Let's Go Back Together (5)
“...There’s really no answer, is there?”
Jo Gul scowled and dropped onto the ground. Behind him, Yoon Jong let out a long sigh as well.
“How many days has it been now?”
“...Three? Or was it four?”
“Ugh.”
Jo Gul groaned and swept his gaze around the mountain.
They had searched every inch of the area for more than three days, yet found nothing—not a single trace. He had clearly been brimming with energy at first, but by now even he couldn’t help feeling drained.
“No, Sahyung. It’s not like I’m doing this because it’s hard or annoying or anything...”
“Sounds like it is.”
“...”
Jo Gul wore the most wronged expression in the world. Yoon Jong, who had been about to chide him again, caught that look and awkwardly cleared his throat, averting his eyes.
“Ahem. Then?”
“...Honestly, how hard is it to wander around a mountain? That bastard Chung Myung has us training like this for an entire month anyway.”
“That’s true enough.”
How steep could this mountain really be, compared to Mount Hua? To people who spent all day climbing Mount Hua’s treacherous slopes in training, a mountain like this was no different from a hill behind a child’s house.
“It’s just... it feels like this is all going to be pointless.”
“Pointless?”
Baek Cheon, who had been digging up the earth some distance away, frowned. Seeing that, Jo Gul looked at him cautiously before speaking honestly.
“It was a hundred years ago. Honestly, it doesn’t seem like there’d be anything left.”
Baek Cheon’s face darkened slightly as he looked at him.
“Didn’t we find the manual?”
“Finding the manual doesn’t mean there’s bound to be any other trace, does it?”
“You little—”
Yoon Jong started to protest, but Baek Cheon raised a hand to stop him.
“There’s no need to scold him so harshly. He isn’t entirely wrong.”
“Still...”
Baek Cheon shook his head with a bitter smile.
“Yes. If, as you say, Jo Gul, there was nothing left to begin with, then even if we searched for ten days instead of three, we’d find nothing.”
“That’s what I’m saying.”
“But how would we know unless we tried?”
Baek Cheon looked steadily at Jo Gul.
“We are searching for the traces of a sage. More than that, we are looking for the remains of one who risked his life to protect future generations. Is it proper to speak of ‘pointless effort’ after searching for only three days?”
His gaze carried the sharpness of frost, and Jo Gul flinched, lowering his head.
“Those people threw away the one and only life they had like it was nothing, for a cause whose victory wasn’t even certain. I understand your feelings, but that is not the sort of thing a beneficiary of that grace should say.”
“...I’m sorry.”
“And normally, you wouldn’t be so quick to say something like that either.”
Baek Cheon studied him in silence, then asked,
“Tell me. Why are you like this?”
“Well...”
Jo Gul shifted around as if embarrassed, then scratched his head hard.
“Of course it’d be good if we found something. If we can find it, no matter how long it takes, then that’s all great. But what if we waste all this time and still can’t find anything?”
“...”
“I’m worried it’ll eat him up inside, that’s all. Eat his insides up...”
He wasn’t talking about himself. He was probably worrying about Chung Myung.
Baek Cheon turned his head slightly and looked out over the mountain slopes, which he had by now grown somewhat accustomed to. A heaviness kept pressing down on one corner of his heart.
Was this too much to ask?
No matter how thoroughly they searched, this was still a mountain. Even if they were to tear every inch of it apart, there was no guarantee they’d uncover traces from a hundred years ago.
“Where did Chung Myung go, by the way?”
“...He said he’d go look around by himself.”
“By himself...”
Jo Gul muttered to himself for a moment, then let out a long sigh and sprang to his feet.
“Hup!”
Then he drove the sword in his hand back into the ground and started stabbing at the earth again.
“Damn it, fine. We’ll find it. Hell, we’ll find it somehow, one way or another!”
Watching him charge ahead while yelling as if to shake off his frustration, Baek Cheon said calmly,
“Let’s push ourselves a little more. This isn’t only about Chung Myung. If we’re disciples of Mount Hua, we should search hard enough that we can at least say we did everything we could.”
“Yes, Sasuk.”
“Yes, Sasuk. I’ll try too!”
Yoon Jong and Dang Soso both sounded newly invigorated.
Baek Cheon glanced once more in the direction Chung Myung had gone, then started walking again.
Trickle, trickle, trickle.
Clear stream water ran endlessly down the valley.
Chung Myung sat on a large boulder, staring blankly at the water flowing past.
Was I being too greedy?
Water never looks back. It only keeps going.
Even if this had been a valley a hundred years ago, the water flowing here now could not possibly be the same water from a hundred years past. To find traces of something so long ago might, in truth, be impossible.
Cheong Jin...
Chung Myung lifted his gaze to the sky.
It was so cruelly clear that nothing could be seen in it at all.
He had clearly met him in a dream not long ago, and yet he could no longer remember Cheong Jin’s face very well. If he tried hard enough, he could bring it back—but he couldn’t stop it from growing faint, little by little.
Still staring dumbly at the flowing stream, Chung Myung murmured under his breath,
“Regret, huh...”
Maybe what he was doing now was no different from trying to catch a stream that had already slipped through both hands.
If Cheong Jin were watching him from some far-off place, what would he say?
Would he tell him to stop wasting time and go back to Mount Hua to raise disciples instead?
Or would he nag him to find some trace, any trace, and return to Mount Hua with it?
Chung Myung thought about it, then shook his head.
I don’t know.
There was no way he could know the answer.
Even if he came to a conclusion on his own, that still wouldn’t be what the real Cheong Jin had said. The dead had no power left, no way to answer back.
He couldn’t be seen, couldn’t be heard, couldn’t be touched. No matter how desperately one reached out, all that could be grasped was empty air.
No matter how vividly he lived inside him, he could never be faced again.
Watching the water run, Chung Myung thought that maybe he himself should have already flowed away like that water long ago. He just...
Footsteps sounded behind him.
Chung Myung slowly turned his head.
The one who had stopped there met his eyes and stared silently at him. Looking at the unexpected visitor, Chung Myung let out an involuntary snort of a laugh.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Chung Myung hesitated, momentarily at a loss for words, and Yu I-seol walked over to the boulder beside him and sat down with a thud.
Then she simply stared at the flowing stream in silence for a long while. Only after a moment of quiet did she speak.
“...Before.”
“Hmm?”
Without turning her head, Yu I-seol said,
“We all went together. To where my father was buried.”
Chung Myung nodded.
“I was glad I didn’t go alone. If I had, I wouldn’t have known what sort of face to make. Still, if my father could see there were people around me, he’d feel a little more at ease.”
Chung Myung looked at her with renewed surprise.
It wasn’t often that Yu I-seol laid out what was in her heart. And hearing her speak this much, so clearly, was an equally unfamiliar thing.
But even more unfamiliar was the fact that she was trying to comfort him now.
“...My father.”
Yu I-seol closed her eyes slightly. The tips of her long lashes trembled.
“He didn’t want to go back. Unless he completed his martial art. Even at the moment of death, he probably would have refused to return. But in the end, he contacted Mount Hua.”
“Because he was worried about Sago. Because he was a father.”
“...I thought so too.”
But after a moment, Yu I-seol slowly shook her head.
“Still, I think I understand now. More than wanting me sent to Mount Hua, he himself wanted to return to Mount Hua. He must have missed it all his life.”
“...”
Her face looked as expressionless as ever. But Chung Myung knew that this seemingly indifferent look was a little different from usual.
“I even thought about moving his grave. Since Mount Hua was where he wanted to go back to so badly. When I was young, it would have been unthinkable, but now I could do it.”
“...”
“But I decided not to.”
“...Why?”
Yu I-seol slowly shook her head.
“Because it would be meaningless.”
“...”
From between lips that were usually sealed with stubborn resolve, a soft voice slipped out.
“My father has already returned to Mount Hua. If I am at Mount Hua, then my father is there too. And if I complete the sword he had wanted to finish, then his lifelong wish will also be fulfilled.”
Chung Myung’s lips pressed together tightly.
“To carry something on... that’s what it means.”
At her words, Chung Myung looked up at the distant sky.
To carry it on...
That was probably what she wanted to say.
Even if he couldn’t find him, if Chung Myung inherited that will, then it would be no different from Cheong Jin having already returned to Mount Hua.
The words I should’ve been the one to say...
Chung Myung shut his eyes.
How many thoughts had a person as inarticulate as Yu I-seol gone through before she could say this to him?
“...To carry it on, huh.”
It wasn’t wrong. Cheong Jin was the sort of man who had thought of Mount Hua’s future more deeply than anyone else.
Yes. Then if Chung Myung could go on carrying that will forward, that would be enough.
At last, Chung Myung brushed himself off and stood up.
He couldn’t say he had no regrets. He couldn’t say he had no lingering attachment. But he couldn’t spend forever here either. He still had things to do.
“Let’s go back, Sago.”
Yu I-seol met his eyes. Chung Myung gave her a faint smile, then looked out at the distant sky.
I’ll come back someday.
Once everything he had to do was finished, he could return then and search again.
Forcing himself to shake off the lingering attachment that had been gripping him by the back and making him tremble with sobs, Chung Myung started walking.
Then... yes. Let’s go back together then.
But after taking only a few steps, Chung Myung suddenly came to a halt.
He had been motionless like a stone statue, and then he murmured very softly,
“...Mount Hua?”
—More than wanting me sent to Mount Hua, he himself wanted to return to Mount Hua.
The fingertips of his cold hand began to tremble violently.
This miserable, brainless...
What had he been thinking? What exactly had he been looking for?
What had made him think Cheong Jin would be doing anything anywhere else?
“...Jin-ah.”
—With the manual I created, the disciples will learn martial arts and build an even better Mount Hua.
—This is how I repay Mount Hua’s kindness.
Yu I-seol’s father had taken that incomplete manual and tried desperately to finish the martial art. He must have believed that was the road to atonement for fleeing Mount Hua.
Then what about Cheong Jin?
What had he tried to do when he realized he would never be able to return to Mount Hua?
—That’s why I carry the most important things around with me like this.
“Ah...”
He would send it back.
Even if his own body could not return to Mount Hua, he would have tried every possible way to send back the manual he carried.
But how? In the very heart of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains, which was practically the Demonic Sect’s stronghold and surrounded on all sides by enemies, what could he possibly have done...?
Chung Myung’s gaze darted busily here and there.
If I were Cheong Jin?
His body was wounded.
The pursuers had been shaken off to some extent, but there was no way to survive. Yet if he died in a place like this, the manuals he carried would fall straight into the hands of the Demonic Sect.
Then...
Hide them.
Somewhere the Demonic Sect could never find.
And...
Somewhere the martial brothers who would one day come searching for him could find.
Somewhere not even the Demonic Sect’s chiefs could block, somewhere the martial brothers who would search for him no matter the cost, no matter how much blood it took, could eventually discover.
—If Sahyung’s there, how could I possibly die?
Chung Myung’s hand was now shaking like a leaf in the wind.
The one who would never die. The one who must never die.
The one who would never lose to those hideous Demonic Sect bastards, would survive to the end, and would one day come looking for him.
“It was me...”
Chung Myung’s face collapsed in a miserable ruin.
“...It was me. It was me all along.”
His gaze shifted to the side as if spellbound.
Under the blue sky, a gently rolling mountain range stretched out. Among ridges so unlike Mount Hua’s, one peak jutted sharply upward all by itself.
A harsh mountain of rock and cliffs, unlike the peaks around it.
Yes... yes, it was like...
“...Cheong Jin.”
Chung Myung moved as though bewitched.
There. It was there. You were there.
My senior brother.