Vol 2 Chapter 5. Past Ties Part 6

“For now, I will apply acupuncture to ease his stomach. However, until the indigestion fully settles, he will likely continue to feel discomfort. It would be unwise to wake him by force, but if he opens his eyes, I will prepare a decoction to help with digestion.”

“I understand. You may go.”

The physician paused. He had thought the Lord would entrust the child to others, as was customary, and that his role would end there. But it seemed he intended to tend to the boy himself.

Someone in the Lord’s position would normally have no need to personally tend even to his own parents. There would be servants assigned for such things. And in a night this deep, rest would usually take priority. For a martial artist of advanced cultivation, going a night or two without sleep would not affect their body much, but mental fatigue was another matter.

Still, the physician could clearly sense the turbulent emotion rising from Woo Hyo’s presence. The Lord’s anger felt as though it scraped along his skin.

For a mere boy to occupy the Lord’s bed was unthinkable, but judging by Woo Hyo’s presence, the boy held more weight than the physician had expected.

The physician completed the acupuncture treatment to ease the boy’s stomach, then respectfully bowed and withdrew. He immediately began preparing the prescribed remedy and personally tended the fire to brew the medicine.

The boy suffered from stomach pain all through the night.

Woo Hyo stayed up through the entire dawn, watching over the boy and hoping the painful groaning would ease, if only a little. After changing his clothes, he brought a damp cloth and gently wiped the child’s face.

He looked down at the boy’s pale lips, dried and cracked, and swallowed the heaviness rising in his chest. His face was flushed, likely from the fever brought on by the pain.

A world Woo Hyo had never known lay right before his eyes.

He had never once gone hungry to the point that even a few bites of meat could not be digested. He had no understanding of what it meant to live unprotected, neglected, without anyone to rely on. From the moment he was born, he had been wrapped in silk, surrounded by servants. Coarse food had never passed his lips. He had never worn anything rougher than the finest cloth. And yet now, a life completely unlike his own had become one he was responsible for. It was unfamiliar, and it frightened him.

“You’ve already managed to sway the Lord of Baekragung. I suppose you’ll grow up to be someone great…”

As the sky began to brighten, Woo Hyo murmured to the boy, whose fever had finally begun to settle. It wasn’t the fatigue of swinging a sword a thousand times, nor the weariness that came from facing death over ten long nights. But his mind was tired, weighed down in a way he had never known before.

“Hurry and wake up. When morning comes, you should smile.”

The boy flinched slightly at the sound of Woo Hyo’s soft murmuring, as if responding to his voice. The way his eyelids trembled made Woo Hyo freeze in place. As if the child were answering with all his strength to what had only been a murmured thought.

Then, his eyes opened.

Eyes as dark as black jade, as clear as polished glass, met Woo Hyo’s in a daze. And the boy smiled.

It felt like witnessing the secret moment when a flower bud bursts open.

Woo Hyo forgot to breathe. He stared, completely still, at the boy’s gentle smile.

His chest trembled, in a strange way he had never felt before.

—

“Your hand stopped. Did I say something that troubled you?”

At Kang Oh’s worried question, Woo snapped back to himself.

“No, it’s nothing.”

Woo waved his hand and pulled himself out of his thoughts.

“I just remembered something… from long ago.”

The moment that sickly child had opened his eyes, the Lord of Baekragung, Dan Woo Hyo, had come face-to-face with a world he had never known.

Because of that young Kang Oh, he came to understand the quiet joy of caring for another. From childhood, he had been taught that kindness was no different from poison. Yet the walls he had built around himself had crumbled before the boy’s smile.

But even so, it had felt like a beautiful defeat.

“Long ago?”

Kang Oh asked softly. His head was slightly lowered, but he could tell that Woo’s usually firm lips had loosened with a rare gentleness.

He had known Woo to hold himself stiffly, always avoiding eye contact. So Kang Oh carefully guessed that this ‘long ago’ might refer to the time before Woo ever arrived in Heukcheon.

“…It’s not something that would interest you.”

“Come to think of it, I never did ask what you did before you came to Heukcheon.”

When Kang Oh showed interest in his past, Woo tried to brush it off, but he could sense that Kang Oh wasn’t going to let the topic go so easily.

“It… it was similar.”

“You were a servant even then?”

Woo fell silent for a moment before replying politely.

“Yes..”

He’d rather lie than let Kang Oh know the truth. Even being this close to him now was already dangerous.

What scared Woo was not the conversation itself, but the thought that Kang Oh might remember the past. That he might discover not the servant Woo, but Dan Woo Hyo, the Lord of Baekragung.

Kang Oh had lost his memory because of him.

He had followed Woo, who was someone entirely different, into Baekragung. He had been nursed through the night in his care. He had sat on his lap, learning how to hold chopsticks. Whenever Woo went out for walks, the boy would follow close behind, tugging at flowers with wide-eyed wonder. He had once measured their height against a pillar and carved in the difference. He had clung to him, begging for a name….

To protect Kang Oh, Woo had no choice but to erase everything.

For him, letting go of Kang Oh would have meant giving up the one thing he had left after losing everything else in a single instant that day.

There had been no other way. The moment the boy woke and heard from Yejinrang that the man who had shielded him had fallen and died, he broke down completely. So completely that he could never stand again. To the boy, Dan Woo Hyo had been his entire world.

“I was… a sinner from the moment I was born.”

At least that much was true.

If he had died that day, as Paeng Soso had wished, perhaps it would have been a mercy.

The fact that he had survived was nothing short of an accident. And so, he decided to kill Dan Woo Hyo, the Lord of Baekragung.

When he burned his own face in order to remain in Heukcheon, the cold gaze of Yae Jinrang, who had rescued him, wavered for the first time.

You… Why would you…

Woo gave a bitter smile at that complicated expression. It seemed to carry anger, vengeance, betrayal, and memories that had not fully faded. He found it almost laughable. Only after he was no longer the Lord of Baekragung had he finally come face to face with the bare face of the Lord of Heukcheon.

“P-please… take good care of Kang Oh!”

That was when he began to stutter. Though his tongue was unscathed, yet the words refused to come out as he intended.

The Woo who now walked this earth was no longer among the living. He was the lingering regret of a dead man. He owed his life to Yae Jinrang and was nothing but a coward who had run away from life.

“Who says anyone is born a sinner?”

“In-in this world…” Woo slowly parted his lips. “There are lives that… that shouldn’t have been born at all.”

“And who decides that? Did Master tell you such a thing?” Kang Oh furrowed his brow as he asked.

Was he angry? No. He looked more sorrowful, more pained than anything else.

“I—I was the one who decided that.”

Woo tried his best to articulate every word clearly.

Kneeling on the floor before Kang Oh, who stood stunned in his grief, Woo bowed deeply.

“So.. so please, do not spare another thought for me. Let this servant… atone for his sins. Send me back… to where I belong.”

Let my existence be what stops you from regaining your memories.

Let you never lose yourself again.

Kang Oh remained silent. It was as if he had lost the ability to speak.

Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, his hand dropped below the table and came to rest gently on Woo’s shoulder.

“You want to go back to those days, under the Third Overseer, when you were being abused?”

“Yes.”

Woo flinched at Kang Oh’s touch but answered.

“Well, that’s not going to happen. He’s as good as dead.”

Kang Oh’s voice was so soft it barely rose above a whisper.

“…What?”

Woo’s eyes widened. For a moment, he couldn’t grasp what Kang Oh had said.

“I cut the tendons in his arms and legs and dumped him in that forest you used to live in. Gave him a dull axe, a moldy blanket, and a sack of rice half-filled with sand.”

Kang Oh explained it gently, his tone disturbingly calm for what he was describing. Woo lifted his head before he realized it, staring into Kang Oh’s dark eyes.

He needed to see his face.

“Y-you said you wouldn’t take revenge…”

“Revenge? Hardly.” Kang Oh answered before Woo could even finish.

A beautifully cruel smile curled on his lips.

“I only told the Third Overseer to clear out all the trees in that forest. That’s all I said.”

“You… you told him to clear the trees… ”

The moment Woo recalled what he had said the day he met Kang Oh in that forest, his face turned pale.

“Unfortunate things tend to happen from time to time. Don’t you think?”

Kang Oh’s hand pressed gently on Woo’s shoulder.

He didn’t know how to respond. Woo’s face twisted in visible pain, and the shock spilled from him in fragments too broken to form words.

Kang Oh looked at him, his face void of expression.

Was he shaken by the fact that all the warmth he had received came from someone capable of such cruelty?

Kang Oh had wanted to comfort Woo after telling him what he had done to the Third Overseer. But when he saw him tremble like this, what he felt instead was a desire to hold him close and never let go.

Only now did Kang Oh realize that, though Woo had appeared to grow accustomed to Heedowon, he had been searching for a chance to leave all along.

“Y-you mustn’t do this. Not because of me. Please don’t.”

Woo pushed Kang Oh’s hand away and shook his head. There was anguish carved into his face. Kang Oh felt his chest clench at the sight.

Woo looked pained just by being near him. Maybe it would be better to follow the original plan and send him somewhere far beyond Master’s reach.

But Kang Oh had come to a realization.

He hadn’t kept Woo here for Woo’s sake. He had done it out of greed.

Until now, he had never craved anything from Heukcheon, so he hadn’t noticed it. But some wretched monster had been lurking in his gut all along.

That thing called desire was clawing to break free, desperate to swallow Woo whole. His scorched insides were screaming for him, begging to be fed, pleading for Woo to fill the gnawing hunger.

“D-did you… did you tear his limbs apart yourself?”

Woo asked, his face twisted in anguish.

Kang Oh had expected accusations, fear, or even silence. He hadn’t expected Woo to ask that. His face twisted with displeasure as he answered.

“I did.”

“W-what about the aftermath? He was acting under the Lord of Heukcheon’s orders. If the truth comes out, it will surely tarnish your name, Third Disciple.”

“You’re… worried about me?”

“With the Third Overseer gone, it’s only a matter of time before the First Overseer finds out. And once Seo Mun-geumryeong hears about it, the Lord of Heukcheon will know as well.”

Kang Oh stared at Woo, momentarily speechless as he listened to him rattle everything off.

“You don’t have to worry about that. It’s already been taken care of.”

“P-please listen to me.”

Woo clenched his teeth and interrupted him, forcing the words out with a grip that startled Kang Oh. It wasn’t strong enough to match a trained adult, but the pressure was far more forceful than anything he had ever expected from Woo.

“In… in the Third Overseer’s room, there’s a shelf next to the desk he used for work. If you open it, there’s a hidden compartment inside. One of his brushes, the one made with red fox fur… take that and press it against the groove behind it. It will open.”

“What?”

Kang Oh’s jaw dropped in shock at the unexpected secret.

With a face slightly flushed from excitement, Woo looked like an entirely different person.

“T-the Third Overseer kept ledgers in there. Records of the bribes he took. There are a lot of them. It goes back at least five years.”

Bribes? Kang Oh’s eyes widened in disbelief.

“How do you know about that?”

“B-because I was his servant.”

Woo lowered his head and avoided his gaze.

“H-he never really saw me as a threat. That’s not the important part. Take those ledgers and give them to the First Overseer. That way, you might be able to cover up what happened.”

Kang Oh started to respond but stopped himself.

He hadn’t expected this kind of reaction from Woo. He thought Woo would be shaken, even broken, by what had happened. That was why he had kept it hidden all along.

Strange chill ran through Kang Oh.

He realized then that everything he had believed about Woo had been completely wrong. Woo had been carrying a hidden blade all along. What Woo held was enough to destroy The Third Overseer completely.

The fact that those records went back five years meant Woo had been holding on to the Overseer’s secret for that entire time.

He stayed silent even when he was flogged, humiliated for no reason, and dragged to the edge of death.

Was it fear that kept him silent all this time?

That didn’t seem to fit.

Kang Oh studied Woo’s desperate expression as if seeing him for the first time. The way he lifted his head, the way he met his gaze… this was not the same person who used to shrink away. This was someone laying out a plan to justify the Third Overseer’s downfall.

He stared at the skin ruined like melted wax and at the misshapen features hidden beneath it, letting the image burn into his mind as he finally spoke.

“I.. will do that.”

Who are you, really?

Kang Oh kept the question to himself, swallowing the doubt that had crept in.

Woo anxiously searched his face. No matter how desperate he had been, he knew it must have looked suspicious to stand there listing the Third Overseer’s secrets so openly.

But what he couldn’t bear was watching Kang Oh sacrifice something because of him.

Long ago, Kang Oh had already staked too much on Dan Woo Hyo.

The affection that used to ripple in that small heart, the fragile thread of life just beginning to take shape, even his very breath had all been risked for him.

He couldn’t take anything more from Kang Oh.

“You’re not trying to hide the fact that you can read anymore, are you.”

Woo flinched but gave a quiet nod.

“It… it was already obvious.”

That day, when his need to comfort had outweighed reason, Kang Oh must have realized that he wasn’t illiterate. It had been an impulsive choice, but in that moment, he had meant every word. He didn’t regret it.

He had only kept silent because Kang Oh hadn’t said anything either.

“Why do you care so much about someone like me?”

“E-even a beast knows gratitude.”

It was Yae Jinrang who had saved this miserable life, but it was Kang Oh who had given it meaning.

After carrying him into that cave beneath the cliff and telling him Dan Woo Hyo had drawn his last breath, Kang Oh had collapsed, sobbing until it seemed he would choke on the tears.

Seeing his nephew lose all will to live and turn to self-harm, Yae Jinrang had clenched his jaw and saved the son of his enemy.

That was how it was. Woo owed too much to this world. Just carrying those debts was enough to make it hard to breathe.

“It’s too much. For someone always trying to run away from me, you care far too much.”

Kang Oh muttered the words under his breath. They sounded like idle grumbling, but they pierced through Woo without missing the mark.

“If you’re going to run, then just run.”

His voice was a low growl.

The kind that came from a predator clawing at the earth with its front paw, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce, eyes fixed on its prey.

“Stop turning back. Don’t pretend I’d ever let you go just because I catch you. Don’t give me even that much of a reason.”

“I-I didn’t mean…”

Woo shook his head, trying to say it wasn’t like that, but Kang Oh cut him off mid-sentence.

“Strange, isn’t it? A servant’s place should be decided by his master, and yet you seem like you could flutter away at any moment.”

Woo said nothing.

“If I don’t give it everything I have, I feel like I’ll lose you. My instincts keep whispering that to me… Strange, isn’t it? It’s not like I’ve ever actually lost you before.”

Kang Oh’s brows drew together faintly. Watching that tangled expression, Woo found himself holding his breath without even realizing it.

Was a part of Kang Oh’s memory trying to return? Or was it just a flicker of déjà vu brought on by something sealed away?

Dan Woo Hyo, the Lord of Baekragung, had studied all manner of disciplines, but he had no real knowledge of forbidden techniques. It was a question only Yae Jinrang could answer.

Still, there was one thing he knew for certain.

The time he could remain by Kang Oh’s side was growing shorter by the day.

Before this sweet reprieve came to an end, he would have to be the one to end it.

---

Breakfast passed in silence. Woo saw Kang Oh off with a respectful posture. When Kang Oh noticed that the servant named Yeon Jin had entered Woo’s quarters at his call, he felt a subtle discomfort.

It suddenly occurred to him that Woo must have known all along that it was this servant who had been coming and going with food sent by the First Overseer.

That realization had struck after hearing about the Third Overseer’s ledger of bribes. When he first ordered Ilun to investigate Woo’s background, the report said he had served in Heukcheon since eight years ago as a lowly servant. But the more Kang Oh interacted with him, the more he realized Woo was anything but ordinary.

In the central plains, unless one came from a scholarly household, it was rare to even learn to read. For someone like Woo, a servant by status, to be literate was surprising enough. But to possess the insight to uncover a bribe ledger, something a cautious man would have hidden with multiple layers of protection was even more astonishing.

Being able to read the ledger also meant he could count.

It was hard to believe he was just a man from the merchant world. Even more so considering he had held on to the weakness of someone he should have regarded as an enemy and kept it secret for five years without once exposing it. That kind of endurance was far from ordinary.

Upon returning to his quarters, Kang Oh immediately summoned Ilun and ordered him to retrieve the hidden ledger from the Third Overseer’s room.

Even in broad daylight, Il Woon moved like a shadow who struck only under the cover of night. He returned discreetly and handed the ledger to Kang Oh.

At the very least, the secret location Woo had described was real.

Kang Oh flipped through the pages, reviewing the bribes the Third Overseer had received over the years and listing the names of those who had given them. Four names stood out near the top.