The World’s Greatest Junior Martial Brother - Chapter 23

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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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Cheonha Jeil Sajae (23)
What you see is not everything.
“Hoo! Hoo!”
His face was as pale as beeswax, and his breath came so thin it seemed ready to snap at any moment. He had lain abed for over half a month, and he looked not far from a walking corpse, yet Baekri Unhak’s eyes still burned sharp and clear.
“Let me ask again. If I wear Tang Clan’s traditional garb and injure someone with the Tang Clan’s own hidden weapon arts, does that make the Tang Clan the culprit?”
“Nonsense!”
Woomun Jeonggi waved a hand.
“The Amyeong Jeoksu you just displayed may be a superb hidden weapon art, but any man with a bit of martial talent could somehow manage to perform it…”
“Brother.”
The moment Baekri Unhak turned his head, Jin Muok, as if he had been waiting for exactly that, widened the distance between himself and Woomun Jeonggi.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Bueon Bieon: words that are not words. As if to say no answer was needed, Jin Muok drew a hidden weapon from his robe and smiled faintly.
It looked like the innocent grin of a mischievous boy, and just as Woomun Jeonggi’s stiff expression began to ease…
Whizz—.
Suddenly, Jin Muok hurled the weapon straight at him.
Without even wiping that guileless smile from his face.
“Ha-ha.”
What a charming boy. Woomun Jeonggi had quietly taken a liking to Jin Muok, not only because the boy had kept his youngest son company at the end, but because his first impression was good and every one of his mannerisms was agreeable.
So a hidden weapon launched by such a boy was nothing more than a trifling bit of play to Woomun Jeonggi, a man who settled matters by raw strength alone.
That was, until the weapon, flying in a straight line, began to perform its tricks.
Cutting through the wind, the weapon surged forward in a rush. Its angle and speed were hard to believe for a boy barely in his early teens, but to Woomun Jeonggi it seemed a cute little trick, so he reached out his hand without hesitation.
“Such games aren’t any fun, little one.”
Just as Woomun Jeonggi’s thick thumb and forefinger were about to snatch Jin Muok’s weapon—!
Whirl!
As though refusing his grasp, the weapon rose about half an inch and spun in midair.
“Whoa…!”
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwang—.
In an instant, Jin Muok’s weapon split into two and took up positions on either side of him. Woomun Jeonggi, who had meant to scold him, hastily withdrew his hand, though he did not press on with another attack.
Jin Muok had shown him no hostility. Woomun Jeonggi sensed that the boy was trying to say something through the medium of hidden weapons.
But what?
Swiiiing—.
Jin Muok’s weapon suddenly accelerated!
With that, every direction in which Woomun Jeonggi could move was cut off, and his eyes narrowed.
‘I see!’
Jin Muok is speaking!
This weapon can devour every direction an opponent might take!
And so most martial artists are bound to be caught by it!
“Taaah!”
Kwareung!
With a heavy punch, Woomun Jeonggi knocked away Jin Muok’s ever-shifting weapon and fixed his gaze on the boy.
Watching Jin Muok with a complicated look, Woomun Jeonggi blurted out flatly.
“Are you from the Tang Clan?”
“It’s called Amyeong Gonghwa.”
“I heard that one is difficult to master.”
“That’s right. It’s difficult.”
Yes, it is difficult. And that means it is not impossible.
“Hah.”
Woomun Jeonggi let out a short sigh and raised another question.
“You said the attackers wore Qingcheng Sect’s own robes. Something no one else could easily imitate…”
“Eunsa (silver sand).”
This time, Baekri Unhak turned his head toward Byeok Eunsa.
Hwiririririck—.
As if he had been waiting for the cue, Byeok Eunsa swept his hand, and dozens, then hundreds, of threads shot toward Woomun Jeonggi. Yet the master of the Woomun Family, said to be the strongest under heaven, did not move even this time.
Byeok Eunsa, too, bore him no ill will.
Chararararak—.
The threads brushed across Woomun Jeonggi’s sleeve in an instant, leaving something behind before vanishing.
“What is this?”
An emblem of a range of blue mountains rolling beneath a puff of cloud, the unmistakable sign of Qingcheng Sect, wriggled across his sleeve in an instant, and Woomun Jeonggi was left speechless.
“Well, I’ll be.”
Jin Muok and Baekri Unhak say it plainly: if one goes to this much trouble, framing someone for a crime is no great feat at all.
“Not why, but how.”
Baekri Unhak loosened the arms he had wrapped around Byeok Eunsa’s neck and stepped toward Woomun Jeonggi.
“If we can grasp that, their true aim will come into view.”
Woomun Jeonggi, who had been holding his breath, let it out in a sigh.
“Are you saying this is a borrowed knife to kill?”
This time Jin Muok picked up Woomun Jeonggi’s words.
“Of course, the ones who attacked the Woomun Family might be from the Qingcheng Sect. Or they might not be. But if someone tried to exploit the Master’s temperament, their scheme came very close to succeeding.”
Woomun Jeonggi was known as a man whose temper ran hotter than his urgency. So the moment he heard his sons had fallen in battle, he charged toward the Qingcheng Sect without even confirming the facts.
Tossing a hidden weapon into the air and catching it again, Jin Muok turned only his eyes toward Dang Junkyu.
“Strictly speaking, this isn’t Amyeong Gonghwa. It just looks very similar to it. Wouldn’t you agree?”
First the infirmary, and now this place too!
Dang Junkyu disliked the way Jin Muok slyly pulled him in to strengthen his own argument, but the fact was the fact, so he nodded.
Amyeong Gonghwa is magnificent. It’s no technique for some ten-year-old brat to imitate.
“Exactly, imitation.”
Thwip!
Snatching the hidden weapon that had been floating in midair, Jin Muok cut him off flatly.
“They wouldn’t have needed to use the Cheongun Jeokha Sword at all. They only had to imitate it well enough.”
“Ugh.”
With a groan, Woomun Jeonggi lowered his hand.
“The truly wicked ones are those who toyed with a man already wounded in his heart. So don’t blame yourself.”
At Jin Muok’s consolation, Woomun Jeonggi twisted his lips.
“The youngest was lucky.”
To have such a boy there at the very end.
Woomun Jeonggi raised his head and gazed at the stars glittering brightly above. There, Woomun Hangyu, who had always been the one to hold him back, was smiling faintly.
‘They say three patience characters can even stop a murder, Father.’
‘This foolish father couldn’t control his temper and nearly made another mistake.’
As he called out to his youngest son, who had already departed into his heart, Baekri Unhak, having finished what he needed to do, collapsed to the ground as if his strength had been cut away.
“Senior Brother!”
“Unhak!”
As Jin Muok and Byeok Eunsa rushed to him, Baekri Unhak, a faint smile on his lips thinner than a thread, drew in a breath.
“You planted Bukcheon Yeonhon Daebeop inside my body, didn’t you?”
The moment he woke, Baekri Unhak grasped the state of his own body with precision. He had studied how to overcome Qi Deviation for so long that he had reached this level of mastery.
“I’m sorry to have put you to this trouble. I was barely recovering when I sensed something had gone wrong, and I rushed out before I could finish.”
The unease surrounding him had reached him through Qi and sound, and so Baekri Unhak had released Bukcheon Yeonhon Daebeop on his own and woken up.
“This time I’ll fall into a rather long sleep. If I’m lucky, I may shorten the period of hibernation.”
Looking back and forth between Byeok Eunsa and Jin Muok, Baekri Unhak closed his eyes.
In the realm of eternal healing, with a single wound, he had joined forces with his junior brother to prevent a catastrophe in the Martial World.
He sank back into the realm of Bukcheon Yeonhon Daebeop.
“Senior Brother! Senior Brother!”
Jin Muok grabbed Baekri Unhak and shook him, but Byeok Eunsa shook his head.
“I will bring Senior Brother back from the world of Bukcheon Yeonhon Daebeop, by whatever means necessary. Whatever it takes.”
* * *
Woomun Jeonggi, having heard of Baekri Unhak’s condition, promised to provide every kind of support, but there was no way to call back a man who had sunk into the realm of Bukcheon Yeonhon Daebeop.
“Would a thousand-year snow ginseng do it? Or a hundred geun of deer antler, or hwari?”
The Woomun Family was wealthy. Not quite a fortune, but they had the means to purchase several of the medicinal herbs known as elixirs in a single night.
Yet even heavenly elixirs could not pull him back from Bukcheon Yeonhon Daebeop. Baekri Unhak was in a kind of trance, and no medicine could work.
“Your offer is enough, thank you.”
Jin Muok smiled faintly.
“When Senior Brother wakes, I’ll come asking for help, so please don’t turn your back on us then.”
“Turn my back?”
Woomun Jeonggi snorted.
“How could I pretend not to know you? Even if the whole Jianghu abandons you two brothers, the Woomun Family will protect you to the very end.”
Like a mandrill, he thumped his own chest as Woomun Jeonggi showed his faith.
Yes, if it’s you, that’s exactly what you’d do. That’s why those men targeted you too.
It was a declaration that laid bare Woomun Jeonggi’s very nature, so Jin Muok nodded briefly and then, as if he had only just remembered, handed him a sword.
“It’s a keepsake.”
Clench!
As Woomun Jeonggi gripped the sword, Jin Muok looked away from him and, keeping his feelings out of it, spoke as calmly as he could.
Two melodramas are enough. What’s needed now is composure.
“You said it was Ji Geom, not Ji Hak, so I suppose the Master gave it to him when he was fifteen. That’s why he kept it so carefully to the very end.”
“Waaah! Waaah!”
“Ah, stop crying.”
“I miss that boy so much.”
*Thud!*
Woomun Jeonggi wrapped his arms around Jin Muok.
This was a different world from when he’d been held by Myomyo.
“Gwaaack!”
Jin Muok clawed and shoved his way out of Woomun Jeonggi’s grip, gulping in air as he finally broke free.
If the man got worked up again, he’d be crushed to death.
“I told you to stop crying.”
Grumbling, Jin Muok sat down beside Woomun Jeonggi and fixed his gaze on the blade left behind as a keepsake.
“That’s a sword with a lot of history behind it.”
Woomun Jeonggi nodded silently. If he opened his mouth now, his emotions would boil over and he’d end up wailing like a fool.
They say parents bury their children in the earth but carry them in their hearts. The saying speaks to how deep the grief of losing a child runs, but Jin Muok had no way of knowing that pain, so he simply watched the drifting clouds in silence.
“There’s still unfinished business tied up in it, so take it out and look at it now and then.”
At Jin Muok’s suggestion, Woomun Jeonggi drew the sword.
*Sseureung—.*
With a chillingly clear ring, the cold blade came into view, and Woomun Jeonggi lifted his eyes to the sky for a moment as he gazed at it.
“Hoo.”
Gathering his tangled thoughts, Woomun Jeonggi sheathed the sword with great care.
His eyes grew moist, but he did not let a single tear fall.
He would weep until he had no more tears once he had collected the blood debt for his two sons.
Until then, he would not show any weakness.
* * *
“I will not forget Tang Clan’s kindness.”
When Woomun Jeonggi bowed deeply with a clasped fist to Dang Junkyu, the whole Woomun Family shouted as if the very grounds might shake.
“The Woomun Family will never forget Tang Clan’s kindness!”
*Cheooroorong—!*
The Woomun Family’s procession, displaying the spirit of Sichuan Uproar in the truest sense, circled the Tang Clan compound once. This was the Woomun Family’s own way of expressing gratitude, a ritual meant to carve the other party’s generosity into their hearts.
The Woomun Family’s procession slowly left Tang Clan, taking in each of the healers and Uipa members one by one.
*Ttagak-ttagak—.*
As the halls of Tang Clan shrank into a single speck in the distance, Woomun Jeonggi pulled hard on his reins.
“Hyah!”
When he changed direction, Woomun Hanung tilted his head in confusion.
To return to Gwijoo from here, they had to pass through Jianyang and then head for Ziyang. Yet their father had turned his horse’s head in the exact opposite direction, toward Dujiangyan.
“Is there somewhere you need to stop, Father?”
“Of course there is.”
Woomun Jeonggi’s face hardened.
“Shouldn’t we collect the blood debt for Hangyeong and Hangyu?”
“W-wait, you don’t mean…?”
Woomun Hanung recoiled in shock, but Woomun Jeonggi was resolute.
“We’re going to Qingcheng.”
It was a single sentence that would stir a fierce storm across the Martial World, reaching all the way beyond Sichuan.

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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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