Who Would Help? (3)
Im So-byeong kept his word.
Across the Yangtze River like a seal—no, like a dog—and after traveling for an entire day, the Heavenly Friends Alliance had not seen so much as a shadow of a person, let alone any surveillance from the Evil Tyrant Alliance.
Im So-byeong had proven, beyond any doubt, that as long as you were hidden in the mountains, no one in the world—not even the Evil Tyrant Alliance—would be able to trace you.
He knew the mountain paths of Jiangnan so well that he had clearly not stolen his Green Forest King title by playing cards, and thanks to that, the Heavenly Friends Alliance was pushing through Jiangnan without meeting a soul.
Of course, that was only if one could call the road they were taking a road at all.
Rumble!
From above, great chunks of stone came crashing down from a cliff so sheer that even the bravest man in the world would feel his knees go weak and think twice about taking another step.
It was at least a relief that there were no travelers in these deep mountains, where such cliffs loomed everywhere. If there had been anyone below, they would have had no way of escaping a terrible disaster.
But if there had been someone down there, and if by some miracle he had dodged every stone that poured down in a rush, and then, in shock, had looked up—he might have discovered them.
More than ten tiny shapes clinging to that far-off cliff face.
“H-Hiiik!”
Namgung Dowi, who had instinctively looked down at the falling rocks, screamed and plastered himself against the cliff.
Considering the solemn dignity of his position as the Young Patriarch of the famed Namgung Clan, this crablike sprawl may have seemed terribly unseemly, but at the moment there was no room in his head for anything as trivial as dignity.
“W-Why... why! Whyyyyy!”
Namgung Dowi howled as if in agony.
“Why the hell are we going this wayyyyy!”
The cry echoed away mournfully.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
Beside him, Im So-byeong hung from the cliff by one hand, casually fanning himself with the other.
“Please be quiet. Someone might hear us. We’re supposed to be moving in secret, you know.”
“Hear us? Hear us, my ass! I don’t see a single person—heck, not even a bird!”
Namgung Dowi shrieked as if he’d been stabbed.
It was true enough. Beneath their feet, clouds drifted past. Even if birds had wings, what were the odds of one making it up here?
“Tsk, tsk, tsk.”
But Im So-byeong didn’t spare his words so much as a glance.
“And you’re going to be the head of the Namgung Clan someday? Throwing this much of a fit over a cliff...”
“You call this just a cliff? If I fell from here, even Zhang Sanfeng would die!”
“Whether you die falling off a cliff or die from a blade through the chest, you still die the same. If death scares you that much, how do you even use a sword?”
“How is that the same? How is it the same!”
“What’s the difference?”
Im So-byeong clicked his tongue with a faint laugh.
“Anyway, stop looking so pathetic. You’re embarrassing yourself.”
“Ughhh...”
Namgung Dowi ground his teeth, face flushed red, then carefully glanced downward again.
Chill.
In that instant, he understood in his bones what it meant for his knees to go weak. He jerked his gaze upward and squeezed his eyes shut.
“Th-Third Brother Dang!”
“...What.”
“A-Are you... all right?”
“...Do I look all right?”
When he cracked one eye open and looked over, Dang Pae’s face was nearly as white as his own. Dang Pae took a deep breath and said, forcing himself calm.
“D-Don’t look down. If you think of this as flat ground, it’ll help a little.”
“How am I supposed to think of this as flat ground when it isn’t flat?”
“Just do it, you idiot!”
“...”
Then another avalanche of stones came crashing down over their heads.
“Hiiiiiik!”
“Aaaaaaaah!”
The two of them screamed and flattened themselves against the cliff. Pebbles the size of adult fists pelted down just behind their heads.
“T-This is insane!”
Namgung Dowi glared at Im So-byeong again, bloodshot eyes bulging.
“Why! Why do we have to take a path like this? Why!”
“Ah, enough with the whining already. Other people are managing just fine.”
“Who? Who’s managing just fine?”
“See over there?”
“Huh?”
When Namgung Dowi followed the direction of Im So-byeong’s fan, he made eye contact with someone. His mouth fell open.
“...”
“...”
Clutching a rocky outcropping with one hand and stuffing rice balls into his mouth with the other, Jo Geol awkwardly hid the food behind his back.
“Ah, sorry. I was a little hungry...”
“...”
“A-and, well, it’s getting a bit boring too.”
And it wasn’t just Jo Geol.
The Hua Sect disciples trailing behind him were staring at him with blasé expressions as though this sheer cliff were nothing more than a mountain path for a leisurely stroll—like they were silently accusing him of being in the way. As if to say, Look at this guy blocking the path like an idiot.
“A-Aren’t you scared?”
“Here?”
“...Yes.”
“Why would I be?”
Jo Geol shrugged casually. The very sight of his shoulders moving made Namgung Dowi nearly faint on the spot and almost wet himself.
“Well, it is high enough, I guess... but compared to Mount Hua, this is practically flat ground.”
“Come on, once you’ve been at Mount Hua for two months, you can climb something like this with your eyes closed.”
“No need to go all the way to Mount Hua. Even some kid from Hwaeom County could probably play ball here.”
“Can we hurry up already? Is this your first time on a cliff?”
Tears began to well in Namgung Dowi’s eyes.
“...You know,” he muttered.
“Huh? What was that?”
“Ha... fei.”
“Hm?”
“There are no mountains in Haifei... none at all...”
“...”
“Sniff...”
For some reason, everyone fell quiet and solemn.
“Uuuugh...”
“...”
“Euuuugh...”
“...”
In a small cave cut into the cliff face, Namgung Dowi lay there clutching his head. He had wanted to keep going, but the sun had set, and they had found a cave where even birds rarely bothered to enter.
Watching Namgung Dowi groan over and over, the others let out long sighs.
“...The Namgung Dowi of the world has acrophobia, huh.”
“At least he seems human now, doesn’t he? Honestly, until now he’d felt so much like some upright, by-the-book model son that I could never quite get close to him.”
“Yeah. He was like our old senior brother before he cracked his skull open.”
“Why the hell am I getting dragged into this too!”
Ogeom clicked his tongue and looked at Namgung Dowi. True enough, the man’s face was as white as if he’d just crawled out of hell by a hair’s breadth.
“Is it really that bad?”
“...You said Haifei has no mountains. They say it’s all flat there.”
“This is why rich kids...”
“Hey, if you put it like that, isn’t the Acting Sect Leader also a rich kid?”
“Geol. Learn how to make a comparison before you compare. Compared to the Namgung Clan, even the family of a Zhongnan Elder is basically the local beggar.”
“...The one who really came from nothing is Senior Brother and Cheong Myeong.”
“Then why the hell are you chiming in?”
Ogeom looked at Namgung Dowi with a mixture of understanding and incomprehension. He knew the man wasn’t the type to make a fuss for no reason, so he had to be scared out of his mind to act like this... and yet, understanding someone who feared a cliff like this was beyond them.
After all, anyone who was afraid of heights would have been filtered out before they ever even reached Mount Hua’s gates. So in their eyes, Namgung Dowi could only be some bizarre, never-before-seen species.
“But it doesn’t seem like he’s faking it. Third Young Patriarch Dang is white as a sheet too.”
“That one’s funny too. Sichuan’s full of mountains, isn’t it?”
“W-Who in their right mind walks on a cliff face like this?”
Dang Pae, who at least still maintained something resembling a human appearance, snapped in outrage and threw caution—and dignity—to the wind.
“If a person can walk there, is that a cliff? If people can’t walk there, that’s what makes it a cliff!”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. The Military Marquis himself once led an army along the treacherous Shu roads.”
“That’s because he was Zhuge Liang! If just anyone could do that, it wouldn’t have gone down in history!”
“...Fair point.”
When Im So-byeong nodded, Dang Pae screamed again as if losing his mind.
“No! Can’t we just go over the top of the cliff? If not that, then below it! Why are we walking in the middle of the cliff face? Why! We’re not damn spiders!”
“I already told you. We need to avoid being seen.”
“Why would anyone be up on the cliff in the first place? In the middle of these remote mountains!”
Without another word, Im So-byeong nudged Jo Geol forward.
Then he said, “Say that again.”
“...Ah.”
There were. People there. Not just on the cliff—people who lived on top of the cliff and built Taoist monasteries there.
Come to think of it, weren’t those people completely insane?
Im So-byeong said, “You should know better than this. Remote mountains with no people? If you’re trying to avoid people, the last place you should go near is the deep mountains! Why do you think every famous mountain in the world is packed full of Taoist monasteries and temples?”
“...”
“At least Taoists and Buddhists are somewhat manageable. Those people build a place and at least let you know, ‘I’m here.’ But do you know how often someone finds a decent cave, thinks, Great, I’ll use this as the base for a bandit stronghold, and sticks their head in—only for some recluse who’s been holed up there for a hundred years to leap out and wipe the whole stronghold out?”
“...Why would a person just jump out of nowhere like some damn dragon?”
“Exactly my point!”
It was the jianghu that was the problem. The people of the jianghu.
Cheong Myeong’s endlessly repeated line—“There are no normal bastards who carry swords”—didn’t seem all that wrong after all.
“Do you know how much you have to think about just to do business in the mountains? Are there any Taoists or monks skulking around here? Is there some guy in a deep cave, carrying a grudge, who’s been going mad and training by himself for decades? Is there some exiled disciple from a righteous sect sharpening his blade somewhere lofty and out of the way?”
“...”
“And say you finally find a place with no one around and build a bandit stronghold there—then what? The moment some elixir is discovered somewhere, every hack with a sword comes charging up the mountain from all over the place...”
Baek Cheon patted Im So-byeong on the shoulder.
“Don’t cry. Just talk.”
“...Sorry. I got a little worked up.”
“Then you shouldn’t have gone into banditry...”
“What was I supposed to do when I was born to a father who was a bandit!”
“I ran away, didn’t I?”
“...”
For a moment, Im So-byeong was left speechless as he stared blankly at Baek Cheon. At this point, it was getting difficult to decide who was the bigger disgrace to humanity.
“...Is Palace Lord Seol all right?”
Dang Pae, who had been ignoring the idiots bickering nonstop, finally turned to Seol Sobaek. Those mountain beasts could take care of themselves, but Seol Sobaek at least was a normal human being, wasn’t he?
“Ah, thank you for your concern. I’m fine.”
Seol Sobaek answered with a bright smile.
“It was a little scary, but since I came up while hanging on, it didn’t take much strength.”
“...”
“And besides, surely Cheong Myeong wouldn’t fall from a place like this, would he? If he died that way, there’d be no injustice in it at all. It’d be worse than being struck dead by a bolt from a clear blue sky.”
Apparently, they had decided that counted as injustice... What in the world was wrong with this kid’s way of thinking?
At that moment, Namgung Dowi shot upright as if he’d found hope at last.
“C-Could someone carry me too...”
“Lie down. Lie down!”
“Think before you speak. You’ll be mocked for the rest of your life.”
“Think about your late father!”
“Uuugh...”
Namgung Dowi collapsed back down and moaned. Everyone shook their heads.
They had braced themselves for hardship the moment they decided to cross Jiangnan... but who could have imagined the hardship would be like this?
Dang Pae let out a long sigh.
“Anyway, since we’ve got a chance to rest, let’s eat some dry rations fir—”
“Heave-ho!”
Then a voice came from outside the cave, and something thudded in.
Dang Pae gaped at the wild boar and deer that had suddenly appeared in the cave. A moment later, Cheong Myeong strode in, dusting off his hands.
“I’m hungry! Get the meal ready!”
“Meat!”
“Let’s eat!”
Watching Ogeom rush in with delight, Dang Pae squeezed his eyes shut.
They’re the kind of bastards who could adapt even if you threw them into the middle of hell...
Still, at least it seemed they wouldn’t have to worry about starving on the way. One small blessing among a thousand miseries.