The World’s Greatest Martial Arts Instructor - Chapter 245

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 245. I Am…

 

 

Namgung Hwi and Namgung Hwa-u’s gazes turned toward the two people.

The two people awkwardly shifted their steps while reading the atmosphere.

It was behavior uncharacteristic of Namgung Ji-hu and Namgung Ji-yu.

The fact that they were being so cautious right now said everything.

Ha Mu-baek, who had opened the door, walked steadily back to his seat.

At his gesture, the two people finally sat down in the empty seats.

How did he know the two children had come?

The Innkeeper appeared out of nowhere, placed wine cups and chopsticks on the table, then disappeared.

Truly a mysterious person.

“You must have been very curious. Seeing how you came looking for us like this. You came all this way but couldn’t hear anything. It must have been frustrating.”

Ha Mu-baek said with a chuckle as he filled their cups.

He had already sensed their arrival through his Ki Sense.

He had even guessed that Seol-ran had told them about this place.

However, Namgung Hwi and Namgung Hwa-u were in a state of shock.

No matter how absorbed they had been in conversation, how could they not have sensed the presence of those two?

The entrance of this small tavern should have definitely been within their sensory range.

The reason was simple.

Ha Mu-baek had used an Energy Barrier to prevent their conversation from leaking out while completely dominating this space as his own territory.

That’s why even their senses had been blocked.

It was something the two of them could never have known.

“So. What will you do now?”

Ha Mu-baek’s question.

Namgung Hwa-u was carefully observing Namgung Ji-hu.

“You’ve achieved great progress in the meantime.”

Namgung Hwa-u said with an admiring expression. Namgung Ji-hu slightly bowed his head.

Namgung Hwa-u’s gaze now turned to Namgung Ji-yu.

“Did your investigations during this time yield any results?”

At that question, Namgung Ji-yu’s eyes widened in surprise.

A startled expression.

She hadn’t expected her youngest uncle to know about that fact.

“Did you think your father wouldn’t know what I also know?”

The follow-up question.

Namgung Ji-yu nodded slightly.

“That’s probably why I came to Gyoryong Hall.”

She had been suspecting as much.

“The Namgung Family Estate is the Namgung Family Estate. Even if we handed over the title of the world’s greatest family to the Yeon Family, we’re still the world’s greatest family. We can easily detect your clumsy movements.”

At Namgung Hwa-u’s words, Namgung Ji-yu bit her lip.

Then didn’t that mean they had been playing in that person’s palm all along?

“You’re still young so you wouldn’t know, but it can’t be helped. Noble Family Estates have beings called shadows.”

“Dark Shadow…”

Namgung Hwi unconsciously muttered quietly.

He knew about them too.

Wasn’t it because of their existence that he had been hiding his identity all this time?

If word about his existence ever reached their ears, he never knew when they might come looking.

That’s why Chu Dong had seemed strange to him.

Surely the Dark Shadow would be pursuing him, yet he was revealing himself so openly.

Probably the Dark Shadow would soon come to Muchang.

Rumors about him would somehow reach Hefei.

“Right. Those called Dark Shadow. They mainly stay within the family estate’s territory and secretly observe the area. Your childish movements would have immediately caught their attention.”

Namgung Ji-hu’s fists trembled.

“Then why didn’t that person elevate Ji-hu to Young Family Head?”

Namgung Ji-yu’s tone turned cold.

She didn’t even call him Father, but referred to him as “that person.”

Namgung Hwa-u maintained a calm expression at this change.

Perhaps he had expected that clever girl to reach such a conclusion.

“Not ‘that person,’ but Father.”

Nevertheless, Namgung Hwa-u spoke in a stern voice.

“Is he really our father?”

Namgung Ji-yu looked at Namgung Hwa-u with cold eyes as she asked.

Since things had come to this.

She wanted to ask someone who might know the truth.

“The family estate’s Formation Technique judged you to be of Namgung bloodline.”

“It said we were of Namgung bloodline, not that we were that person’s children.”

Namgung Ji-yu precisely pointed out the formation’s loophole.

If she knew this, how could the people of the family estate not know?

There must have been people who suspected. Namgung Hwa-u was one of them.

“Only my elder brother would have known the truth.”

Namgung Hwa-u’s answer.

Namgung Ji-yu let out a bitter laugh.

Those words meant that even Namgung Hwa-u wasn’t certain whether they were the Family Head’s biological children.

That was right.

Several people in the family estate constantly whispered behind their backs.

Children without mothers.

Children brought from outside.

Children who might not be the Family Head’s bloodline.

Children whose Namgung bloodline was questionable.

Did they think the siblings wouldn’t know about these rumors?

Or perhaps they wanted them to know.

Whenever Namgung Ji-hu and Namgung Ji-yu showed outstanding abilities, such whispers would subtly reach their ears.

It was the ugly face of envy and jealousy.

“But you know.”

Namgung Hwa-u looked at Namgung Ji-yu with a suspicious smile as he spoke again.

“I now know the truth too.”

Namgung Ji-hu and Namgung Ji-yu’s eyes widened.

They never expected to hear such words.

But.

The truth?

Their eyes trembled violently.

No, their entire bodies shook.

They had already suspected.

That the Family Head was not their father.

“Wh-what is the truth?”

Namgung Ji-yu asked with a trembling voice.

“Your suspicions are indeed the truth.”

Namgung Hwa-u spoke briefly but heavily.

Thud!

The feeling of a massive rock striking their heads.

No, the feeling of something crushing their hearts.

Both of them simultaneously felt their breath catch for a moment.

Soon they steadied their breathing.

The two people took deep, heavy breaths.

Though they had suspected it, receiving confirmation that it was the truth couldn’t help but be shocking.

Namgung Hwi was watching this scene with confused eyes.

He thought he had made his decision.

But now that the children appeared before him, he couldn’t determine if that resolve was right.

Recalling the existence of the shadows made it even more so.

“Then are the rumors secretly circulating among the Noble Families true?”

Namgung Ji-hu asked in a heavy voice.

Namgung Ji-yu was chewing her lips nervously.

“To some extent.”

Namgung Hwa-u affirmed.

“Then who is our father?”

“No, is our father even the same person?”

As soon as Namgung Ji-hu’s question ended, Namgung Ji-yu interjected.

Now that it was revealed Namgung Hwa-hyeon wasn’t their biological father.

There was no guarantee their real father was the same person.

They already knew their mothers were different, didn’t they?

Namgung Ji-yu herself was from the legitimate wife, while her younger sibling Namgung Ji-hu was from a concubine.

Namgung Hwa-u nodded slightly.

“You could think that way. However, there was only one Namgung who moved together with elder brother at that time. So your father is the same. Both of you were determined to be of Namgung bloodline.”

At those words, Namgung Ji-yu showed a slightly relieved expression.

Though she had suspected he wasn’t their father, it was now confirmed as fact.

The anxiety that even her younger sibling, whom she had relied on and lived with thinking of as her blood relative her whole life, might not be blood-related had disappeared.

The two were indeed siblings.

Even if their mothers were different.

“Then who was the Namgung who moved together with the Family Head at that time? No matter how much we searched, there were no records. Even the people whispering behind our backs said nothing about him.”

“They know too. The fact that if they speak that name, they might encounter the shadows. It was also the shadows who erased those records.”

“Was it the Family Head’s order?”

Namgung Ji-yu’s question.

“It started with my father’s order. And elder brother continues to maintain it.”

“Grandfather did…”

Then the previous Family Head had already suspected that fact.

Namgung Ji-yu gritted her teeth at this.

“Then can we never know who our father is?”

It was a question filled with sadness.

She didn’t ask if they couldn’t find him.

She asked if they couldn’t know.

The meaning of that was significant.

It meant she already suspected their biological father wasn’t alive.

She was pleading with her two eyes to Namgung Hwa-u.

To tell them who their father was.

Namgung Ji-hu was also looking at Namgung Hwa-u with earnest eyes.

“Hmm.”

Namgung Hwa-u crossed his arms and met the siblings’ eyes.

Then he lifted his wine cup and poured it into his mouth.

“First, calm the turmoil in your hearts.”

Namgung Hwa-u said as he set down his wine cup with a thud.

At those words, the two lifted the wine cups placed before them and emptied them in one gulp.

Glug.

Ha Mu-baek refilled their wine cups.

“He was a low-ranking warrior from the Outer Courtyard.”

As Namgung Hwa-u began to speak, the siblings’ eyes shook violently.

They were finally hearing it.

About their biological father’s existence.

“Elder brother said he had tremendous talent. Actually, I never saw him so I didn’t believe it. But elder brother seemed to like that talent, always keeping him close, then took him along on his travels. And returned alone. With you two. Since he was a low-ranking warrior from the Outer Courtyard, it would have been easy to erase his records. In the Inner Courtyard, there probably aren’t many people who actually knew exactly who he was.”

The first story they were hearing about their biological father.

Though it was surprising content, what they most desperately wanted to know was missing.

So Namgung Ji-hu asked.

“So what was his name?”

Namgung Hwa-u emptied his wine cup again.

And looked up at the ceiling for a moment.

He was giving them time.

Time for those involved to firm their resolve and organize their thoughts.

Whether Namgung Hwi knew this or not, he bit his lips slightly.

His fist placed on the dining table tensed with strength.

However, the siblings didn’t notice such changes.

The siblings’ eyes were fixed only on Namgung Hwa-u’s mouth.

“Hwi .”

Just one character.

That person’s name finally flowed from Namgung Hwa-u’s mouth.

“There’s no such person in the Noble Family Estate…”

Namgung Ji-yu was about to say something immediately.

There was one person named Namgung Hwi in the Noble Family Estate. Someone who couldn’t be their father.

She was about to say that.

But hadn’t they just recently learned of a Namgung person named Hwi?

A Namgung person who wasn’t recorded in the Noble Family Estate’s registry.

Namgung Ji-yu’s gaze naturally turned.

Namgung Ji-hu’s gaze was the same.

There sat The Man with an empty right sleeve, covered in sword scars.

Only now did he properly come into view.

Eyes trembling roughly as if confused.

The sight of him biting his lips.

His tightly clenched left fist.

He too clearly appeared as confused and tense as they were.

“S-surely not…”

Namgung Ji-yu muttered in a trembling voice.

“T-that can’t be…”

It was the same for Namgung Ji-hu.

Namgung Hwa-u watched the three people as if he had done his part.

Ha Mu-baek also looked at Namgung Hwi as if telling him to make a decision.

The place where four people’s gazes converged.

Namgung Hwi.

He did not avoid the children’s gazes.

His eyes still trembled roughly.

But the confusion had somehow disappeared.

He had made his decision.

Instead, fear had taken its place.

When he would speak those words aloud.

Fear of what would unfold afterward.

However, he could not help but speak.

His heart was already beating like mad.

It felt like it would burst at any moment.

If he turned away without speaking the truth in this situation.

If he did that.

His heart might truly burst.

Namgung Hwi’s lips moved slowly.

“I am….”

His voice came out trembling.

“I am your father. Your father….”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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