Why Don’t You People Know That? (2)
The faces of Mount Hua’s disciples flushed with pride.
The Plum Blossom Sword Saint…
He really was that great…!
Of course, the Plum Blossom Sword Saint was Mount Hua’s pride.
But that was only within Mount Hua. Outside of it, few held Mount Hua’s Plum Blossom Sword Saint in such high esteem. Hadn’t they heard just the other day, when they met Wudang, that the Plum Blossom Sword Saint was not equal to Wudang’s sword?
Mount Hua’s pride.
And yet that pride was being acknowledged all the way out here in distant Yunnan.
Baek Cheon reached out, snatched the cup of Toowon Fragrance from the table, and knocked it back in one go.
"Hah!"
The fragrant sweetness of the liquor spread through his mouth, and his head seemed to clear at once.
It was hard to suppress the swelling in his chest, the way his shoulders wanted to rise on their own. When had Mount Hua ever been recognized like this?
Baek Cheon was Mount Hua’s disciple too.
How could he not feel good hearing that his sect’s ancestor had been such a towering figure?
But still.
Calm down.
If he let himself get carried away and said something foolish, he might make a mistake. This was the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace. No matter how friendly the Beast Palace Lord seemed, nobody knew when things might change.
"Then…"
Just as Baek Cheon turned, about to say something,
Gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp.
"…"
"Khaaaaa! Now this is some real drinking! It’s hitting just right!"
Chung Myung was chugging the Toowon Fragrance straight from the bottle.
Baek Cheon went blank.
Right in front of the Beast Palace Lord?
Of all places, right in front of the Beast Palace Lord—was he seriously going to act like that?
"Ahhh! The side dishes are delicious too. I feel like I’m gonna get drunk today."
"Kahahahahaha! You really are a bold one! I like that! Come now, let’s get absolutely smashed today! Hey! Bring more Toowon Fragrance! Bring more!"
"P-Palace Lord."
The Beast Palace disciple standing nearby opened his mouth in a clearly troubled tone.
"We’ve already brought out every bottle stored in the warehouse."
"What? Then bring out the reserves! There should be two crates set aside separately!"
"T-That was for the Palace Lord’s grandson’s wedding…"
"You fool!"
Bang!
The Beast Palace Lord slammed his palm down on the table.
The table leapt a full foot into the air before settling back down.
In the meantime, Chung Myung had snatched the bottle out of the air like a ghost, saving the precious liquor from spilling.
Watching that, Baek Cheon squeezed his eyes shut.
He couldn’t even tell whether he should be admiring the brute strength that had lifted that massive table without using a shred of inner power, or the table’s ability to survive such a blow.
No, actually, the bastard who still had time to save the alcohol in the middle of all that was even more impressive.
"The descendants of the Plum Blossom Sword Saint are here, and you’re worried about some wedding?"
"I-Indeed!"
"You little punk?"
The Beast Palace Lord’s eyes were shot through with blood.
"You idiot! Don’t you offer sacrifices at the Plum Blossom Sword Saint’s shrine every year?"
"Of course! He is the hero and saint of Yunnan!"
"Then if I don’t entertain these people with all my heart, what do you think the Plum Blossom Sword Saint will say to me in the afterlife? Don’t I need something to say when I face him?"
"Ah. Right."
Chung Myung kept nodding along.
Of course, this wasn’t about properly hosting the descendants of the Plum Blossom Sword Saint. It was about properly hosting the Plum Blossom Sword Saint himself.
The details were a little off, but what did that matter? Better to entertain the man himself than his descendants. If the Beast Palace Lord went to the afterlife and found out what had happened, he would probably be even more pleased.
"Hurry up and bring it out! Now!"
"Yes, Palace Lord!"
In the end, unable to win, the disciple dashed off, and the Beast Palace Lord laughed heartily.
"Well, I’ve made a fool of myself."
"Oh, no. Not at all. You’re wonderfully spirited."
"Huh? Am I? Hahahahahaha! The more I hear you talk, the more I like you."
"I like you too, Palace Lord. Have a drink."
Chung Myung held out the bottle of Toowon Fragrance in his hand, offering it bottle and all to the Beast Palace Lord. With his other hand, he picked up a fresh bottle.
"Oh? Straight from the bottle? That’s right, that’s right! A real man doesn’t drink daintily from a cup! You know the way of drink."
"Krrr. As a Taoist, I’m versed in all the ways."
"What? Kahahahahahaha! Good! Very good! Then let’s have a drink together, Taoist!"
Chung Myung and the Beast Palace Lord began guzzling from their bottles at the same time.
Mount Hua’s disciples could only stare at the scene in numb silence, unable to laugh or cry.
How do they fit so perfectly?
They look like a father and son reunited after years apart.
That bastard should’ve been born in Yunnan!
Watching the two of them drink each other under the table, Baek Cheon finally spoke up cautiously.
"By the way, Palace Lord."
"Hmm?"
The Beast Palace Lord whipped his head around.
Baek Cheon flinched at the fierce eyes and massive frame, took a small breath, and went on.
"Were everything you said just now true?"
"Which part? Are you talking about the story of the Plum Blossom Sword Saint?"
"Yes, Palace Lord."
"You’re asking me that, as a disciple of Mount Hua?"
"Please, don’t get angry."
"Eh? Right, right! Hahahaha."
The Beast Palace Lord burst out laughing loudly.
"Of course, I didn’t see his deeds with my own eyes. But that fact is known not only to the former Beast Palace, but to all of Yunnan."
Baek Cheon tilted his head slightly.
"If the Plum Blossom Sword Saint really was that great, as you say, then why is it barely spoken of in the Central Plains?"
Thud!
The Beast Palace Lord slammed the bottle in his hand down on the table.
Baek Cheon and Mount Hua’s disciples jerked back sharply.
Whether it was because of his body or because he was the Beast Palace Lord, every little thing made their hearts pound.
Beast Palace Lord glared and shouted, his booming voice ringing painfully through the air.
"Because those damn narrow-minded bastards quietly made it all disappear!"
He thumped his own chest as though he were the one most aggrieved.
"History is only history when it’s spoken of! History isn’t just what happened! It only becomes history when what happened is passed on!"
Surprisingly ill-suited emotions colored the Beast Palace Lord’s rugged face. He looked at Baek Cheon with deep pity.
"I hear Mount Hua’s situation is not good."
"…"
"Originally, it should have been Mount Hua’s place to say it. That our ancestors accomplished something worthy of such remembrance. But Mount Hua lost both the person who could speak those words and the strength to speak them."
The Beast Palace Lord grabbed another bottle, ripped off the lid in frustration, and gulped it down.
"So of course it wasn’t spoken of. History belongs to the victors. If there’s no victor to tell the story, then the jackals take the credit. If the Central Plains and Yunnan hadn’t cut ties, none of this would have happened! It’s all those damn Central Plains bastards’ fault. I wouldn’t be satisfied even if I ground them up and drank them!"
Uh…
Sorry, but we’re from the Central Plains too.
It was making his bones rattle, so he couldn’t say it. Palace Lord.
The Beast Palace Lord was raging on Mount Hua’s behalf, but Chung Myung, for his part, only kept drinking as though none of it mattered. And he thought to himself,
That’s not the only reason.
To be precise, it was because of a debt of gratitude.
If the Central Plains acknowledged that Chung Myung had achieved such feats in that war, and had played a huge role in bringing down the Heavenly Demon at last, then they would no longer be able to simply leave the fallen Mount Hua alone.
After all, it was impossible for the great righteous sects, who held themselves up as champions of justice, to ignore those to whom they owed a debt.
But the people who had just survived a war like that couldn’t have had spare funds lying around. So it was more likely that they had reached an unspoken agreement to erase the debt entirely, to pretend Mount Hua had never been owed anything at all.
The world had always been like that.
If only one person, just one, had said,
Shouldn’t we repay our debt to Mount Hua?
then maybe something could have been done. But there had been no one to say it.
Chung Myung snorted softly.
What more could he expect? The martial world had always been cold-blooded. The ones who remembered that truth and even built shrines to give thanks were the strange ones.
The Beast Palace Lord said bitterly,
"That war took too much from us. If the Plum Blossom Sword Saint had not ascended during that chaos, the history of the martial world would have been rebuilt around Mount Hua… But because he left so suddenly, Mount Hua never received what it should have."
Baek Cheon closed his eyes.
He was starting to understand all over again just how great the Plum Blossom Sword Saint had been. Not even Mount Hua itself had fully understood the greatness of its own ancestor.
And now that forgotten history was welcoming them here, in the distant land of Yunnan.
"Both the Beast Palace and Mount Hua lost far too much in that war. And even now, both still groan under those wounds."
The Beast Palace Lord lifted a bottle and filled the cups of Mount Hua’s disciples.
"Take it. This is the liquor I give you as comrades in the same plight. Not as the Beast Palace Lord of the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace, but as a fellow soul wounded by history."
Mount Hua’s disciples accepted the drink from the Beast Palace Lord with both hands.
And then they drank it in silence.
After emptying their cups, they looked at the Beast Palace Lord with flushed faces.
"The world is cruel. You must have suffered terribly."
"No, not really."
"Hm?"
Chung Myung answered with complete calm, then bit the mouth of the bottle and gulped it down.
"Krrr."
He set the bottle down on the table with a sharp clack.
"Isn’t it stranger to think you should get rewarded for everything you do?"
"…"
"I don’t think those guys back then were doing it because they expected some kind of reward either."
"Those guys? Hey! Show some respect to your ancestors!"
"That mouth of yours!"
"Hey, brat!"
"Ah, right."
Chung Myung scratched the back of his head, looking awkward.
Right, I can’t even call them ‘those guys’ around the senior brothers.
Ah, was that not allowed in the first place?
Then what was he supposed to call them? Chung Myung chuckled and continued.
"Anyway, what’s past is just past. What are you gonna do by lying on the ground and shouting that it’s unfair? It’s already over."
"Hmm."
"What matters is now. We just have to make Mount Hua the best in our generation. Then the past will naturally be recognized too. History belongs to the victors!"
The Beast Palace Lord stared silently at Chung Myung. Soon, the corners of his mouth began to twitch.
"Yes. That’s how it should be. That’s how it should be."
Muttering in a voice unlike his usual booming one, the Beast Palace Lord reached out and slapped Chung Myung on the back several times.
"Hahahahahaha! The more I hear you talk, the more I like it! Truly the descendant of the Plum Blossom Sword Saint!"
"Kheuk."
Unaware that a simple gesture of his had nearly sent the Plum Blossom Sword Saint, not his descendant, back into the afterlife, the Beast Palace Lord laughed until he nearly burst.
Chung Myung thought that maybe those Beast Palace disciples’ solid muscles had been forged simply to survive that hand.
"Ah, right, yes."
The Beast Palace Lord suddenly turned his head and looked at Chung Myung.
"Come to think of it, I forgot to ask. Why did you come all this way to distant Yunnan? Traveling here from Shaanxi couldn’t have been a short journey."
"Ah, right. I was just about to mention that."
"Hmm?"
"Do you happen to have an herb called Purple Wood Grass here?"
"Purple Wood Grass?"
The Beast Palace Lord frowned slightly.
"Purple Wood Grass… Purple Wood Grass, you say… I think that’s the first time I’ve heard of it."
"You don’t know it?"
Chung Myung’s brows drew together.
If even the Beast Palace Lord didn’t know, then this was a problem.
"Don’t look at me like that. I may be the Beast Palace Lord, but I can’t know every single thing in Yunnan. Besides, I’m not the sort of person who pays attention to such trifles."
Yeah, that much was obvious.
Someone busy stuffing himself full of muscle probably wasn’t going to care about the names of weeds.
"Don’t worry! Tomorrow, I’ll have my men look into this Purple Wood Grass immediately!"
"Krrr! That far?"
"Hahahahahaha! The descendant of the Plum Blossom Sword Saint has come all this way; how could I do any less? So stop worrying and eat and drink! What a fine day! Such a fine day! Hahahahahahaha! Here, take this!"
Chung Myung and the Beast Palace Lord each grabbed another bottle, tipped their heads back, and started pouring the liquor straight into their mouths.
Watching how alike they looked, Baek Cheon let out a long sigh.
They do say everyone has at least one person who looks like them somewhere in the world.
Of course, they weren’t exactly the same, but he had never imagined there could be anyone even remotely similar to Chung Myung.
Still, thanks to that, things were going surprisingly well.
"Krrr! That young Taoist can really hold his liquor, huh?"
"Palace Lord, you’re not bad at drinking yourself?"
"What? Hah?"
The Beast Palace Lord clutched the bottle tightly.
"Fine! Let’s see this through today!"
"Sure. Though if you keep that up, you’ll end up humiliating yourself in front of your subordinates."
"I’ve never lost a drinking match in my life!"
"Same here."
"Drink!"
"Gladly!"
The liquor began disappearing at an insane pace.
Before long, Mount Hua’s disciples also relaxed and started drinking comfortably. It wouldn’t have been polite to refuse a host’s hospitality, after all.
"And then, at that time, the Plum Blossom Sword Saint—!"
"Kyahahaha!"
But…
the Mount Hua disciples all seemed to think the conversation had gone beyond the point where they could join in.