Chapter 795: Primordial Chaos (5)
The Black Snake sets out on the road.
Leaving behind the great massacre of the county, he leaves his hometown and heads for the far west.
Passing countless counties and counties, crossing cities and cities, he reaches the border beyond mountains and rivers.
His home country, the Central Spirit Holy Kingdom.
Beyond that country, in order to meet the wife of the first cycle who lives at the far western edge...
The Black Snake crosses a country called Byeokra, and also crosses a country called Yanguo.
Crossing country after country, unlike in the previous life, he gathers wealth and creates status.
He captures bandits he meets along the way and subdues them with overwhelming force.
He puts them through training close to torture, makes them his subordinates, and then forms a group.
The first name of the group is taken from the Black Snake's name, the Heuk Sa Society (黑蛇會).
As the master of the Heuk Sa Society, as 'Heuk Sa', the Black Snake leads his subordinates, builds status and wealth, and at last, reaches the country at the far west.
He reaches Shengzi.
And even within the Shengzi, the country at the western edge...
He reaches a place where the great mountain range of Shengzi lies.
"I came quickly."
Heuk Sa arrives with his subordinates at a village halfway up the great mountain range.
Now ten years old, in his hand he holds his mother's keepsake, a mother-of-pearl hairpin.
His mother said this.
That she came from the far western edge country, Shengzi.
That in that Shengzi, she was born and raised in a village on the western edge of a mountain range...
Only, having been caught by a bandit gang, her entire family was taken as slaves, and being sold and sold again, she drifted all the way to the land of the Central Spirit Holy Kingdom, gave birth to him, escaped from a slave trader, and barely managed to settle down.
Before Heuk Sa meets the wife of his first life.
He goes to a corner of this village.
"Mother..."
Heuk Sa's very first life.
At that time, Heuk Sa lost his eyes and a friend, and...
Recalling his mother's words, he came all the way to the western edge so that at least the keepsake may tread upon the soil of her homeland.
The woman he met there was the wife of his first life.
This place was his mother's hometown and his own new starting point.
When he arrives, what greets him is a ruin in collapse.
His mother always went around saying this.
That if she is born again, she wants to be born as a man.
Born as a man, she does not want to live a fate where she is kidnapped by mere bandits, forced away from her homeland, and sold here and there.
She said she hoped to become a learned person who can give her child a proper name, not just some name picked up and stuck on carelessly.
Yes...
If she is born again...
"If you are born again...you said you wished...for at least a body that can protect your child, a mind that can give a good name...a homeland to settle down and live peacefully...and to be a person who could live by telling stories..."
Heuk Sa walks in, and, remembering the words his mother said whenever she had a moment, he strokes the ruin.
"If there is a next life...please. Even if only as a learned bookstore owner, be born and spend your whole life in peace..."
He leans against the ruin, sets his mother's keepsake upon it, and closes his eyes.
And if his mother is indeed born again...
He imagines her born as a boy of a good family, becoming a bookshop owner, giving meaningful names to children, telling fairy tales every day, and living long without hunger or illness.
It is fine even if he himself is not in that picture.
Even if Heuk Sa himself, fallen into the Hell of Killing Karma is to be born again merely as a bug or a beast...
After leaning against the ruins for some time and praying for his mother's blissful rebirth, Heuk Sa buries his mother's keepsake before the ruins, and the Heuk Sa Society settles in a suitable cave on a peak across from the village.
The villagers treat the Heuk Sa Society, which takes up residence in a nearby cave, as a band of thieves and fear them, but so long as they are there, there is no longer any chance that this village will be attacked by other bands of thieves or bandits and that someone will be horribly murdered or dragged away.
Moreover, even while the Heuk Sa Society itself is shunned and feared, Heuk Sa himself is, in outward appearance, a ten-year-old boy.
He does not come to the village filthy in rags like in his past life, instead, being served as the chief of the Heuk Sa Society, comes wearing neat clothes...
The villagers may think of Heuk Sa as the child of an officer belonging to the Heuk Sa Society, but they do not imagine that he is its master.
People neither hate him nor fear him.
On the contrary, some village notables, seeking to make a connection with the bandit gang by tying a connection with Heuk Sa, the 'child of a bandit gang officer', even introduce their daughters to him.
But Heuk Sa does not so much as glance at such connections. He only inquires after and seeks out a girl of the same age, a maid being raised in a noble household.
Having just turned eleven this year, one year older in body than Heuk Sa, the maidservant's name is what people roughly call her because they picked her up from under a willow on the western mountain slope, 'Seo-agi (West Baby)'.
No, in truth even that is not particularly fixed, so, changing the pronunciation as is convenient, she comes to be called by various names such as 'Seo-ak (Western Peak)', 'Seo-yak (Oath), 'Seo-yeok' (Western Region), or 'Westy' (Seo-jok).
And she is precisely the leper woman whom Heuk Sa met in his very first life.
"Excuse me...I heard a girl called Westy is here."
"Oh right. The nanny definitely said that girl is being made to work in the back garden. Why are you curious about her? Let's see..."
To meet Westy, the maid of the noble household, Heuk Sa befriends a child of the noble household, then goes to that house to play and heads to the back garden where Westy is said to be.
"Ah, there she is. Hey, hey, wait—what are you eating right now!?"
The son of the noble household, who is about to guide Heuk Sa to the back garden and introduce the girl called Westy, has his eyes go wide, and Westy freezes on the spot at his shout.
In the back garden, Westy was secretly taking a big bite from a large peach.
No matter how large the noble household is, peaches are not food a maidservant can taste, so she is surely stealing a bite.
Caught by the noble household's young master and Heuk Sa, Westy freezes with her cheeks puffed out from a big bite of the peach, and her eyes well with tears.
"Mm...hic... I-I am sowwy..."
"Eek, how shameful! I finally brought a friend over and you're stealing that again. Just how does that make me look...?"
The noble household's young master has his face turn red and blue and goes to look for a six-sided club, saying he will beat the maidservant, and Westy drops down on the spot and sobs bitterly, crying 'wah-wah'.
Heuk Sa takes that sight into his eyes.
In the past life he was in a blind man's body, so he could not take it into his eyes, but.
Westy's face and skin, hair, small hands and feet...
Even though he honed his senses and could say he understood her form, still, her color that he never once saw...
...is beautiful.
Not her looks or her mannerisms, but her very existence is beautiful and lovable.
"Don't cry."
Though she is one year older than he, Heuk Sa lifts Westy, who sits and whimpers, and soothes her.
In the end, perhaps the noble household's child does not have the heart to actually beat the girl with a six-sided club. Seeming only to want to imitate adults for fun, he breaks off a little foxtail grass and stands beside her, pretending to beat Westy as a game, and only then does Westy stop crying, realizing she is not truly being beaten and driven out.
"I-I'm sorry, young master. The peach looked so delicious..."
"Huff, huff..."
The noble household's young master, who is only seven years old, pants there on the spot appearing to be tired. Looking at him, Heuk Sa speaks.
"Friend."
"Hm? What is it?"
"I'll be taking this Westy."
"Huh? Uh..."
The child recalls the nanny's words of 'You must not carelessly give the household's property to others as such is waste.'
But at the same time, he recalls the words of his mother and father this morning when he brought Heuk Sa who he made as a friend, saying 'That boy has a vicious bandit of the nearby bandit gang for a father, so absolutely do not offend his mood, and if possible, keep on friendly terms.'
Because the village where they live is a place where government troops do not come often, for them the bandit gang settled beyond the ridge is a far more fearful and terrifying presence than the distant government troops.
But for the child, on the one hand he was told not to give away property, and on the other he was told not to offend, so from a seven-year-old's standpoint it is hard to judge.
"Uhh... The nanny said I can't do that...but Mother and Father should be okay with it..."
"Got it. We happen to have a jar of salt at our house. I will give that in exchange."
It is one of the goods the Heuk Sa Society seized while sweeping away nearby thieves and bandit gangs.
Since most of the seized goods are too burdensome to give to a rural village's noble household like this, Heuk Sa decides to choose something moderately acceptable to give.
"A jar of salt?"
At those words, the child nods.
For that much, it seems fine to give away a maid who steals peaches from the house as much as he likes.
In that case, he is not carelessly wasting property as the nanny said, and he is not offending the other as his mother and father said.
"Good! Let's do that! Hey, you! From now on our house doesn't need a maidservant who steals peaches like you, so you are going to be sent to Heuk Sa's house from now on. Got it?"
At those words, Westy bursts into tears again.
Having been picked up and raised in this house since she was a tiny baby, this house is truly her home.
Moreover, she already heard all about this young master 'Heuk Sa' in front of her wearing those black clothes.
It's because she heard the other maidservants chattering.
She heard that young master Heuk Sa's house is the house of a fearsome bandit gang, and that the bandits are all ferocious and brutal, often beating their subordinates and, if it is severe, even killing them.
If it is that young master Heuk Sa's terrifying house, surely a slow and sluggish maid like her will be beaten every day and, if displeasing, killed.
Heuk Sa smiles as he watches her bawling at the sight of him.
Just the fact that he can see her face makes him so overwhelmed, and she is lovable.
Heuk Sa takes her hand, and as he leads the still-sobbing Westy out of the noble household, he speaks.
"Don't cry, Westy."
"Heueooong! I-I am Seo-agiooooh...heueoong!"
"From now on, I will let you eat lots of peaches."
"Hekuk...!?"
"I will let you wear silk clothes. I will buy you many pretty ornaments. I will let you wear flower shoes. Instead of a vague name...I will find a good namer and give you a good name that has a proper meaning."
Holding the hand of the girl called Seo-agi or also called Westy, Heuk Sa gently speaks as they walk together over the ridge to the Heuk Sa Society's den.
Because his voice is so soft and kind, Westy stops her tears and looks at Heuk Sa.
"I will make you happy. Marry me."
Clench—
Heuk Sa holds her hand and vows inwardly.
Ten years from now.
She contracts leprosy, her body rots, and she is caught by a bandit gang and burns to death.
'If a person cannot be changed...'
The happiness she gives him until she dies will also not change.
'I will change the world.'
Therefore, he will not let the world kill her.
The small entities called germs are beings sufficiently graspable to his senses.
He has the skill to prick and pop each and every leprosy bacillus to death.
The form of connection cannot be changed.
But the heavens that bestows that connection can be changed by his skill.
No matter how much you cut and tear people, they cannot be changed, but the heavens can be torn apart and twisted.
'I will not let you die. I will give you a good name...and a happy life.'
Perhaps...
In this life they may even be able to have the child they could not have in the last life.
"Let's...become happy together in this life."
Heuk Sa thus, taking Westy, heads toward the Heuk Sa Society's den, smiling brightly.
A few years have passed since Heuk Sa settled in the village.
"Since you were born under a willow, your surname will be Yang (楊)."
To give an even more meaningful and good name to 'Westy' who has become his wife, he sought out a namer said to be famous in the vicinity.
"For the name, Hwe (回) is good."
"Hwe (回)..."
Heuk Sa originally did not know how to read.
In his first life he was blind, so the blade was always more meaningful than writing.
Therefore, only now is he learning a little bit of letters together with Westy who's become his wife.
Thus he knows that the character Hwe (回) carries the meaning of 'to return' or 'to cycle'.
Shaaah—
The atmosphere near the namer's house becomes chilly.
With clear eyes, Heuk Sa looks at the namer who gave his wife the name 'Yang Hwe'.
In truth, it is the name she received even in the past life.
But at that time, he did not even know the meaning of the name, and he simply thought that a learned namer would surely give a good name and accepted it gratefully.
However, only now that he underwent regression (回歸) can he understand what on earth the namer who gave the name has done.
"Who are you?"
Black Gang Qi surges from Heuk Sa's body.
In the last life, when he met this namer, it was before he gained fortuitous encounters such as the Star Extinguishing True Chapter, so he did not know who it was as he had not yet grown explosively stronger.
But now he can tell.
The namer who bestowed a name upon his wife is not human.
It is a divinity who borrows a human body and has come to this place.
"Are you the one who sent me back?"
At those words, the namer smiles faintly and speaks.
"I do not understand what the distinguished one speaks."
"What do you...?"
"However, my master seems to know something."
"Master?"
At those words, the namer points to the sky.
"One day. If you are curious about the cause of everything, come seek my master. They measure and know all things that happen in this Cosmic Great Desolation."
"..."
Only then does Heuk Sa know who the namer's master is, and who the namer is.
He blinks, and the namer disappears.
The envoy of the Chief God who, in the first life, proposed to him the Seat of the War God.
Heuk Sa understands that the envoy was the namer just now.
The master the namer speaks of must be the Chief God.
The being he also calls Lord Heavens.
'Has Lord Heavens...known?'
Why he underwent regression.
By even having an envoy give such a name to his wife, it is a hint that they know the true nature of the ability called regression.
"..."
Heuk Sa looks at the sky and then heads back to the village.
In any case, he obtained his wife's name.
Yang Hwe (楊回).
'Hwe-ah...'
It is a name bestowed not by a mere ordinary namer but by the Chief God who rules this world.
'Hwe-ah. In this life...I will never let you suffer.'
Through the envoy, the Lord Heavens is speaking.
That if he wants to know the truth, to come seek them...
But for now, he cannot go.
To reach the being called the Chief God requires far too much time...
And within that time, his wife Yang Hwe, according to history, will contract leprosy and die.
'In this life, I will not let you catch any illness and will let you live a long and healthy life... Even if I have to kill the god who determines lifespan, I will protect you.'
Even if everything repeats, he will make it so this does not repeat.
If fate, if history, if connection stands in his way, he will save her even if he must kill them all.
Hoping for such modest happiness...
Heuk Sa moves his steps toward his wife, who is waiting for him at home.
As [I] read Hong Fan's memories, [I] do not dare read beyond those hopeful memories.
I have not yet read the memories beyond, but the memories that contain the story afterward are filled with even darker and more painful emotions.
Yes.
This very moment is the last moment in Hong Fan's life when normal hope and joy remained.