The More You Win, the More Enemies You Make (6)
“Did you pack everything over there?”
“Did you check the人数 too?”
“No, why the hell has the luggage gotten so much bigger?”
“Which bastard drank the liquor that was sitting here? Confess! If you confess, I’ll only hit you half as hard!”
The disciples of Mount Hua bustled here and there, making preparations to set out.
Watching them, Hyun Young nodded in satisfaction.
I see. They can handle things on their own now.
In the past, he would have had to step in and direct every little thing just to get one bundle packed. But now, even without him doing much of anything, the disciples moved quickly and on their own.
So they’ve gained some autonomy. That’s a good thing.
Others might count the disciples’ growing strength or the training environment they had gained as the real achievement, but to Hyun Young, the greatest success of this journey was that the disciples had begun to think for themselves.
A sect that moved in perfect lockstep under one person’s orders was certainly efficient. But if the person giving those orders wasn’t there—or if he was incompetent—the whole thing could collapse without warning.
The best path was for everyone to think together, worry together, and move forward together.
“Elder! Everything’s packed!”
“Good. …But why is there so much of it? Didn’t we already get rid of most of the things we brought back from the bandit camp?”
“Well… the Geum-seon Merchant Group leader kept giving us more gifts, saying he wanted us to have them….”
Hyun Young squeezed his eyes shut.
This isn’t exactly a noble line of work either.
Back when the sect had lived in such poverty, if even something resembling money came into their hands, they would have run out barefoot with both hands raised in gratitude. But lately, these endless bribes were starting to feel burdensome.
They no longer needed the money just to survive. They could live decently—no, more than decently—and he had already learned that if you took, you also had to give.
“Is that all of it?”
“Yes…. Should we unload it again?”
“Why are you asking me that now? Why didn’t you ask before loading it?”
“...I thought you’d tell us to load it.”
“...”
“Should we unload it?”
“...No. Let’s take it.”
“Yes, sir!”
Hyun Young smiled faintly.
They know me too well.
Too well. Frighteningly so.
Rubbing his slightly flushed face once, Hyun Young raised his voice.
“Hurry up and finish! We need to leave quickly and make good time!”
“Yes, sir!”
Glug, glug, glug.
The sound of liquor going down sounded cheerfully.
“Khh!”
Chung Myung yanked the bottle from his lips, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“Blood-clearing acupuncture, my ass! Liquor for a hangover is the best!”
He muttered shamelessly words that would have made any physician froth at the mouth, then glanced down from under the eaves. His senior brothers and junior brothers were packing the luggage so diligently that it was almost moving.
“That’s enough for now….”
He had scattered quite a lot of bait, but he wasn’t sure how much of it he’d be able to recover.
Still, he hadn’t thrown it all out with the intention of recovering every last bit. When fishing, you spread a lot of bait; if you catch one big fish, you still come out ahead.
The problem starts now….
Chung Myung scratched his head hard, looking troubled.
Mount Hua’s growth had been faster than he’d expected, and the situation surrounding Mount Hua had become even more urgent than he’d anticipated.
“We’ve only come halfway… but it’s still not enough.”
Now that it was certain the Demonic Sect would target the Central Plains, there was no room to rest. Once you reached the destination you wanted, you had to immediately fix your gaze on the next one and run for it.
For Mount Hua now, there was only one objective: the disciples’ growth.
“Which means it’s about time, then…. Ugh. What a pain.”
Chung Myung covered his face.
For growth, effort was important. But effort alone did not guarantee growth. The reason a prestigious sect was prestigious was because, just when its disciples’ efforts had reached their limit, it could produce stronger martial arts without hesitation.
Mount Hua had once been called one of the greatest sects under heaven. No matter how much its signature art was the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Art, Mount Hua’s Taoist priests did not spend their entire lives mastering only that technique.
“We’re at the point where I should start passing down the Plum Blossom Sword Manual and Zixia Divine Art….”
The disciples must have felt it clearly during this duel with Wudang.
Mount Hua’s Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Art was in no way inferior to Wudang’s Taechung Sword Art. In fact, depending on how it was used, it could thoroughly overwhelm it.
However.
The Taiji Wisdom Sword isn’t on the same level.
As much as it irritated him, the Taiji Wisdom Sword—something one could only unfold after entering the Dual Polarities Mind Method—was unquestionably a higher martial art than the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Art.
Of course, if it were Chung Myung, he could handle the Taiji Wisdom Sword even with the Chilmaegeom instead of the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Art, but that was only possible because it was him. No matter how much he was Chung Myung, he wasn’t about to insist that others should somehow overcome a situation where defeat was inevitable at equal skill levels just through grit.
“My junior uncles and senior brothers are about ready for it.”
It would be hard for those idiots to immediately grasp and use the profound depths of the Plum Blossom Sword Manual, but they’d reached the point where they could at least begin.
So there was no need to worry endlessly. He just had to hand it over.
“Damn it, what excuse am I supposed to use this time to give it to them?”
They’d dug in the ground and found a manual, dug again and found a secret chamber…. If he dug the ground again now, even a three-year-old would get suspicious! Of course they would!
No idiot would get tricked by the same move three times!
“Ughhhhh. Should I say I found it in a cave on a cliff?”
That was weird too.
For now, Hyun Jong was letting things slide because he knew Chung Myung’s behavior was a little strange. But if Chung Myung came back with another secret manual, there was no doubt Hyun Jong would find it harder and harder to keep pretending not to notice.
“Agh! This is killing me!”
Why did he have the manual if he couldn’t just hand it over? If he had it, he should be able to give it!
“Ugh. If I’d known it’d be like this, maybe I should’ve just given it to them back then.”
But that wouldn’t have worked either.
Martial arts had to be learned step by step. There were no side effects if you followed the proper progression.
If a man who couldn’t even run tried to fly, he’d smash his face into the ground and break his nose. That was how things worked.
More importantly, Mount Hua wasn’t a sect with strict control over its members. No one could predict what would happen if top-tier martial arts suddenly landed in Mount Hua’s lap, and there was no guarantee that those who learned of the Plum Blossom Sword Manual’s existence would have properly mastered the Twenty-Four Plum Blossom Sword Art first.
So back then, not giving it to them had been the right choice.
“Ugh…. I’m going to have to find some way to pass it down, though.”
Still scratching his head, Chung Myung suddenly shot his gaze up at the sky and jabbed a finger at it.
“No, seriously! Why’d you have to make things this goddamn messy? You could’ve at least separated the manuals beforehand!”
- How was I supposed to know?!
“Damn it, seriously!”
Chung Myung ground his teeth.
“And another thing!”
Once he started complaining, he showed no sign of stopping.
“If you were going to keep other manuals around, you should’ve hung on to the Zixia Divine Art too! What’s the point of hoarding a sect leader-only martial art like it’s some priceless heirloom? You should’ve passed it down ages ago!”
- I told you to learn it and you said you didn’t have time, you brat!
“...Ah. Did I?”
Uh… maybe he had.
“Ahem. Who had time to learn some new martial art in the middle of that war? We were busy as hell.”
- I’m the one getting pissed off here, you bastard! Me!
“...Your mouth has gotten awfully foul.”
He didn’t remember you being like this before…. Or had he always been like this?
“Ugh.”
Chung Myung flopped down onto the roof and lay there, one hand shielding his eyes from the sun as he stared silently up at the sky.
“Still got a lot to do.”
He had to pass down new martial arts to the disciples, and he also had to search for traces of the Zixia Divine Art that might still be out there in the world. If that failed, he’d have to create another martial art to replace it.
As things stand, that’s impossible.
Simply recovering what belonged to the past wasn’t enough to stand against the Heavenly Demon. He had to surpass even his former self.
To do that, he needed something beyond what Chung Myung knew now.
“Ugh. It’s like dying in bed after an illness—why does there have to be so damn much to solve? It never ends….”
He had been grumbling with a tired look on his face when, after a moment, he muttered again with a slightly awkward expression.
“Still… even without manuals or anything, the kids really did grow a lot. They even went and tangled with Wudang. Right, senior brother?”
If this had been the old Chung Myung, he would have said this was the bare minimum, of course. But now, strangely enough, they all looked unbearably admirable.
“Cheong generation, Baek generation… and even the Un generation…. They’re all really….”
Admirable.
They had followed his unreasonable demands without a word…. No, actually, they had complained like hell, but they had followed him anyway, hadn’t they?
He couldn’t bring himself to praise them out loud like this, though—it was too embarrassing.
“I’m a rotten bastard too.”
Chung Myung gave a snort of laughter, as if he couldn’t believe himself.
No one could live their whole life in a constant state of tension. If you achieved something, you needed some rest, some reward, so that you’d have the desire to take the next step.
Unfortunately, Chung Myung couldn’t give those kids more time. He had no way of knowing how long remained before that Demonic Sect came crashing in.
“Hmm….”
He seemed to think for a moment before muttering,
“Senior brother. I… no, never mind.”
Springing upright again, Chung Myung waved his hand as though brushing away someone standing in front of him.
“That’s too embarrassing.”
Then he crouched as if to leap down from the roof, only to stop again as though something had snagged his foot.
“Ugh.”
He paced around restlessly, unlike himself, looking oddly anxious. Only after some time did he finally lift his head with apparent resolve and look back up at the sky.
“Senior brother.”
His tightly pressed lips parted a little.
“I’m doing okay, right?”
A light breeze ruffled his hair.
For a long while, no answer came.
It couldn’t have.
Chung Mun’s voice was nothing more than the voice of his own heart. There was no way it could answer something even he himself wasn’t certain of.
“Tsk.”
Chung Myung clicked his tongue and was just about to leap down from the roof when—
- You’re doing well.
Startled, Chung Myung whirled around.
Of course, there was no one there.
“...”
He stared into the empty air for a long time, dazed, then bit his lower lip slightly.
“I….”
“Chung Myung! Chung Myung! You little brat! Where the hell have you hidden yourself this time? Get out here this instant! We have to leave now!”
But before he could say anything else, a voice calling for him rose from below.
Even so, Chung Myung merely looked quietly into the empty air and let out a low sigh.
“Hey, punk! Are you coming out or not?”
“Ah! I’m coming, I’m coming!”
He shouted back, then gave a crooked grin.
“What kind of pathetic life did I end up with, anyway?”
What mattered was doing what lay before him.
So that one day, when he truly met his senior brothers again, he could say with pride that he had done his best without a shred of shame.
So then….
“I’m comingggg!”
Without a hint of hesitation, Chung Myung hurled himself off the roof.
“This is what happens when the junior uncles are working and you’re the only one slacking off!”
“Ack! My ear! My ear hurts!”
“When the hell did you sneak off with liquor again, you brat! You little rogue! You wretched little bastard!”
“Ack! My ear! My, my ear!”
A warm spring breeze gently swept across the roof where Chung Myung had been lying.
Someone’s worries deepened, and someone’s will grew firmer. Someone looked inward, and someone looked toward the future.
The world continued to flow steadily on, each person caught in their own thoughts.
The sun beating down had already grown rather fierce.
The plum blossoms that had been in full bloom were falling, and the season when green leaves and fruit would begin to form was drawing near.