.
They told him right away.
It seemed my grandfather had asked the Ju Family for help the moment I disappeared.
“What trouble have you stirred up this time?”
His voice pierced me—cold enough to freeze blood.
I simply looked at my father’s face.
“Lord.”
“Speak.”
“I apologize for acting without informing you first.”
“……”
At those words, Ju Tae-sung’s eyebrows twitched.
Not only had I come obediently when called to the Geomhonjeon, but I was even admitting fault?
The change in me clearly felt foreign to him.
My father-in-law said the boy had grown admirably.
I recalled the letter Yu Jang-baek had written and sent himself.
He knew full well how much Yu Jang-baek had always doted on me.
He had probably assumed the letter was meant to soften any punishment.
But then—
“However, there was something I had to do.”
By now I stood before him without bowing my head in submission.
“And what was so important that you had to move without even reporting to your Lord?”
Still, the person before me was Ju Woo-jin.
How many incidents had he caused over the years?
Beating servants half to death while drunk was routine. He had even brought courtesans from the red-light district into the family estate.
With his mother so ill, her only son behaving like that—how could Ju Tae-sung’s insides not burn?
“If I had told you, Lord, the matter would have grown too large. If that happened, I would never be able to catch the enemy I’m after.”
“The enemy you’re after?”
His words were becoming more and more absurd.
“Answer properly. Were you not the one who killed a servant of the Yu Family?”
“I was.”
An overwhelming aura surged from Ju Tae-sung’s entire body, the kind that made resistance feel impossible.
Yet I did not yield.
“Who are you to arbitrarily take another person’s life?”
Now he had gone beyond beating people—he was killing them?
Ju Tae-sung’s fury shook the entire Geomhonjeon.
As his anger rose, the pressure of his presence began to crush me like a mountain.
Truly terrifying.
He truly deserved to be called the Sword Sovereign.
This was the presence of one of the Ten Sovereigns of the Martial World.
My legs trembled on their own. My breathing grew shallow, as if the air itself had thickened.
Even so, I endured it.
The oppressive force was enough to make my mind reel, but I knew my father was not so cold that he would kill his own son.
As expected, Ju Tae-sung’s aura gradually eased.
“It had better be a reason I can accept.”
“……Please give me a little time. There is an opponent I must capture no matter what.”
“……”
At the repeated words, my father stared down at me.
His expression was so ruthlessly cold and calm that I could not read a single thought behind it.
“Ten days. If you cannot give me a reason I can accept within those ten days, I will throw you into prison. Understood?”
“Yes. I will keep it in mind.”
“Get out.”
I bowed deeply and left the Geomhonjeon.
Ten days.
It was tight.
But there was no more room for negotiation.
Considering my father’s temperament, this much was already a significant concession.
If I had told him the truth, given his personality…
The Ju Family’s warriors would flood Jiangxi province.
But that would make it impossible to catch the Blood Hand Poison Emperor.
The slightest hint of danger and he would vanish like smoke.
“First……”
I needed to visit my mother.
I entered the separate courtyard.
A thick medicinal scent filled the air, and the servants recognized me and quickly stepped aside, watching nervously from a distance.
Their gazes were still far from kind.
“You’re back?”
My mother rose unsteadily from her seat.
Beside her stood the head of Insujeon, Heo Su-kyung.
“How are you feeling?”
I asked, taking her hand.
“I feel a little better. By the way, I heard you went to your maternal family?”
As expected.
She already knew.
“Yes. There was an urgent matter……”
“Your grandfather sent urgent word. Because of that, your father caused quite a commotion.”
“The Lord did?”
At my question, my mother smiled gently and nodded.
“The moment he heard you had disappeared, he reached for his sword first. He even gathered all the warriors.”
“I see……”
It was unexpected.
I had not thought my father would move to that extent.
“Are you all right?”
“……Yes.”
My mother immediately clasped my hand with both of hers.
Unlike my father, she worried about me first and foremost.
I could not meet her concerned eyes.
I’m glad.
The faint pulse I felt through her hand brought me joy.
I no longer sensed any poison in her.
Heo Su-kyung must have disposed of all the Jung Hae-tang immediately.
“I told you before. I won’t do anything that worries you anymore, Mother.”
“Then this mother will trust her son.”
“Rest now. I’ll visit often.”
After giving my final greeting, I left the room.
Heo Su-kyung followed shortly after.
“Young Master.”
“I was just about to ask you.”
“You wish to know about the matriarch’s condition?”
Heo Su-kyung studied my expression carefully before speaking with caution.
“We stopped the Jung Hae-tang and used every herb possible to neutralize the poison and calm her body. It is difficult to say she is completely cured, but I believe we may be able to gather the ingredients needed to create a proper antidote.”
“Let’s delay making the antidote for now—if it won’t cause her serious harm.”
The moment those ingredients were sought, the Blood Hand Poison Emperor would notice without fail.
The fact that he had come here himself meant he intended to strike directly at the Ju Family.
If the family began gathering the key materials for an antidote to the very poison he had administered?
He would run. He still cannot handle the full weight of the Ju Family.
After reading my expression, Heo Su-kyung nodded carefully.
“For the time being, there should be no major problems. However, the narcotic component within the Jung Hae-tang is the real issue…… She has taken it for nearly three months. Even now, she is enduring with truly tremendous willpower.”
“I understand.”
I did.
I knew my mother was barely holding on.
No matter how difficult, she had to endure until the end.
It was the only way to save her life.
I stood silently for a long time, staring at the separate courtyard where my mother stayed, then quietly left the area.
Muyoung’s gaze was slightly strange.
He watched the back of the Young Master as he left the separate courtyard, his expression grave.
That man…… and the corpses.
He recalled what had happened in Shaanxi.
He had blocked a strike from an opponent whose power made even survival uncertain.
And he was certain he had lost consciousness in the Young Master’s arms.
Yet when he opened his eyes, the situation had already ended.
And those corpses……
They had been mutilated too horribly to look at.
It looked as if their limbs had been forcibly torn off by hand and trampled with brutal force.
In the middle of that carnage, the Young Master had been smiling as if nothing had happened.
A normal fifteen-year-old boy—especially one born into a prestigious family and raised with protection—should not have been able to smile peacefully in the midst of such a nightmare.
This was no ordinary matter.
“Muyoung.”
The Young Master’s voice pulled Muyoung from his thoughts.
“Yes, Young Master.”
“Let’s talk for a moment.”
“……Yes.”
Ju Woo-jin and Muyoung moved to a quiet, secluded spot where no one else walked.
Muyoung’s eyes held clear suspicion.
Or rather, it was confusion.
Of course he’s confused. After seeing that scene.
I had completely destroyed the Black Blood Corps that the Blood Hand Poison Emperor had raised.
To prevent any of them from escaping, I had indeed acted more ruthlessly than necessary.
I had torn off heads and ripped apart anything my hands could grasp.
After confirming no one was around, I stopped walking and turned to face him.
Muyoung halted a short distance away.
“You must have many questions. What I did there, whether the person you saw was truly the Young Master you knew.”
“……”
Muyoung did not deny it.
It was time to put that confusion to rest.
But I could not tell him about the Demonic Cult.
Even if he believed me, there was always the possibility of one chance in ten thousand.
“What were those cruel techniques? They were definitely…… not the Ju Family’s martial arts.”
“They are the Ju Family’s martial arts. The method has simply changed.”
“The method?”
“The enemies we…… no, that I am trying to fight…… cannot be defeated if we fight like the orthodox sects.”
Like the orthodox path. Or more precisely, like the methods the orthodox sects pursued.
In the end, the beliefs and spirit the orthodox sects clung to had always bowed before the overwhelming power of the Demonic Path.
“In the end, conviction and values…… only hold meaning when there is power to support them.”
To protect that power, I had chosen a different method.
One that was more certain. Faster. More lethal.
I had to cut off their breath without fail.
Even if it meant I would be cursed and reviled for it…… there was simply no other way.
“Muyoung.”
I called out to him as his eyes wavered.
Muyoung looked directly at me.
“You simply stay by my side. I will prove that the lord you believe in…… is not as foolish and pathetic as you once thought.”
“……!”
“I will show you.”
For the first time, I had revealed my true feelings.
The pathetic person who had always looked down on those beneath him and ignored them had been me.
And what had I experienced because of it?
I had barely survived on their sacrifices, living pathetically.
Only afterward did I regret, blame myself, cry, and feel lonely.
It was only after losing everything that I finally realized how precious they were.
“Young Master.”
The wavering in Muyoung’s eyes gradually settled.
He was looking at me.
With solid conviction.
With unbreakable trust between lord and subordinate.
“I have never once thought you pathetic.”
His tone was calm.
“No matter what you did, though I may have questioned it, I have never once doubted your intentions.”
And he would protect me to the end.
Just as he always had.
“You are my first lord, and my last.”
“Haha.”
A laugh escaped me for the first time in a long while. A truly long while.
Was that how it was?
Had Muyoung truly thought that way?
Or had I been the one viewing the world through a twisted lens, blinded by my own inferiority complex?
The vague realization I had reached in my previous life was brought back by Muyoung’s words as both self-reproach and reflection.
“That’s right. You were always like that.”
That was why, even as the family was destroyed and everyone died, he had stood by me until the end.
So why had I doubted him?
“It feels reassuring. This kind of feeling…… it’s a first for me.”
I lightly tapped Muyoung’s shoulder.
Only then did a small smile finally break across his face.
“Did you not save the matriarch? Even if you had to receive the Lord’s rebuke for it. That is enough. How could I dare question you, Young Master?”
His smile.
It was the first time I had seen it.
The feeling was incredibly good.
“Aren’t you curious? Who I’m fighting against?”
“I know you could not even tell the Lord. How could I presume to judge?”
Muyoung was a true warrior who walked the path of a martial artist.
He had always believed in me and followed me.
“Good. Thanks to you, I feel full of strength.”
“That is fortunate indeed.”
Muyoung bowed his head toward me.
“No matter what method you choose, I will protect you until the end.”
“……”
These were my precious people.
Therefore, I would definitely protect them.
By killing the Blood Hand Poison Emperor without fail.