Seeing Hong Hwa-ryun shed tears of blood, she was confused.
Why was this man doing this? Why did he stab himself in the eye and kill her child?
The more the man did this, the more she was suffering. He should have killed himself instead so she wouldn’t feel this bad.
She stared at him, before saying,
[… Go… I don’t need your eyes or your life. Go away, disappear from my eyes.]
[Lady…]
[I do not forgive you.]
She just wanted him gone from her sight. She thought him being here would be trouble to her life, the guilt would increase more.
As long as the husband she thought of and the only child she had were gone, she no longer had regrets.
[… Not yet. It is dangerous now. When safe…]
[I don’t care.]
[But…]
[I said no. The thing you can help me with is to disappear right from my sight.]
[…]
Hong Hwa-ryun covered his bleeding eyes and disappeared. When he was gone, she was alone as she cried.
Crying for days she realized the regret wouldn’t stop, so she tried to end her life.
But then Hong Hwa-ryun appeared and stopped her.
[NO!]
Despite not being able to see, it seemed that because he was skilled in martial arts, he knew she was trying to take her own life.
She beat him but he just silently took it.
[Why! Why! Why are you stopping me from going to the side of my loved ones!]
She cried and cried, and repeated this for several days.
Hong Hwa-ryun continued to hang around her, perhaps knowing she would kill herself. And she was getting tired of it.
And Hong Hwa-ryun said,
[You said you lost everything precious but don’t you have a family? The one you used to have?]
‘!!!!’
His words reminded her of her family back home.
She was once guaranteed the life of her family for heading to the castle on her own feet. Her heart was weak enough from these endless attempts at death, and she missed her father, mother, and family.
So she decided to head back and sort things out one last time. It was a month-long journey.
‘Father! Mother!’
Although sadness was all she had, she cheered up at the thought of seeing her parents. But—
[Ahh…]
The manor of the Hae family was ruined. As if it had been neglected for long, there were 20 tombs in the manor. There was an old wooden board.
[Ahhhhh!]
It had the names of her family members on it. Returning to her family only brought despair to her.
She couldn’t figure out what it was and cried until a voice told her.
[Cough cough… who is crying here?]
A familiar voice made her turn her red eyes.
The woman behind had an exhausted face and a full belly. She was the wife of her older brother, her sister-in-law, Mok Seon-hye.
[U-unnie!]
[Miss?]
The two women, who met for the first time in years, hugged each other while shedding tears. After crying like that for a long time, they shared what was happening in both of their lives.
And while talking about it, she came to know.
[It was attacked not long after you and your sister left.]
It was said that they were attacked by unknown people in masks. As a result, her family was killed.
Coincidentally, only the eldest son and his wife, who were not in the home at that time, were able to live.
‘…’
The sister-in-law, Mok Seon-hye, said that she didn’t know who was responsible, but she instinctively knew who it was.
‘… After all, was I just a womb?’
This was the work of that man, her husband.
She heard something from the woman named Tae in the castle.
The man she considered as her husband erased those related to the women who were wombs to him.
That is why she was sure he did it.
‘Ahh… Father… mother…’
She cried again.
She trusted the man, and he was the one who betrayed her like this.
In the end, she lost everything.
Hae Ha-rang had no regrets about her life and wanted to end her life right away. But she couldn’t because she had one family member left, her sister right here.
[… He passed away.]
Her brother Hae Won-woo, who lost both his parents, had struggled to find the enemies but lost his life to the illness which came over him.
[I too wanted to follow him.]
But she couldn’t do it. It was because of the child in her stomach.
If the child in the womb, which was the proof of love with her husband, died with her, then the line of the Hae family would be cut off.
So she endured it.
However, it was difficult to live in this world as a woman who didn’t learn martial arts.
[I… I will be here. With you.]
Hae Ha-rang decided to be with her. Although the purpose in her life was lost, she chose to live for the sake of the nephew in her stomach.
Hae Ha-rang, the gray-haired beauty, thought of the past and looked at Muah, who was bathing in the cold water of the well.
Every time she saw him, she would remember it.
Haa… Haa… Haaa. Lady… Muah… Muah…
[Unnie! Unnie! How can you just leave like this? You should see Muah grow up!]
[Muah… look after him…]
[UNNIEEEEEEE!]
She passed away shortly after giving birth to her child. She took care of her husband who was ill and worked for the baby right after he passed away, so her body had turned frail.
Hae Ha-rang was quite resentful of the world. The world which took everything from her.
Her life felt so bitter and tainted that she hated the heavens, but she had to endure this.
If she also died, then this young child would not be able to live in the harsh world. In order for the Hae family to be resurrected, she made up her mind.
Seventeen years passed as such.
[I came to keep my promise.]
And a few months back, Hong Hwa-ryun came back to keep that promise and asked for his life to be taken.
Years passed, but the anger didn’t disappear. She wanted him to die.
But—
[What about your children?]
[The child will not know.]
[…]
Hong Hwa-ryun said that his child was strong enough to live in this world.
However, after suffering for the last 16 years and raising a child on her own, she couldn’t let him die. It was because she thought that taking away someone who was a precious existence to someone else was too disgusting to be called revenge.
[… Go. Do not appear in front of me.]
Eventually, she gave up her revenge.
But he didn’t leave.
[I cannot. I need to pay the price.]
[Then live like that. Live with pain in life about what you did. That is my revenge.]
Hae Ha-rang wasn’t going to kill him. Even so, Hong Hwa-ryun stayed around, saying that he wasn’t going to break the promise and decided to look after them.
At first she refused, but when Muah was in danger of dying, this man saved his life.
Since then, she hasn’t bothered with him.
[Mother. I don’t know what happened between you two, but can you forgive him?]
Muah, who knew nothing, followed Hong Hwa-ryun for months like a father, and the man, realizing that he wasn’t the child of that man, helped him.
Because of this, she became weaker.
‘Forgive…’
She couldn’t forgive the man who threw a child off the cliff.
However, she couldn’t help but be shaken when the image of the child seemed to be getting a lot healthier than when she was raising him.
But she shook her head.
‘NO!’
She could not do that for the child who died from the fall. She was going to live her life for her family, and Muah would be her adopted son, but Mumu would always be her only child.
‘… My child.’
In the closeby village—
“Uh. Nice price.”
“Thank you.”
Hong Hwa-ryun received the money from selling firewood and took it. Today’s wages were generous, so he thought of buying some pork.
A few days back, Muah said he wanted to eat meat, so he cut an ample amount of wood.
So he walked over to the butcher shop with his cane, and heard the voice of someone.
‘!?’
Hong Hwa-ryun frowned at this and walked. The outskirts of town and it was a dark alley.
He went into the alley.
Chuk!
“Oh, Mister.”
Someone greeted Hong Hwa-ryun in a small voice and bowed.
The man in his mid-fifties had a long beard and silk outfit with an axe on his waist.
“Commander.”
The man was Baek Jong-won, the commander and confidant for Hong Hwa-ryun. Seeing that he exhaled,
“How did you know of this place?”
“I apologize. I remembered about the debt you had.”
Hong Hwa-ryun came out of the manor by saying that to the commander. Remembering this, the commander gathered people and searched the northern part of Shaanxi province and found him within a few months.
“Go back. I will spend the rest of my time here.”
“Sir… If you do it, what about the young lady?”
“She has the strength to live on her own. I passed everything to her and she has you on her side.”
At those words, the commander spoke with a bitter face.
“Sir. Even though you broke the rules of life for her, everything was done for the sake of a greater cause. How can you be in an uncleared debt for the woman? If she is related to him, she deserves what…”
“Stop.”
“Sir!”
“There is a saying to not touch women and children in war. And until the Great War, I followed that.”
He gave up on that belief for the sake of a cause. And with his own hands, he killed countless women and kids and those deformed infants.
He was called heartless, but the pain he had suffered from that time still haunted him.
In the end, when he dropped that recently born child off the cliff, the guilt burst within him.
The images of the women and children he killed inside the castle were driving him to death.
“The cause… right, I did it for that too. But in the end, what we did was not much different from what that man did right?”
“But. Isn’t that for the sake of peace? If any of his kids remained then they would come to take revenge on the families involved in it.”
“Even so, what I did will not change.”
Hong Hwa-ryun clenched his fist.
The eyes he gave as initial debt to that woman didn’t cut it. The guilt of killing that infant was what broke him.
Seeing him like this, the commander sighed.
‘Sir…’
He was so different from the imperial family. He had the right qualities to be the emperor, but he gave them up to walk on the paths of martial arts, saying he wanted to be a man who held the sword for the right reasons.
He became a warrior.
‘Love and affairs go hand in hand, and sacrifice is natural. But how does the guilt never leave?’
He felt sorry for his lord.
If he and the other Four Great Warriors had died, then the damage the world took would have been huge.
So, even if he felt guilty, he couldn’t help it.
“Sir… even if it was painful, you did the right thing. If you didn’t kill that man’s blood, there would have been more sacrifices.”
“Stop it.”
If that was the case, he wouldn’t be here at all.
But the commander didn’t stop.
“Sir, if you saved the child then he would have come back to avenge his father. Then, in the end, you would have had to fight to stop him. After all, the child is bound to die one way or another. Please let go of this guilt. You did the right…”
Flinch!
It was then, Hong Hwa-ryun shouted,
“Get out of here…”
Before he could even say anything in response—
Bang!
“Euk!’
Something fell down right ahead pushing the man back. Shocked, Commander Baek turned back to see a handsome muscular boy.
Srng!
At this guy’s sudden appearance, the commander pulled his sword out, but before he could do anything.
Clench!
“Kuak!”
The boy grabbed him by the head and lifted him up.
“I was wondering where to start looking because the place was vaguely called Datong, but this is interesting.”
“W-what?”
“Didn’t you just say it? That I was destined to die either way?”
‘!?’