#68: Threads Of Ill Fate (4) — The Patriarch of Sichuan

The heated atmosphere cooled to ice.

Kwaang!

The young man who slammed the table shot to his feet.

“Look at this lunatic. Where do you think you are, wagging that wicked tongue?”

Deureureuk.

Jin-hyeon opened the door without a reply.

A bluish killing intent flickered in the youth’s eyes.

“Stop right there, you!”

Just then, Song Cheol-gwang spoke.

“That is enough.”

“Father?!”

The eldest son, Song Geon, about to protest, shut his mouth at once. This was because of the bitter contempt on Song Cheol-gwang’s face.

“Young hero Jin.”

“Do you have more to say?”

Like Song Cheol-gwang’s tone, Jin-hyeon’s tone had changed too. That only angered Song Cheol-gwang further.

“I treated you with sincerity. I recognized your value and offered you a place as an honored guest. Yet your attitude is excessively rude.”

That he did not spring up and brandish a spear at this point was entirely because of the other guest. If only the Divine Spear family were present, blood would have been spilled already.

Watching him, Jin-hyeon spoke with obvious puzzlement.

“Why should I show you courtesy?”

“What?!”

“I am not so foolish as to forget the respect due to a senior who has braved life’s crashing waves ahead of me, even if not as far as reverence. Even had you been a ruined vagrant, I would have bowed.”

“And yet how dare you!”

“Must I fake courtesy to a swindler who took bribes and, together with the Mighty Tiger, fleeced the innocent?”

“!”

The room’s temperature, which seemed unable to drop further, now plunged below ground.

Even the man at the left head seat, who had been drinking with an impassive face, hardened his expression.

“I venture that plenty around you crawl on their bellies with feigned respect. Do not try to add me, an oddity, to prop up your hollow pride. I advise you to live a life you can stand tall in even without being flattered.”

“You dare presume to teach me?”

“When the country was upright, even the emperor had a teacher. One sage said you can learn even from a three-year-old child.”

Jin-hyeon smiled strangely.

“Whichever way I look, you do not seem like overlord material.”

“Why you…!”

“Have you compensated those you fleeced?”

“…”

“Seeing you hold a drinking party in a lodge like this, it seems you don’t lack in money. Even if not with coin, is it not human decency to at least bow and apologize? Did you do so?”

Song Cheol-gwang could bear it no longer.

Kwaang!

Slamming the table, a terrible aura burst from his body.

“You wretch! It seems there is nothing you cannot say. Must your tongue be torn out for you to come to your senses?!”

“Open those ears that grow keen only when it suits you, Song Cheol-gwang, and listen.”

In that instant, the Heavenly Wolf True Art surged.

Fwoosh!

The room’s bitter chill turned blistering, as if it had moved near surging lava.

The Heavenly Wolf True Art opened, Cunning Wolf Path unfolded. The dao of the sly wolf was not a path the weak could endure.

‘!!’

Shock spread over the faces of the five men and women. Two of them scooted back involuntarily.

Hwaaak!

The wind pouring through the open door was bitterly cold. The room’s heat met the hill-trail’s tempered chill, leaving a wavering wake.

Aghast disbelief overtook Song Cheol-gwang’s rage-twisted face, and slowly turned to doubt.

Dugeun. Dugeun.

His heartbeat rising was neither from anger nor drink.

Dugeun-dugeun!

His heart pounded like mad, as if an earthquake ran through his whole body. He was startled that his heart could sound so loud.

‘Th-this!’

Beyond the open door, against the darkness of the corridor, Jin-hyeon’s eyes shone a clear blue.

His wind-tossed white hair danced, framing that pair of blue jades. The long sword hilt jutting over his shoulder was the cocked tail of a wolf.

Ossak!

Song Cheol-gwang swallowed dry without knowing it.

A youth who, aside from his white hair and a handsome face, had not seemed remarkable, in an instant became a wolf greater than any tiger.

He was truly a wolf. Everyone seeing him felt an illusion that a transcendent beast had barged into the room.

A giant beast, robed in blue flames, roaming the cold mountains and appearing here.

“I am a man who loves this damnedly rich land called Sichuan, where majestic ranges line up wherever you turn your head.”

“!”

“But that is not because this region is special. I love this land because I stand on Sichuan’s soil, because I exist in Sichuan. Even if where I stood were Guizhou’s jungle where you cannot confirm a marsh half a kilometer away, I would be grateful I was there and grant it unreserved affection.”

Jin-hyeon tilted his head slightly.

It meant nothing, yet all who watched felt a fear as if their hearts would drop out.

“Yet filth like you keep trying to turn my affection into loathing. This fertile earth will yield fine grain without scum like you, and the endless ranges can display their majesty to the world without your foul cries.”

“!”

“Once I realized that, I had to inquire whether your existence should be tolerated. I inquired, and recently I reached my answer.”

Jin-hyeon smiled.

They were forced to realize a human smile can be more frightening than a twisted ghost’s face.

“In my land, this land I have resolved to live in, there is no need for things like you. A cesspit so rank it makes stench cling to ordinary folk yields nothing but revulsion. That is my conclusion.”

Song Cheol-gwang wanted to curse. To shout how he dared speak such madness before a leader of the Sichuan Eight Martial Houses, to say he would pierce his throat at once.

But he could not.

Even without killing intent, he felt he would die; even without a blade drawn, he felt he would be cut in two.

‘Impossible. Am I being overwhelmed by that youth?’

He rejected it in his head, yet accepted it in his heart.

Jin-hyeon was strong. Strong enough to leave even a leader of the Sichuan Eight Martial Houses unable to move.

Even before the plain fact, he could not acknowledge it. He hated to believe it and could not. The Divine Spear family’s art, grown on a hundred years of history, was not so middling as to yield to such a stray.

But it is people who practice martial arts, and sadly, as a man he was weaker than Jin-hyeon.

So Song Cheol-gwang could not open his mouth to the end.

Instead, someone else spoke.

“By those words, do you mean to make enemies of the Sichuan Eight Martial Houses?”

The man on the left head seat, silent until now, rose.

Jin-hyeon’s smile deepened.

“I intend to put Sichuan in order. If the word ‘order’ stirs negative feelings in you, you should strongly doubt whether you are not filth.”

“Ridiculous. You are not the alliance lord of Sichuan. Even the Sichuan Branch’s chief could not say such words before us.”

“Wrong.”

“?”

“Anyone in Sichuan with a normal sense of values can say what I say.”

“!”

“And filth has no right to anger. Its only right is choice.”

“Choice?”

“To wash the filth off, or to vanish as filth.”

Flash!

A biting chill burst from the man’s eyes.

“Arrogance is a right of the strong. You are strong. You have long surpassed Sichuan’s level of late-generation prodigies. Rash as it is to say, even I cannot be sure of victory. You indeed have the right to be arrogant.”

The youths on the left stared in shock. They could not believe their father, whom they believed as Sichuan’s best, was saying it would be a thin-ice match with a young man their age.

“But the world is not lived alone. If we set to kill you now, those here would suffice.”

“Certainty often learns it was a wish when it hits the wall of reality.”

“Shall we try it, then?”

“I don’t want to.”

The word did not match the fierce cadence of his speech.

It was a line fit to be mocked, but the man did not sneer. He only looked at Jin-hyeon with eyes full of doubt.

Naturally, it was not fear of defeat that tucked his tail.

“I need time to see whether you are ones to be put in order or not. Of course, if you rush me, I will gladly dance the sword.”

“So if you had decided all here deserved death, you would have drawn your blade.”

“Since we are at it. Are you filth as well?”

The man’s face hardened.

He had said neither this nor that. He opened his mouth when the silence grew dull.

“I am Gu Yong-seon, Hall Master of the Wind-Balance Hall.”

It was an abrupt answer, but steeped in fierce pride.

Jin-hyeon’s eyes flashed.

‘Wind-Balance Hall. It has been a while.’

A sect that vied for top rank even among the Sichuan Eight Martial Houses. One of the most influential in Sichuan. It was a true local power with a full three hundred years of history.

The reason their history could reach three centuries was precisely because they surrendered to the Eight Wastes Alliance Leader.

During the Eight Wastes Alliance Leader’s war of conquest, it was one of only two among Sichuan’s eight great sects to submit.

“Since its founding, Wind-Balance Hall has never once done anything shameful.”

Unawares, Jin-hyeon muttered,

“Don’t make me laugh.”

Gu Yong-seon’s face twisted slightly.

“You!”

“Well, fine. The night is long, and the festival has only begun.”

Jin-hyeon turned his body.

“If you are not keen on cleaning yourselves up, spend your remaining years in drink. Drink deep, so you do not regret it after you die.”

Fwoosh!

The Heavenly Wolf True Art stilled, damping the raging aura.

Yet even with it gone, Song Cheol-gwang, Gu Yong-seon, and their children did not move rashly. The remnant trace of that aura, like hot fangs at the nape, lingered in memory.

Hwang Oh-san was different.

“You bastard! How dare you spew such ravings at the Patriarch!”

Waiting at the first-floor entrance, Hwang Oh-san leveled his spear at Jin-hyeon.

Jin-hyeon’s hand naturally closed on the spearhead. As before, so natural that Hwang Oh-san could not even swing it.

Kkiiik!

Hwang Oh-san’s eyes went wide. The spearmen behind him, poised for battle, also startled.

The spear was bending.

From blade to shaft, the iron-forged heavy weapon warped as if crumpled by irresistible strength.

At an ordinary walking pace, Jin-hyeon delivered the bent spearhead to the space before Hwang Oh-san’s brow, then finally let go.

“You the guard captain?”

“!”

“You cannot help with your martial arts, but you should pick up some sense, and soon. What a guard needs is not blind grit, but tact and wisdom.”