Let's Go Back Together (1)
Swoosh!
Chung Myung shot forward at blinding speed.
In one hand, he had Jin Yang-geon by the nape of the neck. Jin Yang-geon hung there like a rag doll in a child’s grip, his eyes squeezed shut and his whole body shaking like a leaf.
He’s having a rough time.
Jo Gul, who was trailing after Chung Myung at a slightly more reasonable pace, shook his head.
This was probably the fastest Jin Yang-geon had ever moved in his life. Even riding a horse would have left him terrified of being thrown and killed, so how much worse must it have been, being dragged along by Chung Myung’s hand?
Seeing Jin Yang-geon’s face go so pale it had almost turned blue with misery, even Jo Gul felt a little sympathy for the swindler who had impersonated a Mount Hua disciple.
Just then, Yoon Jong spoke quietly.
“Sasuk.”
“Yeah?”
“...Do you think that man will be all right?”
Baek Cheon didn’t answer at once. Instead, he watched Chung Myung’s receding back for a long moment before replying in a low voice.
“...I don’t know.”
Yoon Jong’s expression stiffened slightly.
“I already knew something was off about him, but... I never imagined Chung Myung would leave without even taking anything with him.”
As it turned out, while Chung Myung was busy hauling Jin Yang-geon along, Cheol-mo-bang had been annihilated, and Geum-geom-bu had subdued them without suffering so much as a scratch.
Geum-geom-bu was no ordinary place. It was a sect famous for its wealth and luxury.
If this had happened under normal circumstances, Chung Myung would have used it as an excuse to wring Geum-geom-bu dry to the very roots. By now, the manor lord should have been clutching his stomach in pain from sheer indignation.
But Chung Myung had shown not the slightest interest in Geum-geom-bu. The moment preparations were complete, he’d grabbed Jin Yang-geon by the back of the neck and taken off running, as if money didn’t matter in the slightest.
“...The manual.”
At the quiet voice, the two men turned their heads.
Yu I-seol was staring at Chung Myung’s back as she muttered, “That manual... relationship.”
“Mm. I think so too.”
“Huh?”
Baek Cheon nodded in agreement and spoke.
“It seems that the manual the man mentioned and Chung Myung have some sort of connection.”
“...How would that bastard know what it is?”
“Before, there was... something.”
Baek Cheon trailed off as if organizing his thoughts, then continued.
“Unam Sasuk said that Chung Myung had tried to explain what his relationship with Mount Hua was, but Sect Leader stopped him, saying there was no need to hear any of that.”
“...That happened?”
When Yoon Jong asked, Baek Cheon nodded.
“If he had something to explain, then clearly he had his reasons. I think the reason he’s reacting like this now may be tied to that.”
Jo Gul, who had been listening silently while running, frowned.
“Seriously, why did Sect Leader stop him from talking? I was already wondering where the hell that guy had fallen from in the first place...”
“You brat!”
Baek Cheon snapped sharply, glaring at him. Jo Gul flinched and shrank his neck in.
“Agh, no, I didn’t mean Sect Leader did something wrong—”
“Do you think Sect Leader would have done it without reason?”
Baek Cheon’s face softened a little as he spoke bitterly.
“Those who return to Mount Hua are, by definition, those who once left it behind. Whatever their circumstances, they’re people who turned their backs on Mount Hua.”
“...”
“So he probably thought there was no need to hear it. Whether Chung Myung was the descendant of someone who’d left for some reason, or something else entirely—coming back of his own accord to a Mount Hua that was already falling apart was enough in itself.”
“Ah...”
Jo Gul nodded slowly.
He finally understood a little why the Sect Leader had not wanted to hear Chung Myung’s story.
Baek Cheon’s gaze moved to Chung Myung’s back as he ran ahead.
“We’ll know once we get there. What his story is, and why he’s in such a hurry.”
In truth, what Baek Cheon was truly worried about wasn’t some hidden story of Chung Myung’s. To be perfectly honest, he had no real interest in that story or in the importance of some manual.
Only...
Chung Myung.
When all this was over, he only hoped that that hardened face would one day return to the bright, shameless look it had always worn before.
“Senior brother.”
“Hm?”
Then Yu I-seol glanced at Baek Cheon and spoke in a low voice.
“Guangdong.”
“...What do you mean?”
“If we keep going this way. Guangdong. There...”
“...”
Baek Cheon’s face stiffened at once.
That’s Maninbang territory.
Even under normal circumstances, entering Maninbang’s territory would have been unpleasant. But now that Maninbang had only recently been cut down by two of their own, going into Guangdong felt even more awkward.
“There’s no way Maninbang controls all of that vast Guangdong. From what I hear, this man’s hometown is some remote village anyway.”
“That’s probably true.”
“At this point, it’s too late to stop him, so all we can do is hope nothing major happens.”
Everyone nodded and pushed harder with their running feet.
Like beams of light, the disciples of Mount Hua shot forward, and forward again.
Then they finally arrived.
“This is it?”
“Yes, yes! Right here!”
Jin Yang-geon kept nodding furiously, his face looking as though he might burst into tears at any second. When they’d set out, he’d still had a little color in his face, but now he looked so hollow and gaunt he wouldn’t have seemed out of place lying in a coffin.
“This is my hometown.”
Chung Myung’s gaze moved beyond the small village before him, toward the farther distance. Far off, jagged mountain peaks thrust up into the sky.
From here they looked small, but if one went closer, one would find hundreds, thousands of mountains lined up in endless ranks, forming an enormous range.
In the world, that range was known by one name.
“...The Hundred Thousand Great Mountains.”
At those words, the disciples of Mount Hua all turned to stare at the place Chung Myung was looking. A sigh escaped them almost at once.
“Ah...”
“...So that’s...”
What words in the current Jianghu carried such tangled emotion and such crushing weight at the same time? It felt as if the burden had descended onto their shoulders in an instant.
The former stronghold of the Demonic Sect...
The place where Mount Hua fought.
As they stared dumbly at the ridgeline, Jo Gul suddenly asked in puzzlement.
“Wasn’t the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains in Xinjiang?”
“...Huh?”
Yoon Jong nodded slightly in agreement.
“That’s what I heard too.”
“No, I heard it was in Guangdong. On the border of Guangdong and Guangxi.”
Dang Soso tilted her head and offered yet another version.
Chung Myung kept his eyes fixed on the distant mountains and spoke.
“Both are right.”
“Huh?”
“Think about it. The Demonic Sect has revived and invaded the central plains more than once.”
“That’s true.”
“So do you think they could have tried to rise again from the same place they’d originally been hiding? If they lost, of course they had to run.”
“...I suppose.”
“The righteous sects weren’t idiots either, so they thoroughly destroyed and monitored wherever those bastards had been staying. That’s why every time the Demonic Sect appeared again, they started somewhere else. The places they showed up most often were the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains on the border of Qinghai and Xinjiang, and the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains here.”
“Ah...”
“Wherever the Demonic Sect is based, that place becomes the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains.”
A faint chill sank into Chung Myung’s eyes.
By now, there would be no trace left of the Demonic Sect’s presence on those mountains. A hundred years was a long time, and the remnants of the sect would surely be hiding somewhere beyond the reach of the central plains, waiting for the chance to restore their power.
So that place was nothing more than mountains now.
And yet...
Chung Myung shut his eyes tightly as he stared at the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains.
So he was close by.
That had to be it.
Given the direction they’d been headed when they heard that Cheong Jin had gone missing, it had to have been somewhere around here.
But Chung Myung, back then, had not been able to go looking for Cheong Jin. He couldn’t leave in the middle of preparing for the final battle that would determine everything.
It had been his decision—and Chun Mun’s.
Even now, he still thought that decision had not been wrong.
Only...
Chung Myung let out a low sigh and asked, “Where’s the manual?”
“M-my house...”
“Let’s go.”
“Yes!”
Following Jin Yang-geon, who hurried ahead in a panic, everyone entered the village. They crossed the small settlement of scattered thatched houses and traveled farther still before finally arriving at a particularly dilapidated home.
“J-just a moment, please!”
Jin Yang-geon dashed inside as if pursued by ghosts and began ripping up the floor with his bare hands. After tearing at the wooden boards for a while, he finally pulled out a small chest.
“I-it’s here.”
He hurriedly offered it to Chung Myung.
But Chung Myung made no move to take it. He only stared in silence.
“...”
Under the strain of that silence, Jin Yang-geon’s hands trembled as he swallowed hard. Yet no one there could break the silence or urge Chung Myung forward.
After standing there and staring for what felt like forever, Chung Myung quietly reached out and opened the lid.
The smell of old paper brushed his nose, and then a single book that looked as if it would crumble at a touch came into view.
A book with nothing written on the cover.
Chung Myung silently extended his hand and picked it up. Baek Cheon did not miss the way his fingertips trembled.
The book Chung Myung carefully drew out had a rather unusual shape.
It was made by punching holes through two manuals and binding them together as one.
Chung Myung opened it with a delicacy none of them had ever seen from him before, turning the pages one by one.
Swish.
Swish.
The sound of pages turning rang softly through the silence.
After checking every single page, Chung Myung closed the final one and put the book back into the chest.
Clack.
He shut the lid, then took the chest from Jin Yang-geon’s hands and held it himself.
Baek Cheon let out a silent sigh at the sight of Chung Myung handling the chest as carefully as if it held some priceless treasure, when he usually kicked around trunks stuffed full of valuables without a second thought.
He couldn’t know exactly what that book was, or what kind of story it carried, but at the very least, this had not been a wasted trip.
“Lead the way.”
At Chung Myung’s curt order, Jin Yang-geon nodded again at once.
“T-this way. The hunter who found that manual lives in the house across from there!”
And without even waiting for a reply, he set off at a desperate run toward the house on the far side.
“Mister Pyo! Mister Pyo!”
Jin Yang-geon stormed straight into the yard and hammered on the door like a man being chased for his life.
“Mister, are you there? It’s me! Jin Yang-geon!”
Just as his voice grew more and more frantic, the door swung open with a bang. An old man who looked quite advanced in years stuck his head out.
“Who’s there?”
“I-it’s me, Mister! It’s Yang-geon.”
“...Yang-geon? Oh. Hm? A-geon, is that you?”
“Yes, it’s me!”
“You left the village saying you’d make something of yourself, and now you’re already back... But why do you look like that? You must’ve had a rough time. So, you’re really back for good now?”
“N-no, that’s not—”
“I’ve come to ask you something.”
Baek Cheon stepped forward and bowed politely to the old man. The old man then looked at Baek Cheon and the others with a trace of caution.
“And who might you be?”
“We’ve come because we need to ask you a few things. Don’t worry, we’re not bad people.”
The old man looked back and forth between Jin Yang-geon and the others before tilting his head.
“What would you want to ask some old man who’s just waiting around in this backwater for death...”
“Chung Myung.”
At Baek Cheon’s call, Chung Myung wordlessly opened the chest and showed the manual inside to the old man.
“Jin Yang-geon says he received this manual from you, sir. Do you remember?”
“...Manual? A book?”
“Yes. I’m talking about this book.”
The old man stared at the worn pages and muttered, “Me, something like that...”
Then, as if something had suddenly come back to him, he slapped his knee and nodded.
“That’s right, that’s right! I picked that up. There were drawings of people swinging swords inside it, so I figured it’d be good to give it to that brat Yang-geon, since he’s been going to a martial arts school!”
Baek Cheon asked in a stiff voice.
“Where did you find this book?”
“Well, that’s... a bit hard to explain in words. My memory’s a little hazy, and since it was up in the mountains...”
Watching the old man furrow his brow in thought, Baek Cheon gave a slight glance. Jo Gul immediately took a heavy purse from inside his sleeve and placed it before the old man.
“This isn’t much of a thank-you, but we’re in a hurry. Could you guide us there?”
“...I’d like to, but I’m so old now I don’t have the energy—”
The old man cracked open the purse and looked inside, then stopped mid-sentence, his eyes going wide.
“T-this much...?”
“We’d appreciate it.”
The old man nodded furiously.
“Of course I’ll guide you. Young masters! My strength may be gone, but my memory is perfectly fine. I remember it clearly! Absolutely!”
“Please. Right now.”
“Yes! Don’t worry.”
Watching the old man bluster with such confidence, Baek Cheon flicked his gaze toward Chung Myung. His expression still gave nothing away.
Don’t worry, you bastard.
Resolve settled over Baek Cheon’s face.
Whatever it is you’re looking for, we’ll find it for you, no matter what.