Stop Talking and Listen to People! (4)
“The, the sect master…….”
“Uh…….”
The pirates stared with their eyes wide open, unable to believe what they had just seen with those very eyes: Zhanpoheokeo sliced cleanly in half and killed.
He had been a terror even to the pirates of Daegyeong Fort because of his vicious nature, but they had still honored him as their sect master because his strength was the real thing.
And yet that same Zhanpoheokeo had been cut into two pieces and died, literally, without even getting the chance to lift a finger.
“Th-this…….”
Despair surged through the pirates.
The sect master they had relied on was dead, and everywhere they looked was blocked by enemies far stronger than themselves.
Only one future lay before them now: utter defeat.
W-we have to run somehow…….
And then…… the fox with all the wits never missed the moment their resolve began to crack.
“Shoot!”
The arrows that had stopped came raining down again from atop the cliff like a downpour. If anything, it almost seemed they had brought up even more arrows in the meantime, because the sheer volume was enormous.
“Fire! Keep firing! Make the ground so thick with arrows there’s no space left to see!”
Im So-byeong laughed under his breath, looking delighted.
For those who studied warfare, a situation where you could strike an opponent without being attacked in return was no different from gold falling from the heavens.
Im So-byeong had absolutely no intention of letting this precious chance slip away.
“Shoot! More! Good, you’re doing well. Turn them into mush!”
At his urging, the archers drew their bows until it looked like their arms would snap. The iron bows, specially forged for martial artists, were so powerful that even men with exceptional strength could barely imagine pulling them back—and yet those bows were being drawn again and again without pause.
“Aaaaaaagh!”
“R-run! We’ll die!”
They knew they had to dodge. But how could they possibly evade the arrows pouring down from overhead like a storm? Rain only soaked the body, but this rain of arrows pierced through flesh.
“Ghk!”
“Ugh!”
One man with an arrow through his throat collapsed without even closing his eyes. The barrage that followed instantly turned his unconscious body into a porcupine.
“Hiiik!”
Fear began to creep into the eyes of the pirates swinging their pikes to knock the arrows away. At this rate, they would all die like that in the end.
“Hahahaha! You pathetic fools are sca— Ack! You bastards, can’t you aim properly? I almost got kille……!”
Beon Chung, having dodged the arrows, glared up at the cliff. But the moment his eyes met Im So-byeong’s, he flinched and quickly lowered his gaze.
“Oho!”
Kuuuuung!
He sent the pirate in front of him flying and shouted at the top of his lungs.
“It is the command of the King of the Green Forest! Not a single one of them is to be left alive!”
“Yes!”
Just as the bandits were raising their momentum and about to sweep the pirates away completely, a voice like thunder exploded through the battlefield.
“Stooooooooop!”
The shout rolled out with enough force that everyone stopped in place and turned their heads blankly.
“Tsk.”
At the end of their gaze, as expected, stood Chung Myung.
He looked up at Im So-byeong on the cliff and shouted, “Hey, stop shooting! We’re gonna kill them all at this rate.”
“But don’t they need to be killed?”
“Look at that bandit bastard’s personality.”
“……No, uh…… no……. What I mean is…….”
Im So-byeong’s once-blank face twisted into despair.
Seeing that from the opposite side, the Mount Hua disciples understood his feelings perfectly and shut their eyes.
I really didn’t want to hear that one.
Especially not from that bastard.
Honestly, I’d rather be insulted.
Chung Myung clicked his tongue and added another jab.
“It’s already over anyway. What’s the point of killing off precious slaves— no, precious lives?”
Im So-byeong looked ready to argue in protest, but Chung Myung paid him no mind and turned to the pirates instead.
Then the pirates, many of them wounded by arrows and looking half in despair, half in hope, watched Chung Myung’s expression anxiously.
“If you drop your weapons and surrender, I’ll spare you.”
“……R-really?”
“What, are you bastards so stupid you only ever get fooled? I’m a Taoist, for crying out loud—a Taoist!”
Baek Cheon covered his face with both hands, utterly dejected.
He’s only a Taoist when it suits him, that damned brat.
No matter how he looked at it, he was certain that neither Primordial Lord of Heaven nor the Great Supreme Elder existed in the heavens. If they truly did, there was no way they would let that demon run wild like this.
“You’re not dropping the pikes? Fine! Want me to spear all of you together with them instead?”
The pirates stared at Chung Myung with trembling eyes.
They were pirates to begin with.
They had never once heard of pirates surviving after being suppressed. Weren’t bandits supposed to be beheaded on the spot if they were caught by the government?
But…….
Dammit, what does it matter? We’re dead either way, aren’t we?
No, but still, dying after putting up a fight would…….
What do we do?
And then it happened.
“Amitabha.”
Hye Yeon quietly brought his palms together in front of his chest and said, “I guarantee that those who drop their weapons and surrender will never be killed.”
When a monk in robes, with such a kindly face, said it like that, it carried weight.
Moreover—
“We are disciples of Mount Hua Sect. We, too, promise that at the very least, your lives will be spared.”
Once Baek Cheon stepped forward and nailed it down, the pirates’ faces brightened.
Apparently trust changed depending on appearance. When words like that came from someone as obviously respectable as Baek Cheon, the credibility was completely different.
“We surrender.”
“We give up!”
“Please spare us!”
All of them threw down their weapons and submitted.
But even though he had gotten the result he wanted, Chung Myung did not look happy at all. If anything, he seemed to flare up in anger and start thrashing around.
“What, do these bastards discriminate against people? When I said it, they didn’t even listen through their nostrils? Hey, no, this won’t do. Pull the pikes back out, you bastards! Everyone dies today!”
“Stop him! Grab that thing!”
At Baek Cheon’s shout, Yu I-seol and Dang Soso rushed over at once and clung to Chung Myung.
Dang Soso locked onto his waist, while Yu I-seol kept smacking Chung Myung’s head with rapid little thumps.
“Senior brother! Calm down! You promised!”
“You’re in trouble.”
“No, it’s those bastards!”
“I said I know! I know already!”
“You’re in trouble.”
Every time Chung Myung growled and tried to lunge forward, the pirates recoiled in a mass.
Baek Cheon shook his head at the chaos.
“Martial uncle, shouldn’t we sort this out first?”
“……Yes, we should.”
At Yoon Jong’s words, Baek Cheon let out a sigh and muttered inwardly.
So this is what it feels like to see the same old sight over and over again.
He was acutely aware, all over again, of just how difficult it was to create a scene like this—consistently, without batting an eye.
The pirates, bound tightly with ropes, were made to kneel in a row.
For martial artists, ropes were not exactly much of a restriction, but the situation changed when they were surrounded by bandits armed with sharply honed weapons, their blades gleaming blue.
“Ha…….”
“Tch.”
The bandits looked at the pirates with sour faces and clicked their tongues. If given permission right now, they looked ready to strangle them all on the spot.
Under that murderous atmosphere, the pirates’ knees went weak and they couldn’t even lift their heads, let alone meet anyone’s eyes.
“What are we supposed to use these bastards for if we let them live?”
Im So-byeong clicked his tongue too, looking displeased. Baek Cheon, standing beside him, gave a low laugh.
“It’s not as though we can just kill them all, either. That would be a bit too much for a human being to do.”
“What’s so hard about that? We can just tie them all together and toss them over there.”
When Im So-byeong pointed at the Yangtze River, Baek Cheon visibly shuddered. Knowing this man, he really might do exactly that.
To the Mount Hua disciples he might look like a sly, harmless scholar, but his true position was the King of the Green Forest, wasn’t it?
“I’m sure Chung Myung has some sort of plan.”
“Hmm.”
Then—
“There isn’t one!”
“There’s only money and valuables in the warehouse! I don’t see any people.”
“Yes! Only treasures…….”
“Ehehehe!”
For an instant, Im So-byeong and Baek Cheon both jerked and turned to stare at Chung Myung with strange expressions.
“Kuh-hem! Ahem!”
Chung Myung coughed dryly into his fist.
“It’s just mountains of grain and money…….”
“Kyahaha!”
“…….”
“Cough, cough! Ahem!”
Baek Cheon, his eyes dull like a dead fish’s, stared at him and muttered in utter disbelief, “How can he be that happy…….”
“The man does have a lot of money.”
“Enough, shut up! I mean, money…… cough! Money and treasure……. That’s all there is! Rare and precious herbs! All kinds of medicinal ingredients and spirit elixirs!”
“……There isn’t anything like that, you bastard.”
“Damn it!”
Chung Myung, irritated for no reason like the man who had farted and then gotten angry, whipped his head away. Then he shoved the bandits aside and strutted into the middle of the pirates.
A moment later, he grabbed the collar of one man in particular who had been lowering his posture more than anyone else in the center.
“Look at this bastard, bowing his head like that?”
“H-hiiik!”
“What, you thought I wouldn’t notice if you did that? Do you think my eyes are just holes in a log, you bastard?”
“P-please spare me!”
“Come out here!”
He dragged the man out by the collar and flung him to the ground.
“Aaaah!”
The man, rolling helplessly on the floor, screamed and looked up at Chung Myung with trembling eyes.
KWAANG!
Then Chung Myung stomped hard right beside his face. The imprint of the foot sank deep into the ground. If he had just twisted his foot a little and stepped on the man’s face instead, Baek Cheon didn’t even want to imagine what would have happened.
Chung Myung seized the man by the collar again and lifted him up, shouting, “What happened to the people, you bastard?”
“P-please spare me, great hero! I didn’t do anything……!”
“And this bastard still doesn’t know when to straighten up?”
Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap! Slap!
Chung Myung slapped the man’s cheeks left and right.
“Straighten up, you bastard! Straighten up! Didn’t your mother ever tell you that even if a tiger drags you off, you can survive if you keep your wits about you? Huh?”
At that horrific sight, Baek Cheon quietly closed his eyes.
Chung Myung…… I’d rather be taken by a tiger than by you……. You never let up just because someone keeps their wits about them…….
In no time at all, the man’s cheeks puffed up thick and red, and tears streamed down his face.
“I-I d-don’t know.”
“What? Speak properly, you bastard?”
Chung Myung started beating him again with renewed enthusiasm. Baek Cheon couldn’t bear to watch and turned away. At that moment, Im So-byeong clapped as if in admiration and murmured, “My, my…… he really lays into people with some skill. The bandits should learn that from him. Tsk tsk tsk. To be beaten by a Taoist in something like this—where’s the pride of a bandit?”
……Who exactly was he mocking?
Baek Cheon shot him a sidelong glare.
Smack!
“Say it properly. What did you say?”
“I-I don’t know!”
The man had already broken down and was bawling his eyes out.
“We’ve never b-brought people here. I don’t know what you want me to say. I’ll tell you anything, so just spare me!”
“You don’t know?”
“Yes! I swear on my life, we’ve never done anything like that!”
“Then what’s that ship? Why did you bring it here?”
“Th-that was because those people resisted so hard. We were just going to drag them back to the stronghold first……. And, and the commoners were going to be let go! If we’d really been trafficking people, do you think we could have set up shop here and stayed in business until now? We can’t just do something like that recklessly!”
“……You’re saying you didn’t?”
“Yes!”
Chung Myung’s head tilted slightly to the side.
“Really?”
“I-if I’m lying, you can kill me! I swear on my life, it’s true!”
“……Oh. Is that so?”
Chung Myung loosened the hand gripping the man’s collar just a little and slowly turned his head.
Baek Cheon, meeting that gaze, pressed his lips tightly together and slowly looked off toward the distant mountains. There was a desperate need in that motion to avoid Chung Myung’s eyes.
“Martial uncle.”
“…….”
“He says it wasn’t here.”
“…….”
A suffocating silence passed between them.
“Then…….”
“…….”
“What the hell were we all fighting so hard over here for?”
“……Chung Myung.”
“Yeah?”
“……Just hit me instead.”
“…….”
For the first time since leaving Mount Hua, Baek Cheon thought he might actually like to die.