A Monk Rolling In, Huh (2)
Pa-pa-pa-pa-pak!
Firecrackers strung up before the grand gate burst one after another.
Through the billowing white smoke, a large wooden plaque came into view. The words Hwayeong Gate were carved across it in bold, vigorous brushstrokes.
“Ah….”
Wi Lip-san gazed up at the plaque, eyes shining with emotion.
At first, he had wanted to change the name of Hwayeong Gate, to signify that everything would begin anew. He had thought it best to put new wine in new skins.
A name fit for the Mount Hua Sect, which would once again make its reputation known throughout the world.
“Do you like it?”
“...Elder.”
When Hyun Young, standing beside him, asked quietly, Wi Lip-san lowered his head a little in gratitude.
“I am happy. More than happy. But I am not sure if this is right. For the center of the new Mount Hua branch sect, isn’t the name Hwayeong Gate a little too humble…?”
“Hoho. That’s an amusing thing to say.”
“Pardon?”
Hyun Young smiled faintly.
“As Mount Hua means something to Hwayeong Gate, Hwayeong Gate means something to Mount Hua as well. No, I should say it is something we are deeply grateful for.”
“...”
“What do you think the main sect values most in a branch sect?”
“...The tribute money?”
“...”
Hyun Young fell silent for a moment, looking slightly flustered.
He ought to have said no, but the word simply would not come out.
“W-well, yes. That’s important too.”
Hyun Young had always been brutally honest in matters like this.
“But that isn’t all. What we truly want is trust.”
“...Trust, you say?”
“That’s right.”
Hyun Young nodded slowly.
“Truth be told, the relationship between a branch sect and the main sect seems very deep, but in reality it’s quite thin. What kind of profound bond can there be just because you’ve learned martial arts together?”
“...”
“That is why trust matters. The main sect strives to do right by the branch sect, and the branch sect trusts the main sect and follows it. Hwayeong Gate has proven that trust more splendidly than any other sect in this world. If not Hwayeong Gate, who could dare claim the center of Mount Hua’s branch sect?”
“...Elder.”
Wi Lip-san looked at Hyun Young with eyes he could no longer hide his emotion from.
“My, what a man.”
Yet if anyone here deserved thanks, it was Hyun Young.
“So put those worries aside for now. The important thing is making sure Hwayeong Gate settles successfully in Xi’an.”
“Yes!”
“To do that, we need to take in as many disciples as possible first!”
“Don’t worry! I’ve been running Hwayeong Gate for decades! I’m confident when it comes to taking in and raising disciples! Leave it to me!”
Wi Lip-san shouted with a face full of confidence.
“...”
“...”
Baek Cheon looked around with a sullen expression.
The table was piled high with food prepared for the visitors. On top of that, there was a mountain of wine set out in case of any unexpected developments.
Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp.
“...”
Chomp, chomp, chomp, chomp.
What was truly tragic, however, was that the person wolfing down all that painstakingly prepared food was neither the local gentry of Xi’an, nor curious onlookers, nor would-be disciples.
It was Chung Myung alone.
“Martial Uncle, the flies are out in force.”
“...Go chase them off.”
“Yes, sir.”
The disciples stood beside the banquet table, busy swatting away the flies that kept coming in.
“I mean, come on. Can people really not show up at all, even after this much?”
Baek Cheon looked around with clear disbelief on his face.
There was no way others could have failed to notice them raising such a grand hall from the ground up.
And hadn’t the people of Xi’an immediately recognized them as disciples of Mount Hua?
If disciples from Mount Hua’s main sect came down and opened a new branch, wasn’t it only natural that people would at least come peeking out of curiosity?
So how could not a single soul come in, as if they had all agreed on it beforehand?
“If a new dumpling shop opened in the neighborhood, there’d be more people coming to look than this.”
“Yeah.”
The Mount Hua disciples all stared about in a daze.
Even passersby didn’t bother to glance over.
“Elder!”
“Hmm.”
Hyun Young scratched his cheek from where he sat.
“I expected as much, but this is even worse than I thought.”
“Pardon?”
“It is true that Wudang has closed its gates, but... their branch sects are still remaining in Xi’an and exerting their influence.”
“Their influence?”
At that moment, Chung Myung, who had been gulping down wine, slammed the bottle down and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.
“In simple terms, there’ll be around ten Wudang branch sects in Xi’an alone, and the households of the big shots holding posts in the city will almost certainly have Wudang disciples in them.”
“...Ah.”
“They’ll be tied into the government offices too.”
Only then did Baek Cheon grasp the seriousness of the situation.
“So this whole city of Xi’an is basically one giant Wudang branch sect?”
“Exactly.”
Baek Cheon muttered blankly.
“Why didn’t I know that? I was even in Wudang for a while.”
“Disciples who are holed up in the mountains, learning martial arts and nothing else, don’t need to know those sorts of things. It’s the higher-ups who make and use those situations.”
“Ah….”
Chung Myung snickered.
“Now do you get what I mean? Just getting stronger means nothing. Turning a sect’s power into influence—that’s what this is.”
Everyone nodded as though they understood.
It’s like Hwaum County.
Right now, everything in Hwaum was tied to Mount Hua.
The taverns and inns making money in Hwaum, the various shops—they all had Mount Hua’s capital behind them, and the people of Hwaum behaved as if they belonged to Mount Hua themselves.
What if another sect moved in there?
No one would even go near them.
The Beggar’s Sect branch there was fine because it had opened with Mount Hua’s permission, so there was no danger of being pushed out. But if one of Wudang’s branch sects tried to enter Hwaum?
They’d be lucky if the locals merely didn’t get along with them.
“So Xi’an is to Wudang what Hwaum County is to Mount Hua.”
“That’s right. The only reason there’s a gap at all is because they’ve closed their gates. If Wudang hadn’t shut itself away, then no matter how much stronger Mount Hua had become, we wouldn’t have been able to slip in this easily. Xi’an is a place Wudang has spent centuries cultivating.”
Especially over the past hundred years, while Mount Hua was losing strength, they would have poured huge sums of money into it and focused on winning over the people.
Having solidified their influence over Xi’an to this extent, they could even afford to declare seclusion, confident that they wouldn’t lose that power in a short time.
Well. I don’t plan to let them keep it that way.
Chung Myung’s lips curled upward.
“But if what you say is right, doesn’t that mean this kind of thing will keep happening?”
“Tsk.”
Chung Myung frowned and looked at the other disciples.
“These bastards have gotten too comfortable lately, haven’t they?”
“Huh?”
“Did they think that if they just put up a half-decent front, everything would sort itself out? Winning a few times lately must’ve made the world look easy to them.”
“That is absolutely not true.”
At Baek Cheon’s denial, Chung Myung nodded.
“Right. Dong-ryong shouldn’t be acting like that. Arrogant prick.”
“...Urgh.”
Then he tore a chicken leg off with his teeth, chewed for a bit, and looked outside again.
“That’s seriously unnatural.”
“It is.”
Hyun Young nodded in agreement.
“It’s not that they aren’t interested. The people of Xi’an have ears; there’s no way they wouldn’t know what Mount Hua has been doing. And yet they’re ignoring this place so perfectly that it can only mean they’re deliberately keeping their distance.”
“Deliberately?”
“Exactly. For example….”
Hyun Young let a slightly crooked smile appear.
“Maybe they’re watching someone else’s expression.”
That was when it happened.
“Hohoho. You’re attracting only flies, I see.”
“So it seems.”
A strange voice came from the entrance. Everyone’s eyes turned that way at once.
“Oh?”
“Customers?”
A group of people was coming in through the gate.
The Hwayeong Gate disciples reflexively ran toward them.
“Welcome! Welcome to Hwayeong Gate….”
Thwack!
But that bright greeting was cut off by a hand that flashed out threateningly.
“Gah!”
The hand stopped right in front of the speaker’s face.
Whatever that was, it was definitely not a friendly gesture.
“We are not guests, so there’s no need for pointless courtesy.”
The sharp-faced middle-aged man at the very front said coldly.
“Where is the gate master?”
“Pardon?”
“...A bunch of fools, the lot of you. We asked where your gate master is!”
At that rude, booming voice, Mount Hua’s disciples bristled and rose to their feet.
“Ssshhh.”
But Chung Myung, who would normally have been the first to flare up, actually stopped them.
“Watch. Just watch.”
“...”
“Looks like it’ll be fun.”
A grin slowly spread across Chung Myung’s face.
Meanwhile, Wi Lip-san rushed forward to greet them without hesitation.
“I am Wi Lip-san, the gate master of Hwayeong Gate. But if you are not here as guests, would it not be proper to first state your identities?”
Wi Lip-san straightened his shoulders and spoke with dignity.
The Mount Hua disciples watching him all showed a flicker of surprise.
Oh?
Did the gate master always have this side to him?
Baek Cheon, especially, found the sight strangely unfamiliar.
Come to think of it, when they had first met, the gate master had been bedridden from illness. And after that, they had only met again once Mount Hua had helped Hwayeong Gate. It had been only natural for the gate master’s stance to be lowered then.
Now, however, the way Hwayeong Gate’s leader dealt with outsiders looked every bit as dignified as the master of a sect should be.
However….
“Wi Lip-san? You don’t even have a proper name to boast of.”
“You!”
As Baek Cheon started to flare up again, Chung Myung reached out and pressed down on his head.
“Will you just stay still already?”
“But—!”
“Are you going to live here, Martial Uncle?”
“...Huh?”
Chung Myung frowned.
“If the branch sect needs the main sect disciples to stay there all the time, then it isn’t a branch sect—it’s a subsidiary faction. For Hwayeong Gate to qualify as a branch sect, it needs to be able to handle its own affairs. So don’t jump in unless you absolutely have to. Just watch.”
“Urgh….”
He wasn’t wrong. But knowing that with his head didn’t make Baek Cheon feel any better. A pained sound slipped out of his mouth.
Yet Wi Lip-san himself showed no signs of being shaken.
“I apologize for not being famous enough. But may I ask who you are, since you speak in such a way?”
“I am Nam Ja-myeong, gate master of Seowol Gate in Xi’an. People on the martial path call me the Heart Source Sword.”
Wi Lip-san narrowed his eyes.
Seowol Gate?
Seowol Gate was one of Wudang’s branch sects in Xi’an.
After deciding to open a sect in Xi’an, they had received information about the city from the Beggar’s Sect, and that name had definitely been among it.
“So you are Wudang’s branch sect.”
“That’s right.”
“And what brings someone like you here?”
“Hmph.”
Nam Ja-myeong let out a derisive snort.
“You really do have a thick enough face to brazenly show up in Xi’an, don’t you?”
“Ah, gate master. Calm yourself. Surely you don’t think someone we know would be that shameless?”
“Exactly, exactly. It’s only natural for some clueless upstarts to act that way.”
Watching them snicker among themselves, Wi Lip-san frowned.
“Are the rest of you also from Wudang’s branch sects?”
“I am Gong Il-san, gate master of the Chongtian Sect.”
“This one is Jeok Yeo-rang, gate master of the Jo-hyeon Gate.”
The others behind them quickly called out their sects and names as well.
It seemed every gate master of Wudang’s branch sects in Xi’an had come together in one place.
Wi Lip-san, who had listened with an impassive face, only sighed once they had all finished speaking and then opened his mouth.
“I now know very well who you are. But why have you all come here in such numbers?”
“How dare a bunch of Mount Hua bastards open a branch sect in Xi’an?”
“And! If you were planning to open a sect in Xi’an, you should have come to greet us first! How dare you establish your sect without a word?”
“They say men from Namyang are country bumpkins, and that description fits you perfectly. You don’t know basic courtesy!”
As the abuse came pouring down, the Mount Hua disciples’ faces flushed hot.
What the hell are these bastards thinking?
If they had eyes, they couldn’t possibly fail to see that the people from Mount Hua were standing right here.
And yet they didn’t even spare them a glance, instead bullying Wi Lip-san like this—wasn’t that blatant contempt for Mount Hua?
“Th—”
“Enough!”
Nam Ja-myeong waved a hand and said,
“We came here today to give you a warning.”
“...A warning, you say?”
“The fact that you opened a sect here without saying a word means, of course, that you have no intention of getting along with us. So we’ll do the same thing you want to do. Let’s see how long Hwayeong Gate can survive in Xi’an!”
“...”
“If you don’t want to see something ugly, I suggest you clear this place out quickly and leave Xi’an.”
They expected Wi Lip-san to look frightened and tense up. But what came out of his mouth was an entirely unexpected response.
“Hohohoho.”
“...You’re laughing?”
Nam Ja-myeong’s brow twitched. But Wi Lip-san looked at him as if he found the whole thing absurd.
“I had thought Wudang’s branch sects would be something impressive, but looking at you now, you’re nothing more than a pack of jackals.”
“What did you say?”
Wi Lip-san said firmly,
“This land of Xi’an does not belong to Wudang, and it certainly does not belong to any of you! Why should I need your permission? That is the sort of thing only bandits would do!”
“...Did you just call us bandits?”
“I did! What part of what I said was wrong?”
“Ha… ha ha ha ha.”
Nam Ja-myeong laughed loudly, then fixed Wi Lip-san with a terrifying stare.
“It would be nice if your skill matched your nerve.”
“Do not worry. It has already been proven that Mount Hua’s disciples are superior to Wudang’s.”
“You...!”
Nam Ja-myeong glared at him with murderous eyes for a brief moment. Then he spun around.
“We’re leaving!”
“Cough!”
After raising a ruckus, the Wudang branch masters filed out of Hwayeong Gate in a huff, their displeasure practically spilling off them in waves.
Watching them go, Mount Hua’s disciples spoke in slightly astonished tones.
“Wow... Gate Master really is good with words.”
“He is. He really is.”
“Is this kind of thing a Mount Hua sect trait too...?”
As everyone marveled and looked at Wi Lip-san anew, Chung Myung and Hyun Young never once took their eyes off the receding figures of Wudang’s branch sects.
“It looks like those guys are the reason.”
“Yes. It seems they’ve already applied pressure. People are probably avoiding this place because they’re afraid of offending them.”
Chung Myung snorted.
“They’re even more obvious than I expected.”
“Indeed. Since this is Wudang’s territory, they probably haven’t had much trouble dealing with anyone.”
The two of them—both seasoned to the point where they could probably write a manual on brawling—slowly curled their lips into identical grins.
Then they stared after the departing backs, unable to imagine what was about to happen.
“Shall we start turning their insides out a little?”
“Hehehehe.”
Seeing those two smile so wickedly, the Mount Hua disciples shuddered.
What are they planning to do?
I’m already worried.
But whether they understood the disciples’ concern or not, the old and the young only exchanged a subtle glance with one another.