Chapter 13

“An… hui…”

The moment they returned inside, Seogyeom picked up a brush and began writing. But halfway through the word, he stopped, murmuring the name under his breath.

Following Namgung Yun’s suggestion that they continue their conversation indoors, Seogyeom had decided to start by figuring out a little more about his background.

It sounded simple enough.

Except for one problem.

Seogyeom knew the names of various places and characters in The Chronicles of the Wandering Hero.

He just had no idea where most of those places actually were.

Where the hell is Anhui?

And what was even there…?

He bit down on the end of his brush, desperately trying to reconstruct the map of Yoonhyeopji from memory.

He vaguely remembered that Anhui was where the Namgung Clan was based.

Beyond that, his mind was completely blank.

It was almost ridiculous.

How could someone who had played the game for four years know so little about its geography?

But, honestly, most veteran players would have been in the same boat.

Yoonhyeopji wasn’t a normal game.

It used eye tracking and brainwave interaction, allowing players to access practically every piece of information with nothing more than a thought.

Want to see the world map?

Imagine it, and the map appeared before your eyes.

Want information about a character?

Fix your gaze on them or open their settings window, and their entire profile would be displayed.

With information available instantly whenever you needed it, there was little reason to memorize anything.

Unless, of course, you were the sort of obsessive martial-arts enthusiast who enjoyed memorizing the entire worldbuilding database for fun.

Seogyeom definitely wasn’t one of those people.

He had spent four years playing Yoonhyeopji, but his goal had always been simple:

Reach the true ending as quickly as possible.

World maps, minor characters, and background lore had never been worth committing to memory.

Eventually, he gave up on trying to piece together the geography himself and pulled the brush away from his lips.

“So Anhui is your hometown, Brother Jo? Is it very far from here?”

Namgung Yun sat across from him and pointed toward one corner of the paper.

“Anhui lies along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. It is roughly three thousand li from here, so I imagine it would seem quite far to you, Young Master.”

Three thousand li.

Seogyeom stared at the number.

If one li was roughly four hundred meters, that came to around twelve hundred kilometers.

That’s… really far.

He frowned at the notes he’d written down.

“You came all the way here from there?”

After thinking for a moment, Seogyeom asked,

“Did your journey begin in Anhui?”

“It did.”

Namgung Yun answered casually.

“My journey began there.”

He paused.

Then, almost as an afterthought, he added,

“…Though I have been wandering for a very long time.”

It could have meant nothing more than that he’d spent years traveling the Jianghu.

But Namgung Yun’s history was far more complicated than that.

There was no way to reduce it to something as simple as I’ve been wandering since I was young.

“Ahaha. I see.”

Seogyeom gave a small, fascinated laugh, silently praying that Namgung Yun wasn’t somehow taking his previous regressions into account.

He leaned forward and rested his chin in both hands.

Across the table, Namgung Yun had been quietly lifting his teacup.

His hand stopped.

“You must have experienced quite a lot.”

Seogyeom blinked innocently a few times.

He thought he had perfected the image of a sheltered young master who knew nothing about the outside world.

Apparently, Namgung Yun thought so too.

A faint smile touched his lips as he turned his gaze toward the window.

Outside, the garden was lush with the deep greenery of late spring.

Beyond the swaying willow branches, the stone walls of the Outer Castle were just visible.

But Namgung Yun’s gaze seemed to pass straight through them.

Perhaps, for a moment, he was looking somewhere far beyond the Tang Clan.

Somewhere in a time and place Seogyeom could scarcely imagine.

Eventually, Namgung Yun looked back.

The distant look had vanished, leaving only a calm smile.

“Yes. I met them while wandering the Jianghu.”

“Please drink your medicine first.”

Their conversation about the past came to an abrupt end when a young servant entered carrying a bowl of medicinal decoction.

Seogyeom, who had been completely absorbed in Namgung Yun’s story, immediately looked toward him with pleading eyes.

But before Namgung Yun could even react, the servant stepped directly between them.

“Looking at him isn’t going to help you, Young Master.”

He placed the tray in front of Seogyeom.

“You skipped the medicine I brought you last night, too. If you refuse today’s dose as well, I’m afraid I’ll have no choice.”

His expression hardened.

“I’ll have to report it to the Second Young Master.”

Seogyeom’s face fell.

The servant was breathing slightly harder than usual.

Judging from the restrained movements and tight expression, he seemed to be desperately suppressing his irritation.

Seogyeom decided that was probably his only chance.

He cautiously poked his head around the servant.

The servant immediately set the bowl down with a firm clack.

“A-All right! I’ll drink it!”

Seogyeom reluctantly picked it up.

He swallowed the entire thing in one gulp.

A few seconds later, he collapsed face-first onto the table.

“Ugh…”

His voice came out muffled.

“So bitter… Why is it always so bitter…”

“Is it really that bad?”

The servant looked genuinely concerned.

Seeing Seogyeom lying there with his face pressed against the tabletop, he hurriedly leaned closer to check on him.

Then he suddenly remembered something.

“Oh!”

He had forgotten the candied fruit.

“I’ll bring you some.”

He immediately rushed out.

The door slammed behind him.

Namgung Yun’s brow twitched.

Only for an instant.

He smoothed his expression and quietly rose from his seat.

“I should take my leave as well.”

“Okaaay…”

Seogyeom was too exhausted to lift his head.

He simply waved one hand lazily.

Having gathered enough information for the time being, he saw no reason to keep Namgung Yun there.

Namgung Yun neatly straightened the place where he’d been sitting before stepping outside.

The moment he crossed the threshold, Seogyeom’s miserable voice followed him.

“Ugh… How much longer am I going to have to drink this stuff?”

Namgung Yun took another step.

The voice became softer.

More private.

“But at least I found what I was looking for.”

Namgung Yun stopped.

He quietly circulated his internal energy.

Normally, the distance between them would have made Seogyeom’s voice fade away.

Instead, the sound became unnaturally clear.

As though Seogyeom were standing right beside him.

And with it came an image.

Seogyeom was sitting at the table with his head resting on one arm, tapping away at a sheet of paper with the other.

“This has to be it, right…?”

A pause.

“But isn’t this happening way too early?”

There was a faint smear of ink beneath Seogyeom’s delicate nose.

On the paper was a crude drawing.

Several lines intersected within a large frame, forming a rough approximation of a map.

A map of the Jianghu.

At first, Namgung Yun had assumed it was nothing more than idle doodling.

But he’d noticed something strange.

Whenever they discussed the past, Seogyeom would quietly write down the names of places.

And he’d been placing those names in some very peculiar locations.

Namgung Yun had corrected him several times during their conversation.

Only then had he realized that the Third Young Master was attempting to draw a map.

“Is he a veteran player like me?”

Seogyeom tapped several places on the paper.

“If I’d known this was going to happen, I should’ve played the other routes too…”

He sighed.

“It’s not like I can ask him to introduce everyone one by one, either.”

Namgung Yun’s eyebrow rose slightly.

The Third Young Master had spent most of his life isolated from the outside world.

It was not unusual for him to occasionally say things that made little sense.

Namgung Yun had lived a very long life.

He had encountered children like this before.

Children who had grown up starved of affection, desperate for companionship, and eventually created little secret codes of their own.

Ways of pretending everything was fine.

Ways of smiling through loneliness and pain as though neither existed.

Tsk.

Namgung Yun decided he would ask about it gently someday.

For now, he tried to understand what Seogyeom truly wanted.

He remembered the way the boy’s eyes had sparkled while drawing the map.

The endless curiosity with which he asked about the world beyond the Tang Clan.

And the way he always perked up whenever Namgung Yun spoke about the Jianghu.

He finally understood.

The Third Young Master wasn’t merely interested in hearing stories.

He wanted to meet the people who traveled alongside Namgung Yun.

That wish would be incredibly easy to fulfill.

The people who followed Namgung Yun were loyal enough to throw away their lives at a single command.

Yet—

Why should I bother?

Fulfilling someone else’s wish was one thing.

Actually wanting to fulfill it was another.

What a meaningless distraction.

Since when had he ever cared about another person’s feelings?

Namgung Yun gave a quiet scoff.

Then he activated his lightness skill.

With his body lightened by internal energy, he crossed the central courtyard in an instant.

Before long, he arrived at the very place Seogyeom complained about every morning whenever he asked where Namgung Yun had disappeared to.

The training grounds.

For a clan as prominent as one of the Five Great Clans, the grounds were impressively constructed.

Yet, just as they had been that morning, they were completely empty.

Namgung Yun circulated his internal energy anyway, extending his senses throughout the area.

There.

The nearest presence belonged to a maidservant sweeping the rear garden.

Namgung Yun reached into his robes and produced a small whistle.

He blew two short, quiet notes.

A faint flutter of wings answered.

The sound grew louder.

A dark speck appeared high above the training grounds.

Namgung Yun raised one arm.

The bird circled once in a wide arc before diving toward him.

As it descended, its shape became clear.

Enormous wings.

A long neck.

A sharp, hooked beak.

It was nearly three times the size of an ordinary hawk.

This was the messenger hawk Namgung Yun preferred to use.

Its talons were just as intimidating as the rest of it, but they posed no threat to him.

The moment it landed on his arm, the hawk affectionately rubbed its head against his cheek.

Namgung Yun stroked its feathers before reaching down to untie the strip of paper fastened around its leg.

The cord had been wound tightly around the message.

Once he undid it, a short line of writing appeared.

It was written in a cipher that only a handful of people could decipher.

I have secured the item you requested.

The message was remarkably plain for something written in code.

Nevertheless, a faint smile appeared on Namgung Yun’s lips.

He rewarded the hawk with food and water before closing his eyes.

Then he circulated his internal energy and extended his sensory range.

One hidden presence after another emerged within his perception.

Three on the roof.

Two behind the trees.

They were members of the Tang Clan.

The arrival of the hawk had naturally drawn their attention.

None of them had any intention of revealing themselves yet.

They were simply waiting.

Waiting for the moment the messenger hawk took flight again.

Two days.

Namgung Yun wrote a short reply and tied it securely to the hawk’s leg.

He knew the message would most likely fall into the Second Young Master’s hands first.

But that didn’t matter.

Of everyone in the Tang Clan, there was one person who would be happiest to see the requested item arrive in two days.

The Second Young Master himself.