Chapter 57

With my assurance that I will unite the Southern Palace, Namgung Han declared to the one hundred and fifty warriors of the Southern Palace, including Namgung Seok, Namgung Family Name, and Namgung Grand Name.
He would stand behind the Grand Duke of the Southern Palace.
Even as he spoke, Nangong Han wondered if he had spoken too hastily.
“What a ……. What the hell.”
“I just wanted to make a speech.”
“You just wanted to say that you’d finally come out in support of the Grand Duke?”
The reactions of the warriors of the Southern Palace were disconcerting to say the least. What kind of reaction was this?
“Is there anyone here who doesn’t support the Grand Duke? If so, please come forward.”
“You can’t come back now and say that, Mr. Branch Chief.”
“No, no, no. You’ve been looking at the Grand Duke of Wen-tze with a critical eye.”
“Oh, right, right. Didn’t you?”
They all giggled, shattering the atmosphere that Nan Gonghan had created. Nangong Han’s face flushed red.
Hana it.
It was the trust of the Southern Palace warriors that made heavy talk seem less heavy.
“If it weren’t for the Grand Duke, I’d already be a man of the other world.”
“I thought I was dead with an axe in my back. The Grand Duke fought over me.”
“That’s the tenth time you’ve told me that story. Enough.”
“Come on, we’ve all saved lives once or twice.”
Without realizing it, I was getting tons of support. I simply continued on my path.
All the members of the Southern Palace were looking at me and smiling. They were saying that their support for the Grand Duke was natural.
They were saying.
“……It’s good.”
I shook my head at my uncle’s words. I hadn’t done anything; they had just opened their hearts.
“Remember. Promises made in words will only open their hearts again, bigger and better.”
“Don’t worry.”
There will be no losers or defeated in the House I will lead. We just need to be able to reach out to each other as one.
So that what happened to the Namgung Byeok in my previous life will never happen again.
That’s all we need to do.
“Grand Duke.”
After a few moments of silence, Nangong Han turned to me.
“Everything I said has become meaningless.”
I shook my head as Namgung Han’s face fell.
“Perhaps they feel comfortable showing their feelings to me because you’ve opened up and expressed them.”
“Only if you think so.”
I read the look in his eyes, and now instead of hostility, there was favor, and the negative reaction was replaced with a positive one. I was pleased with the response and stopped smiling.
The moment had finally come when my time in the Shandong branch could come to an end.
* * *
“My grandfather spent his entire life away from the family and traveling from place to place.”
“……He did.”
“Never mind. He decided it would be more suitable for him to leave his family and travel the country.”
With that, Namgung Han took out a rolled up piece of hanji from his bosom and spread it out. The yellowish discoloration showed that it had been around for a long time. The texture was obviously hanji, but for some reason it felt thicker.
“This is …….”
“This is where my grandfather wrote down where he filled up his gas tank.”
It looked like there were at least ten places, judging by the dots.
“This is the only one he left behind. I’m sure he traveled to many more places, but if this is what he left me.”
Namgung Han said that if he wanted to find the secret of the Thunderclap, he would have to follow this trail.
The Black Dragon River.
The Great Wall.
The Yangtze River.
Guangdong.
Mount Kunlun.
Beihai.
Sichuan.
Shaolin.
Hainan.
Shandong.
I was amazed that I had traveled to so many places throughout the Zhongyuan Mountains. I wondered if I could drive to all these places in a year.
“……I’ve been sitting still for the past decade.”
The corners of his mouth twitched up as he began to say whether he knew my problem or not.
“I’ve done quite a bit of research. For a long time, I thought a lot about what my grandfather was looking at, what he was traveling to all these places to see, and what he was trying to teach me as his grandson, Dori, by leaving me something like this.”
One by one, he unpacked the small boxes that had been stacked behind his back. Each palm-sized box contained something unusual.
One box was a nine-leaf herb that only grows in the Heilongjiang River.
One box was called Muksongji fungus, a moss that grows under cypresses that can only be found on Mount Kunlun.
He took out the boxes and showed them to me, and there were seven of them.
“There are …… some that I paid for, and some that I went out and gathered or got myself.”
This wasn’t just following in the footsteps of the medicine man, Nan Gongyi.
“I want to ask the Grand Duke. You created a heavenly elixir called the Thunderstorm Elixir, yet you died after being ignored all your life. Is it truly true that a member of the Sword Family deserves to be ignored so much simply because he cannot wield a sword?”
I shook my head emphatically. Not at all.
But not in my mind, in the past.
In my previous life, at the South Palace Wall.
It wasn’t just that they had no martial talent.
ostracized simply because they had no martial talent.
It was understandable, considering the ostracization they received.
“So I’ve been waiting for the right time. For my grandfather’s name to shine brightly.”
Nam Gung Han looked at me, and I was the one who could give him the answer he wanted.
“We’ll have to make sure it honors his great work.”
I knew more about the Thunderbolt than anyone else. I was the one who had taken it myself. As someone who had personally taken the three-pill Heavenly Spirit Pill, I hoped that this Thunderclap would not be disregarded for the same reason.
“……Don’t worry. It must be Nan Gongli, and I will make sure that what he creates can never be disregarded, and the possession of it.”
It must be Namgung Han, I said. And I wanted it to be a weapon for the Nangong Han and the Fang Clan to have.
“It will cause the rise of branch chiefs and members of the Fang Clan.”
At those words, Namgung Han nodded. He took my hand. He was showing me intense emotion, saying that he was fulfilling his lifelong desire by meeting me.
“I’m only grateful to you for all you’ve done for me.”
I shook my head in disbelief, but Nam Gung-han pointed to the Hanji again.
“……Now come and see what I will spare, and what more I will hide. The North Sea, the Yangtze River, and the Great Wall.”
The Great Wall, the North Sea, and the Yangtze River.
“In the Great Wall, you will find five-flowered herbs, in the Beihai, you will find hundred-year-old snow ginseng, and in the Yangtze, you will find hundred-year-old fireweed.”
Each of these ingredients sounds difficult. Nevertheless.
“I must go. I’ve been searching for these other ingredients for the past ten years.”
Namgung Han shook his head.
“As long as I can find the other three ingredients, I shouldn’t have any trouble forging them.”
“You must have some of the core material left.”
“I’ve already read and burned my grandfather’s papers, so I’ll be the only one who knows.”
I smiled at Namgung Han’s pride as he said this. I could feel how much he was thinking of her.
I knew I had to find the ingredients as soon as possible.
Then.
“Where do you want to go first?”
“Where?”
“The Great Wall, then the Yangtze River, then the North Sea. Wherever I go, it will take me a long time to visit all three.”
I thought. How to shorten the time.
Luckily, I figured out a way to spend all my time on the Great Wall and the Yangtze River.
“I will go to the North Sea.”
So I chose the Beihai.
“That’s a good idea. It’s not a bad thing to go the farthest first.”
“But first, I need to write two letters, each with a detailed note to the recipient, and I need you to deliver them well.”
“Leave it to me.”
With that, I wrote the epistles.
Excitingly.
With the momentum of a one-pointed pen.
* * *
A chuckle.
“Still the same.”
Hanya shook her head as she looked at the young man who had folded up the scroll in one fell swoop. She opened her mouth in wonder that the young man, who usually didn’t show his emotions, would show them this way.
“What kind of inspection are you doing that makes you so angry?”
“……It’s better for Hanya to see for herself than for me to tell her.”
Hanya, who was curious as to what was going on, took the paper and opened it, and burst out laughing.
“My brother, Hyuk-ah.”
They’ve always been so friendly.
It was the first line that could easily be mistaken for a brother and sister.
“It’s been six years now. How are you feeling from the knife wound I gave you? I remember when you were unconscious.”
I didn’t have to guess who she was talking to.
“Big brother has a favor to ask. I need some carp from the Yangtze River, preferably ones that are a hundred years old. I won’t be satisfied with just one or two, but I want you to catch as many as you can. As many as you can.”
Hanya couldn’t help but glance at the Second Duke Namgung Hyuk at the shamelessness of his words. It was not something that could be easily obtained, but the inspection did not end there.
“You don’t want to do it, you don’t want to do it, but what can I do, I’m done with my work, I can go back to my home right now, and I’m not going back.”
Hearing those words, Hanya looked at Seo-chul in disbelief. If this was true, it would be the Grand Duke who would already be ahead in the race for the Shogunate, and it would be all for naught after all the hard work he’d put into fighting the Surochai for days and nights, let alone a single day on the Yangtze River.
“However, if you do as you’re told and bring back the carp, you won’t return home early, even if it’s because of my brother’s diligence. I’ll give you my word. ”
Gulp.
Hanya looked at Namgung Hyuk. Nam Gung-hyeok, the manly man who was now a contractor, sighed.
“……Baeknyeonhwari. Look it up.”
At that, Hanya sighed and shook her head. This battle had been lost from the moment they arrived.
Just like that, the Second Duke Namgung Hyuk,
was defeated again by the Grand Duke, whom he hadn’t seen in six years.