Chapter : 72
Yeonhwa captured the group of the Discipline Hall Master, who scattered in all directions the moment they discovered her, abandoning their companions. She had them thrown into prison.
Since considerable violence had accompanied the process, the final state of the Discipline Hall Master and his group was nothing short of miserable.
“As long as there’s no signed petition, you cannot brand us as criminals!”
“That’s right! We merely came because we had something to say to the young lady. When no one answered, we only went inside to look for her!”
Their claim wasn’t entirely nonsensical, so Seong Yeon-taek looked at Yeonhwa with a questioning gaze.
Yeonhwa shook her head and stepped forward.
“If the place you came to was the Outer Affairs Hall, that might be possible. If the place you entered was the General Administration Office, that might also be possible. But—”
Her index finger pointed toward the plaque hanging over the Family Head Hall.
The characters, said to have been written by the founding family head himself, were powerful and elegant, embodying the proud spirit of the Namgung clan.
Only then did some of them realize.
Yeonhwa spoke again.
“You didn’t come to some other place. You came to the Family Head Hall, and you trampled through it with muddy feet without permission. Is that normal? If you think that’s innocent, then the only conclusion is that the Great Elder and Namgung Hye-chan have been sitting on the name of the Family Head Hall and turning it into a laughingstock.”
After hearing everything, Seong Yeon-taek urged them to present some other legitimate reason why they should have entered the hall. But the Discipline Hall Master had nothing left to say.
His group was imprisoned in cells next to those of the Great Elder and the Seventh Elder.
When everything was settled, the chief steward Hong Gye-mun approached, rubbing his palms together nervously.
“So… what will happen to me now?”
At his question, Yeonhwa replied,
“You’ll be punished according to the crimes you committed.”
“But… didn’t I render a service?!”
Hadn’t he voluntarily reported the Discipline Hall Master’s group and even acted as bait to lure them in?
Hong Gye-mun looked toward Seong Yeon-taek.
He had been too frightened to approach Yeonhwa directly and had instead gone to Seong Yeon-taek to devise this plan.
But Seong Yeon-taek had no intention of bargaining with someone who had committed crimes for a lighter sentence, so he shook his head.
“I told you from the beginning. Even if you reported them, there would be no special treatment.”
“I never thought you meant that literally!”
How could someone do something like this and expect nothing in return?
Usually, if nothing else, people gave some token reward because of appearances.
“Besides, your name wasn’t even written on the petition anyway. Even if we punish you, there’s a limit to how severe it can be. Compared to the others, your punishment will be light, so why struggle so much?”
“That’s because…!”
“It seems he wants to keep his position as chief steward.”
Seong Ha-ran cut in before Hong Gye-mun could finish.
Apparently she was right, because Hong Gye-mun looked at Yeonhwa with desperate eyes.
Yeonhwa shook her head.
He had already been someone with many problems. Once the recently captured men were thoroughly interrogated and forced to spill information, even more matters would surely come to light.
How could someone like that continue serving as the chief steward of the main household, a position that represented the face of the clan?
“Still, it’s true that he stepped forward for the clan’s sake. If we send him away completely empty-handed, people will talk. It will also hurt morale.”
Yu Geon-myeong spoke quietly.
After a moment of thought, Yeonhwa made a decision.
“As a reward, grant him five thousand nyang. Give it to him when he leaves the Namgung clan.”
“What if the punishment isn’t expulsion?”
Seong Yeon-taek kept asking, but Yeonhwa answered calmly as if she had already thought everything through.
“Then we’ll simply wait until he leaves of his own accord. As long as the Namgung clan doesn’t fall, the reward won’t go anywhere. Whenever he eventually leaves, he’ll be able to live comfortably outside.”
At Yeonhwa’s decision, Hong Gye-mun clutched his chest.
Recently several people had coughed up blood in front of her, so Yeonhwa instinctively took a step back.
“Ah, really… hahaha!”
This time even Yu Geon-myeong couldn’t hold back his laughter.
Hong Gye-mun ground his teeth and cursed Yeonhwa inwardly, calling her a vicious woman.
No wonder, he muttered to himself, she devoured her own elder brother, and now it wasn’t enough that she had devoured her uncle and cousin—eventually she would even devour her own father.
Then he suddenly froze.
Yes… he had muttered it aloud.
When he jerked his head up, everyone around him was glaring as if they wanted to kill him.
Realizing his mistake, he clamped his mouth shut.
Yeonhwa spoke.
“Seems you still haven’t fixed that habit.”
Because she was standing in front of him, the old habit of pretending to talk to himself while insulting others had slipped out again, just like before.
“Still, I won’t cancel the reward. Don’t worry.”
As Yeonhwa waved her hand dismissively, Hong Gye-mun clenched his fists, hesitated for a moment, and finally turned away.
However, once the interrogation of the Discipline Hall Master’s group was finished, they would soon see him again.
“Right now he’s unhappy about receiving money as a reward. But once he steps down from the chief steward position and finds that no one is left around him, he’ll want to take that money and leave.”
And then what would happen?
Yu Geon-myeong continued her thought.
“He’ll assume everyone else has ulterior motives like he does. The longer things drag on, the more he’ll think the reward might be forgotten or disappear. He’ll feel anxious and want the situation resolved as quickly as possible.”
Yeonhwa nodded.
“Even though their names aren’t on the petition, there’s a high chance he’ll report the people who associated with the Great Elder’s group closely enough to consider adding their signatures.”
After doing it once, why would doing it twice be difficult?
“So the reward… will it be money again?”
Seong Yeon-taek frowned, clearly reluctant.
Yeonhwa shook her head.
“There will be no further rewards. If they want to leave sooner later on, we’ll simply remove them from the clan and quietly send them away.”
“Yes!”
Even as he answered, Seong Yeon-taek couldn’t hide his regretful expression.
“Even though things are almost completely sorted out, we still haven’t found the petition.”
“I’ve been thinking… perhaps Namgung Hye-chan destroyed it.”
“The petition is the lifeline of the Great Elder and the Young Master. Why would he destroy something like that?”
That would be madness beyond simple foolishness.
But Yeonhwa viewed the matter from a slightly different perspective.
“If he had it on him, or hidden somewhere, do you think we wouldn’t have found it?”
Until the day before, people had still been adding their signatures to the petition, and that had taken place inside the Family Head Hall.
The two people who had remained holed up inside only came out after Yeonhwa arrived. As for Namgung Hye-chan, who left midway, they had tracked his route and thoroughly searched the surrounding area.
If it still didn’t appear after digging up everything within reach at every step…
“Of course, it’s possible he hid it somewhere no one knows about, and we might miraculously find it later—or it might surface unexpectedly after many years. But think about it again. This is Namgung Hye-chan.”
If he had just become the heir, everything would have been in his hands. Yet right before that, disaster struck. His hatred toward Yeonhwa must have been overwhelming.
He had always been arrogant, yet time and again he had been trampled by her.
At the moment when everything became truly desperate, did he really believe he would win this time?
Or did he believe Yeonhwa would once again step on him and claim victory?
Reality was too painful to dream about. He likely judged that he could neither protect nor use the petition.
And if it was Namgung Hye-chan…
“He might have thought that if he destroyed it, he would never have to hand it over to me.”
Perhaps the reason it disappeared on the way out the main gate wasn’t only fear—but also because he intended to get rid of the petition.
“…Well, now. I kept wondering where he hid it, acting so confident that we’d never find it. But if your guess is right, it makes sense. I’ll go test him about it later.”
“Tell him we found the petition.”
“…What?”
“If we say we found something he destroyed specifically so it could never be found, he’ll definitely react violently. He’ll accuse us of lying.”
“I understand!”
Seong Yeon-taek even clapped his hands, saying it was a good idea.
“Having the petition would make things clearer, but even without it, the situation must proceed. Let’s identify the remaining people as quickly as possible and finish this matter. I will propose an emergency meeting concerning the survival of the clan.”
The family head’s illness, the Great Elder’s rebellion plot, and Namgung Hye-chan’s scheme to seize the heir’s position—each had been a move pushing the Namgung clan toward the worst possible crisis.
What the family head had intended to do through a handwritten secret letter—
Yeonhwa intended to seize with her own hands.
“I will ascend to the position of heir. And I will protect the Namgung clan so that the Namgung that has begun to change may walk a path worthy of its name!”
At Yeonhwa’s declaration, everyone’s eyes shone.
Those who had been anxious, unsure how long this new wind sweeping through the main family would last, now found reassurance and cheered.
At last, the Namgung clan was awakening from its long delusion and beginning to reveal a spirit as vast as the open heavens.
