"......Is that so."
Jin Cheol-yun nodded and smiled gently.
He acknowledged the change in Tang Yu-hyeon.
And he accepted it.
What he could do was help a changed man accomplish his purpose.
He wished to cheer on one who meant to walk the right road.
"I will prepare at once. What shall we use for the material?"
"Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron."
'What?'
Tang Gang-heon answered in his place.
"There is the Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron brought in from the North Sea Ice Palace recently, is there not? Use that."
"I will obey your command."
However much its value might have risen or fallen over a hundred years, Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron was Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron.
Little as he had been home, ranging across battlefields, he was not ignorant of its worth.
Tang Yu-hyeon's mouth fell open before he knew it.
Seeing it, Tang Gang-heon spoke in an even tone.
"The direct line of the Tang Clan has always had its throwing blades made from Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron. You are no exception."
"Thank... you."
By the memories, it was no lie.
He had simply thought it too fine a gift for a returned prodigal.
"If your talk is finished, please follow me."
'Me too? Was the rule not absolute silence in the workshop, outsiders get lost?'
Tang Yu-hyeon tilted his head, remembering being thrown out before he could so much as look around.
Then again, years had passed, so there would be changes, he thought, and he moved his feet without asking.
He was being led to the workshop where blades were forged in earnest, for the smoke that had billowed even at the entrance grew fiercer still.
The Artisans who recognized Jin Cheol-yun gathered before him one after another.
"We will be forging the Second Young Master's throwing blade. We use Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Iron, so prepare the ingot!"
"Yes! Understood!"
A rousing answer came back.
The Artisans of the Joined Flame Workshop he ran raised no objection.
There were no suspicious glances either.
They trusted the workshop master, and the workshop master repaid their trust with results.
It was a truly ideal relationship.
'How enviable.'
While Tang Yu-hyeon offered that brief thought, a cold iron ingot was set before him.
"Draw blood and let it fall on this."
"My blood?"
"Yes. Because this is a blade for one person alone."
Jin Cheol-yun handed Tang Yu-hyeon the knife lying beside him.
"A blade that knows who its owner is will walk the road he takes to the very end."
Tang Yu-hyeon looked steadily at Jin Cheol-yun, then took the knife and cut his finger.
It was the very finger he had bitten open a few days earlier.
Drip. Drip-drip.
Fresh blood soaked into the cold iron.
When no more came and he drew his hand back, Jin Cheol-yun immediately offered him a cloth to press to the cut.
"Will you watch?"
"Yes."
"Understood."
FWOOOOSH!
Flames rose in the forge.
The world of the Artisans, which he could not presume to enter, began.
CLAAANG! CLAAANG!
The billowing heat grew fiercer and the Artisans moved in perfect order.
"There, lift it a little more!"
"We need more kindling!"
"Thinner than that! Put your weight behind the strike, I said!"
Heat past the point of melting iron that choked the breath, the sound of hammers on metal fit to tear the ears, and the people who made all of it, gathered together and surged as though to swallow him whole.
Though it stood before his eyes, it felt like watching a mirage.
Tang Yu-hyeon forgot even to breathe as he watched them move.
CLAAAANG!
They were only beating iron, and yet a clear, limpid sound rang out.
In that space of ardor where the flames danced and the iron sang, no one could easily make a sound.
Here only the Artisans welcomed by the burning flames played, and only they lived and breathed.
CLAAAANG!
What rose from the forge along with the flames was their passion, and what was carried in the hammers striking the iron was their very souls.
He had not walked the Artisan's road, so he could not understand it, yet he could dimly guess.
A blade taking shape around his wish. What was being carved into it was neither a sharp form nor a fine pattern, but everything they had.
HISSSSS!
When iron heated to white was gripped in tongs and plunged into the water trough, white steam wrapped around them and drew out an air of mystery.
The blade completed at last was sharper than anything, and clearer than anything.
It was a blade the world would never see again.
"It is finished."
"Well done."
Tang Gang-heon looked at the blade set before him and gave Tang Yu-hyeon's back a light push.
Catching his meaning, Tang Yu-hyeon slowly stretched out a hand.
'How can such a thing happen.'
His fingertips trembled.
'It is my blade.'
It matched his old personal weapon exactly, in temper line and in shape, enough to make him want to ask whether one of them had crossed time along with him.
Not yet fully cooled and faintly warm, the blade settled into his hand as though it had been a part of him from the beginning.
'My blade.'
A blade for him and no one else.
Light yet weighty, sharp yet soft.
Such a blade lay in his hand.
There was no ornate pattern, no unusual shape.
The only feature was a blue temper line drawn as though radiating outward.
But that very fact stirred his heart all the more.
A lantern that illuminates the soul shines all the brighter for being plain.
Tang Yu-hyeon closed his eyes.
A tremor that began at his heart ran down to his toes.
'So we meet again like this.'
My blade.
He opened his eyes again.
And he resolved.
That this time he would use it not as a blade that extinguishes souls, but as a blade that illuminates them.
That he would not be the Poison Lord who burned himself with vengeance for kindling as he cut his enemies down, but a light that illuminates someone.
"Second Young Master, please give it a name yourself."
And so, to Jin Cheol-yun's question, he answered with the history that would be newly written.
"I will call it the Soul-Illuminating Blade."
Jin Cheol-yun smiled softly and rolled the name he had given around in his mouth.
"The Soul-Illuminating Blade. Soul-Illuminating...... There could be no better name."
"My skill at naming is poor, yet you look on it so kindly that I hardly know where to put myself."
Tang Yu-hyeon answered with a smile.
Jin Cheol-yun glanced at Tang Gang-heon, then bent at the waist and made a clasped-hands bow.
"Come to us any time. I believe we will meet again before long."
Fwap. Fwap. Fwap.
With those words, the other Artisans made the clasped-hands bow in unison.
The workshop master's recognition.
Was there any fool who would throw away a thing not just anyone could obtain?
Tang Yu-hyeon, at least, was not one.
"I sincerely hope so."
***
All the way back to the Clan Head's hall, Tang Yu-hyeon kept lifting his sleeve to look at the blade, and Tang Gang-heon laughed softly.
"Does it please you so much?"
"Yes."
Please him it did.
A blade made for him and him alone had come into his hands. How could he not be pleased?
Tang Gang-heon smiled warmly and clapped Tang Yu-hyeon on the back.
'That hurts.'
"With you turning out so remarkable, my mind is at ease. You may leave the clan now."
'What?'
Hey. Are you joking?
Why are you casting me out?
Were we not on good terms just now?
'Am I being thrown out just like that?'
He did not want that.
He had no wish to leave a declining clan where milk and honey still flowed.
"It is about time you set out on a Martial World journey."
'Whew. Thank goodness.'
Fifteen was early for it, but seeing that his other siblings had started in Sichuan and widened their experience from there, he was on the late side.
Tang San, the eldest son, had begun his Martial World journey at the age of ten.
'That is unusually early even for a great clan...... How weak must the family's standing have grown for it to come to this.'
He had gone through all that hardship to raise it up!
'These people, honestly. Let us run the clan properly.'
Tang Yu-hyeon chewed his lip, then asked calmly.
"Where would be best to go?"
"The start is Sichuan, of course."
He had known it.
But it was a little disappointing.
He had accomplished something considerable, and all he got to go out to was the front yard?
It did not satisfy him.
'When searching the whole of the Central Plains right now would still not be enough.'
Grasping how the Central Plains turned these days and finding the manuals he had hidden away for the unexpected would take a long time.
'If I want to go further out, I had better build up some merit this time.'
Tang Yu-hyeon clenched his fist.
"What should I do?"
"Nothing much. What you began, you settle."
It meant cleaning up the Hundred Flower Pavilion, and above all recovering the poison that had been distributed.
And what if there was no poison?
Then he would take the chance and make a full inspection of Sichuan.
"Leave it to me."
He was curious how Sichuan had changed in the meantime.
***
'......This is not what I was hoping for.'
Surrounded by courtesans, Tang Yu-hyeon sighed.
The moment he stepped into the merchant district, honeyed voices had latched on to him, and with every step more courtesans attached themselves.
"Oppa. Come with me. You have no idea how long I have waited for you to come."
"This girl has waited for none but you, Oppa."
"Follow me. I have set aside the finest Bamboo Leaf Green."
"Come to our pleasure house and there is fish-fragrant shredded pork and kung pao chicken all prepared!"
Recognizing the purse that spills coin, are we.
Tang Yu-hyeon let out an empty breath.
'How little the rumor must have spread.'
Within the Tang Clan, Tang Yu-hyeon was a hot potato.
Between the shocking reversal and his unconventional conduct, there was even talk that the birds of day and the rats of night were all chattering about him.
But for people to rush him like this the moment he came out to the merchant district meant the story had not yet leaked to them.
'So they still think I am a wastrel.'
There was value to be squeezed from that too, so if he left it alone they would either drift away on their own or bring out something useful.
"All of you move! I have business with that young master!"
People like that one, for instance.
A long scar across the face. Robes hanging open at the chest. A saber at the waist.
The very picture of a street thug.
'Men like that are the ones who hand over the most useful information.'
Things about Tang Yu-hyeon that the memories could not tell him, the talk of how this world turned.
The man shoved the courtesans aside and planted himself in front of Tang Yu-hyeon.
With his arms crossed, his already large frame looked twice the size.
'I already dislike having to look up because of my height.'
When he tipped his chin to say speak, the man snorted a hot breath.
"Listen here, young master. If you borrow money, you pay it back on time."
'I borrowed money?'
He did not even need to search the memories for that.
A son of the Tang Clan borrowing money?
Say something that makes sense.
'Honestly. Here or there, there is no shortage of bastards trying to skim off someone. How irritating.'
Tang Yu-hyeon clicked his tongue and crooked a finger.
The man snorted but stepped forward.
When only one pace was left between them,
WHUUUMP!
Tang Yu-hyeon's fist struck the man's jaw.
"Kuh!"
With a short scream the man toppled backward.
Tang Yu-hyeon watched him lose his balance and stagger, and rolled his wrist.
"Dammit. It has been a while, so my aim is off."
He trudged over, seized the man by the collar, and hauled his upper body upright.
"Bite down hard."
WHUMP! WHUMP! WHUMP!
A savage sound rang through the street.