Episode 283: Whose seat is this?
Moonlight descended on the Cheonmasingyo Shrine.
Bloodthirsty Doma was drinking while leaning against the Myeolcheondaedo, which he had placed in the yard. After all, drinking alcohol was the most enjoyable when leaning against the Myeolcheondaedo.
At that moment, a welcoming voice was heard from behind.
“You always had a book in your hand, but why are you drinking today?”
A smile appeared on the lips of Hyeolcheon Doma, who was drinking alcohol.
Geommu-geuk sat down next to him. At first, they always sat across from each other, but now it was more comfortable to sit next to him.
“Please let me have a drink too.”
Geommugeuk drank the wine that Hyeolcheon Doma gave him.
“Wow, that’s good.”
“You must be busy with work.”
“No matter how busy you are, you have to see the people you want to see. Are you bored without me?”
“If you’re bored, you can read a book, and if you’re still bored, you can drink alcohol.”
“What about Master?”
“That guy is practicing in the backyard.”
It seems like she’s practicing alone because she can’t go to the late-night training meeting. Come to think of it, Cheon So-hee is probably practicing alone. No, she might be enjoying her freedom and having fun on her own.
“What are you worried about?”
You are so quick-witted.
“Are you reading the weather?”
“An old man should at least have some sense. Why? Did the entire martial arts world mobilize to catch you? Did they spread out a net of heaven and earth?”
“If only it had been like that, it wouldn’t have been a problem. Just jump out, old man! Just one word will do.”
When my mind becomes complicated, I look for someone like Hyeolcheondo. It’s not that I’m looking for an answer, but just being with him like this makes me feel at ease. When I talk like this, I often find answers.
Hyeolcheon Doma said as he poured me a drink.
“Don’t try too hard.”
“Do you see it?”
Bloodthirsty Demon nodded. I stiffened without realizing it. I was really careful because it was related to fire weapons.
“Do you think you’ll die thinking, ‘I should have done better when I die?’ Never. I should have seen that person at least once more. I should have said one more kind word to him. That’s life, dying like that.”
The more you learn about the Bloodthirsty Horse, the more unexpected things you see.
When I first met him, would I have ever imagined that he would say something like this? Of course, there are some things that have changed since I met him, but I think he says things like this because he reads a lot of books.
“Then I’m doing well. I came to see you like this so that I won’t regret it.”
Although he was happy inside, he never forgot the one thing he always said.
“I will think well. I will think of a masked man, a drunkard, a fighter, and a non-martial man.”
Geommugeuk looked up at the moon with a smile.
“I guess you can’t see it because of this big sword, but there’s always an old man at the very front.”
Bloodthirsty Horse and the Devil also looked up at the moon together with a smile.
“What do you think you will regret the most, sir?”
His gaze deepened slightly. Was he thinking back to his younger days when he could have gotten along well with Ilhwageomjeon? Or was he thinking back to another unspeakable regret?
“I have no regrets or attachments.”
A faint smile appeared on Geommu-geuk’s lips. Yes, I hope he lives a life without regrets. Not just a life without regrets in words, but a life without regrets in reality.
“I met Master Jin Ha today.”
At Geommu-geuk’s words, Hyeolcheon Doma’s eyes became intense. Because he knew that Baek Cheon-gyeong was the one who held the key to this matter.
“How is it?”
“He was no ordinary man. Both in his mentality and his martial arts skills.”
Bloodthirsty Demon nodded.
“Otherwise, there would be no reason for us to be here.”
“No matter how you handle it, I think you have to be careful.”
“It won’t be easy. Even if you are careful, the other person won’t be careful.”
“What do you mean?”
Then, Hyeolcheon Doma said something unexpected.
“If I make you my enemy, I will inevitably become anxious and afraid.”
“It feels good to hear praise from an elder after such a long time. Please praise me more! Don’t worry, I’m not arrogant.”
“You do it.”
Geommugeuk laughed loudly, and Hyeolcheondoma also laughed along.
Two people drank alcohol.
It would be nice to just drink like this and feel good, but there was a reason why Geommu Geuk came today.
Geommugeuk took something out of his bosom.
“Have you ever seen this?”
It was a doll brought from Baek Cheon-gyeong’s workshop.
Bloodthirsty Demon shook his head.
“He’s a nasty looking guy.”
The body is perfectly chiseled, but the face is empty, so it looks even more so.
“Do you know anything about the Mokhyeongcheonhonsul?”
When he heard the words “Mokhyungcheonhonsul,” Hyeolcheondoma was startled. His gaze immediately turned to the wooden doll.
“Could it be that this doll is used for that martial arts?”
As expected, Hyeolcheon Doma knew about the Mokhyeongcheonhonsul. He had excellent information and insight on the various schools and martial arts of the martial arts world.
“Baek Cheon-gyeong was the one who mastered it. This doll was also carved by him.”
“No way!”
There was a reason for Hyeolcheon Doma’s surprise.
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“The Mokhyeongcheonhonsul was a martial art from a mysterious school called Mokcheonga. However, Mokcheonga has already been destroyed, so there is someone alive who learned that martial art?”
“They destroyed the clan?”
Geommugeuk knew about the Mokhyeongcheonhonsul, but they didn’t know that their family had been destroyed.
“It was destroyed over a dozen years ago.”
“How did the clan become extinct?”
Bloodthirsty Demon shook his head.
“Little is known about him. As expected from a mysterious sect, his final moments were shrouded in secrecy.”
Baek Cheon-gyeong is a descendant of the Mokcheon family that was destroyed? It was the moment when an unexpected truth was revealed.
“The master of the grandson of the leader of the martial arts world is a descendant of the Mokcheon family that was destroyed? This is definitely not normal.”
“Jin Ha-gun is completely unaware of this fact. I suspect the leader of the martial arts world is also unaware of it.”
“I heard that Mokcheonga’s secret technique is as secretive and enigmatic as the energy of the forest. If you had deliberately hidden it, you might not have known. But how did you find out?”
“The Nine-Handed Demon Lord has responded. Perhaps the origin of the Mokhyeongcheonsul technique originated from demonic power.”
Because it was an absolute magic that took precedence over any other magic, and it was the pinnacle of magic, the nine-flower magic.
A descendant of a mysterious sect that was destroyed has infiltrated the Murim Alliance? He is the master of the leader’s grandson, and he has a fire weapon behind him?
“What should I do? Please give me an answer, sir!”
No matter how much he tried to joke, there was no answer that Hyeolcheon Doma could give.
“I don’t know. I’ve lived my life killing everyone without thinking about the consequences.”
Hyeolcheondoma added, tilting his glass.
“That’s why it’s hard to kill a low-level person, and hard to keep a high-level person alive.”
* * *
At the same time, Jin Ha-ryeong was meeting Jin Ha-gun.
“What happened?”
Jin Ha hesitated for a moment to answer his brother’s question. It was not easy to say that his master did not think of him as a disciple. So he relayed only part of what Geommu Geuk had said.
“He said he didn’t know much yet because it was our first meeting.”
Jin Ha-ryeong felt two emotions at the same time from her brother’s expression. Anger and hope. She could guess who each of them was.
“Brother.”
“why?”
She wanted to tell him that she trusted her brother. So, trust yourself. But she knew Jin Ha-gun’s personality. In this situation, saying something like that would only hurt his pride and have the opposite effect.
“I guess even my brother is unmanned.”
“what do you mean?”
“When a crisis comes, your eyes sparkle.”
Jin Ha-gun smiled bitterly. It was his younger brother’s eyes that were sparkling. He knew what kind of eyes he had without having to look at Dong-gyeong.
“Instead, don’t try to shoulder that crisis alone. It’s cool to do it alone. I think that’s just bluffing.”
The little boy who used to cry and ask to be carried is now grown up and comforting himself.
“If you are having a hard time, could it be because your faith is ambiguous?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you want to believe in the Sword Dance, you have to believe it for sure, but you can’t. Why don’t you just believe it for sure? Since you believe it anyway, you asked for help, right?”
“And what if everything is taken away?”
“So if it’s going to be taken away, it won’t be taken away even if you don’t believe it?”
“!”
“When I saw that guy in the sword dance, I never felt like the door was closed. It was wide open, so it felt like I couldn’t enter without permission. If someone can open it anyway, wouldn’t it be better to just get rid of the flimsy lock? Ah, I talked too much for nothing. Now, take a rest.”
As she was about to come out, Jin Ha-gun said.
“thanks.”
Jin Ha-ryeong felt that her brother was growing up. He didn’t lose his temper or get hurt. If it were before… well, if it were back then, it wouldn’t have been the kind of atmosphere to say something like that.
Jin Ha-ryeong pretended to hold a much bigger achievement in his chest, just as Jin Ha-gun had done when he compared himself to Geommu-geuk.
“My brother is such a big guy to me!”
* * *
The next day, I went to see Baek Cheon-gyeong.
He seemed not at all surprised, as if he had expected my visit.
“The young leader has nothing to do.”
Now that I know that he is a descendant of the extinct Mokcheon family, I feel different from when I saw him yesterday.
Baek Cheon-gyeong, what are you doing here?
Even if it is the same question, the feeling is different. And I will not hear the answer to this question from him. After leaving the Blood Heavenly Demon’s residence last night, I immediately sent an urgent telegram to Go-wol. It was a telegram telling me to work together with Tongcheon-gak to find out all the information related to Mokcheon-ga and send it to him. I will hear the answer from Go-wol.
“If there were a war between you guys, what would the little cult leader be busy with?”
“Do you have time to see me? You must be busy meeting Ha-ryeong.”
“Jin Dae-ju is being sarcastic and has been blocking me. He says that I can never see my sister again without my master’s permission. He says that if I touch her, war will break out.”
“I guess it’s scary to see a war break out while you’re active in the martial arts alliance as the leader of a demonic cult.”
“It wasn’t the obvious threat that scared me. It was the fact that I understood Jin Dae-joo’s efforts to protect his younger sister as a fellow man.”
Baek Cheon-gyeong turned around and went in. The fact that he didn’t close the door meant that he was told to come in, so he followed him in and started complaining for no reason.
“Even so, this is not right. It was clearly my younger brother who invited me.”
Baek Cheon-gyeong pretended not to hear and sat down to start carving wood. Since I came, he has only shown himself carving wood.
But now I know. How scary this moment is. Because every time I meet him, he creates subordinates.
He asked while carving the tree.
“If I tell you not to see me, will you go back?”
I looked around the workshop and asked as if it was nothing special.
“Will that happen?”
I don’t think so. He’ll try to use me for his own benefit in some way.
“Of course. I must accept my disciple’s will.”
“I guess you care a lot about your disciples.”
Baek Cheon-gyeong neither confirmed nor denied. Deep in his heart, what does he think of Jin Ha-gun? Does he intend to use him to his heart’s content and then throw him away? Or does he truly consider him his disciple?
“I won’t back down until you let me meet her. I’m the kind of person who does it if I have to do it again.”
Then I lifted the cloth that had been covering the display case. The positions of the dolls had changed again from yesterday.
All the dolls were standing in a formation, forming a circle, surrounding someone. They were pulling out their weapons and attacking, clearly trying to attack their opponent.
But at the center of it all, there was no doll at all.
“Whose seat is this?”
“That depends on how you come out. You can stand, or Ha-gun can stand.”
“Why are you taking it off?”
Baek Cheon-gyeong raised his head and stared at me.
“Didn’t you say that yesterday? You didn’t come here to kill me.”
“That’s right. That’s right.”
“Then it would most likely be you.”
I took the doll out of my arms. It was the faceless doll I had taken yesterday.
“Or maybe it’s this guy.”
He didn’t mention it specifically, as if he already knew what I had taken.
“I want to carve this doll’s face.”
But I reacted immediately to these words. Baek Cheon-gyeong looked at me and asked.
“Who are you going to engrave?”
“You are the one who created this in the first place, so you know who it is.”
His and my gazes met in the air.
“He could be anyone.”
“Could you teach me how to carve it? I’ll try to finish it.”
He went back to chopping wood as if it wasn’t worth answering.
Square, square.
I put the faceless doll back in my arms.
Then I took another chisel and some wood from the workbench and imitated what he was doing.
“This carving knife is just a knife after all, isn’t it? I’m an expert when it comes to using knives.”
I made it roughly following what he did.
Could he move something I made? Of course not. After all, it is made of wood. Or, since he didn’t make it himself, it might not move at his command.
“This is harder than it looks.”
I carved the doll like that for a long time. When the shape of a human was roughly formed, I showed it to him.
“What do you think? Doesn’t it still seem pretty plausible?”
It seems like Baek Cheon-gyeong just can’t understand me like this.
“What is your true purpose?”
“It’s about winning Lady Jin’s heart.”
He was half in doubt. If he believed it, he wouldn’t believe it, and if he didn’t believe it, he would wonder why it was like this.
“If you allow me to meet her, I will repay you.”
“pay?”
“If something comes, shouldn’t something go?”
“I wouldn’t accept anything that belongs to Mine even if I were paid a thousand pieces of gold.”
“What if I give you something more important than a thousand pieces of gold?”
Curiosity crossed Baek Cheon-gyeong’s face.
“For example, what if it’s Cheonhwamun?”
Surprise crossed Baek Cheon-gyeong’s eyes, perhaps because he had not expected such words.
“I know that you connected the Heavenly Flower Lord and the True Lord. Why did you act for the Heavenly Flower Lord?”
I mentioned Cheonhwamun at an unexpected time and observed his reaction.
“I was just trying to save the son of the Heavenly Flower Lord from your clutches.”
“You knew that the son was a wicked man, didn’t you? Aren’t you right?”
“Good and evil are relative concepts. Honestly, aren’t you the more evil one?”
“That’s right. It certainly is relative. I have a feeling that you are a worse person than I am.”
A faint smile appeared on his lips. It was like a sneer of denial, but it was also like a smile of recognition.
At the end of the conversation, Baek Cheon-gyeong’s gaze turned back to the wooden doll he was carving.
Square, square.
He was making endless dolls. What was he going to do with all those dolls? What on earth was he going to do?
“I’ll come learn again tomorrow.”
* * *
After the sword dance left, Baek Cheon-gyeong soon finished the doll he had been carving.
He fiddled with it for a moment, looked down at it, then got up from his seat and slowly walked over to the display case.
“That doll could be anyone… … .”
Baek Cheon-gyeong placed the doll he had made in the center of the siege and spoke in a tone as calm as his eyes.
“Anyone can come here.”
The finished doll was of a young woman.
