Murim School Record - Chapter 62

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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 62: Small Cunning and Grand Strategy (1)

A remarkable proposal.
“Looking back through history, there have been many Pledge Marks and sworn oaths bound between lord and vassal. We speak now of forging a similar oath, in that spirit.”
If he were truly blood-kin of the Mo Yong Family, such elaborate ceremony would never be necessary.
It was precisely because he was not blood-kin—and because he had pushed aside Wi Ji Gwang—that all of this was needed.
Nothing could prevent someone from challenging him later.
Mo Yong Cheon had made his decision, but there was no bloodline legitimacy behind it.
The seat of Mo Yong Family Patriarch would inevitably remain unstable.
Woon Hak San’s proposal was a covenant—that in their generation at least, they would never again unleash such a bloodbath as today.
“Does this suit you all?”
No one voiced objection.
Who would dare say no, even in their hearts?
To raise one’s hand before his face was to cry out: I will never recognize you as Patriarch.
That was simply inviting death.
“I shall be the first to leave my mark.”
Woon Hak San rose and walked boldly toward the wall facing them, placing his right hand against the stone.
As he drew his Internal Energy upward, his hand sank halfway into the stone wall, leaving a clear Handprint.
One by one, following Woon Hak San’s lead, others rose to leave their marks upon the stone.
This was Riding the Tiger—having mounted the beast, there was no choice but to run.
Once you ride it, you cannot dismount.
Some moved slowly, others quickly, but all twenty-odd men left their Handprints upon the wall.
Yi Mo Baek rose and observed the Handprints embedded in the stone.
He merely looked.
Yet his keen eyes read the depth of each mark with perfect clarity.
Those who had channeled their full power to leave a true print harbored nothing but loyalty in their hearts.
But not a few had merely gone through the motions.

The bell marking midnight sounded, and a man stepped into the Mo Yong Family Patriarch’s chamber.
It was Woon Hak San.
Yi Mo Baek handed him a slip of paper.
Woon Hak San looked at him, as if asking what this was.
Yi Mo Baek gave him the slip and walked toward the window.
In that moment, Woon Hak San unfolded the paper. It bore six names.
“Kill them all.”
Woon Hak San froze.
He started to ask, his mouth half-opening before he closed it again.
“Understood.”
Woon Hak San vanished.
Yi Mo Baek turned and gazed at the entrance through which Woon Hak San had departed.
Those whose hearts did not truly lie with him were but a breed waiting for circumstance to shift their allegiance to another master.
It was not unreasonable to kill those who would never be true allies before they could become a problem.
Show them small mercy, and they would return as daggers in the back later.
There was intention behind this as well.
Should blood flow again when all thought it had ended, fear would grip the hearts of men.
For a time, no one would dare act rashly.
The next dawn, Yi Mo Baek departed the Mo Yong Family compound while darkness still clung to the early morning air.

A carriage was entering the gates of the Murim Alliance.
It was pulled by a white horse of unblemished coat, and upon the driver’s seat sat a man wearing a wide-brimmed hat pulled low over his eyes.
Yet from the right pillar of the driver’s seat hung a Clan Banner.

‘Mo Yong Tianxia’
Written in red characters upon a golden ground—the brush-work of a master calligrapher.
As the carriage approached the main gates of the Murim Alliance, it slowed and came to a stop.
One of the two guards stationed at the main gate approached and offered a respectful salute, then posed his question.
“Where have you come from, traveling in that carriage?”
He could not have failed to notice the banner.
“We’ve come from the Mo Yong Family.”
Only then did the gatekeeper look up at the banner hanging from the right pillar of the carriage.
Every banner borne by the great clans of the martial world displayed various emblems and imposing family mottos to announce the prestige of their houses.
Yet there was precisely one forbidden word.

‘Tianxia’

Those two characters alone.
Though the word consisted of merely two characters, the meaning they contained was so vast and lofty that one trembled to speak it aloud.
Tianxia meant heaven and earth—and to speak it was to claim dominion.
Only the household of the Alliance Master could inscribe the characters ‘Tianxia’ upon their banner.
“My name is Yi Mo Baek,” the man said.
As he spoke, he withdrew a crimson tablet from his robes.
Carved upon it was a single Blood Wolf in a ferocious snarl.
“The… the Blood Wolf.”
The gatekeeper’s eyes widened.
The crimson wolf—the emblem of the Mo Yong Family.
The Blood Wolf Tablet was the Pledge Mark signifying the Next Patriarch of the Mo Yong Family.
He had already heard that the Mo Yong Family’s succession had been decided.
Yi Mo Baek had also chosen to introduce himself as Mo Yong Mo Baek in order to emphasize that he was now the patriarch of the Mo Yong Family.
“Please wait just a moment.”
Yi Mo Baek accepted the Blood Wolf Tablet as it was offered and nodded.
The guard hastened toward the gatehouse and vanished from sight.
A faint smirk crossed his face.
Yi Mo Baek tilted the brim of his silk cap upward and allowed himself a smile.
It would be a lie to say there was no weight in his shoulders now.
Back when they had entered as subordinates of Shaolin, the behavior of the Alliance gatekeepers had been nothing short of shameful.
No matter how much Shaolin’s prestige had declined and withered compared to former days, they had demanded to search everything—interrogating what goods lay in the carriage and inspecting every detail with meticulous scrutiny.
When Seol Yeo Chul, unable to bear it any longer, had declared he would never forget today’s humiliation, one of the guards had uttered words that echoed still in Yi Mo Baek’s mind.

‘Hehehehe, never forget it—bury it deep in your heart, and one day you shall have your revenge.’

The smile at the corner of Yi Mo Baek’s mouth deepened.

‘How fitting that day has come.’

His lips curled into a harsh, predatory grin.
“The Next Patriarch of the Mo Yong Family has arrived, you say?”
A surprised voice called out from the direction of the gatehouse.
Then the same guard who had fled inward returned, this time accompanied by a corpulent, bald-headed man.

‘So that must be Ok Gun Song, commander of the Flying Death Squad.’

The Flying Death Squad was the regiment responsible for guarding the outer perimeter of the Murim Alliance, including both front and rear gates—a force numbering some five hundred men, making it the largest single organization within the Alliance itself.
The man approached with a waddling gait, swinging his arms left and right, and were it not for the sword at his hip, he would hardly have been mistaken for a martial artist at all, so corpulent was he.
Ok Gun Song drew near and raised his head.
“My name is Ok Gun Song, and I understand you have come from the Mo Yong Family.”
Yi Mo Baek’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Here stood the relative of the Alliance Master, the soon-to-be leader of the Mo Yong Family, yet his manner was scarcely respectful.

‘So this is what they call the Fickle World Sentiment.’

Warm when fortune smiles, cold when it fades—a saying that captured the heartlessness of mortal affection.
Power had shifted dramatically.
That Alliance Master Mo Yong Cheon had attempted to traffic in women bearing the Seven-Tone Pulse—girls no older than seventeen—as remedies for his wounds, was catastrophic.
Though someone had murdered every last one of them to prevent Mo Yong Cheon’s cure, the deed itself could not be undone.
Even now, the highest leaders of every faction within the Murim Alliance were convening to deliberate on the matter.
Anyone at the pinnacle of any organization inevitably becomes a target for those hungry to climb.
The moment they sense weakness, they strike without mercy.
Though Mo Yong Cheon’s injuries have shaken his absolute authority, his position as Alliance Master cannot be denied.
They are attempting to drag him from that seat before the selection tournament for the next Alliance Master begins.
Ok Gun Song’s demeanor made clear that the power concentrated in Mo Yong Cheon within the Murim Alliance was fragmenting, scattering in all directions.
“Yi Mo Baek, he calls himself.”
“Yi Mo Baek?”
Ok Gun Song muttered the name to himself.
Even noble families sometimes see their bloodlines wither.
The Mo Yong Family was the textbook example.
Mo Yong Cheon had gone to great lengths trying to father a child.
He had even proclaimed that he would accept a daughter as his heir if that was all heaven granted him—yet no offspring ever came.
Even the most illustrious house trembles without descendants to carry it forward.
And as Mo Yong Cheon aged, a slow wind of blood began to blow around the question of who would become the next Patriarch of the Mo Yong Family.

‘Why shouldn’t it be me?’

With no children of his own, it was a foregone conclusion that whoever among Mo Yong Cheon’s circle proved most exceptional would be designated his successor.
That was why the contests among the Mo Yong Family’s martial men to show off their prowess and earn their lord’s favor were so fierce.
Wi Ji Gwang, naturally, stood at the forefront of those struggles.
In any case, Mo Yong Cheon said nothing about the internal strife.
He simply watched.
But today, at last, a man had appeared who openly declared himself the next master of the Mo Yong Family.
“Let him through.”
Ok Gun Song raised his right hand as he spoke.
Two gate guards who had been watching from a distance parted, and the carriage rolled slowly into the Murim Alliance grounds.
Creak-creak!
Ok Gun Song narrowed his eyes, watching the carriage disappear into the compound.
“Has the Commander ever heard the name Yi Mo Baek?”
One of the guards approached and asked.
“Yi Mo is clearly a title he took upon himself after becoming the next Patriarch, while Baek would be his given name—”
He searched his memory for any man named Baek he knew in the martial world.
He had never heard a similar name before.
His appearance was shabby and his entry modest, coming alone without ceremony, yet he did not seem like a fraud.
“Urgent report.”
Ok Gun Song called out.
“What is the message?”
“The Next Patriarch of the Mo Yong Family, Yi Mo Baek, seeks admission to the Alliance.”
The guard delivered his report and immediately leaped away, vanishing into the Murim Alliance compound.

‘Yi Mo Baek.’

He had never heard the name before.
And that man who had just passed before him—
He had smiled at Ok Gun Song with a slight smirk.
It was the kind of smile that dismissed a man as beneath notice.
Ok Gun Song found himself muttering the name Yi Mo Baek again and again.

It was called the Dragon Tiger Hall because it was the place where dragons and tigers gathered.
Four Dragon Tiger Councils had been held so far.
The agenda for each was the removal of Mo Yong Cheon from his position as Alliance Master.
Though many sects were registered with the Murim Alliance, only a select few had the right to sit in the Dragon Tiger Hall.
The Nine Great Sects and One Alliance, the Five Great Clans, and two others.
Of the seventeen sect leaders present, only Mo Yong Cheon—who served as both Alliance Master and Patriarch of the Mo Yong Family—was absent.
Mo Yong Cheon had handed everything over to the Next Patriarch of the Mo Yong Family and stated that his own opinion need not be considered.
He further declared that he would give his full consent to the motion to remove him as Alliance Master until the Next Patriarch was officially decided and took his seat at the Council.
Therefore, the opinion of the Mo Yong Family need not now be heard or consulted.
The removal of the Alliance Master requires unanimous approval from all seventeen sect leaders qualified to sit at the Dragon Tiger Council.
If even a single voice opposes, it cannot be done.
Now the agreement of the remaining sixteen sects—all except the Mo Yong Family—had become essential.
If the Alliance Master could be dismissed and impeached on a whim, such an organization would never flow with clarity and cohesion.
At every turn, factions would scheme to topple him, and the whole body would be consumed in endless turmoil and self-destruction.
“Amitabha Buddha!”
A brief respite had been called.
Some gathered in clusters, murmuring to their nearest allies, while others stepped outside to clear their heads with a walk.
Sixteen sects had to consent.
The problem was that two of them remained steadfastly opposed.
The Yang Family Spear School and the Yellow River Water Transport Alliance.
The Yellow River Water Transport Alliance especially, though formally part of the Murim Alliance, constantly found itself under suspicion.
Demonic Path or righteous—the question never ceased.
Their methods were ruthless, yet when drought and famine drove the common people to the brink of starvation, they would unhesitatingly share the grain stores they possessed.
Mo Yong Cheon spoke of the Yellow River Water Transport Alliance without hesitation as a band of brigands.
It was fair to say the Green Forest occupied the space between the righteous and the Demonic Path.
Strictly speaking, brigands were what the Green Forest truly was.

‘The human mouth carries blame more easily than praise.’

It was the logic those who opposed expulsion always invoked whenever the call arose to cast them out from the Murim Alliance.

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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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