Honestly, Even I Can’t Handle This Anymore (5)
A fortune of plunder was piled high atop a thick wagon built of steel.
Gold bars had been stacked like towers, and the jewels gleamed softly in the moonlight with a jewel-like radiance.
“Oh my, there’s so much we might not be able to load it all!”
“There, there—move that crate over beside it! That’ll make room!”
“Put the fragile stuff on top. On top.”
Baek Cheon watched the Mount Hua disciples loading the spoils with a sour expression.
They’re having the time of their lives.
They were all wearing faces that said they had no choice in the matter, but they still hadn’t managed to hide the corners of their mouths curling upward.
At this point, who’s the bandit here?
Yet even Baek Cheon himself hadn’t noticed that the corners of his own mouth were slowly starting to rise as well.
And then—
“Stand it up properly.”
“……Khh.”
Chung Myung was sitting with one leg crossed over the other, knocking back cup after cup of liquor.
“Hah.”
He wiped his mouth, then glared ahead.
“Your waist is starting to drop. Want me to bend you backward?”
“N-no, sir!”
The bandits flinched and hurriedly straightened their backs.
“Tsk. Anyway.”
The sound of liquor sliding down his throat rang out refreshingly.
The bandits of the mountain camp were all kneeling in a line with their heads pressed to the floor.
“If you’re confident, use your internal energy. Go on, try it once. If you want your dantian blown apart, be my guest.”
“No, sir!”
“We will absolutely not use it!”
The bandits shouted with all their might, forcing their trembling legs to stay upright.
“Sigh. I really have gotten a lot kinder. If this had been back in the day, I’d have buried every last one of you alive.”
Back in the day, huh?
Ugh. I should just stop talking.
Clicking his tongue again and again, Chung Myung suddenly barked, as if something had lit a fuse in him.
“No, the more I think about it, the angrier I get! You damn bastard!”
Then he lunged forward and kicked Gwak Gyeong, who had been kneeling at the very front with his head down, sending him flying.
“Aaaaagh!”
Gwak Gyeong, who had been flung away with a scream, bounced back up like a spring the moment he hit the ground and charged toward Chung Myung.
Then he skidded to a stop, slammed his head into the floor, and clasped his hands behind his back.
“What? Making a living? Your life? Your liiiife? I can’t believe I’m hearing some damn bandit talking about the meaning of life. What, you want me to kindly put an end to that miserable life of yours right now?”
“I was wrong!”
“If you’re wrong, then you should get hit!”
Chung Myung kicked Gwak Gyeong away again. Once more, Gwak Gyeong came racing back like the wind and buried his head in the ground.
Chung Myung turned his gaze to the mountain of wealth stacked before him.
“You lot sure did scrape together a lot for people who claimed life was hard. Anyway, you can’t trust a bunch of robbers when they start talking.”
Just then, Hong Dae-gwang rushed into the camp.
“Mount Hua Divine Dragon!”
“Yeah.”
“From what I heard from those beggars, it sounds like these guys never actually killed anyone. So they weren’t lying, after all.”
“Really?”
“Pretty sure.”
Chung Myung nodded, then looked back at Gwak Gyeong. Gwak Gyeong spoke with a voice that carried a hint of grievance.
“Y-you see? I told you! I—”
“I?”
“I said we didn’t kill people! I’m the one who’s being wronged here!”
“Dammit!”
Chung Myung straight-up kicked Gwak Gyeong’s legs out from under him, toppling him over, then began trampling him with merciless little steps.
“What the hell is wrong with you, you bastard? What kind of moral compass do you have? Hey, you dumbass! The second words like ‘we didn’t kill people, so it’s fine’ come out of someone’s mouth, it’s already over, you idiot! Even Master Kong would crack your skull open with the Four Books and Three Classics if he saw you. How the hell does a bandit glare back all bright-eyed and start barking?”
Gwak Gyeong, who had never once glared bright-eyed at anyone or barked back in his life, was deeply aggrieved. But he also knew very well that making excuses now would only shorten his lifespan.
“You’re all perfectly fine and healthy—so why the hell are you bandits making a living by robbing people? I work for my money too, damn it!”
Chung Myung narrowed his eyes. At the same time, his kicking grew more and more vicious. In the end, Baek Cheon could bear it no longer and stepped in.
“Chung Myung. He’s going to die at this rate.”
“If he dies, isn’t that a gain?”
“……Well, yes, but, uh…….”
Baek Cheon was momentarily at a loss for words. Scrambling to find a reasonable excuse, he suddenly looked startled.
“N-no! Hey! Even so, as a Daoist you can’t just kill people!”
“Tch.”
Even while talking to Baek Cheon, Chung Myung kept grinding Gwak Gyeong under his heel for a few more moments before finally stopping. He frowned down at the sprawled bandit.
“If I were in the mood, I’d really—”
He wanted to either bury every last one of them alive or hand them over to the magistrate.
“All right, all right. Calm down, Mount Hua Divine Dragon.”
Hong Dae-gwang smoothly cut in and played the mediator.
“Still, none of them have killed anyone, and from what I hear, they haven’t exactly been stripping people down to the bone either. At this rate, I’d say they’re actually pretty conscientious bandits.”
“What? No, where in the world are there conscientious bandits? Why don’t you just go ahead and call some murderers conscientious murderers while you’re at it?”
……Well.
He wasn’t exactly wrong.
Chung Myung trembled as if his fist was itching to fly, then let out a long sigh.
“Tsk. Fine. What good would it do for me to beat the hell out of you lot?”
Bandits were, by nature, impossible to eradicate completely. Even if he wiped these ones out right here, some new bandit camp would spring up as soon as there was a place suitable for one.
If that new camp was more vicious than this one, then he might end up driving out bandits who were already here for no reason at all, and innocent people could die in the process.
“Get up.”
At Chung Myung’s words, the bandits sprang to their feet as if launched and snapped into perfect posture.
“……The more I think about it, the angrier I get. You morons came all the way to Shaanxi to become bandits?”
Back in the days when Mount Hua had been crushing the Central Plains beneath its heel, there hadn’t been a single scrap of evil sect presence left in Shaanxi. Because of that, people who traveled the jianghu had never even properly gotten to experience the bandit suppression that everyone was supposed to go through at least once.
“What’s your name again?”
“I-it’s Gwak Gyeong, sir! Giant Mountain Great Axe Gwak Gyeong!”
“Giant Mountain Great Axe, my ass.”
Chung Myung growled, clearly displeased with the grandiose epithet. Then he said,
“Make sure your business runs well.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m watching you. If I hear there’s trouble on this end, every one of you will die that day.”
“Y-yes, sir. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Tsk.”
Chung Myung looked at Gwak Gyeong with slightly complicated eyes.
That’s annoying.
Leaving them be felt unpleasant, but wiping them all out also sat badly with him.
Besides, the biggest problem was Ghost Sect.
From now on, the business he was going to run would involve shipping goods all across the world. Even excluding Ghost Sect, they were already selling tea to every corner of the Central Plains.
I didn’t think this through.
Tea was one thing, but if the Ghost Sect disciples were carrying goods and ran into bandits by mistake, that would become a serious problem. The more valuable the goods they had to transport, the higher the compensation would be if something went wrong.
They were fast on foot, so they wouldn’t usually get caught, but since Ghost Sect lacked fighting strength, he couldn’t confidently say nothing bad would happen.
Even if he taught Ghost Sect, how much stronger could they really get? They needed to be carrying more goods instead of wasting time on that……
“Hmmm.”
After a brief moment of thought, Chung Myung nodded firmly a moment later.
“Hey.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Just call me ‘Daoist.’”
“Yes, Daoist!”
“If I want to meet your boss, where do I go?”
“Pardon? The boss? Do you mean the Green Forest King?”
“……No, what is wrong with you bandit bastards? Does your growth get stunted the second you become adults? Why does every damn name have to be something like Tiger, or Great Mountain, or what now? Green Forest King? What, do bandits also have kings now…….”
At his words, Hong Dae-gwang, who had been listening from the side, grinned.
“You’re a dragon too. Mount Hua Divine Dragon.”
“Did I give myself that title or something?”
Chung Myung snapped at him. Every time he heard it, his face burned.
This won’t do. I need to beat somebody up fast and get a new title.
I’m going to die of embarrassment.
“Anyway, where did you say I had to go?”
“Th-the Green Forest King isn’t someone you can just ask to meet and then go meet.”
“Huh? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“As long as there is a place with the Yangtze or the Yellow River, there is the Black Dragon King. And wherever there are green mountains, there is the Green Forest King. The Green Forest King is someone who exists everywhere and nowhere at once!”
“Ah…….”
Chung Myung nodded as if impressed.
“What kind of bullshit is that?”
“…….”
“Did they teach you to answer like that? You look stupid enough already, so it must’ve been a real pain memorizing that.”
“……Yes, a little.”
“Tsk tsk tsk.”
Honestly, what a hopeless bunch.
“Enough nonsense. Tell that Green Forest King bastard to come see me.”
At that, Hong Dae-gwang was even more startled than Gwak Gyeong.
“Mount Hua Divine Dragon. The Green Forest King is not the kind of person who comes just because someone says to come or goes just because someone says to go. We’re talking about the Five Hegemons of the Jianghu! The Five Hegemons of the Jianghu!”
“Then tell him that if he doesn’t show up, every bandit I see from now on will die.”
Hong Dae-gwang covered his face with a devastated expression.
This bastard is hopeless.
No matter how many times he explained it, the boy just didn’t understand. No, it wasn’t that he couldn’t understand—he simply had no intention of understanding at all.
A cow might at least listen, but how exactly were you supposed to make a wall understand?
“Y-yes, I’ll be sure to pass that on!”
“Tch.”
“A-and where are you going?”
“Why? You planning revenge?”
“R-revenge, sir!?”
Gwak Gyeong bounced up like a fresh fish.
“How could someone like me even dream of something so arrogant? I only need to know where you’re going so I can relay it to the Green Forest King!”
“Oh? Right. Then come to Ghost Sect…….”
“Aaaaagh! No! Absolutely not! Daoiiissst!”
This crazy bastard!
Not wanting to get dragged into this mess, Do Un-chan—who had been watching from far away—sprang toward Chung Myung at the fastest speed of his life.
He was dragging Green Forest King into Ghost Sect! Was he trying to curse them into ruin?
“G-Ghost Sect is impossible! We can’t handle someone like that!”
“You say that, but he’s still a bandit, isn’t he?”
“Absolutely not! Absolutely not! You may as well cut off my head.”
“You’re awfully timid.”
Chung Myung clicked his tongue.
“Fine. If that’s how it is, then there’s no helping it. Tell him to come to the Dang Family.”
“T-the Dang Family? You mean the Sichuan Dang Family?”
“Then what other Dang Family do you think I mean?”
Gwak Gyeong blinked.
The Sichuan Dang Family was a righteous sect.
Not just any righteous sect, either, but one called the most dangerous righteous sect in the world. And he wanted him to call the leader of the evil sects, the Green Forest King, to such a place.
I don’t get it anymore.
He couldn’t begin to follow this man’s train of thought.
“I-I’ll pass it along, but I don’t know whether he’ll actually listen just because I said so.”
“You just have to pass it along.”
“Yessir!”
Chung Myung gave Gwak Gyeong a doubtful look, then turned to Baek Cheon.
“Did you pack everything?”
“We loaded everything you told us to, but…… are you really sure it’s all right to take all this?”
“It’s fine. We left them grain, didn’t we? They won’t starve to death, so they won’t get rowdy.”
Chung Myung smiled faintly and placed a hand on Gwak Gyeong’s shoulder.
“Or they can get rowdy if they want. Right? Fate is a pretty funny thing. Even in this vast Central Plains, people still meet again at least once.”
“Th-that will absolutely not happen! Absolutely not!”
“That’s the spirit.”
By now, all the wealth had been stacked neatly on the wagons and wrapped in cloth. Chung Myung nodded.
“All done, then. Since we’re finished here…….”
“Y-you’ve worked hard! Please take care on your way.”
“Take care where?”
“Pardon?”
“Wow, you really are heartless. We’re leaving in the morning. Go back and set the table with more drinks.”
“…….”
“Hurry up.”
“……Yes.”
“Take care on your way, Daoist!”
“May you have a safe journey!”
“Please come visit again!”
The bandits of Jeokho Chae waved desperately toward the wagons making their way down the mountain path.
But what they did and what they felt were never quite the same.
Please hurry up and get the hell out of here, you son of a bitch!
What kind of so-called Daoists rob bandits blind? There’s no end to this madness.
Let’s never see each other again for the rest of our lives! Please!
Once the grotesque wagons, pulled by human hands, finally disappeared far down the mountainside, Im Saeng spat on the ground.
“Khaaaah! Pah! Those damn bastards!”
He even pointed wildly at the empty air, huffing and puffing in fury, then turned his head sharply with his teeth clenched.
“Boss!”
“……When the kids are around, call me Chaeju-nim.”
“Right. Chaeju-nim! What are we going to do?”
“……About what?”
Im Saeng twisted his face up in disgust.
“It’s filthy and humiliating, but now that it’s come to this, shouldn’t we move the camp? How do we know that crazy bastard won’t come back and cause trouble again?”
“……Im Saeng.”
“Yes! Shall I start making preparations right now? I’ve already got my eye on a nice head to move to.”
“……If we move, we die.”
“…….”
For a second, Im Saeng just blinked, unable to make sense of the words. Gwak Gyeong let out a hopeless sigh and said again,
“……Before he left, he said if we run, we die. He also said to manage things properly so no other camp pops up nearby for no reason, and to only charge a quarter of what we used to from now on.”
“N-no. What are they going to do if we run? They’re not going to follow us around and keep watch, are they?”
“Do you know who that beggar in the patched clothes was?”
“……A beggar?”
“He’s a 7-Knot Beggar from the Beggars’ Sect. Do you really think you can set up a camp while staying out of the Beggars’ Sect’s sight? If you can, then go ahead.”
“……I can’t.”
In the end, Gwak Gyeong collapsed right there in utter despair.
“We’re completely ruined. Ughhh. Damn it!”
A mournful wail echoed across the suddenly silent West Mountain, long and bleak.