Chapter 81

Back at the Southern Palace, things weren’t all smooth sailing. As if it was too much to hope for peace, Gae X, the fourth-ranked male palace dog, who had been practicing his martial arts in an abandoned wing, began to fuss as if he hadn’t been quiet for a while.
“……I can still compete for Gazoo! I can! Are you ignoring me?”
I let out a light sigh as I watched him struggle. Every time it did.
“Shut up, asshole.”
He glared at me.
“Tongue, brother?”
I was too nervous to say anything in front of Namgungal.
“Brother, leave him to me. I’ll take care of him.”
“Alright. Good luck.”
Namgunggal nodded lightly in response to my words, and the Namgung Dog, who was looking at him, looked back and forth between us in confusion.
It looked like it didn’t understand. He could only vaguely guess that a lot had changed in the Southern Palace without his knowledge.
“……No, Elder Brother Gal! How can you call that bastard Elder Brother ……!”
“Shut up! If you run your mouth one more time, I’ll rip it off and throw you in the black hole far away.”
At the sound of his fierce voice, both I and the male dog were silent. He was indeed a frightening creature.
“By the way, where did you send Black Lake and the Second Gongzi?”
“I asked them to go to ……, the branch in Hubei.”
“Open?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head at my uncle’s words. I was the only one who knew about Black Lake’s past, but now he was a man of the Southern Palace. He had spent his entire life as a reaper, just as Master Guangsheng had said, and now he couldn’t abandon his roots.
Furthermore, the potential of a black tiger who had reached his full potential as a killer was beyond my grasp.
“I will create a sword realm in the Southern Palace.”
“Sword Realm?”
I nodded. Within the roots of the Southern Palace, everyone in the family only talks about the immediate line. But that’s bound to cause problems. So I will have many pillars support the roof of the Southern Palace, one of which will be the Fang Clan, and the next will be the Sword Clan.
“Do you have something in mind?”
“Of course there is. The Six Great Houses are closed.”
“That’s why it’s so strong.”
“Uncle, you shouldn’t be worrying about anything else, but grooming Donghui and Wu Wenyi.”
“They’re already quite good. They won’t be in your family.”
“Uncle Wu.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t want him to end his life as my guardian.”
“……what do you mean?”
“It just means that.”
As I said that, I rambled on, and the old man seemed to realize something, but he didn’t open his mouth to probe further.
“Black Lake is going to become a sword master, so it’s best to tie up the loose ends of the past.”
“Is that why you sent him with the Second Duke?”
“That’s right. He’s too high-minded.”
So I asked Nam Gung-hyeok to move with Eunuch Black. If he moves alone, he won’t be able to get all the help he needs from Open.
First, I would build a fence so that we could see the Salgye’s movements and help Eungho erase his past with the Salgye.
“Then what should we do until Black Lake and the Second Duke arrive?”
“…cultivate one’s moral character, harmonize one’s family, govern the country and bring peace to the world (cultivate one’s moral character, harmonize one’s family, govern the country and bring peace to the world).”
* * *
“Hehe, big brother!”
Hehe! Hehe!
The wooden sword was firm and well-founded as it was thrust out with force. It was as if Nangong Yue had caught it. I didn’t want to make him realize the bloody battlefield by letting him hold the sword.
“I have no intention of stopping Wall from doing what he wants to do.”
“……Yes.”
That was what she meant. My mother never stopped me from doing anything I wanted to do; she just cheered me on and watched silently.
“By the way, have we traveled too far?”
“It’s not too far from Anhui Castle.”
“If Walli hadn’t been so stubborn, I would have been able to…….”
“I have no intention of stopping him from doing what he wants to do.”
At my words, Mrs. Bai, my mother, stared at me. Indescribable emotions flashed in and out of their eyes.
“Elder brother, Elder brother, what about it, what about it, you said it’s the Iron Sword Sixty-Six you learned!”
The fierce voice cut between me and my mother.
For some reason, she sounded familiar.
She must have learned my swordsmanship from looking over my shoulder.
I thought I had the basics down, but my form was sloppy.
Even so, I thought that memorizing all of the sloppy sword forms and extending them out would be enough to keep me on the right path. I know the talent of the South Palace Wall.
In this child’s body.
I’ve lived in the body of this damned curse before.
And yet.
A few more swings, and the sword caught.
A few more slashes and I’m in position.
For some reason, I felt uncomfortable with the change in mood.
“Brother, I want to learn the next one, I’m done with this one!”
The awkward feeling disappeared with that. I grinned and leaned in closer.
“Hey, Wall.”
“Yes!”
“A sword, like anything else, is a mastery. The more you do the same thing over and over again, the more skilled you become, and the more familiar you become with the same thing, the more disciplined you become.”
“Umm…….”
As the child frowned in confusion, I kept the smile on my face and tapped the wooden sword on the wall.
“I thought it was fun to swing a sword.”
“Ew!”
“Then I’m sure you could swing that iron sword saber I showed you ten times, a hundred times.”
“Umm…….”
Again, he looks deep in thought, but it doesn’t seem too difficult. It was probably hard. This moment in time, the younger version of myself that I knew was not very persistent.
But then.
“Yes! I can swing it!”
“Huh?”
It wasn’t the answer I expected.
“If I can swing it as cool as you can, I can swing it a hundred times and a thousand times!”
I burst out laughing. Or was it that I, Wall, was becoming an idol, a goal, and even a target.
It was an unknown uplift, but it felt good, a hole I could fill.
If I could grow beyond my current self, beyond my childhood self, beyond my former self, beyond my childlike self, what could I not do?
So I took her sword and we went out. I used the wall as an excuse, but it was to eat food that contained my mother’s skill, to imprint the existence of the wall on me.
And then.
“……Took you long enough.”
A presence interrupting my outing.
A rumbling that would make a breaker respond.
Beings with a rattling energy.
The three of them walked slowly, as if they had been there forever.
……The mighty Hwang Bo Gyeom, and three others of equal skill.
* * *
Kudang Tang!
“……Did you say it was the Heavenly Wind Swordsman Namgung Hyuk?”
“That’s right.”
Breaking through the crowd of raggedy-looking men, most of whom seemed to have tied a knot or two in their hair, was a middle-aged man.
“What a guest in such a shabby place!”
With that, he shook Nam Gung-hyuk’s palm, gold and jade, and shook his hand. Nam Gung-hyeok and Black Ho were about to frown at the sight of his nose flaring.
“Who is this?”
“This is Black Hora.”
“Blackhora, Blackhora…….”
Boom!
With a clap of his hands, the middle-aged man gave Black Ho an index finger.
“Are you the one who traveled to the North Sea?”
Black Lake’s eyebrows twitched. His trip to the North Sea was a public affair, so it wasn’t hidden, but Black Lake’s existence would have been hard to recognize in the shadow of the Grand Duke.
“……That’s right.”
“I see!”
The middle-aged man’s thoughts were interrupted by a group of beggars from the open air, who clicked their tongues.
“Noi, if you’re going to serve guests, go do it somewhere else. What are you doing in front of this Bunta, the customers will disappear.”
“Yeki, you bastard, I’ll take care of it!”
Black Lake and Namgung Hyuk looked at each other, then quickly scanned their surroundings. In the midst of faded, decaying buildings and worn-out objects, beggars scavenging through trash cans and begging here and there.
This is Bunta.
I thought it was a beggar’s village and came to ask about the open Hubei branch.
It’s already open.
“……I think you’re in the wrong place.”
Nam Gung-hyuk made a face and tried to leave immediately, but the middle-aged man rubbed his palms together, blocking Nam Gung-hyuk and Black Lake’s path.
“Ask me anything and get anything.”
“By the way…… beggar…… no, who are you?”
At Nam Gung-hyuk’s hasty retraction, the middle-aged man wiped the puddle of dung from his face with a rag and coughed.
“I’m Zhao Yang, the branch manager of the Hubei branch.”
At the same time, I feel a different vibe coming from Zhao Yang. At the same time, countless members of the opening rose to their feet, showing the dignity of those who had risen to the position of one of the Gu Pile’s branches.
“I want to ask you something, but it will come at a price.”
Nam Gung-hyeok understood the rapidly changing atmosphere, but he was no pushover. He had spent more than seven years in the harshness of mountain warfare, especially on the Yangtze River, and nothing was a given.
Therefore, Zhao Yang’s eyebrows twitched as he looked at Nam Gung Hyuk, who took a step forward.
“I’d like to purchase information about Salgye.”
“Information costs money.”
“I’ll pay.”
But she shook her head. When she saw Nam Gung-hyeok slip his hand into her bosom, she shook her head.
“What do you need that kind of money for? It’s useless to have it anyway.”
I admire the way she says it.
“Shit, you said that, but you won’t take the money again!”
“Eh! It’s our fault for meeting the wrong branch manager!”
“My stomach is boiling! Boil! Boil! That’s it! That’s it!”
The beggars, who had never been paid in money before, heard the clinking of Nam Gung-hyeok’s silverware and let out a string of curses.
“Shut up, you bastards! What kind of beggars do you think you are if you’ve forgotten what it means to be a beggar!”
Zhao Yang’s words drowned out the cacophony.
“Then what will you pay for it?”
“You’ll pay for it with another piece of information.”
“Another information?”
“The information that Namgung has, or the information that you have. That will be the price, and I assure you, I will never raise or lower the price, so tell me.”
At those words, Namgung Hyuk and Black Lake looked at each other. It was a difficult task. What information should they give him and how?
“Or I can ask you, and if you give me the right answer, I will tell you the story of the murder.”
Namgung Hyuk and Black Ho nodded, as if they had already made up their minds.
“Nan Gongban, what did the Grand Duke of the Southern Palace do in Shandong, and what did he do?”
What on earth did he want to ask, why did he even pause?
“What have you done to provoke King Green Forest Two, Bai Guang?”