Chapter 269. Crimson Heaven Hand

When he climbed up to the pavilion, he saw the Alliance Leader and one empty chair.

“Sit.”

Namgung Hyun brought his hands together in front of him and took his seat.

“Why did you request a private meeting?”

“Have you ever killed a sorcerer, Alliance Leader?”

Perhaps because the question was so blunt, no answer came from the Alliance Leader.

Nor did he show any sign of being flustered.

He did not ask what a sorcerer was, and merely looked at him in silence.

Namgung Hyun became certain that the Alliance Leader was someone who had returned through time.

That day, Tang So-hwa had said she first met someone who had already turned back time and received advice from them. She had also said that she would never turn back time again. It seemed she had learned that being trapped by the sorcerer’s punishment led to madness.

Thus, when he first heard those words, Namgung Hyun had not thought that person would be the Alliance Leader.

The Alliance Leader of the rumors could never be described as a madman.

However, the words Tang So-hwa added later left him with suspicion.

The warning to be wary of the Alliance Leader.

Namgung Hyun reconsidered the Alliance Leader.

He wondered if the man was hostile toward her, yet the Alliance Leader had personally gone to Jin Yin Mountain and saved Tang So-hwa.

He was also not a Blood Sect infiltrator, nor did he have any ties to the Blood Sect.

He did not know what kind of story lay between them, but it did not seem that the Alliance Leader would kill Tang So-hwa.

Namgung Hyun could not let the doubt pass so easily.

What kind of future had someone who turned back time hundreds of times seen, to become a fearful existence to Tang So-hwa?

After long deliberation, he came to see the Alliance Leader, setting aside Tang So-hwa’s advice.

With a ring containing the Three-Breath Poison on his finger, Namgung Hyun opened his mouth.

“If you know the future, I would like to hear about it.”

Perhaps because tension seeped into his breathing, his voice trembled.

Yet that seemed to relax the Alliance Leader instead.

The Alliance Leader let out a soft laugh and spoke.

“What did Young Lady Tang say to you, for you to come looking for me?”

Namgung Hyun felt pressed for time. He wanted to continue the conversation calmly, but he could not add a single flourish of words.

“She told me to be wary of you, Alliance Leader.”

“Well…… I suppose she would have no reason to speak well of me.”

The Alliance Leader spoke in a drained voice, but he did not look displeased.

“Do not misunderstand. Young Lady Tang and I were not enemies. We merely thought differently.”

“I heard that you have turned back time countless times.”

At those words, the Alliance Leader closed his mouth.

Namgung Hyun hesitated, then asked,

“But then…… how can you be so fine like this?”

At Namgung Hyun’s words, the Alliance Leader let out a hollow laugh.

“Do I look fine to you?”

When Namgung Hyun nodded, the Alliance Leader exhaled deeply. Afraid that the conversation might end there, Namgung Hyun hurriedly continued.

“I intend to turn back time. And I have only one chance, so I cannot afford to make a mistake.”

The young sorcerer lowered his head and went on.

“I want to go back to the past and save Young Lady Tang. But if I turn back time with the intent to save her, she will surely die, and even if she escapes death that day by chance, a world where the Blood Demon exists again may come, placing her in danger.”

“…….”

“Therefore, I…. must not wish for Young Lady Tang to live. I must wish for something else, and entrust the matters of Young Lady Tang and the Blood Demon to someone else.”

The Alliance Leader looked at the practitioner with sunken eyes.

The practitioner earnestly pleaded with the prophet who lived as a bystander of the world, belonging to no side.

“I thought you would know the answer, Alliance Leader, so I came as a last resort. Please tell me whom I should entrust with saving Young Lady Tang and dealing with the Blood Demon.”

“If you had not come to me, to whom would you have entrusted that?”

At the Alliance Leader’s question, Namgung Hyun bit his lip once before answering.

“…… I was going to ask the Main Blood Hall Lord and my elder brother.”

A loud burst of laughter rang out.

After laughing for a long while, as if greatly amused, the Alliance Leader said,

“You did well to come to me. You were about to make a very big mistake.”

Namgung Hyun could not bring himself to laugh along.

After some time, once he had calmed down, the Alliance Leader asked,

“Do you know why I turned back time countless times?”

Namgung Hyun slowly lifted his head. His youthful face was reflected in his eyes. A voice just as dark pierced his eardrums.

“I wanted to kill the Blood Demon. Only after failing countless times did I realize that it was impossible, and I gave up.”

“…….”

“In this life, I intended to let things flow without changing anything and end my days. Yet the eldest daughter of the Tang Clan ruthlessly trampled over that wish. I personally summoned her here and told her about the sorcerer’s punishment, but she discarded that precious advice and rampaged according to her own stubbornness. I grew afraid because she was changing too many things. The Blood Demon cannot be killed, and one who kills a sorcerer can never achieve what they desire, yet she did not understand that fact. I merely tried to block that path; I bore her no ill will.”

After a brief silence, the Alliance Leader spoke again.

“However, I was wrong.”

His voice was filled with regret.

“Despite repeating so many lives, I never truly understood the truth, and in this life, the Blood Demon died.”

“…….”

“I want to apologize, to say that I was wrong and that I am sorry for forcing her down such a difficult path, but now I cannot.”

The Alliance Leader rubbed his dry face with his hand.

“Even after repeating the same time so tediously, it is strange that there is still regret left behind. I wonder if being satisfied with one’s life is truly this difficult.”

It was the time when the sun cast its final light and vanished. Buried in dark crimson shadows, the Alliance Leader met his gaze.

In a voice of a different timbre, the master of the Murim Alliance said,

“I will save Young Lady Tang and eliminate the Blood Demon.”

For a moment, Namgung Hyun could not continue speaking. The Alliance Leader added to the dazed Namgung Hyun,

“If there is anyone who has fought the Blood Demon the most in the Central Plains, it would likely be me. I know his tactics and movements best, which means I have the greatest chance in this world. Though I have never beaten him even once, unlike before, he has come to the Central Plains this time, so it is a gamble worth taking. And since he supposedly died so futilely to Young Lady Tang’s extreme poison, it might be good for you to divert that poison and bring it to me.”

As the Alliance Leader displayed confidence, Namgung Hyun blinked slowly.

After thinking for a moment, he revealed a secret.

“It seemed that the poison Young Lady Tang used was not just one kind.”

“It is rarer for the Master of Ten Thousand Poisons to administer only a single poison.”

“The Master of Ten Thousand Poisons?”

Instead of answering, the Alliance Leader merely curved his lips.

Namgung Hyun felt uneasy about something, but thinking of it as a future he did not know, he continued.

“I heard that when the Blood Demon is cut, his flesh quickly mends, and even if poisoned, he has a body that can detoxify itself. But on that day, his flesh did not heal…… and something Young Lady Tang said to the Blood Demon lingers in my mind.”

Namgung Hyun added in an uncertain voice,

“She said that if the variable was that he had a body that could not die, then if he became someone who could die, could she not erase his own blood like other hosts? It seemed she administered a poison that changed the Blood Demon’s body somehow.”

The Alliance Leader stared at him in silence.

Thinking that he had said something uncertain, Namgung Hyun shook his head slightly.

“It is not certain, so please do not worry about it.”

He had only been probing to see if the Alliance Leader knew something, but it seemed he did not either.

When Namgung Hyun fell silent, the Alliance Leader asked,

“You also know about the Yeonju Group, do you not?”

Though he did not understand the intent of the question, Namgung Hyun nodded. There would be no martial artist in the Central Plains who did not know of Yeonju.

“Do you also know that a sorcerer sent Yeonju back?”

Namgung Hyun could not answer. He was shocked that the Alliance Leader knew that fact. It was a rumor passed among sorcerers—he could not understand how the Alliance Leader knew it or why he was bringing it up now.

“She was a sorcerer destined to be imprisoned in the Blood Demon’s Red Pavilion. She was from the Outer Regions, so her name was difficult to pronounce. In truth, even now I cannot say it properly. I never had occasion to call her by it.”

He paused briefly, then continued.

“However, the meaning carried by that name was so strange that I still remember it.”

“What did it mean?”

“It was mutual support.”

The Alliance Leader let out a bitter smile.

“She bore a name that meant living while helping one another, yet to her I was always…….”

The Alliance Leader could not finish his sentence.

Namgung Hyun’s face stiffened as he heard that confession.

After steadying his breath, the Alliance Leader asked again in a calm tone.

“Since sorcerers study all things, time, and human fate, you must have studied fate calculation as well. Have you read Crimson Heaven Hand?”

“Yes. I did not understand it deeply, but I gained some brief knowledge.”

The Alliance Leader’s lips traced a faint, almost invisible smile.

“That sorcerer returned Yeonju to her rightful place and brought her own end as well. On the same day, she disappeared from the world together with Yeonju.”

“…….”

“That was the beginning of my final life, and it continued into this time that Tang So-hwa turned back.”

Namgung Hyun could not unfreeze his stiffened expression.

Sensing that he understood, the Alliance Leader added,

“It has not been that long since I gained that realization. Therefore, if you are to come looking for me, it must be after Tang So-hwa liberates the Ice Palace of the North Sea. At that time, come to me and speak the name mutual support, and I will help you without question.”

After checking the sky where light still lingered, the Alliance Leader issued an order to see him out.

“It seems you have already taken everything you can obtain from me, so you should leave now. I fear my heart may yet change.”

Namgung Hyun rose from his seat.

He brought his hands together and bowed to the Alliance Leader. His trembling palms and fists met, then parted.

Leaving the Alliance Leader’s residence, Namgung Hyun’s face was deathly pale, as if he had seen a ghost.

His body moved in a fixed direction, yet there was no resolve on his face. Unable to quell the chaos in his mind, he seemed to be dragged along by his thoughts.

Stopping before the guest pavilion, he lifted his head.

Where there should have been a tall, multi-storied building, a lone single-story pavilion stood instead.

It was Tang So-hwa’s study.

Entering inside, he forgot his original purpose and began rummaging through the drawers.

Swish.

Precious stored paper scattered and cluttered the floor, and hardened ink sticks fell and shattered into pieces.

Namgung Hyun searched the study frantically, like a man possessed.

Moving to the desk, he found a dust-covered piece of paper. As soon as he cleared a few sheets, he found his own handwriting.

It seemed Tang So-hwa had never visited since that day, as the paper he had used for calculations remained on the table.

Letting out a hollow breath, Namgung Hyun lifted the faded scribbles.

“Ha…….”

It was absurd.

Impossible.

He was a sorcerer who had tried to deny fate.

Yet the faded characters, as if forcing fate upon him, tore at his belief.

Metal, Water, Wood, Fire, Earth (金水木火土).

The five origins of all things.

In other words, the Five Elements (五行).

The Five Elements influence one another according to Yin and Yang (陰陽), creating and destroying everything in the universe.

Namgung Hyun had poured all Five Elements into a birth chart to create a fate for Tang So-hwa, putting his heart and soul into the arrangement so that the elements would form a cycle that nurtured one another.

Water gives rise to Wood (水生木).

Water (水) supports (生) Wood (木).

Wood gives rise to Fire (木生火).

Wood (木) nourishes Fire (火).

There exists a Four Pillars chart where the Five Elements consecutively support one another, forming a flow of mutual support, like beads strung together.

In Crimson Heaven Hand, this is called Linked Beads Mutual Support (聯珠相生), and it is regarded as exceedingly precious.

The Alliance Leader had merely spoken of the incident where his punishment ended, and Tang So-hwa’s punishment began.

That was when Linked Beads (聯珠), which had not existed in the Central Plains, met Mutual Support (相生); his time ended, and the time of a new sinner began.

Namgung Hyun exhaled with trembling breath.

The Alliance Leader would not know that he had calculated her fate journal.

Even Tang So-hwa had said she did not know the day she was born.

‘But…….’

How could this be?

Namgung Hyun roughly swept the items off the desk.

Crash!

A loud noise rang out as dust billowed upward.

Collapsing weakly to the floor, he sobbed.

‘How can it be this cruel to me? Is even my resolve a predetermined fate?’

In a time he did not know, he became the enemy of the one he loved, and even if he turned back time to win her heart again, he could never have her.

Only two choices remained.

To remain as her enemy in a time where she does not exist, or to live as someone who can never hold her in a time where she lives and breathes.

He had made his choice amid such horrific anguish, yet it all became unbearably empty.

“Ugh…….”

The first desire he had ever embraced was painful.

Wanting the Namgung Clan had not even been a desire. It had merely been anger grasped at blindly, not knowing how else to fill the void.

Even if the Namgung Clan were to vanish and he became the head of that repulsive clan, what could possibly be filled?

The only thing he wanted was one person, and that desire was so desperate it could not be covered by anything else.

If he could hold her in his arms and make her his woman, he did not care what ending awaited him. Even if it were impossible, he could not give it up. Desire etched into the heart could not be erased by reason.

It was hollow and resentful that all this pain was a predetermined path.

Namgung Hyun rose from his seat with a wet face.

He wiped the corners of his eyes with the back of his hand and quietly ground the ink.

As always, the sorcerer who swiftly concealed his emotions rearranged the desk.

Rustle.

With a small brush, he began to write characters onto the paper. He wrote a formal betrothal letter himself. Its contents were no different from a love letter.

After writing the closing lines, he closed his eyes, knowing the letter would never be delivered, yet believing that it would.

Click.

Filling his mind with only what he desired, Namgung Hyun opened the ring and swallowed the Three-Breath Poison.

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(T/N): *Sigh*… pitiful Namgung Hyun in this life.

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