If You Get Hit, You’re Supposed to Move Aside! (1)
“So Yak Seon was the one who made the Sword Tomb, then.”
After hearing the full explanation from Baek Cheon, Hyun Jong stared at the box before him, surprise plainly written across his face.
So this is the Honwon Dan.
There was no room for doubt.
Just from the scent alone, he could feel his dantian twitching. And if this box had truly come from the place Baek Cheon had described, then there was even less room for doubt.
Who would bother making a fake in a place like that?
If it wasn’t Yak Seon, there was no one who could have done it. And if it wasn’t Chung Myung, there was no one who could have found it.
Still.
Hyun Jong looked at Chung Myung with fresh eyes.
He matched skills with Wudang’s Heo Sanja?
That might be a slight exaggeration.
But one thing was certain: he had fought that Heo Sanja and had not lost.
“Heh, heh, heh.”
A helpless laugh escaped him.
Could Hyun Jong himself really fight a Wudang elder to a draw?
It was almost absurd how strong he was.
But what truly shocked Hyun Jong was not Chung Myung’s strength alone.
To be honest, he had long since given up trying to understand Chung Myung’s martial power. That much was no longer surprising.
What truly astonished him was Chung Myung’s cunning—how perfectly he had grasped Yak Seon’s arrangements and found Yak Seon’s tomb.
Even Hyun Jong had needed to hear the explanation two or three times before he understood why Yak Seon’s tomb had to be there. Yet Chung Myung had figured out the clues on his own and found it.
I always thought he was extremely sharp, ever since the Eunha Merchant Guild incident, but...
To think he was this capable.
At that moment, Hyun Young, who had been glancing at the box containing the Honwon Dan, spoke up.
“So then...?”
He snatched the box almost out of Hyun Jong’s hands. Hyun Jong smacked his lips at the sudden emptiness, feeling oddly reluctant to let it go, but since he could guess exactly what Hyun Young was feeling, he simply pressed his lips together.
“Th-this means this is that Yak Seon’s Honwon... the Honwon Dan?”
“...Yes.”
“The Honwon Dan that’s supposed to surpass even the Great Return Pill in effectiveness?”
“...Yes.”
Hyun Young stared blankly at Chung Myung.
His expression kept changing again and again in the span of a few breaths.
“Di-did some kind of god of fortune attach itself to you or what? What the hell kind of brat are you that every time you go outside, you come back with this sort of thing?”
Come back with it?
I’m not a dog, you bastard.
“H-holy hell... Are you going out again anytime soon?”
“...”
“No, wait! No! What am I saying? A man who’s done this much for the sect should be fed nothing but meat for three days straight, and I’m already trying to shove him back outside? Come on! Come on, you brat! I’ll slaughter a pig for you! No, I’ll kill a cow! What can’t I kill for the bastard who brought back the Honwon Dan?”
Unam broke out in a cold sweat.
“P-please calm yourself, Elder!”
“Do I look like I can calm down right now? Damn it, the Honwon Dan! What kind of freak do you have to be for me to send you to Nanyang and have you bring back the Honwon Dan? If I send you to the North Sea, you’ll probably come back chewing on a dragon pearl! Sect Leader! Do we have any more errands for him outside?”
The look in his eyes was as if he meant to bind Chung Myung up on the spot and send him straight to the North Sea. Feeling that bright, murderous intent, Chung Myung flinched before he knew it.
“Ho, the Honwon Dan...”
Hyun Sang, too, kept looking back and forth between the box and Chung Myung in disbelief.
How could he not be shocked?
The Honwon Dan and the Sword Tomb were things they had never even imagined. They had sent them to solve the Hwayeong Gate matter, and who would have thought they’d come back having stirred up something this enormous?
Hyun Jong, the first to recover his senses, spoke in a heavy voice to settle the matter.
“You all must have had a difficult time.”
“Not at all. As disciples of Mount Hua, this was only natural.”
“Still!”
At that moment, Hyun Sang, his voice somewhat calmer now, admonished Baek Cheon.
“It’s fortunate nothing happened, but this time you were far too reckless.”
Baek Cheon lowered his head without a word.
“You obtained the Honwon Dan and discovered the Honwon Scriptures; I won’t deny that you’ve achieved an immense feat. But if even one person had suffered a tragedy in the process, you would not be standing here smiling like this.”
Baek Cheon nodded.
Hyun Sang was right. Had they not escaped death more than once in the Sword Tomb? Getting out alive had been half luck.
“I will remember that, Elder.”
“Good. Don’t take it as nagging. Your safety is worth far more to me than some spirit pill.”
That prompted Hyun Young, who had been listening, to snort.
“If Senior Brother says it like that, then what does that make me and Sect Leader?”
Hyun Jong’s eyes widened.
Me? Why me?
Why am I getting dragged into this when I haven’t even said anything?
“F-for now, Junior Brother, do calm yourself.”
At Hyun Jong’s words, Hyun Young parted his lips as if he still had more to say. But in the end, as though deciding to respect the Sect Leader’s authority, he shut his mouth.
Hyun Jong quietly tugged at the box in Hyun Young’s hands. Hyun Young tightened his grip. Hyun Jong shot him a slight glare, and only then did he hand over the box with a face full of reluctant longing.
“Ahem.”
Hyun Jong gave a low cough and quietly moved the box toward the back. That money-crazed wretch might very well try to sell it on the spot.
“Baek Cheon.”
“Yes, Sect Leader.”
“Are there others who know that you obtained this precious item?”
“We told no one.”
“Not even at Hwayeong Gate?”
“No, Sect Leader. We didn’t tell a soul.”
Hyun Jong nodded.
“Well done.”
Treasure brought blood in its wake.
If word got out that they had obtained the Honwon Dan, countless people would set their sights on Mount Hua. Some might even attack before Mount Hua could begin producing the pill, just to seize the Honwon Scriptures first.
If there’s any relief, it’s that not many people know Yak Seon existed.
Most of the people gathered there had been interested only in the divine pill. There had been exactly two who knew of Yak Seon’s existence.
Wudang and Beggar’s Sect.
Even if the two sects of the Nine Great Sects knew the Honwon Dan existed, they wouldn’t charge Mount Hua outright. Still, they might quietly try to obstruct them.
As someone who knew that no sect of the Nine Great Sects had helped at all when Mount Hua fell, Hyun Jong’s trust in them was already in tatters.
But they still don’t know that we’ve obtained the Honwon Dan. If we’re careful and don’t let the information leak, there won’t be a problem.
Mount Hua’s location in the steep mountains proved useful in times like this. If they were Wudang or Shaolin, where visitors came and went without end, it would never have been a simple matter to hide the production of the Honwon Dan.
Hyun Jong opened the box and took out the Honwon Scriptures.
What truly mattered was not the Honwon Dan, but this.
“The heavens have helped us.”
Chung Myung laughed at that.
He wasn’t mocking Hyun Jong. This time, it really was no different from the help of the “ancestors.” If Chung Myung hadn’t seen his matter with Chung Mun again in a dream, he never would have found Yak Seon’s tomb.
“Ahem, however!”
Hm?
Under Chung Myung’s puzzled gaze, Hyun Jong quietly set the box with the Honwon Dan back in front of him.
“From what you say, it seems Yak Seon hoped that someone would become his successor and continue the Honwon Dan, and I do wonder whether it is proper for us to use this ourselves...”
Chung Myung quickly grabbed the box.
“Then I’ll hurry up and go sell it.”
“Hey! Hey! Hear people out to the end!”
Hyun Jong, startled, hurriedly changed his tune.
“I do have that thought! But if Mount Hua revives the Honwon Dan and fulfills its duty as an orthodox sect, then Yak Seon would surely rejoice in the heavens!”
He’d probably be cursing them up one side and down the other.
If there truly was some immortal realm where the sages gathered and looked down on the world, then by now Yak Seon would probably be hurling colorful language at Mount Hua nonstop.
Of course, after getting beaten up by Chung Myung’s senior brothers, he’d eventually be forced to shut up.
Sect Leader Brother. Don’t go and embarrass yourself by losing.
Hyun Jong closed his eyes for a moment as if trying to sort out his thoughts. Chung Myung did not rush him this time. The Honwon Dan and the Honwon Scriptures had fallen into their hands all at once, and for the Sect Leader, that confusion must have been beyond words.
“First, we should confirm it.”
At last, Hyun Jong spoke heavily to Unam.
“Bring the Medicine Hall Leader.”
The pages rustled.
The Medicine Hall Leader checked the Honwon Scriptures, breaking into a cold sweat. Among those in Mount Hua, Elder Un-gyak of the Medicine Hall knew the most about alchemy. So naturally, he was the one who had to verify it.
“Uhhhh...”
Every time a groan escaped Un-gyak’s mouth, the spectators felt their own insides burn.
“Hey, one book shouldn’t take this damn long to read!”
Unable to stand it any longer, Hyun Young snapped, and Hyun Sang shot him a glare for it. Hyun Young grumbled under his breath, clearly displeased, and lowered his voice.
Even for the one reading it, this was maddening.
Being summoned out of nowhere to check a book was shocking enough, but all the while he was reading the secret text, the eyes of the Hyun generation, the Un generation, the Baek generation, and even the Cheong generation were all fixed on him with burning intensity.
Even if Confucius himself had come back to life, he wouldn’t have been able to concentrate under those conditions.
And yet even Hyun Jong, the Sect Leader, was watching him with a gaze that looked capable of punching through iron, so what was he supposed to do?
“Well?”
“So? What is it?”
“T-this is definitely the Honwon Dan’s recipe. The principles of alchemy all fit together. There are a few spots where highly advanced techniques are used—things I couldn’t even begin to imagine—but...”
“But?”
Un-gyak swallowed dryly and said,
“Even without understanding the finer points, if one faithfully follows the alchemical method written here, the text is enough to produce the Honwon Dan!”
“Oh!”
Hyun Jong looked at Un-gyak with visible delight.
So then?
“You mean it can be made?”
Un-gyak smiled as though the answer were obvious.
“Not a chance.”
“...”
At last, veins bulged on Hyun Young’s forehead.
“Are you playing with people right now, you bastard?”
“P-please calm down, Sasuk! I mean, Elder.”
Un-gyak said, sweating profusely,
“Making the Honwon Dan is not terribly difficult for someone of my ability. With this Honwon Scriptures, anyone with even a decent grasp of alchemy could make it.”
“Then what’s the problem? If you’ve got the ability, what can’t you make?”
“N-no, that’s not it...”
Un-gyak let out a deep sigh.
“...The materials needed to make the Honwon Dan are absurdly expensive.”
“Huh?”
Money?
Hyun Young, who had been on the verge of exploding, calmed down instantly.
Of all things, money was the one subject that forced Hyun Young to become serious.
“If you wanted to mass-produce the Honwon Dan, you’d have to sell Mount Hua as a whole. Even if we liquidated every business in Hwaeum, it still wouldn’t be possible.”
Hyun Young’s face twisted hard.
“What the hell kind of spirit pill is that expensive?”
“T-spirit pills are naturally expensive. Think about it. Even Shaolin, where money flows like water, can only make a handful of Great Return Pills, can’t they?”
“...”
“For this level of materials, it would actually be very cheap for a top-grade spirit pill. It’s only because it’s Yak Seon that he could make the Honwon Dan with ingredients like this. Anyone else would struggle even if they spent ten times as much.”
Hyun Young gave a long, heavy sigh.
“So in the end, you’re saying we can’t make it because we don’t have the money?”
“That’s right.”
“Just how expensive is it, then? Mount Hua isn’t exactly poor anymore.”
“Well...”
After roughly estimating the cost of the ingredients together with Un-gyak, Hyun Young’s eyes started trembling like leaves in the wind.
“Wh-what? How much? Uh...”
Looking ready to foam at the mouth and collapse, Hyun Young pointed an accusing finger at Hyun Jong.
“Sect Leader! P-please throw that damned secret formula—or whatever it is—away right now! That cursed thing will ruin Mount Hua! That old man, Yak Seon or whatever his name was, must have been out of his mind! This isn’t a treasure, it’s poison! Poison!”
Hyun Jong stared at him, dumbfounded.
“Is it really that difficult?”
“It’s worse than difficult! With Mount Hua’s current income, we couldn’t make even one pill. To produce that thing, we’d have to sell off all of Hwaeum’s assets, and that would only rot Mount Hua from within! What good is a fighter if he’s a beggar?”
That last line might have slightly offended Beggar’s Sect if they heard it.
Hyun Young was so opposed that he looked ready to start frothing at the mouth.
“Absolutely not! If we try to create one expert, we’ll tear out the very roots of the Mount Hua we’ve rebuilt! As Finance Hall Leader, I cannot and will not approve this.”
“Grrr...”
Hyun Jong groaned.
So because of money again, Mount Hua’s chance to leap forward...
Then, having listened quietly all this time, Chung Myung spoke with perfect calm.
“Ah, that’s fine.”
“Hm?”
Chung Myung turned to Hyun Young.
“Money’s the problem, right?”
“W-well, yes?”
Chung Myung grinned.
“Then it’s fine.”
“...What the hell are you talking about?”
Under everyone’s gaze, Chung Myung grabbed the front of his robe. Then, all at once, he yanked it open wide to both sides. A pile of round, gleaming objects spilled out of his chest and clattered to the floor.
Hyun Young’s eyes nearly split in half as he stared at the things on the ground.
“Hey, hey... moon pearls? A-all of these?”
Chung Myung smirked.
“We’re rich.”
“...”
Hyun Young stared at him blankly, unable to speak, and before he knew it, the words slipped out of his mouth.
“...He really is the god of wealth, isn’t he?”
The more one knew Chung Myung, the less sense he made.