Chapter 48. Twin Swords of the Wind and Clouds (23)
Jin-Jin smiled at Hye-Ryeong.
“This is my first son.”
For a moment, Hye-Ryeong’s eyes glowed coldly before quickly relaxing.
“Is that so?! Then he must be my second cousin!”
According to the family hierarchy, Song Woo-Moon and Hye-Ryeong were second cousins.
Hye-Ryeong walked over to Woo-Moon without any hesitation and took his hand.
“Nice to meet you, Woo-Moon. I’m Baek Hye-Ryeong, your second cousin. To make things comfortable, you can just call me noona.”
‘Comfortable? I don’t think that’s what I would call it...’
For some reason, Woo-Moon felt uncomfortable when faced with Hye-Ryeong. There wasn’t any specific reason or another. It was just instinctual.
‘My second cousin....’
It would have been uncomfortable calling her by her formal title anyway, but if he had to go around calling her “noona” whenever they had lunch, he’d feel so awkward he wouldn’t even know which hole in his face he should shove the food into.
Woo-Moon slightly nodded his head.
“Yes, it’s nice to meet you, second cousin.”
Hye-Ryeong looked at him briefly with a kind smile, then looked over at Sang-Woon.
“But, by the way, what brought you all here?”
“What do you mean, what brought me? We came to live here from now on,” he responded.
Hye-Ryeong was startled.
“Is that so? Then please go in for now and wait a moment. I will go and inform the head.”
“That’s what I was planning on doing.”
“Move that carriage aside.”
At Hye-Ryeong’s command, Seo Cheong-Cheong’s carriage was moved very quickly out of the way.
As they entered the manor, Dok-Du spoke to Gwang Ryeok-Gwi.
“D-did you hear that, hyung-nim?”
“I-I heard it. I heard it.”
“T-to think, t-that person is the Palm Martial Emperor, wow...”
As their surprise grew, so did their despair.
‘We’re royally screwed. The Palm Martial Emperor and his family! I guess we can’t even dream of running away.’
Dok-Du truly felt like blaming the heavens.
* * *
It was the return of the Palm Martial Emperor Baek Sang-Woon!
The entire Baek Family was sent into commotion at the news. Sang-Woon was the rebellious child of the Baek Family, one of the Great Sword Families; he had abandoned the sword out of his own free will and had become an Absolute Master through palm techniques. Now, after who knew how many years, he was back home.
Dae-Woong, Jin-Jin, and Woo-Moon rested in one of the guesthouses as Sang-Woon attended the hastily convened elders’ meeting alone.
As soon as he entered, every single person in the room stood up at the same time and bowed to Sang-Woon to show respect. This included Baek Mu-Hoon—the head of the family, known by his title of Thousandfold Benevolence, as well as his siblings and the other elders.
“We greet the great ancestor.”
Because Sang-Woon was always out and about, he didn’t possess any rank or title within the Baek Family, so he was greeted according to his seniority.
Sang-Woon knew he couldn’t ignore the head of the family, even though he was the Baek Sang-Woon, so he nodded toward Mu-Hoon in acknowledgment. He passed Cheong-Cheong, who was quietly kneeling on the floor, as if she wasn’t there, and sat down right next to the family head.
“It’s fine. Sit down.”
After everyone sat down, they started with small talk about what Sang-Woon had been doing and what he was up to now. As minutes passed, Sang-Woon’s expression looked more and more as if he was trying his best to chew a particularly flavorful piece of shit.
‘No matter how much time passes, I can’t get used to these damn meetings. Why is it always so old-fashioned here? Tsk, tsk, these brats are all younger than I am. How are they still so stuck up?’
Just as Sang-Woon was about to reach his limits, Mu-Hoon finally got to the main point.
“By the way, Granduncle, I heard you returned to the manor with Aunt Jin-Jin and her family. Is that right?”
However, instead of answering, Sang-Woon abruptly changed the subject, almost as if he was talking to himself.
“Seems like I was out for way too long and the great Baek Family forgot about discipline and etiquette... Judging guests by their appearance and talking down to them, ordering them to do this and that...hmph. Really, I never thought that I’d be called a country bumpkin asshole in my own home.... Who will take the blame for that screw-up, I wonder....”
Mu-Hoon’s face turned bright red. Although Sang-Woon acted as though he was speaking to himself, there was no way that Mu-Hoon wouldn’t understand who those words were aimed at.
“I am deeply sorry, Granduncle. I will punish her severely in accordance with the family laws.”
“Huh? Oh, right. I was just talking to myself, but that little girl is your concubine, right, little Mu-Hoon?”
Among the elders of the Baek Family who were sitting next to Mu-Hoon, the oldest woman frowned.
“Uncle! Even though he’s lower in rank than you, he’s still the family head. Please refrain from calling him ‘little Mu-Hoon.’”
However, was Sang-Woon really someone who actually cared about such things? He thought to himself, ‘Be thankful I even came to this meeting, you brats!’
To his merit, however, he held himself back from shouting what he really wanted to say.
“What did you just say? I saw his father walk around pooping his pants in diapers, and you’re expecting me to walk around kissing his feet, calling him Lord Patriarch this and Lord Patriarch that? Myeong-Ju, you little brat, it seems I didn’t spank you enough last time!”
Baek Myeong-Ju, an old woman with long white hair, nearly approaching eighty years of age, blushed deeply at his words.
“I mean, Uncle, how has your personality stayed as unchanging as your face?! What do you expect from the family when even our great ancestor refuses to follow the customs? Moreover, why are you bringing up things from when I was a child?”
When she was very young and mischievous, Myeong-Ju had accidentally broken Sang-Woon’s favorite vase, and her memory of him spanking her in front of everyone was still vivid.
It was an unforgettable humiliation for her, to the point that she still had nightmares about it to this day.
“What do you mean, when you were a child? To me, you’re still a little brat. Also, what do you expect me to do about not growing up? I was born perfect, so what am I supposed to change about myself?”
“Uncle!”
As the two people glared at each other, Mu-Hoon, the head of the family, interjected with a kind smile.
“It’s okay, Elder. Isn’t Granduncle someone who’s like the summer breeze, not limited by ostentation or pretense? There’s no need to force him to fit our customs.”
“Hmpf. If you say so, Patriarch.”
If even the family head spoke in that manner, Myeong-Ju knew she had to take a step back.
“So, well, there’s nothing else to talk about. My daughter is alive, we’re going to return to the family manor, and we’ll live here again. Got it? Okay, I’m leaving,” Sang-Woon said, no longer wanting to be involved in the boring family meeting.
He was about to get up when Myeong-Ju went on the offensive once again.
“Although I’m glad that she came back alive, Jin-Jin tarnished the face of our family and ran away the day before her wedding. How can we accept her back without any punishment?!”
Everyone was startled by her shout.
They had all implicitly agreed at the very least not to talk about that matter and quietly accept Jin-Jin back into the family once more and move on, but Myeong-Ju, who had hated Jin-Jin for a long time, couldn’t bear it.
Sang-Woon chuckled after hearing her words before slowly looking back at her and speaking.
“Isn’t it enough that she came back alive?”
“Like I said before! I am also ecstatic that Jin-Jin has come back alive! However! Back then, when she had run away, our Baek Family became a laughingstock in the gangho, and our relationship with the Namgoong Family also fell apart! At the very least, she must pay for that insult.”
Sang-Woon sighed.
“I guess you all really forgot about me, haven’t you? Well, let me remind you. I. Am. Baek. Sang. Woon. Even when hyung-nim and Father were alive, I was the one who turned this family upside down whenever something I didn’t like happened. You brats just have to provoke me, huh?”
On the wall of the meeting hall, behind the family head, there was a huge steel plaque with the words “Baek Family” written on it.
Suddenly, Sang-Woon’s figure disappeared and reappeared in front of it.
“Illusive Shift...” one of the elders whispered.
Quite a few of them were capable of using this technique. However, none of them could have done so as cleanly as Sang-Woon had or over such a long distance.
Although the difference between them had already been etched painfully into their minds when they were young, the pain of seeing the unsurpassable chasm between them once again at this age was as strong as ever.
Sang-Woon touched the plaque of the Baek Family with his hand, and his aura radiated, slowly enveloping everyone in the meeting hall.
Everyone paled, unable to maintain composure in the face of the manifestation of an Absolute Master’s cultivation.
“Do you know why I haven’t been back to the family for so long or haven’t ever stopped by, even once?”
No one could answer his question, and the silence was so painfully loud that it even covered the sound of breathing.
“While there were other reasons, there was one main reason I never came back after that day, twenty-one years ago. I was worried that if I came back and saw your faces, I wouldn’t be able to control this damned temper of mine and I’d kill you all.”
As Sang-Woon spoke, a terrifying bloodlust emanated from him for a split second.
By this point, everyone had become stark white.
While some people were barely holding themselves from screaming in fear, Sang-Woon continued to speak.
“That’s why I didn’t come back.”
Back then, when Sang-Woon heard that Jin-Jin had been chased to death by the Baek Family while running away on her wedding day and she had fallen to her death, he considered countless times killing everyone involved.
The ones who had pushed through with an arranged marriage even after his daughter had refused, the ones who had sent a pursuit squad after her because she had run away, and the ones who had driven her into a corner, eventually making her fall off of a cliff.
“Is the Namgoong family so great that you had to force my daughter into an arranged marriage? Are they so great that the daughter of the Palm Martial Emperor Baek Sang-Woon had to give up her life? Is the reputation of the Iron Sword Baek Family, which wasn’t built on an iron sword but on these very palms, really only worth that much?”
The Palm Martial Emperor. Baek Sang-Woon.
It was thanks to him that the Baek Family had become one of the Three Great Sword Families.
Of course, he had become an Absolute Master using palm techniques that had nothing to do with the sword. The only thing he had obtained from the Baek Family was their qi cultivation method. He had created his palm technique himself based on the family’s sword technique, and he had perfected it with the aid of the masters he had met while traveling through the gangho.
Although he hadn’t become an Absolute Master using the martial arts of the Baek Family, the family had still greatly benefited from Sang-Woon becoming one of the Eight Heavenly Martial Emperors and one of the supreme figures of the gangho.
“B-but... we never meant for Jin-Jin to die. All we wanted to do was catch her to restore the family’s honor...”
“Is that really the case? And how exactly would you have restored the family’s honor after catching her?”
Sang-Woon looked at the people in the hall with a sneer painfully visible on his face. Some of them flinched and looked away.
“All of you should be thanking the heavens that Jin-Jin survived. I guess all of you assumed that if you pretended that it had been a mistake, I wouldn’t be able to bring myself to harm you, being my family and all. Let me tell you this right now: you have no idea how wrong you are.”
Sang-Woon’s tone dropped and his voice turned eerie.
“I hope that none of you will ever spout lies in front of me. If you provoke me one more time, I will personally teach you why the title ‘Palm Martial Emperor’ used to have the words ‘Blood-Stained’ before it.”
The Blood-Stained Palm Emperor.
It was a title he had received in the past after fighting for years against forces such as the Heavenly Demon Cult and the Cruel Sandstorm Riders.
At that time, he was truly ruthless, and there was never a day when his hands weren’t stained with blood.
After he finished speaking, Sang-Woon looked over at Mu-Hoon. The latter still felt crushed under the silent pressure, but he forced himself to speak.
“...although it’s true that Aunt Jin-Jin ran away to avoid marrying into the Namgoong family and tarnished the family’s reputation, considering that she almost lost her life and suffered so miserably for so long, let’s not bring up this matter any longer.”
It was a declaration of surrender by the family head. In other words, he was telling the others that the matter was buried forever and they better forget it had ever happened.
Sang-Woon nodded, the look on his face saying that Mu-Hoon should have done so from the very beginning.
“Good, that clears things up. Anyway, there must be some place or another to spare in this massive house, right? Hurry up and clean up a place and give it to my daughter and grandson.”
“Understood.”
With that, Sang-Woon quickly left the meeting hall.
“Whew...”
Now that the storm had passed, everyone heaved a deep sigh of relief.
Everyone, except one person.
Hye-Ryeong turned toward the concubine, staring her down with a chilly gaze.
“How could you show such unsightly behavior to the most senior member of our family?”