So, I Just Came Out? (1)
The news that Mount Hua had closed its gates spread across all of Central Plains.
In the past, it would not have been the sort of thing to draw much attention, but Mount Hua’s name now carried a weight in the world of the martial arts that could not be compared to what it once had been.
And the reaction of everyone who heard the news was, quite remarkably, the same.
“A-abbot!”
Beop Gye, his face drained white, shoved the door open. Beop Jeong, who had been reciting prayers, turned around with a stiff expression.
“...Why do you behave in such a scandalous manner?”
“T-there’s trouble, Abbot!”
“What is it this time?”
“M-Mount Hua...!”
The moment Mount Hua was mentioned, Beop Jeong’s eyebrows shot up visibly.
“...What has Mount Hua done now that you’re acting so rashly? Did they cross into Jiangnan this time and start a fight with Saperyeon?”
By now, Beop Jeong was confident that no matter what Mount Hua—or rather, that Mount Hua Divine Dragon—did, nothing would surprise him anymore. He had learned through painful experience, more than once, that common sense did not apply to that man.
“M-M-Mount Hua! Mount Hua has closed its gates!”
“Yes, closed their gates. What a huge... what? Cloooosed the gaaaates?”
Beop Jeong’s eyes bulged for an instant.
“Closed its gates? You said Mount Hua closed its gates?”
“Yes, Abbot! We received word from Beggars’ Sect!”
“Th-that can’t be right. They must have heard wrong. Or Beggars’ Sect got it wrong!”
“I was just as shocked, so I checked again and again... but it is said to be absolutely true.”
For a moment, Beop Jeong lost the power of speech. Then he muttered in a dazed voice, “...Then they really closed their gates?”
“Yes. So they say.”
“...Why?”
“...“
Beop Gye had lived his whole life watching Beop Jeong. And he swore on everything that this was the first time he had ever seen the abbot look so stupid that he could not even string words together.
But he could hardly blame Beop Jeong for it. When he had first heard the news, he himself had stood there in a much greater daze, muttering over and over that it was impossible.
“N-no. Why on earth?”
“Please calm yourself, Abbot.”
“...Amitabha. Amitabha! Amitabha!”
Decades of cultivation were useless; Beop Jeong chanted the Buddha’s name again and again, but still could not settle his mind.
“Amitabha! Amitabha! Amitabha, my foot! What in the world is Mount Hua thinking? What are they thinking! Such a deranged...!”
“A-abbot! The disciples can hear you! Y-you should lower your voice a little...!”
“Grrrr...”
Beop Jeong clutched at his head. Unfortunately, since there was no hair to pull, all he could do was scratch at his bald scalp in frustration.
“Why... why does Mount Hua always do this? Why? Why, in the world!”
He could not understand it.
Of course, Beop Jeong knew. The things Mount Hua—or rather, that Mount Hua Divine Dragon—did might look completely insane, but they always had some reason behind them.
But wasn’t this going too far?
“They finally seize an opportunity that would let Heavenly Alliance stand on equal footing with the Nine Great Sects—an opportunity once in a thousand years—and they just close their gates?”
A favorable wind did not always blow.
When the iron is hot, you have to strike. When the water rises, you have to row.
For Mount Hua and Heavenly Alliance, this might be the one chance that would never come again.
Wudang had closed its gates, Shaolin was tied down by resistance from the other orthodox sects, and Namgung was silent. That kind of opening would never come twice.
Whether a person or a power, if it had no head, it could not move.
Even if Mount Hua had won people’s hearts through its deeds, if Shaolin, Wudang, and Namgung were still standing, there was no way they would simply allow Mount Hua to solidify its influence.
There was no need even to interfere. The three sects merely needed to operate normally. People always wanted fresh winds, yes—but what they found most comfortable was familiarity.
What tormented Beop Jeong most of all was the fact that Mount Hua Divine Dragon was not the kind of person who would fail to understand this.
“What in the world...?”
“Sh-should we send a message to Mount Hua?”
“...If they’ve closed their gates, there’s no chance of anyone taking delivery. What good would sending a message do?”
“That’s true, but...”
Beop Jeong stared into space with the look of a man half liberated from worldly attachments.
How, exactly, is this supposed to unfold?
His calculations had been thrown into chaos in an instant. He had repeatedly turned over and over in his mind the intricate politics of the martial world, fitting the pieces together with painstaking precision—and then, all at once, someone had cut the legs out from under the whole structure and overturned it.
Not once or twice, either!
Whenever Mount Hua was involved, nothing ever went the way it should.
“Hoo. Nothing to be done, I suppose.”
“...You mean to just let it slide?”
“What else can I do? They haven’t caused trouble; they’ve just quietly closed their gates. Am I supposed to run over there and demand to know why?”
“...”
“Besides, for whatever reason, a sect that has closed its gates is not to be meddled with. That is the law of the martial world...”
In the end, Beop Jeong let out a short sigh.
“I don’t know.”
“To think he would be so irresponsible...”
“Irresponsible, you say...”
At Beop Gye’s words, Beop Jeong gave a bitter smile.
Beop Jeong knew.
To simply throw away everything one had in hand was not irresponsibility, but courage. Human beings could not even casually discard a single grain of rice they held. How much courage, then, would it take to lay down something so great?
“What an odd man.”
Beop Jeong, gazing far to the west, nodded slowly.
His eyes were filled with mystic light, and Beop Gye found himself falling silent. Perhaps right now Beop Jeong was thinking of something he could never have imagined...
“W-wait.”
“Yes?”
Beop Jeong asked blankly, “They closed their gates?”
“...Did I not already tell you, Abbot?”
“Then... what about Hye Yeon?”
“Yes?”
“What happened to Hye Yeon?”
“...”
Beop Gye answered with a very reluctant expression.
“W-well... from what I heard, he followed Mount Hua when they headed for Shaanxi.”
“What? Then are you saying Hye Yeon is with Mount Hua, even after they closed their gates?”
“...Isn’t that likely?”
“T-they close their gates and take along another sect’s disciple? And not just anyone, but Hye Yeon?”
“...”
Silence fell for a moment. Beop Jeong muttered in a stunned voice, “...I can’t exactly run to the sect that closed its gates and demand they return my disciple... No, do those Mount Hua bastards not even know what decency means...? What in the world... this is just...”
Watching Beop Jeong mumble to himself like a lunatic, Beop Gye squeezed his eyes shut.
Just this once, it felt as though Shaolin had been properly walloped by Mount Hua.
***
“Closed its gates?”
“So I hear.”
“Hmph.”
Namgung Hwang, the head of the Namgung Family, gave a sneer.
“The sect leader? No, no. That man lacks the backbone for such a thing. The Mount Hua Divine Dragon, then?”
“...He’s the Mount Hua Sword Hero now.”
“What an absurd title.”
Namgung Hwang ground his teeth.
The name Mount Hua Sword Hero stabbed at Namgung Hwang’s guts like a sharp needle. It sounded as if it were declaring that righteousness existed only in Mount Hua.
“...No. It’s not entirely wrong.”
“Pardon?”
“Hmph.”
Namgung Hwang snorted.
“...Mount Hua Divine Dragon. No, Mount Hua Sword Hero. As expected... he’s not someone one can take lightly.”
Namgung Hwang acknowledged Chung Myung. No—anyone who had been there had no choice but to acknowledge him.
Jang Ilso was absolutely not beneath the Black Dragon King.
That was not merely from what he had seen with his own eyes, or what he had felt. No matter how great the profits, someone like the Black Dragon King would never place himself beneath a weaker man.
At the very least, they must have been evenly matched.
And that boy matched wits with a man like Jang Ilso, even if only for a short while.
Of course, he did not believe Jang Ilso had fought with full seriousness. But even so, what Chung Myung achieved there did not lose any of its brilliance.
Compared to that tremendous feat, even the name Mount Hua Sword Hero seemed trivial.
And yet...
“What’s more frightening than his personal skill is that, at such a young age, he already has the skill and judgment to lead Mount Hua. On top of that... he has the boldness to make an absurd decision like closing Mount Hua’s gates without batting an eye...”
Namgung Hwang bared his teeth in a grin.
“Do-wi.”
“Yes, Father.”
“To be blunt, he’s a burden as your opponent. He isn’t the sort of creature you can describe with those ‘once in a century’ words people like to throw around.”
“...I know.”
Namgung Do-wi answered softly, biting down hard on his lip. But soon he lifted his gaze again, steady and resolute, to meet Namgung Hwang’s eyes.
“But if he is a man whom a descendant of Namgung should aim toward, shouldn’t he at least be that kind of person?”
Namgung Hwang stared silently into his son’s eyes. The fighting spirit there had not dimmed in the slightest.
“Yes. That’s my son.”
Namgung Hwang chuckled.
“There could be no other reason for Mount Hua’s closure. He understands, I suppose. That no matter how much wealth and power one gathers, they mean nothing to someone whose own fist is lacking.”
“...”
“Remember this, Do-wi. The reason Namgung Family can be called the greatest family under heaven is not because its wealth reaches the heavens, nor because its influence stretches across every corner of Anhui.”
Namgung Hwang declared it with a voice as booming as thunder.
“It is because Namgung Family is strong.”
Namgung Do-wi nodded firmly.
“I will remember it.”
“But...”
Namgung Hwang’s expression hardened as he ground his teeth.
“The current Namgung Family is not enough. And I am not enough, either. I could not defeat the Black Dragon King, and Namgung Family could not bring down Saperyeon. Remember this, Do-wi. The reason we suffer this unbearable humiliation is, in the end, because we are weak.”
“...Yes.”
Namgung Hwang nodded.
“Even Mount Hua, which has achieved the most of all, closes its gates to build up its strength. We can hardly afford to lag behind, can we? All external activities of the family will be suspended. For the time being, Namgung Family will focus on building its foundation and preparing for the calamity to come.”
“I will obey, Father.”
Namgung Do-wi bowed his head in answer. Watching him, Namgung Hwang’s eyes sank ever darker.
Hmph.
After accomplishing so much, it would not have been strange if they’d been leaping with joy.
If Chung Myung had strutted about right in front of him, showing off his abilities and acting full of himself, Namgung Hwang would have clapped for him instead. The power Chung Myung had shown on that Yangtze River was certainly worthy of praise.
And yet he still isn’t satisfied? What a glutton.
As an elder of the martial world, it did not do much for his dignity.
“Such pointless attachment, Mount Hua. There won’t be anything for Mount Hua to do now, anyway.”
Crack.
Namgung Hwang clenched his fist so hard his knuckles turned white.
Rather than suffer that kind of humiliation again, I’d bite my tongue off and die.
He knew. He knew perfectly well that he had no right to blame Heo Do-jin-in.
And yet what had driven him to lash out at the man was nothing more than the shame of not having the courage to choose an honorable death, a shame he had miserably dumped onto someone else.
He would never suffer such humiliation again.
“Three years will pass in no time. The moment that damned Jiangnan peace treaty ends, I will tear the Black Dragon King and Jang Ilso apart with my own hands and repay this humiliation.”
Firm resolve burned in Namgung Hwang’s eyes.