Ten Paths of the Master - Chapter 76

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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 76. What on earth should we do about Haowen?
In the inner quarters, that same hour.
Son Yeonhwa, brushing orchid strokes onto her painting, murmured to herself.
“Strange, isn’t it……”
The same person, yet some days warm and tender, other days coldly indifferent.
The object of her thoughts was, of course, Dan Yeop.
She knew well enough that her grandfather and mother had already settled on Dan Yeop as her intended match.
It was precisely “something not dared to ask for, yet truly desired.”
What manner of man was Dan Yeop?
According to grandfather, he was a prodigy so gifted that he memorized the Yuryeong Jipseong in a single reading—that notoriously difficult compendium.
She’d been amazed when he saw through the spirit tricks in the separate wing, but hearing he’d memorized the Yuryeong Jipseong had made her think, ‘He’s not human.’
It wasn’t merely a matter of intellect.
His face was so strikingly handsome that Pan An, Song Yu, and the Prince of Lanling would all pale in comparison.
Just looking at him lifted her spirits.
Living under the same roof as another man her age was distracting enough; what of someone who was both a genius of the age and possessed perfect beauty?
If her heart didn’t race, it would be a lie.
By now she hung on every word he spoke, every gesture he made, even the light in his eyes.
Yet to make matters worse, his behavior was maddening.
One day he’d speak to her with such warmth and consideration that she’d wonder, ‘Does he care for me?’—only to find him the very next day refusing to meet her gaze, leaving her devastated.
She struck another orchid stem with her brush, muttering shameful words to herself.
‘He likes me.’
Stroke.
‘He doesn’t like me.’
Stroke.
With each stroke of the brush, she repeated the refrain—’He likes me’ and ‘He doesn’t like me’—like a divination made with plucked petals.
As if she were reading fate from each stem.
Then, as she painted the final orchid stem.
‘He doesn’t like me.’
Stroke.
In an instant, Son Yeonhwa’s delicate brows knit tightly.
Ending on ‘He doesn’t like me’ felt somehow wrong, soured her mood entirely.
In the end, she did something she’d never done before.
She painted one more orchid stem.
‘He likes me.’
Stroke.
Her mood lifted, though the clustering of stems now looked crowded and inelegant.
Yet each time she looked at it, her heart found peace.
She smiled softly and pressed her seal—marked “Three Excellences Beauty”—gently at the bottom of the painting.
***
The Cheonryeo-hoe had recruited Gongsun Chan as their military advisor precisely because the Gongsun Clan was located in Gangnam-do.
Of course, the Namgung Clan also dwelt in Gangnam-do.
But the Namgung Clan showed no deference to the Five Peaks Sword Faction, so they were never considered.
Gangnam-do.
Yeoju County. The Gongsun Clan.
Jahadan.
Lights burned late into the night at Jahadan, the residence of Gongsun Ji, who was known as a woman of divine wisdom.
Gongsun Ji set down her report and frowned lightly.
“Hmm.”
Following her uncle, the Cheonryeo-hoe had also relocated to Gangnam.
Presently, only Gongsun Chan remained with the Cheonryeo-hoe, while Gongsun Ji had returned to the Gongsun Clan.
Since the distance between the Cheonryeo-hoe and the Gongsun Clan was not great, Gongsun Chan had sent his daughter back home.
Yet still needing his daughter’s counsel, Gongsun Chan had been sharing the intelligence he received from Amun.
“What on earth should we do about Haowen?”
The official mandate of the Cheonryeo-hoe was to eliminate the Blood Sect, but there were other undisclosed directives as well.
One of them was the governance of the Murim.
The Five Peaks Sword Faction wished for the Murim to remain exactly as it was.
Whether for good or ill, they wanted no upheaval, no turbulent waves in their world.
More precisely, they sought to preemptively block anything that might shake the Five Peaks Sword Faction’s standing.
Surprisingly, the Cheonryeon was not a consideration.
The enemies of the Cheonryeon were the incompetent imperial court and corrupt officials—not the Murim.
But it was Haowen that provoked the Five Peaks Sword Faction’s nerves more acutely.
The Gongsun Clan, striving ceaselessly to become part of the Cheonryeo-hoe, had a clear role to play.
“Haowen recruited masterless swordsmen within the province as well? They must have felt the limits of the Terracotta Army Tomb.”
Other drifters hardly mattered, but one name in particular gnawed at her.
“Go Geomhaeng…….”
If Haowen combined with Go Geomhaeng’s martial prowess, unifying the ten sects would no longer be a mere fantasy.
Her eyes, preoccupied with thought, settled on the tail end of the report.
[Dan Bulwi appointed as General Sect Leader, Dan Yeop as Sect Leader. Currently, those of Sect Soldier rank and above from Amun and Jeommun are gathering for training.]
“Dan Yeop.”
A disciple of Haowen who had gone all the way to Hwacheong Palace with the Cheonryeo-hoe.
She’d thought him a disciple of the Hall Master Son Yeonhwa, yet he was now a Sect Leader?
“That woman was as much a fox as her face suggested.”
Dan Yeop’s visage was striking enough to have lodged in her memory.
The kind of beauty that stirred something girlish she’d long forgotten.
“What do I do?”
She needed to make a move, if only because of Go Geomhaeng, yet she hesitated all the same.
But her deliberation was brief.
Gongsun Ji took up her brush and composed a lengthy letter to her father.
***
Within the province.
Seonpyeong-bang, Jangan-seong.
A side residence of the Son household.
Dan Yeop’s eyes opened.
Seeing himself unchanged, it seemed the Shimma Fusion had yet to succeed.
The thought struck him as absurd.
He held dominion over his body, yet merging the personalities rested entirely with Shimma.
If anyone knew, they’d leap up and cry out—how could he entrust himself to Shimma so completely?—but they’d long since passed that stage.
Now he merely hoped Shimma would merge the personalities as swiftly as possible.
‘But how does Shimma even know such things?’
That peculiar inner energy, the cultivation to merge personalities—it was all mysterious.
“Did you encounter a fortuitous chance in the Terracotta Army Tomb?”
It seemed likely enough.
The haengnang he was told never to lose, for instance…….
The thought spurred him to rise from the bed and retrieve the haengnang.
He turned it inside out on the chance something might appear, but predictably, it held nothing.
Dan Yeop pushed the haengnang back beneath the bed and moved toward the bookshelf.
Unlike him, Shimma always kept the baekchop wedged squarely on the shelf.
It wasn’t a matter of temperament.
When he roused Shimma, it happened instantly.
So he often woke him with the baekchop already open.
But when Shimma woke, he himself would fall asleep.
In that interval, someone else might read the baekchop, so shelving it was a precaution against such risk.
Dan Yeop seated himself at the table and opened the baekchop.
Beneath the words “I don’t know why I live. You don’t” was a brief response written in.
[Do you understand?]
For a moment, Dan Yeop let out a soft laugh.
Shimma had a subtle gift for making people smile.
Yet another thing he lacked.
He then carefully read through his exchange with Yu Daeung, the Substitute Hall Master.
“The Cheonryeo-hoe will need watching.”
Haowen stood between the factions, though it leaned closer to the Orthodox.
Yet to need caution against the Five Peaks Sword Faction—the very pillar of the Orthodox—struck him as peculiar.
“Yang-bu troubles me.”
The Amun to which Dan Bulwi, the General Sect Leader, belonged leaned toward the Heterodox.
Considering Amun’s business in human trafficking, it would scarcely be strange to become a target for suppression immediately.
It was one reason Haowen faced contempt in the Murim.
“I should give Yang-bu a hint.”
Yet whether warning him would help remained uncertain.
The problem would be solved only if Amun itself were dismantled.
The dissolution of Amun.
The Amun disciples will be in an uproar.
“Ah, never mind.”
Dan Yeop slid the Baekchop back onto the shelf.
Just the thought of avenging the blood debt was enough to split his skull—he had no patience for anything else.
***
The inner hall.
As breakfast was ending and people were about to leave, Son Yubaek spoke casually.
“Are you keeping busy these days, Yeop?”
He said it because Dan Yeop left in the morning and didn’t return until after sunset.
“Yes, sir.”
“Have you ever thought about becoming an official?”
Son Yubaek regarded Dan Yeop with a meaningful gaze.
He was thinking of recommending him to the imperial palace if the boy desired it.
“I’m grateful for the thought, but I lack the skill, and more than that—I can’t bear to be bound to any one place.”
“There’s no one in this house who doesn’t know your talents are exceptional. What are you talking about?”
Son Jiheon, who had been gauging the mood, cut in smoothly.
“Grandfather, Yeop is simply a rather free-spirited soul.”
“Tsk, tsk! When will you ever mature?”
“Well, I’ve been working hard to improve my martial arts lately. That’s why I wanted to ask—wouldn’t you consider recommending me instead?”
“How old are you this year?”
“Nineteen. A fitting age to serve the realm, surely.”
“The old magistrate of Mannyeon County is looking for someone to help him. Would you be interested?”
“If it’s a County Magistrate position, I’d be willing to take it on.”
A County Magistrate oversees all military and security affairs in the county.
It was a position not unworthy of Son Jiheon, who excelled in both letters and martial arts.
“The County Deputy post is the one that’s vacant, I heard.”
“County Deputy?”
Son Jiheon’s face fell.
A County Deputy was an administrative post assisting the County Magistrate.
If it were County Magistrate, perhaps—
But such a trivial position could never appeal to someone of Son Jiheon’s ambitions.
“I must decline if it’s not the County Magistrate position.”
“If you serve well as County Deputy, you could be promoted to County Magistrate.”
“Given my abilities, such a post would be far too modest. It wouldn’t befit your honor either, Grandfather.”
“Good heavens! You claim to care for my honor, yet you’re constantly slipping in and out of brothels all hours of the day and night? If you take on County Deputy work, people will praise me all the more for it.”
“Grandfather, I train martial arts day and night—not to fiddle with paperwork.”
“A man who cannot be loyal in small matters cannot be trusted with great ones.”
“You need to be at least County Magistrate to have any standing to call yourself an official elsewhere. County Magistrate or nothing.”
“Then do nothing. Spend your whole life waiting. We’ll see if anyone ever comes asking you to take a County Magistrate post.”
“Surely you, Grandfather, could create a County Magistrate position for me?”
“Of course I could. But why would I stake my reputation on you? If I recommend you for County Magistrate and you embarrass me, what then?”
Son Yubaek had not the slightest inclination to humor his grandson’s demands.
The argument between grandfather and grandson over the official post petered out without resolution.
As Son Jiheon sipped tea after the meal, he asked his grandfather with an expression full of lingering hope.
“Were you planning to recommend Yeop for County Magistrate?”
“Not at all. Why would you use an ox-slaughtering knife to kill a chicken?”
……
Son Jiheon’s pride was deeply wounded, and he asked no further questions.
He wasn’t even deemed worthy of a chicken-slaughtering knife.
Dan Yeop, sensing the tension between grandfather and grandson, quietly excused himself.
***
Seonpyeong-bang.
The great hall of Jeommun’s main branch.
As Dan Yeop entered the reception chamber, Go Jwaryeong cupped his fists and raised them high above his head, shouting loudly.
“Gyotdu Dan! You’ve arrived!”
Dan Yeop started at the formal Gongbaow salute—the kind reserved for emperors alone.
Yet the Seonmun disciples watching seemed entirely unsurprised.
Even the Seonmun masters carried themselves with nothing but reverence.
“Gyotdu Dan, welcome, sir.”
“Gyotdu Dan, good morning to you.”
“I’m in your debt.”
“Please don’t hold Seonmun to too high a standard. Truth be told, we’re merely ferrrymen. Haha.”
Dan Yeop found himself staring in bewilderment at their sudden change of demeanor.
It was then that Baek Chogong, the Sect Leader, sidled up to him and whispered in his ear.
“Poor souls, really. So do handle them with a gentle touch, won’t you? Not that I’m insisting, mind you. How you teach is up to you. Ahem, ahem.”
Baek Chogong cleared his throat and withdrew.
Dan Yeop suddenly recalled the incident at Byeongmatong.
It was always the same when Shimma stirred things up—events unfolded in much this way.
……
The dramatic shift in their attitudes was both amusing and irritating.
It galled him to think he was living off Shimma’s reputation.
Shortly after, Dan Yeop taught the Seonmun masters the final three forms of the Jincheonji-dobe.
The Seonmun masters followed his instruction without a word of complaint, absorbing every detail.
As the sun began its descent toward the horizon,
Dan Yeop, having sheathed his blade, was the first to leave the hall of repose.
Moments after Dan Yeop vanished, Go Jwaryeong produced something from his Haengnang.
It was a Yeon-an-gyeong.
The Haowen masters burst into laughter at the sight of it.

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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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