One Day, Plum Blossoms Will Bloom Across the World (2)
Chung Myung stood on Yeonhwabong and quietly looked up at the sky.
There was no longer any real need for him to hide his martial arts, but perhaps because all those years of training had become habit, he felt most at ease only when he climbed Yeonhwabong.
After staring at the sky for a long while, Chung Myung turned his head and looked down at Mount Hua spread out beneath him.
"Hmph."
He had crossed one mountain.
And yet he wasn’t satisfied in the slightest.
"Still got a long way to go."
He knew impatience brought nothing but trouble, and yet, somehow, his heart had begun to hurry all the same.
The progress of the third-generation disciples was by no means slow. If they kept going as they were, then someday they would become masters no one in the world would dare look down on.
But that was a matter for the distant future.
For now, Mount Hua was still nothing more than a weak and unimpressive sect.
"So this is what it means to lead."
It felt as though a heavy burden had settled onto his shoulders. These days, whenever something happened, the disciples instinctively looked to Chung Myung. It had happened countless times in the past too, but there was an undeniable difference between the way his senior and junior brothers had looked at him then and the way they did now.
"Senior Brother must have had a hard time too."
It wasn’t difficult to push from behind the one who was leading. But even if someone was pushing you, actually guiding everyone was an unimaginably difficult task.
In the past, Chung Myung had thought he was leading Mount Hua.
The name of Mount Hua most widely known throughout the world had been the Plum Blossom Sword Saint, without question, and it had been the Plum Blossom Sword Saint’s existence that had created Mount Hua’s prestige in the first place.
So had Chung Myung really been the one leading Mount Hua?
No way.
A dull ache pricked at his chest.
If he had known then what he knew now, perhaps Mount Hua’s fate might have been different. Not only the descendants of Mount Hua, but perhaps his senior brothers, too, might have been spared what happened.
Those same men who had walked calmly toward death, even while knowing full well they were heading into a place of no return.
"Ugh, useless thoughts."
Chung Myung shook his head.
What was past was past. What mattered wasn’t being shackled by history, but using it as fertilizer to live in the present—and to move toward a better future.
And to do that…
"Above all else, I need to get stronger."
That was the only way to avoid losing everything again, just like before.
Chung Myung knew it.
The martial world was an utterly merciless place.
Righteousness? Of course it existed. Loyalty? Sure, that existed too. But even righteousness and loyalty were nothing more than privileges the strong could afford to grant the weak. Those without power were never given the chance to practice righteousness, and they had no right even to speak of loyalty.
The disciples of Mount Hua would probably think they had already experienced that brutality. They would believe they had suffered the deepest misery during Mount Hua’s collapse.
But that wasn’t true.
Soon, they would understand. They had been protected by this rugged mountain of Mount Hua, and protected by everything Mount Hua had done for them.
But now even that was ending.
Soon Mount Hua would have to step out into the world. And when that happened, they would face the cold mercilessness of the martial world in ways they had never known before.
I don’t plan to coddle them and keep them tucked under my wing forever.
But he did have to create a place they could believe in and rely on when the time came. Whether that place was Chung Myung himself, or Mount Hua.
Chung Myung sat down in a cross-legged posture right there. Then he quietly closed his eyes and turned inward, observing himself.
He could see it.
The dantian within him had grown to about the size of a small fruit. Compared to the internal energy he had possessed in his previous life, it was still pitifully little.
But it was swelling.
Slowly yet surely, exactly as he had wanted, building up little by little.
The martial arts of Mount Hua were the proper way.
A righteous martial path that demanded one climb a steep mountain only with one’s own two legs, step by step, until reaching the summit.
There was no shortcut. Only walking forward, one step at a time, without ever stopping.
I’ll grow stronger.
Not as the Plum Blossom Sword Saint of the past, but as Chung Myung of the present.
He would grow stronger, and then stronger still.
And someday, he would even surpass that Heavenly Demon.
An endless journey, one that existed only for the perfection of martial arts.
Chung Myung slowly lifted his head and looked toward the distant sky.
Did your plum blossoms bloom?
The corner of Chung Myung’s mouth curled up faintly.
"Not yet."
But…
"Someday, they will."
The day would come when his own plum blossoms would bloom from the tip of Chung Myung’s sword.
And when that happened, not only Mount Hua but the whole world would be drenched in the deep fragrance of plum blossoms.
Chung Myung sprang to his feet.
"You don’t have to worry, Sect Leader Senior Brother."
He grinned.
"This is Chung Myung we’re talking about."
It was also a vow he made to himself.
Chung Myung slowly descended the mountain.
"Hm?"
As he made his way down, he caught the fragrance of plum blossoms drifting in from somewhere, and a faint smile touched his lips.
"It’s spring."
Plum blossoms were blooming.
With the scent brushing the tip of his nose, Chung Myung went down the mountain with a lighter step than before. And Mount Hua watched silently as his back receded into the distance.
Even as the mountain that held Chung Myung in its embrace birthed new change, time simply passed on, indifferent and unfeeling.
Blooming and falling, then blooming and falling again.
Enough for plum blossoms to bloom twice.
Years flowed on, passing by like water.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Shaanxi, Hwaum County.
Amid the bustling crowd, a man carrying a bundle on his back entered through the gates of Hwaum.
"...So this is Hwaum County?"
The man.
No, he still looked less like a man and more like a boy. With a slightly bewildered expression, he looked around him.
"This should be the right place."
What he saw was so different from the hazy memory in his mind that he couldn’t make sense of it.
The Hwaum he remembered from the past had been a place on the border between a small town and a city. It had been fairly prosperous, but not the sort of place worth boasting about, and not so poor that it could be called rundown either.
But the scene before his eyes now looked no different from a thriving city.
Of course, in scale it still couldn’t compare to the truly great cities. But when he saw the clean, newly built buildings lining both sides of the main road, and the shops packed together so tightly there wasn’t an inch of empty space, the word “county” felt almost absurd.
Did I come to the wrong place?
The man glanced around and called out to a passerby.
"Excuse me, is this really Hwaum County?"
"First time here?"
"No, not my first time. I stopped by once, about ten years ago. It just seems so different from then."
The man answering him smiled wryly.
"If you’re coming back after ten years, of course it’ll feel that way. Even people who left Hwaum and came back after just two years are shocked."
"Ah… then this really is Hwaum County."
"It is. It’s changed so much that it feels strange, but this is indeed the Hwaum you know."
"Thank you. But… why has it changed so much?"
"Why else? Because of Mount Hua."
"Pardon?"
"You don’t know Mount Hua? Mount Hua? The Mount Hua Sect!"
"Oh, no, I know. Of course I know the Mount Hua Sect."
The man, Wi So-haeng, quickly nodded.
In Hwaum County, if you said you didn’t know Mount Hua, people wouldn’t even treat you like a person. To the people here, Mount Hua wasn’t just a sect next door.
It was pride, it was dignity, it was practically family.
"I actually came here to visit that very Mount Hua Sect."
"Oh? Is that so? Well now, you’re a guest then. Come, come. If you’ve got questions, ask me anything. I’ll answer them all."
As soon as he heard that Wi So-haeng had come to Mount Hua, the middle-aged man’s face lit up.
"What exactly do you mean when you say Hwaum developed because of Mount Hua?"
"Well, it’s obvious, isn’t it? You know how Mount Hua’s momentum these days is soaring like a rising sun, its fame shaking the world, don’t you?"
No. I know I’m from outside, but it’s not that extreme, is it?
But he couldn’t possibly say that to this man’s face. The look in the man’s eyes said that if he uttered even a single disrespectful word about Mount Hua, he’d be punched in the jaw.
"R-right, of course."
"So in recent years, more and more people have been coming to Mount Hua. And as more people came to Mount Hua, naturally more people visited Hwaum too, and as you can see, the place grew crowded with people, didn’t it?"
"Yes, indeed."
"Where people gather, money gathers too. So naturally, Hwaum changed into this."
"...That’s remarkably dramatic."
"Hahahaha! All thanks to the Mount Hua Sect, wouldn’t you say? You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? That matter from the Hwajong Jihoe two years ago, when Mount Hua absolutely smashed the smug faces of those rotten Zhongnan bastards?"
"Of course."
That was a story now known by everyone under heaven.
Mount Hua, once believed to have fallen into ruin—no, by now even the memory of its collapse had grown faint and nearly vanished from people’s minds—had recently shattered Zhongnan, the sect said to have been shaking the whole world, completely to pieces.
People were naturally drawn to other people’s misfortune. And when a once-flourishing sect was publicly humiliated to that degree, there was no reason not to chew over it, tear it apart, and savor every bite.
As the saying went, a word without legs could travel a thousand li, and the events of the Hwajong Jihoe had spread across the entire world in an instant. By now even the children playing in the streets knew the story.
So much so that some people even began calling that Hwajong Jihoe the Meeting Where the Dragon Fell—What Meeting? The Dragon-Fall Meeting.
"It was Zhongnan. Not just any place, but Zhongnan. For Mount Hua to give Zhongnan such a beating, how much could Mount Hua’s reputation have risen? Since then, the number of people coming to Mount Hua has shot up, I tell you. There’s no end to the inquiries from people wanting to enter the sect either."
"I see."
Wi So-haeng nodded.
There was probably no one who understood these words better than he did. After all, he was the one who had come here because of Mount Hua’s changed standing.
If the rumors of the Hwajong Jihoe hadn’t spread, Wi So-haeng wouldn’t have even considered coming here.
"Still, there’s one thing that’s a pity."
"Pardon?"
The middle-aged man looked toward Mount Hua with a slightly displeased expression.
"Nothing major has happened for the past two years after that. They ought to be making another move by now, but nothing’s happened."
"Ah…"
"Well, I suppose a giant doesn’t move so easily. Don’t they say a great roc crouches for a thousand years, then crosses a thousand li with one beat of its wings? That’s Mount Hua, I’m telling you. Oh yes, that’s exactly it."
There was unmistakable pride in his voice when he spoke of Mount Hua.
Watching him, Wi So-haeng thought that so much had changed.
It wasn’t just the outward appearance that had changed.
When he had visited here in the past, there had been little vitality in the town. But now, energy practically radiated from the people of Hwaum.
"If you’re planning to visit Mount Hua, find a decent inn to stay at first. The sun’ll be setting soon, and if you head up now, you’ll end up climbing Mount Hua in the dark. Better to go up tomorrow morning."
"Yes. Thank you for your advice."
"Then off with you."
After the middle-aged man waved and walked away, Wi So-haeng glanced around, his lips parting slightly.
So this is how much a place can change.
Just because one sect gained a little fame, an entire town had turned into something unrecognizable. Whether people or sects, it was easy to see why they staked everything on their name.
Wi So-haeng lifted his head and looked toward Mount Hua.
Seeing Hwaum transformed so completely made his wavering doubts settle into certainty. Mount Hua was not the same as the Mount Hua of old that he had known.
So…
I have to win Mount Hua’s cooperation somehow.
Wi So-haeng looked up at Mount Hua with resolute eyes. At the summit of that rugged mountain stood the Mount Hua Sect.
Mount Hua will definitely help us. Go to Mount Hua and ask for their aid.
I hope Father wasn’t wrong.
Pressing his lips together, Wi So-haeng soon turned and headed deeper into Hwaum County.