I Said I’d Cut That Neck Clean Off (5)
The end of war was always hollow.
And the work of cleaning up after it was never simple. When the few overpowered the many, especially, there was no avoiding the headache of what came next.
Yeo Sa-hon first had the Ice Palace warriors’ weapons confiscated.
Of course, that alone could hardly be called total subjugation.
A man did not lose the ability to fight just because he had no weapon, and for those trained in palm strikes or fist techniques, it was hardly an effective restraint.
But from Yeo Sa-hon’s point of view, these people would eventually become one family anyway. So rather than driving them too hard, it was perhaps better for the future of the Ice Palace to handle them with a measure of care.
The Ice Palace disciples, perhaps because they understood his intentions, or perhaps because they had decided that with Seol Cheon-sang dead, resistance was now meaningless, obediently followed the orders without much protest.
“This feels like a lie somehow.”
“Hmm.”
At Yoon Jong’s words, Baek Cheon gave a small nod.
The snowstorm that swept back in the moment the war ended buried every trace of the fierce battle beneath a white shroud, as though the North Sea itself had no wish for this war’s aftermath to linger.
“They were people who used to be one family, after all.”
“That’s true, but…”
“Elder Yeo isn’t someone to be taken lightly. He’ll sort it out properly. It’s not our concern anymore.”
“Yes.”
They were talking about the war, but there was no real force in their voices. They were speaking, yes, but their minds seemed to be elsewhere.
Their eyes were fixed on the door in front of them.
“……Will he be all right?”
“What?”
“His injuries looked pretty bad.”
“There’s a fool to worry about, and then there’s you worrying about Chung Myung.”
“That’s true, but…”
Yoon Jong let the end of his sentence trail off and looked at Baek Cheon.
He spoke with a calm face, but even Baek Cheon’s expression was taut with unease. Unlike the rest of them, who had escaped injury, Chung Myung had been badly battered in the process of dueling Seol Cheon-sang.
Baek Cheon wordlessly rubbed the corner of his mouth with his hand.
That damned bastard.
He knew why Chung Myung had done it. He understood it in his head.
If Chung Myung had not forced the matter and severed Seol Cheon-sang’s head in one stroke, this war would have dragged on much longer. Then far more blood would have soaked the North Sea than had already been shed.
It had been a war in which no compromise was possible, and it would never have ended until one side was utterly broken.
In the end, Chung Myung had sharply reduced the number of people who would have died in this war. The method had been… extremely brutal, yes, but still.
As a Daoist and as a martial artist, it was something he ought to praise. And yet, for some reason, Baek Cheon had no desire to do so.
Baek Cheon flexed and unflexed his fist once. That was when Yoon Jong spoke again.
“Will he really be all right?”
“Why do you keep asking the same thing?”
“No, it’s not that…”
Yoon Jong hesitated, then glanced toward the door before speaking again.
“……Never mind his body. Isn’t Chung Myung acting far too unlike himself? I just….”
“…….”
Baek Cheon looked at the tightly shut door without answering.
Unlike himself, huh…
He understood what Yoon Jong meant. But there was only one answer he could give.
“Even so, he’s still Chung Myung.”
“…….”
“Isn’t that enough?”
Yoon Jong finally nodded in silence. At that moment, a quiet voice came from one corner.
“Same.”
The two who had been talking turned their heads.
Yu I-seol, leaning with her back against the wall, was looking this way with an expressionless face.
“Nothing different.”
“……Right.”
Baek Cheon agreed and slowly nodded. Of course, he knew Yoon Jong had spoken only because he was worried about Chung Myung. So he did not blame him.
“Still… Chung Myung may act a little different than usual, so take it as it comes and understand it. After all, there’d be some aftermath after a fight like that.”
“Yes, Sasuk.”
“We’ll just have to….”
Baek Cheon was about to continue with the utmost seriousness when—
“Aaaaaaagh!”
A bloodcurdling scream erupted from inside the room.
“W-what was that!”
“An ambush?”
The Mount Hua disciples jumped to their feet in alarm. The one who had been about to kick the door open at once was Baek Cheon, but the voice that followed from inside stopped him cold.
“Ow! Ow! It hurts! Why are you wrapping the bandages that tight? You’re gonna burst the wounds open!”
“Shut up! Stay still, will you?”
“Ow! Ow! My arm! My arm, my arm! No, I told you it hurts there! It hurts!”
“You come back looking like a rag wiped over the floor and you still dare yap about pain? I should just twist your neck right now!”
“…….”
Hearing those ferocious voices, Baek Cheon let out a long sigh.
“……Let’s go in first.”
At his cue, everyone hurriedly opened the door and poured inside.
“Hey! Hey! Is this treatment? This?”
“Stay still, or I’ll really do it! Want me to drive a giant needle into your scalp?”
Dang Soso was straddling Chung Myung’s back, which was already wrapped head to toe in bandages, and mercilessly stabbing needles into him.
Looking at Chung Myung, who looked like he had become a porcupine, Baek Cheon smiled with quiet satisfaction.
Changed, my ass.
Waiting for that bastard to change would be slower than waiting for the North Sea to turn into a desert.
Chung Myung, pale as death, kept screaming the whole time.
“No, the needle! Why is the needle the size of a human palm? No matter how I look at it, that’s not a healing needle, that’s not a healing needle!”
“Why do you care about that?! It depends how you use it!”
“So you’re saying it isn’t one!”
Unable to watch Chung Myung thrashing all over the place, Baek Cheon jerked his chin toward the others.
“You lot.”
“Yes, Sasuk!”
“Hold that bastard down!”
“Yes!”
Jo Gul, Yoon Jong, and Yu I-seol rushed in and pinned Chung Myung down tightly. Chung Myung’s resistance only grew fiercer, but these three were not about to let him go easily.
“You traitors! You think I’m gonna forget this grudge?!”
“Geez, shut up already.”
Baek Cheon clicked his tongue, frowning slightly.
“The hell is with you. A sword can be stuck into your body and you won’t even blink, but you go berserk over a needle?”
“Why?! What’s so weird about that? Want me to jab a giant needle into your skull, Sasuk? Want to see how you like it?”
Then Dang Soso clenched her teeth and slapped Chung Myung hard across the back.
“I told you to be quiet! Quiet! Don’t move!”
“Ow! That hurts, right there! Right there!”
Only after he had rampaged for quite a while did Chung Myung finally begin to calm down, once Yu I-seol firmly held his head and started thumping him with small forehead flicks.
Baek Cheon let out a deep breath and asked Dang Soso casually, “How is he?”
She answered in a voice tinged with irritation.
“How do you think? About the same as last time. No, seriously, why does this man always come back from a fight looking like this? Does he have some hobby of sewing his body together?”
She must have worked herself up again as she spoke, because Dang Soso shot Chung Myung a savage glare.
Even Chung Myung flinched at the sheer force of it.
Watching this, Hye Yeon seemed to decide he could not stay silent and stepped in with a gentle smile.
“Amitabha. Still, thanks to Chung Myung benefactor’s efforts, everything turned out well….”
“Hye Yeon monk.”
“Y-yes?”
“Be quiet, please.”
“……Yes.”
Hye Yeon softly muttered a prayer no one else could even hear and shrank back into a corner.
With a firm tug, Dang Soso finished gathering the remaining needles and tying off the bandages, then stepped down from Chung Myung’s back, frowning hard.
“The external injuries are all taken care of, so if he rests a bit he should be fine. Chung Myung-sahyeong heals fast anyway.”
“He does, doesn’t he?”
“He’ll die doing that, he will.”
“…….”
Baek Cheon, a little flustered, tried awkwardly to stop her.
“H-he’s a patient, so let’s not be too hard on him.”
“Have you not considered that because he’s a patient, he’s still alive?”
“…….”
Baek Cheon smiled faintly.
I’m never getting hurt, not ever.
Why was a physician scarier than the enemy?
“Grrrngh.”
At that moment, Chung Myung, who had been lying face-down, slowly pushed himself up.
“Maybe I’m just getting old, but my body’s really….”
“No, you crazy bastard! How old are you, exactly?!”
“What a lightning bolt from heaven he deserves!”
“Ha… what would you lot know?”
Chung Myung waved a hand dismissively, then sat down in lotus position right there on the spot.
Seeing him wrapped tightly in bandages from head to toe, the Mount Hua disciples inexplicably felt a weight settle in their hearts.
“Are you all right?”
“This little bit? What’s the big deal.”
“……You’re the one who just went berserk over a few needles?”
Chung Myung glared at Baek Cheon.
“Soso. Give me a needle.”
“Why? Need more? Want me to stick one in your skull, sahyung?”
“……No.”
Looking suddenly dejected, Chung Myung asked Baek Cheon, “So how’s the situation?”
Baek Cheon exhaled and answered. “The cleanup is going more smoothly than expected. The ones who followed the Ice Palace Lord are listening to Elder Yeo’s words without much resistance, too. It’s a little surprising, honestly.”
“This place is closer to a clan or a kingdom than anything else.”
If a rebellion broke out at Mount Hua and someone brought down Hyun Jong, then proclaimed himself sect leader?
That bastard would be torn into five pieces on the spot.
Without Chung Myung lifting a finger, Yoon Jong, Yu I-seol, and Baek Cheon would turn into asuras and go on a rampage.
“Elder Yeo is hurrying the succession of Young Lord Seol’s ascension to Palace Lord. Apparently the Ice Palace can’t function without a palace lord.”
“Well, that’s certainly something. Making the kid shoulder a burden already.”
Chung Myung clicked his tongue.
“Still, I guess it’s better to have a brain in charge. Especially here.”
There were aspects of it that were hard to understand from the perspective of the Central Plains, but every life had its own reasons. He had no intention of arguing over right and wrong.
Mount Hua’s own way was probably full of things other people would never understand, too.
“We need to settle everything as fast as possible. This isn’t the time to drag things out.”
Speaking in a low voice, Chung Myung abruptly stood up.
“Why are you suddenly getting up?”
“I’m going to see Yeo Sa-hon.”
“You punk! You’re a patient….”
“Patient or not, I don’t care.”
Chung Myung cut off Baek Cheon’s words cleanly, his eyes turning faintly cold.
“We don’t have time to be worrying about crap like that. We need to wrap this up as fast as possible and deal with those Demonic Sect bastards.”
“……I know that, but there’s no reason you have to go yourself. We’ll go and pass on the message. Elder Yeo seems to be moving pretty quickly for that purpose anyway.”
At Baek Cheon’s concerned words, Chung Myung let out a short laugh.
“Sasuk.”
“Hm?”
“Sasuk is good at a lot of things… no, actually, a lot of things you’re bad at. But there’s one thing in particular you’re bad at.”
“What is it, you punk?”
Ignoring Baek Cheon’s indignant tone, Chung Myung went on.
“You think too well of people.”
“……What do you mean by that?”
“You’ll see.”
A strange cold smile touched his mouth.
“Those who have nothing don’t know how to look back, but once people gain something, they keep looking back and hesitating.”
He said it with a smile, yet oddly enough, it carried a chill.
No—there was even a faint bitterness mixed into it.
Everyone, pressed down by that atmosphere, could not bring themselves to stop him. They could only stare blankly at his departing back.
Then Chung Myung, who had been walking away, stopped abruptly. Without turning around, he said,
“Ah, and.”
“Yeah?”
Chung Myung stood silently in place.
Jo Gul, already growing impatient, was just about to say something when an unfamiliar softness slipped into Chung Myung’s voice.
“You all did well this time.”
“…….”
The Mount Hua disciples stared at Chung Myung with widened eyes.
But he, as though he had said everything he needed to say, sauntered off without a trace of hesitation.
“…….”
Jo Gul sprang to his feet and went over to the window.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing. Just checking whether the sun came up in the west.”
“…….”
“If not that, then, Soso. Did you maybe give him the wrong medicine?”
“I didn’t give him any medicine. If something went wrong, it would’ve been the needles I stuck in him….”
Then Yu I-seol, who had been standing there with her mouth open in disbelief, lowered her head and muttered,
“……The forehead flicks were too strong.”
It was unbelievable.
Good heavens.
Chung Myung had actually just said something nice.
Wasn’t this the same Chung Myung who, even when they beat the disciples of the great sects at the All-Heaven Martial Arts Tournament, still found fault with them, and who had grumbled even after toppling the head of Maninbang?
“……So this is how it feels when that day finally comes.”
“Indeed, Sahyung.”
Baek Cheon, who had fallen into thought for a moment, rose and turned around.
“Enough nonsense. Let’s follow him.”
“Yes, Sasuk.”
A small smile settled at the corner of his mouth as he went ahead first.