Perfect, Except for That Mouth
A perfect guy, if only not for that mouth.
When the younger brother who'd run away from home turned out to be somehow unscathed, Dang Mulin burst into tears and flung herself at him.
"Muyeong, I was so worried. Are you hurt anywhere?"
I spoke, still trapped in her cheek-grip.
"It huwts... could you pwease wet go....."
By this point I was genuinely starting to wonder whether the Dang Clan harbored some deep, tragic history with cheeks.
I decided to take it as a gesture of affection and resigned myself to the mauling, and only then did she finally release my face. It hadn't even been that many years since I'd left the Dang Clan for Nanman, so why was everyone welcoming me back with such ferocity? Dang Mulin was sobbing hard enough that a stranger might have mistaken the scene for a long-lost family reunion.
Pat— pat—
"I'm fine. Look! Not even a scratch. I may not look it, but I'm in the Transcendent Realm, you know."
"You fought the monster that killed a Profound Realm martial artist."
"Uh...?"
So Dushik had already told them everything. Well, he'd have had no other way to talk the Clan Head into coming all the way out here than to explain those absurd events, so I couldn't exactly blame him.
"Ah... well, you see, the thing is....."
I began racking my brain over how to explain that I, a Transcendent Realm martial artist, had somehow defeated the very monster that had killed a Profound Realm expert—in a way that everyone would actually nod along to.
No, no. That doesn't make any sense.
But my regrettable brain produced nothing resembling a decent answer no matter how hard I churned. And for good reason—the accepted wisdom held that the gap between Profound Realm and Transcendent Realm was even greater than the gap between Transcendent Realm and Third-Rate.
And that jellyfish thing had devoured a Profound Realm expert like it was sipping through a straw...
How was I supposed to explain that I'd beaten the creature that had caught and crushed that jellyfish as easily as swatting a fly? I caught it off guard? Off guard is for people. What kind of monster lets its guard down? Even the cats brawling on stone walls don't get careless. I used some ingenious, outlandish trick? Sure, it's true that humanity thrived because we learned to think. But no amount of cleverness is going to stop a falling meteor, is it? All you can do is accept death with grace. Claiming some elemental advantage was even more absurd, and I couldn't exactly say an immortal suddenly appeared, sliced the thing to ribbons, and vanished into thin air.
"Well, you see....."
Every eye in the room locked onto me. They'd all been pretending not to care, but the moment I opened my mouth, why were they suddenly staring with such wide, sparkling eyes?
"The thing is....."
Dozens of pairs of eyes converged on my lips. Well, nothing for it now.
"The truth is...!"
I'd just be honest—
"It exploded on its own? I guess it ate too many people's marrow over the years, because its belly burst and it just up and died."
Nobody would believe the truth anyway, so I decided to brazen it out.
"Muyeong, does that even make sense..."
"No, I'm telling you it's true? Think about it—how would I possibly have caught that thing? Even the former Palace Lord of the Beast Palace got swallowed whole and had his soul sucked dry..."
Nobody had seen it happen. If I said it went down that way, then that's how it went down. If you've got a problem with it, bring a witness or some evidence.
"Don't you dare lie! There was clearly banging and crashing echoing through the entire jungle!!!"
The Palace Lord, his face swollen to twice the size I'd seen last time, shouted at me, rudely dropping into informal speech without so much as a by-your-leave.
"That's... that was the sound of it slamming its tentacles down in frustration because I kept pestering it from somewhere they couldn't reach."
"Then how do you explain the red clouds! I saw it with my own two eyes...!"
"I didn't do that either? That jellyfish bastard suddenly turned red and started doing something weird."
"You monstrous liar!!!"
"Did you see it? Did you or didn't you? What does someone who just sat in the back feeding his own men into the meat grinder have to say about anything?"
"Oh my... so this boy still has the strength left to shout."
The Palace Lord, who'd been screaming himself hoarse in frustration, started getting beaten black and blue all over again by the Execution Hall Master and his trusty club.
"AAAAAHHH! You sorcerous monster... just die already, you wretched beast!!!"
Even while taking hits to his head, shoulders, chest, and feet with democratic fairness, the Palace Lord kept hurling curses my way—what exactly was he so aggrieved about?
"Sis... he's calling me a monster. Punish him."
"Sure, I'll punish him. Just wait a moment."
When I spoke to Dang Mulin with wounded eyes, she pulled the hairpin from her hair.
Thwack—
The hairpin sliced through the air and struck the Palace Lord square between the brows.
"Ugh!"
He closed his short life without even leaving behind a final word. A hollow end for one who had offered up the innocent as sacrifice.
Well... thinking about it now, wasn't it the natural choice for a Palace Lord to make? If an unstoppable calamity descended and you had to sacrifice strangers' lives to save your own people, what would I have chosen?
"No need to say more... I'd have done the same."
If Mikhail in his prime had come to the Dang Clan vowing to slaughter everyone, and I could buy time by offering the heads of people I'd never met, wouldn't I have done exactly the same? Then why did I get so angry about it just recently...
"I don't know. Was it the jellyfish's fault? Or maybe I've just been a bit on edge lately."
I had definitely been strange these past few days. Tracing back my recent memories, I'd clearly been emotional, haunted by the past, irritable. Acting impulsively for no reason, and beating on poor Dushik's head—well, he did pick his words specifically to deserve it, so I'll exclude that one. Anyway, I had been a bit off.
"Homesickness, maybe...?"
"Hm? What was that?"
"Nothing, just talking to myself."
"Homesick? Then we should head back to Sichuan right away!"
"Ah... right. Back to Sichuan, I guess."
I flashed Dang Mulin an awkward smile.
"What should we do with these people, my lord?"
"Hmm... Muyeong, what do you want to do? If you want to leave no loose ends, it wouldn't be bad to finish them all right here."
"I think we can just leave them. No need to spill more blood..."
I answered while turning my eyes away from those who stared at me with the dead-fish gaze of the terrified—or perhaps the already resigned.
"Very well. Then let us head back."
At my father's calm nod, as if he'd expected my answer all along, sighs finally began to escape from the crowd. Were those sighs of relief, or sighs for those about to pass into the next world? In any case, I supposed the Palace Lord had gotten what he wanted—most of the Beast Palace's people survived, aside from the warriors, so he must have left satisfied. Though from now on, they'd be living under some unknown village's name instead of the Beast Palace of the Southern Barbarians. Well, if they were lucky, they might even rebuild someday.
I looked up at the sky, where a cloud shaped like a smiling face drifted lazily overhead.
"That's right, Palace Lord. Go on and smile all the way there. I've granted your wish, so don't worry too much about the ones you left behind."
"Muyeong, what are you doing? We need to get going!"
"Yeah!"
And so, the affairs of Nanman came to a beautiful conclusion.
"So you made it to the Dang Clan in three days?"
"Yes! My heart was about to burst from running!"
"You didn't have to go that far..."
"What are you saying, my young lord! I was so worried about you, alone out there, that I ran until my legs nearly broke!"
The moment we left Nanman behind, we bought a carriage and were enjoying a comfortable journey home. We'd even hired a driver while we were at it. Compared to the Dang Clan's carriages it was naturally nothing to look at, but it was spacious enough for four people to stretch out and relax, so it seemed to be earning its keep. Was the cost of living in this region as steep as Beijing? I could understand it being a place so few people visited, but whenever I imagined the Financial Hall Master bellowing does money rot or something upon hearing the price, I wondered if I'd wasted my coin. Well, I could always tell him that Dushik absolutely couldn't walk another step and had collapsed, so...
But why four of us, you ask? That would be—
"I'll return ahead of you. The rest of you come slowly with the Execution Hall Master. Execution Hall Master, I entrust the escort to you."
"Understood, my lord."
The seat of Clan Head of a great family meant new matters pouring in every single day—imagine how much had piled up over these past few days. There were naturally matters that would become problematic if delayed, so Dang Jihwan headed for Sichuan first. I later heard that he'd carried two people on his back from the Dang Clan to the Beast Palace in less than two days.
Anyway, the carriage carrying the four of us—my sister and me, Uncle Haun, and Dang Giyeong—rumbled along the road.
"Well... you did good. If Father had been any later, I'd have had to dig my own way out of the earth..."
"Then teach me how to do that too!"
"Teach you what? If you cut off both the beginning and end of what you're saying, how am I supposed to figure out what you mean?"
"This! I mean this!"
Dang Giyeong crossed his hands in front of me, making a gesture like a pigeon taking flight.
"Muyeong, what's that supposed to be?"
"Uh... well, you see....."
Uncle Haun was dozing off beside us, but our conversation had caught the attention of Dang Mulin, who'd been listening quietly with her eyes closed.
"Ack, my lady! That's a secret between men. You don't need to know, so there!!!"
Watching Dushik get slapped down even by Dang Mulin, I clicked my tongue and thought: That guy's fine except for one thing—his mouth. His mouth... More loyal than expected, more capable than he looked, yet how many points did he lose with that catastrophic mouth of his? Thank goodness this was the Central Plains. If he'd been a commoner born in my homeland, his head would've been rolling long ago. The charges: insulting nobility, or insubordination, or something along those lines.
Anyway, we were heading toward the An family estate in Yunnan where we'd left those little ones, and as dusk began to settle, we decided to spend the night at an inn along the way.
"It'll be nice to have proper inn food for a change. Eating nothing but jerky every day in Nanman nearly drove me insane."
"Didn't you catch frogs to eat, my lord? I was the one eating actual jerky."
So with our spirits high, we pushed open the inn's door and—
"You dare touch the Diancang Sect in Yunnan and think you'll walk away unscathed?"
"Well? But the Diancang Sect is... rather an unremarkable sect, wouldn't you say?"
A man with his sword drawn was locked in a standoff against seventeen-to-one odds.
Oh, and the seventeen were the Diancang Sect.