So You Say? (5)
Hainan’s weather was fickle. When the sun beat down with suffocating heat, fierce rain squalls and typhoons could strike at any moment. As a result, the people who had sunk their roots into that land had long since learned to treat an ordinary typhoon as nothing much at all.
But right now, Geum Yang-baek, the leader of the Hainan Sect, wore a deeply troubled expression as he stared through the pavilion window at the storm raging outside.
It’s howling.
His thoughts were as chaotic as the scene before his eyes. As the head of the Great Hainan Sect, he ought to be leading everyone through this, yet the burden on his shoulders felt so heavy he could barely bear it.
If only...
As he looked at the trees whipping violently back and forth, he let out a hollow laugh. To think he wished the storm would simply sweep everything away. That was not the sort of thought a sect leader should ever have.
So I’ve become weak too.
No, perhaps he had not grown weak at all. Perhaps the ones he was forced to face had simply become too powerful. Whether that was the Evil Tyrant Alliance or this merciless jianghu, the result was the same.
Knock, knock. Then, cutting through the sound of the wind, came a knock at the door.
“Sect Leader. It’s Im Gyeom.”
“Come in.”
The door opened a little, and a gust of wind blew into the room. In that blast, a hanging scroll on the wall sprang up, then thumped to the floor.
Geum Yang-baek’s gaze fell to the scroll on the floor. More precisely, to the words written on it.
“Spirit like the sea, chivalry like the waves.” Eight characters that symbolized Hainan.
Geum Yang-baek involuntarily squeezed his eyes shut.
“The wind is strong, Sect Leader.”
When Im Gyeom said that while looking at the open window, Geum Yang-baek slowly shook his head.
“Leave it. It will not be as disordered as my own mind.”
“...”
“How is it?”
“For now...”
Im Gyeom drew a short breath and spoke.
“As you ordered, we tried to send the younger disciples back to their families, but...”
“Mm.”
“Just as we were about to carry it out, the typhoon struck, so we decided to hold off until the wind dies down.”
“I see.”
Geum Yang-baek nodded slowly.
For grown men, perhaps that would be one thing, but for children who had to walk on tiny feet, sending them out into this rain and wind would be monstrous. In any case, while the typhoon lasted, no enemy would be coming to attack them. It was not a bad decision.
“Did the children obey?”
“Some resisted, but what else could we do? We had to make them leave, even if we had to scold them into it.”
“...Well done.”
“And also...”
Im Gyeom stole a quick glance at Geum Yang-baek before continuing.
“About the expulsion you mentioned...”
At the expression on Im Gyeom’s face, Geum Yang-baek sighed.
“There’s no need to hesitate. Let us not waste time.”
“...Yes. Of the four hundred and seventy-six inner-sect disciples at the main headquarters, including the elders, seventy-eight have requested expulsion.”
Geum Yang-baek closed his eyes again without saying a word. Perhaps because the wind carried a chill, his face looked even paler than before.
“...Fewer than I expected.”
“...”
“Do the children’s feelings for the sect run deeper than I thought?”
“That is...”
Im Gyeom hesitated slightly before answering. But when Geum Yang-baek pressed him with his eyes, he finally gave in and let out a long sigh.
“The Sect Leader’s words are not necessarily wrong. But among the disciples, there seems to be a strong belief that even if they are expelled and sent back to their families, the Evil Tyrant Alliance won’t recognize it.”
“...”
“So they’ll just scatter and be hunted down one by one anyway. If that’s the case, they’d rather stay here and fight to the end...”
A bitter laugh escaped Geum Yang-baek’s lips.
“Yes. That would make sense.”
“The disciples who want expulsion seem to want at least the smallest chance of survival.”
The two of them did not bother discussing the loyalty or righteousness of those who wanted to be expelled. It was meaningless now.
If the disciples lacked affection for Hainan, that was the fault of the sect leaders and elders who had guided Hainan poorly until now. And if they lacked the spirit of chivalry, that too was the fault of the sect leaders and elders who had failed to set an example for them.
No matter how they tried to assign blame, it would only be spitting in their own faces. What could be said?
“The expulsion ceremony will...”
“Yes, the expulsion ceremony will be carried out as soon as the typhoon passes.”
“The ceremony?”
Geum Yang-baek gave a dry, self-mocking smile. What meaning could something like that possibly have now?
“Never mind. Just let them go. What’s so important about erasing a name from a registry?”
“...Sect Leader, that’s not it...”
“Hm?”
When Geum Yang-baek looked at him in confusion, Im Gyeom answered with a sour expression.
“I wasn’t saying I would carry out the expulsion ceremony. The disciples want one.”
“...What did you say?”
“It seems... when the Evil Tyrant Alliance questions them, they want a proper shield to stand behind.”
For a moment, an indescribable emptiness spread across Geum Yang-baek’s face.
“Ha ha... Hah...”
When the sun is hanging overhead, there are no shadows to be seen. Hainan had been the same. When the sect’s prestige was at its height, no problem seemed to exist.
But in this moment, Geum Yang-baek was realizing something to the bone.
What on earth have I been doing all this time?
He had thought he was doing his utmost to carry on the sect his predecessors had built. But when darkness truly began to gather over the sect, he had no choice but to understand. Everything he had believed in all this time was nothing more than an illusion.
“...Then we’ll have to do it.”
“Sect Leader...”
“If that is the last thing those leaving the sect ask for, how could we refuse even that?”
Seeing Geum Yang-baek mutter bitterly, Im Gyeom bit hard into his lip.
“It is an unreasonable request.”
“Perhaps. But what can be done? We are the ones who taught them this way.”
“But...”
“Enough.”
Geum Yang-baek let out a long, exhausted sigh.
“Elder Im.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“Have we still received no contact from outside?”
“...Perhaps because of the typhoon, not yet...”
Geum Yang-baek laughed at himself again.
A typhoon had only been here for a few hours. Was he really supposed to believe that no message had come because of the storm? No. It simply meant no message had ever been coming in the first place.
His eyes drifted out the window again with no strength in them at all. The dark mass of clouds filling the sky seemed to mirror Hainan’s current fate.
The typhoon will always pass, and the sun will rise again. But...
Would the day ever come when the sun rose over Hainan again?
“Sect Leader...”
Then Im Gyeom spoke carefully.
“I think it may be time to make a decision.”
“...A decision?”
“Zhaiyang isn’t wrong. Staying here and enduring this won’t produce an answer. Rather...”
“So you’re saying an answer will appear if we don’t endure?”
Geum Yang-baek’s voice carried a tired edge.
“You mean taking the disciples and leaving Hainan.”
“Yes, Sect Leader. The Evil Tyrant Alliance doesn’t seem to touch the commoners much, so... there probably won’t be a major problem for those left behind. So...”
“You think I haven’t considered that?”
“...”
“Didn’t I tell you? The ones who most want us to leave this island are none other than the Evil Tyrant Alliance. And if we leave this island, the only places we can go are Jiangnan and the lands of Imyeop. Is there even one place among them that would welcome us?”
“That is...”
Geum Yang-baek shook his head.
“This is not a matter of choosing life or death. It is a matter of choosing where to die. To abandon the place where you rooted yourself, all in the hope of clinging to your life a little longer, is no way for a person to live.”
“Sect Leader...”
Geum Yang-baek lifted his head and looked straight at Im Gyeom.
“Elder Im.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“Do you truly want to find a way?”
For an instant, suspicion flickered in Im Gyeom’s eyes. The slight change in Geum Yang-baek’s tone put him on edge.
“...Are you saying there is a way?”
“A way... yes, there is. There is one.”
“What way?”
“What we want is merely for the name Hainan to survive, and for the disciples here to preserve their lives, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“Then shouldn’t we be willing to endure humiliation if necessary?”
Im Gyeom’s face stiffened at once.
“N-no way...”
“There is a way. A way to make the name Hainan not only survive, but spread its fame across the world.”
Geum Yang-baek laughed at himself, as if mocking his own reflection.
“Surrender to the Evil Tyrant Alliance and bow your head beneath Jang Il-so’s feet, and at least the disciples will all be able to keep their lives.”
“Sect Leader!”
Im Gyeom’s voice exploded louder than the thunder outside the door.
“How can you say something like that?”
“The Tyrant Lord would accept it. No—he would not merely accept it, he would welcome it with open arms. He would become the evil faction leader who has done what no one else has ever achieved: standing the Ten Great Sects beneath his feet. He would likely keep us carefully and treat us with honor.”
“Enough!”
Im Gyeom glared at Geum Yang-baek with bloodshot eyes.
“However much you may have tossed it out as a joke, those are not words the leader of the Great Hainan Sect should ever speak! How can you put such rebellious, shameless words into your own mouth?”
“Rebellious and shameless?”
Geum Yang-baek gave a sneer of laughter.
“What is so rebellious and shameless about it? People who drink and enjoy what others bled to create, who steal and consume what their benefactors should have enjoyed—how are they so righteous that they can speak the words ‘rebellious and shameless’?”
“Sect Leader!”
“...From the start, we weren’t all that different from the evil sects. We were just pretending otherwise.”
Geum Yang-baek slumped weakly in his chair. He knew it was nonsense. He simply wanted to say it out loud at least once.
“So if it isn’t that, then just accept it.”
“...”
“If no one comes to help us, then by ourselves we can do nothing. Our opponents are Jang Il-so, the Evil Tyrant Alliance, and the Poison Heart Rakshasa, Ho Ga-myeong. What can we possibly do against the people who even played the Shaolin and the North China clans for fools? They’ve probably already predicted our movements and set a trap.”
Im Gyeom lowered his head. He could not deny it.
“What are we supposed to do...”
Rumble!
After that hopeless murmur came the sound of thunder, followed by a crack of lightning.
“I believed...”
“...”
“That climbing higher, earning fame, and hearing praise meant I was doing something right. But the truly important things were never those. What meaning is there in all the praise in the world if it is heaped onto a sect that has been hollowed out?”
“...”
“We should have done our duty. We should never have forgotten why Hainan was Hainan. Now we are only paying the price for having been swayed by what we should never have been swayed by. I’m simply... sorry for the disciples who will have to pay that price together with us, because of the mistakes made by my predecessors and me.”
“Sect Leader...”
Geum Yang-baek’s gaze drifted far away.
Across the sea, there would be land there somewhere. And on that land, they would be there.
I should have met them once and apologized in person.
Now he could not do even that, and it pained him. He could only hope his feelings would someday reach them...
Kwaaaang!
At that moment, the door flew open with such force it seemed about to break apart.
“Sect Leeeeeeeader!”
Before long, Elder Zhaiyang, soaked to the bone, rushed in wearing an expression as if he had just seen a ghost.
“What is it!”
“The Evil Tyrant Alliance? Did the Evil Tyrant Alliance come?”
The two men, now drained of color, shot to their feet.
“N-no, not that, but...”
“...Then what?”
Zhaiyang shouted, his face ghost-white.
“You need to come see for yourselves! A guest! We have a guest!”
“A guest?”
Geum Yang-baek was about to ask what nonsense this was when Zhaiyang shouted again.
“Hua... Hua... Mount Hua!”
“...Huh?”
A voice almost like a scream rang out.
“Mount Hua has come!”