Book 9 Chapter 17

Hyo Ryong's Melancholy

"Hoo…"

"Haa…"

Again.

"Hoo…"

Hyo Ryong let out one sigh after another, deeply.

His face was as gloomy as it could get. Lately, he seemed to have entered a phase of "returning to youth by becoming an old man," as his sighs had only increased. In truth, he hadn't been in good spirits since the tragedy at Wudang Mountain. He would force a smile in front of the many people who worried about him, but he hadn't genuinely smiled even once. The gloomy aura wafted out like the rich aroma of food left out for two months, making it not just unpleasant but even distressing for those nearby.

"Aigoo! Aigoo! Just by getting close to you, I feel like I'll get infected by your gloom and rust away. I never learned how to swim in the sea of sorrow… What should I do?"

Bilu Yeon, unable to bear it any longer, couldn't help but speak.

"You must be feeling comfortable."

Feeling intense envy towards the comfortable Bilu Yeon, Hyo Ryong let out another deep sigh. The burden on his heart, crushing him, had not yet subsided. Rather, it was on an increasing trend. He didn't want to shift the blame onto anyone, but it had all started since Eun Seol Ran came here.

Feeling stifled, as if a fiery energy was rising from within him, Hyo Ryong went outside to cool his burning heart with the cold night breeze. He felt his mind was too chaotic to sleep.

He headed to Unhyang Pavilion, the very place where Bilu Yeon had stolen Na Yerim's lips, infuriating most of the male students at Cheonmu Academy.

Lately, when his mind was troubled, he often visited this place to calm himself alone. But today, there was someone already there.

As the clouds that had obscured the moon cleared and moonlight gently settled back on the earth, the silhouette of the early visitor was revealed in the night's shadows.

Startled! Hyo Ryong froze upon seeing the figure of the other guest. His eyes widened like saucers.

'Oh my goodness!'

This wasn't what he wanted… Heaven seemed like a mischievous entity that didn't help those who helped themselves.

Misfortune seemed to stick closer the more one tried to avoid it.

"Wait a moment!"

Hyo Ryong stopped in his tracks at Eun Seol Ran's call. It was too difficult for him to brush off her voice and run away.

"What business do you have with me?"

Hyo Ryong said with a serious expression.

"Do you need to speak so stiffly? Young Master! Why do you keep avoiding me?"

"Because I have no face to look at you. I am not worthy of it."

His head drooped low. He truly felt he had no face to look at her.

"…When I see you, I keep thinking of my brother. And I think of my sin. Goodbye!"

Before he finished speaking, Hyo Ryong turned his back and walked away quickly. He desperately wanted to escape the crushing pressure on his chest.

"Young Master!"

Hyo Ryong couldn't help but stop his rapid pace. The desire to leave this place as soon as possible was intense, but his feet wouldn't obey.

"Don't avoid me! Why do you keep trying to avoid me? Look me in the eyes."

"…"

For a moment, Hyo Ryong stood at a crossroads of a difficult choice. Would he ignore her and walk away, or would he respond to her call?

After a silence that felt like an eternity, Hyo Ryong turned his head to look at her. However, he still lacked the courage to meet her gaze directly. A corner of his heart ached as if being squeezed.

Hyo Ryong wanted to avoid direct confrontation with her as much as possible. He was afraid. Afraid of meeting her! He didn't know what to say to her. What was he supposed to say?

'Should I proudly declare, "Brother, I killed him with my own hands!"?' But avoiding the situation artificially had reached its limit, and he finally ended up facing her directly. Moreover, it was a confrontation between just the two of them in the silent night. It was the worst situation.

He wasn't out for a stroll to soothe his loneliness. Could he have ever imagined encountering her in a place like this!

"…"

Both of them remained silent.

They now shared the shadow of a person they could never forget.

Thousands of unspoken words passed between him and her.

"Do you know how much I struggled after that person passed away? There were more days I wanted to die than days I wanted to live. A world without that person was meaningless to me. But I couldn't die. If I had, that person in the afterlife would have been truly angry."

Tears welled up in her eyes, which were always full of smiles. The most powerful weapon of a woman scattered its gentle light in the moonlight.

"Sister!"

Hyo Ryong paused. He couldn't extend his hand further to grab her shoulder. Suddenly, his brother's smiling face blocked his way.

"Why are you suffering so much?"

She looked at Hyo Ryong with eyes still moist with unshed tears. Hyo Ryong's heart ached sharply.

"Because it is my sin."

It was a response with no beginning or end.

"What is it that is your sin?"

"…Everything is my sin."

Hyo Ryong replied in a weak voice. He couldn't say any more. But Eun Seol Ran did not give up.

"I believe Young Master also knows what mission I was sent here for. But regardless of that, I believe I have more than enough right to hear the truth of that incident."

He had no rebuttal. Of course, she, who was Gal Hyo Bong's fiancée, had more than enough right to hear the truth of the incident. But Hyo Ryong himself couldn't bear it.

"Tell me. What exactly happened that day?"

Eun Seol Ran asked with a plaintive tone. Her voice resonated with the human heart. But…

"I'm sorry. I cannot tell you. Because I am a coward."

Hyo Ryong didn't have the courage to tell her about it.

"What are you so sad about? Why are you suffering alone? Why do you plunge into sorrow carrying that pain all by yourself?"

Every time he heard Eun Seol Ran's gentle voice, Hyo Ryong felt his heart break.

"Khuhuhu! I'm sorry! I'm really sorry!"

While repeatedly apologizing, Hyo Ryong did not reveal the truth. Eun Seol Ran also found it too painful to watch Hyo Ryong suffer.

Not long after he returned from Wudang Mountain! At this time, Hyo Ryong was not alive, though he was alive. At that time, Hyo Ryong was in a state worse than a mere shell, as if his soul had been completely drained. He spent days and nights in a daze, like a madman, not regaining his senses.

Seeing him then, Bilu Yeon said coldly,

"Aren't you overestimating yourself? It's pathetic to tie yourself down!"

It was a clear flaying with words, as if he held a knife.

As if reacting to the flaying, Hyo Ryong's body flinched.

"What? What did you just say?"

Hyo Ryong's face was haggard with worry and torment. His once handsome features were nowhere to be seen on his face at that time. His eyes still lacked focus.

Bilu Yeon, bursting with anger, grabbed Hyo Ryong's collar with one hand. He had been watching silently and was furious.

"Stop this pathetic self-deprecation. You had no power to change the fate of that moment anyway, so it's not your fault! You were merely a victim of fate, not its master. Stop being so gloomy when you can't defy the heavens! I'm tired of seeing your dazed self."

It was a series of cold and harsh words. And they were scathing words that struck and opened Hyo Ryong's closed heart. If not for Bilu Yeon's relentless words then, Hyo Ryong might still have been silently closing his heart. For some reason, those words from back then remained in his heart and coincidentally came to mind now.

His tightly strung nerves softened, and the sharp edge of the emotion he held in his heart dulled. In this way, Hyo Ryong barely managed to return to the real world.

The scene from back then flashed before Hyo Ryong's eyes like arrows, like light, like a galloping horse.

Blood, blood, blood!

And piles of corpses.

Brother's blood, brother's sword, my sword! And brother's death!

He felt like his mind was going blank. His thoughts became as tangled as a ball of yarn. He couldn't even guess where to start unraveling it. The thought that he might go mad flashed through his mind. It seemed this wouldn't end as just a premonition. The instinct's warning was that fierce.

It was a nightmare he never wanted to recall again.

Seeing Hyo Ryong suffering, Eun Seol Ran, unable to bear it, comforted him with a gentle voice. She couldn't bear to interrogate him any further, as it would be agonizing for her as well.

"I'm sorry! I won't ask about it anymore today. But whenever you feel up to it, please tell me. Stop suffering now! If that person saw you like this, they would be very upset, wouldn't they?"

Eun Seol Ran tightly held Hyo Ryong's hand, which was clenched so hard it was bleeding.

"Do you really think so?"

"Of course."

She smiled. At that moment, one of the strings of tension that held Hyo Ryong snapped. Hyo Ryong shed the tears he had been holding back.

"Kuaaaaaaah! Kuaaaaaaah! Uaaaaaaah!"

Heartbreaking cries, cries that seemed to wring out his soul, filled the pavilion. Even the moonlight seemed to mourn.

Eun Seol Ran embraced Hyo Ryong, who was crying profusely like a child, with her slender arms.

Hyo Ryong had always wanted forgiveness from someone for his deep sin! Ever since that day, he had been constantly craving forgiveness. But no one responded to his thirst.

No one was worthy of forgiving him. In the midst of his continuous self-reproach, he waited for a judge to punish him or someone to forgive him. And then he met her.

Would she judge him or forgive him?

However, he decided in his heart that someday, when the time was right, he would tell her everything and seek her judgment.

His frozen heart seemed to melt.

Such things usually happen not by intention. That is to say, this was not a situation where Yi Jin Seol, curious about Hyo Ryong's private life, finally couldn't bear it and followed him. It was clearly not intentional. There was no ill will. It was simply that she was in that place at that moment, purely by chance. Yi Jin Seol merely wanted to speak with Eun Seol Ran, whom she liked, privately. That was all; she had no ulterior motives. Therefore, one could shift the blame not to people, but to the heavens that manipulated such a fate.

It was just a small trick of heaven, but the frog hit by this trick suffered greatly.

Even coincidence becomes destiny if it reaches this point. It was a very sudden coincidence. Coincidentally, the four people headed to the same place at the same time. Of course, the place was Unhyang Pavilion. Unhyang Pavilion was a place she always chatted with Na Yerim, so she loved it dearly. Eun Seol Ran had no choice but to hide herself, just like Mo Yong Hwi.

Moreover, the current situation was not one where she could feign composure and show her face.

Who would have the courage to boldly reveal themselves in front of two people, a man and a woman, embracing each other late at night? Her heart sank.

The reason her heart sank was none other than the fact that the person embracing Eun Seol Ran, whom she had wanted to talk to, was Hyo Ryong, the man she had feelings for.

Yi Jin Seol's mind went completely blank.

'What… what is that? Are my eyes deceiving me? Am I mistaken…?'

She wanted to deny this terrible reality as much as possible. She wanted to dismiss it as a mere visual illusion due to sudden vision loss.

Of course, Yi Jin Seol did not know this, but Hyo Ryong had absolutely no selfish intentions towards Eun Seol Ran. His feelings for her were pure goodwill towards someone who would become his future sister-in-law. His current feelings were no more and no less than those of a child held in their mother's arms.

However, the fact remained that Yi Jin Seol had witnessed Hyo Ryong having a serious conversation with Eun Seol Ran and crying while being embraced. The interpretation of this situation was now up to Yi Jin Seol's discretion.

Yi Jin Seol had simply wanted to cheer up Hyo Ryong, who had been so gloomy lately. That's why she had intended to visit him. Before that, she wanted to meet Eun Seol Ran and talk.

But Eun Seol Ran was there. Yi Jin Seol unconsciously hid herself. And then, without considering the context, she only witnessed the scene of Hyo Ryong and Eun Seol Ran embracing.

Stars flow across the river of night. Time also flows along the Milky Way, the river of stars. And tears flow from her cheeks.