How Is the World Supposed to Go On? (2)
“Maninbang?”
Chung Myung ground his teeth so hard it sounded like they might crack.
“Why the hell are those bastards showing up again?”
The moment the name Maninbang was mentioned, the air around him changed at once. It was as if the icy north wind itself had swept through the room—
“Chung Myung.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t sneak over here and sit down. Go back over there and hold your hands up.”
“...Damn, that didn’t work?”
“Tsk.”
Chung Myung slumped again, puffed out his cheeks in sulking annoyance, and trudged back to the corner. Then he plopped down on his knees and lifted his hands once more.
When Im So-byeong looked at him with a flustered expression, Chung Myung shot him a glare.
“What are you looking at, you piece of—”
“You little—!”
But when Hyun Jong barked at him, Chung Myung flinched and turned his head away a little.
“Pay him no mind.”
“...Yes, Sect Leader.”
Im So-byeong gave an awkward laugh and nodded.
It seemed there was a distance as wide as the entire Central Plains between the Mount Hua Sect he had imagined and the real one standing before him.
“Ahem. So, then...”
He cleared his throat several times to reset the atmosphere.
Normally, the mere mention of the Green Forest King would have everyone lowering the mood for him automatically, but this place had someone who did not even regard the name’s weight as much as the dirt under his own feet, and that made it impossible to get into the proper rhythm.
Sensing his trouble, Hyun Jong offered a helping hand with a gentle question.
“Then what exactly is Maninbang up to now?”
“I don’t know precisely what they’re after either. But one thing is certain: they’re definitely plotting something.”
“May I ask why you think so? Has Maninbang shown some suspicious movement?”
“No. It’s the opposite, actually.”
“Hmm?”
Hyun Jong frowned, not fully understanding Im So-byeong’s words.
“What do you mean, the opposite?”
“Maninbang is doing nothing right now. They’ve even withdrawn from every place where they had been in conflict with us in the Green Forest, and they’re shutting down the businesses they had been running one by one.”
Hyun Jong’s brow furrowed. At that moment, Hyun Young, standing beside him, asked,
“And how is that a problem? Closing down businesses and avoiding war sounds like something to welcome, doesn’t it?”
“In ordinary circumstances, yes. If any other sect made the same move, I’d think the same as Elder Hyun. But... Maninbang is different.”
There was a cold gleam in Im So-byeong’s eyes.
“Maninbang’s leader, Jang Il-so, is someone who has never given up on anything in his life, and never once retreated from a fight. He may forget a favor, but he never forgets a grudge.”
Hyun Jong let out a low murmur.
Mount Hua had also made an enemy of Maninbang, but the fact that the Green Forest had been locked in enmity with them for so long was already a well-known story in the Jianghu.
In that sense, the Green Forest probably knew more about Maninbang and Jang Il-so than Mount Hua did.
“There’s only one reason Jang Il-so would be acting patient and subdued.”
Hyun Young gave a small groan before speaking.
“You mean he’s found something bigger than the gains he could make from the businesses he’s running now, or from winning the war with the Green Forest?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Hmm.”
Hyun Young sank into thought.
Hyun Jong, holding his teacup, felt the aroma spread across his mouth as he said,
“Jang Il-so...”
Then his gaze moved back to Im So-byeong.
“Do you think this series of events is related to Mount Hua as well?”
“Sect Leader.”
After coughing a few times, Im So-byeong looked Hyun Jong straight in the eye and replied,
“Mount Hua has already fallen out with Maninbang.”
“...”
“Jang Il-so is the sort of man who obsesses over fresh grudges far more than old ones. Those old feuds happened when he was still young and foolish, but he sees new grudges as proof that the current Maninbang has been underestimated.”
Im So-byeong’s face was firmer than ever.
“Unless Jang Il-so has changed drastically in a very short period of time, then Maninbang’s current movements must be related to Mount Hua.”
Hyun Jong slowly closed his eyes.
Jang Il-so. And Maninbang.
They had been matters he had temporarily set aside.
But the weight carried by those names could not be ignored forever.
“Chung Myung.”
“Yep!”
Chung Myung dropped his arms and trotted over before sitting down quickly.
“...I didn’t tell you to come over.”
“Hehe. You were going to anyway. Anticipating the Sect Leader’s heart and acting on it in advance—that’s exactly how a Mount Hua disciple ought to behave, isn’t it?”
“If you can’t even keep your mouth shut...”
The very next day, all the virtue he had earned from traveling all the way to the distant North Sea, preventing a crisis in the Jianghu, and raising Mount Hua’s reputation vanished without leaving even a hair behind.
“What do you think?”
“About what?”
“Maninbang.”
“Ah, Maninbang?”
Hyun Jong let out a sigh, his expression growing a little darker.
“From what the Green Forest King said, this doesn’t seem like an ordinary matter. Do you have any thoughts on it?”
At that, Chung Myung let out a snort and answered with studied indifference.
“Well... there’s nothing wrong with most of it, except for one thing.”
“And that is?”
“You can’t take a bandit’s words at face value. He’s got a snake stuffed in his belly, so how are you supposed to know what tricks he’s pulling?”
“Cough!”
At Chung Myung’s words, Im So-byeong coughed as if he might actually spit blood.
“S-still, there’s no need to say that in front of a guest...”
“Even you got swayed by him, Sect Leader. If this weren’t him, but some hairy old bandit with a giant dao strapped to his waist, you wouldn’t have believed half of what he said either.”
“...”
Hyun Jong’s eyes wavered slightly.
Of course, this was not something a Daoist should say—but thinking about it, it wasn’t entirely wrong.
Im So-byeong looked refined enough, but at his core, wasn’t he still a bandit chief? One could hardly believe such a person blindly.
“Tsk, tsk. You should’ve been a swindler, not a bandit.”
“W-who are you calling a swindler? I’m the one being slandered here, Mount Hua Divine Dragon!”
“Fine, fine! I said I’d give it to you, didn’t I? You’re really making a fuss over one medicinal pill!”
“Ugh... m-my heart...”
Im So-byeong clutched his chest and curled in on himself, but Chung Myung didn’t even spare him a glance and continued speaking to Hyun Jong.
“Anyway, anything those demonic bastards say should be doubted even if they say they can make tofu out of soybeans.”
Hyun Jong smiled with satisfaction at the blunt, uncompromising statement.
How can one’s character be such a total disaster?
It wasn’t entirely wrong, of course. Still, all the same, the only person in the world who could say such things in front of the person himself was probably Chung Myung.
He was immensely proud. Truly.
“Then you mean there’s no need for us to prepare a countermeasure?”
“What matters is this.”
Chung Myung said firmly,
“We have no idea whether this guy is telling the truth or lying.”
“Hmm?”
Hyun Jong’s eyes narrowed as Chung Myung’s tone grew more serious.
“You mean Mount Hua is too vulnerable when it comes to information outside the sect.”
“Yes.”
Chung Myung nodded quietly. By now, Hyun Jong could understand most things with just a glance.
“Of course, we’ve been getting a fair amount of information through the beggar old man... but the truth is, that still leaves us uneasy.”
“I can’t claim my eye for people is perfect, but Branch Leader Hong doesn’t seem like someone who would deceive us.”
“Right. I don’t think Hong Dae-gwang ahjussi would do that either. He doesn’t have the ability for it, either.”
“...”
That last part probably didn’t need to be added.
“But the problem is, in the end, Hong ahjussi is a member of the orthodox sects and a Beggars’ Sect man.”
A trace of bitterness flickered at the corners of Chung Myung’s mouth.
“Do you really think the Beggars’ Sect would hand us honest information all by itself?”
Hyun Jong’s face stiffened slightly.
“Of course, Hong ahjussi might think of us. But the information he brings us is still not something he’s gathered with his own feet. If the Beggars’ Sect deliberately fed false information through him, then we’d have no choice but to get hit by it head-on.”
“Ugh...”
“There are trustworthy people in this world, all right! How could you trust the orthodox sects?”
At Chung Myung’s words, Im So-byeong, who had been groaning, brightened at once and chimed in.
“Keh! That is truly wise, Mount Hua Divine Dragon! Ah, indeed! There are no greater swindlers in the world than the Nine Great Sects!”
“Right?”
“Absolutely! Hahahahaha!”
Im So-byeong and Chung Myung threw their arms over each other’s shoulders and began cursing the orthodox sects in cheerful unison.
Hyun Jong smiled softly.
Now he even matches perfectly with a bandit chief.
So the disciple of an orthodox sect was happily teaming up with a Green Forest bandit to bad-mouth the Nine Great Sects.
Mount Hua was ruined.
No matter how he looked at it, however he looked at it, it was ruined now.
“I’m not joking.”
At some point, Chung Myung’s expression turned serious, and he shoved Im So-byeong away.
“Up until now, it may have just been that they didn’t give us proper information because they disliked Mount Hua. But now the story changes.”
“You mean the Heavenly Friends Alliance?”
“Yes.”
Chung Myung nodded hard.
“If the Heavenly Friends Alliance is formed, it’s obvious we’ll end up in conflict with the forces centered around the Nine Great Sects. No matter how much the Shaolin Abbot gives his approval, giving approval and building goodwill are two different things. The ones who wouldn’t even give up a single grain of rice in their own hand would only sabotage us—they’d never help.”
“Hmm...”
Only then did Hyun Jong fully grasp the seriousness of the situation.
Up until now, Mount Hua had relied on the Beggars’ Sect for most of its outside intelligence. But as Chung Myung had said, if the Heavenly Friends Alliance truly came into being, then from that point on they would have to doubt even the truth of the information that came through the Beggars’ Sect.
The Demonic Sect was rising in the North Sea, while Maninbang, in the south of the Central Plains, was baring its fangs toward Mount Hua.
The places Mount Hua needed to keep an eye on were only widening, and if their intelligence network shrank at the same time, it was only a matter of time before they suffered a devastating blow.
“We urgently need to expand our intelligence network.”
“Yes.”
Hyun Jong quietly closed his eyes. After organizing his thoughts for a moment, he opened them again and spoke.
“I think I’ll need to meet with the Tang Family head.”
“The Tang Family?”
“The problem you pointed out isn’t limited to Mount Hua alone. The Sichuan Tang Family also relies on the Beggars’ Sect for information. This is something that should be discussed at the level of the Heavenly Friends Alliance, not Mount Hua alone.”
“Hmm. That’s not a bad idea. You can also discuss the founding ceremony while you’re at it.”
“Mm. Then I’ll go to the Tang Family and—”
“No, Sect Leader.”
“Hah! What do you mean, no?”
At Hyun Jong’s words, Hyun Sang and Hyun Young shouted almost at the same time.
“...Why now?”
Hyun Jong looked bewildered, and Hyun Young’s face twisted immediately.
“Sect Leader, you are the one who will become the Alliance Leader. Even if you have not yet taken that position, where in the world does the future Alliance Leader go personally to meet a subordinate?”
“For the sake of the Alliance Leader’s authority, it would be right to invite that person to Mount Hua.”
“Hmm. Is that so?”
Hyun Jong let out a sigh.
But then—
“Sect Leader.”
Im So-byeong, who had been silently observing from the middle of the exchange, spoke up.
“Go ahead.”
“About that information network.”
A gentle smile spread across his lips.
“I think our Green Forest can handle that for you.”
“The Green Forest?”
“Yes.”
Im So-byeong unfolded the fan in his hand and covered his mouth.
“When it comes to intelligence, the Green Forest is no less capable than anyone else in the world. If you wish it, we’ll provide that information to Mount Hua and the Heavenly Friends Alliance instead of the Beggars’ Sect.”
“I haven’t heard that the Green Forest’s intelligence network is so impressive.”
“That’s because the Green Forest doesn’t have much contact with the outside world. Think about it. The Beggars’ Sect’s intelligence network is excellent not because they possess some extraordinary ability, but because there’s nowhere in the world without beggars. The Wanderer’s Alliance is the same, is it not?”
“Mm... yes, that’s true.”
“Then think about it. Is there anywhere in this world without bandits?”
“...”
“We can prove our intelligence capabilities however you like. We will not disappoint the Sect Leader.”
Hyun Jong narrowed his eyes.
“I understand the Green Forest King’s meaning. But... all things in this world have a price. What do you want in return for providing Mount Hua with that information?”
“Simple.”
Green Forest King Im So-byeong straightened his posture and declared,
“In the name of the Green Forest King who rules over the seventy-two bandit strongholds of the world, I request that the Green Forest be allowed to join the Heavenly Friends Alliance.”
For a moment, everyone in the room gaped.
A heavy silence stretched on for a long time.
At last, one voice broke the stillness.
“What is this bandit bastard saying?”
“...”
It was Chung Myung’s voice, speaking for everyone present.