I Have to Eat That Even If It Kills Me! (3)
"...He still hasn’t come back?"
"...."
"Shouldn’t we go look for him now?"
Baek Cheon’s eyebrows twitched.
"Yoon Jong."
"Yes, Sasuk."
"And just where do you think that bastard went?"
"He clearly went after the Wudang bastards, didn’t he? If so, couldn’t we just follow the road toward Wudang and run into him?"
"And if we follow him, can we stop him?"
"...."
There was no answer to that.
Stop him. Stop him, he said...
That Chung Myung?
Baek Cheon shook his head.
"It might actually be better to wait. My stomach turns just imagining the trouble he’ll bring back with him, but if I have to watch him cause trouble right in front of me, I might actually explode."
"...Understood."
But waiting blindly wasn’t exactly a human thing to do, either. The longer time dragged on, the more their unease grew. Experience had taught them that the longer Chung Myung stayed gone, the bigger the disaster he was probably dragging toward them.
Baek Cheon let out a long sigh.
"What sin did I commit in my past life to take in a man like that as my martial nephew..."
Of course, from an objective standpoint, Chung Myung’s existence had brought Mount Hua tremendous benefits.
Not only had he turned Mount Zhongnan upside down and earned them massive renown, but Mount Hua’s second- and third-generation disciples had also improved at an absurd, almost unbelievable pace thanks to him.
If Baek Cheon had to choose between a Mount Hua with Chung Myung and one without him, he would choose the one with Chung Myung while swallowing his tears.
But that was only when thinking rationally. The moment he became the one getting harshly put through the wringer by Chung Myung, it wasn’t easy to say anything nice.
"Still, surely he didn’t cause anything too huge, right?"
At Jo Gul’s words, Baek Cheon and Yoon Jong stared blankly at him. Jo Gul flinched under their gazes and waved his hands in defense.
"N-no, I’m not saying he doesn’t cause trouble... I mean, only trouble he can handle, right? So far, he’s never caused a mess he couldn’t clean up afterward."
"...And what about the suffering we go through while he’s cleaning it up?"
"Uh... um."
Jo Gul lowered his eyes.
He had plenty he wanted to say, but this was not the time to say it.
That guy doesn’t just cause trouble for no reason.
Coming from a merchant family, Jo Gul was sensitive to profit and loss. One thing he had learned from watching Chung Myung all this time was that whenever Chung Myung caused trouble, there was always a reason.
To everyone else, it might look absurd, but whenever Chung Myung stirred things up, he or Mount Hua always came away with enormous gains. So it wasn’t as though they absolutely had to stop him every single time...
Jo Gul let out a low sigh.
Looking at Baek Cheon and Yoon Jong’s half-rotted faces, he couldn’t bring himself to say that aloud. Well, profit or no profit, if you were about to die on the spot, would any of that still matter?
Even if they knew there was a gain in it, if they thought about the pain they would have to endure before that gain returned to them, their feelings were entirely understandable. In fact, Jo Gul himself was already inclined to refuse.
Still.
Jo Gul turned his gaze slightly.
Yu I-seol, seated at one side of the table and drinking tea, came into view.
She really is an unusual person.
Yu I-seol was the person who had changed the most over the past two years, and at the same time the one who had not changed at all.
The fact that the usually indifferent Yu I-seol showed boundless interest in Chung Myung was certainly an enormous change. But that still didn’t mean her relationship with the other disciples had improved.
She showed a different side only when dealing with Chung Myung.
Strange, really.
Jo Gul considered that, in his own way, a pretty good change.
Over the past two years, Yu I-seol had become twice as beautiful as before, and if someone like that were to smile brightly around them all the time, Mount Hua would turn upside down.
With Chung Myung around, it was obvious that if he slacked off training just to linger near Yu I-seol, he’d get his head cracked open—but there was no stopping his heart from wandering where it wanted.
Even now, that was the case.
Ever since Chung Myung left, Yu I-seol hadn’t said a single word. She didn’t go off alone elsewhere out of courtesy to her martial siblings, but she didn’t really react to anything either.
She simply kept her eyes fixed on the door and passed the time. She was probably waiting for Chung Myung to come back.
"Ah..."
At that moment, Yu I-seol’s lips parted slightly.
Jo Gul’s gaze instinctively shot to the door. And, as always—
Kwaaaang!
The door flew open to the left and right as if it had been smashed apart.
At the same time, Yoon Jong’s eye twitched.
I must have told him three hundred times that doors are opened, not kicked in!
Then again, if that bastard actually listened, he wouldn’t be Chung Myung.
"Chung Myung!"
"Y-You little bastard! What kind of trouble did you bring back this time? Spit it out!"
Explosive reactions burst out.
But the Mount Hua disciples inside the room quickly realized that Chung Myung was different from usual. Normally, he would have barged in and started running his mouth the moment he entered, but now he had come rushing straight toward them without a single word.
"Hm?"
Just as everyone’s faces began to stiffen, Chung Myung shouted in urgency.
"Gather up! Gather here! Quickly!"
You’re already gathered, idiot.
While everyone stared at him in a daze, Chung Myung practically lunged at the table and flung something out of his sleeve.
"Hm?"
Baek Cheon narrowed his eyes as he looked at the drawing Chung Myung had thrown onto the table.
"What is this?"
"A treasure map."
"A treasure map? It looks like it’s been encoded with some kind of cipher."
"Yeah."
Baek Cheon tilted his head and asked, "What about it?"
"We need to decipher it."
"This?"
"Yeah."
"Who?"
"Who do you think? Obviously you, Sasuk, and the others!"
Baek Cheon’s eyebrows started twitching violently.
He had gone off to beat up the Wudang bastards, then came back with some weird picture covered in code. And now he was telling them to decipher it from this very moment?
Baek Cheon looked at Chung Myung with a sour face and said, "First explain exactly what the hell is going on."
"Tch. I’m busy. I’ll only say this once, so listen properly!"
Chung Myung quickly explained everything that had happened since he left.
"...Yakseon’s tomb?"
"That’s right."
"The Yakseon from two hundred years ago?"
"That’s what I’m saying."
"So this treasure map points to Yakseon’s tomb, and you... uh, you..."
He had beaten up Qingliu Sword and taken it from him?
Qingliu Sword, one of the Wudang Three Swords?
Baek Cheon’s cheek twitched.
What the hell is wrong with this bastard’s brain?
At this point, it wasn’t even surprising that Chung Myung had crushed Qingliu Sword.
Of course, the fact that a third-generation disciple of Mount Hua had defeated a first-generation disciple of Wudang—one of the very best among them, a man prominent enough to be called one of the Wudang Three Swords—without even a scratch was more than enough to be shocking.
But Baek Cheon had already decided not to be surprised by the things Chung Myung did anymore.
The real problem was what came next.
"So... you stole this from Qingliu Sword?"
"Yeah."
"From Wudang’s Qingliu Sword?"
"Ah, why do you keep making me repeat myself? I said yes!"
As Chung Myung barked back, Baek Cheon finally lost what little patience he had left and exploded.
"You crazy bastard! What the hell were you thinking, robbing the Wudang Sect like that? How do you plan to deal with the aftermath? Those bastards are going to come running here with veins bulging in their foreheads, that’s how obvious this is!"
"It’s fine, it’s fine. They won’t know it was me. I wore a mask."
"You think they won’t recognize you just because you wore a mask? What kind of hole do you think their eyes are, anyway? Are they all blind?"
Everyone looked at Chung Myung with miserable expressions.
Wudang.
One of the two great sects leading the world alongside Shaolin. Their influence extended far beyond Hubei and spread across all under heaven, and their strength reached the heavens themselves.
Just by considering the number of their disciples and experts, it was not a place Mount Hua could hope to handle. If Wudang truly made up its mind and went on the warpath, Mount Hua would be crushed in an instant.
Maybe in the future, but not now. Right now, they absolutely could not afford to make enemies of Wudang.
Just protecting Hwayeong Gate had already been a tremendous burden, and now what? He stole something? Something belonging to Wudang?
I’d rather rip the emperor’s nose hairs out!
This was a disaster of enormous proportions.
Baek Cheon had no idea how to clean this up, and just as that thought flashed through his mind, Chung Myung’s indifferent voice drifted into his ear.
"That’s not the important part!"
"If that’s not important, then..."
"Sasuk."
"What?"
Chung Myung cut Baek Cheon off with a firm voice.
"Then should I give it back?"
"...."
Baek Cheon closed his mouth.
"Can you really pass up something like this? Huh?"
"...."
Baek Cheon’s eyes drifted to the treasure map on the table.
Yakseon’s tomb.
If the formula for Honwon Dan existed inside that tomb, could they really abandon it and hand it over to someone else?
Wow. This is poison.
If they swallowed it, they would absolutely become addicted. But it was the sort of poison they had no choice but to swallow.
"Think about it properly. If you live your whole life only doing safe things, you’ll spend your entire life trapped in that same miserable state! Sometimes you’ve gotta stop thinking front and back and just throw yourself in. That’s what gambling is for! Don’t get dragged around by this and that—if you’re going to gamble, then gamble properly and put everything on the line!"
"And ruin yourself."
"...Uh. Usually, yeah, right?"
"...."
Chung Myung flinched, then insisted even harder.
"But if you want a chance at sudden fortune, you have to gamble to get it. This is something we have to eat even if we die! Isn’t that right?"
"Grrrnnn..."
Baek Cheon scratched his head furiously.
Dammit.
He wasn’t wrong.
This was a gamble worth taking with the fate of the sect itself on the line. If Mount Hua could obtain the formula for Honwon Dan, it might even solve their chronic internal energy problem.
What was Mount Hua’s real problem?
The martial arts of the senior generation were weak, and it took time for the younger generations to grow. Even if Mount Hua’s second- and third-generation disciples were absurdly strong compared to others of their age, that was only when compared among their peers.
No matter how strong Baek Cheon was, could he stand against a Wudang elder?
To reach that level would take at least thirty years, maybe more. More than anything else, they simply lacked the internal energy to support them. Their reserves were not exactly pitiful, but compared to the disciples of great orthodox sects who had grown up swallowing all kinds of excellent elixirs, the difference was glaring.
And the gap may only get wider from here.
But if it was Honwon Dan, it might solve all those potential problems in one shot.
"Grrrrrrn!"
Baek Cheon scrubbed at his face over and over again.
If Chung Myung had brought them something completely ridiculous and unbelievable, he could have cursed him all he wanted.
But this was bait they simply could not ignore. The backlash would be enormous, and if they handled it badly, Mount Hua could be turned upside down... but...
Baek Cheon’s eyes turned bloodshot.
"Damn it, how the hell am I supposed to ignore this? Shit!"
Jo Gul immediately bit the bait with lightning speed.
"Let’s do it, Sasuk!"
"You just shut up for a sec..."
"We don’t have time to hesitate! Even now, the Wudang bastards are probably already running back to their main sect. If they bring reinforcements, it’s all over. We have to eat it and run before that happens, even if we die!"
Yoon Jong also fell silent at those words.
Still in confusion, Yoon Jong looked at Baek Cheon. The only person here who could make the decision was Baek Cheon.
Baek Cheon’s eyes began to gleam.
"Chung Myung."
"Yeah, Sasuk."
"...So all we have to do is decipher it? Nothing else will go wrong after we crack it, like traps or mechanisms?"
"Exactly! All we have to do is decipher it! After that, I’ll break through whatever’s there."
"You’re sure?"
"Sasuk! I’m Chung Myung! What the hell kind of question is that?"
"...So that’s how it is?"
An immense brilliance flared in Baek Cheon’s eyes.
"Damn it, I’m a man too! I can’t just hand this over neatly to Wudang! Even if the sect leader smashes my skull in, I’m doing this!"
Baek Cheon snapped his head around.
"Yoon Jong! Jo Gul! Yu Sago!"
"Yes, Sasuk!"
"Move! We crack this thing tonight by any means necessary! It’s do-or-die now!"
"Yes!"
The eyes of Mount Hua’s disciples began to burn.
Over the past two years, Chung Myung had definitely warped them.
"We eat it and run before the Wudang bastards get here! Honwon Dan! It’s Honwon Dan!"
"Honwon Dan!"
"Honwon Dan!"
Yoon Jong and Jo Gul, both desperate for internal energy, stared fixedly at the treasure map with bloodshot eyes.
Watching that scene, Chung Myung wore a pleased smile.
Kek, they grew up well. Right, Sekt Leader Senior Brother?
...You damned...
Ah. I can’t hear the rest today for some reason.
Before anyone knew it, Chung Myung had completely dyed the disciples of Mount Hua in his own color.