The Legend of Red Cloud - Chapter 98

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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 98. The Real Culprit
Before So Cheong Jin could finish his warning, the door shattered inward and Yu Seong Chu Hun burst through like a demon, his face twisted with fury.
“Where is she? Ah! You, you bastard… you—”
His rough curses lost their force as they went on.
It was because Yu Seong Chu Hun had only just noticed the woman standing beside Jeok Sa, who had a firm grip on the Ghost Soul.
Perhaps it was the shock of encountering a face he had never expected to see in this place.
The woman shrank behind Jeok Sa at the sudden halt in Yu Seong Chu Hun’s gaze.
“Oh! How frightening.”
Jeok Sa turned the woman behind him and blocked her from view.
It was an unmistakable declaration of intent to protect her from Yu Seong Chu Hun.
The woman, who had been smiling, looked past Jeok Sa’s shoulder toward Yu Seong Chu Hun.
In that instant, Yu Seong Chu Hun’s body tensed.
It was the force of her gaze—a pressure so fierce it pierced through his eyes and made the back of his skull tingle.
In the end, Yu Seong Chu Hun’s aggression withered away, and the Yu Seong Chu he had been holding as though ready to hurl fell limply to his side.
“Ahem, ahem. So you were… here? I mean, uh, well… Ah! I came to suggest we have some tea together. Ah, no, I came. Hmm… I came.”
At Yu Seong Chu Hun’s bewildering words, Jeok Sa, utterly confused, asked a question.
“You want to have tea with me?”
“You little punk, speaking informally… Ah! You should. Hmm… Yes. That’s right. Tea, yes. We should have tea.”
So Gwang Yeo, who had rushed in belatedly unable to match Yu Seong Chu Hun’s pace as he sat in the empty seat while glancing sideways at the woman, stared at him in astonishment.
Yu Seong Chu Hun, who kept stealing glances, looked as docile as a cat caught in the rain.
Witnessing this unfamiliar sight, So Gwang Yeo, who had been watching Jeok Sa and Yu Seong Chu Hun in turn, cautiously opened his mouth.
“Then you’re saying you didn’t take our Cheon Yi?”
“How many times do I have to tell you? It wasn’t me!”
“But the letter left by whoever took my daughter clearly states—”
With those words, he produced a letter from his robes, and at the end of it were unmistakably written four characters: Yu Seong Chu Hun.
Yu Seong Chu Hun glanced at it and spoke.
“What kind of deranged kidnapper leaves his own name behind? Would you do something like that?”
“Well…”
Before So Gwang Yeo could respond, So Hui Jun quickly stepped forward.
“Then why have you had nothing to say all this time?”
“What are you talking about? I clearly said it wasn’t me!”
On the day this incident first erupted, So Cheong Jin had rushed to the Yu Seong Cheol family compound and begged Yu Seong Chu Hun to return his niece.
He had said he would provide whatever funds were needed.
Yu Seong Chu Hun’s reaction at that time was…
‘You bastard! What are you doing here, barking away? Get lost! I never took your niece or anyone like that!’
The response—a jumble of countless vulgarities too crude to repeat in full—was the only explanation the Yu Seong Chu Hun and the Yu Seong Cheol family had offered.
In other words…
“You’re truly certain?”
To So Cheong Jin’s repeated question, Yu Seong Chu Hun bared his teeth.
“You keep pestering me, so—”
Mid-sentence, he turned his head with an audible whoosh to look at the woman, and his voice immediately softened.
“Ah! Hmm… Yes, that’s right. Never happened.”
Yet to everyone present in the reception room, it was clearly an act of consciousness toward Jeok Sa.
For Yu Seong Chu Hun’s gaze, which had snapped toward the woman in alarm, had in fact landed upon Jeok Sa.
The people of the Mun Chang So family, witnessing Yu Seong Chu Hun’s demeanor, concluded that Jeok Sa must have defeated him in an overwhelming display of martial superiority.
Jeok Sa, receiving the weight of these misguided stares, felt only bewilderment.
He could not fathom why Yu Seong Chu Hun kept glancing at him.
In the midst of this confusion, the people of the Mun Chang So family were growing increasingly flustered.
They had believed without question that Yu Seong Chu Hun was the kidnapper, yet here he was insisting he wasn’t.
Unable to simply accept his word, So Gwang Yeo cautiously produced the writing instruments that lay nearby.
“Would you be willing to write something for us?”
“Write? What do you want written?”
“Just your martial epithet—four characters will suffice.”
Yu Seong Chu Hun, divining So Gwang Yeo’s intent, furrowed his brow at his disbeliever, but the expression quickly faded.
A fierce telepathic communication had shot from the woman and lodged in his ear.
In the end, Yu Seong Chu Hun wrote his martial epithet—four characters.
Yu Seong Chu Hun.
When So Gwang Yeo compared the martial epithet written in one fluid stroke on the white rice paper with the handwriting left on the letter, a groan escaped his lips.
“Hmm…”
The handwriting was unmistakably different.
So Cheong Jin and So Hui Jun, who had confirmed the matter beside him, felt their expressions darken sharply.
No matter how difficult an opponent might be, there was a world of difference between knowing the culprit with certainty and knowing nothing at all.
Once matters stood thus, the person who had taken the daughter of the Mun Chang So family would become utterly unknowable.
Watching the faces of the Mun Chang So household, Ryu posed a question to Yu Seong Chu Hun.
“Is there anyone who strikes you as suspicious?”
To Ryu’s inquiry, Yu Seong Chu Hun, baring his teeth and tensing his expression, spat out his answer.
“I don’t know! Or rather… I have no idea.”
At Yu Seong Chu Hun’s response, Ryu observed the despondent So brothers with a worried gaze.
The Unknown Woman, catching sight of Ryu, cast a Telepathic Communication toward Yu Seong Chu Hun.
—You really don’t know?
—I truly don’t, ma’am.
At Yu Seong Chu Hun’s hurried denial, the Unknown Woman took a moment to gather her thoughts and nodded.
—Well, if you’d done something like that while I was here, I wouldn’t have missed it. Send the boys out to search.
—Wait, why…?
—Because otherwise this bastard—no, this gentleman—won’t seem to want to leave.
—But who is this person? Why are they here?
—My husband. Hehehehe.
The Unknown Woman covered her mouth with her hand and lowered her head to stifle her laughter, and Yu Seong Chu Hun’s expression became as though he’d witnessed something he ought never to have seen.
Yu Seong Chu Hun still encounters that first day he met the Unknown Woman again in his nightmares.
That fearsome image of her—crushing the Yu Seong Chu he’d poured his life’s cultivation into with a single hand and charging forward.
As for her mouth—how vile it was; Yu Seong Chu Hun, who’d heard the rumor that she gargled with obscenities each night to prepare tomorrow’s curses, had never heard such fluent profanity.
Even Wol Pa Geom Hwang, having taken a double tirade to the face, had been left speechless like a fool with honey in his mouth—such was this woman.
And yet this same woman now carried herself like a well-bred lady…….
Struck by how he simply could not adjust to that image, Yu Seong Chu Hun shook his head.
Then he took a careful measure of Ryu.
He’d heard of the Martial Epithet “Aquamarine Ghost.”
He knew the names of the masters he’d defeated on his path to being recognized at the Supreme Peak.
Of course, having a father at the Supreme Peak didn’t guarantee a son would possess equal ability.
Yu Seong Chu Hun, whose bones had been hardened by years in the Kangho, understood all too well how difficult such a thing was.
Yet… even accounting for falling short of his father, the gap seemed excessive.
Though Ryu had bested him, it had been a matter of fortune nearly.
Fortune is skill as they say, but the actual strength Yu Seong Chu Hun had felt in direct combat amounted to no more than that of a well-honed first-class warrior.
Moreover, Yu Seong Chu Hun could detect no trace of Internal Energy Cultivation in Ryu.
Not even the faintest scent of Internal Energy itself.
The appearance Ryu had shown in their earlier fight bore this out as well.
He’d felt no Internal Energy from his opponent whatsoever.
Of course, he understood now why he’d lost consciousness.
He’d known it even then, in fact.
But blind rage—the mindless fury that the enemy before him must be destroyed at once—had simply buried that knowledge.
So he would acknowledge that ghostly archery.
But that was all.
In this rough Kangho, surviving with nothing but archery and no Internal Energy would be a dog’s laugh.
So the man hadn’t even begun to measure up to his father’s heel.
Except for one thing.
His skill with women…… Hmm, he’d grant him that.
Yu Seong Chu Hun’s eyes, as he bit his lower lip, held a hint of envy.
With a belated rush of high-ranking martial artists from the Yu Seong Cheol family compound, Yu Seong Chu Hun turned to depart with a crestfallen expression.
The high-ranking martial artists of the Yu Seong Cheol family, upon catching sight of the Unknown Woman standing behind Ryu, grasped at once why Yu Seong Chu Hun had turned away so listlessly.
Yet unlike Yu Seong Chu Hun, whose face bore the look of a man who’d lost the world, the high-ranking martial artists of the Yu Seong Cheol family wore the delighted expression of a man whose suffering tooth had finally been pulled.
The Unknown Woman had fastened herself to Ryu and was staying at the Mun Chang So family compound.
This meant that the high-ranking martial artists of the Yu Seong Cheol family would no longer have to endure the Unknown Woman’s outrages.
As Yu Seong Chu Hun and the masters of the Yu Seong Cheol family withdrew, So Gwang Yeo and his brothers, along with the young men, also departed after being told to rest.
They had the task of finding the true culprit.
Thus Ryu and the Unknown Woman were left alone in the reception room of the Guest Hall, its door now broken.
In their shock, the people of the Mun Chang So household had forgotten even to assign them a chamber before withdrawing.
***
Ryu and the Unknown Woman, who had been awkwardly waiting in the reception room, finally obtained a place to rest in the Guest Hall when someone remembered.
It was thanks to So Cheong Jin, realizing their oversight, who returned and prepared a place for them.
Though he gave each of them—Ryu and the Unknown Woman—a clean room, the Unknown Woman had no intention of leaving, entering Ryu’s chamber instead to rest.
“Go and get some sleep.”
Ryu shook his head at the woman’s words.
“But what if he comes at us again? I’m frightened, Great Hero.”
Had Yu Seong Chu Hun been present, Ryu could not have brought himself to turn away the woman who was putting on such a pitiful display, clutching at the back of her neck.
“Then use this bed. I’ll rest in the chair.”
After leaving those words, Ryu settled into the chair by the window, and the woman muttered inwardly at the sight of him.
‘Foolish man, so oblivious.’
She understood well enough that if she pressed him to share the bed right then and there, the opportunity would slip away.
At least, she could sense that Ryu was not the sort of man who would fall for such a trick so easily.
Perhaps that was what made him all the more appealing.
‘A man not easily won.’
There was something commanding about him, after all.
He sat alone with his thoughts, satisfied within himself, and gave not a glance to the woman who writhed beneath his gaze—his eyes fixed instead on the view beyond the window.
The solution he had thought would work had yielded an entirely unexpected result.
On account of this, Ryu’s eyes had grown dark and troubled.
The woman, who had been preoccupied with her own musings, soon noticed his troubled expression.
Here was a man who showed not the slightest interest in her despite sharing a room with one praised for her beauty—difficult to obtain, perhaps, but all the more rewarding when finally possessed. A smile played at the corners of her mouth.
‘Good. I must have you, no matter what.’
A fierce hunger for conquest burned within her heart.
***
Upon returning to the Yu Seong Cheol family compound, Yu Seong Chu Hun ordered his subordinates to find whoever had abducted the daughter of the Mun Chang So family.
His men responded with indifference, questioning why they needed to bother, but Yu Seong Chu Hun could not ignore the catastrophe that would befall him if he failed to honor the command of the woman left at the Mun Chang So family.
The destruction of the sect, his own death—these were trifles.
What he dreaded was spending his life dragged about, neither alive nor dead, under the spell of her sorcery.
And so…….
“Enough of this noise! Do as I command!”
Yu Seong Chu Hun’s bellow sent his men scurrying out in a scramble.
They knew all too well the temperament of their volatile patriarch.
Thus, this unlikely search for the true culprit was undertaken, led by none other than the Yu Seong Cheol family—those who had been accused all along.
Thanks to the Yu Seong Cheol family’s masters conducting such a noisy search, all of Hae Nam learned within mere days that Yu Seong Chu Hun might not be the actual perpetrator.
At last, someone from the Cheon Myeong Nam Mun appeared at the Mun Chang So family compound.
It was a high-ranking official of the Cheon Myeong Nam Mun—someone who had not shown even his nose when the Mun Chang So family had worn out their welcome searching for him—who now visited them in person.

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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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