Wi So-baek jerked his chin at Cho Myeong, who was acting like a mutt as his eyes frantically scraped at the door, pleading to be let out.
“Thank you! I will stand guard outside!”
After watching a Martial Alliance Hall Master scamper out while shamelessly declaring that he would monitor Martial Alliance members inside the Martial Alliance, Wi So-baek spoke to Jang Se-jin.
“I intended to ask what Hall Master Cho wanted, give it to him when this matter was over, and leave it at that. But it seems being a spy suits him. Look how eagerly and enthusiastically he works. Should I keep him a little longer?”
His words revealed that he had not originally intended to use Cho Myeong as a spy, and Jang Se-jin took them to mean that his elder brother was rather fond of the man. He quickly replied.
“I will make sure he is not harmed.”
Wi So-baek furrowed his brow.
“Nonsense. Worry about yourself. Hall Master Cho is far more capable than you of protecting his own safety.”
It was not a question of strength.
Jang Se-jin was desperately lacking in the self-love needed to protect and cherish himself.
“Haha.”
Unable to refute him, Jang Se-jin laughed awkwardly, and Wi So-baek said no more.
That part of his younger brother frustrated him, yet he also knew that Jang Se-jin's stubborn integrity had ultimately opened Wi So-baek's closed heart.
“What do you wish to do now?”
Wi So-baek asked.
“I.......”
Jang Se-jin's lips moved, then stopped.
Wi So-baek understood.
“I know. You could give up when you believed them dead. But now that those pitiful things are awake, alive before you, and chattering away, how could you ignore them?”
Jang Se-jin must have been unable to bring himself to abandon the burdens clinging to his ankles.
“Elder Brother.”
“So because you pity those burdens, do you ultimately intend to plunge a blade into this elder brother's heart?”
Startled, Jang Se-jin snapped his head up and stared at his elder brother.
“What kind of absurd......!”
Seeing his younger brother genuinely angry, Wi So-baek fluttered his hand, telling him to calm down.
His manner was so unconcerned that all the strength drained from Jang Se-jin.
“I understand. I know exactly what you are trying to say, so never say such a thing again. I truly will get angry.”
“Yes, yes.”
Wi So-baek even dipped his chin as he accepted the warning with playful lightness, and Jang Se-jin's eyebrows rose.
“You are already angry when I have not said anything yet? My younger brother returned to the Martial Alliance, immediately picked up bad habits, and now tries to mistreat this elder brother. This is all because the Martial Alliance sits on inauspicious land. We will have to build our dumpling shop as far from the Central Plains as possible.”
When Wi So-baek shrugged and joked, Jang Se-jin could only slap the table and burst into laughter.
The Demon Alliance Leader used to draw his sword at anyone who spoke to him, unleash killing attacks on anyone who followed him, and spew curses.......
The cold, indescribably ill-tempered Demon Alliance Leader eventually became Jang Se-jin's elder brother.
Since then, Elder Brother had never once spoken harshly to Jang Se-jin.
And Jang Se-jin knew well that not a single word his elder brother uttered should ever be dismissed.
Far from the Central Plains.
“Do you mean distant lands such as Xinjiang or Tibet?”
“Those would be fine. Anywhere beyond the reach of the Martial Alliance and Demon Alliance would do. Or.......”
In truth, Wi So-baek would not mind the Central Plains either.
“Should we simply flatten the Central Plains and begin anew here? Without either the Martial Alliance or Demon Alliance.”
As Wi So-baek spoke with his eyes curved into narrow crescents, a chill ran down Jang Se-jin's spine.
Instinct told him that this might not be a joke.
‘Could the lives of every martial artist under heaven truly depend on a single word from me?’
Jang Se-jin's eyes drooped as his heart seemed to plummet.
“...Elder Brother.......”
Wi So-baek propped his chin on the back of his left hand and stared at his younger brother before speaking.
“Why? It seems like a sound idea. If we overturn the martial world in the process, the undercurrent that trapped us in the formation will have no choice but to emerge. Then we can clean everything up at once without searching for it separately.”
“No. Even so, I do not think that is right.”
When Jang Se-jin shook his head gravely, Wi So-baek snorted.
Yet he did not seem angry.
“Then let us say it is not.”
Wi So-baek yielded so readily that Jang Se-jin was the one left flustered.
Stroking Mi-a's hair as she sat on the floor with her head against his knee, Wi So-baek spoke.
“It was not only you. I felt the same. When I went to the Demon Alliance after the Righteous-Demonic War and looked around me, I saw things I had failed to notice before. I found them terribly pitiful and precious.”
But that was no reason for Wi So-baek to forget his own dream.
There was no reason for it, and he could not understand why he should have to do so.
Why should he give up something he wanted?
Could he not simply have both?
“So I decided to select the things I liked from the Demon Alliance and transplant them to our dumpling shop.”
“Pardon?”
Wi So-baek asked Jang Se-jin, who seemed never to have considered such a possibility.
“Se-jin, I should have confirmed this first. Now that you have returned here and occupy the place where you were always meant to stand as Martial Alliance Leader, do you still wish to become the owner of an ordinary dumpling shop in a marketplace?”
As though he had never hesitated until now, Jang Se-jin answered at once and without the slightest delay.
“I do. Have I not told you? The people who gave dumplings to the begging child I once was belonged to neither the Black Path nor the White Path. They were simply people, and what they showed me was human warmth. I became a martial artist to help such people, however little, and somehow rose all the way to this position, but......”
The higher Jang Se-jin climbed, the more he had to accustom himself to following the Martial Alliance's established rules and the Council of Elders' commands instead of the direction his own heart wished to take.
He did not know the standards by which black and white were divided. But he had once believed that the righteous sects, which bore upright principles in their very name, would at least offer a better path for ordinary people and low-ranking warriors, and had therefore devoted himself to the Martial Alliance. Now he had grown so disillusioned that his past self seemed foolish.
“Would you not regret it?”
“Regret it? If a beggar and wandering orphan like me became the owner of a dumpling shop, what could be a more successful life?”
Then he confessed with an innocent face.
“I want to live as quietly as the passage of time, Elder Brother. So no one will be hurt because of me, and no one can use me to hurt someone else.”
Wi So-baek quietly accepted his younger brother's wounds.
“All right. Let us do that. I will make it happen.”
“When you say so, Elder Brother, I truly believe it will happen.”
“Of course. Who do you think I am? I, the Demon Alliance Leader, am not great merely because I possess the enormous power known as the Demon Alliance. The Demon Alliance only surpassed the Divine Cult, came to rival the Martial Alliance, and became known as the greatest under heaven because it gained a master like me.”
Wi So-baek lightened his voice and raised the mood, driving the darkness from Jang Se-jin's expression as well.
“Hahaha, that is true. This is something you are doing, Elder Brother. How could anything fail to be achieved?”
“Yes. So there is only one thing you must do, Se-jin.”
“What is that?”
“Choose the people you want to take with you. They are people who remained loyal to you despite knowing that you are an Alliance Leader in name only, are they not? If the bastards who swore to protect you even if you died in vain claim that they cannot remain beside you once you become a dumpling shop owner, that would truly be absurd.”
“.......”
“And if any say they will remain in the Alliance, write down what you wish to do for them. I will handle that.”
Wi So-baek intended to undergo a similar process in the Demon Alliance.
“Can you abandon your own dream merely because others have pinned theirs on you? In the first place, failing to achieve a dream yourself and then clinging to someone else while demanding that they fulfill it for you is disgraceful.”
If anyone tried to hold his younger brother back even after all of that, Wi So-baek would have no mercy left for them.
Wi So-baek picked up the teapot and infused his hand with energy, warming the tea.
He personally discarded Jang Se-jin's cold tea and poured him a fresh cup.
He also prepared a share for Mi-a, who still sat at his feet with her head leaning against his knee.
“Is this Miss Yang?”
“Yes. Yang Mi. She is my fourth Wheel.”
“It is a pleasure to meet you.”
Jang Se-jin greeted Mi-a, but she acted as though she had not heard and merely stared helplessly at the refreshments placed in her hands.
“It is all right. Eat them and I will give you more. I will make sure you receive your share elsewhere as well. So do not hoard them. Why treasure something so trivial?”
Perhaps even his reassurance felt like an order, for Mi-a reached for her refreshments.
Cold tea and sweets that would soon crumble and spoil could not be carried away no matter how many times he assured her it was fine, so Wi So-baek decided it would be better to help Mi-a become accustomed to situations like this and watched her.
“Next time, I will serve you even finer refreshments. I would like to become friends with you, Miss Yang. You will be someone who continues living with us at the dumpling shop, like Jeong-hak, will you not?”
Wi So-baek affirmed it by offering no denial.
Unlike Literary Wheel, who would return to the Divine Cult without him, or Law Wheel, who would try to gather the people left in the Demon Alliance and bring them before a new law, it was only natural that Martial Wheel and Dark Wheel would not leave him.
“Mi-a is deeply wary of strangers, so it will take a long time to befriend her. Fortunately, we still have time.”
Wi So-baek chose the Grand Martial Conference as the turning point.
“At the Grand Martial Conference, we will extend the agreed period for halting conflict between the demonic and righteous paths as much as possible. While peace holds, you will put your affairs at the Martial Alliance in order, Se-jin, and I will weed out those likely to go mad and run wild within the Demon Alliance.”
So the martial world would not immediately descend into disorder after they departed.
“Change will force the undercurrent to react somehow. We will watch it closely, then clear it away completely before leaving this place. What do you think? That leaves nothing for you to worry about, does it?”
It was easy to say.
The actual process of accomplishing it would be exceedingly arduous.
Nevertheless, Jang Se-jin nodded vigorously again and again.
Simply no longer feeling helpless was enough.
“Your martial arts may fall short compared to mine, Se-jin, but your level remains beyond what anyone else could dare approach. There should be no chance of our meeting today becoming known, but even if such a situation arises, pay it no mind.”
The Martial Alliance bastards would not carelessly involve the Demon Alliance Leader's name, and even if they tried to deduce what bargain had taken place inside this room, every guess would be wrong.
Who could possibly imagine that Wi So-baek and Jang Se-jin, who had never met or even exchanged a word before, spent long years together inside the formation and became sworn brothers?
Even the people who made the formation knew only that they had trapped the two inside. They could not know that such an immense span of time had passed within the blink of an eye.
“If some bold and stupid bastard asks, say that the Manhong Merchant Guild Master owed you a debt. Or say that before the Grand Martial Conference, the Demon Alliance Leader came to pick a fight over whether the Martial Alliance had truly agreed to hold the conference for the sake of a great cause.”
“I can handle that much.”
Jang Se-jin spoke to Wi So-baek, who was identifying every potentially troublesome matter one by one.
His standing might have been weak.
But in terms of ability, the Martial Alliance Leader had never particularly fallen behind anyone, yet before Elder Brother he always seemed lacking.
“Very well. You will handle it properly. And that is how it should be.”
As though Wi So-baek's gaze said that Jang Se-jin knew what would happen if he failed, Jang Se-jin made a vow.
“I will not be hurt, I will not overexert myself, I will cherish myself, and I will succeed.”
“Good boy.”
When Wi So-baek praised him, Jang Se-jin shook his head.
Elder Brother was always excessive.
But Jang Se-jin did not dislike it.
“Dawn is breaking, you two.”
Outside the door, Cho Myeong deliberately made his presence known as he approached and announced it.
Jang Se-jin and Wi So-baek already knew from the bluish light pouring through the window.
They had simply been reluctant to move because they regretted parting.
“I should go now.”
When Jang Se-jin spoke, Wi So-baek rose and placed a hand on his shoulder.
Jang Se-jin spoke to his elder brother, whose reluctance was plain to see.
“The Grand Martial Conference is soon, so we will meet again before long.”
Wi So-baek patted his shoulder twice as if to say he understood, then lowered his hand.
Jang Se-jin vanished without a sound, just as he had arrived, leaving only Wi So-baek and Mi-a in the room.
“Hmm.”
Wi So-baek counted the days.
He wished the Grand Martial Conference would begin soon.