Heavenly Demon of the Huashan Sect - Chapter 220

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 220
As the horses carrying Dan Mok Chan and Jong Hyeon disappeared beyond the ridge, Dan Mok Lin lowered her waving hand and let out a bitter smile.
Regret settled heavily across her face.
The meeting had been joyful, but far too brief.
Yet there was nothing to be done about it.
She was no longer the daughter of the Dan Mok Clan—she was a Daoist of the Huashan Sect.
Any longer an encounter would have served neither of them well.
‘Still, at least I was able to see their faces and exchange farewells this time.’
Recalling the moment she had left the clan, she managed to shed some of her regret.
Jong Hyeon and Dan Mok Chan—she had parted from them without a proper goodbye.
Especially Jong Hyeon, who had cared for her since childhood; her failure to bid him farewell had weighed on her conscience even as she departed.
And yet to exchange words with them now, however briefly, brought her a measure of peace.
‘And I heard that Uncle is doing well too.’
As Dan Mok Lin turned over each thought, her expression grew brighter.
Learning that Dan Mok Jin Gang, who had taken upon himself the blame for her night escape in her stead—severing her ties to the clan—had received a surprisingly light punishment brought relief to her heart.
She had originally intended to flee alone.
But stripped of her Internal Force, she had been discovered easily by Dan Mok Jin Gang—and instead of reporting her, he had chosen to help.
Even knowing that the clan would turn against him for it.
Dan Mok Lin herself had tried to stop him, worried about the consequences, but Dan Mok Jin Gang would not relent; together they had attempted the night escape and succeeded.
‘I’m grateful for that.’
As she was shedding away the melancholy of their brief meeting,
Cheon Hui beside her was stroking his chin, lost in thought about the single sword strike Jong Hyeon had just demonstrated.
‘Hmm, that was an interesting technique.’
The creator of the Dan Cheon Bi Geom had not reached the Heavenly Martial Realm, but had undoubtedly glimpsed beyond it, if only briefly.
Otherwise, he could never have manifested fragments of the Sim Geom to such a degree.
‘Now that’s something to stir the blood.’
His lips curved upward slowly.
After his encounter with Je Gal Go Cheon, that peerless master of the Heavenly Martial Realm, and now having witnessed this intriguing technique, his heart had grown light.
In high spirits, he moved lightly on his feet.
As Cheon Hui swiftly climbed into the carriage, Dan Mok Lin hurried after him.
And just as Cheon I Gae was about to board the carriage,
A tap.
Cheon Hui’s hand stopped him.
“What is it?”
Cheon I Gae’s brow furrowed.
“I mentioned it before.”
“Before?”
As Cheon Hui’s brow deepened in concentration, trying to recall his meaning, his expression suddenly darkened.
“You want me to wash again?”
“Of course. You’re not seriously planning to board the carriage looking like that?”
Cheon Hui looked Cheon I Gae up and down.
Draped once more in a filthy straw mat cloak—from who knew where—his appearance was utterly disreputable.
His matted hair was flaked with dandruff, and his face was streaked with dark grime.
It was a strange thing indeed.
Only a fortnight had passed.
Yet Cheon I Gae now looked exactly as he had before they had begun their journey.
“Hmm? That looks like the clothes we bought last time—surely you didn’t deliberately roll around in the dirt?”
“Ahem.”
Cheon Hui’s guess had struck home; Cheon I Gae let out an awkward cough and turned his head slightly away.
“And the stench too…”
As Cheon Hui tried to get a whiff, a reek rolled off Cheon I Gae that made him clap a hand over his nose and wrinkle his face.
“Did you crawl out of a privy?”
This time, Cheon I Gae bristled.
“You rascal! I didn’t go that far!”
“Then what’s with this stench?”
“The smell? It’s my smell! What do you think? Isn’t it a perfectly vile odor?”
Cheon I Gae spoke proudly, puffing out his chest.
To a beggar, the compliment that one reeked was worth more praise than anything else in the world.
Rendered speechless by his brazen attitude, Cheon Hui shut the carriage door with a bang and declared,
“In any case, you’re not getting in looking like that.”
In the end, Cheon I Gae puffed out his lower lip.
“Fine, fine! I’ll wash up if that’s what it takes!”
About a quarter hour later.
Clop-clop— clop-clop—
Cheon I Gae returned from the carriage with Go Sam, leading the horse.
Go Sam, who had brought the horse back looking far livelier than before after feeding it grain and water, glanced around and nodded curtly.
“We’ll depart now.”
Perhaps it was his natural sharp instinct.
Or perhaps he’d been forewarned that such a situation would unfold.
He had clearly sensed the collision and aftermath of the sparring match, yet rather than speak of it, he behaved as though nothing had happened at all.
And Cheon Hui approved of such conduct.
There was no point in needless fear or growing distance—only trouble that way.
At that moment, Cheon I Gae climbed into the carriage, and Cheon Hui’s gaze turned toward him.
Hair and beard neatly groomed.
Dressed now in clean garments of deep blue, the beggar from moments before had vanished entirely—in his place stood what seemed a dignified scholar of advancing years.
“Ah? You had spare clothes prepared?”
“Hmph! I kept them just in case.”
Cheon I Gae muttered irritably.
“Then you should have washed before I fetched you. That way you wouldn’t have wasted my time.”
Tendons rose on the forehead of Cheon I Gae, whose temper had flared at the teasing remark, but Cheon Hui paid it no mind.
“Next time, I’ll wash before you ask.”
His utterly unruffled manner of adding this provoked Cheon I Gae to strike his own chest.
He wanted to say something—his chest felt tight, his composure frayed—but he knew it would do no good.
Just then, Go Sam called out loudly.
“Departing now!”
With a vigorous cry, the horses neighed and the carriage lurched forward.
A short while later, as Cheon I Gae had cooled his temper in the steady rocking of the cart, he looked at Cheon Hui and spoke.
“Ah, that’s right! And you caused some kind of incident with the Je Gal Clan, didn’t you?”
“What incident?”
“Don’t play coy. I know perfectly well you tangled with the Sichuan Tang Family.”
“Ah, that?”
Cheon Hui recalled the matter he’d completely forgotten in the wake of meeting Je Gal Go Cheon, and spoke without concern.
“Some member we’d met before—a gang member or something—picked a fight again, so I obliged.”
When Cheon Hui spoke so flatly, Cheon I Gae stroked his beard and opened his mouth.
“So you did clash with those people after all.”
His eyes flashed as he spoke.
“But are you sure it’s wise? We’re talking about the Sichuan Tang Family—those who would chase you to the ends of Zhongyuan itself if it meant avenging a grudge.”
“I suspect they won’t be capable of such thoughts.”
Cheon Hui’s lips twisted slightly as he answered.
The fear that had been planted in that gang member’s mind.
It was not something even a skilled master could dispel lightly.
And the gang member’s strength being what it was—
‘He won’t even dare.’
Cheon I Gae chuckled softly, watching Cheon Hui show no concern whatsoever.
‘What did he do, I wonder.’
Had it been someone else, he would have dismissed such talk as mere bluffing, but this was Cheon Hui—it was different.
With such confidence, there was a high likelihood he’d used some method.
Cheon I Gae shook his head slowly.
“Still, don’t go charging about too recklessly. The more you do, the more enemies you’ll make.”
It was grave counsel born of experience.
The Gangho was a world of grudges.
When enmity ran deep, it complicated anyone’s life without exception.
But Cheon Hui let it pass in one ear and out the other.
‘That’s for me to decide.’
He was certain that no one had endured more grudges than his former self.
In the Nine Provinces Eight Deities, all had wanted his death, their eyes ablaze with that desire.
‘When that happens, I just shatter the grudge entirely so they can’t hold it anymore.’
As he recalled the method by which his past self had ended enmities, Cheon I Gae asked a question.
“……How is Je Gal Go Cheon faring?”
Cheon Hui immediately drew back from his thoughts and looked at Cheon I Gae.
His expression was graver than she had ever seen it, and his gaze held hers steadily.
“You must know him well, then?”
“Not well enough to say that. But I know him to some degree. When he was active in the Gangho, I was in my prime too.”
“He seemed to be doing well. From what I saw, he’s taken quite a liking to tending his garden.”
“What? Tending a garden? That Je Gal Go Cheon?”
Cheon I Gae’s eyes widened in disbelief.
For a moment, he burst into loud laughter.
“Ahahaha! The man who once shook the entire Gangho with his hegemonic ambitions to unify all of Zhongyuan—tending a garden?”
Cheon I Gae laughed so hard that tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, which he brushed away with his index finger.
“Truly a most unseemly pursuit for such a man.”
“It wasn’t quite as strange as all that.”
Je Gal Go Cheon’s manner of tending his garden was not awkward at all.
Rather, it seemed natural.
Like that of someone who had been cultivating it for many years.
After hearing Cheon Hui’s response, Cheon I Gae stroked his beard thoughtfully, falling into contemplation.
“Perhaps…… you may be right. It’s been more than forty years since he withdrew from the world.”
When Cheon Hui heard Cheon I Gae murmur those words, he regarded him with an expression of sudden comprehension.
‘Come to think of it, he knows more about the Eight Martial Gods than anyone.’
Until now, he had never considered it, but if this man—who shared the same generation and bore the alias Cheon I Gae—then surely no one knew them better.
“But why did someone of such skill choose seclusion? With such power, he could have built the Je Gal Clan even greater.”
In that instant, Cheon I Gae’s brow furrowed.
“That, I do not know. And not only I—no one knows.”
No one knows?
Cheon Hui tilted his head quizzically.
It was a curious matter.
What reason could a master who had reached the Heavenly Martial Realm have for sudden seclusion? There must have been circumstances both internal and external.
Then, when Cheon I Gae added his explanation, Cheon Hui’s eyes widened slightly.
“Who could have foreseen that all Eight Martial Gods would vanish on the same day and at the same hour?”
“On the same day and hour?”
“Hmph, not to know this…….”
Cheon I Gae began to shake his head, then stopped mid-sentence.
“It’s only natural you wouldn’t know. Forty years have passed, and an even greater event occurred at that very time.”
“What event was that?”
Interest kindled in Cheon Hui’s eyes.
Until now, he had heard only of the current state of affairs in the Gangho; he knew little of what came before.
Since he had rarely had reason to ask, the story Cheon I Gae was now telling struck him as quite compelling.
“On the very day they withdrew, the Bi Cheon Society was founded, and thus the age of the Nine Provinces Three Hegemons began.”
Though the explanation was brief, its meaning was immediately clear.
The disappearance of the Eight Martial Gods—men of supreme skill—was certainly a great event, but the Nine Provinces Three Hegemons was a vast power that had dominated the Gangho for forty years. In the present day, their influence could not be compared.
“That timing seems too perfect to be coincidence.”
Cheon I Gae’s eyes grew sharp.
“I think so too. I don’t know all the details, but I suspect the Nine Provinces Three Hegemons has deep connections to the Eight Martial Gods. There is reason to believe this: Sa Heuk Ryeon Ju, one of the Three Hegemons, is himself one of the Eight Martial Gods, yet he has remained in complete seclusion ever since.”
“That’s quite a suspicious coincidence.”
As Cheon Hui listened to Cheon I Gae recount information from the past, he tapped his index finger thoughtfully.
Suspicious barely covered it—it was deeply suspicious.
Then Cheon I Gae’s eyes lit up.
“And yet you—you drew out that Je Gal Go Cheon from forty years of seclusion.”
His gaze fixed on Cheon Hui, unwavering and intense.
“What did you do?”
“I noticed your keen gaze earlier. So this is what you were fishing for?”
“……It seems difficult for you to speak of it.”
“Not particularly.”
Cheon Hui gave a slight shrug.
“We simply had a conversation.”
“What sort of conversation could…….”
Cheon I Gae spoke with barely contained excitement.
He was far too curious about what could have drawn out a man from forty years of seclusion.
“Nothing remarkable.”
But unlike the eager Cheon I Gae, Cheon Hui spoke as if it were of little consequence.
“We merely exchanged names and discussed what our true natures were—that sort of thing.”
A furrow deepened between Cheon I Gae’s brows.
“That’s all?”
“And then… just a request to do some sparring at Huashan next time.”
Clang!
The carriage lurched violently.
Cheon I Gae and Dan Mok Lin shot to their feet without thinking, their eyes darting wildly as if the ground itself had split open, and they fixed their gaze on Cheon Hui.
“You mean… with Je Gal Go Cheon?”
“Brother. When did that happen?”
As the two spoke in bewilderment,
“Is something wrong?”
The carriage jolted heavily as they stamped about in alarm, and Go Sam, who sat on the driver’s bench, called out in concern toward the cabin.
“Ah, it’s nothing. Just keep going as you were.”
Cheon I Gae answered in haste.
“Y-yes, I understand.”
Taken aback by his urgent tone, Go Sam nonetheless quickly gathered the reins again.
Cheon I Gae settled back into his seat and swallowed hard.
“He accepted it? Je Gal Go Cheon accepted?”
“He said he’d come to Huashan once.”
Then Dan Mok Lin spoke up.
“Don’t tell me… when he comes to Huashan that day, it’s not just to watch, but—”
“A sparring match. Yes.”
Dan Mok Lin collapsed back into her seat.
Her mind went blank.
Meanwhile, watching Dan Mok Lin’s expression and posture, Cheon I Gae found himself unable to control his own face.
‘Looking at her like that… it’s really true, isn’t it.’
He shook his head slowly.
Then he turned to look at Cheon Hui.
‘Just what is his level of skill?’
He knew about the Heavenly Martial Realm.
The Jongnam Sword Saint had said as much, and when he’d witnessed the martial arts himself, he’d felt that caliber firsthand.
But Je Gal Go Cheon…
As he tightened his brow and fell silent, a heavy hush settled over the carriage.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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