What the Hell Is Going On? (3)
Guchil seriously pondered the meaning of the word absurd.
It was because Chung Myung had stormed out of the shack shouting some bizarre nonsense, only to come striding back in, huffing and puffing, and start spouting utter nonsense all over again.
"I'm going to Mount Hua."
"…."
"This may sound a little absurd, but listen carefully."
For admitting that much, Guchil felt like giving him some credit.
But the moment he heard what came next, that thought vanished without a trace.
"I could just leave without saying anything, but the reason I'm coming back to tell you this is that I think I owe you, in my own way."
So he did know.
There was no reason he should have humored the ramblings of a madman, and yet he found himself dragged along by this ridiculous farce because Chung Myung's face was serious beyond belief.
"I repay kindness double and grudges tenfold. Someday I'll have a chance to repay this kindness, so remember the name Chung Myung of Mount Hua. The day we meet again, I'll be sure to pay you back for this debt."
It was a very cool thing to say.
It would have been unbelievably cool, if the one saying it hadn't been a shabby little beggar with bruised blue under his eyes and split lips.
Sadly, Guchil's impression of Chung Myung's grand speech was very simple.
"…What the hell are you blabbering about?"
Chung Myung's face twisted a little.
"Sure, it might sound strange now, but remember these words well. One day this will change your fate—"
"The beggar boss said he was looking for you. Said he'd beat you to death."
"Really?"
Their eyes met.
"…."
"…."
"Kheh-heh-heh."
There were all kinds of idiots in the world. It wasn't especially strange for someone you knew to join their ranks. Though, of course, it was rather strange for a person to change overnight like that.
"Anyway, I'm going!"
"…Bring back some alms. Or he really did look like he was going to beat you to death."
"I said I'm going! Anyway, remember this! Chung Myung of Mount Hua! Don't you forget the name!"
Chung Myung spun on his heel and strode out of the shack with ridiculous dignity.
Watching him go, Guchil couldn't help shaking his head.
He'd lived long enough to see all sorts of things.
Still, maybe that wasn't such a bad choice. If he kept acting like that and got caught by the beggar boss, this time he really might get beaten to within an inch of his life.
"What am I supposed to say to the beggar boss…"
Just then, the rag curtain blocking the entrance to the shack was suddenly flung aside, and Chung Myung marched back in again.
"…."
Why was he back now?
Before Guchil could even ask, Chung Myung raised his chin and asked first, full of himself.
"Hey!"
"Yeah?"
"What's the name of that beggar bastard I beat up earlier?"
"Who?"
"The bastard who hit me."
"Ah… The beggar boss? I think his name was Jongpal."
"Jongpal? What a pathetic name. Tell that bastard this: next time I see him, I won't let him off."
…He definitely wouldn't let him off.
The beggar boss wouldn't let him off.
"Then I'm really going."
Chung Myung once again waddled out. Just as Guchil was thinking it had been one hell of a fiery day, Chung Myung came back inside yet again.
"Ah, what now!"
"Hey."
"What? What now? What is it this time!"
"Which way do I go to get to Mount Hua in Shaanxi?"
"…."
"…."
No matter how he looked at it…
This bastard was definitely insane.
* * *
Chung Myung ran, and ran, and ran some more.
No one in this world was going to escort a filthy little beggar all the way to Shaanxi. All he could rely on were his sturdy—no, his probably-once-sturdy legs and his exhausted heart.
Since when had Chung Myung ever traveled by horse or carriage?
In his past life, he had never once bothered with a horse. He wasn't the sort to move slowly enough to ride some sluggish beast.
If you added up all the distances he had run in his previous life, he could probably have circled the Central Plains ten times over. So without the slightest doubt, he kicked off the ground and ran with all his might.
And before even one shichen had passed, he was sprawled on the ground.
"Hah! Hahh! Hah! Hiiiiik! Aigoo! I'm dyingggg."
He had completely forgotten that this was a child's body.
His steel-hard legs had turned into nothing but spindly sticks with the flesh worn away, and the heart that had once seemed as though it would never tire was now protesting violently against this unforeseen overwork.
What did that mean?
It meant his heart felt like it was about to leap straight out of his throat.
"No, what kind of damn body is this!"
He had only run for one ke, and this was the result?
Had he run for one shichen? Two? It had been barely one ke, and he was already breathing like a dying fish! How rotten did this body have to be for that to happen?
"Ughhh."
After taking a good look at himself, he realized it was no surprise at all.
Putting aside innate talent, the nutrition level was simply appalling. This was, quite literally, a body that had never properly eaten even a bowl of watery rice gruel.
And he was supposed to take this body all the way to Shaanxi?
That was a dreamer's tale. He'd be dead from exhaustion before he ever reached Mount Hua.
The Plum Blossom Sword Saint dying of exhaustion on the road like some nobody traveler? If he ran into anyone he knew on the way to the afterlife, he'd be laughed at for three days and four nights.
"If I'm going to Shaanxi, I need to deal with this rotten body first!"
The best way to make a body healthy?
He already had it.
"Huhuhuhuhu."
A meaningful laugh spilled from Chung Myung's mouth. No matter how hard he tried to hold it back, he couldn't.
"Kihihihihihi."
His martial arts were all gone, his body was in the worst possible condition, and he had no idea whether Mount Hua had collapsed or flipped upside down in the meantime. He was starving so badly he felt like he could die.
In this miserable situation, there was only one thing that could make Chung Myung laugh.
"So that means from now on I just start learning martial arts again!"
He could begin again.
No one else could possibly imagine how incredible that was.
People said those who failed to reach the summit regretted their lives? Of course that was true. But regret existed for those who had already reached the summit too.
If only I'd done that back then!
If only I'd been a little younger, and built my foundations properly!
If only I'd listened when Master dragged me off by the ear to make me train, and not run away—if I'd at least pretended to train!
If only I hadn't gotten caught stealing the booze my senior brother hid…
Ah, leave that last one out.
Anyway!
"I can do it again."
In his past life, Chung Myung had been a supreme swordsman known as one of the Three Great Swordsmen of the world. But that didn't mean he was satisfied with his own martial arts. If anything, the stronger he became and the deeper his understanding of martial arts grew, the more clearly he could see how inefficient his training had been, and how badly he had grown in the wrong direction.
The foundations.
That damned foundation everyone—Master, senior brothers, and manuals alike—kept screaming about!
Back when he was training, he had hated those foundation-obsessed bastards to death, sick of hearing them repeat the same word like parrots. But once he himself had become a master, he finally understood exactly why foundations mattered so much.
Foundations were the base.
To build a tall tower, you needed solid ground and a sturdy foundation. How carefully you laid that foundation determined how high you could rise.
But when you're young, you can't understand that. No matter how many times you hear it, it doesn't sink in. And even if it does, you can't act on it.
Why?
Because I'm human.
What if I were digging in the dirt at the bottom, trying to build my foundation properly, while the guy next to me had already stacked his tower three stories high? Who wouldn't get impatient?
And besides!
"They only ever said to build a foundation, but whenever someone actually focused on their foundation, they only praised the bastards who ran ahead!"
That damned meritocracy.
Of course he understood. In the end, even Masters were people, and so were the senior uncles.
Everyone knew that foundations were necessary to achieve greatness, but if your own disciple was struggling along, painstakingly laying groundwork while some other senior brother's student was showing off an amazing sword technique or winning an inter-sect tournament, then of course your eyes would start twitching.
That part was fine. Even a Master could somehow bear that much. Mount Hua was a place where Daoists lived, and Daoists were, by nature, patient people.
But the moment the senior uncles started drinking together that evening, you could consider foundation training half dead already.
And if someone at the drinking table started bragging about their disciple? Everything was over.
The drunk on pride would always dress up their disciple as a genius without peer, while the ones with nothing to brag about would have to grit their teeth and hold on. Then all that irritation and anger would pour down onto their own disciples the next morning.
- My junior brother's disciple can already make two plum blossoms!
- That bastard's disciple has supposedly entered Jaha Ganggi! I never even lost to that punk, and now he's going to beat me in raising disciples? Whose fault is that? Whose!
- You're just not trying hard enough! Not trying hard enough!
In that kind of environment, what the hell was the point of basic training? Of course you'd rush to learn another practical technique first.
It was a chronic disease of large sects where martial arts were passed down through master-disciple relationships.
"But!"
Now Chung Myung was different!
There was no need for him to rush. There was no master driving him on in impatience. He had already seen which path led higher; all he had to do now was walk the path he knew, steadily and faithfully.
Foundations?
While others were digging the earth and packing down the ground, Chung Myung intended to flatten mountains and fill in valleys until he made a plain. And on that vast, enormous plain, he would build a giant tower no one had ever built before!
The first step matters.
Mount Hua's martial arts were Daoist arts and righteous arts.
Righteous arts were slow and weak at first, but as training accumulated, they grew stronger at a staggering pace. If wicked or demonic arts granted immediate power the moment they were learned, righteous arts began weak and humble, yet in the end they possessed a depth that surpassed all other martial arts.
In simpler terms:
It was like rolling a snowball down a snowy mountain.
Roll a small snowball from the summit of a snow-covered mountain. At first it might be no bigger than a fingernail, but before long it would become the size of a fist, and the more it rolled, the faster it would grow. By the end, that little stone had become a massive avalanche that no human force could stop.
What Chung Myung needed to do now was create that first, solid pebble at the center of the snowball. And he needed to find a mountainside where that pebble would never stop rolling.
"All right then."
He was just about to sit down in a lotus position when he suddenly looked around.
Trying to perform this kind of rite in the middle of the main road could lead to who knew what sort of trouble.
So he staggered to his feet and went deeper into the forest. Creating the first dantian was a very dangerous matter. He needed to avoid outside disturbances as much as possible.
It wasn't likely, but hadn't there been stories of experts who were cultivating, only to get stung by a bee and fall into demonic deviation? People even made jokes about it.
This should do.
Finding the shade of a large tree, Chung Myung cleared the ground and sat down in a lotus position there.
"Now then, what should I learn?"
There were countless peerless divine arts inside his head. All of Mount Hua's martial arts, all of Mount Hua's history, were with him. Just the internal energy methods he knew numbered more than a dozen.
Jaha Ganggi, which dominated the world.
Plum Blossom Heart Method, optimized for the Plum Blossom Sword Art.
Seven Star True Qi, which boasted the sharpest edge of all.
Taeeul Mirigi, said to contain everything needed to ascend to a higher realm.
And beyond those, there were countless other heart methods worthy of being called exceptional. If he didn't limit himself to Mount Hua's techniques, the number of methods he could learn more than doubled.
But Chung Myung didn't hesitate.
The method he needed to learn right now was already perfectly clear.
"Liuhe."
Chung Myung's voice rang out with crystal clarity.