Volume 1 Chapter 4 – Yeon So-hyeon

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Translated by Rain

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Was it not said that the face is the window to the soul?

As long as his mental world was not stabilized, it was impossible to correct his expression to look natural immediately.

Therefore, he chose the method of controlling every single muscle of his face individually.

It was a method he thought of only because of the body control ability granted by the Scripture of Controlling Darkness and Shaking the Heavens.

However, in the end, it would have been impossible without his memory, which could not be described as anything but abnormal.

He had remembered each and every change that occurred in the brief moment when people’s expressions changed according to the situation.

“……Good.”

Having finished the final check, he opened the door and stepped out into the yard.

And an exclamation leaked from his mouth before he knew it.

“Ah……”

It was the sunlight.

It was a warm sunlight that made him forget the coldness in that terrible darkness.

He walked out barefoot to the middle of the yard without even realizing it.

“Eldest Young Master, have you woken up?”

The servants who were cleaning the yard outside bowed their heads roughly to greet him.

At any rate, the Eldest Young Master did not mind the slight rudeness they committed.

The Scholar did not give a glance to the servants in the least.

He seemed to not care at all about their presence.

He just stood tall in that spot, slowly spreading his two hands to feel the sunlight.

Like a tree that had waited for a thousand years for a single ray of sunlight.

He closed his two eyes completely.

“Eldest Young Master……?”

Even at the servant’s question, who found that behavior bizarre, he gave no answer.

At that appearance, the servants only looked at each other’s reactions.

It was a strange thing.

If it were normal, no matter what the Eldest Young Master did, they would have just ignored it and passed it off as if it were nothing.

Gulp.

Before they knew it, cold sweat was slowly breaking out on the servants’ hands.

It was something that only the subordinates serving a strict master would experience.

At some moment when that discomfort continued, the Eldest Young Master’s mouth opened.

“……Summon all the subordinates under me.”

It was the Eldest Young Master’s voice that they had never heard before.

While it was clearly the same as yesterday, it was fundamentally different somewhere.

It was a voice that mere servants dared not disobey.

“……Yes?! Yes! Understood!”

The servants, who suddenly came to their senses, began to run as hard as they could.

They scattered in an orderly fashion, running to call and gather the other servants in every corner.

“What is going on……?”

“What? Is something happening?”

The summoned servants slouched and gathered one or two at a time, showing openly annoyed expressions.

If it were not for the urgent tone of the servant who delivered the order, some of them would have ended up not even showing their faces.

The scene they came to see was a bizarre sight where the Eldest Young Master stood barefoot on the dirt ground, spreading his two arms and receiving the sunlight.

A low whispering voice went back and forth among the gathered servants.

“Since that gentleman continues to be stuck only in his quarters, it seems he has finally lost his mind?”

“Ah……, I was sleeping well in my nap, and I don’t know why he is calling and making a fuss.”

Among them, one who looked old clicked his tongue openly.

“Tsk tsk, for the Eldest Young Master to be in that shape, how on earth will the grand Luoyang Sword Family turn out……”

To them, the Eldest Young Master was a ‘soft’ and ‘pushover’ existence.

They had been with the Eldest Young Master for a long time.

There was not a single time the Eldest Young Master urged them or scolded them.

He granted almost all the suggestions they made.

Moreover, his quarters, Pavilion of Perfect Enlightenment, had extremely little work to do compared to the scale it possessed.

Since guests did not come at all, there was no need to polish every corner several times a day, and the large garden, which required a lot of handiwork, was mostly cultivated by the Eldest Young Master himself, and since the clothes he wore were only a few sets, even the washing, which could be said to be the most exhausting, was nothing special.

In that way, the servants of Pavilion of Perfect Enlightenment, the quarters of the Eldest Young Master, had become loose and lazy.

And decisively,

Calling him by the derogatory term of the Swordless Man and looking down on him was an open atmosphere floating around the entire family.

Even though, whatever he was like, it was not a position where mere subordinates dared to ignore.

The problem was that they had watched him, who had all too pleasant a personality, from too close a place.

“……Ahem.”

“Ahem.”

At first, they were expressing dissatisfaction with the behavior of the Eldest Young Master, who called people and performed bizarre acts.

But before long, the venue fell deathly silent.

It was not that someone quieted them down.

Just as the very first servants did.

They gradually refrained from idle chatter.

They gradually restrained frivolous movements.

They gradually grew anxious.

“…….”

“…….”

In the end, only a strange sense of quietness and an ominous silence remained in the venue.

And no one could break it.

Before they knew it, they were already dominated by the atmosphere flowing from the Eldest Young Master.

“……Is everyone gathered?”

That bizarre situation continued until the Eldest Young Master opened his mouth.

“Yes?! Yes, that is correct. Everyone is gathered.”

He did not even look at the fumbling servants.

“From this hour on, you are not needed in Pavilion of Perfect Enlightenment. Report to the Administration Department immediately and receive new positions.”

Though the voice was low, it was clearly heard by everyone’s ears.

“S-Such a……?!”

“……Eldest Young Master!”

Those who had just been bowing their heads in tension protested at those words.

“If you dismiss us so suddenly, what are we supposed to do?!”

And as one or two took courage and shouted, everyone raised their voices without exception.

“What on earth are we supposed to explain to the Administration Department?!”

“Everyone will look at us with bad eyes!”

“Eldest Young Master!”

Everyone raised their voices in unison to condemn the Eldest Young Master’s decision.

“……Kekeke.”

At that time, there was a laughter that clearly cut through their high voices.

It was none other than the sneer that began on the lips of the Eldest Young Master.

That low-vibrating laughter seemed to scratch the ears of the listeners with a strange metallic sound mixed in.

It was a sound that could not be described as anything but bizarre and gloomy.

The back of the servants’ necks stood on end.

Their tongues stiffened.

Their movements stopped.

“…….”

Though their mouths closed, the Eldest Young Master’s ominous laughter showed no sign of stopping.

Because that ridicule was not directed at the servants.

It was a mockery directed at himself.

‘How frustrating and ignorant a person was the past me.’

He believed that if he showed goodwill first, the other party would reward it with goodwill.

Even if the other party did not immediately reward it with goodwill, he believed that someday his sincerity would get through.

No, he wanted to believe it.

The servants who were acting wildly before him, knowing neither heaven nor earth, were those who were no different from being raised by the past him.

Before long, the Eldest Young Master, who withdrew his laughter, looked down at them.

Not even a speck of emotion remained in his eyes.

At that glass-like gaze, the servants shrank back even more.

“What is my surname?”

As he raised his hand to point out one person, the person answered in surprise.

“Y-Yeon!”

The Eldest Young Master, who had the surname of Yeon, nodded as if satisfied with the answer.

“Indeed. And this family, the Luoyang Sword Family, belongs to that Yeon family.”

Then he pointed out another person and asked again.

“What is my name?”

The pointed-out person answered while trembling, not knowing the reason.

“……You use the character ‘So’ and the character ‘Hyeon’!”

He who had the name So-hyeon with the surname Yeon asked another servant again.

“Yes, then what is this person called Yeon So-hyeon to this family?”

The pointed-out servant swallowed dry saliva and answered.

“E-Eldest Young Master.”

Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon smiled.

But that smile was just a shape, completely empty inside, and chilling to the bone.

“Indeed. I am the Eldest Young Master of this family, Yeon So-hyeon.”

An icy blue flame seemed to flash in his eyes.

“Then what are you, who disobey the orders of that Eldest Young Master?”

His mouth twisted.

“Are you perhaps the masters of this family?”

At those words, all the servants turned pale and fell flat on the spot.

Although they were uneducated and foolish, they were not so dull as to not know where they would die.

“S-Spare us!”

“It is absolutely not disobedience!”

“This lowly servant just……!”

Their neat servant uniforms became dirty.

Even more than the bare feet of the Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon whom they had ridiculed.

“Shh……!”

As Yeon So-hyeon raised a finger to his mouth, not even the sound of breathing leaked from the mouths of the servants who had their heads shoved into the dirt ground.

“Since making you loose was my fault, I will not hold you guilty.”

A bright smile hung on Yeon So-hyeon’s mouth.

“So all of you, pack your things immediately and get lost.”

No sooner had those words ended than the servants offered him words of gratitude.

“T-Thank you!”

“Thank you, Eldest Young Master!”

He looked down at them with a twisted smile.

When he was endlessly nice, he heard only backtalk and resentment.

Yet when he squeezed them relentlessly, only then did he hear words of gratitude.

Human affairs were indeed ironical.

There was no reason to be gladdened or saddened by such things at this point.

More than such things, there was a more important reason for him to dismiss all the servants.

‘With this, I have cleared the unnecessary ‘eyes’ for now.’

Many of the servants of Pavilion of Perfect Enlightenment had been reporting every single move of the Eldest Young Master Yeon So-hyeon to other factions within the family.

He had already known that fact in the past, but since he was indifferent to power, he had ignored it.

Although there was a way to make the servants who dared to betray their master’s actions neither dead nor alive, he did not do so.

‘Right now, there is no need to tip my hand.’

There was no need for them to have vigilance against him.

At least not yet.

“You, there.”

It was a servant who was trying to escape from Pavilion of Perfect Enlightenment in a hurry, not even being able to pack his things properly.

As Yeon So-hyeon pointed him out, he lost his mind and fell to the ground.

“Yes, yes! Eldest Young Master! Please order!”

While answering with his head shoved to the ground, his luggage and clothes rolled on the floor.

But neither he nor Yeon So-hyeon cared.

“To the Administration Department, no……”

Yeon So-hyeon’s eyes narrowed.

“Tell the Head of the Administration Department to personally select and send one child who will attend to me.”

The ‘Head of the Administration Department’ was a person in a position where lowly servants like them dared not even lock eyes.

A person who could issue commands to such a figure.

Although it was already too late, the servant clearly realized who the one he had served was.

“Yes, yes! Understood, Eldest Young Master! I will keep it in mind.”

“And……”

His subsequent question was absurd to the extreme.

“Where is the sun passing now?”

“The sun…… do you mean?”

Yeon So-hyeon’s question, while looking up toward the sky, was incomprehensible.

The servant just answered as he was asked.

“It is floating over there right now. It is shining very white and very brightly, so it is even hard to look at.”

At that answer, he tilted his head slightly.

“……Is that so?”

Yeon So-hyeon waved his hand.

The servant bowed his head deeply to greet him and left the place in a hurry.

“……Around there?”

What was visible to the eyes of Yeon So-hyeon looking up at the sky was only the warm sunlight.

The shape of the sun was nowhere to be seen.

“……Has even the sun turned its head away from me now.”

In his ears, the wild laughter of the Scripture of Controlling Darkness and Shaking the Heavens still seemed to be heard vividly.

[From now on, you shall breathe in the darkness, strike down the sword of condemnation in the darkness, and become the Dark Venerable who punishes all karma of the world!]