The Time-Limited Elixir of the Ruined Clan - Chapter 68

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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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The Crumbling Clan’s Limited Time Promise — Chapter 68

“What? But why?”
“That girl’s body can’t cultivate internal energy.”
The silence that fell was like ice.
Dan Mok Han So opened his mouth, then snapped it shut. In that pause, Dan Mok Cheon Gi spoke quietly.
“I couldn’t bring myself to tell you. Forgive me for finally speaking of it now.”
He could not easily speak of how the result of his devoted effort—losing his own internal energy in the process—had barely managed to raise a child who couldn’t even cultivate strength in the first place.
“Internal energy…… What? Why can’t she cultivate internal energy?”
Dan Mok Han So’s voice came as barely a whisper. First came bewilderment, then absurdity, and finally, as if seized by rage, his voice trembled.
It wasn’t because he regretted the internal energy he’d spent on that child.
“Could there be some flaw in the Bright Peony Method……?”
“No. Don’t entertain such thoughts. Without you, the child wouldn’t have opened her eyes at all. Every procedure was flawless.”
Dan Mok Han So’s fingertips quivered slightly.
“Internal energy…… Truly…… truly, you say?”
“It’s so.”
He himself could not remain within the clan simply from losing a portion of his internal energy. He felt far too acutely what he had surrendered.
But that she could never cultivate such strength from the beginning……
“Does…… does that girl even know such a thing?”
“…… Yes, she does.”
“And knowing that, she learned Sword Technique and took interest in Blade Technique, sitting through an entire month of your lessons?”
“Yes.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi answered while studying Dan Mok Han So carefully.
Ordinarily, Dan Mok Han So would have noticed that gaze immediately, but now he was utterly oblivious.
And at the end of that silence, Dan Mok Han So spoke, his expression somehow clear.
“Yet she is the one.”
“What?”
“I believe she should become the next Clan Patriarch—not because she has internal energy, but because that is who she is, even if she had neither arms nor legs.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi let out a hollow laugh. Not because he thought Dan Mok Han So presumptuous for raising the matter of succession on his own.
“This is a martial clan.”
“I know.”
“You, neither direct heir nor particularly learned, became the highest seat of the Yuxing Eighteen Lodges because the clan could find no one else to defeat you with their own path besides the Patriarch and the current sage.”
“I know.”
“Then how could someone without internal energy govern the clan, much less become your equal and master of the Yuxing Eighteen Lodges? You’ve lost your mind.”
“I would have thought the same before seeing her.”
“Seeing Dan Mok Ryeon changed your mind?”
Dan Mok Han So grumbled.
“Isn’t that also true of you, Patriarch? When people suddenly find their tongue, it usually means they have other thoughts…… “.
“You fool!”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi shouted in annoyance, but Dan Mok Han So didn’t flinch.
Those with power need not raise their voices. They can settle things through strength. Only those with other desires bother to shout.
Indeed, had it been otherwise, Dan Mok Cheon Gi would have cut off Dan Mok Han So the moment he first broached the subject of Dan Mok Ryeon and punished him.
The Retired Clan Patriarch and the Yuxing Eighteen Lodges desiring different successors was something not to be tolerated.
Which meant……
“The younger sage also raised the matter of the next patriarch but deferred the matter. What could be done with children not yet ten years old?”
“I believe she should be the one even if Dan Mok Ryeon were five instead of nine—though perhaps the External Branch Leader has different thoughts.”
“…… In your eyes, does she…… seem to possess such talent?”
Dan Mok Han So traced back to the day he had found his achievement.
He had grumbled to Dan Mok Cheon Gi, but teaching Dan Mok Ryeon and Song Yeong Rang had been genuinely delightful for him.
It had been a very long time since he’d taught young disciples. Even before he left the clan and wandered, he had instructed the sword masters under the Yuxing Eighteen Lodges, but his specialty was the blade, not the sword.
Yet it was not without its trials. The children, bounding about in ways he had never anticipated, surprised him.
And there was what Dan Mok Ryeon occasionally revealed.
The direction and momentum of her blade.
The flexible thinking with which she interpreted, understood, and absorbed the Sword Form, and the Blade Technique that unfolded at its conclusion.
These were all things he had practiced his whole life, yet everything that unfolded in her hands seemed as unfamiliar as something entirely unknown.
How fortunate it would have been if the child were merely foolish enough to blunder about without sense, doing nothing properly—something one could dismiss with a wave of the hand.
But Dan Mok Han So was not such a person.
And while struggling against that very gap, he stumbled upon the subtle principle hidden within the final form of the Blade Technique—of all things.
Looking back, every movement the boy had made under his instruction carried within it a variation of that final form.
He had never once harbored regret over pouring his internal energy into Ryeon’s Bright Peony Method, yet in that moment he realized he had received more than fair compensation.
“I confess I’m uncertain whether those who drag someone over a wall they cannot surmount are truly said to possess talent. Wouldn’t one call them the Heavenly Powers or perhaps the Buddha himself?”
“Is this a temple or a shrine? Isn’t it the most worldly of martial clans?”
“Indeed so.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi rolled his eyes as though Dan Mok Han So were spouting nonsense, yet he could not hide a faint smile.
It was certain that such things were visible in Ryeon’s eyes. Had he himself not gained enlightenment from the tips of her fingers?
That child’s movements were extraordinary. Not even ten years old, and already thus. Despite her immature, small frame, she showed the answer as if gazing down from heaven itself.
How was such a thing possible?
Another person would have shunned that incomprehensibility, speculated some other cause, and mistaken the enlightenment for something they had gained of their own accord. But Dan Mok Han So was different.
He let slip what he heard only in passing, hearing the same tale anew even the next day, yet what he had witnessed with his own eyes, he never questioned.
And toward that which he did not understand, he accepted it as he saw it. For it was impossible that he possessed the talent to comprehend all things in this world.
“Still, one must wait for the time to come.”
Dan Mok Cheon Gi spoke these words with calm composure.
Dan Mok Han So regarded him quietly for a moment, then nodded.
Some forces draw down the heavens and churn the earth with terrible slowness.
None can know until the work is complete, so it is fitting that the greater matter be discussed only after.

* * *

“I had not thought to see the Dan Mok Clan mingling so pleasantly with others, madam.”
Geum Jeok Geol spoke quietly.
Song Yeong Rang, having returned after confirming that Geum Jong Ha had fallen asleep late into the night while reviewing today’s sparring match, a single tear glistening on her cheek, caught Geum Jeok Geol’s eye and glared at him.
“Mingling unpleasantly? Do you mean to wage war with them throughout your life here in Hang Zhou?”
“Not quite war, perhaps.”
Though he said not war, it was half genuine warfare nonetheless. For a contest over territory and dominance could hardly be compared to children’s games of land-claiming.
“Then in the end, are you not fated to brush shoulders with them until death?”
“How could it be otherwise?”
Geum Jeok Geol did not seem to be asking out of genuine ignorance, yet his thoughts appeared somewhat tangled.
Song Yeong Rang chose to answer readily.
“We have taken such firm root here in Hang Zhou—do you truly believe even the Dan Mok Clan could sweep us away so easily? It would be difficult. Yet neither could we completely drive them out, would we?”
Even when the Retired Clan Patriarch had gone into seclusion and the eldest son had died, this had not been achieved; it was clear it would only grow more difficult henceforth.
How fearsome is the power of history and tradition. The realm had held its breath for long enough to change mountains and rivers, and yet merely by stretching himself once, Dan Mok Cheon Gi had set all of Zhejiang Province astir.
“Indeed so.”
“Then what of it? Since we are fated to brush shoulders and live together, why not do so in harmony and joy?”
Other minor sects would not even dare dream of driving out a clan of such scale.
Here in Hang Zhou, it was only because of the Geum Ga Jang that they had once managed to gain any footing at all.
“Would they truly accord us such recognition?”
Song Yeong Rang smiled gently.
“Do you not see it in Wei Zhi’s conduct?”
“Though she may be graceful, she holds no true power as an Inner Clan Director. The external branch leader commands all real authority.”
“Yet if that external branch leader cannot disobey the Inner Clan Director’s words, what does it matter?”
Geum Jeok Geol raised one eyebrow. Song Yeong Rang laughed lightly.
“When a person is blessed with such exceptional beauty, possessed of a haughty and cold temperament besides, how many true friends could possibly remain around her? Those who envy and resent her, those who sit in silence nursing their own inferiority complex, those who attempt to fawn and scheme—these would be all. Her every virtue was swallowed by her beautiful face, and her every fault stood out all the more for the same reason.”
All the merits she possessed would have been overshadowed by her beauty, and all her shortcomings magnified by it beyond necessity.
Song Yeong Rang saw very clearly what kind of trajectory such a woman’s life had traced as she endured the upheavals of her household.

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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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