Escape from Repentance Cave (3)
The warden couldn't believe his eyes.
A person was sprinting up a cliff so sheer it looked as if it had been carved by a blade, moving across it like flat ground...
Did that mean the boy's lightness skill had reached the level of Wall-Walking on Air?
But something felt off.
True Wall-Walking on Air meant literally treading on empty space, so there shouldn't have been the sound of feet kicking off the cliff face as he ran.
The warden collected himself and focused on the boy.
Only then did the truth dawn on him. The boy had wrapped a rope around his waist to support his body and was climbing the cliff that way.
But that was just as unbelievable as Wall-Walking on Air.
How had he obtained a rope in the empty cell of Repentance Cave, where there was nothing at all?
Suddenly, something caught his eye.
It was the bedding platform in one corner of the cell.
The platform, built of stacked bricks, had a single worn blanket laid out on it. But the blanket was nowhere to be seen.
In that instant, the warden pieced it all together.
'He made a rope out of the blanket?'
Indeed. Seo Baek had torn the blanket into countless long strips, then tied the ends together to fashion a long rope.
Seo Baek's plan had gone like this.
Seo Baek and the man had each torn their bedding blankets into ropes.
The man had shattered a section of the cave wall with his external strength, tied the resulting rock to the end of his rope, and thrown it. Seo Baek, in the adjacent cell, had caught it.
Seo Baek had firmly knotted the two ropes together and leaped from his cell.
The man had wrapped the rope around his waist to bear the weight and hauled Seo Baek up to his own cell.
Then, he'd banged on the iron door, calling the precept monks by shouting that the boy had jumped off the cliff.
By the time the precept monks rushed into Seo Baek's cell, of course, it was empty.
Even if one tore a blanket into a rope, there was no way to escape the cell otherwise—no anchor point inside to tie it to.
And no matter how long the rope, it would fall far short of reaching the ground.
But Seo Baek and the man had connected their ropes, allowing one to pull the other into his cell.
That was the secret behind Seo Baek's vanishing act from an absolutely inescapable prison.
It was exactly the plan he'd described to the man: possible only because there were two of them, not one!
From the man's cell, Seo Baek had deliberately leaped to the opposite side.
He'd used the momentum of his fall to swing in an arc, racing along the cliff face before launching himself back toward his own cell.
Whoosh. Thud.
The warden was dumbfounded by Seo Baek's outlandish maneuver.
But a lifetime of Shaolin martial arts training didn't vanish. His mind hadn't caught up, but his body reacted on instinct.
Paat!
The warden unleashed Shaolin Fist toward Seo Baek.
The Shaolin abbot had called Seo Baek not a criminal but a guest, so this was paired fists aimed to subdue rather than kill.
But that was the problem.
Even at full power, the warden's skills fell short of Seo Baek's. Holding back made the outcome a foregone conclusion.
Seo Baek deflected the paired fists with a single sweep of his palm.
He followed by jabbing a finger into the warden's shoulder well, sealing his acupoint.
Pop.
The warden froze in place, his face frozen in shock.
"Do you realize what you've just done?"
Seo Baek had sealed only the points immobilizing his body, leaving his mouth free to speak.
"You're defying the abbot's will right now."
"Must I, who am no disciple of Shaolin Temple, obey the abbot's every command?"
"Th-that..."
The warden was at a loss for words.
He had spent his entire life at Shaolin Temple and never once considered defying the abbot's orders.
But the boy before him was no Shaolin monk—why should he follow the abbot's word?
"I have no intention of becoming an enemy of Shaolin Temple. Please forgive my rudeness."
Seo Baek offered the warden a formal fist-and-palm salute.
Then came the man's mocking voice.
"You know who the most infuriating bastard in the jianghu is? Guys like you who beat you up then hand you medicine."
"Come on over."
Ignoring the man, Seo Baek gripped the rope.
The man followed, racing along the cliff face just like Seo Baek to cross into the cell.
The moment the man's foot touched the cell floor, the warden's voice trembled.
"Lee Kang, one of the Four Evils of the jianghu... Did you lure that boy down the path of evil?"
"What nonsense is that? This kid planned the escape, not me."
"Ridiculous! You expect me to believe that?"
"Believe it or not, I don't care."
The man sneered, dismissing the warden.
Come to think of it, Seo Baek realized he hadn't even exchanged names with the man.
From the warden's words, his name was Lee Kang.
But more pressing was the moniker he'd let slip before.
One of the Four Evils of the jianghu.
Just moments ago, when Seo Baek had crossed to the man's cell, even the usually impassive Seo Baek had been taken aback.
The man wore black robes, a black cloth bound across his eyes.
At minimum, he'd suffered severe injuries to both eyes. Or perhaps he was blind.
Yet he moved with a freedom that belied any such handicap.
And to think he was one of the Four Evils.
In all his journeys to Shaolin Temple, meeting countless figures, Seo Baek had never encountered anyone quite so bizarre.
As if reading Seo Baek's thoughts, Lee Kang spoke.
"Don't worry. I got no plans to harm a hair on those Shaolin baldies."
"......"
"You're some VIP guest, but I didn't get dragged here either. Me leaving Repentance Cave won't cause much fuss."
Lee Kang was the type to spew venom from his mouth, but he'd never lied.
From his words, it seemed he'd been imprisoned in Repentance Cave not for being a villain, but for some other reason.
But the warden shot back.
"The abbot has never said to release you!"
Seo Baek replied to the warden.
"This man saved my life, so hold me responsible if there's any issue."
"......!"
The warden gaped in astonishment, and Lee Kang chuckled mockingly.
"Heh heh heh, hear that? That's what they call returning kindness with kindness."
"Let's go."
"Right."
Seo Baek and Lee Kang left the cell and made their way through the cave.
The iron gate at the end of the left tunnel—the central one—was standing wide open.
Though blind, Lee Kang seemed aware of it, sighing as he spoke.
"Iron gates that can only be opened from outside? What's the point when the guards are such idiots."
Lee Kang's words were crude, but Seo Baek inwardly agreed.
No matter how ironclad the prison, it all came down to the people running it.
Believing the boy had leaped off the cliff, the precept monks had dashed off to report without even closing the gate.
A plan exploiting their psychology and hitting their weak spot.
Thanks to it, Seo Baek and Lee Kang escaped Repentance Cave with ease.
"Thanks to you, we've made it out. I appreciate it."
"You did all the work—why thank me?"
Lee Kang's smile didn't seem mocking this time.
"What're you planning now?"
"You already know, don't you?"
"Still, say it."
"I have companions I met on the way to Shaolin Temple. I'll find them first and ask to join forces against the revenant outbreak."
"Hm, companions."
Suddenly, Lee Kang furrowed his brow.
"Number Fourteen was one of your group."
"Number Fourteen... You know Senior Brother Song Hyeon?"
Seo Baek assumed Lee Kang had read his thoughts.
Number Fourteen. The numbering suggested he'd been imprisoned somewhere like Repentance Cave.
Not Joo Eun-ri, who'd been running the inn after leaving home. Nor Dang Ryong, away on assassination duty from the Sacheon Tang Clan.
Wang Yi Sam was a cherished senior, but his skills lagged behind the others, so unlikely to get deeply entangled in jianghu grudges.
That left only Song Hyeon, whose past was the hardest to gauge.
Sure enough, Seo Baek's guess hit the mark. Lee Kang nodded.
"Yeah. We've got history."
"Good history, or...?"
"Bad blood. Heh heh heh."
Seo Baek was curious but held back, seeing Lee Kang had no desire to elaborate.
"Then I should go meet my companions."
"Hold up."
Lee Kang suddenly stopped Seo Baek.
"Leaving Repentance Cave and actually departing are two different things."
"You mean there's an expert guarding the exit?"
"Sharp as ever, kid."
A thought suddenly struck Seo Baek.
When he'd first arrived at Repentance Cave, hadn't he strongly felt eyes watching him from somewhere?
Not masses of guards, but a few elite experts guarding it—he'd guessed as much.
"Right. To leave Repentance Cave for good, we gotta deal with the old geezers."
"Old geezers?"
"Perfect timing."
No sooner had Lee Kang spoken than a deep, resonant voice echoed from somewhere.
"Amitabha."
The low chant swept over them like a wave, leaving Seo Baek's head ringing and ears numb for a moment.
A normal person without internal energy cultivation would have collapsed or lost consciousness.
Even a day ago, Seo Baek might have flinched. But after the Interrogation Acupoint, he kept his composure.
"The rising star everyone's hyping—quite the grand debut."
"Is that about me?"
"It is. But don't get cocky. You're rising, sure, but 'expert' is still a ways off."
"Noted."
Then, a sharp presence ahead made Seo Baek look up.
Atop a withered tree about five zhang high sat shadowy figures.
Not one, but two. One on each withered tree flanking the Repentance Cave entrance—aged high monks, appearing over eighty.
Then a voice from behind.
"Once you enter Repentance Cave, you can't just leave as you please."
Turning, Seo Baek saw another high monk atop the cave's sheer rock face, sitting cross-legged and glaring down.
"If I wanted out, I'd have left ages ago. But I couldn't think of a way to take down those old coots solo."
Lee Kang gave a wry smile.
For a man of such evident pride to say that, the three high monks' skills must be extraordinarily profound.
"In the jianghu, they're called the Shaolin Three Freaks. The one on the cliff is First Freak, left tree at the entrance is Second Freak, right is Third Freak."
Shaolin Three Freaks.
A fitting moniker for the three high monks guarding Shaolin's most remote outpost, Repentance Cave.
Seo Baek turned to each in turn, offering a fist-and-palm salute.
"Seo Baek, junior from Shika Manor, offers greetings."
"Spare us. Anyone who enters Repentance Cave is no junior of mine."
First Freak spoke curtly.
He already treated Seo Baek as a criminal, but Seo Baek maintained courtesy.
"I've come from distant Sichuan to stop the revenant outbreak. I can't afford to waste time here—please let us pass."
"No permission from Mu Hye, no exit."
First Freak referred to the current Shaolin abbot, Mu Hye, by casual banmal. The three outranked him in seniority.
"There are two ways out of Repentance Cave."
"What are they?"
"Mu Hye comes and springs you himself."
"And the other?"
"Jump off the cliff."
First Freak's meaning was clear.
Without the Shaolin abbot's permission, no one left Repentance Cave alive!
"Then allow me to add a third way."
Lee Kang, uncharacteristically startled, cut in.
"Hold on, you..."
"Defeating you three seniors and walking out on my own two feet."
Thud.
Before Lee Kang could stop him, Seo Baek launched himself at First Freak.