Chapter 2. My In-Laws Are Kind of a Big Deal (1)
“So, are you there?”
I dream of that day almost every night.
A past I desperately want to forget, yet can never forget, clings to me like a leech and repeats itself in my dreams.
A crescent moon hung in the night sky.
The air was thick with the smell of blood.
The bodies of the senior and junior brothers and sisters who had crossed the line between life and death with me were torn apart, mixed together with the corpses of our enemies.
“So, why are you crying?”
My Eldest Senior Brother smiled as he coughed up blood.
Dozens of swords and spears were buried in his body, and he was barely holding onto his fading breath.
“So, remember the name Master gave you.”
Bi Anso, 悲顔笑.
One who smiles with a sorrowful face.
That was the name my Master had given me.
The sound of birds came with the morning.
Sunlight streamed through the window.
When I opened my eyes, it was an ordinary morning...
No.
It definitely was not.
“All warfare is based on deception. I finally understand what that means.”
“Why are you suddenly quoting The Art of War?”
Wolyeong lay with her head resting on my arm, wearing a suggestive smile.
“You didn’t touch me for a hundred days, so I thought something was wrong down there.”
“...”
“I never dreamed there was an entire dragon coiled up there.”
“...”
“How did you hold yourself back all this time? I heard men have to release it regularly.”
“Who told you something like that?”
“I’m close with the maids who serve my brothers. I’ve heard all kinds of things from them.”
“You have brothers?”
“Yes. Three older brothers. I told you, I’m the youngest daughter born late in my father’s life.”
My heart grew heavy.
Whether she knew how I felt or not, Wolyeong giggled and poked my cheek with her finger.
“You carry a very heavy responsibility now that you’ve taken my chastity, Husband.”
“Husband? You were already thinking about marriage?”
“What? Were you planning to call last night a one-night mistake and forget about it? Do you want to die?”
Wow.
That killing intent is terrifying.
Even back when I regularly carried a blade, I rarely felt killing intent this intense.
“O, of course not! We barely know anything about each other besides our names. I just didn’t think you were already talking about marriage.”
“We know what kind of people we are. That’s enough.”
“You’re really that certain about me? We’ve only known each other for a hundred days.”
“For those hundred days, we were together almost every moment except when one of us went to the bathroom. When judging a person, what matters isn’t the length of the relationship, it’s the density of the relationship.”
Wolyeong smiled and poked my cheek again.
“Besides, even my father admits I have a good eye for people. So don’t worry.”
Truthfully, the idea felt heavy.
I had planned to separate myself from society, live like a wild man, and one day die alone where no one could find me.
I was not sure someone like me had the right to take such an extraordinary woman as my wife.
But even stronger than that burden was my desire not to let Wolyeong go.
We had spent only a hundred days together.
Yet those hundred days had been bright enough to cover over the memories of my entire previous life.
Master’s ridiculous words suddenly came back to me.
[A man must not carelessly swing around what hangs between his legs. But once he does swing it, a true man takes responsibility!]
When I first heard it, I thought it was complete nonsense and ignored him.
I never imagined I would remember it now.
“Ah, I really don’t want to return to that suffocating house. I wish I could live in this cabin forever.”
“Hard to believe those words are coming from the daughter of some noble household.”
“The atmosphere back home is rather bloody. Honestly, living here is inconvenient in a lot of ways, but at least my heart is comfortable. And your cooking is good. But...”
“What is it? Why did you stop?”
“Can I ask you one thing?”
“Why are you suddenly acting so serious? You’re making me nervous.”
She raised her upper body and looked down at me.
“What would you do if I asked you to come live with my family? I mean...”
“You’re asking whether I could live as a live-in son-in-law?”
“Yes. I don’t know your full story, but you were clearly living here because you wanted to avoid the world. Honestly, I don’t even know whether my people will still come find me. But if they do, I have to return.”
“Your family must really be dangerous if you’re talking like that.”
“I’m not joking. If I had to choose between you and my family, I would have no choice but to choose my family.”
I see.
During the last hundred days, she had apparently understood me more deeply than I thought.
She knew I was deliberately keeping my distance from the human world.
If possible, I wanted to live alone with her in these mountains.
I did not want to become involved with the world again, and I did not want to let her leave.
But if the world moved exactly as people wanted, I never would have isolated myself in the first place.
“I’ll follow you.”
“...Really?”
“Our Master once said that once a man swings around what’s between his legs, he has to take proper responsibility.”
“Yes!”
Wolyeong wrapped her arms around my neck.
Her strength was so ridiculous that I could barely breathe.
“You’re not allowed to take that back! We’re staying together no matter where we go!”
“L, let go! I, I can’t breathe!”
“Not until you promise!”
“I promise! I promise! I’m going to die at this rate!”
Only then did Wolyeong release my neck.
Then something seemed to touch her, and her gaze lowered.
“...What’s this? Why is it like this? It was soft before.”
“H, healthy men are normally like this in the morning.”
“Hmm? Really? You don’t have some strange preference, do you?”
Because of you, I might end up developing one.
Better not say that.
“Give up on the idea of escaping from me now. If you look at another woman, I’ll kill you.”
“Understood. Even if you tell me to leave, I’ll cling to you like a leech.”
“I normally hate leeches, but I think I like this one.”
Wolyeong climbed on top of me.
Just like she had the night before.
It was a barren land.
One could travel a thousand li and struggle to find even a single blade of grass.
During the day, sandstorms swallowed the sun and covered the sky.
At night, freezing winds blew like blades stripping flesh from bone.
To the west, one could see the snow-covered ridges of the Heavenly Mountains.
But beneath one's feet, the burning sands of the desert always moved like waves in the wind.
The people of the Central Plains grouped that vast desert together with the Heavenly Mountains and called the region the Western Regions.
But the followers of the Demonic Cult and the people who lived there called it the Great Taklamakan Desert.
Today, the desert sands were dyed red with the blood of countless soldiers.
“Stop him! Cut off his head! Whoever takes his head will be given more gold than there are grains of sand in this desert!”
A middle-aged man wearing armor desperately urged his subordinates forward.
However, not a single one of them had the courage to move.
It was not because they were weak.
On the contrary, they were elite martial artists even within the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult.
Yet just like their master, all they could do was tremble as they watched the man approaching them.
One man was breaking through a formation of ten thousand soldiers with a single sword.
He did not run.
Even with countless blades and spears rushing at him from every direction, he walked as calmly as though he were strolling through his own bedroom.
Every time he swung his sword, blood from dozens of men sprayed into the air.
Every time he took one step forward, heads fell and the desert sand became even redder.
How much time passed?
Eventually, the man single-handedly pierced through the entire army of ten thousand.
Despite displaying such overwhelming power, there was not a single wound on his body.
Not even a drop of enemy blood stained him.
Behind him stretched a perfectly straight road formed from nearly a thousand corpses and rivers of blood.
“S, stop...”
The Black-and-White Demon Venerable, recognized by both allies and enemies as the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's greatest strategist, froze.
He was also a traitor.
The martial arts of the former master coming to execute him had exceeded his imagination.
“I heard the Imperial Palace lays golden carpets along the road the Emperor walks. Those Central Plains people really do love flashy appearances.”
The man laughed.
The ruler of the enormous lands stretching from the Heavenly Mountains to the Taklamakan Desert laughed as he lightly swung his bloodstained sword.
“The road walked by a conqueror should always shine in the color of blood.”
His face looked as young as a boy's.
Yet his youthful appearance carried an overwhelming presence, as though one stood before a cliff ten thousand feet tall.
The man pointed his sword at the traitor.
He was Cheon Yugi, master of a hundred thousand followers of the Demonic Path, ruler of the Western Regions' martial world.
The Heavenly Demon.
“It was not a terrible rebellion, Black-and-White.”
“Y, you walking corpse who crawled back from death! What kind of sorcery did you use?! There is no way you could have escaped qi deviation from the Heavenly Demon Divine Art!”
“Are you refusing to accept reality? Or do you truly not understand what it means that I escaped the qi deviation of the Heavenly Demon Divine Art?”
“...What?”
Only then did the Black-and-White Demon Venerable understand.
A man who had believed himself the greatest strategist under heaven was, in truth, the greatest fool under heaven.
“D, don’t tell me... You achieved Great Completion? The Heavenly Demon Divine Art that no one since the Primordial Heavenly Demon has ever completed?!”
“You have been speaking rather casually to me for quite some time.”
Slash.
The Heavenly Demon drew a finger through the air.
Dark-red blood exploded from the Black-and-White Demon Venerable's neck like a flood.
“Eek!”
“The Mind Sword!”
The moment their master died, the Black-and-White Demon Venerable's guards dropped flat on the ground before Cheon Yugi and begged for mercy.
Most cried that they had only been following orders, or that they would never have truly opposed the Cult Leader.
Their desperate pleading did not reach Cheon Yugi's ears.
“Right Envoy. Are you there?”
At Cheon Yugi's call, a middle-aged man covered head to toe in blood appeared behind him.
“You called, Brother?”
“Did I not tell you to call me Brother only when we are alone?”
“Ah, right. My apologies, Cult Leader. But these bastards are all going to die anyway, so does it matter?”
“You truly have not changed since childhood. If the Left Envoy were here, he would already be screaming at me to cut your head off.”
“Well, my duty is to obey the Cult Leader, while the Left Envoy's duty is to scream and complain about everything.”
Cheon Yugi nodded toward the soldiers lying flat on the ground.
“Kill them all. Make it as painful as possible. Then hang their corpses from our banners and plant them along the desert ridges.”
“Yes, Brother.”
“I told you to say Cult Leader when other people are... Haah. Forget it. More importantly, has there been any word from the Left Envoy?”
“From the Left Envoy? What word?”
Cheon Yugi frowned and kicked the Right Envoy in the shin.
“The task I gave him! The one more important than cutting off the heads of these traitors!”
“Ah, right. Finding the Youngest Miss? Now that you mention it, he said all preparations were finished and he would begin searching as soon as the rebellion was suppressed.”
The Right Envoy continued rubbing his shin with an expressionless face.
His face remained blank, but apparently it hurt.
“By the way, why are we only starting now? If you really wanted to, we could have found her immediately.”
“We did not yet know how many enemies remained inside the Cult. If we searched for her carelessly under those circumstances, we might only have placed her in greater danger.”
“The Left Envoy said something similar.”
The Right Envoy tilted his head as if he still did not understand.
But he asked no further questions.
As he had said himself, his duty was simply to trust and follow the Heavenly Demon's orders.
“Still, it has already been three months since we lost contact with the Young Miss. Do you think she is safe?”
“She is the daughter of this Cult Leader. She is not a child who would die easily. She must be alive. However...”
“However?”
As though trying to release his irritation, Cheon Yugi swung his sword at the empty air.
A sword aura massive enough to resemble Mount Tai flew across the desert and split an enormous boulder ten li away in half.
“If anyone has touched even a single hair on that child's body, I swear I will make that bastard suffer something worse than hell.”
“Is that so?”
The Right Envoy burst into loud laughter as he smashed the skulls of the prisoners with his brutal fists.
“I don’t know whether anyone would dare touch the Young Miss, but if someone did, that poor bastard is in serious trouble. Hahahahaha!”
