Dropped into Murim with an Instant-Kill Skill - Chapter 127

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Chapter 127: The Rear Waves of the Yangtze Push the Front Waves (1)

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Six years ago.

The sun over Liaoning darkened.

It was as though a deep body of water had settled between the earth and the sun. The sky turned dark blue like the sea, and the sunlight rippled.

Senior Second-Rank Liaoning Administrative Commissioner Son Jugwang submitted a memorial to the Emperor.

The sun in the heavens sometimes symbolized the Emperor. For it to darken was deeply ominous.

The civil and military officials of the court were frightened and bewildered, but no one could find a solution.

Then Moyong Jincheon, the former head of the Moyong Family and the Kirin Sword, sought an audience with the Emperor.

“This is undoubtedly the work of fiendish demons and Strange Ghosts.”

The words came from Liaoning’s supreme master, a man rumored to have transcended the human body and reached the realm of immortals.

“Your Majesty. Once again, the Human Path is being tested. But if it is a road we must walk, then we can only walk it. We cannot yet uncover the source, so all we can do is endure. But when that source finally reveals itself, this old subject will surely cut it down.”

The Emperor praised the Moyong Family’s loyalty and personally offered him wine.

The strange phenomenon continued for over three hundred days.

Throughout that time, an unknown plague spread without pause.

The Moyong Family did not stand idly by.

“Open the granaries!”

With the sky darkened, the farmers had lost their crops. The Moyong Family willingly opened its granaries and cooked porridge from dawn until dusk each day.

Anyone starving could come for a few pieces of meat and a bowl of porridge.

Under the darkened sky, the smell of boiling porridge was rich and comforting.

“Gather every physician connected to the family!”

Physicians in flowing white robes passed through the gates of the Moyong Family.

The silver and gold the Moyong Family had accumulated over many years poured forth, and the physicians accepted it as they joined their efforts.

Members of the Moyong bloodline scattered across Liaoning, bringing physicians with them and pulling carts laden with grain.

The scent of porridge filled all of Liaoning, rich and comforting, while the bitter smell of brewing medicine hung in the air.

Once the Moyong Family stepped forward, other families and sects in Liaoning also began helping people however they could.

Liaoning’s sky remained dark, but at least its people’s stomachs were full.

A hundred days passed.

Liaoning was still dark.

“Cough. Cough...”

Despite the physicians’ efforts, the plague did not stop.

At last, even members of the Moyong bloodline who had trained in martial arts began catching it.

“Urgh...”

Red blood soaked the fronts of their robes.

Blood kept flowing.

For no reason.

Without warning.

Someone could be moving about normally, then suddenly have blood drip from their nose.

Their urine and feces turned bright red and clotted.

Blood pooled in their mouths instead of saliva.

Even the smallest wound would not stop bleeding.

It began with something as minor as a nosebleed, but the symptoms steadily worsened until they ended in death.

After one hundred days, even first-rate masters and peak-realm masters began catching the plague.

The Moyong Family tried every possible means to uncover its cause.

Was the water the problem?

The grass?

Could it pass from person to person?

Were animals the cause?

When no method yielded an answer, they finally uncovered the taboos, drawing on the knowledge of fiendish demons and Strange Ghosts imparted by the Moyong Family’s former head.

One.

Do not immerse bare skin in water.

Two.

Do not step on a threshold.

Three.

Do not spill water.

Four.

Do not let blood flow.

Five.

Clothing must not be torn.

Six.

Neither saliva nor tears may leave the body.

Everyone who heard this whispered that it was absurd.

What could these strange taboos possibly have to do with the plague afflicting people?

They were things no human being could understand.

Things that did not accord with the laws of the world.

Yet it soon became clear that they were true.

Everyone who violated the taboos unfailingly caught the plague, or saw their illness worsen.

Put another way, anyone who observed the taboos could avoid the plague.

Even someone already infected could halt its progress.

But how could anyone live while keeping all those prohibitions?

People died.

So many people.

Bleeding out.

Strangely enough, members of the Moyong Family died in especially great numbers.

Everyone caught the plague, but the illness progressed far faster in the Moyong bloodline.

Even so, they did not spare themselves.

“M-my lord! Your clothes are torn.”

“Damn. Tsk. It can’t be helped.”

If their clothes tore while they carried grain to feed the people, they took off the torn garment and continued working.

“My lord. Please do not cry because of people like us.”

“How can that be something I control?”

They shed tears for the dying.

When they carried physicians on their backs and raced about using a lightness art to save people, they quickly grew exhausted. Then, when they fell asleep in that state, they sometimes drooled a little.

The disease already progressed quickly in the Moyong bloodline, and they refused to spare their bodies. By the two hundredth day, half the Moyong Family’s direct bloodline stood on the verge of death from the plague.

Moyong Ha was fifteen then.

Around that time, she saw people die about once every three days.

Her elder sister, who had always seemed strong.

Her poor, young sibling.

Her uncle, who had always played amusing pranks.

Now even her beloved mother was beginning to collapse from the plague.

Moyong Ha could not hold back her tears.

That was how she caught the plague as well.

Blood dripped from her nose.

It was a disease that infected every member of the Moyong Family with terrifying speed, as though it sought to kill every last one of them, and it deepened just as quickly.

The Moyong elders gathered in the depths of the estate every day to hold meetings.

“We cannot endure like this forever.”

“At this rate, the Moyong bloodline will be cut off.”

“Half the family is already afflicted. The other half will follow even faster.”

“Must we simply watch them die? Is there truly no way?”

The entire family cried out in despair, but Moyong Jincheon, the former head of the family, only closed his eyes and listened in silence.

He repeated the same words every time.

“My sword is not yet sharp enough. When the time comes, I will cut it down.”

“When will that be?”

“...I do not know.”

“Then why is this happening? Why must this happen to us?”

“It is the work of a demon. It must want something from us.”

“What could it possibly want to justify this?”

“I do not know.”

“Then... what are we supposed to do?”

“When the time comes, I will cut it down.”

“...When will that be...?”

“...”

Moyong Jincheon’s son, the head of the Moyong Family, could only sigh and try to calm the family.

Then, as autumn passed and winter drew near, red fruit appeared in one corner of the Moyong estate’s garden.

Even beneath the darkened sky, the strange crimson fruit looked as though it gave off light.

Everyone who saw it whispered that they had never seen such a fruit tree before.

Everyone avoided the fruit except those who had caught the plague.

As though entranced by something, the more deeply ill they were, the greater their thirst as they ate it.

Then the plague began to heal.

Their bodies, already weakened, did not recover at once, but the blood that had flowed without warning gradually began to lessen.

Some rejoiced, while others doubted.

But no one could turn away from a family member dying before their eyes simply because they had doubts.

Moyong Jincheon issued a stern warning, but it was useless.

How could he stop every hand that secretly hid fruit in a sleeve, then pushed it into a son’s mouth or placed it on a mother’s tongue?

Some even swallowed the red fruit despite not being sick.

After that, they did not catch the plague even when they violated the taboos.

Within days, many family members had cast off the plague and risen again.

Those who had already spent too much vitality fighting the disease, however, could not rise even after eating the red fruit. Their breath finally stopped.

Or rather, it looked as if it had stopped.

Their hearts ceased beating.

Their breathing stopped.

Their blood grew cold.

Yet their vitality did not disperse.

As though they had used the Turtle Breathing Grand Method that storytellers spoke of, their vitality did not leave their seemingly dead bodies.

Instead, a thread of baleful qi entered them.

It mixed with their cooling innate true qi and formed a new current.

At last, the dead rose again.

Their eyes had turned red.

Moyong Jincheon groaned when he saw them.

“Blood Demon...?”

“What is that?”

“I do not know. I have only heard that there is a demon wandering this world by that name.”

“Like the Demonic Cult...? Then are you saying a person is behind all this?”

“Since when was a demon human? The world is full only of things that were never human, and things that have ceased to be human.”

“...Then what should we do with the family members who have risen again?”

Everyone tensed.

They feared he would say that all those who had returned to life needed to be cut down.

“...I do not know.”

Moyong Jincheon did not do that.

He only sighed and returned to his residence.

So within the Moyong Family, those who had not yet died and those who had died once began living together.

Those who had died once were the same people they had been before death, but there were occasionally things about them that sent chills down one’s spine.

The family members who had not died often gathered to discuss it.

“Can we call those who returned to life the same people they were before? Can we truly say they are alive?”

Moyong Ha spoke through tears then.

“They move, so they’re alive. They speak, so they’re the same. Right? Stop saying such strange things.”

Everyone wore troubled expressions as they watched Moyong Ha weep bitterly for her mother, who had died and returned to life.

Three hundred days after the strange phenomenon began, Moyong Jincheon drew his sword and left the family estate.

For three days and nights, the sky cried, the earth shook, and mountain peaks collapsed.

At last, the darkened sky brightened.

It was the end of the strange phenomenon that had covered the Moyong Family for three hundred days.

Yet Moyong Jincheon could not be found anywhere.

* * *

“Ha.”

Moyong Jun called to his younger sister.

His sister, who had died once and risen again, was healthy.

Just as the others had been.

Color had returned to her once-pale cheeks. Her hair was soft and full like clouds, shining with luster. Her red eyes sparkled gently.

Moyong Jun was happy.

He was happy to see his most precious sister still breathing and moving.

But he could not be happy without reservation.

“I’m hungry.”

For Moyong Ha, who said she was hungry, he poured the animal blood he had prepared beforehand into a bowl and offered it to her.

Gulp.

Without even furrowing her brow, Moyong Ha accepted it and drank as if it were only natural.

“...”

Whenever he saw something like that, a question arose in Moyong Jun’s mind.

Why could family members who had died and returned to life drink blood without the slightest disgust?

As though they had naturally eaten that way hundreds, thousands of times.

How could that be?

As if they had been reborn entirely.

No...

Feeling as though a heavy stone had been placed upon his chest, Moyong Jun suddenly asked, “Ha. What was your favorite poem?”

“...”

Moyong Ha looked at Moyong Jun.

For a moment, her expression vanished, and even her breathing seemed to stop.

Then an expression suddenly returned to her face.

As though someone had stabbed her in the heart.

Her delicate brows twisted and bent.

“This feeling could become a memory, but even then I was already lost.”

Moyong Ha looked pained.

As though today were that day.

As though she were back in that room.

She looked at an invisible candle.

She turned the pages of a book that was not before her.

Then she said sorrowfully, “It was when my sister died and Mother was suffering. It was late at night. The candle had about a third left, and I had opened a book and pretended to read while holding back my tears. When I turned to the second page, I saw that poem. Must the years pass before it can be called a memory? I already hurt so much that I could only feel numb.”

A chill ran through Moyong Jun.

‘Is this truly a memory?’

Could a person’s memory be so vivid?

Could a person’s emotions change so suddenly?

Then Moyong Ha stared directly at Moyong Jun.

As though she could see through his heart.

The sad expression from before was already gone.

Instead, she said, “They move, so they’re alive. They speak, so they’re the same.”

The same voice he had heard before.

The same words.

Moyong Jun felt chills again.

Then Moyong Ha added something different from before.

A faint smile appeared on her lips.

“Sowol said that too.”

Imitating the voice Moyong Jun had also heard before, she said, “Essence, qi, and spirit. In every respect, the person they were before still remains, so if you insist on defining it, they’re the same person. They’ve just... changed a little.”

Moyong Jun stared blankly at Moyong Ha.

Moyong Ha quietly met his gaze.

He could not tell what she was thinking.

‘Whether she has been reborn or become someone else... I cannot know.’

Moyong Jun nodded.

“Yes. That’s right.”

The conclusion reached by the Moyong Family, the darkness it needed to overcome, was returning its family members, who had become a little... strange, to how they had been before.

Moyong Jun took a deep breath and asked, “Then tell me. What did you see at Dongting Lake? If something took you down without leaving a trace, it could not have been an ordinary fiendish demon.”

They could only fulfill that wish by finding the fiendish demons and Strange Ghosts, then studying their wicked and strange methods.

“...”

Moyong Ha stared at Moyong Jun.

Her face had gone expressionless once more.

As though she were searching through someone’s memories for an answer.

“...”

Moyong Ha’s red eyes glanced toward Yuezhou.

Her expression remained blank.

“It was something we can’t handle.”

“What was there?”

“Sowol can’t go. He can’t handle it.”

Moyong Ha’s lips moved.