If You’re a Disciple of Mount Hua, That’s Enough (4)
Chung Myung looked at Hyun Jong’s back as the older man climbed the mountain.
After finishing his praise for Chung Myung in a rough, perfunctory way, Hyun Jong had called him aside and left the others behind. Now, without another word, he was making his way up Nagan Peak.
Quietly following after him, Chung Myung’s gaze settled on that back.
This was the second time he had stared at it so intently. The first had been when he saw Hyun Jong’s figure quietly weeping in front of the secret treasury that only the Mount Hua Sect Leader could enter.
The back of Hyun Jong, who had carried the withering Mount Hua alone. That sorrowful back, a burden he could never show to others, had been etched clearly into Chung Myung’s memory.
But today, Hyun Jong’s back looked a little more at ease than it had in the past.
Before long, Hyun Jong reached the summit and silently looked down over Mount Hua.
Chung Myung followed him to the top and turned his eyes over the surrounding landscape. Mount Hua’s rugged terrain stretched out in full view.
“Chung Myung.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“This is the highest peak in Mount Hua.”
“Yes.”
“Now that you’ve climbed it, do you feel anything?”
It was a rather sudden question. Chung Myung answered honestly with the first thing that came to mind.
“It’s high.”
“……”
Hyun Jong turned his head slightly to look at him. But Chung Myung merely stuck his chest out proudly. He’d been asked a question and answered it; what was the problem?
At the sight of his expression, Hyun Jong ended up laughing.
“Yes, that’s right. You’re correct.”
Hyun Jong’s face relaxed a little.
“I called you here because there is something I wished to ask you.”
Is it starting?
A solemn look came over Chung Myung’s face.
He had no idea what the first question would be, but at the very least, he had to keep this from getting messy—
“Chung Myung.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“Your sword blossomed with plum blossoms.”
Chung Myung quickly licked his lips. For now…
“Thank you.”
Hyun Jong lowered his head slightly toward Chung Myung.
Chung Myung jerked in surprise and took a step back at the completely unexpected gesture.
“W-why are you doing this, Sect Leader?”
“This is not as the Sect Leader of Mount Hua. It is as Hyun Jong, as a man, that I give you this thanks. I have longed to see that sight at least once in my life.”
“……”
“But the position of Mount Hua’s Sect Leader is more important than the man Hyun Jong, so I must ask. How did you make plum blossoms bloom with Chilmaegeom?”
Chung Myung looked at Hyun Jong in silence before speaking.
“It simply happened naturally.”
“……Naturally?”
“Yes. While I was mastering Chilmaegeom, at some point the plum blossoms simply bloomed on their own. I don’t really know why it happened that way.”
“I see.”
“It was just…”
“Hmm?”
Chung Myung looked at Hyun Jong and continued.
“Isn’t that what all of Mount Hua’s swords are in the end?”
Hyun Jong said nothing as he looked down at the view beneath their feet. Mount Hua’s towering peaks filled his eyes.
“That was a foolish question.”
He had thought there must be some secret to Chung Myung causing plum blossoms to bloom through Chilmaegeom. But Chung Myung’s answer overturned that assumption completely.
That’s right. That is Mount Hua’s sword.
Chung Myung was simply saying that he had only gone farther ahead than the others. Which meant that if the others kept training in Chilmaegeom, someday they too could make plum blossoms bloom at the tip of their swords.
Plum blossoms.
If the day ever came when all of Mount Hua’s disciples could make plum blossoms bloom, then Mount Hua’s era would begin anew.
“Plum Blossom Swordsman, huh…”
The words no one dared to speak anymore.
If plum blossoms were Mount Hua’s symbol, then the name that represented Mount Hua’s martial power was Plum Blossom Swordsman.
Right now, no one in Mount Hua had the right to call themselves that. But as Chung Myung said, if everyone in Mount Hua could one day make plum blossoms bloom, then someday there would be those who could inherit that name.
“We’re still so far from that, though.”
“……”
Just when the mood was getting good, damn it.
When Hyun Jong looked back at Chung Myung with a slightly put-out expression, Chung Myung was grinning faintly. Somehow, seeing that grin made him feel a little more at ease.
Smiling quietly in return, Hyun Jong said, “Chung Myung.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“What is Mount Hua to you?”
Chung Myung didn’t answer. Instead, he lifted his head.
In the brilliantly blue sky, he could almost see the figures of his martial siblings.
Mount Hua. Mount Hua, huh.
“To me, Mount Hua is…”
Junior Brother Leader said it before.
“It’s just Mount Hua.”
Now, he felt like he understood what those words meant a little better.
At Chung Myung’s answer, Hyun Jong gave a light nod.
“If you’re a disciple of Mount Hua, that’s enough.”
A warm smile appeared at the corners of his mouth.
“A person may wish only to remain where he is, but the world never simply leaves people alone. That is the way of things. Can you bear all of it?”
Chung Myung smirked.
“If I couldn’t bear it, I wouldn’t have started in the first place.”
“I see.”
Looking at Chung Myung with a smile, Hyun Jong spoke gently.
“If that is truly what you think, then Mount Hua will protect you. I, and this Mount Hua, will block everything you must bear.”
Chung Myung smiled.
He didn’t ask.
Hyun Jong had asked nothing at all. Despite having countless things he surely wanted to ask Chung Myung, he simply said he would protect him.
Mount Hua’s Sect Leader…
Hyun Jong had been born later than Chung Myung, and compared to Chung Myung, he had never made a name for himself in the martial world. By generation or by strength, he was not someone who could even be compared to Chung Myung.
And yet, Chung Myung had to admit it.
There was something in that man that he didn’t have, something a man like him—who had never lived as a Sect Leader—could not help but respect in those who walked their path with such stubborn sincerity.
“Sect Leader. It’s not that you’ll protect me.”
Hyun Jong looked at him with a trace of puzzlement in his eyes.
“We’ll simply walk together. Under the name of Mount Hua.”
Hyun Jong’s slightly stiffened face relaxed into a smile.
“You are right.”
He gave a gentle smile.
“Chung Myung.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“Promise me one thing.”
Chung Myung lifted his head to look at Hyun Jong. His expression and eyes were unbelievably soft.
“Someday, I hope I can hear more of your story.”
Chung Myung opened his mouth slightly, then closed it again.
For some reason, it felt as if something inside his chest was surging upward.
Forcing down emotions he himself couldn’t understand, Chung Myung looked out at the faraway sky.
“That day will come.”
Someday.
Yes, someday.
* * *
Excitement was not something that faded so easily.
Especially not after going through something so enormous they’d never experienced anything like it before. That kind of excitement could dominate a person for days, even months.
The third-generation disciples of Mount Hua were exactly in that state now.
The Hwajong Jihoe had ended, but the third-generation disciples still hadn’t escaped its aftereffects.
“We really won, right?”
“……Are you seriously still not convinced even after seeing it with your own eyes?”
“It just feels like a dream. We actually beat Zhongnan.”
If they had been confident in their own skill and had considered Zhongnan a manageable opponent, it would have been easier to accept. But most of the third-generation disciples had not truly trusted their own strength until the moment they stepped onto the match floor.
That was only natural, since their skill had not been built up by their own hands so much as forcefully stuffed into them by Chung Myung.
Besides, Chung Myung was the sort of person who could make the whole world call him unforgivably unkind and still not blink. He never explained what effect the training would have, or what level they would reach once it was finished.
So of course they’d been left dazed.
“I really have no idea what that bastard even is.”
“Who?”
“Who do you think? Chung Myung, obviously.”
Everyone gathered there nodded in a daze.
As the aftermath of the event washed over them and they slowly began to calm down, they finally started to grasp just how outrageous a feat Chung Myung had pulled off.
No third-generation disciple could possibly not know that Chung Myung was incredible, but what he had done this time was so monstrous it overturned every evaluation they had ever made of him.
At that moment, Jo Gul, who had been staring vacantly for reasons even he couldn’t explain, spoke up to Yoon Jong.
“Sahyung.”
“Hmm?”
“I can’t seem to sleep.”
“……Are you telling me you want counseling for insomnia now?”
“No, it’s not that…”
Jo Gul scratched his head and said, “Whenever I close my eyes, I keep seeing the sword Chung Myung showed us. It’s like I keep getting dragged into it, or something… I can’t really explain it, but that’s how it feels.”
Yoon Jong let out a low breath.
So he feels it too?
Yoon Jong was the same.
Whenever he closed his eyes, the plum blossoms Chung Myung had created kept floating up before him. No, even with his eyes open, he kept thinking about that sight.
At first, it had been nothing but joy.
Most of the credit belonged to Chung Myung, but still, the other third-generation disciples had also played a role in defeating Zhongnan. The more he thought about it, the harder it was to calm the surging feeling in his chest.
But as time passed, the excitement settled, and what remained was the memory of what they had seen.
That sword…
Could there be any other word for it but brilliance?
By this point, even the victory over Zhongnan seemed unimportant.
That sword.
If only he could unfold that miraculous sword with his own hands…
“Sahyung.”
Yoon Jong turned to look at Jo Gul.
“Do you think we’ll ever be able to wield a sword like that too?”
Yoon Jong fell into thought.
Someday…
“Gul.”
“Yes, Sahyung.”
“Maybe this is something a great disciple of Mount Hua’s third generation shouldn’t say, but…”
At that, everyone’s attention focused on Yoon Jong.
“To be honest, I just wanted to grow stronger.”
“……”
Yoon Jong continued in a plain, straightforward voice.
“I’ve never once thought about reaching some specific realm or wanting to show off some particular sword. I simply wanted to become stronger.”
“I feel the same.”
Jo Gul said it almost like a confession.
Well, most of them probably had. Yoon Jong felt a little more at ease.
“But this time, after seeing that bastard’s sword…”
How should he put it?
Yoon Jong paused to choose his words.
He had never thought of himself as bad with words, but right now, expressing what he felt seemed unbelievably difficult.
After a moment’s deliberation, he spoke honestly.
“...I thought that I wanted to become like that too. That I wanted to unfold that sword with my own hands.”
Everyone nodded.
That was probably what the third-generation disciples were all feeling right now.
That was Mount Hua’s sword.
The direction they would carve into their souls and spend their whole lives trying to reach.
Only now, after years since their initiation, had they finally seen the sword of Mount Hua.
“Do you think we’ll ever be able to wield that sword too?”
With everyone’s eyes on him, Yoon Jong silently endured the weight of their gazes before slowly nodding.
“I believe we can.”
A firm resolve shone in his eyes.
“We are disciples of Mount Hua. There is no way Mount Hua’s disciples cannot wield Mount Hua’s sword. If we keep striving without stopping, then someday we’ll naturally be able to bring that sword into being ourselves.”
“Sahyung!”
“Then I suppose all we have to do is train hard.”
“I’ll definitely reach that realm someday. I’ve got a goal now.”
“Yes. I’ll keep striving too. Together with all of you.”
After a long time, the third-generation disciples of Mount Hua began to trust one another and gather as one.
“Even if we lack something, Chung Myung will solve it for us, won’t he?”
“He’s a goblin bastard, after all.”
“And he’ll still make sure we get strong, right?”
“That’s true.”
At the same time, their trust in Chung Myung began to grow and bloom uncontrollably.
But…
That was when it happened.
Bang!
The door flew open violently.
I feel like I’ve told him at least fifty times that you open a door, not kick it.
Then again, would that man even hear words if they were spoken to his ears? He should just yell a path straight through the wall instead.
The all-too-familiar face that came inside slowly swept over the disciples in Baekmae Hall. His previously calm expression twisted in an instant.
H-he’s at it again.
What kind of nonsense is he going to start this time?
Chung Myung’s lips, twitching as though he was deeply dissatisfied with everything, finally burst open.
“What the hell are you all doing, giving each other all this warm, fuzzy praise after a match like that? Huh?”
……What in the world was a ghost doing?
Why wasn’t it hauling that man away?