At that, Tang Yeong's eyes lit up bright.
"Oh my. Why?"
Well now.
Tang Yu-hyeon twitched one brow.
Those roundly curved eyes said every question had been full of intent.
The problem was whether it was friendly intent or not.
"Did you not attend the meeting the other day?"
"Ah. I was busy taking tea with Miss Moyong that day."
"Of course you were."
Nice to get such an obvious answer.
"To deceive the enemy, must one not first deceive one's own side?"
"I am listening."
"I heard that someone dared to distribute poison in Sichuan."
"In Sichuan, where our Tang Clan stands?"
In an instant a chill settled into Tang Yeong's eyes.
However childish and brash she might look, a daughter of the Tang Clan was a daughter of the Tang Clan.
There was no chance she lacked a ruthless side.
"Yes. In Sichuan."
If she caught the lie, there would be blood.
Tang Yu-hyeon answered without deliberately checking the reactions around him.
"At the pleasure house I frequented, they did not hand poison to bastards who seemed sound of mind. To get it, I had to act as though I had lost mine."
"Not the soul-befuddling drug?"
"That is right."
"And the poison? Did you get it?"
"Luckily enough."
"What poison was it? Is it very dangerous? Shall we take this chance and turn over every place of business in Sichuan?"
"There is no need. Yu-hyeon has already dealt with all of it."
A boy with his hair braided down one side answered in his place.
"What you would turn over is the Tang Clan. Do not make Father and Mother's lives hard, all right?"
Another, his hair bound tightly up, chimed in as well.
They studied in the same place, so it looked like equality, but the Tang Clan's hierarchy was firm.
Cutting into a conversation between members of the direct line meant having the standing to do so.
'I was wondering when they would show up.'
The Clan Head's eldest son, Tang San, and third son, Tang Eun-ho.
The two who had shown their faces at the emergency meeting had arrived belatedly, as though to tidy up the situation.
"If you were curious you should have come to the meeting. He raised his hand and said, 'May I offer a word?' and then produced the manual just like that. You have no idea how impressive it was."
'When did I do that.'
Tang Eun-ho raised a hand and mimicked Tang Yu-hyeon playfully.
At that, Tang Yeong, who had darted in front of Tang Eun-ho before anyone noticed, puffed out her cheeks and thumped him.
Tang Eun-ho made half-hearted sounds like ow, ow.
Tang San watched quietly, then laid a gentle hand on Tang Yeong's shoulder and drew her back.
"I understand how you feel, but do not torment Yu-hyeon any further."
"Tch. Fine."
"Yu-hyeon brought back a secret art of the Tang Clan through grueling effort. Rather than embracing him warmly, should you be interrogating him? It must have been very hard for him all this time."
Tang San was the eldest son, the one most likely to become the Young Master.
Was there any guarantee more certain than a word from him?
There was no one present who did not know it.
As if to prove the point, the whispering dropped for a moment, then swelled again.
"A secret art?! That is real?"
"I heard it and kept thinking surely not...... So all the lessons he skipped were to recover a secret art......?"
"Then what about the ones who went around with him?"
"Hey. If they had been in on it, would they be getting punished? Look at today. Barely one of them turned up."
The whispering had changed targets and turned into mockery.
The sound of someone running out in tears could be heard.
But Tang Yu-hyeon had no time to spare a glance that way.
His eyes were fixed solely on Tang San.
'This one is no ordinary sort either.'
With that, even those who had not attended the meeting now knew of Tang Yu-hyeon's merit.
In other words, there was no longer any room to attack Tang Yu-hyeon over his reputation.
And all he had done was add a single remark.
As he stared, Tang San felt the gaze, smiled brightly, and pulled him into an embrace.
"You have been through a lot."
Tang Yu-hyeon, who had raised his arms awkwardly to return the embrace for the sake of the mood, faltered at those words.
There is no malice.
It is a heart that purely wishes him well.
Was such a thing possible between brothers?
That one remark told him how loved Tang Yu-hyeon had been as he grew.
'What merit did you earn in a past life, to get a warm family and a splendid ancestor like me on top of it?'
He had heard it said that the more a man has, the less he treasures what he holds, but he had never dreamed it would apply to his own descendant.
'Ungrateful bastard.'
When he stepped back wearing a suitable smile, Tang Eun-ho and Tang Yeong looked proud.
Only then did the picture come together.
His siblings had come to him where he stood alone not to fan the malicious rumors.
It was to clear up the misunderstanding.
'Bastard, spoiled by his own good fortune.'
Tang Yu-hyeon piled a few more rebukes onto his dead descendant and put on an agreeable smile.
"Thank you."
He had better make sure the lie stayed hidden as long as he possibly could.
'It's been a while since my conscience pricked like this.'
Warmth really did feel like a tale from a distant country.
As Tang Yu-hyeon shuddered, trying not to be swallowed by the unfamiliar feeling, dozens of grown men walked into the training ground.
'Oh? That is the man from before.'
The Thirteenth Elder, Tang Jong-cheon. Spotting the familiar face, Tang Yu-hyeon's eyes glinted.
'So he was an Instructor at the Joint Study Pavilion? And here we meet again.'
"Is everyone gathered? Then the lesson will begin."
At the stiff voice, the children found their places in perfect order.
Tang Yu-hyeon dug through the memories and took his own place, reading the room.
"Hm."
Led by Tang Jong-cheon and the Head Instructor Tang Jin-gi, the Instructors stood in exact formation.
They must have been suppressing it as much as possible out of regard for those unaccustomed to it, but the depth of inner arts and the killing intent his energy sense picked up were on another level.
"Let us begin the lesson."
At Tang Jong-cheon's word, Tang Jin-gi struck the training ground floor twice with the sword he held.
"Starting from the front row, run one lap of the training ground in order!"
"Yes!"
Placed in the very front row along with his siblings, Tang Yu-hyeon ran while taking his cues from the others.
'The fundamentals look solid. Let's see how well they have been taught.'
Well taught or not, they were all confirmed for tailored group lessons run by an ancestor from a hundred years ago.
Any bastard who could not keep up would be dragged along by the collar!
'From my experience, even the bastards who say they can't do it manage just fine after one needle. Hee hee hee.'
But the lesson flowed in a direction other than what Tang Yu-hyeon expected.
"First is hidden weapon technique. An Instructor will assist at your side, so aim for the center as best you can!"
Tang Yu-hyeon looked at the hidden weapon set before him.
It was a throwing blade made of bamboo whittled to a point.
'They want me to throw this?'
When he raised his head he saw a target with its center painted red.
'Just to hit that?'
CRACK! CRACK!
Looking around, he found the children diligently planting throwing blades in the ground.
'Pathetic.'
Apart from a talented few, no one was hitting the target properly, let alone its center.
Tang Yu-hyeon squeezed his eyes shut.
'Is this the sight I came back for.......'
Makeshift throwing blades with no thought given to weight, targets marked only at the center so that skill could not be measured, children of pathetic ability.
All three beats in perfect time, and every one of them maddening.
'This is exactly why I said we should pay attention to the children, is it not!'
He growled at his own elder brother, the former Clan Head.
'You poured everything into war and the chivalrous cause, and this is the state the children have ended up in!'
However much he shouted at the sky, there was no one there to hear.
"Are you not going to do it?"
There was only an Instructor pressing him to hurry up and throw.
"No, sir."
When told to do it, one does it.
Whatever the past, he was a student now.
Answering as though sighing, Tang Yu-hyeon stretched out his arm without much thought.
WHISH—!
THUNK!
A short air-splitting sound, like wind.
The bamboo blade lodged dead center.
At the perfect result achieved from a sloppy stance, the surroundings fell silent.
Even the Instructor, whose task was to offer advice with every throw, lost his words.
"Whoa......."
"Ohh......?"
Then, one by one, exclamations broke out.
It was the usual response to seeing something startling enough to make a man doubt his eyes.
'What? Am I not allowed to hit even once?'
When Tang Yu-hyeon switched targets and growled, the other children edged their eyes away.
But they glanced at him at every opening, so even fewer threw properly.
'These little...... is this a spectacle to you?!'
With nowhere to vent his irritation, Tang Yu-hyeon threw a blade.
'You lot!'
THUNK!
'have to move!'
THUNK!
'or how am I supposed to watch and advise you!'
KRRACK—!
Every blade lodged in a single row, spaced an inch apart as though measured with a rule.
That alone was startling enough, and on top of it the last blade split the one lodged dead center clean in half.
At the sight of a blade run through a blade, everyone lost their words.
Had there not been the rustle of leaves trembling in the wind, they might have thought time itself had stopped.
"Ohhh."
Someone clapped, oblivious to the mood.
Starting with him, the noise grew and grew.
"Did he just hit a throwing blade? Is that possible?"
"Was that not only possible in theory?"
"Haha."
"Look at the other blades too. The spacing looks identical."
"What? Really?"
"Hahaha."
Tang Yu-hyeon buried his face in his hands.
Awkward as the situation was, first he had to hide the corners of his mouth, which showed no intention of coming down.
He thought this much was nothing, and yet the praise kept drawing a smile out of him.
"Quiet."
In an instant the applause that had puffed Tang Yu-hyeon up stopped.
Tang Jong-cheon, who had stepped back to observe the children, walked over to him.
Because the man came so close, Tang Yu-hyeon had to lift his head to look up at him.
"Your skill has grown a great deal since I last saw you."
"Thank you for the prai—"
"But your form is a mess."
'So what. You told me to hit it.'
But Tang Yu-hyeon was an adult who knew how to say what a situation called for.
"If you tell me what is lacking, I will correct it."
"You do not plant both feet properly, so your center collapses; you do not straighten your back, so your line of sight is not true; you do not extend your arm properly, so your force scatters."
As though he had been waiting for the chance, the harsh critique continued joint by joint and muscle by muscle.
Tang Yu-hyeon quietly wiped the spit that had landed on his face and thought.
'And what exactly is your problem with me?'
He had felt it from the glare at the emergency meeting: in many ways the man did not suit him.
In one ear and out the other, and the time passed quickly.
"......Understood?"
"Yes. Understood."
He understood none of it.
Tang Yu-hyeon bowed his head and walked to the space where the children who had finished training were resting.
As if to say training should not be dropped even during rest, the throwing was clearly visible from a distance.
'Good.'
Tang Yu-hyeon plopped down on the ground.
Seeing the children, evidently spurred on, now hitting the target quite well, put him at ease.
'......Wait. Surely not every lesson is going to be like this?'
***
'They all are.'
Tang Yu-hyeon surrendered one arm each to the poison arts Instructor and Tang Jong-cheon and squeezed his eyes shut.
'Both of you, that is enough!'