Chapter 54 :

Chapter 54. This Is How False Rumors Spread (4)

“Whoa, whoa!”

We arrived at the main gate of the Sacheon Tang Family.

As I helped the child down from the horse, the gatekeeper who saw this was startled and rushed over.

“Young master!”

“Young master Jo-ung!”

The name Tang Jo-ung (唐助雄) confirmed for me that the child I had rescued was indeed the very victim of that kidnapping incident.

I said to the gatekeeper,

“Call someone to take the young master inside at once, he must have been greatly frightened.”

The child added,

“This young hero saved me from being kidnapped.”

“What?”

“Ah!”

The two gatekeepers were astonished, and immediately rang the bell to signal an emergency inside.

“There are criminals in the carriage behind us.”

We had brought along the ones who attempted the kidnapping as well.

That way, handling things would be easier in many respects.

I could imagine the torment that awaited them from here on, but that was none of my concern.

The wounds they suffered, rolling around inside a shabby carriage stripped bare of straw that might have cushioned them from the jolts of the wheels, were none of my concern either.

“And also…”

I glanced at Palgap, and Palgap lowered from the carriage a corpse wrapped tightly in cloth.

As the gatekeeper expressed doubt, Tang Jo-ung stepped forward to speak.

“It is my nursemaid.”

“……”

“They kidnapped her child and ordered her to bring me, she died at their hands.”

Tang Jo-ung, with a composure far beyond his years, explained the situation calmly.

That overly rational, unchildlike demeanor weighed on my mind.

Right now, Tang Jo-ung was forcibly suppressing his emotions.

This is not good.

Emotions cannot be suppressed forever.

Eventually, whether body or mind, they will leave their mark.

I have not lived long, but looking back on my past life, there were a few people like this.

And one of them is the Tang Jo-ung before me.

So this is why it happened.

In later years, Tang Jo-ung became a man of great cruelty.

He used only the most vicious poisons to kill, and against groups that kidnapped children, he would burn them alive.

Especially for the Murim Alliance, which had once saved him, he would volunteer for any deed, and even after the Murim Alliance abandoned him, he laughed as he died, saying, “I am grateful you gave me the chance to repay the favor.”

This time, since it was not the Murim Alliance who saved him, that fate would not come to pass, but at the very least, I hoped he would not grow into a cruel nature.

In my past life, he had been kidnapped and confined in Hyeonginmun for five years, forced to suppress extreme fear and terror, and thus became that way.

How terrifying must it have been for an eight-year-old child?

So now, the emotions he was bottling up needed to be released in one great burst.

That way, they would not explode later in some twisted form.

And the greatest danger to a martial artist is inner demons.

If left as is, surely this experience would fester into an inner demon that would bind Tang Jo-ung’s feet.

Though he had tremendous talent and high expectations, he ultimately failed to surpass the wall of the supreme realm, and died in my past life.

For this child to have such a future!

I will not allow it.

I placed my hand on Tang Jo-ung’s shoulder, then bent my knees to meet his gaze.

“You are home now.”

“Yes, thank you for saving me and bringing me here.”

“You have returned, and you are alive.”

“……”

“Soon, you will see your parents and family.”

At my words, Tang Jo-ung’s eyes grew wet.

“You did not die, you will see your family again.”

“……”

“You are alive.”

“……”

“Repeat after me, I am alive right now.”

“I… am… alive right now.”

“Let’s try it again.”

Tang Jo-ung repeated my words over and over, and tears began to form at the corners of his eyes.

At last, Tang Jo-ung burst into tears.

“Ugh-huuuh!”

“There, there, you were very scared, weren’t you?”

“I was scared, I thought I would die, and that I would never see my family again, I was so scared.”

And so Tang Jo-ung cried bitterly in my arms.

Now I was reassured.

Yes, with this much, he should be able to shake off the worst of this memory.

From afar, I sensed someone running toward us.

Tang Jo-ung, having cried so much, finally exhausted himself and drifted off to sleep.

The gate opened, and a woman dressed in splendid silks came rushing out.

“Jo-ung!”

As I looked at her, the gatekeeper said,

“This is Madam Hongri (紅莉), the master’s third wife.”

I lifted Tang Jo-ung and placed him in her arms.

“Here is your son.”

“Ahh…”

“He seems to have cried himself to sleep, perhaps relieved to be home, he wept greatly.”

“I, I see.”

“I am but a passing traveler, the truth is…”

After bowing with clasped fists, I explained the whole sequence of events.

“That is how it was.”

“Truly, I do not know how to repay this kindness.”

“I did not act for reward, it was but a fated meeting on the road. Then we shall be on our way.”

“No, please, you must come inside. How could we let our son’s savior, the benefactor of our family, leave just like this?”

“In truth, we have pressing matters and cannot afford leisure, so forgive us this discourtesy as we must go.”

Why else would we have taken the forest path?

It was to reach Sacheon’s capital swiftly, and in secret.

If word spread that we were the ones who had saved the treasured child of the Sacheon Tang Family, our affairs would be delayed.

And truly, we had not acted in expectation of any reward, so leaving like this was right.

“Then we shall be on our way.”

By then, Palgap had already freed the horses from the carriage and mounted up.

I too mounted my horse, and together we set off toward our destination, the Sacheon branch of the Eunhae Merchant Group.

At that moment, I saw the expression on Warrior Lee Pil’s face.

He looked considerably relieved.

Now that I thought of it, back when he first realized Tang Jo-ung was a child of the Sacheon Tang Family, his face had stiffened somewhat…

There was something peculiar about that, but I let it pass for now.

***

An hour later, Tang Jo-ung opened his eyes.

“Uh…”

It was a familiar ceiling.

“Jo-ung!”

He turned his head.

His father and mother were by his bedside.

“Father? Mother?”

“Yes!”

“You are awake?”

It was real.

He had truly met his family.

Tang Jo-ung collapsed into his parents’ embrace, and once again wept bitterly.

“I had a terrible dream, I was at the market with nanny…”

As he spoke, Tang Jo-ung gradually realized.

What he had experienced was no dream at all.

“Father! Where is the young hero who saved me? I did not thank him properly.”

“Hmm?”

“Well, the thing is…”

Tang Jo-ung’s father Tang Gyu-jeong and his mother Madam Hongri faltered.

“He handed you to us, then simply left.”

At Madam Hongri’s words, Tang Jo-ung lowered his head in disappointment.

“If not for him, I would have died. And Father, you always told me that as someone of the Sacheon Tang Family, one must repay grace twofold, and repay enmity tenfold.”

“That I did.”

“Then I too wish to do the same.”

“But that man gave neither his name nor his affiliation, and vanished like the wind.”

At that moment, the family head and father of Tang Jo-ung, Tang Gyu-jeong, spoke carefully.

“So then, is it possible that they too were…”

“Absolutely not!”

At the suspicion that perhaps they might have been accomplices of the kidnappers, Tang Jo-ung answered firmly.

Yet, there was some reason to Tang Gyu-jeong’s words.

There had indeed been cases of people pretending to be benefactors in order to claim reward.

“He told me, when I said I would repay him someday, that if in the future I grew capable and saw someone in danger, I need only not turn away. That, he said, would be repayment enough.”

“Did he truly say so? He asked for nothing else?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Hmm…”

Tang Gyu-jeong nodded.

Then it did seem true that the man had saved his youngest son purely out of goodwill.

‘Indeed, if he were a conspirator, he would not have disappeared like the wind. He would have lingered here, seeking some gain.’

Tang Gyu-jeong said,

“But we know nothing of him. He gave no name, nothing, and then left.”

At his words, Madam Hongri nodded.

Nor did they know the identities of the kidnappers.

“If we only knew his name, we could find him.”

Boastful though it might sound, the Tang Family was the most influential household in Sacheon.

If they knew only a name, they could find him.

Then Tang Jo-ung cried out,

“Ah! I remember now. It was Young Hero Eun Seoho.”

“Young Hero Eun Seoho?”

“Yes. When he saved me, perhaps to put me at ease, he told me his name. He said he was Eun Seoho of the Eunhae Merchant Group.”

At those words, Tang Gyu-jeong rose from his seat.

“Leave it to me.”

“I beg you, Father.”

He must surely find the benefactor who had saved his youngest son, and repay the grace.

It was for the family’s honor, yes, but more than that, it was the heart of a father grateful for his son’s rescue.

He immediately said to his adjutant,

“Find this Eun Seoho of the Eunhae Merchant Group. But since it seems he has his reasons, search with utmost discretion.”

“Understood.”

***

I looked at the building in the distance.

This was the Sacheon branch of the Eunhae Merchant Group, north of Sacheon’s capital city.

Though it was located in a grain-producing region, grain was not the Eunhae Merchant Group’s main concern.

Since ancient times, Sacheon silk, known as Shujin, had been famous as one of the four great silks of Zhongyuan.

Naturally, the Eunhae Merchant Group also dealt in silk, and distributed Shujin from here.

Moreover, sugar and citrus fruits were abundantly produced, and it was a major source of rock salt as well.

To a merchant group, this was truly golden land.

Yet, the road into Sacheon was treacherous.

Thus, visits could not be frequent.

And so, they could not always respond promptly to changing circumstances here.

The solution was the establishment of this Sacheon branch.

And the one who presided as branch master here was…

My uncle.

“Will you not see the branch master, sir?”

At Palgap’s question, I nodded.

“Yes, we agreed not to.”

I knew my uncle was not a spy of the Dan Merchant Group.

It was thanks to him that the Eunhae Merchant Group had risen to fame with silk.

But I could not meet him now, for I did not yet know who in the branch was the Dan Merchant Group’s spy.

If I were to meet my uncle, the people in the branch would soon know I was here.

Then the Dan Merchant Group would surely set new schemes in motion, and it would become a mire of interference.

I felt guilty toward my uncle, but our pleasant reunion must be postponed.

I gazed once more at the branch building from afar, then turned away.

Now it was time to begin the operation.

.

.

.

After a while, I found suitable targets.

Children, playing in the neighborhood.

I bought a heap of snacks and sat under a tree. Then, placing the treats on the rock beside me, I called to the children.

“Hey, kids.”

“...?”

Holding out candied treats, I said,

“Want some?”

“C-candied skewers!”

What I held out was fried dough coated with honey and sprinkled with sugar powder.

Skewered on sticks, they were a simple treat, yet the children’s mouths watered with drool.

“But mother said never to eat food strangers give…”

“She said we mustn’t.”

“That’s right. You mustn’t eat whatever food strangers give. But you see, I bought too many of these. And it would be a shame to throw them away.”

“Mm… we mustn’t waste food.”

“They said wasting food brings punishment.”

“So I’m just asking you to help me eat these.”

At last, the children carefully took a skewer of candied treat each.

Once their bellies were full, their attention turned to me, and they asked,

“Who are you, mister?”

“I’m a traveler. I came with my servant there.”

I pointed to Palgap, and the children tilted their heads.

“That man looks like a bear.”

Unintentionally, I laughed at that.

“Hahaha. Really? Then what do I look like?”

“You… hmm, a Self-Dancing Doll.”

“What?”

I was startled by the unexpected answer. I looked like a Self-Dancing Doll?

“Because, you’re pretty.”

“Yeah. Big brother is pretty.”

“But you mustn’t say Self-Dancing Doll. They say that’s a doll possessed by ghosts.”

“That’s right, I heard adults say so.”

Before, it was souls, now it was ghosts?

Sigh…

Well, whether soul or ghost, there isn’t much difference.

I smiled again and said,

“Still, thank you for calling me pretty like a Self-Dancing Doll.”

“You’re not offended?”

“No, it’s fine. I actually like it. Because, you see, I know a secret song about the Self-Dancing Doll.”