Where Are the Others Now? (5)
So that was how things stood...
Chung Myung blinked blankly at the unbelievable situation before him.
I should be getting up...
He tried to lower his head and look at his own body. No—he tried to. But it was as if his head had been glued to the bed; it wouldn’t move even a fraction.
It was because of the thick rope tied tight around his head.
Thwack.
The rope was drawn so tightly it nearly cut off the blood flow, crushing his skull.
“...”
Chung Myung’s head shifted to the side, just a little, very little. Yoon Jong, who had been standing beside the bed, met his desperate gaze, jolted, and gave a tiny nod.
“Ahem.”
After a small cough, Yoon Jong cautiously began.
“Um... Soso.”
“Yes?”
“...I don’t think it’s necessary to go this far.”
“What?”
“...No, I just mean...”
Blue veins popped on Dang Soso’s forehead, murderous energy swirling around her.
“Do these people think a human body is some kind of cart? You just run it hard for a bit, swap out the wheels, and it’ll be fine again? Why? You want me to really swap it out for you?”
“...No. Absolutely not. I misspoke.”
Under the pressure of Dang Soso’s killing intent, Yoon Jong quickly edged backward.
Normally Dang Soso smiled so brightly that she gave a very good impression, but the moment she had a patient in front of her, she radiated such murderous intent that she looked capable of killing someone with just a glance.
Wait, shouldn’t it be the other way around? When you’re treating a patient, shouldn’t you do it with smiles and compassion...
Then Dang Soso whipped her head around and glared at Chung Myung. Seeing him pinned helplessly to the bed, wrapped in thick rope like some tightly bound package, she ground her teeth.
“If your body’s turned to rags, you should lie still and get treated! Why the hell did you crawl out of bed the moment I looked away? Are you even human? Huh?”
“I’m your martial uncle...”
“I know that!”
Yes.
Good. So she did know.
“No! Just what kind of monster are you that you wake up with injuries that would’ve killed ordinary people ten times over and immediately go out looking for booze?”
“I wasn’t going out looking for booze...”
“Shut up!”
“...Yes.”
Chung Myung stared up at the ceiling with dazed eyes.
For some reason, it made him think of the old days.
- If you’re hurt, then get treated, you old bastard! Get over here!
- Get lost. You quack.
- Quack? Just who do you think Mount Hua’s great elder is!? If I’d opened a clinic, I’d have made a fortune! Enough talk, get over here. And stop drinking that damn liquor! I brought it to disinfect the wound!
Dang Bo...
I’m still living like this.
Why does your family always make my life so miserable?
Normally, when martial artists got hacked by a blade and blood was pouring out everywhere, they’d slap on some mud and rub it around like that would fix everything. But the Dang Family was the exception. If a person even got a scratch, they acted like the sky had fallen and screamed murder over it.
They’d been a pain in the ass before, and now it was apparently a family tradition passed down through generations...
At that moment, the door burst open and someone walked in like salvation itself.
“Hm?”
It was Tang Gun-ak. He took one look at Chung Myung bound to the bed and immediately frowned.
“Oh, Lord Tang!”
As Chung Myung cried out as if begging for rescue, Tang Gun-ak’s eyes turned icy.
“Who did this?”
At that cold voice, Dang Soso flinched and looked at Tang Gun-ak. She knew better than anyone how much her father cherished Chung Myung.
In fact, Tang Gun-ak was the kind of man who had never shown even his blood-related sons the same warmth he gave Chung Myung. There was no way he would look kindly on his disciple Dang Soso tying Chung Myung up for fun. Not even if she was his most beloved daughter.
“I, I did...”
“You?”
“...Yes.”
Dang Soso hunched her shoulders.
Tang Gun-ak fixed her with a frosty stare, then snapped coldly, “Did I teach you that?”
“I’m sorry. Senior martial brother just wouldn’t listen.”
“To tie up the Mount Hua Divine Dragon with rope! What will people say if they see this?”
Clicking his tongue, Tang Gun-ak extended something he’d been holding behind his back.
“There’s no way something like that will hold.”
“...”
What he held was an iron chain. Dang Soso’s face went blank for a moment.
“It’s a specially made iron chain. It should be able to restrain someone injured. Bind him properly again.”
“...”
“Now.”
“Yes.”
Dang Soso quickly accepted the iron chain Tang Gun-ak handed over. Chung Myung watched the impossible scene with dazed eyes.
Tang Gun-ak clicked his tongue and muttered, “In any case, martial artists are all the same... they think their own bodies are just something to be patched up and used again!”
Tears slowly rolled down Chung Myung’s cheeks.
You damn Dang bastards.
Generations and generations of this nonsense. Generations...
No, was that some kind of family motto? How could they all be saying the exact same thing a hundred years apart?
“Hmm.”
Tang Gun-ak came over to Chung Myung and examined him from head to toe.
“Internal bleeding won’t be controlled by acupuncture alone. Use medicine with it.”
“He says it tastes bitter, so he doesn’t eat it well.”
“...Force it down his throat.”
“Yes!”
Chung Myung forcibly turned his head and stared at Baek Cheon.
“Dong-ryong.”
“What, punk.”
“Go fetch the Sect Leader. Tell him the Dang Family is persecuting a Mount Hua disciple and...”
“Think he’d clap?”
Fresh tears started rolling down Chung Myung’s temples again.
I don’t have anyone on my side. I don’t have anyone on my side at all.
Sect Leader Senior Brother.
I miss the old days...
- It was the same back then too, you bastard. It’s you who’s the same.
“...”
Ah, I’m lonely. Damn lonely.
Then Tang Gun-ak let out a light sigh and asked, “How’s the body?”
“Can’t you tell just by looking?”
“You seem fine.”
“...What the hell is wrong with this guy?”
Chung Myung’s body twitched.
“Anything uncomfortable?”
“Are you blind, or just pretending?”
“Seems like nothing.”
“...Are you not hearing me?”
As Chung Myung shot him a resentful glare like he was about to burst into flames from the inside out, he finally gave a defeated sigh.
“...Being tied up like this makes eating impossible. Please at least loosen it when it’s time to eat.”
“Mm, that would be difficult, I suppose.”
Tang Gun-ak looked at Dang Soso and said, “Meals?”
“I’ve been feeding him on time.”
“So he is eating. From now on, switch him to rice porridge. Hot food isn’t good for the injured. Give him porridge for all three meals.”
“...”
Chung Myung stared miserably at the ceiling.
Sect Leader Senior Brother.
...I’m lonely.
- Hahahahahaha.
Hey, you damn bastard!
Stop laughing!
Some rumors spread faster than a storm.
“Hey, waiter! Another bottle of liquor here.”
“Yes! Coming right up!”
Just as the people seated around the tavern were pouring out the last of the liquor in their bottles, the door suddenly flew open and a sweat-soaked man rushed in breathlessly.
“Right here. Over here! Why are you in such a rush?”
“Looks like he’s scared we’ll drink all the liquor he ordered.”
Laughter burst out noisily. The man, looking around after hearing someone call to him, hurried over and blurted out, “D-Did you hear about it?”
“Hear about what?”
“The Nine Sects and the Five Great Families signed a truce with the Sapa bastards!”
The people who heard that snorted in disbelief.
“Don’t talk nonsense and sit down. We’ve got another bottle coming.”
“I’m not joking, I’m serious!”
“All right, all right.”
“It’s chaos out there right now! They say the Nine Sects and the Five Great Families declared they wouldn’t set foot in the Yangtze River for the next three years!”
Everyone listening slowly went pale at the man’s frantic expression. But soon someone clicked his tongue.
“Tsk tsk. At least make your lies believable. Why would the Nine Sects and the Five Great Families ever need to make a treaty with those Sapa bastards?”
“T-This isn’t just any Sapa. The Five Hegemons of the Jianghu have united and formed a new force called the Four Hegemons Alliance!”
“The Four Hegemons Alliance?”
“That’s right! Shaolin and Wudang, who went to the Yangtze, couldn’t withstand the Four Hegemons Alliance’s attacks and ended up signing a truce!”
“...The Sapa bastards united?”
“I’m telling you, yes!”
“No, that’s impossible. No matter how many Sapa bastards gathered in one place, Shaolin and Wudang agreeing to peace with them? You’re saying something outrageous!”
The man thumped his chest in frustration.
“If you don’t believe me, go outside and see for yourself! The whole world is in an uproar over this! Everything’s going mad because of it!”
“...What on earth are you talking about...”
Everyone was slowly losing the ability to speak.
Seeing the man’s desperate face, it didn’t seem like a lie, but it was just too absurd to believe.
The orthodox factions and the demonic ones made peace?
They had never even heard of such a thing. Weren’t the righteous and the evil divided precisely because they were like oil and water, unable to mix? Then how could the two sides...
“W-Wait. Did you say a truce?”
“That’s what I said!”
“The Nine Sects and the Five Great Families said they would no longer set foot in the Yangtze? Then what about the sects still in the Yangtze right now?”
“They’re all pulling out of the Yangtze.”
“The Nine Sects and the Five Great Families tore the Yangtze to pieces, made it look like a kicked anthill, and now they’re retreating while leaving the river bandits there? Then what happens to the common people there?”
“Who knows.”
“Hah... hahahah... what the hell kind of bullshit is this?”
At last, furious roars burst from the mouths of those who had been holding back.
“If that’s how it was going to end, they shouldn’t have stirred things up in the first place. They stormed in all full of swagger, only to tuck their tails and run? And now they’ve gone and signed a humiliating treaty saying they won’t even set foot in the Yangtze for three years?”
Every face in the tavern was filled with disbelief. Since they were speaking so loudly, there was no way anyone could avoid hearing them.
“Are they doing this because they don’t know what those river bandits will do? So many strongholds have already been destroyed; those bastards must be seething and ready to go berserk. Who’s going to deal with the aftermath? How can the righteous factions do something this ridiculous?”
“I don’t believe it! The Shaolin I know, the Wudang I know, they’re not like that!”
Angry reactions erupted all around, but once a levee had burst, there was no stopping the flood.
“Whether you believe it or not isn’t the issue. I’m hearing that people around the Yangtze are already packing their bags. With the Nine Sects and the Five Great Families gone, there’s no one left to stop the river bandits from running wild. There are plenty of people who’d rather abandon their homes than sit there waiting to die.”
“Hah... hah...”
It was an utterly unbelievable piece of news.
And yet there was no way not to believe it. Even as they spoke, several more people burst into the tavern, faces ashen, shouting the same news.
“My God... Shaolin and Wudang, the Namgung Family... they’d abandon the common people and look for their own survival...? Then what was all that righteousness they’d been crying about until now? And they still call themselves the righteous path?”
“Why have we supported them all this time! If this is how it ends, they’re no different from bandits!”
“A pack of con artists, that’s what they are! They were all obsessed with money and profit from the start! We were fooled. Completely fooled!”
Anger began to spread.
By nature, people felt far greater rage when betrayed by those they had trusted than when harmed by obvious villains. The greater their trust in the Nine Sects and the Five Great Families had been, the greater their disappointment and fury at this choice.
From the Yangtze to the provinces, once the rumor spread, it swept across the entire Central Plains like wildfire.
More than a hundred years after the war against the Demonic Sect, the most shocking news in ages was shaking the once-silent Central Plains like an earthquake.