A fine parent is clear about reward and punishment.
Tang Gang-heon, who fell squarely into that category, led Tang Yu-hyeon personally to the library of the Clan Head's hall.
Inside the black wooden building, the shelves packed tight with ancient books seemed to display an obsession with the secret arts.
Following slowly behind, Tang Yu-hyeon carved every book into his eyes.
'I have to know what's here before I can fill in what isn't.'
As he craned his neck out, Tang Gang-heon tapped the wall lightly to draw his attention back.
"It is not over there."
"Ah. Yes."
Feigning fluster, Tang Yu-hyeon bought himself time and memorized the names of every book.
Tang Gang-heon waited for Tang Yu-hyeon to come near him, then pulled a candlestick to the side.
CLICK.
When he pushed the wall as it was, a hidden space was revealed behind it.
'Oh? Looks like they figured this one out.'
However far the family's fortunes had fallen, it was a relief that they had not lost everything.
Well, if they had, they would never have dared even to attempt restoring the secret arts.
'They held out well, it seems.'
The faces of the family he had seen for the last time before leaving the Tang Clan rose in his mind, and something stirred in him for no clear reason.
"Follow me inside."
"Yes."
Following Tang Gang-heon in, he saw a space dark as a cave, barely lit by night-glow pearls.
"This is the Tang Clan's secret library. It is passed to the Clan Head alone, and only they may enter."
'And I built it.'
"It is such a delicate thing to disclose that even I could only receive it from your grandfather when I was nearly fifty."
'This grandfather fellow had quite the suspicious streak.'
Offering suitable commentary inwardly, Tang Yu-hyeon waited for the explanation to end.
'Look, if you're going to hand over the secret arts, hand them over quick. Why are you bothering with all this explaining?!'
Had the man not been his father, he half wanted to knock him out with a single blow and look around at his own leisure.
'Am I a child?'
The body is.
'Even so, do I not know the Tang Clan?'
He is still a child, so of course he is assumed not to know.
'Argh! Is this what I came back for?'
If he did not like it, he could be born again.
SNAP.
The idle thoughts cut off right there, along with his expression.
The face that had betrayed nothing, chillingly so, returned at once to that of the precocious fifteen-year-old.
'What was that?'
Tang Gang-heon, having seen it, raised one brow.
Normally, when shown the clan's secret library, a person is startled, or turns solemn as though he has come to know some tremendous secret.
But there was no change in Tang Yu-hyeon at all.
To be precise there was, but so slight as to make no real difference.
'......Surely not?!'
At the realization that struck his head, Tang Gang-heon clapped a hand over his mouth.
'He bore everything alone for so long, with not one person to lean on, so burying it and pretending nothing is wrong has become a habit!'
It had not.
But Tang Gang-heon, with no way of knowing that, held firmly to his misunderstanding and let out a sigh of pity and self-reproach.
'To be a father and understand not one thing in my child's heart......!'
Had Tang Yu-hyeon heard it, he would have been aghast and said the boy was the problem, and what more could you possibly have done.
"Ahem."
Tang Gang-heon cleared his tightened throat.
"Every secret manual of the Tang Clan still in existence is gathered here. There is plenty of time, so choose slowly."
"Thank you."
For all the calm in that voice, the gaze weighed on him, and Tang Yu-hyeon made a clasped-hands bow with some discomfort.
'He seems to be under some tremendously large misconception.......'
Well, what could be done.
He could only hope it was the good kind.
"Hmm."
Tang Yu-hyeon looked over the shelves.
Perhaps the copies had been gathered separately in the secret cavern; apart from a few overlapping manuals, only comparatively mild ones remained.
'No wonder the children's heads have gone soft, when only weak things like these get handed down.'
By 'weak' he meant, purely by his own standard, secret arts with low killing power, but there was no one who would know that.
'This will not hold against the Demonic Cult.'
Those drunk on peace who had made no preparations could not defeat a Demonic Cult that had been sharpening the blade of vengeance for the past hundred years.
Against people who would refuse no method at all to fulfill the Heavenly Demon's will, would going easy on them or doing things by halves ever work?
Unless one wished to be struck down helpless, this side too had to stop being choosy about means and methods.
'Tsk. Should I slip in some of the martial arts I made myself?'
In the past he had once bound together a work that organized the principles he had grasped while digging through martial arts manuals, along with the ugly movements, pushing practicality to its limit.
On the surface it had been shelved on the grounds that its killing power made it dangerous.
Even had it not been, it was hard to attempt without considerable talent and taxed the body heavily, so few would have learned it.
But was this a time to be picky about cold rice or hot?
They had to learn one more of anything and fight back.
'What should I teach them...... If I slip a few of my personal martial arts in as separate volumes, no one will notice, right?'
As he recalled the burned characters, he seemed to hear the voice that had once pressed him.
—Never reveal your personal martial arts to anyone.
Father. The Tang Clan is about to fall. Does that matter now?
The descendants are what matter.
'I'll look after my Tang Clan reeeeal well and make it the world's greatest clan, so don't worry too much.'
Snickering, Tang Yu-hyeon pulled out a single manual.
"I will take this one."
He turned the manual toward Tang Gang-heon.
The Flying Shadow Shifting Step.
It was a secret step art that could be learned only with the Clan Head's approval, specialized in confusing an opponent with afterimages and tricks of sight.
It was also the very art that Tang Yu-hyeon had brought to complete mastery, the one that had made his name as the Poison Lord.
"Do you know what that manual is?"
'Would I not know?'
Tang Yu-hyeon deftly hid what was behind his face and bowed his head.
"I will listen closely."
"You know, of course, that the one who led the Death Corps in the Orthodox-Demonic War a hundred years ago and killed the Heavenly Demon was the Poison Lord of our Sichuan Tang Clan?"
"I do."
"What he brought to complete mastery was this very Flying Shadow Shifting Step."
'Oh. So this much got passed down properly.'
"You too must press forward, and press forward again, so as not to stain his honor."
"I will keep it in mind."
After that, perhaps worried that Tang Yu-hyeon might go astray again, Tang Gang-heon spent a quarter of an hour listing the Poison Lord's greatness and his achievements within the clan and without.
The point was that even so great a man had striven in every direction to make his name, and should be emulated.
It was no different from the nagging he had always heard, and yet it did not particularly annoy him.
If anything, it felt good.
So Tang Yu-hyeon deliberately opened his eyes wide and clear, as though he did not understand.
Thanks to that, Tang Gang-heon's blind praise and history lesson ran on for the better part of an hour.
"......Do you understand?"
"Yes. I will keep it in mind."
Only after hearing the same answer dozens of times was Tang Gang-heon reassured enough to step back.
'Is a suspicious streak hereditary too?'
Ordinarily he would have wailed and lamented that the crop of children had failed with the descendants as well, but this time some of it was his own fault, so he finished with a brief remark.
"Let us return, then."
"Yes."
When Tang Gang-heon closed his mouth, the conversation vanished.
They kept silent the whole way and spoke only after leaving the secret library.
"You seem much recovered."
"Thanks to your care."
Tang Yu-hyeon thought of the fat pouch of spirit elixirs and smiled.
"From the look of it, you will be able to return soon."
"Return where?"
"To the academy."
Ah....... Must he?
'I have to learn all that tedious material over again?'
......He would rather not.
But he was fifteen, with much left to learn.
There was no way out of it.
'No. This is an opportunity.'
If he took one of them and raised him up, the other children would watch and learn.
At that age they want attainment just 'a little' higher than their peers.
Polish enough rough gemstones and people gather on their own.
'I really don't get along with kids. ......It'll be fine, right?'
He had never been the sort to mingle, and the body's owner was a famous wastrel, so all he had were children of the same middling stripe.
And even those would fall away because of what had happened at the emergency meeting.
It was maddening.
'No. It'll work out somehow.'
He had raised all that fuss just to change one reputation. Surely he would make at least one friend?
***
He did not.
Tang Yu-hyeon stood alone in the vast Joint Study Pavilion.
When he stepped forward the path opened clear before him, as though the sea had split in two, and whenever he moved, everyone walked at a fixed distance from him.
'It isn't as if I'm a plague.'
Until recently he had been something close to one.
Though now even those who used to play with him seemed to treat him as a traitor and ignore him.
He was no beast in a cage, yet watching them glance over from a distance and whisper drew an empty breath out of him.
Since it had come to this, the plan would change.
If something went wrong during lessons, he would point it out as though by chance.
One idea per step. Laying his plan out calmly, he walked toward the training ground.
The moment he set foot on the bluestone floor,
"Orabeoni—!"
a clear, ringing voice called him to a stop.
'What? What is it?'
When he raised his head, a girl with her sleeves rolled up was striding toward him.
Hair twisted up on both sides and fixed with ornate pins. A light green silk robe, and a face powdered to a healthy flush.
It was Tang Yeong, Tang Gang-heon's youngest daughter and Tang Yu-hyeon's younger sister.
Perhaps because he had never had a younger sister in the past, the mere fact that she existed struck him as remarkable.
This newly acquired younger sister was truly.......
"Have you finally come to your senses?!"
Loud.
Thanks to her, even those who had taken no interest began paying attention to him.
'I wanted to come in quietly.'
He wanted to tell her to lower her voice, but seeing that bright face he could not, and he had no right to besides.
"Er. Yes. My senses have been perfectly fine all along."
Though with those perfectly fine senses he had been guzzling liquor.
Tang Yu-hyeon told her the facts in a low, even voice.
"What are you talking about? Going in and out of a pleasure house in broad daylight and coming home drunk is not being in your right mind!"
Yes. Everything you say is correct.
But is that something you should be saying out loud like that?
Whispering broke the silence.
'I hear the sound of a reputation being shaved down somewhere.'
Whose reputation might it be?
Mine, surely.
'Damn it.'
He had thought his insides would catch fire turning that reputation around, and now he had to do it again?
'Now where did I hide the liquor?'
As though he had attained enlightenment, Tang Yu-hyeon burst into laughter at intervals.
"That is what I am saying. I did all of it in my right mind."