So You Say? (1)
For an instant, it felt as though a lump of flesh had been torn from somewhere deep inside him.
He had been prepared for it, or at least he had thought he was. And yet, the moment that crushed plum-blossom pattern came into view before his eyes, his heart dropped with a sickening thud.
It was absurd, really.
The value of the lives lost here could not possibly be any different from one another. Whether they had fought beneath the name of Mount Hua or under some other banner, the dead all deserved to be honored equally.
So there was no particular reason for the name of Mount Hua to matter here, or for the fact that a Plum Blossom Sword was buried in this place to mean anything special.
And yet he could not look away from that plum-blossom mark because Cheong Myeong, too, was still nothing more than an ordinary human being—one who had not yet become detached from the world.
Cheong Myeong raised his head without a word.
The others were staring at him with expressions that were difficult to describe. Cheong Myeong said briefly, “Bury them.”
“...Cheong Myeong.”
“Tch. Even after I said we don’t have time.”
In the end, Yoon Jong let out a long sigh. Then he began gathering the exposed weapons and bones toward the center of the pit. It looked as though he meant to raise a proper burial mound.
Cheong Myeong did not stop him from doing even that. Seeing this, the others slowly stepped forward one by one and began helping Yoon Jong in silence.
Apparently feeling awkward standing around alone, even Im So-byeong quietly moved over near Yoon Jong and started patting down the useless mound of dirt.
Cheong Myeong watched them for a moment, then turned his gaze away. The sharply rising peaks of the 100,000 Great Mountains came into view.
Sahyung.
Not only the disciples of Mount Hua but Chung Mun himself lay buried here. Cheong Myeong even remembered exactly where their souls had been scattered and turned to wandering spirits.
For everyone else, that had happened a hundred years ago. For Cheong Myeong, it had been only a few years back. If he truly wanted to, he might still be able to climb that mountain and recover Chung Mun’s remains. If he could spare just a single day—only one day of time.
But...
Cheong Myeong slowly shook his head, as though to stop himself.
Pointless.
The dead were dead. It was only the living who clung to the dead in search of comfort.
And if Chung Mun were the one he knew, he would never have approved of Cheong Myeong finding solace that way. If anything, he would have scolded him for wasting time on something useless instead of saving lives that could still be saved.
Cheong Myeong imagined that expression in a daze, then let out a faint laugh.
There was no one here now to chide him as they had in the past. Chung Jin, who had nagged him until his ears ached; Chung Mun, who had looked at him with that straight, uncompromising gaze and wanted him to walk the right path; even that bastard Dang Bo, who had always been whining about something completely unlike him—all of them were gone.
And yet... and yet the memories they left behind, the meaning they left behind, bound themselves around Cheong Myeong’s entire body more tightly than any shackles ever could.
How cruel.
Cheong Myeong exhaled quietly and looked over the people making the mound. There was a surprising amount of care in their movements.
“What a luxurious grave...”
The Acting Sect Leader of Mount Hua, the Young Patriarch of Namgung, the Young Patriarch of the Tang Family, the Palace Lord of the North Sea Ice Palace, the King of the Green Forest...
There wasn’t a single ordinary person among them. And those people were personally making this burial mound. Wasn’t that excessive?
You should count yourself lucky, you damned bastards. My corpse is probably lying somewhere around there, too.
While Cheong Myeong was clicking his tongue bitterly, Yoon Jong finished spreading the last bit of grass over the empty patch atop the mound and stood up. Closing his eyes and folding his hands, he began to recite a Daoist prayer.
The solemn Daoist chant and the Buddhist sutras recited by Hye Yeon spread softly across the quiet mountain.
Until the brief prayer ended, Cheong Myeong simply stared without blinking at the distant peak veiled in clouds.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“...I can see it.”
“At last...”
“We finally made it...”
The Heavenly Friends Alliance party, now looking like a bunch of filthy beggars, let out one moved exclamation after another. The wide-open world before them was blue and vast.
“The sea!”
“Waaah! We’re here!”
“So there really is such a thing as the sea!”
Everyone was so overcome with emotion that they could only blurt out a word or two at a time.
“...It’s wider than the Yangtze River.”
“That’s not even enough to describe it, is it? I really can’t see the end of it.”
“Tch. Of course the sea is like this.”
“Huh? Saje, have you seen the sea before?”
“No. This is my first time.”
The feeling of those standing in the sea wind was impossible to put into words.
“...How many days did it take?”
“About seven days.”
“We got here earlier than I expected.”
“Yeah.”
Now that they had finally reached the sea leading to Hainan, there was only one thought on everyone’s mind.
“We should’ve just taken the long way around...”
“Exactly...”
“...What kind of glory and riches were we even chasing?”
With gloomy faces, they all sighed at once.
Was cutting through Jiangnan a bad choice? Judging by the result alone, absolutely not.
After all, they had arrived at the coast in only seven days and nights without suffering any major losses. That wasn’t merely good—it was nothing short of miraculous.
But that was only how it looked from the outside. Those who had actually forced their way through could hardly assess it so calmly.
“...I’m still amazed I didn’t die of a heart attack in the 100,000 Great Mountains.”
“Were you that scared too, Saje?”
“Honestly, around the middle I was barely holding back the urge to grab Cheong Myeong and beg him to turn around.”
“I actually prayed a little.”
“...Prayed what?”
“I asked whether I wanted to die by my own hand or by the hands of the Demonic Cult. That’s what he said.”
“Then dying by the hands of the Demonic Cult is better.”
Those bastards would probably be a little less cruel.
“...You suffered.”
Listening to the conversation between Yoon Jong and Jo Geol, Baek Cheon quietly patted their shoulders to comfort them. Then he thought to himself, I really thought my heart was going to pound itself to death.
The whole way here, the 100,000 Great Mountains had remained utterly silent. In the end, there probably hadn’t been a safer route than that one.
The problem was that everyone in the party knew the fear of the Demonic Cult better than anyone else.
“Come to think of it, now I’m pissed off.”
Without warning, Yoon Jong kicked Jo Geol.
“Ouch! Why the hell are you hitting me all of a sudden?”
“If you hadn’t brought up that name, we could’ve come here in peace!”
“...What was I supposed to do, just ignore it?”
The whole mess had begun with that damned mouth of his. In the middle of crossing the 100,000 Great Mountains, Jo Geol had blurted out, “By the way, what if that remnant of the Demonic Cult we saw back then—the bastard called Heavenly Slaughter or whatever—what if he’s hiding out here?”
They had all said it was nonsense, that there was no way it could be true, but once something had already lodged itself in the mind, there was no getting rid of it.
From that point on, the 100,000 Great Mountains stopped being “an empty range that had once been the Demonic Cult’s stronghold” and became “a dangerous nest where Demonic Cult bastards who had entered the Central Plains—and possibly Heavenly Slaughter too—might be hiding.”
Thanks to that, every nerve in their bodies had gone taut, and by the time they staggered out of the mountains like people being chased, they were so exhausted they were practically senseless.
If that had been the end of it, Yoon Jong might not have been nearly as angry. The bigger problem was that the region they had to pass through next was Guangdong, the home base of the Myriad Man Sect.
Of course, the main force of the Myriad Man Sect was now concentrated along the Yangtze River, so Guangdong was almost like empty land. But even so, it was still Guangdong, wasn’t it?
“...Amazing we made it here alive.”
“Which bastard said we should cut through Jiangnan?”
“That evil-path bastard!”
“...Thank you for telling me, Young Patriarch Namgung.”
A collective sigh escaped everyone at once. Sorrow and relief were mixed together in it.
“Anyway...”
Baek Cheon spoke as if trying to gather everyone’s thoughts.
“We may have faced five or six life-or-death situations while crossing Guangdong... but if the result is good, isn’t everything good?”
“...Is it really okay to say everything’s fine just because the result was good? I think we need to reconsider that fundamentally, Sasuk.”
“Isn’t a good result better than getting screwed over?”
“No, I mean, that’s true, but...”
Baek Cheon shook his head repeatedly.
“We were lucky. Of course, even the Evil Tyrant Alliance can’t possibly control every single road through such a vast place as Jiangnan, but... still, I thought we’d at least run into enemies once or twice in Guangdong.”
“Yeah. The heavens really did help us...”
“Khhhuuuhm!”
“Helped us...”
“Khhhuuuuhm!”
Yoon Jong, Baek Cheon, and Namgung Dowi all gave irritated looks toward the one who kept fake-coughing. Im So-byeong, who looked like he had been cut in half by fatigue, was raising his chin with the most smug expression in the world.
In the end, Yoon Jong spoke with a sigh.
“That is... rather than saying the heavens helped us, it would be more accurate to say the King of the Green Forest chose the route well.”
“Hahahahah! There’s no need to go that far out of your way to praise me! I, for one, only ever dedicate myself to doing my utmost for all of you. Hahahahaha!”
Watching Im So-byeong flap his fan cheerfully, everyone shook their heads.
“...Yoon Jong. Every now and then, I really feel like you are a true Daoist.”
“Pardon?”
“You can say that while looking at that expression? I’d never be able to say it out loud, even if you killed me.”
“I agree, Acting Sect Leader.”
“Grrr.”
To be fair, there was no denying Im So-byeong’s abilities.
It had been the same on the mountain roads leading to the 100,000 Great Mountains, and in Guangdong as well—they would have been in serious trouble several times over if not for his quick thinking.
“...It’s hard to tell whether it’s a blessing or a curse that he was born evil-path.”
“Pardon? Obviously it’s a curse, isn’t it?”
When Namgung Dowi asked as though Baek Cheon were spouting nonsense, Baek Cheon’s face twisted slightly.
“Just imagine if that man had been born into the Demonic Cult or a bureaucratic family.”
“...It really was lucky he was born a bandit.”
“Right?”
For the sake of the world, too, that was a tremendous stroke of fortune.
Baek Cheon lifted his head and gazed silently at the wide sea.
Still, we made it this far in one piece.
He had to admit that the real challenge started now, but even so, simply arriving here without incident was enough to let some of the tension ease from his chest.
“But, Sasuk.”
“Hm?”
“How are we supposed to get across to the island?”
“Well, obviously...”
“We swim!”
At the sudden interjection, everyone turned toward the source of the voice. Cheong Myeong was standing with one leg cocked, looking at them from the side as if to say, “Why are you even asking something so obvious?”
“Is there some other way to cross water?”
“...Cheong Myeong. It’s an island. An island.”
“So what if it’s an island? What, is the island going to float away or something? It’s there, isn’t it? If you keep swimming, you’ll get there someday.”
Namgung Dowi looked weakly at Im So-byeong.
“Please, King of the Green Forest. Can you refute that logically?”
“...This one’s difficult even for me. I can’t even figure out where to start arguing.”
“No, but still...”
“You can’t even fight back unless the words make sense...”
Watching the bewildered Im So-byeong, Namgung Dowi sighed over and over again.
Then, at last, salvation was sent to them.
“Stop spouting useless nonsense and find us a boat.”
“No, why bother...”
“Enough.”
Baek Cheon cut Cheong Myeong off flatly.
“Even if something goes wrong and we end up swimming part of the way, it’s better to conserve our strength as much as possible at first. We don’t need a large vessel since there are so few of us, and if it’s just a small fishing boat, it shouldn’t take long to secure one. Let’s get a boat first.”
Cheong Myeong puffed out his lips. But perhaps because he considered it the decision of the Acting Sect Leader, he did not argue further.
“Fine. Then let’s split up and look for a boat. But keep your identities hidden as much as possible.”
“Yes!”
After exchanging glances, they scattered from that spot.
Baek Cheon, the last one left behind, fixed his gaze on the tiny patch of land that looked no bigger than a dot in the distance.
Hainan...
For now, the first thing was simply to reach that place.