Chapter 45: A Breach in Discipline (5)

“In barely ten days you’ve withered like this? Not eating?”

“......”

“Oh? So we’re done here—you won’t even answer?”

“......”

“Fine. You probably have nothing to say.”

Kang Yun looked pitiful behind the iron bars.

Prison garb on his back, shackles linked by a chain on both wrists. His hair was a wild, lifeless mess.

Staring at him °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° for a moment, Yeon Hojeong spoke to the Law Blade Pavilion Master.

“Open this door, please.”

An awkward look crossed the Pavilion Master’s face.

“That... would be...”

“Don’t worry. I’m the one who had him thrown in here—think I’ll just let him out? Ah.”

Yeon Hojeong drew a small letter from his breast.

“I already have the Clan Lord’s leave. Here.”

The Pavilion Master nodded after reading. The handwriting and seal were certainly the Clan Lord’s.

“Understood. But be careful. A prisoner may act out.”

“He could bring ten more like him and it wouldn’t matter.”

Clank.

When the bars swung open, Yeon Hojeong stepped inside.

Even with the gate openly ajar, Kang Yun didn’t react.

Yeon Hojeong sat right beside him without hesitation.

Kang Yun’s body flinched—he had sat too close.

“Your inner power’s been sealed. You cold?”

“......”

“Pointless question, right? Are they feeding you properly?”

“......Why are you here?”

“Do I need your permission to visit? If I want to come, I come.”

Words that left nothing to push back against.

Leaning his head to the wall, Yeon Hojeong spoke in an offhand tone.

“Yu Jiha took punishment, too.”

“......”

“No matter how moronic your conduct, you were a Captain. There’s room for consideration, but the charge of disobeying orders doesn’t vanish. So—six months’ docked pay, and for three months he’s solely responsible for the entire unit’s administrative overhaul.”

Handling a unit’s overhaul alone was no small burden. Even with a full day poured into it, finishing in time would be doubtful.

“But the kid ground through the cleanup and still finished his personal training before sleeping. Looks like he’s not even getting two si-jin of sleep a day.”

“......”

“I don’t know how long that effort will last, but for now he looks... happy. He’s a tough one. His hunger to get stronger was that large.”

Kang Yun asked,

“Why tell me this?”

“So you’ll know.”

“......”

“I don’t know every word of the clan code. But I do know that even for the same offense, motive and aim change the sentence. There were reasons you drew heavier punishment than Yu Jiha.”

Kang Yun looked at him.

His eyes were hard to read beneath the hanging hair.

“Severity is essential to law. When it goes too far, though, you get new problems.”

“So you reduced my sentence?”

“As if. That was just my mood. You committed insubordination, but looking back, my anger faded. I judged abolishing your inner power to be too much.”

“......”

“It’s not my place to preach, but you were lucky.”

Kang Yun’s hair stirred with a laugh—bitter or derisive, hard to tell.

Yeon Hojeong’s gaze deepened.

“You may be a cripple and a fool, but at minimum you seemed to have pride in the Flying Hawks of the Yeon clan of Green Mountain.”

“......!”

“You despised me because you didn’t want to accept that the clan’s First Young Master was a layabout, isn’t that it?”

Kang Yun’s eyes shook.

Hearing it baldly to his face left him wrong-footed.

Yeon Hojeong let out a short laugh.

“Crooked as it is, you still have affection for the main house.”

“How would you know that, First Young Master?”

“Do I need to touch filth to tell whether it’s mud or manure?”

...Crude metaphor.

Yeon Hojeong rose.

“Think about what truly serves the main house.”

“......I have a question.”

“What.”

Kang Yun raised his head.

“Besides me—did you also reduce the sentences of the others involved in this mess?”

He meant: did he treat the offenders in other units the same way.

Yeon Hojeong’s eyes went cold.

“Everyone but two—dead.”

“......!!”

“Their crimes were clear. Drunk or not, murdering a man unjustly is a death crime. They even buried it where no one would find it. There was no room for consideration.”

Gooseflesh climbed Kang Yun’s arms.

Had he strayed a little farther, his life could have been forfeit. The thought sent a chill up his spine.

Looking down at the trembling man, Yeon Hojeong went on,

“It may be that a great crisis will hit the main house soon.”

Startled, Kang Yun looked up at him.

All at once his vision dimmed. From the indifferent eyes fixed on him, a merciless killing will was spilling out.

“I hope not. But if it does, lend your strength. Prove that your affection for the main house is true.”

“......”

“Even with your inner power sealed, you can still train. Don’t waste time. At the very least, be better than the boy who was once your subordinate.”

****

“Brother.”

“Huh? You were waiting?”

Yeon Jipyeong gave a sheepish smile.

“You said we’d go to Father today.”

“Eh?! Did I?”

“Good grief—did you really forget?”

“I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

“You’re impossible.”

“You little—”

Yeon Hojeong thoroughly mussed Yeon Jipyeong’s hair. Jipyeong yelped.

“Come on—time to get scolded.”

Four days passed.

Yeon Hojeong’s routine grew even harsher. In more than four months he had broken through his limits multiple times; this time, too, he wanted to go past himself again.

He shaved another si-jin off his sleep and doubled his food intake. Naturally, the intensity of practice climbed far beyond before.

Past-life martial arts and insight or not, you don’t get strong without ruthless effort. For the last half-year, no one trained more brutally than Yeon Hojeong.

Another day fell away like that.

He didn’t manage to summon White Tiger Qi, regrettably, but his Jade Wave True Qi surged to six-tenths completion. Given how recently he’d entered the method, the pace was staggering.

He now lacked nothing to be called a proper master. There was no need to torture his muscles by force—he’d grown enough to wield a solid martial system.

At noon that same day he grasped six-tenths in Jade Wave True Qi,

the Rear Beggar finally arrived.

“Thief, my good man! Got the table set?”

Yeon Hojeong grinned.

“Leave a single grain of rice and you won’t get a drop of soup.”

****

“How goes the work?”

“Almost finished. The laborers are making the final push.”

“The timeline?”

“From the hot wind blowing through the passage, generously—five days.”

“Good.”

An elderly man in bright finery snipped flower branches with a pair of shears.

“When it’s done, bury the laborers too.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chilling, whether it was the elder ordering death without a blink, or the middle-aged man nodding as if it were only natural.

A faint thrill colored the elder’s face.

“At last, we’ll have it—the opportunity our forebears arranged. It has been a long time coming, hasn’t it?”

“Twelve full years.”

“With that secured opportunity, our next generation could even press Shaolin under heel.”

“The next generation? If what our ancestors left is true, it won’t take years.”

“Heh. Wouldn’t that be grand.”

The elder straightened his back.

“By the way—any word from Mo Yong?”

“Yes. Nothing yet. It seems Mo Yong has headaches of their own.”

The elder clicked his tongue.

“Infuriating dullards. What holds them up that they keep putting off an answer?”

“They’re uneasy. The Yeon clan of Green Mountain is young in history, and its foundations are thin. They fear the Mo Yong clan might play them.”

“That’s why they amount to so little—fools holding a fortune and unable to use it. A peerless sword in a butcher’s hand.”

“Quite so.”

The elder—Ming Cheon—shook his head.

“Send to Mo Yong. If the Yeon clan refuses again, tell them to give up.”

“Truly, sir?”

“What else? With a child who won’t listen, you raise the stick. I wished to leave them a thread to keep the line alive, but if they keep canting like this, we’ve no other choice.”

A shadow of unease touched the middle-aged man’s face.

“If you truly mean to bury the Yeon clan, we must prepare thoroughly.”

“Of course. They’ve got next to no ability, but they do have a bit of public esteem.”

“They say the current Clan Lord’s martial art is formidable. They say the Judge’s Sword cleaves even waves. Ten years hence, he may ascend to the Saintly Heaven Thirteen Seats.”

Ming Cheon’s gaze went cold at once.

Saintly Heaven Thirteen Seats.

The title for the transcendent figures who represented the current age of the Martial World.

People say the highest zenith of the Martial World’s long history came three hundred years ago, at the time of the Blood Sect Uprising.

Three centuries past was the era when swarms of invincible masters capable of contesting the best under heaven sprang forth. In any age, without question, they would have been called number one under heaven—and there were ten such people, all in that one time.

But time moved on, and in this age too, men nearing the Absolute have begun to surface. The world calls them the Saintly Heaven Thirteen Seats—

ten Immortal Emperors, and three Lords of Three Armies.

Regrettably, the Ming Clan of the Nine Provinces, famed as the foremost under heaven, still had no one who had taken a seat among the Thirteen.

If Father were still alive...

The Ming bloodline had short lives.

With no particular illness, no qi deviation, it was still so. People called the Ming clan’s short span a family curse.

It’s not a curse. It’s the martial art.

The Ming clan’s art was incomplete.

It could lay claim to absolute heights, but to draw out that power it consumed life-force. So the Ming brought in even foreign arts to fix the flaw.

Naturally, the flaw didn’t yield. The art grew stronger; the lives stayed short.

But now, it’s all right. If we only reclaim the source of our house’s art...!

Three hundred years ago, beyond the countless masters who claimed invincibility each, a single peerless unmatched one appeared—

the Four Directions Martial Emperor.

Also called the Yellow Dragon Emperor, his mastery surpassed the best under heaven—worthy to be called the greatest of all time.

An age gone makes it hard to gauge his true measure, but connoisseurs never balked at setting his name above even Bodhidharma or the Heavenly Demon.

Ming Cheon knew they weren’t merely talking big.

Because it was the Ming clan’s own forebears who, together with the Four Directions Martial Emperor, crushed the Blood Sect. And it was that very Emperor who passed a little of his art down to those forebears.

With that little art, the Ming of the Nine Provinces had grown this vast. Ming Cheon was convinced: the Four Directions Martial Emperor was the strongest martial figure in history.

And thirteen years ago, they discovered the dying testament left by the First Patriarch.

“Would it not be worth testing?”

“Sir?”

A sinister killing intent crept over Ming Cheon’s face.

“Once we reclaim our art—why not test how superb it is against the Yeon clan.”