Why Is That Man Here? (3)
“Life is…….”
Chung Myung stretched out a hand into the wind. His fingers closed around a wine bottle beaded with cold dew.
He tipped back the bottle and gulped down the liquor, then turned his head slightly to glance at the side dishes laid out beside him.
At the sight of the duck Hyun Young had personally simmered for him after the long journey, and the mouthwatering dongpo pork, a smile spread across his lips all by itself.
And on top of that…….
“You seem to not understand what I’m saying. I said I can see their legs, their legs!”
“If you’ve got the strength to curse, then pull harder! Harder!”
“What are you glaring at? I’ll squeeze the ink right out of you!”
“…….”
Starting with Baek Cheon, then Baek Sang, Yoon Jong, and Jo Gul, they were wringing the Mount Hua disciples out like wet towels. The sight of them shouting while holding their swords in one hand, sheathed and all, was…… well, how should he put it…….
After a brief moment of thought, Chung Myung broke into a satisfied smile.
Who cares?
As long as it was efficient, that was all that mattered.
Anyway.
As the saying went, if the water above was clear, the water below would be clear too. A beautiful system in which the people at the top worked hard on the ones beneath them, and those beneath them automatically got worked hard as well, was running itself perfectly.
Hm?
He shouldn’t use that saying here?
So what?
Chung Myung’s gaze drifted back to the sky. Baek Ah twitched for a moment, perhaps because it had been pressed down by his head, but soon went still again.
We really did make it this far, didn’t we.
Looking back, it had been a truly exhausting road.
He’d been cursed by fate and reborn in the body of a beggar, and it had taken forever just to come to Mount Hua.
He’d led the stubborn younger disciples with love, and persuaded the sect leader and elders who doubted him with righteous spirit, again and again.
After that hard, long struggle, they had finally come this far.
“Keh. Now that’s human triumph, human triumph. Isn’t that right, Sect Leader-Sahyung?”
—That sure took a bloody long time.
“This old man is really asking for it.”
Chung Myung ground his teeth.
Oh? Then go ahead and do it yourself!
It was only because I was doing it that we got here this quickly. If Sect Leader-Sahyung had been in charge, by now he’d probably still be sitting around playing baduk with the Sect Leader!
“Tch. Why even bother talking.”
Still muttering in annoyance, Chung Myung patted his belly and looked back at Mount Hua with a softened expression.
Watching the disciples who had started training on their own even without his direct interference, and the upper-generation seniors who had begun handling their own affairs, it finally looked a little bit like a proper sect.
If he thought back to the first time he’d climbed Mount Hua, the phrase “the sea turns to mulberry fields” barely did it justice.
But…….
“We’re still far from done.”
At best, they had only just acquired the shape of a sect.
The people of the world praised Mount Hua for defeating Maninbang, but that was only a biased assessment, thick with the wish to emphasize that Mount Hua, wearing the mask of an orthodox sect, had humiliated the evil faction Maninbang.
Mount Hua had merely defeated part of Maninbang’s forces with everything it had.
Bluntly speaking, that was Mount Hua’s limit for now.
“We need to get stronger.”
The Thousand-Year Cold Iron swords might raise the Mount Hua disciples’ abilities by at least thirty percent, but even so, it was only thirty percent. It would amount to nothing more than making a slightly larger acorn.
They were still nowhere near a sect that could compare to Mount Hua in its prime.
“Those acorns are going to need more time to grow…….”
The problem was that the world would not wait for them forever. If they had all the time they wanted, there would be no problem at all—but the world was not that easygoing.
“The Heavenly Alliance is still lacking too.”
With Beast Palace, the Sichuan Tang Family, and Mount Hua, the alliance was honestly still too flimsy to deserve the name.
Compared to the Nine Sects and One Gang, or the Five Great Families, which were made up of the finest ten sects in the world or the five noble families, they were inevitably falling short.
“In the end, that means we need to take in more sects.”
Chung Myung scratched his head roughly.
If quality was lacking, he’d have to make up for it with quantity. The same went for a sect. If the Mount Hua disciples weren’t going to improve fast enough, then taking in more disciples to raise their combat strength was one way to go.
They could recruit Ming-generation disciples beneath the Cheong generation, or bring secular disciples into the main sect. Either would work.
There was just one thing.
……It’d be nice if we had a bit more cold iron.
He had managed, more or less, to forge enough cold iron swords for all the disciples. But if possible, he also wanted to make symbolic plum blossom swords for the secular disciples who would come train at the main sect and then return home.
Of course, it would be impossible to make swords with as much cold iron as the ones used by the main sect disciples, but still, he wanted to give them at least a sword that could proudly shine and say, I’ve got some cold iron in me!
“Damn it, why is the cold iron all dried up?”
Chewing on jerky, Chung Myung recalled the conversation he’d had with Tang Gun-ak.
“But cold iron is still iron, isn’t it? Does it make sense for every other kind of iron to come and go fine, but that one just completely vanish?”
“When did I say cold iron had become invisible?”
“About a hundred years ago?”
“Do you know where cold iron comes from?”
“From the ground, I guess.”
“……It’s Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron. Good iron absorbs the extreme yin energy of the land for ten thousand years, changing its nature. That is cold iron. So where would it come from?”
“The North Sea?”
“Exactly. Cold iron is a specialty of the Ice Palace in the North Sea. But after the last war, trade between the Central Plains and the North Sea was severed, wasn’t it?”
“…….”
“So there’s no way to get it anymore.”
“Grrrgh.”
Chung Myung wiped his face with a dry hand.
“I should’ve buried those bastards in the command structure when I had the chance!”
They’d screwed up the war, and now they were screwing over his present life too. If he could go back in time, he’d wring their necks himself.
“Tch. Whatever. If it isn’t there, it isn’t there! I’ll live with it!”
He wasn’t going to the North Sea just to get hold of that stuff. That wasn’t something a human being did.
Shaking his head, Chung Myung reached out for the bottle again.
Hm?
But no matter how he fumbled around, he couldn’t find the bottle.
Where…….
“Wah! Damn it, you scared the hell out of me!”
Chung Myung jerked so hard he nearly toppled over. Before he knew it, Yu I-seol had climbed up onto the eaves, snatched the bottle away, and was staring at him intently.
“Wh-why! Why are you sneaking around like a ghost again? You trying to make a guy’s heart stop?”
“No alcohol.”
“Why not?”
“Elder Hyun Young is looking for you. Something happened.”
“Huh?”
That abrupt news made Chung Myung tilt his head.
“What now?”
Then he leapt down from the roof.
“……There isn’t any?”
At Chung Myung’s stunned question, Hwang Jong-ui nodded with an awkward expression.
“……I’m terribly sorry, but yes.”
“Why not?”
“The goods have dried up.”
Uh…….
He felt like he’d heard this somewhere before.
Chung Myung scratched his head hard.
“No, you said last time that everything except Purple Wood Grass could be obtained.”
“That was certainly the case then.”
Hwang Jong-ui let out a deep sigh, as though even he found it frustrating.
“But Taoist, as you know, supply changes depending on the season. That’s why prices change.”
“I can pay anything. Mount Hua’s rich now!”
Chung Myung puffed out his chest with an ehem.
But Hwang Jong-ui only gave a bitter smile.
“I know. Why would I, of all people, not know Mount Hua’s wealth? The problem is that even if we were given a mountain of money, there is nothing to buy right now.”
“…….”
“I’m sorry, Taoist.”
“Hold on a second.”
Chung Myung’s eyes trembled violently.
“How can the abundant Ice Essence suddenly be gone?”
“……It wasn’t exactly abundant even before. It was only easy enough to obtain if you paid enough.”
“Still, it was there.”
Hwang Jong-ui scratched his head, full of regret.
“As you know, Ice Essence is something that comes from the North Sea. It’s a material that can only be found in the North Sea. For all these years, trade between the North Sea and the Central Plains may have been forbidden, but some goods still circulated secretly. The barren North Sea had no choice but to sell things to the Central Plains if it wanted to survive.”
“Right.”
They wouldn’t sell cold iron, but they did sell Ice Essence. That was why they’d been able to get Ice Essence in the first place. And wasn’t it from that Ice Essence that the Purple Heaven Pill had been made?
“But perhaps you’ve heard about it already—the North Sea has been in an unusual state lately. Because of that, they’ve suddenly shut every door and are strictly prohibiting Central Plains people from entering.”
“Uh…….”
He’d heard something like that from Shaolin.
“And the people of the North Sea themselves aren’t coming out at all either. So from our side, the trade route has been cut off without anyone even knowing why.”
Chung Myung’s eyes widened.
“So what you’re saying is?”
“Yes.”
Hwang Jong-ui nodded.
“Unless the North Sea Ice Palace resumes admitting Central Plains people, we won’t be able to obtain any more goods.”
“…….”
Chung Myung stared blankly into space.
……This can’t be. Then we can’t make it?
He had promised the Green Forest King a Honwon Dan. The problem was that Mount Hua did not have a single Honwon Dan or Purple Heaven Pill left.
They had fed out all the Purple Heaven Pills because leaving them sitting around would only let the medicinal potency fade, and they had used up the rest to treat injuries when Maninbang attacked.
The reason he hadn’t worried about it was because they had obtained more Purple Wood Grass from the Sichuan Tang Family when they met Beast Palace Lord Maeng So.
He had thought that as long as they had Purple Wood Grass, they could make as many Purple Heaven Pills or Honwon Pills as they needed.
But…….
This is bad.
Chung Myung’s eyes shook violently.
The Green Forest King?
No, Im So-byeong wasn’t the important thing right now!
If Ice Essence could no longer be supplied, then they couldn’t make any more Purple Heaven Pills either. How much suffering had he gone through just to get hold of that damned pill recipe?
And now it was going to end with just one batch?
“What kind of ghost-chewing-the-rice-addy nonsense is this?!”
No way!
My Purple Heaven Pills!
At that moment, Hyun Young, who had been listening to the conversation with a low murmur, asked,
“Then there is no way to solve this?”
“No, Elder. I’m terribly sorry, but with our trading company’s capacity, it’s impossible. No, I doubt any company could obtain Ice Essence right now. We’re checking whether anyone who bought it before might be willing to resell it, just in case, but…….”
“Collecting a little here and there, in handfuls that small, won’t solve anything.”
“Exactly. And since the price is certain to skyrocket, no one’s willing to let go of what they have.”
“Those damned hoarders!”
Chung Myung glared.
“In any case, there’s no solution. If you’re not a North Sea native, let alone a Central Plains person, the mere act of setting foot in the North Sea right now will get your head chopped off.”
“……Probably.”
Even the secular disciples from Shaolin had gone to investigate the North Sea and come back as corpses. What more needed to be said?
Then.
Baek Cheon, who had been listening quietly, spoke up.
“But you can go.”
“Huh?”
“Did you forget? Beast Palace Lord said he’d told the other exotic-region palaces about you, so they wouldn’t mistreat you.”
“…….”
At the unfamiliar claim, Hyun Young looked at Chung Myung in surprise.
“Is that true?”
“Uh…… I did hear something like that…….”
Then Yoon Jong looked up at the ceiling with sorrowful eyes.
“So…… we really do have to go ourselves.”
Jo Gul clutched his head.
“It’s almost winter! If we go to the North Sea, our bones are gonna freeze.”
But Baek Cheon simply shook his head calmly, as if there was no helping it.
“What choice do we have? Things have come to this.”
At that, even the two who had been despairing gave reluctant nods. It seemed they had already accepted the fate laid out before them.
Except.
There was one person whose position seemed a little different.
“I object.”
Everyone’s heads turned at once.
Hyun Jong was shaking his head with a dissatisfied expression.
“This is far too dangerous.”
“But Yunnan was…….”
“That is different. Yunnan and the North Sea are not the same.”
It was a perfectly natural response. Hyun Jong had already heard what Beop Jeong, the Shaolin abbot, had said.
Demonic Sect.
It was not certain yet, but mahwa had been found on the corpse of the Shaolin secular disciple that had been brought back from the North Sea. That meant there was a high chance the North Sea was entangled with the Demonic Sect.
“Of course making the Purple Heaven Pills is important. But it is not so important that you must risk your lives for it.”
Hyun Jong said firmly,
“As Mount Hua’s sect leader, I cannot permit you to go to the North Sea.”
His voice was stern beyond measure, so severe that no one there could even think to object.
A moment of silence fell.
And then.
“S-Sect Leader!”
Someone banged fiercely on the door of the reception hall. Hyun Jong frowned slightly and asked,
“What is it?”
“P-please, you need to come out! A-at the mountain gate, right now!”
“Hm?”
At that frantic voice, everyone sensed that something was terribly wrong and shot to their feet.
An enemy?
An intruder?
Perhaps because they’d been burned once during the Maninbang incident, their bodies moved before their words did. Led by Chung Myung, the Mount Hua disciples kicked open the door and ran out all at once.
Not long after moving, they spotted the figures standing at the mountain gate.
“……Huh?”
Everyone came to an abrupt stop and tilted their heads in confusion.
“Th-that…….”
Chung Myung blinked.
The yellow robe. And atop it, a glossy shaved head sparkling in the sunlight.
Staring blankly at the person standing at the mountain gate, Chung Myung groaned.
“……Why is that man here?”
“R-right?”
Everyone could only stare dumbly at the sight, completely lost. Then, having noticed them, he approached with a bright smile and cupped his hands in greeting.
“It has been a long time, Mount Hua Divine Dragon.”
Beop Jeong, the sect leader of Shaolin, greeted them with a radiant smile.