CRD 05

The past resurfaced.

Back when I was struggling with the magical power of the Execution Form, a conversation I had with my older brother, who had come to the Martial Alliance, came to mind.

“Chief, you don’t look well.”

“I haven’t washed my face, that’s all.”

“…I apologize.”

“Are you drunk? Why are you saying this all of a sudden?”

“It’s not because of the Alliance members, is it? How much suffering have you endured since childhood because of the main family?”

“Stop it. The way you’re respectfully calling me Chief gives me chills.”

“You—chills?!”

“Heh heh.”

“Geez, even at your age, you still can’t distinguish between work and play?”

“Leave him be. It’s his nature.”

“Would you rather step down as Chief and take over the family instead? At least your workload would lessen. They say people age quickly when they suddenly retire.”

“True, it would be better than the Martial Alliance. No one would mind if I beat someone up if they didn’t listen.”

“…”

“I’m joking. Just make sure you hand it over to Da-ho properly.”

From that point on, my older brother joked that I was also the head of the family.

It was literally a joke. But apparently, it wasn’t a joke for him.

“Who asked you to do something like this?”

Joint Head of the Family.

A mere illegitimate child, one who had been mistreated by the family, was not only treated as a brother but was even made a joint head of the family.

“…Damn it, how unsettling.”

Murong Tian rubbed his eyes with his fists.

Tears, embarrassingly, rolled down his face—he had truly grown old.

After carefully putting down the ancestral tablet and extinguishing the candles, Murong Tian left the ancestral hall.

“Have you finished your business?”

“Yes.”

Sensing an unusual atmosphere, Guo Nuo spoke even more cautiously.

“I’ll escort you to your room.”

The two of them walked again.

Whoooosh.

The wind was cold.

His confused mind wouldn’t calm down. After all, he still couldn’t accept that he had fallen twenty years into the future.

Then, from afar, a girl’s shout reached him.

“Hey! You didn’t just come in now, did you? This crazy—!”

The girl couldn’t finish her words because Guo Nuo silently gestured for her to stop.

Pouting, she glared at Murong Tian, pounded her chest, and spun around.

Murong Tian couldn’t pay attention to their behavior.

It felt as if his older brother’s hand was shaking his shins violently from the basement. His legs felt unbearably heavy.

Some time passed.

“Rest well, young master.”

“Hm? Ah, thank you.”

“Would you like something to eat…?”

“I’m fine. I’ll just go rest.”

Seeing him nod weakly, Guo Nuo felt disoriented. From earlier, the young master’s demeanor was entirely different from usual.

Normally, he would have urged him to eat more and gain some weight, but now it didn’t seem like the right moment.

“I’ll leave then. Rest well.”

“Alright.”

After sending Guo Nuo off, Murong Tian got off the bed and sat on the floor. The cold rising from the ground snapped him fully awake.

The more alert he became, the clearer his tangled thoughts became.

“Brother.”

Even after surpassing forty and completely escaping the Heavenly Punishment, the Murong Han I remembered always had a sickly face.

‘Father and my uncles, under the pretense of a family emergency, committed deeds no human should. I could never face you.’

Every day during my childhood, seeing myself deteriorate, my older brother shed tears.

At that time, I thought he was despicable. He cried in front of me, but secretly he would flatter that despicable man he called father.

But the day the secret technique was completed, and in front of the adults who had tried to kill me under the guise of removing future threats, seeing my brother’s actions made me release all my hatred.

‘Even beasts care for their young! Since when did the main family fall to being worse than the Black and Evil factions?’

My brother’s anger was genuine, and he was prepared to defeat my father and uncles.

Had my brother’s talent not been extraordinary, the elders might have expelled him—or perhaps even killed him.

Afterwards, that fatherly man fell ill and died, and my brother unleashed all the skills he had hidden, dominated the uncles, and asserted his legitimacy as the young head of the family.

It was from that point onward.

From then on, he and I began reforming the rotten family from the roots.

‘We did that…’

Alongside the bright smile of my brother, I recalled the majestic presence of my nephew Da-ho.

Unlike the other nephews, he had the kind and strong character of his father, someone I truly cherished like a son.

‘Uncle! Take care of yourself and come again in a year! By then, Su-jeong will have started talking!’

The young boy laughed heartily, like someone who had lived fifty years, which was astonishing.

“Da-ho, it’s not a year, it’s been over twenty years.”

A sigh escaped.

Rather than seeing this, it would have been better to die.

It was as if heaven was playing a trick, or perhaps the ancestors were protecting him, but he had returned to this land in the body of the clan’s progeny.

Looking up at the ceiling with a troubled expression, his face gradually hardened.

“No, that’s not it.”

Better to die? Yes, that thought had crossed his mind briefly.

But if he thought seriously, this was an opportunity granted by heaven.

“Whether it’s a trick of the gods or the ancestors’ care, I’ve returned. No matter what, I can’t leave the main family like this.”

What a hard-fought family my brother and I had changed.

Any wrongdoing, no matter who committed it—blood relative or loyalist—was punished. Laws and systems that were too soft were corrected, and the martial and spiritual strength of the weak warriors was elevated to the highest in the northern martial world.

After becoming the head of the Martial Alliance, he had been preoccupied with wars, but my brother filled in what was lacking.

‘I will never give up. No, I cannot.’

He would understand everything.

Why they migrated from Liaoning to Hubei, what the Ho-yun family was, how my brother and Da-ho had died…

And what the current descendants felt living in this situation.

‘First, I need to…’

He recalled the family’s buildings he had briefly seen.

‘By no means do they look well-off. That’s understandable, though.’

Murong Tian looked at his own body.

‘The real problem is this.’

This body—the body of the clan’s progeny—was clearly abnormal. Muscles aside, even the organs were weak.

Everywhere, it was problematic. Even a little movement left him out of breath. One might think he had never trained or was ill.

‘Born as the first son of the Murong family, yet didn’t learn even a shred of martial arts?’

Murong Tian closed his eyes and observed his body inwardly.

After a while.

“Huh?”

He was surprised.

“What is this bizarre state?”

Staring blankly at his lower abdomen, he closed his eyes again to inspect.

As expected, it was the same.

“The dantian is deformed.”

The dantian is the core storage of qi (energy). Simply put, it is where energy is stored.

But this storage was strangely collapsed. Its size was almost absurdly small, and its shape was even stranger.

‘How is this possible?’

Qi can move or take shape according to one’s intention.

Naturally, the dantian must be perceptible and manageable by the owner’s focus and intention.

Once formed, the dantian grows with its owner, and its shape varies by person, though it usually becomes rounder as it develops and the density of qi increases.

‘Even if they intentionally made it collapsed, it’s far too sloppy. How could the family not notice this?’

He himself didn’t know. Since this wasn’t originally his body and his perception of qi was too weak, the dantian was almost imperceptible.

‘I can’t understand this.’

Putting aside other matters, it was strange that the first son’s body was in this state, and no physician had even diagnosed it. Even without money, it was clearly not something to be ignored.

Murong Tian’s eyes narrowed.

It felt like falling into a world that shouldn’t exist—a world where the common sense of the Martial Alliance chief, Murong Tian, no longer applied.

“The important thing is, I have to live in this era.”

Although still stunned, he couldn’t just throw himself on the ground and die.

To survive, he had to live.

As always.

“To do that, I need to fix my body first.”

When the body is flawed, the mind becomes irritable and unstable. There’s a reason sages said a healthy body brings a healthy mind.

“Damn it.”

He bit his lips without realizing it.

“…No matter what I do, I still have to practice that damn study.”

Once created, destroying and recreating the dantian is extremely difficult.

It’s not impossible, but it takes a very long time and has a low chance of success.

But with that study…

If it’s a study that puts both the body and qi under complete control from the start, one could easily dismantle the existing dantian and rebuild it.

“The Naomen Xin Gong.”

The worst secret technique hidden by the Murong family.

It was originally a technique no human could ever master. Among those who tried, most went insane or had their brains liquefied and died, and even survivors aged rapidly, rarely lasting a year.

No wonder rumors said it might be a demonic technique.

“Damn it, maybe this time it’ll be easier.”

He had encountered the Naomen Xin Gong before the age of ten and could enter the path in almost a year.

The initiation itself wasn’t the problem. The more he practiced, the more he felt his brain capacity increasing—it was truly an extraordinary study.

The problem was the bouts of madness and uncontrollable emotions, along with splitting headaches. He had attempted suicide countless times due to the unbearable pain and erratic nature.

“Still, it should be fine now. When I was young, I didn’t know what I was doing, that’s why it was a problem.”

Of course, even now, it wouldn’t be completely safe.

“Let’s do it. I can’t wait several years, nor do I want to.”

Once a decision is made, he committed fully.

But before that, there was something he had to do.

Murong Tian, lost in thought for a moment, suddenly jumped up.

The sudden movement made the room spin again, but it didn’t stop his resolve.

“First, I need to see Su-jeong.”

Coming out of his residence, the world had grown darker in the meantime.

The weather was damp and chilly. His frail body made it feel even colder.

Adjusting his collar, Murong Tian recalled Guo Nuo’s words.

‘He said I’m the acting head of the family?’