Chapter 20
The price of helping Wi Hyeokrin with his qi circulation in the medicine storehouse had been far steeper than Murong Yeon expected. For more than ten days afterward, he hadn't managed to leave his bed even once, floundering in a bog of chills and headaches.
Worse than any of it, though, was the pain, sharp as thousands of needles driven into every inch of his body. It was an agonizing and thorough lesson in the suffering of severed meridians, something he had known only as a line in a character sheet.
"Mm…"
His delicate brows twitched a few times, and his heavy eyelids slowly lifted. Bleary eyes drifted across the room.
The light slanting in had a cool cast to it, and he couldn't tell whether it was dawn or dusk.
His ears felt muffled, as if he were underwater, and an unpleasant low-grade fever still clung to his head, but the cold that had tormented him so relentlessly seemed to have loosened its grip.
Yeon waited for the fog in his mind to clear, blinking a few times, then slowly pushed himself upright.
"…"
Only then did he notice the figure seated in the chair beside the bed, and he sucked in a breath. The person sitting there with arms awkwardly crossed, head bowed and eyes closed, was none other than Murong Seoran.
He had been dimly aware, all through his illness, that someone had kept watch at his side. Gentle hands that never quite dared to touch his face, lingering instead on his arms and back, carefully reading the flow of his qi.
Not once had he imagined those hands belonged to Murong Seoran. She was cool by nature, and as clan head, she was buried under a mountain of work.
Even in the original story, she had visited her son's quarters only a handful of times when he lay at death's door.
Isn't that exactly why her favorability is lower than Murong Gwak's?
It was also why he hadn't thought it strange when he first saw the gap between their favorability levels in the system window.
The son was sensitive and closed off; the mother was taciturn and unable to show tenderness. Of course their relationship had always been distant and strained, like walking on thin ice.
He quietly opened the system window.
《Favorability Status: Murong Seoran
―Current Favorability: 55/100
※Warning: Be careful not to let your favorability drop sharply. A penalty will be applied automatically.》
Even that modest number made sense. It probably stemmed from her resolve, as clan head, to remain neutral.
It was 52 at the start, so it's gone up by three.
The fact that he couldn't tell when, or why, it had changed only drove home how skilled she was at hiding her feelings.
So even someone like her had been troubled by the sight of her child hovering between life and death? He looked at her with mixed emotions.
"You have committed a grave sin and brought trouble upon the Murong Clan. See to it that you atone for that transgression yourself."
In the original, when Wi Hyeokrin returned as the Heavenly Demon and threatened to wipe out the clan unless Murong Yeon was handed over, Murong Seoran had pushed her own child forward without a flicker of hesitation.
It wasn't that she didn't love her son. It was the cold choice of a clan head who placed the family's survival above all else.
Earlier, when Murong Gwak's affection hit 100, I earned his wholehearted support, and with it the right to intervene in his fate.
So what about Murong Seoran?
At the very least, she wouldn't just shove me out the door like in the original, would she?
Even that would be a mercy. But if she dug in and refused to hand him over when the time came, the clan could be destroyed, which was a problem of its own.
Still, if I stay on Wi Hyeokrin's good side, then even if he becomes the Heavenly Demon, I can at least avoid the ending where I'm made to pay for everything.
The best course would be to keep Wi Hyeokrin from ever setting foot in the Demonic Cult in the first place. But if he bent the original story too far, he might trigger the collapse of the world that the system had warned him about.
"You're awake."
A low, husky voice cut through his thoughts. Murong Seoran had opened her eyes and was watching him.
"Ah… yes."
Her calm gaze swept over his face, his shoulders, his thin wrists. Then she rose as though nothing had happened.
"The chills seem to have passed. Wait here. I'll have your medicine brought."
"I'm sorry for worrying you, Mother."
Her steps toward the door faltered. She didn't turn around, only glanced back over her shoulder.
"You're awake. That is enough."
With those few words, she walked straight out. Left alone, Murong Yeon rubbed his hollow cheek with the flat of his hand.
The awkwardness wasn't only because it had been Murong Seoran sitting there. It had been so long since anyone had sat at his bedside while he was ill that it felt almost foreign.
"More to the point, what happened to Wi Hyeokrin?"
He had been prepared for a stretch in bed, but he had been sick far longer than he'd expected. Worry rushed in: had Wi Hyeokrin trained properly while he lay here? Had the boy blamed himself for his master's illness?
And that, inevitably, led to the memory of being carried all the way back to White Cloud Pavilion in his young disciple's arms, the most mortifying episode of his life.
"Ugh, seriously…"
Murong Yeon buried his face in both hands and shuddered.
Click.
Just as the tips of his ears were flushing red with shame, he heard the door open. He hurriedly smoothed back his hair, as if that were what he'd been doing all along, and sat up straight.
But the moment he saw Wi Hyeokrin step inside, his shoulders jerked all over again. Unable to look in that direction, he fidgeted with his fingers and pretended to be absorbed in something else.
"Give it here."
Murong Seoran took the tray from Wi Hyeokrin. The boy handed it over obediently, though his eyes never left Murong Yeon, who sat on the bed.
Murong Yeon's complexion was as pallid as ever, but the mere fact that he had regained consciousness was a relief.
"Here."
As Yeon kept his eyes lowered, Murong Seoran scooped up some medicine with a spoon and held it to his lips.
"…I'll take it myself."
He said it with obvious reluctance. No matter how many days he'd spent in bed, he had no wish to let his disciple watch him be spoon-fed by his mother.
"Very well."
His fingertips looked weak, perhaps because he had only just come around, but Murong Seoran knew her son's temperament and handed over the bowl without argument.
Relieved, Murong Yeon drained the decoction in a single swallow. It was bitter enough to make his tongue sting, but his body had lived on medicine for so long that he managed with only a single crease of the brow. As he set down the empty bowl, his eyes met Wi Hyeokrin's, which were fixed unblinkingly on him. His fingers twitched before he could stop them, and then he shifted his posture as if nothing were the matter.
"This boy stood guard outside your door the entire time."
"…Did he?"
"I thought you would want to see him, so when I heard you had woken, I let him in."
Murong Seoran stepped aside, seemingly out of consideration for the two of them, which left Murong Yeon with no way to avoid facing Wi Hyeokrin.
"I have no excuse to offer, Young Master."
He had addressed Yeon dutifully as "Master" all this time, and now he'd gone back to the old form. It was probably guilt over having driven Yeon to the brink of death, mixed with self-consciousness before Murong Seoran. Still, those drooping shoulders tugged at Yeon's heart.
"Why so downcast? It's only natural for a master to help his disciple with his qi circulation."
Deliberately invoking their bond as master and disciple made the small face snap upward. Seeing those trembling eyes, Murong Yeon's expression softened as well.
"But if you slacked on your training while I was lying here, you'd be in for a scolding, wouldn't you?"
"This disciple didn't skip a single day!"
"And yet you say you were standing guard the whole time?"
Murong Yeon teased, tilting his chin toward the door. Wi Hyeokrin nearly leapt out of his skin, stiffening and shaking his head frantically.
"I meant that even while training, I never strayed far from your inner chamber, Master, so that if I heard you had woken, I could run straight to you…"
He was so flustered that the words came out in tangles. That earnest desperation was so endearing that the corners of Yeon's mouth kept curling upward. He was getting hooked on teasing his young disciple lately, and he knew he wasn't just imagining it.
"Is that so? Then I'll have to see with my own eyes how much you've improved."
"…Right now?"
Anticipation lit Wi Hyeokrin's face. Unfortunately, his master's body couldn't keep pace with that eagerness.
"Yeon, rest comes first for now."
Murong Seoran spoke mildly, and Murong Yeon yielded without protest.
"Of course."
"A wise decision. Rest well today. Then tomorrow, at the martial tournament, you can watch your disciple fight from the first bout to the last."
"…Tomorrow?"
Had that much time already passed? Startled, Murong Yeon looked at Murong Seoran, then at Wi Hyeokrin. The boy's eyes shone even brighter than usual, alight with nerves and fierce resolve.
"Of course I will. Don't worry. I'll recover my strength today, and tomorrow I won't miss a single moment of your match."
At the sight of that joyful, glowing face, he felt the weight that had been pressing on his chest finally lift. And as he pictured Wi Hyeokrin shining at tomorrow's tournament, a quiet anticipation rose within him.
I wonder how much he'll show us.
The curtain-raiser to a storm, one that would stir up turmoil in more ways than one, was waiting just around the corner.
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