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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: Hwa Mujin Proposes a Duel
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Jeongcheon, having taken over Mujin's body, quickly closed his eyes and inspected himself.
Or rather, he tried to.
'Huh? My internal energy... is gone?!!!'
No matter how much the family had fallen, he was still the son of a martial family.
But how could it be that he didn't have even a sliver of internal energy?
"You said your name was Masok?"
"Yes, Young Master."
Masok watched with anxious eyes as he opened his mouth after keeping them closed for a long while.
"Did I... inherit my father's severed meridians?"
"What? Of course not! You inherited your grandfather's martial talent completely! When you were a child, your exceptional talent and insight were so great that countless orthodox sects wanted to take you as a disciple!"
"Then why is my dantian completely empty? No. It can't even be called a dantian."
At Mujin's question, a long sigh escaped Masok's lips once more.
"Haaa. You may not remember, Young Master, but when you were a child, your relatives from your mother's side came to visit. Her younger sisters' families came to see your mother, who was frail. During some horseplay with your cousin, you were struck in the head by the Seven Injuries Fist he was learning at the time..."
His voice trailed off as Masok finally shed tears.
Mujin was six years old.
The accident had happened in the very year that Mujin, born the year his grandfather died, was about to begin training in the Red Flame Arts his grandfather had left behind, in place of his father.
Struck by the Seven Injuries Fist from his then nine-year-old cousin, Mujin's mind became clouded, and his brilliant martial talent and insight were buried from that day forward.
"I see. Still, I should have been able to learn martial arts after that."
"Well... since your mind was not sound, Young Master... you were in no condition to learn. You would occasionally regain your senses, but you were often so shocked by the passage of time you couldn't remember that you would faint. As your madness worsened, the seizures became more frequent, and you often acted bizarrely..."
Hearing Masok's story, his heart grew heavy.
In his past life, before meeting his master, he had survived alone in a harsh world as a young boy.
Even to him, Mujin's life seemed truly tragic.
To come to your senses only to find that a chunk of time you can't remember has passed, living in constant anxiety, never knowing when you might lose your mind again.
'The world is full of all kinds of misfortune.'
"But what happened to that bastard?"
"Pardon?"
Masok, having wiped his tears, asked back with a blank expression.
"The one who crippled me. My cousin."
"He was... scolded and sent home."
"Scolded, you say. I suppose they couldn't kill him since he was a child. His limbs' tendons and meridians must have been severed, then."
"Not exactly..."
"Then they must have destroyed his dantian."
"Of course not. He's the young master of the Cheonghwa Merchant Guild..."
Mujin's brow furrowed in irritation.
"What kind of scolding leaves him with all his limbs intact?"
"Well... a stern reprimand..."
"Fucking hell."
Masok was shocked by the vulgar language, something Mujin had never uttered in his frail, bedridden life.
"Y-Young Master..."
"Crippling a promising martial artist, the eldest son of a martial family no less, and he gets a stern reprimand? A son of our family was crippled. Is our family a gathering of pushovers?"
"Young Master... Haa. At the time, the family retainers were furious, insisting it shouldn't be overlooked... but it was a mistake made by your aunt's son. It was the Family Head's decision not to escalate things further with his wife's sister's family, who had come to visit their frail sister..."
"A father I can hardly warm up to. He should have been a scholar reading books and cultivating the way in some quiet mountain valley, not the head of a martial family."
"Young Master..."
Masok had nothing to say, even if Mujin blamed his father.
In fact, there had been much talk when Mujin's father, who had failed to inherit the family's martial arts, became the head.
Most of his usual acquaintances were scholars instead of warriors.
The previous Family Head enjoyed discussing scholarly matters with them over tea.
Even to the ignorant Masok, he didn't seem fit to be the head of a martial family.
That day.
Because of the previous Family Head's choice, many retainers who had protected the Yeomhwa Family left.
That was likely the moment the family's fortunes truly began to decline.
Ten years after that incident.
Unable to overcome her sorrow at Mujin's worsening condition, his mother passed away. His father, too, couldn't hold on for more than three years and departed, leaving behind a family on the brink of ruin.
All that remained were the debts incurred to treat Mujin, Mujin himself suffering from madness, and two young children.
And now, only two retainers and the dozen or so warriors they commanded were left.
As Mujin started walking again, Masok hurried ahead, took his arm, and led the way.
It was a habit Masok had developed from always attending to him.
A habit born from Mujin's tendency to suddenly change as if possessed and disappear, even when he seemed fine.
"By the way, how old am I now?"
"You are twenty-three years of age."
"So it's been seventeen years since I was hit by the Seven Injuries Fist?"
"Yes..."
There was no strength in Masok's voice as he replied.
'Even if it was the Seven Injuries Fist of a young martial artist, he must have reached the first level. And he survived for another seventeen years after being hit by that?'
As far as Mujin knew, the Seven Injuries Fist was not a technique to be taken lightly.
The Seven Injuries Fist, passed down from the Kongtong Sect, was known not to be an orthodox art because it damaged the user's internal organs as well, but it was a fearsome technique that would endlessly torment anyone struck by it.
If one couldn't properly defend against the Seven Injuries energy flowing in through penetrating force, the Seven Injuries Fist could easily shorten one's life.
'If he learned the Seven Injuries Fist, he must be a disciple of the Kongtong Sect. No matter how young, he should have known better than to use it on a child who doesn't know martial arts...'
Lost in such thoughts, he followed Masok until a small, shabby manor came into view.
A dilapidated manor so worn down it was embarrassing to even call it one.
"This is my family's estate?"
Though it was a question from Mujin, who had lived here his whole life, it was also a question from one who had forgotten everything. Masok felt ashamed as he looked up at the entrance of the utterly rundown manor.
"Yes... this is it."
"Well, it's not so bad."
Leaving those words behind, Mujin strode up the broken stone steps, and Masok followed.
In his past life, he had spent his childhood wandering the streets, begging and stealing. When he finally met his master, all they had was a single hut deep in the mountains.
Afterwards, he had traveled the martial world alone, relying on a single sword and living a rough life. To him, this large, albeit old, manor seemed more than good enough.
*Creeeeak.*
With a sound that was hard to believe came from a manor's main gate, the doors opened, and just inside, a large group of people stood in a tense standoff.
"Young Master!!!"
A gray-haired old man rushed toward the returned Mujin, shouting loudly.
His eyes red, he ran over and began to inspect Mujin from head to toe.
"Are you alright?"
Instead of answering, Mujin looked at Masok.
"Who is he?"
"He is the steward of the Yeomhwa Family. He has managed the family's affairs since your grandfather's time."
Masok, sensing the situation, whispered in his ear. Mujin nodded and looked at the figures in the standoff ahead.
"And who are they?"
"They are from your mother's family. The ones at the front are the aunt and cousin I mentioned earlier, Young Master."
Having brought a large number of warriors with them, they looked like debt collectors who had come to demand payment.
"And the young children in front of them?"
"Those are... your younger siblings, Young Master."
"I have siblings?"
"They are your eight-year-old twin siblings. They are the last treasures your mother and the previous Family Head left behind. The young lord's name is Dojin, and the young lady's name is Soyeon."
The words "last treasures" sounded somehow bitter to Mujin.
A middle-aged woman and a young warrior with his arms crossed beside her finally turned around, their expressions annoyed.
"It's been a while. Are you not going to greet an elder of the family?"
"Mother, isn't he out of his mind? Do you think he even knows who we are? He's a pitiful wretch who doesn't have much time left. Just leave him be."
The insolent tone of the mother and son's conversation made the back of Mujin's neck stiffen for the first time in a long while.
'Their behavior reminds me of the dogs from the Nine Great Sects.'
Mujin walked forward, passing the warriors they had brought.
The warriors tried to block his path, but when Mujin pushed through, they faltered before his aura and stepped aside, clearing a way.
He was, after all, once known as the Divine Demon, a man who had cut down hundreds of elite masters from the orthodox sects.
He may have lost his martial arts, but not his spirit.
As he passed them and drew closer, he saw a boy and a girl with identical eyes, their own eyes red as they clenched their teeth, holding back tears.
'These children are my siblings?'
For some reason, when he looked at the two children, he seemed to see the face of his deceased mother superimposed over theirs.
'It's like seeing Seok-i and Yeong-a.'
The two younger siblings of the only woman he had ever loved in his time as Jeongcheon.
Coincidentally, these children were of a similar age and gender to those two.
Mujin patted the two children on the head and smiled at them. Their eyes began to widen.
Seeing the smile that Mujin sometimes showed when his sanity returned, the anxiety that had been growing in the children's hearts subsided.
Mujin turned around and spoke.
"To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit to our humble home, Aunt?"
"How many times must I tell you? Have you lost your memory again?"
"Yes. I heard it was because of some son of a bitch, but I haven't yet heard who that son of a bitch is."
At Mujin's words, his cousin, who had been standing with his arms crossed, lunged forward.
"Control yourself."
If not for his mother holding him back, he would have smashed the Seven Injuries Fist into Mujin's face once more and severed what little remained of his life.
"Since you can't remember, I will say this one last time. You are the only bloodline of my sister, my own flesh and blood. Your father was a lacking man, but for the sake of my sister's sorrow, who sacrificed her entire life for such a man, the lineage of your Yeomhwa Family must continue, must it not? You, too, are unable to carry on the martial line due to an unfortunate *accident*. So now, I intend to have the Yeomhwa Family's legacy arts passed down to my son here."
Mujin smiled, watching his aunt speak so brazenly without a change in her expression.
"What miraculous logic. Even if not me, my two siblings are alive and well. Why should the martial arts of their father's family be passed to their mother's relatives? And you're not even direct relatives, are you? Even if my siblings and I were to disappear, our grandfather's arts belong to the Yeomhwa Family. Wouldn't it be right for them to go to the warriors of the Yeomhwa Family?"
Her nephew, who was supposed to be insane, spoke with such sharp clarity that wrinkles formed around her eyes.
Even when he was lucid, he could never properly retort. Now, he was dissecting her logic piece by piece. She found it absurd.
"So what? You intend to have *those* children inherit the Flame Emperor's arts?!"
The young man with the heart of a thief—his cousin—asked with a scowl.
"Is there a problem? If anything, their training is already late, so they must begin as soon as possible."
"Hmph! They'll just end up half-wits like you."
Mujin did not miss the words he muttered as if to himself.
'Just as I thought. It wasn't some accident caused by a childish spat.'
Having roamed the martial world alone for twenty years, Mujin knew well that there were no coincidences.
Every incident was inevitable and always had a reason.
Because of a childish spat.
The notion of an accidental incident was unthinkable in the martial world.
With that one sentence from his cousin, Cheong Dobo, Mujin's suspicions were confirmed, and the entire picture clicked perfectly into place in his mind.
"Those words. A day will come when you will have to take responsibility for them."
"W-What are you talking about? Are you hearing things now?"
She belatedly protested, but words once spoken cannot be taken back.
She glanced at her careless son, flustered for a moment, but quickly regained her confident posture as if nothing had happened.
A martial family with nothing but a dozen third-rate warriors left.
A sickly nephew from a family that couldn't even continue its martial lineage, who could die at any moment, posed no threat to her.
The martial might of her own merchant family was enough to wipe out a worthless martial family like this at any time.
The only reason she had left the Yeomhwa Family alone was that she didn't know where or how the Flame Emperor's secret arts were hidden and passed down.
'Financially, I've already driven them to the point where they could collapse at any moment. Let's see how much longer they can hold on.'
Having finished her thought, she raised her chin, the corner of her mouth curling into a smirk.
"If that is your decision, then so be it. But remember this. If something were to happen to you, those children would be abandoned in this wide world. Your resolve will be necessary if you don't want them to be burdened with massive debt and live out a miserable existence. I am a woman of a merchant house. I will not be careless with the price I pay for goods. Do you understand?"
With that, she and her warriors turned to leave.
Mujin did not hesitate to spit out a final word at her back.
"Can you call yourself a warrior if you sell your family's martial arts for a few coins? Such vulgar thoughts belong to merchants. Not to warriors."
Finally realizing that Mujin had indirectly called him a vulgar merchant, Cheong Dobo could not contain his anger and spun around.
"If you're so confident, why don't we settle this with strength? A powerless weakling like you dares to speak of warriors!"
"Very well. Since I have yet to begin my training, how about the fifth day of the month after next? Let us settle everything with a duel, as warriors do."
"Words once spoken cannot be taken back."
"I find it hard to believe you're one to know that well."
With a face flushed red, Cheong Dobo turned on his heel and stormed away, not sparing another word for Mujin.