GMLS Ch 33

The White Tiger of Cheontae, The Ice and Snow Qilin, and The Black Dragon, who became divine beasts at the end of their trials, were each granted full authority over the land, the weather, and the sea, and came to rule the world as divine beasts.

The White Tiger of Cheontae, who possessed a power more steadfast than any other and the ability to command spiritual creatures. He led the spiritual creatures, running across the land and eliminating meaningless battlefields.

The Ice and Snow Qilin, who possessed the power to see through human thoughts and the psychokinesis to move objects, permeated the human world. He controlled the weather to aid in farming, orchestrated the world to run under the rule of law, and worked for humans from the closest of places.

The Black Dragon, who was granted the power of healing, recovery, and regeneration, added his power to the rain that The Ice and Snow Qilin brought down, healing the injured and the sick.

The fires of war subsided, and plagues retreated. The three divine beasts continued to watch over the people from their respective positions. A long era of peace followed.

The one who brought an end to that era was The Ice and Snow Qilin. Naturally impatient and greedy, he coveted the powers of The White Tiger of Cheontae and The Black Dragon, and eventually sought to seize both and become the sole divine beast of this world.

The White Tiger of Cheontae stood in the way of such a Qilin. The battle between the giant white tiger and the ice and snow qilin lasted for a full ten days. In the process, all the land sank, and the world was on the verge of becoming entirely sea.

Unable to bear the groans of the dying humans, Sangseon sent down a giant lotus flower; only the land held within that lotus survived, and the rest was submerged in the sea.

The battle was The Ice and Snow Qilin’s victory. He placed The White Tiger of Cheontae’s corpse on the remaining land as if for display, and the corpse soon transformed into a rugged mountain range.

The young Black Dragon, terrified, ran to the Celestial Realm. He pleaded and pleaded with Sangseon, who refused, saying that no matter what, he could not interfere in the affairs of the human world. In the end, Sangseon, moved by his sincerity, abandoned the Celestial Realm and descended to the surface on The Black Dragon’s back.

The Ice and Snow Qilin was sealed in the northern lands by Sangseon. And The Black Dragon, too, exhausted his energy traveling to and from the Celestial Realm and fell asleep in the sea… It is a story with a moral of rewarding good and punishing evil.

“I hear you’ve been coming to see the memorial stone every day since you arrived here. A story even a snot-nosed kid knows can’t be novel. Are you perhaps looking at the northern snowfields?”

“Yes.”

Even as he answered, Yeo Yullyeong’s gaze was fixed on the snowfields.

The northern land was a land of death. A barren land without a single blade of grass or a single rat. What was there to see that he was staring so intently?

Puzzled, I followed his gaze without much thought. And then, I saw it. A barefoot man dressed in a single layer of white robes. With his snow-white long hair let down, he was glaring in this direction.

“Th-that!”

“What is it?”

“Aren’t you looking at him? Who on earth is that man? No, is he even human?!”

“What a strange thing to say. Nothing can live in that permanently frozen ground. Let alone a person. You must have mistaken the blowing blizzard for something.”

That can’t be. I snapped my head, which had been turned toward Yeo Yullyeong, back to the snowfields, but the man from a moment ago had vanished without a trace. What the. What is going on? Did I really see an illusion?

“If you saw something, it would have been The Ice and Snow Qilin.”

“…The Ice and Snow Qilin?”

A chill ran down my spine. Instead of answering my terrified question, Yeo Yullyeong said something completely different.

“Let me tell you a forgotten story. In truth, the one who brought the curtain down on the long era of peace was not The Ice and Snow Qilin, but a certain human.”

The story Yeo Yullyeong began was subtly different from the legend of The Geum Empire that I knew.

“To be precise, it was the human The Ice and Snow Qilin loved.”

It was a story as cold as winter.

The Ice and Snow Qilin, who governed the weather, was himself an ice and snow qilin made of ice and frost. His personality was also cold and dispassionate. In a sense, he was a perfect ruler.

In the division of public and private matters, the “private” did not exist, so the distinction was meaningless. For him, words like compassion or extenuating circumstances did not exist. Rewards for the good. Punishment for the wicked. In The Ice and Snow Qilin’s world, everything was divided into black and white.

But just as spring comes no matter how cold the winter, a change came to The Ice and Snow Qilin’s world, which had seemed eternally black and white.

“The Ice and Snow Qilin fell in love with a human. He was an unremarkable man. So ordinary that if you threw him into a crowd, you wouldn’t know where he was. How such a person managed to steal the ice and snow qilin’s heart entirely, not even Sangseon knew.”

However, he made The Ice and Snow Qilin, who could pass hundreds of years in the blink of an eye, realize just how long and pitiable a span of a mere hundred years was.

“Lifespan was the providence of the gods, and humans were finite beings. The end was set. Both The Ice and Snow Qilin and the human he loved knew that fact. Still, they couldn’t stop. That’s what love is like.”

Hearing that much, it suddenly occurred to me that it was similar to my current situation. Was Yeo Yullyeong trying to convey something indirectly again? I listened intently.

“And just as it is with any human life, the end that was thought to be predetermined came at a completely unexpected time and in an unexpected form.”

The prelude to tragedy was always similar.

While The Ice and Snow Qilin was fulfilling his role, commanding the weather from the sky, a band of thieves attacked the village. The man died while fleeing from the thieves. It was a rather common death for a human. Everyone understood and accepted it. Everyone except The Ice and Snow Qilin.

“Before the man’s death, The Ice and Snow Qilin believed he could accept his death with composure. It would hurt and be difficult for a while, but that too would be solved by time.”

But no one knew how a man in love would change.

The Ice and Snow Qilin could not accept it. The weather twisted, and a cold wave swept over the entire world. Rain and hail poured down at once, and lightning struck from a clear sky. Hundreds of villages were washed away. The forests struck by lightning were all turned to ash.

The wrath of a divine beast that supported the world was truly terrifying.

“When things turned out that way, as you know, The White Tiger of Cheontae stepped forward. It is said that The Black Dragon was cowering in fear, but this is different from the truth. He had at that time already gone up to the Celestial Realm to serve Sangseon.”

“Listening to this, I’ve noticed that from start to finish, it’s different from the original story.”

“There is a part that is the same.”

“Where is that?”

“The part where the two fought a fierce battle for ten days.”

The result was The Ice and Snow Qilin’s victory. The real problem arose from here.

When The White Tiger of Cheontae died, all the land of the world that his power had supported began to crumble. If Sangseon, who arrived in the mortal world just in time, had not supported the land with a lotus flower, perhaps all humans would have been annihilated and the world would have ended.

“That is why The Yeon Continent is the Lotus (蓮) Continent, and its shape is also close to a circle.”

The sunken land all became the sea’s domain. The sea, which was originally the size of a lake, became wide enough to cover most of the world. Moreover, unable to handle its increased power, it began to churn and rage violently.

To control it, the young black dragon had to mature by force, and as a result of that aftermath, he has been in a long sleep for thousands of years now.

“A kind of growing pain, you could say,” Yeo Yullyeong said in a casual tone.

The more I listened, the stranger it became. It was because Yeo Yullyeong’s tone, which at first sounded like he was telling a legend, had eventually changed to sound as if he were talking about the chaotic mess at his next-door neighbor’s house.

“The enraged Sangseon captured The Ice and Snow Qilin, threw him to the north, and created a barrier with the corpse of the dead White Tiger of Cheontae, trapping him in the northern lands.”

Yeo Yullyeong pointed forward with his folding fan. To the land of severe cold where the blizzard raged.

“To the very land we are looking at now.”

I barely managed to hold back my head, which was trying to turn away on its own.

“And he trapped the soul of the human he loved in a bead and threw it somewhere in the northern lands.”

But at the words that followed, my head whipped around toward Yeo Yullyeong without resistance. He was still staring at some point in the snowfield with a cool, expressionless face.

“That human committed no sin. But The Ice and Snow Qilin committed too great a sin. Countless lives died. And that didn’t just include humans. The weight of those lives made The Ice and Snow Qilin’s punishment heavier. So Sangseon gave him the cruelest punishment of all.”

The Ice and Snow Qilin, wandering the snowfields in search of his frozen lover’s soul. For a moment, I unwittingly empathized with him and was struck dumb. If it were me, I couldn’t have endured it.

“From then until now, The Ice and Snow Qilin has been wandering the north in search of a bead smaller than a fingernail. Dressed in a single layer of white robes. With his long white hair let down.”

A single layer of robes. Long white hair let down. It was exactly what I had seen earlier. A chill ran through me from the tips of my toes to the top of my head.

“If you saw something, it would have been The Ice and Snow Qilin, still searching for the bead.”

“P-please stop joking.”

I wrapped my arms around my body. Even when I raised my internal energy, it felt like a coldness was rising from within. Deciding I couldn’t take it anymore, I tried to go in first. Yeo Yullyeong stopped me and said he would ask just one last thing. Eager to get inside quickly, I nodded my head, telling him to ask away. Until then, I didn’t think much of it.

“Is your heart still tranquil?”

I couldn’t bring myself to answer right away. As I remained silent, Yeo Yullyeong asked again, as if he knew it would be so.

“Has it not overflowed, not wavered, remained unchanged?”

The arms wrapped around my torso dropped limply to my sides.

“No. It has not.”

I opened my mouth before Yeo Yullyeong could say anything.

“That is all the more reason why I must leave.”

“If that is truly so, then leave from here at once. Do not go to the Imperial Palace. Did you not just hear about The Ice and Snow Qilin? Not even Sangseon knows how a man who has fallen in love will change.”

“Are you thinking that I will ultimately be unable to leave?”

Yeo Yullyeong replied as if I were asking the obvious.

“Yes.”

⊹ ࣪ 💮⊹₊

That day too, Muryun suffered from insomnia. When he tossed and turned and finally managed to fall into a light sleep, an old nightmare was waiting for him.

A vassal discovered Muryun confronting an assassin. He immediately took Muryun and fled. It was right after the flames had surged up.

Muryun screamed until his throat was raw, “No, my younger sister is in there! My Suyeon is in the mother-of-pearl box in my room!” It was an empty cry that no one listened to. All that remained was a pile of ashes.