What Did They Just Go and Poke? (3)
The dogs the Beast Palace had dragged along numbered as many as a hundred.
“No. How are we supposed to turn away animals that have come all this way?”
“Then are we supposed to just leave the starving ones to die?”
“Central Plains people really have no warmth, huh? No warmth at all.”
“And look at these halls! All flashy and rich-looking! It’s not like you’re short on money!”
“…….”
The Mount Hua disciples, who had unexpectedly found themselves on the receiving end of criticism, had no retort. They were, after all, Daoists who preached the teachings of the Way—how could they argue that the dogs should have simply been left to die?
Mount Hua, suddenly at risk of being branded as cold-hearted, money-grubbing horse-nosed Taoists who didn’t care if dogs starved, had no choice but to swallow the Beast Palace’s “atrocities.”
Fortunately, the dog-handling problem they had been worried about was solved far more easily than expected.
Haaah!
Snap!
Haaah!
Chaaak!
The onlookers kept blinking at the bizarre sight playing out before them.
“What in the world am I looking at?”
“……Exactly.”
“I can see it with my own eyes and still don’t get it.”
Every gaze was fixed on one spot.
A tiny white paw, so small it was almost cute, pointed downward.
At once, the dogs—lined up according to their size—dropped flat to the ground in perfect unison.
Whoosh!
The little paw pointed up again, and the dogs sprang to their feet like lightning. When the paw traced a circle in the air, they all rolled across the ground.
“……What the hell is that?”
“Am I dreaming right now?”
If they hadn’t seen it with their own eyes, disbelief would have been natural. But for the first time, those who had climbed Mount Hua were realizing just how hard it could be to believe even what they could see.
Each time the tiny white furball of a weasel twitched its foot, giant dogs the size of grown men flipped this way and that.
They rolled so violently that people even started worrying they might hurt themselves.
“N-no, it doesn’t even look like it could swallow one bite.”
“That’s not the point! The real problem is why the dogs are even obeying the weasel’s orders in the first place!”
“……I still think the weirdest part is the weasel pointing at the dogs with its paw.”
Nothing about it made sense. Not a single thing from start to finish.
Haaah!
When Baek Ah bared its teeth with a slightly disgruntled look, the dogs—lined up like soldiers—shivered all over and tucked their tails between their legs.
The white weasel then nodded as if satisfied.
No matter how I look at it, that thing acts like a person. How is that a weasel?
Hey. Look at it sticking its belly out like that.
Watching the weasel behave almost exactly like a human, everyone was amazed—and baffled.
“Is that what they call a spiritual beast?”
“Mount Hua even has a spiritual beast?”
“……I thought spiritual beasts were just something from stories.”
Since spiritual beasts were now so rare in the Central Plains, it was only natural that everyone found the sight unfamiliar and strange.
Haaah!
When Baek Ah sharply hooked one paw to the side, the dogs all rushed to the rear of the hall in a clattering wave. Seeing the training yard so neatly cleared out, as if the dogs had never been there to begin with, the onlookers marveled and clapped without hesitation.
“Is this the Beast Palace’s skill?”
“What are you looking at with those eyes? That weasel belongs to one of Mount Hua’s disciples!”
“Huh? Then why—?”
“……How should I know?”
It was truly beyond anyone’s ability to even guess at the situation. So everyone could only shake their heads in disbelief.
There’s definitely something very wrong here.
Not a single thing makes sense.
The onlookers were gradually coming to realize that Mount Hua was not quite like ordinary sects.
But Mount Hua itself was feeling the same sense of absurdity.
“……It’s done.”
“That thing’s actually surprisingly useful. At first it looked like it had no use beyond being a scarf.”
“Better than you, at least.”
“……Are you seriously going to say that?”
As Jo Gul growled, Yoon Jong let out a deep sigh.
Since you’re at it, Baek Ah, why not train this bastard too?
Maybe Chung Myung was too much to ask, but perhaps someone like Jo Gul could be managed. The fool was technically a beast, after all.
“……Actually, the dog isn’t the issue.”
Baek Cheon turned his head with a sour expression. Chung Myung was barking at Maeng So—no, he was protesting.
“Are you a dog dealer or what? This place is a total dog mess, okay?”
“Wahahahah! Don’t worry about such trivial matters! Come, come! Since I was meeting you, I brought wine from Yunnan! Why don’t we have a refreshing drink together?”
“How many jars? You brought a lot?”
“Enough for you to drown in it and die happy! It was quite a pain to bring, too! What do you say? Want to taste some now?”
“Sounds good!”
Baek Cheon buried his face in both hands.
What dogs are the problem? It’s people. People are the problem.
No, to be precise, it was the people who didn’t even seem human that were the problem.
How pitiful Mount Hua was.
Here, human-like beasts and beast-like humans were coexisting side by side.
“Daoist Baek Cheon.”
“Yes? Ah, yes! Young Lord.”
At that moment, Tang Pae approached Baek Cheon with a polite smile.
“Now that the Beast Palace has arrived, I’d like to select some of our people and send them down to Huayin.”
“To Huayin?”
“Yes. Not everyone who has come here can stay on Mount Hua, so we need to open the temporary lodging we discussed before and assign people to manage it.”
“Ah!”
Baek Cheon nodded vigorously.
“I hadn’t considered that. Thank you, Young Lord.”
At the sincere gratitude, Tang Pae shook his head.
“This isn’t a matter of Mount Hua alone; it’s a matter of the Heavenly Alliance. If you keep talking as though I’m simply helping you, I’ll be disappointed.”
“Ah…….”
“And also…….”
Tang Pae smiled faintly.
“Even if this weren’t a matter of the Heavenly Alliance, but only of Mount Hua, Mount Hua and the Tang Family are not strangers, are we?”
Meeting Tang Pae’s eyes, Baek Cheon soon smiled back.
“That’s true. We’re not strangers…….”
“There.”
But a voice abruptly cut through the moment’s warmth. Startled, Tang Pae and Baek Cheon slowly turned around.
“So-so.”
“Soso…….”
Dang Soso stood there, veins throbbing on her forehead as she stared at the two of them.
“Everyone else is so busy answering people they’re about to drop dead, and the two of you are off here having a leisurely little stroll in the clouds?”
“…….”
“…….”
“You look tired. Want me to stick a needle in you?”
“……S-sorry.”
“We deserve to die.”
“What are you waiting for? Move!”
“Yes!”
As Tang Pae and Baek Cheon hurried off, they whispered to each other.
“Was Soso always like that?”
“……She wasn’t this bad before, but after she came to Mount Hua, the girl’s got murder in her eyes…….”
“……Our apologies.”
“So this is Mount Hua!”
Maeng So looked around with a face full of emotion.
“It’s more splendid than I expected. Since this is a Daoist monastery, I thought it would be a modest and quiet place.”
“There are a lot of people here, that’s all. And the Tang Family helped out a great deal.”
“A lively place is a good thing.”
Maeng So broke into a broad grin.
“I never imagined I’d live long enough to come to the Central Plains, let alone Mount Hua. Thanks to the Mount Hua Divine Dragon, I’m living the high life.”
“You’ll have to visit often from now on.”
“Hahaha. I will! I certainly will!”
Laughing loudly, Maeng So nodded. Just then, Hyun Jong and Tang Gun-ak walked out from the rear. They had apparently come personally to receive the Beast Palace after hearing that they had arrived.
“Oh! Lord Tang! And beside you…….”
When Maeng So saw Hyun Jong, something in his eyes changed.
“The Mount Hua Divine Dragon.”
“Yes.”
“Is that man Mount Hua’s sect leader?”
“Ah, this is your first time meeting him, right? Yes. He’s Hyun Jong, the sect leader of Mount Hua. Let me introduce—”
But before Chung Myung could finish, Maeng So strode straight toward Hyun Jong. His movements were so rough and imposing that the onlookers all instinctively turned to stare at him.
Even without an introduction, it wasn’t hard to tell from his bearing that Maeng So was the lord of the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace.
One side was the lord of the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace.
And on the other side stood Tang Gun-ak, the ruler of Sichuan, together with the sect leader of Mount Hua, whose momentum was currently at its peak.
At the sight of three giants shaking the current world of the martial arts gathering face to face, everyone swallowed dryly.
What is this?
Is something about to explode?
Maeng So looked unmistakably rough. His appearance was not even enough to be called rustic; and wasn’t he a martial artist from beyond the borders, unfamiliar with Central Plains etiquette?
Expecting something unexpected to happen, everyone’s eyes filled with tension.
A moment later, Hyun Jong smiled gently and clasped his hands in greeting.
“Welcome to Mount Hua, Palace Lord. I have heard much from Lord Tang and from my disciples about the grand reputation of the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace and about you in particular. I should have come to visit and greet you long ago, but circumstances were difficult. Please forgive my rudeness.”
Seeing that low, respectful posture, Maeng So snorted through his nose.
The proper response to a clasped-hand salute was to return it in kind. But Maeng So chose a different method.
Thud!
He took one step back and bowed deeply at the waist.
“Eh?”
“Huh?”
Everyone let out puzzled sounds at the sight.
Returning the salute in kind was etiquette reserved for equals. But Maeng So was not returning the gesture with a clasped-hand salute; he was bowing his head instead.
Is he acknowledging Mount Hua as a higher sect?
No. Even if that’s the case, that’s…….
No one could make sense of his behavior. Then Maeng So spoke in a thunderous voice.
“A—”
A? What does “a” even—
“It is the greatest honor to meet the sect leader of the Great Mount Hua Sect!”
The onlookers’ mouths fell open all at once.
W-what?
What the hell does that mean?
This was the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace.
Of course, people of the Central Plains had a tendency to subtly look down on and exclude sects from beyond the borders. And it was also true that the power of the Four Outer Palaces did not reach the level of the leaders of the Nine Sects and One Gang. Still, this was the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace, one of the Four Outer Palaces.
However dazzling Mount Hua’s recent rise might be, it was still not a sect that could casually stand toe-to-toe with the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace.
And yet, right before their eyes, the Beast Palace Lord, Maeng So, was showing the highest possible degree of respect to Mount Hua’s sect leader.
Even Hyun Jong looked flustered, his face turning red.
“P-Palace Lord. Such excessive courtesy is difficult for me to accept.”
“No!”
But Maeng So lifted his head at once, his already fierce eyes widening even further as he shouted,
“I am endlessly sorry to be meeting you only now. On behalf of every disciple of the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace, and on behalf of everyone living in Yunnan, I offer my deepest thanks to Mount Hua for the grace shown by the Plum Blossom Sword Saint in protecting Yunnan!”
Maeng So brought both hands together before his chest and bowed deeply once more. Though his manner of respect differed from that of the Central Plains, it was obvious to anyone that he was bowing from the heart.
That only made his earlier words seem even more credible.
“The Plum Blossom Sword Saint saved Yunnan……?”
“Who is the Plum Blossom Sword Saint?”
“You know, that one! One of the three greatest swordsmen in the world during the war against the Demonic Sect a hundred years ago.”
“What? Mount Hua produced one of the Three Great Swordsmen? Then why have I never heard of it? And if the Southern Barbarian Beast Palace is showing this much respect, didn’t he do something incredible? Then why have I never heard about it?”
“I-I’m hearing this for the first time too.”
Confusion crossed the faces of the onlookers.
But before they could even sort out their thoughts, Maeng So raised his voice again, booming like a bell.
“A kindness that saves a life can never be repaid! The Southern Barbarian Beast Palace will be Mount Hua’s eternal friend, and Mount Hua’s enemies shall be our enemies as well! Sect Leader, please do not reject the intentions of the Beast Palace!”
For a moment, Hyun Jong turned his face away and looked toward the distant sky, the tip of his nose stinging.
No one had ever recognized it.
Even as he watched people flock to Mount Hua, he had always carried a quiet ache in his heart, because he thought no one would know that Mount Hua had once been like this.
And now, here was Maeng So, lowering himself in front of everyone and speaking the names of Mount Hua’s past and of the Plum Blossom Sword Saint.
“……That was long ago. There’s no need to…….”
“Not at all!”
Maeng So barked the words out.
“What does time matter when discussing the grace of the Plum Blossom Sword Saint—who saved the Beast Palace, saved Yunnan, and went even further to rescue the world from the wicked claws of the Demonic Sect!”
“…….”
“Even if a hundred years had passed, no, even if a thousand years had passed, it is not something that should be forgotten!”
“……I am truly grateful for your words.”
Maeng So lifted his head and grinned.
“I brought a fine gift from Yunnan! We have much to talk about, so please, come inside.”
“Yes, of course.”
Everyone who had witnessed that shocking scene could not hide their bewilderment as they watched the three men’s backs.
A strange silence settled over the area.
Then, in the middle of it, a very faint sound slipped out.
“Kya-ruk…….”
All at once, the people turned their heads.
Chung Myung, covering his mouth with both hands, was shaking with laughter.
“Kya-ru…….”
“…….”
Why the hell was that bastard laughing?
No one knew the reason.
And then—
“It’s the Ice Palace!”
“The North Sea Ice Palace has arrived!”
Before anyone could fully recover from the shock, a loud voice came roaring from outside the mountain gate.