Nothing at All Is Happening (3)
"What do you think you're doing!"
"How rude!"
Just as the Mount Hua disciples were about to storm at Song Won, Chung Myung waved his remaining hand dismissively.
"Enough, enough. Calm down."
"......"
"He must have had something he wanted to check."
Then, with a crooked grin, he stared at Song Won, who was still clutching his hand.
"Well? Done checking?"
Song Won looked back and forth between Chung Myung's face and his hand with an inscrutable expression.
Then he let go, stepped back, and bowed deeply from the waist.
"I apologize. I thought it best to be certain about everything, and so I committed a grave discourtesy. Please forgive my rudeness, honored guests."
"You must be pleased, Palace Lord. Having such a meticulous man under you and all."
"You flatter me."
Song Won looked at the others and spoke.
"If you find anything uncomfortable, please let me know. As promised, if you call for me, I will guide you around the Ice Palace."
"Yes, thank you."
Baek Cheon answered on behalf of the others. Song Won gave the room one last casual sweep of his eyes, then withdrew.
"Hmph."
Chung Myung smiled as he watched the door Song Won had closed behind him. Baek Cheon and the other disciples crowded around him and asked,
"Why did you grab his hand all of a sudden?"
"Yeah."
"You said you were checking his injuries."
Chung Myung snorted.
"That was a bluff."
"Huh?"
He shrugged instead of answering in detail.
Not an easy one.
Anyone else would have fallen right into Song Won's trap.
He was definitely someone to keep an eye on.
At any rate, thinking the situation had been more or less settled, Baek Cheon hardened his expression and looked at the junior disciples.
"Listen up, all of you."
Everyone turned to him with serious faces.
"Whatever the case, the fact remains that they suspected us."
"Yes."
"Don't forget this is foreign territory and mind your manners."
"Sasuk."
"Don't give them any excuse to pick at us...."
"Sasuk."
"What?"
Baek Cheon reflexively turned his head at the sudden hand resting on his shoulder. Chung Myung was smiling brightly.
"......What is it?"
"Nothing, really...."
He dug at his ear twice and blew through his mouth.
"I saw something a little weird yesterday."
"......"
"Someone shut the window while looking at me."
"......"
"Who, I wonder."
Well now....
His memory was sure something else.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Step. Step.
Song Won's face was grim as he walked down the corridor.
Was I mistaken?
Even if you wore a mask, you couldn't hide your build. The assassin's frame was clearly very similar to that of the man named Chung Myung.
But....
There was no yin energy in his body.
Anyone who had faced the cold, yin nature of a palm technique on the level of the Ice White Divine Palm should have retained some trace of yin energy in their body. No matter how pure a person's internal energy was, it was impossible to disperse that much of it in just half a day.
Yet when he had taken Chung Myung's hand to check, there hadn't been even a speck of yin energy inside him.
To block the Palace Lord's attack without injury at that age, and even clear out the yin energy afterward....
At that point, he would have to be called something like the Mount Hua Martial God, not merely the Mount Hua Divine Dragon.
So, by common sense, that Chung Myung could not possibly have been the assassin.
But....
"This is troubling."
"Yes?"
"Never mind."
He shook his head at the puzzled subordinate and frowned faintly.
What is it that's bothering me?
The man's body had been perfectly clean. There was no room for suspicion there.
And yet, what made him uneasy was the other man's attitude.
If a foreign guest were being investigated in the Ice Palace, anyone would show at least a little fear or discomfort.
But that fellow had been brazen to the point of arrogance. As though he had already known exactly what Song Won would do and had prepared for it.
"...Maybe I'm overthinking this."
Song Won glanced toward the room where the Mount Hua disciples were staying.
"Time will tell."
He fixed his gaze forward and quickened his steps again.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"Pff...."
"......"
"Puh-haha...."
"Jo Gul."
"Yes?"
"Don't laugh. If you don't want to die."
"......Yes."
Jo Gul clenched his teeth so hard his cheeks trembled as he stared at the swollen lump on Baek Cheon's head. He was holding back laughter so hard it felt like his face might split open, but if he laughed any more, he was really going to be beaten to death.
He had no interest in being buried in this faraway land of snow.
"...Let's continue where we left off."
"Yes, Sasuk.... Puuuuu!"
"......"
Baek Cheon looked up at the ceiling with empty eyes.
Life....
What exactly was he struggling so hard to obtain?
"Hey, hey. Stop it. Sasuk's about to ascend."
"Ah! I said stop!"
"H-heh, sto-op."
"Aaaagh!"
It took a while before Baek Cheon finally calmed down enough to let out a long sigh and ask Chung Myung,
"So... you're saying he didn't seem very close to the Demonic Sect?"
"Yep."
At Chung Myung's answer, Baek Cheon frowned.
"I don't understand. If that Han Yi-myung's account is correct, then it was the North Sea Ice Palace that brought the Demonic Sect in the first place."
"Right."
"And yet they distrust each other? Is that even possible?"
Chung Myung replied indifferently.
"Why wouldn't it be?"
"...Huh?"
"History's full of cases where people brought in outside forces to deal with internal enemies. But that doesn't mean they have to get along with the outsiders."
"...So if the terms are right, then the relationship between them doesn't matter?"
"Exactly."
Chung Myung gave a light nod.
"I see."
Baek Cheon murmured under his breath. That part made sense. But now something else had begun to bother him.
"If the terms are right, that means the Demonic Sect also has something to gain here."
"Hmm."
"I thought the Demonic Sect was trying to seize the Ice Palace and turn it into a second Demonic Sect. But if that's not the case, then what are they after here?"
At Baek Cheon's question, Chung Myung grinned.
"How the hell should I know?"
"......"
Baek Cheon's previously serious face twitched and contorted.
"Sasuk, are you an idiot? If I knew that, why would I come all the way here? I'd have just told the Shaolin Abbot and let him deal with it."
"......"
"Did getting hit once make you stupid?"
I don't know if his head got stupid, but it certainly looks like steam's coming out of it.
"...Fine. I was the idiot for asking you."
"You know it."
Just as Baek Cheon was about to blow up from the insult, Dang Soso quickly cut into their conversation.
"Could it be that the Demonic Sect is trying to receive something from the Ice Palace?"
"Hmm?"
"The Demonic Sect originally based itself in the southern part of the Central Plains, didn't it? For people like that to come all the way to this far northern sea means they must have some purpose. Otherwise, there'd be no reason to travel to such a barren place. There are surely plenty of areas closer to the Central Plains where their influence doesn't reach."
Baek Cheon nodded in agreement.
"Mm. That's what I think as well."
At that moment, Chung Myung slapped his hands together and sprang to his feet.
"Ah! Right!"
"Huh?"
"The documents! I had the documents! Baek Ah!"
At his shout, Baek Ah, who had been curled up inside the blanket, poked its head out.
"That thing! What happened to the papers?"
When Chung Myung asked, Baek Ah nodded quickly a couple of times and ran to the window. Then it casually flicked open the latch and slipped outside.
Baek Cheon stared blankly at the whole sequence as it happened.
"...It just opened the latch?"
"It's a spiritual beast."
"......"
Baek Cheon was suddenly curious about exactly what made a marten a spiritual beast, and why becoming one made it smart in the first place.
There isn't a single normal thing in this place.
Tak.
Then the closed window flew open again. Baek Ah came back inside with a bundle of papers clamped neatly in its mouth.
It looked like it just opened the window with its paw.
...No. Let's just let that go. Let's just let it go.
As befitted a spiritual beast, Baek Ah didn't bring the papers to Chung Myung but handed them straight to Baek Cheon instead.
That was very convincing proof of its intelligence.
"...What is this?"
"It was in the Palace Lord's room. I grabbed it quick! Hee-heh!"
Seeing his junior disciple looking genuinely proud of himself, Baek Cheon couldn't help smiling warmly.
A Daoist who brags so proudly about having stolen something.
Primordial Celestial Lord.
Just what exactly are You planning to do with Mount Hua? Seriously!
But theft was theft, and they still had to look through the papers.
He quietly recited a Daoist greeting in his mind once before lowering his head to inspect the documents in earnest.
Flap! Flap-flap-flap!
The papers flipped past quickly.
Thwack!
Baek Cheon finished scanning the whole stack in an instant and smiled.
"Chung Myung."
"What?"
"How did you shake off the Ice Palace people yesterday?"
"Didn't I already explain that?"
Chung Myung puffed himself up as though he'd been asked a sensible question.
"Those bastards clung to me like leeches and made me want to puke. So I punched a hole in that lake and hid under it to shake them off!"
"...Under the lake?"
"Of course! There's probably no one else who could come up with that kind of instant brilliance! No matter how thorough those guys are, they can't search under a frozen lake! Krrr. Pretty clever, right?"
Chung Myung proudly stuck his stomach out.
Baek Cheon smiled even more brightly.
"Under the lake?"
"I thought I was going to freeze to death."
"You mean you went into the water?"
"Why do you keep asking? Is this somehow hard to understand?"
"Yes. It is hard to understand. You went to all the trouble of getting the documents and then took them into the water with you?"
"...Huh?"
Baek Cheon snatched the papers from Chung Myung's hand and flung them wide, scattering them everywhere.
"You lunatic! How could you go into the water carrying papers written in ink? They're completely washed clean! As clean and bright as your brain!"
Chung Myung snatched up the pile of papers and quickly scanned them.
"...This isn't how this was supposed to go."
They were white.
The North Sea's clear, transparent water had turned even the papers that entered it perfectly clear and transparent as well.
"...After all that suffering?"
Chung Myung swayed as if his soul had left him, then trudged over to the brazier and held his hands to the heat.
"What are you doing?"
"My heart's cold, so I'm warming my body at least."
"......"
Pressing a throbbing temple with one hand, Baek Cheon asked,
"...So you didn't get anything else?"
"Sasuk."
"Yes?"
"Would I?"
"...I shouldn't have asked."
Baek Cheon slapped a hand to his forehead, then immediately cried out and grabbed the very spot Chung Myung had hit him earlier.
"Honestly, nothing ever goes right."
Just then, Dang Soso, who had taken the papers from Chung Myung, spotted something and cried out.
"Sasuk! The word 'Ice Crystal' is still left here."
"Ice Crystal?"
"Yes, Ice Crystal. This looks like it's talking about production.... um, yield?"
Dang Soso read the word haltingly while holding the page up to the light. At that, Chung Myung, who had been sitting listlessly, jerked his head up.
"Ah, right! I heard the Palace Lord talking with an elder, and it sounded like the Demonic Sect bastards were demanding Ice Crystals."
"Ice Crystals?"
"Yeah. I think they said the quantity was so huge it would be difficult to meet the demand?"
"...The Demonic Sect is demanding Ice Crystals?"
Baek Cheon stroked his chin, deep in thought.
"Then maybe the reason Ice Crystals stopped circulating in the Central Plains wasn't because of hostility toward the Central Plains, but simply because there wasn't enough of the stuff."
"Amitabha."
Hye Yeon, who had been quietly listening to their exchange, gently added,
"Why would the Demonic Sect require Ice Crystals? And in such quantity that even the Ice Palace finds it burdensome?"
"...I'm not sure."
Baek Cheon fell into troubled thought, trying to hold together the pieces in his mind.
Something doesn't fit.
People disappearing, and a demand for massive quantities of Ice Crystals....
"One thing is certain. The Demonic Sect is scheming something in the North Sea."
"It seems that way, Sasuk."
Baek Cheon looked at Chung Myung, who was warming himself by the brazier, and asked,
"So what are you going to do now? Even if we gather more information, it doesn't seem easy to get anything beyond this inside the Ice Palace."
"Probably not."
"And finding the traces of Demonic Sect members across this vast North Sea won't be easy either. The reason we found one last time was pure chance."
"That too."
"Then there's no method."
But at that, Chung Myung only snorted.
"Why the hell are we the ones who have to find them?"
"Huh?"
"If those Demonic Sect bastards are doing something in the North Sea, then they're already on edge. We don't need to go looking for them. Stir up enough trouble and they'll come to us on their own."
"......"
"Have you never heard of ta chor gyeong sa—to strike the grass and startle the snake? Disturb the grass and the snake'll come out on its own."
"Yeah. And then you usually get bitten by the snake."
"...Huh?"
That did sound right too....
As Chung Myung tilted his head, Baek Cheon let out a long sigh. Then he lightly rubbed his chin with his fingertips.
He more or less understood, but there was still something he couldn't quite wrap his head around.
"So what exactly are you planning to do?"
Chung Myung thought for a moment, then grinned.
"Those bastards need Ice Crystals, right?"
"That's right."
"But we need them too."
"...That's right."
Baek Cheon was starting to feel uneasy.
Meaning....
"Sasuk."
"Yes?"
"You know what?"
"Know what...."
"Me?"
As expected, Chung Myung's eyes began to glitter with madness in an instant.
"I'd rather set the Ice Palace on fire than let those Demonic Sect bastards get their hands on my stuff."
"......"
"From now on, all the Ice Crystals are mine. Anyone who touches them dies!"
Baek Cheon smiled with great satisfaction.
Ah, yes.
Do as you please.
Do whatever you want.