Murim School Record - Chapter 35

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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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Episode 35: A Novel Deal (1)

The carriage was departing from Mungong Academy.
Nothing had changed from when it arrived.
Yeo Cho-ran watched them go.
The sun had fallen, and the carriage of the Jeoksan Caravan began to disappear into the gathering darkness.

In a room at that hour, three men sat.
Mo Yong-cheon, Pung Gun, and Woo Gun.
Their expressions were heavy.
They had hardened into something beyond heaviness—unyielding stone.
“Why do you say nothing?”
Mo Yong-cheon regarded the two frozen figures before him.
“There is no time to waste. We are the hunted, and the longer we delay, the deeper our lord will sink into a pit from which there is no escape.”
“Pung Gun!”
Pung Gun opened his mouth.
“Speak.”
“Whether we succeed in this or fail, we cannot escape blame—and if we succeed, we still bear the stain of having sold women for healing.”
It was so.
And yet they pushed forward anyway.
If the wound healed, they would face condemnation, yes—but the Alliance Leader would reclaim his authority, his power.
With strength restored, the past would be buried.
Of course, for a considerable time the people would speak of him as a vile, contemptible creature, tearing his name to shreds.
But they had failed.
The wound remained unhealed, and his morality had crashed to the ground.
Now there was no strength left, no shred of the Alliance Leader’s authority.
And having attempted to sell women for healing, they would grant him no mercy.
Only the shadow actors would profit.

‘Remove him from power at once.’
‘How can we have such a man as our Alliance Leader.’
‘How can we hold our heads high and face the heavens.’

That much would be a mercy.

‘A complete bastard.’
‘Kill him now.’
‘Not even Hao’s lackeys commit such abominations.’

If he dragged himself up from the depths, there would be no negotiation then, no threshold they would respect—not even his life could be guaranteed.
His path to life had been sealed shut.
Isolated, without allies.
“But a path has opened. We are breathing again.”
“A path, you say?”
Pung Gun’s eyes widened.
“Im Mo-baek.”
“Im Mo-baek? Is he not the Caravan Master of the Jeoksan Caravan who just left this place?”
“With his aid, we shall resolve all of this. What do you make of it?”
“What exactly are you saying?”
His brow furrowed, unable to grasp the true meaning beneath the words.

Exhausted, everyone extinguished their lamps early and retired.
But Im Mo-baek’s room remained lit.
Staring at the burning yellow candle, Im Mo-baek sank into thought.
“Hmm…”
Whatever troubled him, he kept sighing.
Finally he rose from his seat, opened the door, and stepped outside.
The night was dark and the inn lay quiet.
In the early evening the place had been rowdy with drunken guests, but as midnight drew near, that clamor had faded to silence.
Im Mo-baek walked into the Rear Garden and stopped beneath a towering pine.
One of the ancient tree’s branches hung down to his head—so thick that two grown men would need to stretch their arms to encircle it.
Snap!
He plucked a few needle-sharp leaves and held them to his nose.
The rich scent of pine burrowed into his nostrils.

‘He wasn’t asking me to become his disciple. He was asking me to take his hand.’

It was an offer he hadn’t anticipated.
Mo Yong-cheon had held him back as he tried to leave and spoken thus.

‘I will pass everything to you—my martial arts, the position of patriarch of the Mo Yong Clan.’
‘Why would you make such an offer?’
‘There are many who deserve death, and no shortage of sects that need dealing with. I have much work, but not enough hands. If my own hands aren’t enough, I must borrow someone else’s.’
‘Are you saying you wish to borrow my hands?’
‘Nowhere to Plant Your Feet, as they say. It seems you have no intention of finishing your life as a courier for the Jeoksan Caravan.’
‘That I need somewhere to belong?’

He meant he would become that place of refuge.
“Head Escort!”
He spun around in surprise.
Suk Ji-un, whom he thought was asleep, approached.
“You weren’t sleeping?”
“What are you troubled about?”
“What do you mean, troubled? I’m not troubled.”
Suk Ji-un smiled.
“Just because I’m young doesn’t mean I lack perception. You haven’t spoken a word since we left Mungong Academy until now.”
Im Mo-baek smiled gently.
It was a telling action—one that made clear something had transpired inside.
The truth was, the proposal had been completely unexpected.
The Murim Alliance Leader was, by any measure, the greatest master under heaven.
And now someone was trying to drive Mo Yong-cheon out.
He had been wounded in an assault by Bun Gwang-Kwae-Geom, and his condition was so grave that recovery seemed distant.

‘I can have my revenge, and you can gain the world besides.’

He had dreamed of becoming a master, but he’d never harbored ambitions to seize the world.
Of course, if he could lay the world at his feet, there was no reason to refuse.
Im Mo-baek laid everything bare to Suk Ji-un.
After hearing it, Suk Ji-un’s eyes widened like paper lanterns.
It was a proposal far grander and more staggering than he’d imagined.
“If it were me, I wouldn’t hesitate even half a breath.”
“Which way?”
“Obviously, taking his hand.”
“You must take it.”
Another voice came from the darkness, and three figures walked slowly toward them.
“None of you could sleep?”
It was Na Sul-man, Bo Hae-man, and Jong Bae.
“As Ji-un said, wandering the world and stirring things up as we do, we develop a sixth sense. We already sensed that Alliance Leader Mo Yong-cheon had extended an offer of Blood Covenant to you.”
“Head Escort!”
Jong Bae’s expression hardened.
“Scholars make their names known through letters, and warriors through strength across the realm. Since things have come to this, let us speak plainly. The one in need is Alliance Leader Mo Yong-cheon, not you.”
“That’s right. You have nothing to lose.”
Suk Ji-un nodded in agreement.
“No matter how you examine it, Head Escort, you stand to lose not even a speck of dust.”
Pitter-patter!
Then, suddenly, raindrops began to fall one by one.
“It looks like rain. Let’s head inside for now.”
Im Mo-baek led the group indoors.

A rumor spread with terrifying speed.

The Alliance Leader Who Sold Women for Healing.

The Alliance Leader had trafficked young women to pay for his own medical treatment.
Worse still, the whispers specified that these girls were not yet seventeen years old—and the martial world reacted as if someone had kicked a hornet’s nest.
The crucial detail was what the rumor left out entirely.
That the Alliance Leader’s cure required intimate union with a woman bearing the Seven Yin Severed Meridians—without which there could be no healing.
And so the Alliance Leader became universally condemned.
Demands for his immediate removal poured in from all quarters, and righteous figures from the Murim Alliance, unable to contain their fury, descended upon him in droves.
The Nine Schools and One Faction and the Five Great Families swiftly convened emergency councils.

A month had passed.
There was no sharp pain, but because he could not properly circulate his Qi, the suffering was profound.
In his current state, he could not guarantee victory even against a Peak Master.
Watching the entrance to Mungong Academy had become his daily ritual.
At the mere sound of carriage wheels, his heart would lurch; a voice would startle him into turning, only to find it was not the person he awaited.
Whoosh!
The rain that had fallen since morning grew heavier still.
Pung Gun had brought him a rain cloak, but Mo Yong-cheon refused it, saying it was suffocating.
He stood drenched in the downpour, his gaze fixed solely on the main gate of Mungong Academy.
He could have waited inside, after all.
Pung Gun drew a long breath.
“Even when he arrives, it will take some time. Surely he must settle his affairs first, no?”
“That’s true.”
It was merely comfort he offered—mere words—yet Mo Yong-cheon seized upon them eagerly.
“It will take time. He’ll need to explain himself to the caravan traders who follow him, seek out old friends to bid farewell, share parting cups of wine…”
He wove the narrative himself.
And by doing so, he could believe this delay was natural, expected.
Sigh.
Pung Gun’s sigh seemed to shake the very earth.
The Leader of the Murim Alliance.
The foremost master under heaven.
Mo Yong-cheon—of whom it was said that even the sun loses its radiance when it stands before him.
Cold by nature, yes, but universally respected for his fair judgment—now stood soaked in rain, desperately waiting for someone.
“My lord!”
As Mo Yong-cheon stood drenched in the downpour, his followers could not don rain cloaks of their own.
Pung Gun, standing some distance back, finally spoke.
“Is there truly no other way, my lord?”
“There is not.”
Your humble servant asks whether it must be this young man in particular. Among the few we have examined, there were those who were not wanting, nor excessive in qualification.”
“Are all mountains the same height?”
Pung Gun flinched.
It seemed Mo Yong-cheon regarded Im Mo-baek as a vessel of extraordinary capacity.
They too had observed Im Mo-baek, and their assessment was merely that he was no ordinary young man.
Yet Mo Yong-cheon spoke of him as the highest mountain.
Thunder crashed overhead.
The rain began in earnest.
The downpour intensified.

Whoooosh!
A cloudburst.
The rain poured down so heavily one could barely see ahead.
Yet Mo Yong-cheon stood there still.
Pung Gun and Woo Gun had come, as had the Biho Eighteen Elite Guards who served as his escort and Ma-o, the quartermaster.
All of them pleaded with him earnestly and sincerely to come inside.

‘The one I wait for does not come any less for my waiting inside rather than out.’

The wheel of life turns beyond our knowing.
When all things reach their season and the moment ripens, they arrive and are made of their own accord.
No matter how thoroughly a man plans and strives, what cannot be will not be.
What is meant to be connected through fate binds itself without effort.

What had made that giant man so impatient?
Though I have served at his side for decades, I have never seen him cling to one person like this.
Because he was strong on his own, everything overflowed from him.
Has he grown old?
They say when a man ages, his thoughts and will transform.
But Mo Yong-cheon had only just entered his seventies.
At sixty, even for the foremost martial master of the realm—no ordinary man—that is scarcely advanced in years.
Could it be fear, from having evaded danger so long?
Yet that tension and urgency in his expression were of a different quality than fear.
Crack!
Boom!
The lightning and thunder grew wilder still.
Flash!
Mo Yong-cheon’s eyes, his hair soaked and loosened by the rain, flashed like lightning.
Someone was walking toward Mungong Academy from afar.
The downpour was too thick to see clearly, but something black was moving there, that much was certain.
As Pung Gun and Woo Gun instinctively moved to rush out, Mo Yong-cheon raised his hand to stop them.
“Do not act rashly.”
The two men stood fast once more.
Footsteps.
The sound of footfalls was distinct.
A man was drawing near.
He too approached through the torrential rain.
Patter, patter.
The moment Mo Yong-cheon made out his face, his eyes blazed.
He had come.
It was unmistakably Im Mo-baek, whom he had waited for so long.
Im Mo-baek, a light bundle slung across his back, stepped through the main gate of Mungong Academy.
Was it the humble appearance?
Though he had been caught in the same rain, Im Mo-baek’s garb was utterly unremarkable.
As Im Mo-baek drew close, a faint smile played at the corners of his mouth.
“My companions pushed me so hard, saying it was like a pumpkin coming up with the vine—hurry along, they said, be quick about it, such insistence.”
“That’s wrong. Those are the words I should speak. Welcome, truly a joy to see you.”
With sudden force—
Mo Yong-cheon pulled Im Mo-baek into his arms.
A great cry—
Pung Gun and Woo Gun, along with all eighteen of the Biho Eighteen Elite Guards including Ma-o, all trembled visibly.
They had never seen the Alliance Leader embrace anyone with such unbridled joy.
The Alliance Leader held Im Mo-baek for a long time, unwilling to let go.
A brilliant flash—
An enormous burst of lightning flooded the surroundings with harsh light.
Boom-boom-boom-boom!
Following it came a roar as if the very heavens were collapsing.

It was no simple matter.
Mo Yong-cheon’s attempt to trade women for healing—directed at the women with Seven Yin Severed Meridians—was indeed worthy of condemnation.
It was coercion, not fair exchange, exploiting the weakness of having lived barely twenty years and being poor.

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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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