The Hunting Dog of the Prestigious Family Has Returned Chapter 75

“In this game of Go, I caught a glimpse of your nature.”

Kim Jungheon’s voice was low and quiet, but the meaning carried within it was anything but light.

My shoulder was still held in his grip.

A firm yet gentle force.

But there was no room to pull free from that hand.

It felt as though a snare that had been tightening around me since long ago had only now shown its true shape.

“I occupied the advantageous high ground, but I left you several spaces you could claim. There was no way out of the enclosure I built, and yet…. with a little thought, you could have maintained an even footing.”

Yes. That was how it had been.

His moves never fully closed around me.

The outer wall of the enclosure was impossibly solid, but within it, I could move as freely as I wished.

Almost as if to say, ‘Isn’t this enough to be satisfied with?’

Seeing him bestow it with such magnanimous generosity, he almost appeared merciful.

Was it consideration?

No. It was control.

A method of granting meaningless freedom while keeping you confined within a larger frame.

Taxidermy dressed up as mercy.

It was Kim Jungheon’s favored method.

“It was always like this when I played against Hyunwoo. That one would occupy the territory I left open within my enclosure and feel quite satisfied that he was no worse than me.”

So even his so-called ambitions were, in the end, nothing more than staying inside that man’s palm.

“But your record of moves…. is strikingly different from Hyunwoo’s. Unconventional. It defies prediction.”

As Kim Jungheon’s fingertip pointed to a spot on the board, my eyes followed without thinking.

His fingers indicated several stones.

Moving from one to the next, his finger traced the stones I had placed, like a seasoned teacher walking through a lesson.

“On the surface, you appeared to keep making meaningless losing moves as though tossed about by my play, and yet within them, you had prepared escape routes to break through my territory. Not content with claiming space inside the enclosure, you were trying to smash the enclosure itself and take everything.”

“…….”

“If I had to put a name to this…. yes.”

In that instant, my stomach dropped.

The sensation of an invisible hand seizing the back of my neck.

“It is nothing less than the mark of a born rebel.”

I opened my mouth reflexively.

I couldn’t let this stand.

Right now, I had to redirect the arrow of suspicion somewhere else.

“That is too generous an interpretation. I was simply….”

“Lacking in ability?”

Kim Jungheon’s voice as he cut me off was almost gentle, but that very contradiction amplified my unease all the more.

“Yes. If you say that, you can get through this moment. Hidden among all those losing moves you played, you can keep that one decisive stone concealed.”

My vision swam.

The pressure? Or was it fear?

I didn’t know.

Only a strange sensation of needing to empty my stomach at any moment had taken full hold of my body.

As if a sharp awl were being driven straight into the center of my chest.

“So let me ask once more.”

The hand gripping my shoulder applied the faintest increase of force.

It was a barely perceptible movement, but even that alone made me feel as though it were crushing through to my bones.

“Do you know? What is going to happen. What variables await us. And are your series of actions preparations for that? If so….”

“……!”

“In the future you have seen, what end do we come to?”

I didn’t answer.

No. I couldn’t answer.

I tried to hold on to composure by any means I could, but even so I couldn’t stop my heart from pounding violently.

‘How does he know? Where did I slip up? Since when? From the very beginning? From when Hyunwoo tried to kill me? If so, does he know about the events that came after too? Then why am I still alive? Or…….’

As if reflecting my inner turmoil, a torrent of speculations and assumptions swirled ceaselessly through my mind.

How should I answer.

What was the right response.

I had to guess what answer he wanted.

No. Even if I guessed correctly, could I get out of this?

Was there any answer at all to begin with?

I want to run. I want to leave this place.

But not yet. I cannot fall apart here.

And then, as that storm of thoughts and noise was shaking my mind—

‘……No. No.’

A memory that surfaced without warning dammed the current of thought that had been running unchecked.

Hands soaked in blood.

A blade flying toward my throat.

My field of vision spinning away from my body, and my consciousness fading slowly out, unable even to cry out.

This was a sensation that, in this world, only I could remember.

That terrible experience of death, long past, cooled the inside of my head, thick with anxiety, to ice.

‘A man who’s already died once, what’s there to be so afraid of now.’

A surging will to fight crushed the fear that had been spreading through every part of me.

‘The mark of a born rebel? He saw it exactly right.’

Then I’ll be that rebel myself, in the flesh.

I breathed in slowly and steadied myself.

Yes. What truly had to be hidden was not the fact, but the intent and the will behind it.

Even if, by some chance, Kim Jungheon knew everything about me, the action I had to take didn’t change.

To deceive without end, to mislead without end.

To struggle like that and survive.

That was how I had survived until now, and how I had twisted so many events and variables out of their courses.

What I, Kim Changwoon, had to do had never changed, from beginning to end.

“…As I cannot guess the meaning behind what you are saying, I will answer at the risk of impertinence.”

When I brought my breath, made unsteady by tension, under control, the tips of my fingers grew slightly cold.

But the fear had eased considerably.

I formed a composed smile and opened my mouth, quietly.

“I believe the roughness of my play stems from my unstable circumstances and the hardships of my life.”

“……Oh.”

As my air shifted and the tension went out of me, Kim Jungheon’s eyes lit up, as if he had caught the change.

A surprise? Feel free to marvel.

The real dagger I am hiding lies elsewhere.

Without avoiding his gaze, I continued without hesitation.

“Burying the true move among countless false ones is nothing more than my own way of navigating the world, learned through years of living. How could I possibly dare to arrange the future itself.”

“……Is that so.”

“Yes. It is simply that my lord speaks highly of my clumsy play. I can only call it more than I deserve.”

Kim Jungheon’s expression still did not change.

But his eyes continued to observe me.

He clearly did not believe my words.

I could tell the suspicion had not fully cleared.

Even so, it didn’t matter.

Kim Jungheon was the kind of man who always chose whatever was most advantageous according to his own judgment, regardless of anything else.

A cold rationalist with no hesitation in allying with yesterday’s enemy and discarding today’s closest aide.

And what I had been doing up to now, however much it might not suit his taste, had not run contrary to the clan’s interests or his own.

‘So to you, I’m not something grand like a threat or a risk. Just one of countless human resources that pass through. Generously speaking, nothing more than a tool that can be put to use.’

To him, I was nothing at all.

And because of that, Kim Jungheon would not treat me as an enemy.

This was not strategy or prediction.

It was a judgment closer to insight, gained from watching and experiencing him over a long period of time.

“…….”

Kim Jungheon said nothing, but I waited quietly for his answer.

His face shifted in subtle ways.

An expression as if drawing back an old curtain, trying to look at what lay beneath.

How much time passed like that?

“As expected. Blood cannot be denied, it seems.”

“……Pardon?”

What is he saying right now?

Before I could even turn his words over in my mind, what followed was an unexpected order.

“One month from now. Find passage from Yeosu and go to Japan.”

I reflexively furrowed my brow.

Japan, out of nowhere?

I could not bring myself to question it aloud, and kept the doubt only inside myself.

But Kim Jungheon, as if reading my expression, immediately added,

“There is a transaction scheduled with the corporate city of Kagoshima. There are reports that the local situation is unstable, so attend as a representative of the clan and handle whatever variables you encounter on the ground.”

“I will do as you command.”

I corrected my posture instantly and answered.

But my mind was still in disarray.

‘Negotiations with a corporate city are a meeting that senior members of the clan attend. And he’s sending me?’

I couldn’t yet see the specific reason.

But there had to be a reason behind his assigning me this role.

And at that moment, Kim Jungheon added a meaningful phrase.

“If you bring this matter to a successful conclusion.”

He rose slowly from his seat and walked to the window.

A silhouette with the light behind it.

And in his hand, a teacup still faintly steaming.

His next words cleared my mind in an instant, leaving it blank.

“I will officially add your name to the succession competition for the clan.”

I drew a sharp breath involuntarily.

Heir to the clan.

The seat of clan head of the Andong Kim. Something I had wanted so desperately in my past life.

Kim Jungheon was holding it out in front of me, plain as could be.

‘Heir to the clan.’

Was this an opportunity?

No.

This was a snare wearing the mask of an opportunity.

To bind me in place. Bait to keep me devoted to the clan.

Nothing more, nothing less.

With a bitter smile, I looked wordlessly at the teacup set before me.

Every expectation I had ever held for this household had already crumbled in a previous life.

The chrysanthemum tea that had been giving off warm steam had grown cold long, long ago.

---

“My lord. It is Gwancheol.”

“Come in.”

The study door opened, and Gwancheol, Kim Jungheon’s most trusted aide, bowed his head.

“The estate’s security systems and surveillance network have been reactivated.”

“Has Changwoon gone?”

“Yes. No one in Joseon will know that you and Young Master Changwoon met.”

“I see.”

Even as he answered the bodyguard’s report in brief, Kim Jungheon’s gaze was fixed unwaveringly on the table in the center of the study.

What rested there was the Go board.

Kim Jungheon was reviewing the game he had played with Changwoon.

“What are you looking at so intently?”

“…….”

Kim Jungheon’s black stones, having claimed all four corners of the board to encompass the whole.

And within them, the white stones carving out a territory of their own by whatever means possible.

The game had played out entirely according to the black stones’ intentions, yet Kim Jungheon’s gaze remained nailed to the board as if riveted there.

How much time passed like that?

“……This is quite remarkable.”

“Pardon?”

Kim Jungheon raised a finger and picked up a white stone from the edge of the board.

An insignificant stone that had not managed to reverse the tide of the game or even create any noteworthy variable.

But to Kim Jungheon, that stone held considerable meaning.

For he had not known, until the game was over, that this white stone had encroached upon his territory.

In other words….

“The boy managed, in the end, to put a crack in the enclosure I built.”

That day, long ago.

Had there been even one such moment since the game with that woman?

The eyes of Kim Jungheon, white stone in hand, deepened.

A single move that had slipped beyond his control.

That small crack on the Go board continued to hold his gaze, without release.