It Could Get Even Better! (3)
A harsh, gnashing sound echoed inside Baekmae Hall. Before long, a thumbnail was bitten nearly clean off.
And yet the person biting his nails didn’t seem to even realize what he was doing.
“Um... Sasuk.”
“Hm?”
“...You’re going to make yourself bleed.”
Gnash.
Even after hearing the hesitant warning, Baek Cheon bit his nail again and lifted the head he’d been keeping bowed low to stare at Yoon Jong.
“What the hell!”
Only then, seeing Baek Cheon’s face properly, Yoon Jong jolted in shock and stumbled back.
It was not the neat, handsome face he was used to. The skin was rough and worn, the black shadows under his eyes sinking nearly to his jaw. He looked like a corpse that had forgotten to lie down and die.
“Did you eat something wrong? Why does your face look like that...?”
“Yoon Jong...”
“Yes?”
“...Do you think it’ll be all right?”
“...”
Just saying it seemed to make him more anxious, and Baek Cheon turned even paler, as if he had come face-to-face with a ghost. When Yoon Jong saw his lips trembling too, even he began to feel uneasy for no good reason.
Then Baek Cheon asked again.
“Will it really be all right?”
It was a question with half the words missing, but Yoon Jong understood him perfectly.
“You worry about the strangest things. No matter how you look at it, surely he wouldn’t... Do to us what he’s doing to you? Even Chung Myung has a head on his shoulders.”
“He does have a head.”
Baek Cheon bit his nail again.
“...Just nothing inside it, that’s all.”
Ah. Well. That was a little hard to argue with.
Baek Cheon muttered weakly, like a man who had half lost his mind.
“...As for us, well... right, our bodies are already a lost cause.”
“Wait a minute, Sasuk. You can’t just decide other people’s bodies are lost causes on your own.”
“But Sect Leader... and the elders... this is their first time dealing with Chung Myung.”
Baek Cheon clutched at his head with trembling hands. His hair, which was usually orderly and neatly combed with not a strand out of place, had already become a tangled mess.
“No matter how I think about it, I can’t picture anything good coming out of this. Shouldn’t we stop him now? We should stop him, right?”
“No... still, surely...”
Yoon Jong tried to soothe him, but he couldn’t quite finish his sentence cleanly either. He, too, was starting to feel uneasy.
“...He does know where to draw the line, doesn’t he? No, wait, does he? Or does he not? No, he does...? No?”
Yoon Jong’s face gradually filled with confusion.
That thing... that line between proper and improper, it seemed like it existed, but also like it didn’t.
“You’re worried too, aren’t you?”
“...Yes.”
The more he thought about it, the more his stomach twisted painfully.
As the two of them grew increasingly pale with anxiety, Jo Gul, who had been resting nearby, snorted with a laugh.
“Honestly, both of you worry way too much. Seriously, way too much.”
“Hm?”
“Training isn’t something you can make go exactly the way you want just because you feel like roughing someone up. If this were swordsmanship or lightness skill, sure, you could beat them into shape all you want, but how are you supposed to grind people down while they’re learning a divine art? In the end, their qi is moving on its own.”
“...”
“...”
At Jo Gul’s casual words, the two men blanked out. Jo Gul blinked in confusion and tilted his head.
“Why are you both looking at me like that?”
“No...”
As Baek Cheon hesitated, Yoon Jong answered for him.
“Because it’s surprising when you say something right.”
“Hey. What’s with that...”
Whether Jo Gul was offended or not, Baek Cheon and Yoon Jong looked at each other and nodded.
“He’s got a point.”
“Yeah... that’s true. No matter how much that bastard is Chung Myung, he can’t just beat someone half to death while they’re learning a divine art.”
For the first time, they actually felt a little relief.
But it seemed there was someone who saw things differently from them.
“Is that so?”
Everyone’s gaze turned at once.
Yu I-seol, who had been sitting silently until now, muttered with a sullen expression.
“Really?”
“...”
Being able to make people this uneasy with only two syllables was a talent in itself.
“Sago, do you think differently?”
“A bastard who’ll torment them however he can.”
“...That’s true too.”
It was a moment that made it painfully clear how the Mount Hua disciples viewed Chung Myung.
“...Should we sneak over and look?”
“Didn’t they say no ordinary disciples were to approach? If we get caught after sneaking over, Unam Sagojo will be furious.”
“...Right. We shouldn’t.”
Baek Cheon gave a slight shiver.
Un Geom, whom they saw every day, was someone they could still slip away from with some joking and a bit of deflection even if he scolded them. But Unam was still a difficult person for Baek Cheon. In fact, the Hyun elders felt more familiar to him than Unam did.
The sect has to have someone like that.
It wasn’t necessarily good for everyone to get along like family all the time. At some point, a sect needed someone who could keep order and speak the hard truth. Among the Un generation, Unam filled that role; among the Baek generation, Baek Sang was that person.
“Hngh. It’s maddening not being able to check for ourselves.”
“At least we haven’t heard any screaming. Doesn’t that mean we can relax a little?”
“...There is that, but...”
Baek Cheon was just about to sigh when the door to Baekmae Hall suddenly flew open and Baek Sang thrust his head in, panting in haste.
“Senior Brother! Sect Leader and the elders are coming down!”
“What?”
Baek Cheon shot to his feet and bolted for the door.
“Move!”
“Aagh!”
He even kicked Baek Sang, who was standing half in the way of the doorway, out of his path before dashing off without looking back. The other Five Swords hurried after him.
“Where? Where are they?”
“Over there!”
Baek Cheon’s eyes snapped toward the direction Yoon Jong pointed. Sure enough, a few figures were trudging along the narrow path that led behind Mount Hua.
“They look fine.”
“You should say they look fine, you rude little bastard!”
Yoon Jong reflexively grabbed Jo Gul by the neck and started throttling him.
“Kek! Kheh! S-sorry!”
Watching Yoon Jong shake Jo Gul by the throat, Baek Cheon broke into a cold sweat.
Come to think of it, that bastard always looks ready to beat Jo Gul up on sight.
Still, this was obviously not Yoon Jong’s fault. It was Chung Myung’s fault for making Yoon Jong like this, and Jo Gul’s fault for making Chung Myung like that.
“L-let’s go, for now.”
“Yes!”
Led by Baek Cheon, the Five Swords rushed toward the approaching Sect Leader. At least the fact that they weren’t limping or staggering meant the thing they’d feared hadn’t happened.
Chung Myung’s human after all.
If he had any conscience, he wouldn’t do that to the Sect Leader.
He’s a demon, yeah, but not the real kind of demon!
Everyone let out a breath of relief and patted their chests. Then, all at once—
“...Huh?”
“Huh?”
“W-wait...”
Their steps slowed as they drew closer to the Sect Leader and the elders.
“S-Sect Leader?”
Baek Cheon called out in alarm. Hyun Jong slowly lifted his head to look back at him.
Flinch.
Baek Cheon was so startled he lost the power of speech and stammered like a man who’d forgotten how to talk.
“N-no... why... Why do you look so haggard? Th-the...”
And no wonder. Hyun Jong’s face was a sight to behold.
Baek Cheon’s own face wasn’t in great shape, but compared to Hyun Jong’s right now, he might as well have been a freshly washed face after a long nap, bright and pale as rice-wash water.
He looks like skin and bones.
No, what the hell did that lunatic do?
Terrifying.
It wasn’t just Hyun Jong. Hyun Young and Hyun Sang looked the same. Had they all turned into mummies in the span of a single day?
“S-Sect Leader. What on earth happened...?”
Hyun Jong answered in a voice so faint it seemed to be fading away.
“Nothing... much.”
No, that looks like a whole lot of something.
“Ah. That feels good.”
At the sudden voice, Baek Cheon’s head snapped around.
There, coming up from behind, was Chung Myung, strolling along with the face of a cat that had just awakened from a pleasant nap.
“You little bastard!”
In an instant, Baek Cheon’s vision went red and he lunged forward to grab Chung Myung by the collar. Or tried to.
But dreams were only dreams. Baek Cheon was flung backward even faster than he had rushed in and rolled head over heels across the ground.
“Damn it. What the hell.”
Chung Myung clicked his tongue, glancing between his own outstretched fist and Baek Cheon.
“I told you not to keep doing that. My fist flies out on reflex before I even know it.”
“Krrr... that bastard...”
Baek Cheon lifted his head sharply, glaring with eyes full of murderous resentment.
“You crazy bastard! What did you do to the Sect Leader! You little brat who doesn’t know his place!”
“Ah, this? This is...”
“You don’t know decorum and you don’t know manners, either!”
“No, wait, I’m saying that—”
“A dog worthy of dismemberment! A bastard who needs to be beaten bloody until he learns some respect! I ought to snap your spine and—”
“Damn it all!”
Thwack!
Chung Myung’s thrown shoe buried itself in Baek Cheon’s face. Finally, Baek Cheon went quiet and toppled sideways.
Thud.
“...He’s really gotten carried away. Tsk tsk.”
Looking at the one who had fallen, Chung Myung clicked his tongue. He used to be at least somewhat normal. Somehow, the farther things went, the worse he seemed to get.
At that moment, Yu I-seol swiftly approached Hyun Jong. Yoon Jong, snapping out of it at once, shouted,
“Sect Leader, are you all right? You three, go over there and help them quickly!”
“Yes!”
Yu I-seol, Dang Soso, and Jo Gul hurried over to support the Sect Leader and elders. With a pale face, Yoon Jong asked Chung Myung,
“Weren’t you supposed to be practicing that divine art today?”
“Yeah.”
“Th-then why is this happening? Don’t tell me you went deviated or something...?”
“Deviated, my ass. You have to learn something before that happens. Hitting qi deviation in one day would make history.”
“Th-then why?”
“Ah.”
Chung Myung shrugged.
“Nothing special. It just looked like he couldn’t quite get the hang of the first circulation.”
“Looked like?”
“I figured I could let him take his time, but... that’d be a waste too. So I just shoved qi into his body and forced it to circulate.”
“...You put qi into someone else’s body and forcibly made their qi circulate?”
“Yeah.”
“Uh... is that supposed to be a problem? It’s just qiguidance, right? You’ve done that before...”
“Nope.”
“Hm?”
Chung Myung grinned.
“Qiguidance means sending qi where it already flows. This was twisting it by force into somewhere it never went before.”
Twisting it?
“Breaking through the meridians?”
Breaking through?
“Scraping, smashing, crushing, tearing it open as you go!”
Cold sweat began to run down Jo Gul’s back as he listened while supporting one of the elders.
“S-so then what happens?”
“Hmm. Well... there’s no big problem. We succeeded in setting the first flow. From here on out, it’ll only get better.”
Yoon Jong tilted his head.
“Then why is the Sect Leader in that state?”
“It’s nothing much. In the end, it’s a good thing, but if you spend your whole life circulating qi one way and then suddenly change the route... well, it hurts a little.”
“...How much?”
“Hmm. How should I describe it?”
Chung Myung thought for a moment, then smiled brightly as if he’d found the answer.
“Would it make sense if I said it feels like digging finger-thick holes through your body from head to toe? Winding all the way along the meridians?”
“Hiiiiiik.”
Yoon Jong’s face went ashen as he backed away in a panic. Sweat poured down his face, now completely drained of color.
“Hey... Hey, you crazy bastard, how is a person supposed to endure that while fully sane!”
“They endure it, they endure it. Anyone can do it. Look over there. They’re enduring it beautifully.”
That? He looked... no, the man’s soul had vanished, you bastard.
“Are you all right, Elder?”
Yoon Jong hurried over to check the Sect Leader’s condition. Then a faint spark returned to Hyun Jong’s unfocused eyes.
“Yoon Jong...”
“Yes, Sect Leader! It’s me! Yoon Jong! Do you have your wits about you?”
“...Registry.”
“Pardon?”
“...Cancel that bastard’s sect registration and throw him out.”
“...”
“...Damned fool.”
Hyun Jong’s body finally tipped sideways with a dull thud.
“Aaah! Sect Leadeeer!”
“Elder! Elder, please pull yourself together!”
“You crazy bastard, what kind of inner cultivation makes a man pass out like that!”
“Medicine Hall! Carry him to the Medicine Hall, quickly!”
Chung Myung, looking blankly at the chaos around him, clicked his tongue.
“Tsk tsk. So weak.”
Well, at least they’d stop being weak soon enough, so it was fine.
Chung Myung stretched lazily.
But at that moment, even he did not know.
He had no idea what kind of storm this one act would bring crashing down upon Mount Hua.