Did You Say Mount Hua? (5)
“What brings you here so early in the morning?”
At Hyun Sang’s question, Hyun Jong smiled faintly.
“I can’t seem to sleep well.”
“Because of the children?”
“Yes.”
Hyun Jong let out a quiet sigh.
“I sent the children all the way to that distant and dangerous place, and I can’t help feeling uneasy. I know, as Hyun Young said, that it is for their sake, and for Mount Hua’s future, but…”
“That’s just how people are. If the heart always bent to reason, would it still be the human heart?”
“Yes. I suppose not.”
Hyun Jong could not hide the bitterness in his expression.
I’m the one meant to guide them, yet because I’m so lacking, I can’t even lead them properly.
That was the regret that remained lodged deep in his chest.
Mount Hua was improving day by day with Chung Myung’s arrival, but the driving force behind that progress had been the children alone.
As Mount Hua’s elder, it sometimes saddened Hyun Jong that he could do nothing more than stand behind them and cheer them on, instead of guiding them himself.
Then Hyun Sang spoke in a quiet but firm voice.
“Sect Leader, you should trust the children.”
When Hyun Jong turned to look at him, Hyun Sang smiled.
“Didn’t that fellow Hyun Young say it himself? That those kids are better than we are. I don’t think he was wrong. When I first heard it, I thought it was absurd, but if you think about it, isn’t it all true?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“All we need to do is become the ground they can return to. The earth does nothing but embrace.”
Hyun Jong nodded slowly. But his face did not brighten so easily.
“Even so, I still worry. It’s their first time going to such a distant place.”
Just then—
“S-Sect Leader!”
From the distance, Hyun Young came hurrying over, eyes wide with alarm.
“Why are you running around so frantically this early in the morning?”
“T-there’s been a disaster! Sect Leader! A disaster! A d-disaster! No, I mean it, it’s really a disaster!”
Hyun Jong’s expression hardened.
Hyun Young could be flippant at times, but he was not the sort to lose his composure like this. If he was making such a fuss, then something truly terrible had happened.
“What happened? Explain it so I can understand!”
“D-Dang! The Dang Family!”
“The Dang Family?”
“The family head! The family head has come to visit! He’s at the mountain gate right now!”
At the utterly unexpected news, Hyun Jong’s eyes seemed ready to bulge from their sockets.
“Who? Who did you say came?”
“The head of the Sichuan Tang Family has come to see the Sect Leader!”
The family head?
Why would the family head come out of nowhere?
“Th-there’s no time to lose!”
“Right. Of course not!”
Hyun Jong hurried off at once.
He raced straight to the mountain gate, and there, waiting by the entrance, he found Tang Gun-ak. Without hesitation, Hyun Jong raised his fists in salute.
No—he tried to.
Before he could even do that, Tang Gun-ak had already politely clasped his hands and bowed.
“Tang Gun-ak, head of the Sichuan Tang Family, greets the Sect Leader of Mount Hua.”
Hyun Jong froze, then opened his mouth.
The head of the Sichuan Tang Family.
He was in no way beneath Hyun Jong in status.
If Mount Hua of old had been stronger than the Tang Family head, the current Mount Hua was nowhere near a place that could be compared to Sichuan Tang Family.
How could Mount Hua, expelled from the Nine Sects and One Gang, possibly be equal to the Tang Family—one of the Five Great Families and the ruler of Sichuan?
Tang Gun-ak could not possibly be unaware of that fact, and yet here he was, greeting Hyun Jong with the utmost courtesy.
When Hyun Jong looked at him helplessly, Hyun Young jabbed him lightly in the side.
“Ah? Ah!”
Snapping back to his senses a little late, Hyun Jong quickly returned the salute.
“I, Hyun Jong, Sect Leader of Mount Hua, greet the head of the Sichuan Tang Family.”
Once the greetings were finished, Tang Gun-ak raised his head and smiled lightly.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Sect Leader. Please do not blame me too harshly for arriving without advance notice.”
“What are you saying? For the head of the Sichuan Tang Family to come in person, I’m so startled I can’t think straight.”
“I appreciate the hospitality.”
“B-but what brings you here?”
Tang Gun-ak looked calmly at Hyun Jong and spoke.
“The disciples of Mount Hua came to the Tang Family.”
“...Pardon?”
“The Tang Family received a great favor from them, and we have decided to form bonds of friendship with them. Naturally, that means we should come to Mount Hua and discuss the future, does it not?”
“F-friendship, you say?”
Friendship? Friends?
Those brats from Mount Hua became friends with the Tang Family?
Hyun Jong stared at Tang Gun-ak, completely dumbfounded.
The word “friendship” had been used where “alliance” would have made sense. That meant the Tang Family head wanted something more than a mere alliance with Mount Hua.
“Th-that means…”
Hyun Young jabbed Hyun Jong in the side again.
“Mm?”
Still not catching on, Hyun Jong remained bewildered. Hyun Young quietly stepped half a pace forward.
“It would be rude to leave an honored guest standing at the mountain gate. I’ll guide you to the guest hall.”
“R-right! The guest hall! To the guest hall!”
Tang Gun-ak smiled gently.
“You needn’t be so flustered, Sect Leader. I truly came because I wanted to build a good relationship with Mount Hua. Nothing else. As proof of that…”
Tang Gun-ak turned his head.
“Introduce yourself, Soso.”
Dang Soso bowed deeply on the spot.
“Dang Soso, daughter of the Sichuan Tang Family, greets the Sect Leader of Mount Hua. I have left the Tang Family and wish to enter Mount Hua as a disciple, so I beg you to take pity on me and not cast me out.”
“E-enter as a disciple?”
Why was she here?
Hyun Jong’s face was a map of confusion and astonishment. Tang Gun-ak simply said, with perfect calm,
“She is my daughter.”
So why is your daughter here?
Unable to make sense of the situation, Hyun Jong heard a voice laced with amusement beside him.
“No matter how you look at it, that Chung Myung brat has probably done something again.”
“Exactly.”
“Ah…”
Only after hearing Hyun Young and Tang Gun-ak’s exchange did Hyun Jong finally nod.
If there was something impossible to understand, all one had to do was insert the two words “Chung Myung.”
“We can discuss the details inside.”
“Very well.”
“This way, please.”
Hyun Young courteously led Tang Gun-ak inside.
Even after Tang Gun-ak and Hyun Young had gone a good distance toward the guest hall, Hyun Jong still stood there with his mouth hanging open.
Then Hyun Sang spoke in a voice tinged with laughter.
“See? Those are our children. Didn’t I say they’d handle it themselves?”
“...”
“No doubt they’re doing well even in Yunnan. Those children aren’t ordinary, after all.”
At those words, thick with pride, Hyun Jong nodded vigorously, his face alight with emotion.
“Yes. Of course. Of course they are.”
His gaze drifted toward the far south.
Somewhere far away, Mount Hua’s disciples were there.
“They’ll do it! Of course they will! They’re our children, after all!”
Hyun Jong’s voice rang with joy and anticipation.
“...”
Clunk. Clunk.
The cart rocked beneath them.
Chung Myung lay there sprawled out with lazy ease and spoke in a relaxed voice.
“Ah, it’s nice traveling comfortably for once. We should’ve done this from the start.”
“...”
“Sasuk, you should lie down too. This is the life.”
“...”
But Baek Cheon only glared at Chung Myung in silence.
What on earth is inside this bastard’s skull?
At times, Baek Cheon felt the urge to split Chung Myung’s head open just to confirm whether anything was actually in there.
“Chung Myung.”
“Yeah?”
“Are you all right?”
“Why not? They’re taking care of us nicely, aren’t they?”
Comfortable?
Taking care of us?
Baek Cheon lifted his head slightly and looked around.
He could see it.
Wide, sprawling plains and jagged mountains rising in the distance. Towering cliffs of grotesque, majestic stone stretched across the land. It was, in every sense, a stunning view.
If not for the wooden bars blocking the view here and there.
“Moooooo!”
The ox pulling the cart let out a loud bellow.
In other words, the Mount Hua disciples—including Chung Myung—were being hauled away inside a barred wooden cart like prisoners, on their way to the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace.
And yet what had he said?
Comfortable?
A long sigh escaped Baek Cheon’s lips.
“...Chung Myung. Don’t you think you should show a little more awareness of the situation?”
“Awareness of what?”
Chung Myung snorted and used his interlaced fingers as a pillow.
“Then what’s the better way?”
“...”
“If we want to get the Purple Wood Grass, we have to ask the Beast Palace. And if the Beast Palace Lord doesn’t permit it, then those Beast Palace bastards won’t tell us a damn thing.”
“That’s true.”
“Then the best way is to meet the Beast Palace Lord directly, isn’t it?”
“That’s also true!”
“Then this is the fastest method!”
“That’s the problem, you bastard!”
Baek Cheon shouted and lunged at Chung Myung.
But the moment the cart grew noisy, someone stepped in to stop them.
Bang bang!
The escorting Beast Palace warrior struck the bars with irritation.
“Keep it down, you brats!”
“Urgh.”
Baek Cheon reluctantly sat back down, and the Beast Palace warrior clicked his tongue.
“Honestly, what kind of fools are you? Even while being dragged away, you’re this brazen and carefree?”
“This is the first time I’ve seen Central Plains lunatics with their brains so thoroughly broken.”
“Leave them. Once they’re dragged to the Divine Pond, they’ll figure out what’s happening soon enough.”
Chung Myung poked his head out between the wooden bars.
“Mister, mister!”
“...What now?”
“How much longer do we have to go?”
“Hah…”
The warrior stared at Chung Myung in disbelief. Wasn’t he basically a passenger asking how much longer until arrival?
“You seem eager to see the end of your journey. In any case, we’ll be there soon enough.”
After hearing the answer, Chung Myung nodded and sat back down again.
Jo Gul kept sighing at him, while Yu I-seol sat in perfect silence, cross-legged, her expression unreadable.
“...When did Sago get captured too?”
“She’s been right behind you the whole time.”
“...I swear she has no presence at all. And yet somehow she still gets captured. If you’ve got something, you should use it for something good! Why are you only using it the wrong way!”
“Weren’t you the one saying she hadn’t been captured?”
“Ah, was I?”
With a laugh, Chung Myung turned his head.
Yoon Jong was huddled in a corner with the expression of a man whose world had collapsed.
Chung Myung tilted his head at him.
“What’s wrong with that guy?”
“...He seems to think all of us got captured because of him. Even though I kept telling him that wasn’t the case.”
“Captured, my ass. We’re riding in comfort, I said.”
“Just stop talking.”
In the end, with his blood pressure surging, Baek Cheon shut his mouth.
Chung Myung looked at Yoon Jong for a long moment, then gave a soft laugh.
“Yoon Jong sahyung.”
“...Yes.”
“Having good intentions doesn’t always lead to good results.”
“...”
“There are plenty of people in this world who act with good intentions, only to suffer for it for a very long time without ever being rewarded.”
Only then did Yoon Jong slowly raise his head. Some focus returned to his eyes, which had been vacant until then.
Chung Myung continued.
“That doesn’t mean the act itself is wrong. Did you do it because you wanted a reward?”
“No. It wasn’t for that.”
“Then hold your stomach in and endure it. What I did wasn’t wrong.”
“...I understand what you mean.”
Yoon Jong nodded heavily.
Chung Myung looked up at the sky for a moment.
You hear that, great-sahyung?
Mount Hua had sacrificed everything for the sake of the world.
And yet no one had acknowledged it; instead, they had looked down on Mount Hua and grasped only for their own profit.
Then...
Had everything Mount Hua did simply been a mistake? A wrong thing?
No. That couldn’t be.
Even if Chung Myung were to think that way, the great-sahyung he had left behind in the afterlife, along with his fellow disciples, would still stand tall without a shred of regret for what they had done.
If Chung Myung and they had not stopped Cheon Ma, Mount Hua would have vanished too.
And the aftermath of all that was now being handled by Chung Myung, with considerable diligence.
“...The more I think about it, the angrier I get.”
They caused the mess themselves!
And I’m the one cleaning it up!
If it pisses you off, then quit.
“Urgh.”
Chung Myung let out long, heavy sighs. Trying to comfort Yoon Jong had only landed the blow squarely on Chung Myung himself.
Who was in any position to blame whom?
Then Baek Cheon glanced around and said,
“Wouldn’t it be better to escape now? We could break these wooden bars any time we wanted, couldn’t we?”
“Escape and do what?”
“Well…”
“The important thing is getting the Purple Wood Grass in our hands. This is the fastest way, I’ve told you that how many times now?”
“Ugh.”
Baek Cheon let out a deep sigh.
Then Jo Gul, who had been silent until now, suddenly raised a hand and pointed to one side.
“Look, Chung Myung.”
“Yeah?”
Following his gesture, Chung Myung’s eyes landed on a massive hall.
“Oh?”
The place where the hall stood was noticeably different from the Yunnan scenery they had seen until now.
Behind the enormous hall stretched a dense forest so thick it seemed to go on forever. The trees were packed so tightly that not a single thread of light appeared able to slip through.
It was so different from the barren plains they had passed on the way here that the sight felt almost alien.
“So this is the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace.”
At Baek Cheon’s murmur, tension settled over the Mount Hua disciples’ faces.
The weight carried by the name Southern Barbarian Beast Palace pressed down on them the moment they saw the hall.
Besides, they were effectively being taken prisoner, were they not?
Looking at the huge hall, they could clearly feel the Beast Palace’s overwhelming power...
“Oh. Looks like they’ve got some money, at least.”
“...”
In this situation, that’s what he came up with?
In this situation?
You rotten bastard?