My Dad Is the Strongest Under Heaven
Chapter 21
Chapter 21
Chapter 21. A Parent’s Heart
“Wah?”
What filled Yul-i’s sparkling eyes was a large face framed by a bushy beard and fierce, piercing eyes.
It was an intimidating visage that would have sent any ordinary child bursting into tears on the spot.
Yet somehow, Yul-i’s reaction was entirely different.
“…?”
Her round eyes wide with curiosity, Yul-i tilted her head and spoke.
“Grandpa?”
That single word.
With that single word from Yul-i, Peng Mugang’s heart plummeted with a heavy thud.
Whether it was embarrassing to admit or simply unfair, the truth was that Peng Mugang had never once seen a child who did not weep at the sight of him.
Even his own children, Peng Seoyeon and Peng Seojin, had been the same.
Whenever he took them into his arms, they would wail as though their hearts were breaking.
He had tried everything in his power to soothe them, but nothing ever worked.
So, with a bitter expression, he had always ended up handing the children back to his wife.
Well, perhaps it was only natural.
With Peng Mugang’s innate intimidation and tiger-like features, it would have been stranger if children weren’t terrified of him.
Yet Yul-i was different.
This was the very first time.
A child who showed not the slightest hint of fear before him.
Peng Seojin gently set Yul-i down in front of Peng Mugang.
Naturally, Peng Mugang’s gaze followed her downward.
“Yul-ah. You should say hello to your grandfather.”
Echoing Peng Seojin’s gentle words, Yul-i bowed deeply, folding her little body in half.
“Grandpa, hello.”
Having offered her greeting with what she clearly considered the utmost politeness and crystal-clear pronunciation, Yul-i promptly stretched both arms straight out toward Peng Mugang.
“……”
Incredibly, Peng Mugang could only stare blankly at her.
Watching her husband, Dan Heeyoung glanced between him and Yul-i before giving him a light nudge.
“What are you doing? She’s asking you to hold her.”
“Hmm? …Ah? Ah, hmm.”
Spurred on by his wife’s urging, Peng Mugang picked Yul-i up almost as if shoved into it.
Soon, the rare and wondrous sight unfolded: little Yul-i nestled snugly within Peng Mugang’s massive, log-like arms.
“……”
Having scooped Yul-i up in a daze, Peng Mugang was completely bewildered by the situation.
The tiny child in his embrace felt so fragile that the slightest pressure might break her.
And yet that fragile child was not crying at the sight of him.
In fact, the moment their eyes met, she broke into a radiant smile.
“Grandpa!”
In an instant, Peng Mugang’s face froze stiff.
To an outsider, it was an expression so terrifying they would have trembled and dropped flat to the floor in fright.
Even Peng Seoyeon and Peng Seojin momentarily wondered if their father disliked the child.
Yet his wife, Dan Heeyoung, saw it.
She saw the subtle twitching of her husband’s cheek.
He was currently trying with all his might to act nonchalant.
Yet his eyes were trembling as they never had before.
“Will it really be all right?”
“I told you it will be fine. So do not worry yourself so.”
“Still…”
As Peng Seoyeon fretted, consumed by anxiety, Dan Heeyoung gently comforted her.
Come to think of it, Yeo Woonhwi and Peng Mugang were nowhere to be seen.
In truth, just moments ago, Peng Mugang had singled out Yeo Woonhwi and whisked him away to the Patriarch’s chamber.
Naturally, Peng Seoyeon could not help but be on edge.
“No matter what, he is your father. Would he truly harm a man who has never even learned martial arts?”
“I know, but…”
Peng Seoyeon understood that better than anyone.
Though he had spoken harshly to her earlier in a surge of emotion, her father was a man who understood where to draw the line more clearly than anyone else.
In fact, that was precisely what people feared about him.
Knowing the line so clearly meant that the moment an opponent crossed it, her father became more terrifying than anyone else in the world.
Therefore, he would never raise a hand against her husband.
Yet understanding it in her head was entirely different from accepting it in her heart.
“……”
Dan Heeyoung understood her daughter’s feelings all too well.
Was she not also a wife to a husband and a mother to her children?
Believing that repeating the same empty reassurances would no longer help her daughter, Dan Heeyoung brought up another matter.
“Yeon-ah.”
“Yes?”
“Truth be told… there is something you do not know.”
“…?”
At Dan Heeyoung’s sudden, puzzling words, Peng Seoyeon’s eyes widened slightly.
Realizing what Dan Heeyoung was about to say, Peng Seojin stepped between them.
“Mother, if you tell sister that, wouldn’t Father be upset?”
“Yes, he likely would. But where in this world is there a secret that lasts forever? Now that Yeon-i has returned home… she deserves to know. She should know her father’s heart.”
“What do you mean by that? Father’s heart…?”
As Peng Seoyeon looked on with a puzzled expression, Dan Heeyoung looked back at her and began to speak calmly.
“Yeon-ah. You may not have known… but your father already knew where you were and how you were living all along.”
“What?”
“Your father is the master of the Hebei Peng Clan, one of the Five Great Clans of the Murim. Finding out something like that is nothing to him.”
Peng Seoyeon’s eyes widened to their absolute limit.
It was something she had never once imagined.
Though she had not known it at the time, even Tang Guhwi, the Grand Young Master of the Sichuan Tang Clan, had tracked her down.
Naturally, the thought that Peng Mugang, Patriarch of the Hebei Peng Clan, could not find her made no sense at all.
The power of the Five Great Clans was far vaster and mightier than Peng Seoyeon had realized.
Vast enough that their influence reached across the entire Central Plains.
“Then why…”
“Are you asking why he didn’t drag you back?”
“N-No. I only…”
Caught off guard by Dan Heeyoung’s stark directness, Peng Seoyeon’s voice trailed off as she lowered her gaze.
Dan Heeyoung offered her daughter a bittersweet smile.
“…What parent in this world can truly defeat their own child?”
With that single phrase, it felt as though every reason had been laid bare.
Staring quietly at the table as if recalling the memories of that time, Dan Heeyoung slowly continued.
“He found you, yes, but in the end, your father chose to accept your will. That is why he took no further action. Yet the reason he was so furious upon seeing you today… sigh, is that not simply how a parent’s heart works? His beautiful, brilliant daughter returned after years away, only for her face and hands to be thoroughly chapped, bearing the unmistakable marks of hardship. His heart simply felt heavy and broken for you.”
“……”
“You know him well enough—your father has always been clumsy with such words.”
In an instant, tears welled in Peng Seoyeon’s eyes.
She had believed her father would never forgive her for fleeing the clan the way she did.
She had believed he would erase her name from the family registers.
She had assumed he would never want to see her face again.
Yet that had not been the case at all.
“…Sob.”
Though she bit down hard on her lip to hold it in, the tears spilled over, dripping down one by one.
As her daughter hung her head low, unable even to wipe away the tears that streamed endlessly, Dan Heeyoung wordlessly patted her back.
Watching the mother and daughter, Peng Seojin also wore a gentle smile.
“Vroooom!”
Meanwhile, Yul-i, thoroughly delighted by something, was running all around the room, lost in play.
Dan Heeyoung looked at Yul-i and chuckled softly.
“At any rate, Yul-i is truly spirited. Not afraid of her grandfather at all. Our Yeon-i and Jin-i were so terrified of their father back then. The moment he held you, you would scream bloody murder and wail.”
Hastily wiping her tears at the mention of Yul-i, Peng Seoyeon tried her best to answer nonchalantly.
“I don’t remember that.”
“Mother, why bring that up now of all times?”
As if on cue, Peng Seoyeon and Peng Seojin grumbled in unison.
At their reaction, Dan Heeyoung let out a light laugh.
“I only mean that Yul-i’s reaction is quite a wonder to behold. Hoho.”
Dan Heeyoung beckoned to Yul-i, who was still frolicking happily.
Taking the hands of the little girl who came pattering over, Dan Heeyoung asked,
“Yul-ah. How did you like your grandpa?”
“Grandpa?”
Tilting her head for a moment, Yul-i soon beamed with a bright smile.
“I like Grandpa!”
She was truly, utterly adorable.
The Patriarch’s Chamber of the Hebei Peng Clan.
The master of this room, Peng Mugang, fixed the man seated across from him with a gaze sharp enough to pierce steel.
Yeo Woonhwi.
Peng Mugang had met this man once, long ago.
A complete orphan and a mere scholar who had never learned a single stroke of martial arts—a man with not a single thing to his name.
And yet, his daughter had claimed to love such a man.
At the time, his daughter Peng Seoyeon had been the greatest prodigy in the Central Plains, revered by all as one of the Six Dragons and Four Phoenixes.
Peng Mugang had desperately wished for his daughter, with her boundless and glorious future, not to make such a foolish choice.
Thus, he had adamantly opposed it.
Yet his daughter had been just as unyielding.
The look in her eyes as she met his gaze showed she had no intention whatsoever of bending her will.
Once she dug in her heels like that, she was a daughter who would never back down.
Whomever she took after.
So Peng Mugang had sought out Yeo Woonhwi directly.
He had made his stance unequivocally clear, demanding that the man not ruin his daughter’s future.
Before Peng Mugang, Yeo Woonhwi had been unable to utter a single word, doing nothing but trembling in fear.
A pathetic man.
And yet,
‘Patriarch! The young miss has…!’
Before long, Yeo Woonhwi and his daughter had vanished into thin air.
It had felt as if his mind had gone completely blank.
Never in his wildest dreams had Peng Mugang imagined she would abandon the clan itself.
He was furious.
Furious to a degree he had never experienced in his entire life.
He mobilized every possible means to track down his daughter’s whereabouts.
The moment he found her, he would drag her back at once. So he had resolved.
And when he finally tracked her down only a few days later, he went in person to the small village where she stayed.
And there, he saw it.
He saw his daughter smiling.
Though her appearance was far humbler than when she resided in the Peng Clan, that smile of hers was breathtakingly radiant…
‘Could that child truly smile like that?’
After watching that scene for a long time, Peng Mugang ultimately turned around and walked away.
And he never sought his daughter out again.
Hoping only that she would be happy.
Hoping she would forget a clan that could never give her such a smile, and live in happiness for the rest of her days.
Yet that very daughter had returned.
Bringing her family back to the Peng Clan.
He was glad to see her, yet it did not feel entirely good; he had missed her terribly, yet the moment he saw her face, an immense fury flared up.
That strange, persistent annoyance that had refused to fade over all those years still clung tenaciously to his chest.
Naturally, there was no way he could look kindly upon the man sitting before him—the very cause of that vexation.
It was then.
“I am truly sorry.”
Yeo Woonhwi bowed his head deeply before Peng Mugang.
Peng Mugang’s expression twitched.
