Reincarnation of the Cloud Dragon - Chapter 109
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This chapter is translated by Falnar Novels Team.
Support us by reading on our official site: https://falnarnovels.com
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Chapter 109.
“Was it your will that the Bing Baek Seol Ga’s ice techniques flowed into the hands of the Black Dragon Gang Master?”
Seol Su Ryeon’s voice was low.
Yet within that hushed tone lay a chill as sharp as a blade’s edge.
The air inside the Black Dragon Gang’s Main Gate froze solid.
Seol Young stood motionless, having stepped forward a single pace.
“Mother….”
A name I had recalled so often, yearned for so long.
The woman before my eyes was far colder than the mother in my memories.
No.
Perhaps it had always been this way from the beginning.
In my memories, my mother had always stood between wind and frost and snow.
“Answer me.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s gaze pierced through Seol Young.
“Did you hand over the martial arts of the Bing Baek Seol Ga to an outsider?”
The commotion at the gate quieted for a moment.
The wanderers who had been seeking entry just moments before.
The merchants who had come to conduct business.
Those who had come merely to catch a glimpse of the Black Dragon.
All held their breath.
Bing Baek Seol Ga. Ice techniques. Black Dragon Gang Master.
The moment those three words intertwined, the spectators’ eyes gleamed with new interest.
Rumor is always a hungry beast.
It charges faster when it catches the scent of blood.
So Ryong’s face hardened.
“Fall back.”
He commanded in a low voice.
The Bang Do members beside him moved at once.
“Step back, all of you!”
“This is the entrance to the Black Dragon Gang. Do not approach further!”
Yet the crowd did not easily retreat.
Instead, they pressed their ears closer.
So Ryong’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“Sister.”
Jin So Wol already had her hand on the spear shaft.
“I understand.”
A brief answer.
That alone was sufficient.
As Jin So Wol stepped forward, several martial artists outside the Main Gate unconsciously retreated.
The spear had not yet been drawn.
Yet the spearmaster’s momentum surged first.
So Ryong seized that opening, scattering the Bang Do members to drive the crowd further back.
The threshold of the Black Dragon Gang.
No word could be allowed to leak beyond this point.
He gestured sharply to the Bang Do members.
“Close the doors.”
“Pardon?”
“I said close them.”
Seol Young’s lips trembled ever so slightly.
Saengsa Jjon stepped forward.
“Seol Su Ryeon.”
His voice dropped lower than usual.
“Ask me before you ask the child.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s gaze shifted to Saengsa Jjon.
“You again.”
The Demonic Physician.
Saengsa Jjon.
And to her, the old man who had stolen her husband and then her daughter.
Ancient distrust flickered in Seol Su Ryeon’s eyes.
“Always blocking my path like this. At every crucial moment!”
Saengsa Jjon said nothing.
That silence only made Seol Su Ryeon’s expression colder.
So Ryong glanced between Seol Su Ryeon and Saengsa Jjon again.
‘This doesn’t seem like a conversation for the doorway…’
He spoke carefully toward Saengsa Jjon.
“Elder.”
Saengsa Jjon understood So Ryong’s intent.
He looked at Seol Su Ryeon.
“This is not a conversation for the threshold.”
Seol Su Ryeon laughed coldly.
“So you want to go inside because there’s much to hide?”
“Not because there is much to hide.”
Saengsa Jjon’s gaze fell upon Seol Young.
“Because there is a child to protect.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s eyebrows twitched ever so faintly.
“Do you truly believe you have the right to speak such words?”
“I do not.”
Saengsa Jjon replied with quiet composure.
“Which is precisely why we should not speak of this at the threshold.”
A moment of silence fell.
Seol Su Ryeon fixed her gaze upon Saengsa Jjon before moving forward with deliberate steps.
“Very well.”
Her white robes swept across the threshold of the Black Dragon Gang.
“I need answers today, in any case.”
* * *
Inside the Black Dragon Gang’s conference chamber.
As the door closed, the murmur from outside grew distant.
Yet it did not fade entirely.
People still lingered before the Black Dragon Gang’s entrance.
Flies and jackals drawn by the name of the Black Dragon.
But the chill that now settled within the conference room cut far more keenly.
Seol Su Ryeon did not sit.
She regarded Seol Young while standing.
“Speak.”
Seol Young’s fingertips trembled.
Yet she did not avert her eyes.
Her mother’s gaze was glacial.
Like the winds of Buk Hae she had known since childhood.
Seol Young recalled that night.
The night her Nine Yin Meridians had spiraled into chaos.
When her heart meridian froze and her breath nearly ceased.
And the one who had absorbed all that killing cold in her stead to save her.
Yun Cheon.
While I survived, Yun Cheon was dying.
My yin energy had burrowed deep into his body, beyond retrieval or reversal.
In that moment, I possessed only one recourse.
The Bingbai Snow Family’s secret technique.
The family’s ancient method—one I had feared my entire life, been bound by my entire life, and yet barely clung to for survival.
Ice Heart as Sanctuary.
Cold Qi Takes Form.
I called that frigid incantation again and again, reaching toward Yun Cheon’s fading consciousness.
Was that betrayal?
Had I surrendered the family’s martial arts?
No.
To me in that moment, it was not a martial technique.
It was the final lifeline I cast to save a single life.
Seol Young slowly raised her head.
Her face had turned ashen.
Yet she did not retreat.
“What I taught him was… a path to survival.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s gaze grew distant.
“A path to survival?”
“Yes.”
Seol Young clenched her fists.
“My benefactor took upon himself the Yin-Cold Poison that was meant for me. While I lived, he was dying.”
“And?”
“If he could not master the Yin-Cold Poison on his own, his meridians would have frozen solid. He would have perished.”
Seol Young’s voice trembled.
Yet it did not break.
“So I taught him the secret method.”
….
“I did not transmit the Bing Baek Divine Art itself. I only showed him the key—how to seize the Yin-Cold Poison and prevent it from scattering.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s lips twisted.
“A key?”
“Yes.”
“Were you taught that one may surrender the family’s martial arts to outsiders if it means survival?”
Seol Young’s face went pale.
But she did not lower her head.
“What my benefactor grasped was not the Bing Baek Divine Art.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s eyes sharpened.
“Then what was it?”
“The Bing Baek Divine Art is a meditation technique that subdues and condenses cold qi, creating a frozen vessel within the body.”
Seol Young recalled that day with Yun Cheon.
Meridians locked in ice.
Breath fading away.
Yet eyes that never surrendered consciousness.
“But my benefactor did not solidify the cold qi.”
Seol Young’s voice grew clearer.
“He circulated it. He made it flow. Rather than frozen stillness within the body, he established a rotating center.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s eyes shifted subtly.
….
“That was not the Bing Baek Divine Art I knew.”
Seol Young spoke with certainty.
“It was a path he opened himself, standing at death’s threshold.”
“My benefactor?”
Seol Su Ryeon’s voice carried a note of mockery.
Seol Young did not yield.
“He saved my life.”
“So you gave him the family’s martial arts?”
“No.”
Seol Young shook her head.
“What I gave you was not a martial art, merely a thread to follow.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s lips hardened with a chill.
“Ha.”
A short laugh.
Yet there was no warmth in it.
“Creation through insight.”
Seol Su Ryeon spoke those two words with deliberate slowness, as if chewing each syllable.
“An ice art passed down for centuries. A martial technique guarded by the blood and tears of Buk Hae itself.”
Her gaze pierced through Seol Young.
“You claim to have witnessed such a technique in a single moment, altered it, and created something entirely new?”
Seol Young could not answer.
Seol Su Ryeon’s eyes had already closed themselves off.
There was no room for any words to penetrate.
“Surely The Demonic Physician must have employed some scheme.”
Her gaze turned toward Saengsa Jjon.
“Perhaps he extracted the essence of the Bing Baek Divine Art through your body without your knowledge.”
“That is not true!”
“Enough.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s voice cut off Seol Young’s words.
“The mere fact that you call him benefactor is proof enough for me.”
Her lips set coldly.
“You have already surrendered your heart to them.”
Seol Young’s face wavered.
Those words cut deeper than any blade.
Yet they were not untrue.
I trusted Yun Cheon.
I trusted Saengsa Jjon.
I could not deny the self that had survived the Black Dragon Gang.
Seol Su Ryeon stepped closer.
“Very well. Then I shall verify it myself.”
“Verify what…?”
“The ice art the Black Dragon Gang Master displayed.”
A faint white energy gathered at Seol Su Ryeon’s fingertips.
“If it truly is the Bing Baek Divine Art…”
Her voice descended to a whisper.
“Then I shall personally seal his dantian.”
Seol Young’s breath caught.
The dantian.
For a martial artist, a place deeper than life itself.
To seal it meant to keep him alive but kill him as a martial artist.
“That’s enough.”
Saengsa Jjon’s voice settled low across the chamber.
With those words, the air in the conference room grew heavy and still.
“Words alone won’t dispel your suspicions, it seems.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s gaze turned glacial.
“I never believed your words from the beginning.”
“I know.”
Saengsa Jjon nodded slowly.
“Then we shall settle this by the laws of the Demonic Cult.”
A breath.
“Trial of strength.”
“Trial of strength?”
Seol Su Ryeon’s eyes narrowed to slits.
“You invoke that now?”
“Old grievances cannot be resolved through words alone.”
Saengsa Jjon spoke with measured calm.
“I know you don’t trust me. You won’t trust Young Ah’s words either.”
“…I cannot.”
“If Yun Cheon opens his ice channels of his own will and shatters the Bingbai Snow Art, then your doubts will have no ground to stand upon.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s lips curved with a chill.
“You’re saying the Black Dragon Gang Master and I should face each other?”
“You are not of the same generation. The years you’ve spent cultivating the ice art differ.”
“Now you speak of fairness?”
“Do you merely wish to vent your anger? Or do you truly… wish to confirm whether the Bingbai Snow Art has been leaked?”
Saengsa Jjon’s gaze fixed upon Seol Su Ryeon.
A brief silence.
Seol Su Ryeon glared at Saengsa Jjon.
It was a look she had despised for ages.
The face of one who would bear all resentment.
She hated that face.
That face which, even so, could not return her husband to her.
She hated the old man who had taken everything.
Seol Su Ryeon laughed softly.
“Very well.”
Saengsa Jjon’s gaze deepened ever so slightly.
Seol Su Ryeon spoke.
“Someone of a similar generation would suffice.”
Seol Young’s face hardened.
She could guess which figure her mother was about to name.
Seol Su Ryeon spoke the name with crystalline clarity.
“The Ice Dragon, Seol Mu Heun.”
The moment that name fell into the conference chamber.
The air grew perceptibly colder.
Seol Young’s lips drained of color.
The Ice Dragon.
One of the Demonic Path Seven Dragons.
The Northern Sea Ice Pearl Sect’s pride and rising star.
And one who carried the blood of the Bingbai Snow Family.
Seol Su Ryeon did not look at Seol Young.
She looked only at Saengsa Jjon.
“That child will prove the caliber of the Ice Pearl Divine Art.”
“The Ice Dragon?!”
So Ryong, who had been observing, could no longer contain himself.
“This is absurd! Yes, they’re similar in age, but that man was raised on nothing but the ice of Buk Hae since birth!”
“So Ryong.”
At Jin So Wol’s low voice, So Ryong fell silent.
Yet his eyes still burned with indignation.
“Why not? If the Black Dragon Gang Master possesses the caliber to create the Ice Art, then surpassing Seol Mu Heun should be simple.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s voice turned glacial.
“Or is it that you don’t even trust the gang master you serve?”
“….”
Seol Mu Heun.
The claim about similar ages was not wrong.
Yet when one factored in the years spent mastering the Ice Art and the backing of the Northern Sea Ice Pearl Sect, this was far from an equal match.
Seol Su Ryeon could not have been unaware of this.
‘…What kind of absurd logic is this!’
Yet the woman before them was Seol Young’s mother and someone even Saengsa Jjon did not treat carelessly.
Even if one stepped forward, she was not someone who would listen to logical persuasion.
The deep-seated emotion dwelling in her distrustful eyes could not be unraveled by mere words.
“Mother!”
“You will remain silent.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s words were ice.
“You created this situation.”
Seol Young’s face trembled.
Saengsa Jjon witnessed the trembling in Seol Young’s expression.
He could have avoided this to protect the child.
But if he retreated, the stain upon Seol Young would never be erased.
In the end, he had to prove it.
That Yun Cheon could.
And the path that Seol Young had chosen was no sin.
“Good.”
“Grandfather!”
Seol Young’s voice trembled.
Saengsa Jjon spoke in a low tone.
“He will not flee.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s eyes narrowed.
“You trust him?”
Saengsa Jjon answered very briefly.
“I do.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s gaze wavered for just a moment.
The instant Saengsa Jjon spoke those words of trust in Yun Cheon, memories from long ago scraped across her chest like a blade.
If only he had trusted her then as well.
Perhaps her husband would not have died so alone.
The chill gathering at Seol Su Ryeon’s fingertips deepened.
“Very well.”
She spoke coldly.
“I shall summon Seol Mu Heun.”
“So Ryong.”
“Yes, Elder.”
“Release the carrier pigeons.”
“What message shall I inscribe?”
There was no need for lengthy words.
Yun Cheon would understand.
“Return at once.”
Moments later.
Two carrier pigeons cut through the sky above the Black Dragon Gang.
One soared toward the Guang Feng Yalü Family.
The other flew northward, toward the Northern Sea Ice Pearl Sect.
A summons to the Black Dragon.
And a summons to the Ice Dragon.
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This chapter is translated by Falnar Novels Team.
Support us by reading on our official site: https://falnarnovels.com
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