By Zephyria An Unwelcome Guest in a Precious Place (4)
“I feel like I can finally breathe.”
Seong Mu-yeon lightly wiped the sweat from his forehead and exhaled with relief.
This was the first time Baek Ryeo-il had seen him look so clean since they were assigned the Emerald Pavilion as their quarters. As he dazedly looked around the room, Seong Mu-yeon pulled the blanket from under him.
“Ah, please move.”
“Huh?”
As Baek Ryeo-il moved aside, Seong Mu-yeon rolled up the blanket and threw it into his arms.
“Go wash this.”
“Huh?”
“It’s filthy! Take it and wash it clean! Ah, while you’re at it, wash yourself and change your clothes. You stink, you know?”
Baek Ryeo-il pulled at his front and sniffed. Indeed… He had been covered in blood and dust from the battle, and he had only briefly soaked himself in the stream on the way here to wash off the blood, so he didn’t smell very good.
“Hurry!”
“Ah, alright…”
Baek Ryeo-il paused as he was about to leave the room and turned his head.
“But aren’t you going to wash?”
“Oh, right.”
Seong Mu-yeon followed Baek Ryeo-il out.
Baek Ryeo-il led him into a secluded forest. A little further in, a clear pond appeared. It was one of the ponds in Mount Hua called Oknyeo Pond.
Baek Ryeo-il didn’t care that everything was exposed and quickly stripped off his clothes. Then he strode into the water.
Before taking off his clothes, Seong Mu-yeon first checked the water temperature.
“Ah, cold!”
“What are you doing? Aren’t you coming in?”
“The water is like ice!”
“You won’t die.”
“I will die.”
With a large splash, Baek Ryeo-il came out.
Seong Mu-yeon’s gaze naturally went downwards. Something as impressive as its owner’s martial prowess was dangling and getting closer.
Baek Ryeo-il grabbed Seong Mu-yeon’s arm and pulled.
“You always make me use my hands. I said you won’t die.”
“How would Master know that! I don’t want to! I’d rather not wash at all!”
Seong Mu-yeon hugged a tree and resisted. A battle unfolded between the person trying to drag him and the person trying not to be dragged.
“Acting picky like a pampered young master, aren’t you?”
“That’s not why! You don’t know anything!”
Seong Mu-yeon absolutely could not wash in cold water. In fact, he really could die. His sickly body couldn’t regulate its temperature like a healthy person. If he went into such cold water, he might say goodbye to life in an instant.
At that moment, a group of young boys came rushing over. They seemed to be here to bathe, but they paused when they saw Baek Ryeo-il already settled in. Hesitating, they couldn’t overcome their curiosity and eventually approached and spoke.
“Senior Brother, what are you doing here?”
“Oh, just trying to wash up. Aish, aren’t you ashamed to be seen by kids! Hey!”
Seong Mu-yeon felt that Baek Ryeo-il was the one who didn’t feel shame or embarrassment. To reveal his natural dangling self without a single thread on in front of young disciples.
“That person… is that the one you brought earlier? The one they said was a beggar.”
“He’s not a beggar!”
Seong Mu-yeon shouted back. He was still clinging to the tree.
“But what are you two doing?”
Baek Ryeo-il eventually gave up trying to detach Seong Mu-yeon and asked the boys.
“Do any of you have a bathtub?”
“A bathtub? No, we don’t. We just wash here, why would we need one?”
“Right? I’m not the weird one, right? He’s the weird one, right?”
Seong Mu-yeon’s eyes welled up with tears of sorrow. He thought only the Demonic Cult was strange, but Mount Hua was just as much of a collection of oddballs. He felt like a two-eyed man in a world of one-eyed people.
“Ah, our Master does have one, though.”
“Really?”
Baek Ryeo-il quickly jumped into the water and started washing quickly. The boys also dipped into the pond.
Seong Mu-yeon sat a little away from the water’s edge, gloomily watching the scene. In his eyes, they all seemed to have lost their sense of touch.
“……”
When the boys started splashing each other and playing, he moved as far away as possible.
Baek Ryeo-il quickly finished bathing and roughly put on his clothes over his wet body.
“Let’s go. I’ll get you a bathtub.”
“Yes? From where?”
Baek Ryeo-il strode off somewhere. He arrived at a pavilion, went in without hesitation, and appeared with a large bathtub in one hand.
“See? It’s real, right?”
“It looks like you stole it.”
“What private property is there for a Taoist? What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is mine.”
“……I don’t think that’s right.”
In any case, Seong Mu-yeon’s heart fluttered at the thought of being able to wash in warm water.
Seong Mu-yeon heated water in the kitchen furnace attached to the Emerald Pavilion. The furnace was clean as if it had never been used. It seemed they didn’t cook meals here.
Seong Mu-yeon, who had created a splendid bathhouse in one corner of the kitchen, narrowed his eyes as he was about to loosen his belt.
“……Are you going to keep staring like that?”
Baek Ryeo-il was leaning against the kitchen wall with his arms crossed, staring intently at him.
“What’s wrong with two men? What are you going to do after you kick me out? Pretend to wash and then run away?”
“Am I even capable of running away from Master?”
“Who knows? There might be another Mount Junzi.”
“There isn’t anymore. Really.”
But Baek Ryeo-il didn’t let his guard down at all.
Seong Mu-yeon eventually took off his clothes under Baek Ryeo-il’s fierce gaze. Just taking off the rags he had been wearing for days made him feel refreshed.
He put his toes in the bathtub first to check the temperature, then slowly immersed himself in the water.
The hot water enveloped his overworked muscles. An exclamation naturally escaped his lips. It was the first proper bath he had taken since meeting Baek Ryeo-il.
‘It would be better if there wasn’t a watching eye.’
Baek Ryeo-il even widened his eyes as if he wouldn’t blink for a moment.
“Stop staring. I’ll wear out.”
“But you, you know……”
Baek Ryeo-il trailed off, unlike his usual self.
“Why didn’t you learn Demonic Art? Even though you’re the Demonic Cult Leader’s son.”
His persistent gaze was observing his body, which showed no signs of martial arts training. When he was covered in clothes, he looked like a slightly thin person, but his naked body was not. Looking at his skinny arms and legs and his torso that seemed to show his bones, you couldn’t even use the expression ‘healthy’ as a euphemism.
“I couldn’t learn it because I didn’t have the talent.”
“The other Cult Leader’s sons are not like that, only you? That’s strange.”
“Tell me about it.”
The six brothers other than Seong Mu-yeon each showed talent in different fields, but they all performed above average.
In fact, they all had different mothers. So, the cause was probably in the genes, but he didn’t want to blame his deceased mother, so he kept his mouth shut.
Baek Ryeo-il also didn’t pick a fight until the bath was over. He seemed to be shocked to see Seong Mu-yeon after only seeing the burly Hwasan Sect people.
‘If I can get the Sect leader’s approval, could there be a safer place than here?’
He had been dragged here unintentionally, but thinking about it, it wasn’t bad at all.
Seong Mu-yeon decided to settle down in Mount Hua.
To do that, he had to build trust first.
“Hey, I’m really not going to run away anymore, okay? Don’t just stand there, relax.”
Seong Mu-yeon shouted over his shoulder. But only a cold snort returned.
“……I’m serious.”
It seemed that first impressions were important. Damn it.
A white blanket fluttered in the yard, drying in the sun.
Sip.
Seong Mu-yeon tilted his teacup against the backdrop of the hazy, scenic view of Mount Hua visible through the wide-open window.
“……Where did you get that?”
“The tea leaves? They were in the kitchen.”
Baek Ryeo-il let out a dumbfounded laugh. Seong Mu-yeon had been in the Emerald Pavilion for less than half a day and had settled in as if it were his own home. There wouldn’t be many people with such nerve.
Baek Ryeo-il looked around his room anew. It was spotless, and Seong Mu-yeon had searched the room thoroughly and found a new, unused blanket to lay down, making it feel like a new house.
Sip.
‘Good.’
After finishing his meal with the food someone had brought in a food box and tidying up the teacup he had drunk from and finishing the rest of the cleaning, it was like being in paradise. As the sun set over the western mountains.
Baek Ryeo-il had somehow obtained a sturdy-looking rope. Feeling ominous, Seong Mu-yeon instinctively took a step back.
“Wh-what is that?”
“It’s a rope.”
“I mean, why a rope……”
Baek Ryeo-il tied his wrist and his own wrist tightly together.
“Now that I think about it, you might run away while sleeping. Shouldn’t I do this so I can notice right away?”
As Baek Ryeo-il pulled his arm towards himself, Seong Mu-yeon was naturally pulled along. He lay down on the bed as he was.
“Now, lie down here.”
Then he tapped the spot next to him.
“I sometimes…… no, often want to open Master’s head and look inside. Does it really have to be like this?”
“That’s what I should be saying. Aren’t you going to come here and lie down? I’m exhausted. I even have a bruise on my thigh because of you, and you’re rebelling against me!”
Baek Ryeo-il used force again to subdue Seong Mu-yeon. Seong Mu-yeon’s knees buckled so easily. Baek Ryeo-il lightly moved his arms and legs, and when he came to his senses, Seong Mu-yeon was lying straight on the bed.