By Zephyria Expert in Disappearance and Kidnapping (8)
“You, you have no idea what I’ve been through all this time.”
Seomun Yuha looked up at his mother with tearful eyes.
“You don’t know how we’ve been living, hiding pathetically! You don’t know. You, who grew up wealthy in a warm and comfortable place, will never understand. There are hardly any of our clan left except for you and me.”
“Mom… No, I mean, Mother.”
“Shut up! Don’t call me Mom! Who wouldn’t want revenge? I’m barely holding back the urge to catch all those Central Plains bastards and beat them to death!”
Seong Mu-yeon squeezed his eyes shut.
‘Please spare me….’
“I raised my child wrong. I cherished you too much, and you turned into a useless idiot. What…? Live comfortably and forget…? I should just…!”
“Heeik!”
As Madam Seomun became agitated, Seomun Yuha quickly raised his arm to block her. But the attack didn’t continue. This time, Baek Ryeo-il firmly grabbed her wrist.
“Madam and Young master are of the Flowering Bone lineage, aren’t you? Is that correct?”
At Baek Ryeo-il’s question, Madam Seomun’s eyes widened.
“H-How did you know that?”
After all that fuss, how could he not know?
The Flowering Bone was a historically profound lineage that had existed since ancient times. They were all beautiful and didn’t age well even as they got older. And they were characterized by slender bones and a lithe physique. Countless masters, captivated by their outstanding appearance, were easily swayed by them.
However, it was inherently difficult for them to cultivate external martial arts, so none of them had ever made a name for themselves in martial arts.
As time passed, their numbers dwindled, and they disappeared into the annals of history.
‘Wait a minute, Flowering Bone?’
Seong Mu-yeon finally realized the identity of the strange sense of déjà vu he had been feeling.
Seomun Yuha was one of the main characters in Finger Sword Lone Battle, so there was no way Seong Mu-yeon wouldn’t know him. The reason he hadn’t noticed until now was simple.
‘Because they hardly ever used his name in the original work….’
When the war between the orthodox and Demonic sects broke out, he appeared like a comet and swept through the battlefield. He became the second most feared figure for the Demonic Cult, after Baek Ryeo-il.
His alias was Flowering Ghost.
However…
‘To think that the Flowering Ghost was such an immature brat.’
Seong Mu-yeon clicked his tongue.
‘Could it be that something happened with the Demonic Cult here?’
Something must have happened. The Seomun Clan, which had begun to gain fame as a powerful family, wasn’t even mentioned in the original work.
People just thought of the Flowering Ghost as a rising star who had emerged from the shadows. Who would know what had happened to him?
He hated the world and eventually lost his life on the battlefield, and that was the end.
Whatever the Demonic Cult did to him, Seomun Yuha would hate them to death and live with the goal of eradicating them.
The Seomun Yuha he had seen in the original work was a great help in exterminating the Demonic Cult. However, he didn’t belong to the orthodox sect. He loathed the Demonic Cult, but he hated the orthodox sect just as much. He also hated the evil sect.
He simply hated everyone except himself and his followers.
Of course, he was also a figure who frequently clashed with Baek Ryeo-il.
As a member of the Flowering Bone lineage, he had absorbed the Essence of countless masters, and his martial prowess was so high that even Baek Ryeo-il found him difficult to deal with.
While Seong Mu-yeon was recalling the contents of the original work, he snapped out of his reverie thanks to Madam Seomun’s shout.
“Don’t you know that every single member of the lineage is precious! Revenge can only be taken if you’re alive!”
He looked at the beautiful young man with tearful eyes with a strange feeling.
‘…Could the Flowering Ghost become our ally?’
They were already short-handed in the war against the Demonic Cult, so it would be great if they didn’t have to waste their energy on meaningless provocations and fights with the Flowering Ghost.
“The bastards have also realized that Young master is a Flowering Bone.”
As Seong Mu-yeon spoke calmly, the faces of Madam and Seomun Yuha turned deathly pale.
They knew very well what the existence of the Flowering Bone meant to the people of the Central Plains.
“To think we would meet a Flowering Bone, who we heard had been extinct for hundreds of years, like this.”
Baek Ryeo-il rubbed his chin.
That’s right. The reason why the Flowering Bone lineage no longer appeared in the world. It was because consuming the body of a Flowering Bone could grant tremendous inner force.
There were several ways to accumulate inner force, but breath regulation was the most common. It was a method of sitting quietly in meditation and waiting for the Essence of nature that entered the body through inhalation and exhalation to accumulate little by little. However, due to its nature, the speed was very slow even after a long time of practice.
However, even if one only ate a single finger of a Flowering Bone made into an elixir, one could gain several years’ worth of inner force at once. Because of this, martial artists once went crazy and hunted the Flowering Bone. As a result, most of them died, and the surviving lineages hid where they couldn’t be seen.
‘That must be why the Flowering Ghost hated the orthodox sect.’
“Do you understand? It would be best to abandon your vain dreams and leave this place for now. Before they arrive.”
Seong Mu-yeon reached out his hand. Seomun Yuha had tears welling up in his reddened eyes. The cheek that had been hit by his mother was red and swollen, but thanks to his Flowering Bone-like beautiful appearance, the sight stimulated pity.
“…Yes.”
Seomun Yuha also stopped resisting and obediently took his hand and stood up.
Thus, the Seomun Clan Young master disappearance incident was successfully concluded.
A faint hope bloomed in Seong Mu-yeon’s heart. If the anti-hero Flowering Ghost could fully stand on the side of justice, there could be nothing better.
‘Huh?’
As Seong Mu-yeon headed for the exit, he picked up a letter that had slipped from Seomun Yuha’s grasp. As Seong Mu-yeon casually read the letter, he suddenly froze.
“……”
“Seong Mu-yeon? What’s wrong?”
Baek Ryeo-il asked, looking puzzled. Seong Mu-yeon shook his head.
“It’s nothing. Nothing at all.”
He folded the paper and tucked it into his sleeve. Then, they all left the place together.
“Yuha! My baby!”
“Father!”
The tearful reunion of the Seomun Clan father and son continued. Seomun Hak examined his son to see if he was injured anywhere, then narrowed his eyes.
“You’re grounded from going out starting today!”
Seomun Yuha was immediately confined to his room.
“Young master… and Taoist Master… Please keep this matter a secret. If the rumors leak out, our Seomun Clan’s reputation will be ruined.”
At the earnest request of the Clan Head and his wife, Seong Mu-yeon and Baek Ryeo-il nodded.
Seong Mu-yeon was strangely subdued. He barely ate any food, and when spoken to, he would only answer with a faint smile, unlike his usual self.
The Clan Head and his wife excused themselves so that the two men who had worked hard to save their son could rest. Instead, they promised to treat them to a grand banquet tomorrow.
Seong Mu-yeon received a pouch full of gold, and Baek Ryeo-il drank several bottles of precious liquor at once, which the Clan Head and his wife had given him, though it wasn’t quite as good as Hundred Flower Dew.
As the night deepened, the Seomun Clan was as silent as the dead. Among them, there was one person who was awake.
Seong Mu-yeon waited for the surroundings to become quiet before quietly leaving his room.
Before long, the air became so cold that his breath was visible when he exhaled. Seong Mu-yeon took a deep breath and rummaged through his sleeves.
Rustle.
What he took out was the letter that Seomun Yuha had received from the Demonic Cult. The content was simple. Wait, we’ll come to pick you up. But what he was paying attention to was the seal stamped at the end.
“……”
He knew the person who wrote this sentence very well. He never dreamed that he would encounter him like this.
‘Teacher Wi.’
His name was Wi Rim. Everyone called him Teacher Wi. He was an instructor who taught young disciples. It seemed he was doing something else now…
He had once taught Seong Mu-yeon.
As Seong Mu-yeon clenched his fist, the paper was crumpled terribly.
“Seong Mu-yeon.”
Baek Ryeo-il was already standing behind him without a sound. He leaned against a pillar in the hallway and stared intently at Seong Mu-yeon.
“Where are you going?”
Seong Mu-yeon gave a bitter smile.
“I guess it’s impossible to go out secretly without Taoist Master knowing.”
“I asked you where you’re going.”
Baek Ryeo-il lowered his voice. He was wary of Seong Mu-yeon. Tension flowed between the two.
“If I tell you honestly, will you let me go?”
“I’ll listen first.”
“……”
Seong Mu-yeon hesitated. He would have preferred to go quietly without anyone knowing, but…
“There’s someone I have to kill.”
“……!”
Baek Ryeo-il was shaken by the unexpected answer.
“Is it a grudge?”
“……Yes.”
What was considered most important in the martial world was the relationship of grudges and favors. If one received a favor, one repaid it, and one avenged one’s enemies. It was an immutable law.
“I’ll be back before it’s too late. So… please wait for me.”
Seong Mu-yeon bowed and turned around. Baek Ryeo-il didn’t stop him.
Seong Mu-yeon closed his eyes, feeling the cold night wind rushing past him. There was no hesitation in his footsteps as he retraced the path he had taken during the day.
‘Wi Rim….’
All demonic cultists underwent rigorous training from a young age. Before learning Demonic Art, as a basic step, they were tested to see if they were physically and mentally qualified to become the Cult Leader’s hands and feet.
The Cult Leader’s son was no exception. When Young master turned about ten years old, the children would train with the other ordinary cultists. All six of Seong Mu-yeon’s brothers had passed this stage.
The training involved pairing up with one cultist and going through a three-year process. After completing all of that, they had to complete the final task. It was to kill the partner they had shared joys and sorrows with, with their own hands.
In that final test, Seong Mu-yeon…
When he opened his eyes again, there was no emotion left on Seong Mu-yeon’s face.