Chapter 2 :

Having taken possession of Mu-jin’s body, Jeong Cheon swiftly closed his eyes and circulated his internal energy to examine himself.

No—he tried to.

‘What? No internal energy…?!!!’

However fallen the house may be, he was born of a martial clan. How could it be that he didn’t have even the least bit of internal energy?

“You said your name was Ma Sok?”

“Yes, Young Master.”

Ma Sok watched him with anxious eyes as he kept them shut for a long while before speaking.

“Have I… inherited my father’s severed meridians as well?”

“What? Impossible! You inherited your grandfather’s martial talent! In childhood, so many among the righteous sects wished to take you as their disciple for your splendid martial talent and comprehension ability!”

“Then why is my dantian empty? No—there is hardly even a dantian to speak of.”

At Mu-jin’s question, another long sigh escaped Ma Sok.

“Haaah… Young Master, you may not remember, but when you were a child, your mother’s family once came to visit. They came to see the Lady, who was in frail health, and your younger aunts and their households accompanied them. During some play with your older cousin, you were struck on the head by the Seven Injuries Fist he was practicing at the time…”

His words trailed off, and tears at last spilled from Ma Sok’s eyes.

It was when Mu-jin was six.

In the very year he was to begin, in place of his father, the Crimson Flame Art left by his grandfather—this accident happened.

The Seven Injuries Fist from his cousin, who was nine at the time, clouded Mu-jin’s mind, and from that day his shining talent and comprehension ability lay buried.

“I see. Yet afterward, I could have still learned martial arts.”

“Well… since Young Master’s mind was not whole, you had no capacity to train in martial arts. At times your clarity would return, but each time you were struck by the shock of forgotten years and would often faint. As the madness grew worse, the fits became more frequent, and strange behaviors began to appear more and more…”

The tale weighed heavy upon his heart.

In his former life, until he met his master, he had survived alone as a child in a harsh world.

Even to him, Mu-jin’s life seemed most ill-fated.

To come to his senses and find unremembered time gone by, never knowing when he might lose them again.

‘This world holds all manner of ill luck.’

“Then what became of that wretch?”

“Pardon?”

Having checked his tears, Ma Sok looked blank and asked again.

“The one who crippled me—my cousin.”

“He… was scolded and sent home.”

“Scolded… He was young, so they could not kill him. Then his limb-tendons were cut at least.”

“No…”

“Then his dantian was shattered.”

“Heavens no. He is the young master of the Cheonghwa Merchant Guild…”

Mu-jin frowned, irritation rising.

“With all his limbs intact, what kind of punishment are we talking about?”

“Well… a severe scolding…”

“Damn nonsense.”

Ma Sok was greatly startled. Having lived a frail life confined to the sickbed, the young master had never once uttered such coarse language before.

“Y-Young Master…”

“They cripple the heir of a martial clan—a promising young martial artist at that—and the punishment is just a scolding? What are we, a gathering place for fools?”

“Young Master… haah. The retainers insisted it could not be overlooked… but it was the mistake of your aunt’s son. The Clan Head would not heap further blame upon the younger sister’s household who had come to see the frail Lady…”

“Truly a father one cannot feel affection for. He’s no patriarch of a martial clan—he’s the sort who should’ve been off in some quiet mountain village, reading books and cultivating the Dao.”

“Young Master…”

Ma Sok had no words to defend his father.

Indeed, when Mu-jin’s father, who could not inherit the clan’s martial art, succeeded the clan, tongues wagged.

Those he kept company with were mostly scholars, not warriors.

A former Clan Head who enjoyed tea and discourse on letters—hardly fit, even to simple Ma Sok’s eyes, to lead a martial clan.

That day.

Disappointed by his choice, many retainers guarding the Yeomhwa Clan departed.

From then, the true decline began.

Ten years after that.

Grief overwhelmed his mother as Mu-jin’s condition worsened by the day, and she passed.

His father, too, unable to hold on for three years, passed away, leaving behind the clan on the verge of ruin.

All that remained were the debts amassed to cure him, Mu-jin tormented by madness, and two young children.

And now, there were only two retainers and a mere dozen warriors under them.

Ma Sok went ahead, guiding him by the arm as Mu-jin moved on.

It was Ma Sok’s long-formed habit from serving him.

Born of the times when he would be sound one moment, ghost-ridden the next, and vanish.

“Tell me—how old am I now?”

“You’re twenty three this year.”

“So it’s been seventeen years since I was struck by the Seven Injuries Fist, then?”

“Yes…”

Strength had left Ma Sok’s voice.

‘Even if it was just a child’s Seven Injuries Fist, it must have been at least at the First Stage. And he took a blow like that and still lived another seventeen years?’

The Seven Injuries Fist he knew was no trifling art.

Passed down in the Kongtong Sect, it was no orthodox art—its might and after-effects harmed even the wielder’s viscera. Once struck, the ceaseless affliction it wrought was fearsome.

If one could not rightly guard against the Seven Injuries Qi pouring in through the clash, the fist could well shorten one’s span.

‘If he learned it, then he was of Kongtong’s line. However young, he should have known better than to use it on a child who knew nothing of martial arts…’

Thinking that, he followed Ma Sok until a small, shabby manor came into view.

It was so worn that to call it a manor felt shameful.

“This is my clan’s house?”

Though Mu-jin had lived here all his life, he had asked as one who had lost his memory. Ma Sok, gazing up at the shabby gate, felt shame.

“Yes… this is it.”

“Well, it is not ill.”

Leaving those words, Mu-jin strode up the cracked stone steps, Ma Sok following.

In his former life he had begged and stolen on the streets, and when at last he met his master, their lot was but a hut deep in the mountains.

Afterward, walking the rivers and lakes alone with only a sword to rely on, even a worn yet broad manor seemed good in his eyes.

-Screeeak.

With a sound hard to believe from a manor gate, he stepped inside to find many standing in standoff.

“Young Master!!!”

A half-white-haired elder ran, calling loudly at Mu-jin’s return.

Eyes reddened, he began to inspect Mu-jin from head to toe.

“Are you unharmed?”

Mu-jin looked to Ma Sok instead of answering.

“Who is he?”

“He is the Chief Steward of the Yeomhwa Clan. He has managed the household since your grandfather’s time.”

As Ma Sok whispered this, Mu-jin nodded and looked to those standing opposed ahead.

“And they are?”

“Your mother’s kin. The lady there is your aunt, and beside her, the elder cousin I spoke of.”

They had brought a host of warriors, much like debt-collectors come to collect debt.

“And the children in front?”

“They are… your younger siblings.”

“I had younger siblings?”

“They’re eight-year-old twins. The last treasures of the clan left by the Lady and the former Clan Head. The young master is named Do-jin, and the young lady, So-yeon.”

The words ‘last treasures’ struck him bitterly. He glanced back at the middle-aged woman scowling, with a young warrior at her arm.

“It has been long. Will you not greet an elder of your family?”

“Mother, is he not out of his mind? Would he even know who we are? A wretch with few days left—let him be.”

The exchange between the mother and son was so grating in tone that Mujin felt his neck stiffen for the first time in a long while.

‘Their behavior is just like watching those sons of bitches of the Nine Sects..’

He strode forward through the warriors they had brought. They would not yield, but as he pressed, his spirit made them falter and part.

Once, he had been hailed as Divine Demon, severing the heads of hundreds among the orthodox elite.

He might have lost his martial arts, but not his spirit.

Beyond them stood a boy and girl with the same eyes, red-rimmed yet clenching their teeth to hold back tears.

‘These are my younger siblings?’

For some reason, their faces overlapped with that of their late mother.

‘It is as though I see Seok and Yeong-ah.’

The two younger siblings of the only woman he had loved, when he was called Jeong Cheon.

By chance, these two were like them in age and gender. When Mu-jin patted their heads and smiled, their eyes widened.

It was the smile he sometimes showed when his mind returned; their swelling fear subsided.

Turning back, Mu-jin spoke.

“What business brings Aunt to such a humble place?”

“How many times have I told you—have your memories fled again?”

“Yes. I have heard it was because of some son of a bitch, yet I have not heard which son of a bitch it was.”

At Mu-jin’s words, his cousin with arms crossed sprang forward.

“Compose yourself.”

Were it not for his mother restraining him, he would have driven the Seven Injuries Fist into that face again and cut short his few remaining days.

“If you will not remember, I shall say it once more. You are the only blood of my elder sister. Your father was lacking, yet for the sake of the grievance of a sister who devoted her life to such a man, should not Yeomhwa’s line be continued? You too, by ill-fated ac-ci-dent, cannot inherit the martial line—so the Yeomhwa clan’s ancestral art shall now pass to my son.”

Mu-jin smiled at his aunt, who spoke without a flicker.

“Well now—what a miraculous arithmetic never heard nor seen. Even were it not I, my two siblings are wide-eyed and living; why should the paternal clan’s art flow to the maternal? Besides, it is hardly your line in truth. Even if my siblings and I were gone, my grandfather’s art is Yeomhwa’s—it should pass to Yeomhwa’s warriors, should it not?”

At the crisp words from a nephew thought witless, lines creased her eyes.

Even in his right mind, he had never answered her like this. Bu Cho-yeon was taken aback as she set forth each reason.

“So—you would have those brats inherit the Flame Emperor’s martial art?!”

The young man, his cousin with a thief’s heart, scowled and asked.

“And why not? Seeing that they’re starting late, all the more should they begin at once.”

“Hngh! Then that brat will end a half-wit too.”

Mu-jin did not miss the mutter.

‘As I thought, that was no accident born of childish play.’

For twenty years he had walked alone and learned: there is no such thing as chance in the martial world.

Every affair is necessity, with cause.

No mishap by childish whim unfolds in the martial world.

At his cousin Cheong Do-bo’s one remark, the doubts he held unraveled and the whole picture fell into place.

“For those words, a day of reckoning shall come.”

“W-what words? Are you hearing things now?”

Bu Cho-yeon protested belatedly, but words once spoken cannot be gathered back.

She glared at her careless son, then returned to her former poise.

This martial clan now had but a dozen third-rate warriors.

A sickly nephew who could not carry the martial line could not harm her.

With the force of her merchant guild alone, she could sweep away such a paltry clan at any time.

She left the Yeomhwa clan be, only because she did not yet know where and how the Flame Emperor’s secret transmission were hidden and passed down.

‘I have already driven them to ruin in coin; it would not be strange if they fell at any time. Let us see how long they last.’

So thinking, Bu Cho-yeon raised her chin with a curl of her lip.

“If that is your will, so be it. But remember: should anything befall you, those children will be cast upon this wide world. If they are not to shoulder crushing debts and live out a wretched life, your decision is needed. I am a woman of a merchant guild—I do not pay for goods carelessly. You take my meaning?”

With that, she and her warriors turned.

Mu-jin did not hesitate to cast words at her back.

“If one sells his clan’s ancestral art for a few coins, can he be called a warrior? Such vulgar thought is a merchant’s mind, not a warrior’s.”

Only then did Cheong Do-bo grasp the barb—‘vulgar merchant’—and, unable to bear it, he wheeled about.

“If you are so sure, settle it by strength! To prate of warriors with no strength of your own!”

“Good. As I have yet to start learning them, how is the fifth day of the month after next? Let all be set, as warriors do, by a duel.”

“Words once cast cannot be gathered back.”

“I did not take you for one who knows that well.”

Face flushed at Mu-jin’s unyielding words, Cheong Do-bo snapped his back around and strode off.