NOVEL NEXT chapter 155 - Completion of the Passage
A white road appeared in the dusky night sky. From the Iron Room tucked into a corner of headquarters, smoke rose without cease. Stepping through the entrance, Sohwa caught the Iron Room’s distinctive acrid smell.
Just then, someone rolled up his trouser legs and came out from where the furnaces were.
A massive man, big enough to fill the doorway, raked his eyes up and down over her.
The master of the Iron Room stared at her, then, still holding his rolled-up trousers, took a step back.
It meant to come in.
Sohwa entered without suspicion.
There were several furnaces in the Iron Room, and only the innermost one was lit. Even with a wide gap between, the heat was so great it could be felt all the way to the entrance.
Sohwa’s gaze settled on the man standing near the smelter.
Zhuge Inhwi, eyes on the furnace, asked,
“Did you bring it?”
“Yes.”
At the short reply, Zhuge Inhwi turned his head.
He glanced at the smith, who was checking the fire in the furnace. The blacksmith paid no attention to either the Sagye Hall Administrator or the Sichuan Tang Clan’s direct descendant. Treating the two as if they did not exist, he focused on his work.
Perhaps the heat had not yet reached the temperature he wanted; he worked the bellows without pause, driving the flames higher.
It was Zhuge Inhwi who broke the awkward silence.
“In any case, the meeting will drag on, so if the Clan Head and Heukcheon Amgui intend to return to their quarters, it will take some time.”
The Alliance Leader had summoned the principal alliance members, saying he would open headquarters tomorrow. The Clan Head and Heukcheon Amgui were also in attendance. The fact that the meeting would run long bothered Sohwa, but she did not gainsay it.
Yet Zhuge Inhwi explained what she had not asked.
“While they wish to return to their sects as quickly as possible, they want Young Lady Tang to stay here and undergo a thorough verification by headquarters. The Tang Clan, too, must be uneasy, wondering if there might be spies within their sect, but nowhere is there any consideration for the Clan Head.”
She thought she grasped what the length of the meeting meant.
Not only the timing of opening the gates, but also the direction thereafter was being decided.
As was their own position, which in the end had failed to reach a decision because of Heukcheon Amgui’s rampage.
Since the previous meeting there had been a constant call to interrogate her again, but the Tang Clan had not accepted that suggestion.
It seemed today the meeting would continue until they pushed through to an end.
When Sohwa said nothing, Zhuge Inhwi added,
“They make that choice out of concern for colleagues and family who will be back at their sects, not because they bear a grudge against the Tang Clan.”
Perhaps finding his own words strange, Zhuge Inhwi gave a bitter smile.
“And yet it’s curious. They merely place their priorities on those close to them first, but doesn’t it become a selfish choice? After all, what they’re doing is also to protect others rather than themselves.”
Zhuge Inhwi was not conversing so much as talking to himself.
“The person I respect said that when one helps not those nearby but those far away, that heart is close to benevolence. To bestow kindness that is not taken for granted. Thus he told me to set the scope of my compassion always wide—pity the small creature beyond the mountain more than the person at my side.”
Sohwa, by her silence, guessed at the speaker.
And because Zhuge Inhwi soon named the subject, she knew her guess had been right.
“I thought I understood the Alliance Leader’s words, but I cannot understand how he would try to help those so far away.”
“Do not understand. It is natural not to understand.”
Sohwa answered as if it were nothing.
“Right now, the Alliance Leader’s heart holds neither great cause nor goodwill.”
“Does Young Lady Tang’s heart hold some great cause?”
“My heart holds nothing like great cause or goodwill.”
She spoke plainly.
“If there is a difference between me and the Alliance Leader, it is that I say the absence is an absence.”
“Are you saying the Alliance Leader is a hypocrite?”
“And you are a good person?”
Sohwa let out a hollow laugh.
“Was the opposite of ‘hypocrite’ ever ‘good person’?”
Zhuge Inhwi’s head, which had been fixed on the furnace, drifted this way.
As if asking what on earth she was.
Though he had decided to help her, confusion still lingered in Zhuge Inhwi’s heart over having betrayed the Alliance Leader.
Frankly, it was none of her concern.
Confusion of that degree was something one ought to soothe on one’s own.
If he had set his foot into truth by his own will.
“However you see me is of no concern. Think as you please and define me as you wish.”
Call me whatever you want.
“Then what is ‘good’ to Young Lady Tang?”
Tang Sohwa let out an openly weary sigh.
“If the Hall Administrator desires a scholastic conversation, I can keep the beat, but I have no interest in ‘good.’ I have never even troubled myself to think on it.”
Though she said she could keep the beat, she did not match the conversation at all. Her voice was even, but she did not hide that she found the exchange tiresome.
“The more you seek meaning and think too much, the harder it becomes to move. If you want something, it is better to act at once.”
“What is it that you want?”
What she wanted was clear.
So the answer came immediately.
“I want the Blood Demon dead, and if I may be a bit greedier, I want him to die very painfully and in utter futility.”
Suddenly Tang Sohwa raised one eyebrow.
“……Or, if I may be just a bit greedier, I want him to lose everything he wants, to keep failing, then realize I am a nothing, and to die while writhing in deep mental agony at the disgrace.”
Perhaps even that did not satisfy her; her expression grew grave.
“No. If I am to be just a little greedier, I want his limbs torn apart and all his innards to burst and barely knit back together, only for each capillary to explode one by one while he feels the pain—”
“That is sufficient. I understand what Young Lady Tang wants.”
Zhuge Inhwi cut her off.
For the first time, Tang Sohwa had engaged actively in the conversation, but now Zhuge Inhwi declined to continue it.
Sohwa even looked faintly regretful.
Zhuge Inhwi acknowledged that Tang Sohwa was an utterly honest person.
She had neither goodwill nor great cause.
He felt only a sense of unwavering purpose.
At that moment, the blacksmith who had been stoking the fire reached out to him.
Zhuge Inhwi approached Sohwa.
“I gave him the Han Cheol a moment ago, so he is asking for the mold. It seems he means to melt the Han Cheol now.”
She took the mold she had stowed inside her sleeve.
It was a heavy, thick piece of ore, but small enough that, fortunately, she had been able to smuggle it out. Sohwa glanced between the blacksmith and Zhuge Inhwi and held it out. It was an item Namgung Hyun had insisted upon; the moment the Passage was made, it would have to be retrieved at once.
Zhuge Inhwi received the mold and handed it to the blacksmith.
The blacksmith set the mold at the furnace’s mouth. Then he immediately began melting the Han Cheol. When the iron, which had gleamed with a copper hue, turned white, he did not draw the molten Han Cheol out of the furnace; he poured it into the mold from within.
The mold’s color flushed red as the metal was poured through the narrow opening. The blacksmith gripped it with tongs, took it out, and placed it on a bed of black sand.
Some time later—just as the mold was regaining its original ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) color—
Thwack.
Striking the seam with his tongs, the blacksmith split the mold, and it spat out a round piece the size of a palm. He buried it in the black sand, then raised his head.
A nod.
Zhuge Inhwi spoke.
“He says it is done.”
The blacksmith made no sound—only nodded—so who could say how he read it.
She had roughly guessed the blacksmith could not speak. Given they had asked someone to handle Han Cheol at this hour, she had assumed they would bring a close-mouthed man.
'I didn’t expect they’d bring someone who couldn’t speak at all, though.'
Ssssss.
A little later, the blacksmith took the Han Cheol from the sand and plunged it into cold water.
Perhaps it had cooled enough; he put the Han Cheol into a wooden box and brought it to Sohwa.
“We must take the mold as well.”
“Come to think of it, how did you procure a mold to hold Han Cheol in just three days? I truly did not expect you to obtain one.”
Sohwa wondered the same.
It seemed Namgung Hyun had prepared a mold in advance. He must have believed she would win the Han Cheol at the Duel Tournament.
In her previous life Namgung Hyun had taken first place, so this Passage might well have fallen into the Blood Demon’s hands.
This time, because of the variable named Yeon-a, Namgung Hyun had failed to take the Han Cheol.
Sohwa’s gaze turned odd.
'……Perhaps the Northern Sea bloodline of that time was reclaimed by the Blood Demon.'
All at once, the wooden box holding the Han Cheol felt heavy.
Only, that was a matter of the past.
Now the Passage linking Outland and the Central Plains had fallen into her hands, not the Blood Demon’s—had it not?
Just then, another wooden box was set atop the open box.
Tap.
It was the box containing the mold.
If she returned with both hands full like this, Tang Hae-han and Han-won would pester her with questions.
When Sohwa reached to take out the items to hide in her sleeve, the blacksmith started and grabbed her wrist.
Sohwa’s gaze slid sideways. It was a chilly look, but he did not yield; he glared right back. With a hint of amusement in his voice, Zhuge Inhwi said, as if he could see it,
“The temperature is still high, so you mustn’t touch it.”
Even if the surface cooled quickly because it was Han Cheol, its melting point seemed high to begin with.
In truth, even if she were burned, it would not pose a major problem for Sohwa, but as the blacksmith’s reaction was the normal one, Sohwa obediently lowered her arm.
“Then when can we take it out?”
Zhuge Inhwi flipped over the blacksmith’s hand and traced characters on his palm with a finger. The blacksmith held up three fingers.
“It won’t be as long as three shichen; it seems we must wait about half an hour.”
“Are you using Silent Script?”
With the Iron Room’s heat so high, she could not tell whether the warmth brushing her skin came from the furnaces or from the Hall Administrator.
When Sohwa asked outright, Zhuge Inhwi smiled.
He shifted the subject with practiced ease.
“If the wait here will be tedious, would you care to stop by the Sagye Hall for a moment?”
He spoke as if Sagye Hall were a pavilion.
“Sagye Hall hasn’t sent for me separately. Is it proper for me to go in?”
“Who do you think you’re speaking with right now?”
The man before her was the master of Sagye Hall—the Sagye Hall Administrator.
Even so, as she had no direct dealings with Sagye Hall, she felt disinclined.
“Since the Divine Physician is no longer forcing the Little Clan Head to sleep, he will wake soon.”
The corners of his lips bent meekly.
“Do you not wish to see him before you depart for the Northern Sea?”
When Sohwa fixed her gaze on him, the Sagye Hall Administrator spoke in a careful voice.
“Now that you have secured the Passage, you will leave tomorrow. So tonight, Young Lady Tang should personally take the Little Clan Head back to your quarters.”