Reincarnation of the Cloud Dragon - Chapter 110

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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 110.
The journey back to Qinghai was nothing like the path to the Guang Feng Yalü Family.
No, the road itself remained unchanged.
But the people who traveled it and the rumors that spread were entirely different.
“The Black Dragon Gang Master has returned, I hear.”
“Already?”
“Didn’t he become one of the Demonic Path Eight Dragons at the Guang Feng Yalü Family martial arts tournament?”
“He defeated the Young Sect Master of the Nak Wol Bi Yeong Sect, didn’t he?”
“He even rejected the Moonlit Covenant.”
“Not rejected—they say he crushed it with force.”
Outside an inn. At a crossroads. By a small ferry. Beside a merchant’s carriage.
Everywhere I passed, the name Black Dragon echoed.
“But I heard someone came from the Northern Sea as well?”
“Because of the Ice Art, they say.”
“The Black Dragon supposedly wounded the Ice Dragon’s pride somehow.”
Kang Hui, who was leading the horse, asked a question.
“Gang Master. The rumors certainly travel fast. But… why did the Ice Dragon suddenly get involved?”
“Who knows… we’ll find out when we return.”
Yun Cheon said nothing more.
His gaze was fixed on the Black Dragon Gang.
Before the Main Gate.
A crowd had gathered.
Yalü Cheok’s words came back to me.
By observing those assembled at the gate, you will understand how far the name Black Dragon has spread.
Indeed, it was so.
Before the Main Gate of the Black Dragon Gang, eyes of many kinds mingled together.
Anticipation.
Greed.
Curiosity.
Hostility.
And scrutiny.
Yun Cheon dismounted from his horse.
Someone recognized him.
“The Black Dragon Gang Master!”
At those words, every eye turned toward me at once.
The murmur rippled through the crowd like waves parting.
“Is that him…?”
“The eighth dragon of the Demonic Path Eight Dragons.”
“The one who rejected the Nak Wol Bi Yeong Sect’s Moonlit Covenant?”
“They say he even used the Ice Art.”
“Hush, you’ll be heard.”
Yun Cheon heard every word of it.
Yet his expression remained unmoved.
The gate inside the Main Gate had not opened.
A sound decision.
Yun Cheon knew So Ryong was holding his ground.
He surveyed the people gathered before the Main Gate.
“Those seeking entry—leave your names.”
His voice was not particularly loud.
Yet mysteriously, the commotion before the Main Gate subsided.
“Those wishing to conduct business—leave a letter.”
The people’s breathing grew shallow.
“Those who have come to fight—return after tomorrow’s dawn.”
Then a man scoffed.
A wanderer bearing a great blade.
“Tomorrow?”
He deliberately stepped forward.
“So the Black Dragon Gang’s hospitality is lacking, is it? Do procedures matter more than your reputation?”
Kang Hui’s hand moved toward his waist.
Yun Cheon stopped him with a single gesture.
The wanderer laughed and stepped closer.
“Or did you exhaust yourselves at the Martial Tournament?”
In that instant.
Whirrr—
The dust before the gate swirled in the faintest of eddies.
The dust that had been pushed forward suddenly reversed course.
The grain of the wind folded back upon itself.
Raging Wind Reversal.
Still too nascent to be called a true martial art.
Yet the subtle principle of rewinding the wind’s current was already seeping into the tips of my fingers.
A chill mingled within the current that grazed the wanderer’s ankles.
“What? My feet… why?”
He attempted to take another step.
But his legs would not obey.
The wanderer’s face hardened.
Thud!
His knees struck the earth.
Yun Cheon passed before him without expression and spoke.
“I said to return tomorrow.”
Those gathered before the Main Gate held their breath.
The wanderer clenched his teeth but could not rise.
Yun Cheon spoke toward the Main Gate.
“Open the door.”
A moment passed.
From within, the bolt was drawn back.
Creak.
The door of the Black Dragon Gang swung open.
So Ryong stood within.
“Master. You have returned.”
So Ryong bowed at the waist, unable to conceal a breath of relief.
“I have been waiting.”
Yun Cheon regarded So Ryong.
“You held the line well.”
Relief and tension flickered across So Ryong’s face simultaneously.
“Yes… but… merely holding them back was never going to be the end of it.”
“What is the matter?”
“There is a guest waiting inside.”
Yun Cheon’s gaze settled into stillness.
“Who?”
So Ryong hesitated briefly before answering.
“She claims to be the mother of Seol Young.”
Yun Cheon gazed silently into the depths of the Black Dragon Gang.
One name alone connected the threads.
Ice technique. Seol Young. Saengsa Jjon’s letter.
And the rumors that had circulated at the Main Gate from Buk Hae.
I had already grasped the outline of the game.
“Show me the way.”
“Yes.”
Yun Cheon stepped through the door of the Black Dragon Gang.
Kang Hui and Yalü Hee followed behind him.
The door closed once more.
This time, the commotion outside could not penetrate within.
* * *
A chill hung heavy in the conference chamber.
Though the door was shut, the murmur from outside lingered faintly.
Yet even that sound could not easily reach into the chamber’s depths.
There was a cold far more profound.
The chill of the chamber emanated from a woman who harbored formidable inner power.
Even as she held her breath, the air around her lay pressed low.
The breath of ice technique, long cultivated, breathing quietly from within her body.
‘They resemble each other….’
One glance was enough to discern that she was Seol Young’s mother.
Her appearance seemed deceptively youthful, difficult to gauge her true age, yet her eyes told a different story.
Where Seol Young’s gaze still held hesitation and warmth, hers harbored a deep, long-festered resentment.
Saengsa Jjon sat beside a low table.
His gaunt face as usual.
Yet his eyes were different.
The eyes of one confronting an old wound anew.
Seol Young, standing beside him, was pallid.
Yet she did not flee.
As I entered, Seol Young’s gaze flickered, ever so briefly.
“Silver Master….”
Her voice was small.
I looked at her once.
That brief glance was sufficient.
Seol Young bit her lip.
Seol Su Ryeon’s gaze turned directly toward me.
Her eyes seemed less to regard a person than to scrutinize the grain of vital meridians trapped within ice.
“You are the Black Dragon Gang Master, Yun Cheon.”
I answered tersely.
“I am.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s pupils shifted ever so slightly.
The Black Dragon of legend.
The eighth name among the Demonic Path Eight Dragons.
The man who wielded the Ice Technique.
And.
The one her daughter called Silver Master.
“I am Seol Su Ryeon. This child’s mother.”
She spoke slowly.
“Did you steal the Ice Technique from the Bingbai Snow Family?”
The air in the chamber grew heavier.
Yet I remained unmoved.
I met Seol Su Ryeon’s gaze directly.
“I did not steal it.”
My answer was brief.
Seol Su Ryeon’s lips hardened coldly.
“I have already heard that claim.”
Her gaze touched Seol Young briefly before returning to me.
“I simply do not believe it.”
I met Seol Su Ryeon’s gaze directly.
“Then there’s no point in discussing this further.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s voice turned glacial.
“I’ve already decided how to verify it.”
“I’m listening.”
“Seol Mu Heun, the Ice Dragon, will come.”
The moment that name fell from her lips.
The atmosphere in the conference room trembled.
Kang Hui’s eyes turned fierce.
So Ryong’s lips tightened as well.
Seol Young, though she had already known, clenched her fingertips once more.
The Ice Dragon.
The Northern Sea Ice Pearl Sect’s pride—a late-stage master.
One of the Demonic Path Seven Dragons.
One who earned the dragon’s name through ice arts.
Seol Su Ryeon observed Yun Cheon’s reaction.
Surprise. Displeasure. Or evasion.
She hoped any of these would show.
Yet Yun Cheon’s face remained unchanged.
“What exactly would he verify?”
“Whether your ice arts are a theft of the Bingbai Snow Family’s techniques or not.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s voice did not waver.
“Anyone can deny it with words. But ice arts cannot hide their essence when they collide.”
“So that’s why the Ice Dragon.”
“He has mastered the orthodox ice arts of the Northern Sea Ice Pearl Sect. His age is not so different from yours.”
“Would it not be faster for you to verify it directly?”
Yun Cheon asked, facing Seol Su Ryeon.
“Even if he is the Ice Dragon, he is but a late-stage master. Is his martial skill superior to yours?”
“…That is not the case.”
“After all, what I must prove is innocence, not strength, is it not?”
“…!”
A faint smile crossed Saengsa Jjon’s lips.
There it is.
He does not evade.
That was what his expression seemed to say.
Seol Su Ryeon’s mouth twisted ever so slightly.
“If you speak thus, then it would indeed be fastest for me to verify it myself.”
Her gaze fell upon the region of Yun Cheon’s lower dantian.
“Of course, I would never permit inspection of the dantian from one bearing hostile intent.”
“I grant permission.”
A single, brief word.
At those words, the air in the conference room froze.
So Ryong’s eyes widened.
“Master!”
Kang Hui shot to his feet.
“This is madness! The dantian!”
Seol Young’s face drained of all color.
“Silver Glow, you cannot. That is….”
The dantian.
For a martial artist, a place more vital than life itself.
To channel another’s qi into that sacred core was no different from placing a blade’s edge before one’s heart.
No.
Sometimes it was far more dangerous than that.
If the dantian collapsed, a martial artist ceased to be one, even if the body still drew breath.
Even Seol Su Ryeon lost her words for a moment.
She had been the first to speak of it, yet she had never truly believed he would accept.
Yun Cheon remained utterly unmoved.
“A man innocent of suspicion has no reason to shy from proof.”
Yun Cheon’s gaze briefly touched Seol Young.
“And besides… are you not Seol Young’s mother?”
Yun Cheon continued with measured calm.
“I too was born with severed meridians. Seol Young and I have observed each other’s afflictions and hidden scars, crossed the threshold of death together.”
“…!”
Seol Su Ryeon’s eyes, which had been emanating cold all along, trembled.
“You also… suffered from severed meridians? Just as Young Ah did…?”
“Indeed. What she gave me was a lifeline cast before the gates of death.”
Yun Cheon lifted the edge of his robe slightly.
“Her mother has earned the right to examine my dantian.”
Seol Su Ryeon’s pupils flickered ever so briefly.
He was resolute.
Disturbingly resolute.
She had seen such eyes before, long ago.
A man of the Sa Cheon Dang Family.
Born into a house renowned for poison and hidden blades, he had come to the snowy wastes of Buk Hae.
Everyone called him foolish, everyone tried to stop him.
Yet he never bowed his head.
He said that if he chose a path, he would bear its consequences himself.
The cold that gathered at Seol Su Ryeon’s fingertips flickered ever so briefly.
But in the next instant, her gaze froze over once more.
Because he resembled him, she could trust him even less.
That man had died in the end, after all.
“Very well.”
Seol Su Ryeon approached slowly.
“Let us verify whether that confidence is truth or mere bluster.”
Saengsa Jjon made no move to stop her.
His gaze remained fixed upon Yun Cheon.
‘No matter how deeply Su Ryeon’s feelings run toward me… she would not harm Yun Cheon in this place.’
Yun Cheon lifted the hem of his robe slightly, exposing the lower dantian before her.
Seol Su Ryeon’s palm descended upon it.
A touch separated by only a single layer of fabric.
Yet it was sufficient for sensing qi.
A faint whisper—
Seol Su Ryeon’s ice technique seeped in with extraordinary subtlety.
Qi meant for verification.
Yet even this alone possessed the power to suppress a martial artist’s dantian.
Kang Hui’s hand moved to his waist.
So Ryong held even his breath.
Seol Young pressed her palms together before her chest.
Seol Su Ryeon’s eyes deepened.
‘…It has not congealed.’
With the Bing Baek Divine Art, there should exist a cold vessel deep within the lower dantian.
A frozen inner core.
The center of accumulated, compressed, and congealed frigid qi.
Yet Yun Cheon’s dantian contained no such thing.
There was no ice there.
Instead, something revolved with noble grace.
The frigid qi did not freeze and remain—it spiraled endlessly around a single point.
‘…What is this?’
Seol Su Ryeon’s fingertips trembled ever so slightly.
‘This is not the Bing Baek Divine Art.’
She could not deny it.
Perhaps he had obtained a thread of the secret formula.
There were traces of having accepted Young Ah’s yin-cold qi.
Yet this dantian had not been forged through the methods of the Bing Baek Divine Art.
It was not the dantian of one who had stolen a martial technique and swallowed it whole.
It was the dantian of one who had forcibly twisted open a path to survival before death.
No.
It was not merely for survival.
To save Young Ah and endure himself.
It was the mark of having carved his own path amid the yin-cold qi of those two.
The frigid qi gathering at Seol Su Ryeon’s fingertips grew slightly fainter.
‘Did he truly… open it on his own?’
It was difficult to believe.
Yet I could not deny what I had confirmed with my own hands.
Seol Su Ryeon’s hand slowly withdrew from Yun Cheon’s lower dantian.
A suffocating silence filled the chamber.
Yun Cheon straightened his robes.
“Well?”
Seol Su Ryeon did not answer.
She gazed at Yun Cheon for a long moment.
And finally, she spoke.
“At the very least… the structure of your dantian differs from the Bingbai Snow Family’s cultivation method.”
A faint relief appeared on Seol Young’s face.
But then.
“However, it resonates with Young Ah’s essence.”
That relief froze once more.
Seol Su Ryeon’s gaze remained unwavering.
“The structure of the dantian alone cannot settle this matter.”
Kang Hui ground his teeth.
“Are you still finding fault?”
Seol Su Ryeon did not turn around.
“You may call it fault-finding if you wish. However, the cultivation method of inner force is not something easily judged from without. To discern its true application, one must observe how essence clashes with essence, how it yields and crumbles, revealing its true nature in the process.”
Kang Hui opened his mouth, then stopped.
It was different from before.
Frost still lingered in Seol Su Ryeon’s voice.
Yet it was no longer intent merely on cutting.
Yun Cheon watched her quietly.
Seol Su Ryeon’s voice continued.
“And the same applies to people.”
At those words, Saengsa Jjon’s eyes shifted subtly.
Seol Su Ryeon spoke toward Yun Cheon.
“If your nature does not crumble even before the Ice Dragon Seol Mu Heun, then I shall acknowledge it.”
Yun Cheon asked.
“Acknowledge what?”
Seol Su Ryeon glanced briefly at Seol Young.
Then she looked back at Yun Cheon.
“That your ice cultivation is not a plagiarism of the Bingbai Snow Family’s method.”
Her voice remained firm.
But now a different intention wove through it.
“And that Young Ah’s choice to save you was not entirely mistaken.”
What Seol Su Ryeon sought to confirm had changed from the beginning.
Seol Young’s lips trembled as she felt it.
Yun Cheon regarded Seol Su Ryeon for a moment, then nodded.
“Very well.”
That was when it happened.
Urgent footsteps sounded from outside.
“Master!”
So Ryong opened the door.
“What is it?”
“The banners of the Northern Sea Ice Pearl Sect have been spotted at the northern pass!”
Yun Cheon looked at Seol Su Ryeon.
“They arrive at an opportune moment.”
Seol Su Ryeon slowly lifted her head.
“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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