Bankruptcy? As If, You Bastards! (2)
"Better to die than suffer! Better to die!"
By the time Chung Myung returned to Baekmae Hall, his face was twisted into a look of utter disgust.
Nothing was in order. Not a single thing.
People said that even a rich family could survive three years after going bust, but it seemed Mount Hua had been too ambitious to last a hundred. Coldly speaking, if you set aside the value carried by the name Mount Hua, the sect was no better than a third-rate faction.
No, not “no better.” It was the textbook example of a third-rate sect.
No money, the disciples in terrible shape, and on top of that, a mountain of self-important nonsense nobody else could understand.
This was what third-rate looked like! What else could it possibly be?!
Everything else was fine. Yes, fine, everything else was fine!
But!
"Where the hell did the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Art go?! You damned idiots!"
Sure, transmission could go wrong. Learning martial arts from a manual alone was far more difficult than people imagined.
In the martial world, it wasn’t unusual at all for someone to go astray while studying a manual and suffer qi deviation, or to misread the intent of the original text and end up weakening the art instead of improving it.
But for the martial art itself to vanish altogether? What kind of joke was that?
Even if the older generation had been wiped out completely, there were still manuals, still history—unless someone had sold it off somewhere, how could this possibly make sense?
"Grrrgh!"
Chung Myung scratched his head hard.
"Where the hell am I even supposed to start?"
“Total mess” was the phrase for this.
"Sahyung. Even now, am I really supposed to save Mount Hua?"
He looked up at the sky, and it almost felt like his sahyung was smiling back at him.
- If you’re told to do it, you do it, kid.
"Damn it!"
Chung Myung scooped up a handful of dirt and flung it skyward before storming toward Baekmae Hall.
"Ugh. My back."
His waist ached from too much horse stance.
Damn it. They’d only been chatting for a bit, and then those bastards made him stay in horse stance until training ended. If he’d still been in his old body, he’d have made them run from the foot of Mount Hua to the summit and back with a single kick.
Still, better than being too soft, I guess.
I'm starting to get impatient.
Chung Myung clicked his tongue.
At first, he had intended to figure out how Mount Hua actually worked and then think about where to begin fixing it, but the more he learned about the sect, the more the road ahead looked like endless mountains piled on endless mountains.
If he had crossed into this era with his original body and original status intact, things would have been much easier. He could have simply smashed the sect leader’s skull in without warning and overturned everything.
But right now, Chung Myung was the lowest-ranked of the third-generation disciples. And not just that—a former beggar, at that. Worse, his martial arts were only mediocre.
Could he really change Mount Hua from a position like this?
"Huuuuuh."
Just thinking about it made him sigh.
Of course, if he took his time and changed things gradually, it might be possible. But the problem was that Chung Myung was not a patient man. If he kept watching the state of things here, he’d end up collapsing from fury before Mount Hua changed at all.
Wudang and Qingcheng are probably improving right now.
In general, martial sects placed emphasis on recreating the martial arts of their founder, the sect’s “ancestor.”
But Chung Myung saw it differently.
The world always moved forward. No matter how much of a genius the founders had been, if countless ordinary men inherited those achievements and studied them over and over, they would eventually surpass even genius-level heights.
In other words, martial arts would naturally develop as time passed.
Even the Buddhist art known as the Yi Jin Jing, one of Shaolin’s secret techniques, was not exactly the same as the version first created by the Sixth Patriarch Huineng. Countless later generations had offered new interpretations, filled in what was lacking, and continued improving it even now.
Yes, improving…
"Everyone else is out there improving while these idiots can’t even remember what they already had."
How could his stomach not turn inside out?
Chung Myung let out a deep sigh.
For now…
Grrrumble.
"…."
Chung Myung looked down at his stomach.
"Tch."
Maybe because he’d lived as a beggar for so long, this damn body seemed to whine about food every hour on the hour.
Come to think of it, I didn't eat dinner.
The others had finished training and gone off to eat, but Chung Myung had been punished and never got the chance.
Then as now, there was no punishment quite like being denied a meal. Few things were more irritating than finishing training only to have your starving body denied even a mouthful of food.
Clutching his empty stomach, Chung Myung stepped into Baekmae Hall. He should at least sort out what happened today first…
"There he is."
As he went inside, Chung Myung lifted one eyebrow at the enthusiastic welcome awaiting him. In the large living room that opened up immediately beyond the entrance, dozens of third-generation disciples were sitting in a circle.
"Hey, newbie!"
Chung Myung glanced weakly in their direction.
"We met before, didn't we?"
It was the brat they’d called A-gul. Just looking at the stubborn expression plastered across his face made it obvious he hadn’t been waiting with good intentions.
Chung Myung let out a long sigh and looked at A-gul as he spoke.
"What is it, A-gul?"
A-gul’s face instantly flushed red.
"You crazy bastard! Call me Brother Jo Gul!"
"Brother, huh…."
Chung Myung tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. Looking up at the battered old wooden beams, he felt absurdly like tears might come.
So now I’m in the position of having to call these tiny punks “brother.”
Well, what could he do? If it felt unfair, they should’ve come later.
"Y-yes, yes. Brother Jo Gul. So what do you want?"
"If you’re new here, you’ve got to do a rite of passage."
"Huh?"
"Don’t worry. We won’t make it too bad. You look so skinny I’m worried one hard hit might kill you."
Laughter burst out all around him. Everyone seemed delighted, which meant they had probably done this several times before.
Well, Chung Myung could understand that.
That was how group life worked. You went through a little initiation, built some bonds, got familiar with each other. The boys snickering around him now had probably all gone through the same thing.
The quality does seem a little poor, though.
What bothered him wasn’t the initiation itself, but the attitude of these brats. They were supposed to be disciples of a proper mountain sect, yet they were cackling like lowlife thugs.
Of course, Chung Myung hadn’t exactly been a saint when he first entered Mount Hua either, but he hadn’t behaved like these idiots.
What, calling him an old fogey?
So what! He was eighty years old!
"An initiation rite, huh."
Chung Myung nodded. For now, it was important to meet their expectations and blend in.
It was annoying as hell, but what else could he do? This was one of the ways to save Mount Hua.
"Fine. What do I have to do?"
Jo Gul snickered.
"Senior Brother."
"Yeah."
"Will Senior Brother do it?"
Senior Brother?
Chung Myung turned to look at the one they were calling the senior brother. Taller than the others by a head, he definitely looked older.
So that one’s the leader among the third-generation disciples.
"You handle it as you see fit."
"Yes, then."
The hierarchy inside Chung Myung’s head snapped into place in an instant.
That one’s the nominal leader, but the one with real power is Jo Gul.
It had been the same in his former generation too. The senior brother held the title and the justification to act as leader, but when trouble came, Chung Myung had been the one who solved it. The seat of leadership and actual influence were not always the same thing.
In that case, if he handled this situation well…
"Take it off."
"…Huh?"
Chung Myung’s head tilted to the side.
What had he just heard?
"Take it off."
"…."
Chung Myung looked around. The children filling Baekmae Hall came into view, all staring at him with amused grins on their faces.
His gaze finally returned to Jo Gul.
"…I think I misunderstood something. No, I definitely did."
Chung Myung forced the corners of his mouth upward.
Don’t get excited.
Don’t get angry.
If he got angry at these blue-tinged little punks, he’d become exactly the same kind of bastard.
"T-take… take it off?"
"Yep."
Jo Gul smiled wickedly.
"That’s how men get close, you know. Come on, strip. Strip and dance a little, get beaten up a bit, and before you know it, your affection for your senior brothers will be blooming fresh and new."
His curled-up lips rose so high they nearly touched his ears.
"M-misr."
"Hm?"
"Hungry 'n want to eat."
Ah, damn it, his pronunciation was all messed up.
Chung Myung cleared his throat to loosen his facial muscles, then spoke with difficulty.
"Well… what about Instructor Un Geom?"
"Hall Leader is training this evening. So you shouldn’t count on Hall Leader helping you. It’s just us here."
"I see."
Chung Myung nodded slowly.
"And even if Hall Leader were here, it would only save you for today. You still have to live here from now on—do you really think you could run away?"
Right. I have to live here from now on.
Thanks.
I did think about that wrong.
"So there aren’t any senior instructors here?"
"You keep running your mouth, bastard. Fine, that’s enough. We’ll start by beating you up a bit. I already didn’t like you anyway."
Jo Gul jumped to his feet and strode over, grabbing Chung Myung by the collar.
"If we beat you up first, you’ll start respecting your senior brothers. I’m not doing this because I hate you. I’m showing you the love of a proper beating to lead a crooked disciple onto the right path. Got it?"
"Senior Brother."
"What? You got something else to say?"
"Tighten your neck."
"Huh?"
At that moment, Chung Myung’s fist shot up under Jo Gul’s jaw.
Bang!
With a sound like something exploding, Jo Gul’s entire body shot straight up toward the ceiling.
Crack!
Then he burst through the worn wooden beams.
Dangling.
Jo Gul’s body hung there, his head completely embedded in the ceiling, swaying slightly.
Just a little. Only a little.
The eyes of the third-generation disciples bulged as they stared at the sight.
"…."
"…."
After glancing once at Jo Gul stuck in the ceiling, Chung Myung turned on his heel and headed for the door.
"W-wait, where are you going…"
Clack!
Chung Myung shut the latch and locked the door, then turned back around with a bright smile.
"You know, in life there are all sorts of things to worry about."
"…."
"And the most annoying kind is deciding where to start. But…."
Crack. Crack.
Chung Myung rolled his neck from side to side.
"Thanks to you idiots, I’ve got it real clear now. Yeah. Cleaning up the surroundings comes first."
He lifted a leg and stomped down on the chair beside him. The wooden seat shattered into pieces. Chung Myung grabbed the least damaged leg from the wreckage.
"Huuuuuh."
Then, grinding his teeth, he said,
"I was still raised in a proper sect, so I do have some manners when it comes to treating my seniors."
At that, a glimmer of hope bloomed in the children’s eyes.
Seniors…
"You better not scream, because if the senior instructors hear you, it’ll only give them a headache. Anyone who screams gets beaten twice as hard."
Ah….
So we weren’t the seniors after all.
Well, that made sense.
"Let’s start by getting beaten up, you senior-brother bastards!"
Chung Myung charged at the third-generation disciples like a ghost unleashed.