WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Order
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◈ The Heaven-Slaying Sword ◈
Chapter 39: Chapter Five - Dragon-Phoenix Assembly (12)
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He had only gone out because he was worried about Dang Hwa-seo, who had not returned home despite the late hour.
At least, that was how Mok Ri-won had felt before setting out to find her.
‘Today, I’m going to lecture her!’
Whenever he came home late, Dang Hwa-seo would lecture him for hours. Since she was the one out late this time, Mok Ri-won had eagerly set out, thrilled at the thought of finally repaying all the humiliation he had suffered.
That was why the sight he finally witnessed left him flustered.
He concealed his presence.
“It has been a long time, young clan head.”
Young clan head.
That title alone told Mok Ri-won who they were.
‘The Tang Clan.’
The Sichuan Tang Clan.
Dang Hwa-seo’s family home.
The thought that she might simply be reuniting with her family never crossed his mind.
How could it have?
Even Mok Ri-won, slow as he could be at times, knew Dang Hwa-seo harbored resentment toward the Tang Clan.
Whenever the Tang Clan came up, she wore such a sorrowful expression.
The subject had become an unspoken rule between Dang Hwa-seo and Mok Ri-won.
Still, that did not mean he could suppress his curiosity.
Mok Ri-won listened to the conversation that followed.
...The longer he listened, the more his expression hardened.
“Hasn’t your little runaway act gone on long enough?”
There was mockery in the voice of the man who appeared to be her younger brother.
“The Family Head is very pleased. The Family Head said there was no expectation that the young clan head who ran from home would get her hands on such an extraordinary man.”
There was a flat, lifeless sneer in his words.
And disgust.
“That is too cruel. Wasn’t he the one who planted those Qi Waves in the young clan head? How can he say such...?”
“Yes, he planted this in me, though I never wanted it.”
Mok Ri-won could not understand.
They were family. They should have protected and loved one another, so why were they so sharp with each other?
Why did they hold coldly honed daggers to one another’s throats?
The more he thought about it, the less he understood.
Still, Mok Ri-won did not step in recklessly.
He knew that intervening after seeing only one fragment of another person’s affairs was not Chivalry. It was violence.
He tried to endure it.
He knew that was how he could respect the family matters Dang Hwa-seo wished to hide. It was how he could respect her.
“If it were not for this cursed Immunity to Ten Thousand Poisons, I would have forgiven the Family Head.”
He could hear the full story later, when Dang Hwa-seo had calmed herself.
“I truly cannot understand it. How could the Family Head say something like that to me?”
He did not want to shame her.
So he tried to endure it.
And failed.
“The Family Head took away my future. The Family Head even took away my chance to have a child. How can the Family Head try to tie me to a man?”
The moment he heard those words, Mok Ri-won felt his thoughts go blank.
His heart, which always beat so fiercely, turned cold in that instant.
Pity, sorrow, and anger might have risen within him, but another emotion came first.
Self-reproach.
He rebuked himself for once seeing Dang Hwa-seo’s Immunity to Ten Thousand Poisons and saying something as thoughtless as, “The Tang Clan truly is impressive.”
Pity and anger came after.
Overwhelmed by emotions he could not control, Mok Ri-won clutched his head. Then he heard words that made him doubt his ears.
“What is so impossible about it?”
Mok Ri-won desperately wished he was dreaming.
“Young clan head, the Tang Clan has plenty of women. Women who can bear children.”
He wished the one speaking was some wicked fragment of his own heart.
He wished this reality, where such a loathsome person existed, was a lie.
Yet wishing changed nothing.
“There are women who can bear Ink Sword’s seed in your place. Everyone in the Tang Clan will look the other way. You only need to raise that child as your own.”
Ridiculously enough, Mok Ri-won’s thought at that moment was not much different from Dang Hwa-seo’s.
‘A dagger.’
Those words were a dagger given form.
A dagger that existed only to tear another person’s heart to pieces, and that should never have existed at all.
Something snapped inside Mok Ri-won’s head.
“I cannot listen to another word.”
Mok Ri-won released his presence.
Then he looked into the alley where they stood.
Only then could he see Dang Hwa-seo’s expression.
“Young Hero Mok...”
Distress, shame, and despair filled Dang Hwa-seo’s face.
The sight made Mok Ri-won feel as though his throat had closed up.
“...Ah, Ink Sword?”
The words that followed set his cold heart burning once more.
A clear warning bell rang somewhere inside him.
- Do not harbor murderous intent.
It was an admonition that had followed him throughout his life.
A rule he must never break.
Mok Ri-won had never once gone against that rule, but at this moment, keeping it felt unbearably difficult.
“It is a pleasure to meet you! I have dearly wished to see you. I am Dang Un-gyeong...”
Something inhuman spoke with a human voice.
And smiled.
Mok Ri-won looked at him while desperately holding down the turmoil inside him.
- Do not harbor murderous intent.
A crack formed in that rule.
His breath came sharp and quick.
His fingertips trembled as they kept reaching for his sword.
A strange thirst began to rise within him.
“...That is why I would like to invite you to the Tang Clan, Great Hero. Will you permit it?”
A scene flashed through Mok Ri-won’s mind.
He drew his sword, cut through Dang Un-gyeong’s neck, then severed the necks of every man standing behind him, one after another.
If he did, the turmoil inside him would ease.
The warning bell shaking his insides would fade.
No, there would no longer be anything left that needed to sound a warning.
- Do not harbor murderous intent.
It felt as though he heard those words again.
“...Great Hero Mok?”
That inhuman thing called him a hero.
Nausea rose in him, and the warning bell became clearer.
‘Do not harbor murderous intent.’
He repeated the words to himself.
Then Mok Ri-won gave his answer.
“...How old are you?”
Fortunately, his voice came out calm.
It was so gentle and even that it might have made Dang Hwa-seo feel betrayed.
Yet it did not take long for that calmness to reveal itself as something chillingly artificial.
“Ah, I am twenty. That makes me your elder brother, Great Hero Mok. If you wish, you may call me elder bro...”
“That is fortunate.”
Mok Ri-won smiled.
Only the corners of his mouth lifted on his stiff, doll-like face.
“I am truly fortunate that you did not attend the Dragon Phoenix Gathering.”
No, even that was not enough.
Mok Ri-won felt a deep disgust at himself for speaking with him at all.
He even felt guilty for allowing that neck, which deserved to be snapped at once, to keep making sounds.
- Do not harbor murderous intent.
So Mok Ri-won focused even harder on the warning bell.
‘Smile.’
He smiled.
He forcibly twisted his facial muscles, raising the corners of his mouth further.
He tightened the muscles beneath his eyes to form a smile there as well.
It was a forced smile, and Dang Un-gyeong found it grotesque.
Mok Ri-won’s beautiful face twisting in such a way stirred an emotion within him that he could not understand.
“What...?”
“If you had attended the gathering. If you had stood in the same sparring arena as me.”
Mok Ri-won’s voice trembled faintly.
He was trying to suppress the heat threatening to burst from within.
“Then...”
It was difficult.
The strange heat crushing his insides could not be contained, no matter how hard he pushed it down. It felt as though he were trying to cram a person into a tiny jewel box.
Without realizing it, Mok Ri-won let the overflowing heat spill out.
“...I think I would have snapped your neck.”
Mok Ri-won’s pupils narrowed.
At the same time, Killing Intent he could not fully suppress leaked out.
Dang Un-gyeong stumbled backward.
His breath caught. The moment he met Mok Ri-won’s eyes, his thoughts froze solid.
One thought rose in Dang Un-gyeong’s mind.
‘...A snake.’
Mok Ri-won’s eyes resembled a snake’s.
Not an ordinary snake that crawled through the mountains, but the black spirit creature that coiled within the Tang Clan’s forbidden grounds, one Dang Un-gyeong had seen long ago.
It was a monster so far beyond envy that awe had been swallowed by terror, becoming reverence.
Its gaze had looked exactly like this.
A bottomless terror settled inside Dang Un-gyeong.
His body began to shake so violently that it could not possibly tremble more, yet he did not dare try to stop it.
It was a kind of signal.
A plea to spare someone as terrified as him.
“Miss, let us go.”
Mok Ri-won seized Dang Hwa-seo’s wrist and pulled her away.
Until the very moment they left, he did not show Dang Hwa-seo his face.
Once the two had gone, Dang Un-gyeong collapsed where he stood and finally exhaled, frantically rubbing his neck.
Tears hung from the corners of his eyes.
Only then did his ragged breathing tell him he was still alive.
‘I-I’m alive...’
Ridiculously, the only thing Dang Un-gyeong could think of after Mok Ri-won left was relief at surviving.
* * *
Dang Hwa-seo let Mok Ri-won pull her along the entire way.
Where were they going? Why was he not saying anything? Why would he not look back at her?
So many questions rose within her, yet she could not bring herself to say another word.
She only lowered her head and allowed him to lead her.
It was because of shame.
Shame that he had seen such an ugly part of her, and shame that Dang Un-gyeong’s words had wounded her.
The alleys changed.
From a dim corner of She County to the main street, then from there to the estate.
Only after they reached the lodgings at the estate did Dang Hwa-seo feel the grip around her wrist disappear. She raised her head.
Mok Ri-won still had his back to her.
For a brief moment, her heart dropped.
Fortunately, the feeling did not last long.
“...I am sorry for meddling.”
Mok Ri-won turned around.
There was the same innocent-faced Mok Ri-won Dang Hwa-seo had always known.
“You looked very uncomfortable, Miss, so I intruded. Did I do something wrong?”
He looked cowed, like a child waiting to be scolded.
He was so much like his usual self that Dang Hwa-seo felt even more uneasy.
It was only natural.
He must have heard everything she and Dang Un-gyeong had said.
How she had grown up, how the Tang Clan’s Family Head saw her, and even the shameful secret she had worked so hard to hide.
Yet he asked nothing, and that filled her with an unease she could not explain.
At last, the question she could no longer contain burst out.
“Why are you not asking anything?”
“Asking what?”
“Do not play dumb...!”
“Miss.”
Mok Ri-won gave her a bright smile.
“I did not hear anything. I was too worried about you to pay attention to that ugly man’s words. Ah, how embarrassing.”
Dang Hwa-seo’s eyes widened slightly.
She understood perfectly what he was trying to say.
He was telling her that he would forget what had happened.
Mok Ri-won looked at the dazed Dang Hwa-seo for a while, then slowly approached and wrapped both hands around hers.
Then he said, “Miss, whenever there is something you wish to hide, I will become a complete idiot.”
Dang Hwa-seo pressed her lips tightly together.
Her hands slowly curled into fists.
Her eyes began to burn.
“Do not worry. This Mok Ri-won is the most patient person in all the Central Plains. I can wait as long as needed, until you wish to tell me your secret.”
Dang Hwa-seo clenched her teeth harder.
The warmth of his words made her want to lean on him, and she tried to shake that desire away.
But she could not.
There was too vast a gulf between his words and the situation she had just endured.
As though he wanted to mend her heart, which had been torn into pieces, every word he spoke, every expression he wore, and the warmth of his hands around hers were unbearably warm.
Her eyes felt as though they would burn away.
She bit down and held her breath, but the heat inside her only grew hotter.
Her heart pounded as if two hammers were striking it.
“What kind of...”
She barely managed to speak, but the words would not continue.
Only then did Dang Hwa-seo let tears stream down her face as she gave a hollow laugh.
‘Ah.’
She had realized something.
Dang Hwa-seo faced the true feelings her own small-mindedness had kept her from confronting.
She had turned away because she did not dare hope for love, and because her body could not bear the fruit of that love.
‘Yes. This is the kind of person he is.’
He clung to Chivalric righteousness to a foolish extent, and he was sincere in everything to an equally foolish degree. Looking at him felt like looking at a clear, cloudless sky.
Being beside him felt like a cool breeze washing away her gloom.
And so she found herself comforted.
That was why she found herself looking at him.
All at once, Dang Hwa-seo felt as though just a few words had washed her heart clean.
And then she realized it.
“I do not want you to cry, Miss. So today, I will not lecture you for coming home late!”
At some point, she had fallen in love with this foolish man.
Footnotes:
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