You Only Miss What’s Gone
“Branch Leader! We’re in trouble! Another fight’s broken out!”
“What? Again?”
Hong Dae-gwang’s face twisted viciously.
“Those goddamn bastards! Did some ghost of brawling possess them or what? What the hell are they always fighting for, huh? Is there something worth picking up after the dust settles?”
At the fury rolling off him, the beggars flinched and began eyeing one another nervously.
“Where is it this time?”
“Th-that…”
“Hubei again? Or Anhui? No, wait—Henan? No, not Henan. Those Shaolin bald monks still have their eyes open; they wouldn’t dare make a move there.”
“W-well…”
“Spit it out! I’m busy!”
“Shaanxi, sir.”
“……Where?”
“Shaanxi…”
Hong Dae-gwang’s eyes seemed to quake like an earthquake had struck them.
“Shaanxi?”
“Y-yes.”
“You said Shaanxi? Right now? Shaanxi?”
“Th-that’s right.”
Hong Dae-gwang’s face went ghostly white.
“N-no way! Not Shaanxi!”
His eyes darted wildly from side to side, and then he shouted, his expression turning downright tragic.
“Beggars! Hey, you fighting beggar bastards! Who’s got hands free right now?”
“……What beggar isn’t busy? The only ones with any decent fists got dragged off to Hubei and Anhui.”
“None?”
“Not really, no…”
“What do you mean, no? If you’ve got nothing, then you make something!”
He snatched up a cracked bowl from the filthy table and hurled it straight at the beggars.
“Hiiik!”
“If you don’t have anyone, then go find someone! You useless bastard! There’s a fight in Shaanxi, damn it! Do you want to sit around and watch somebody die?”
One of the beggars, who had been carefully gauging Hong Dae-gwang’s mood, finally bristled and spoke up.
“No, Branch Leader. Everywhere else is already in chaos. Why is this such a huge deal in particular—”
“What?”
Hong Dae-gwang’s eyes snapped to the beggar who had just opened his mouth.
The beggar flinched under that gaze, looked away, and still, like a beggar who had nothing left to lose, said what he wanted anyway.
“I mean, it’s the truth, isn’t it? Just leave it be for now—”
“You little shit!”
Hong Dae-gwang vaulted over the table and drove both feet into the beggar’s chest.
“Aaaagh!”
As the beggar went flying with a scream, Hong Dae-gwang unleashed a lion’s roar that would have put Shaolin to shame.
“You don’t understand what kind of situation this is?! Want me to twist one of your arms behind your back and make it easier for you to beg? Huh?!”
“Please, calm down, Branch Leader!”
“This guy just got here not long ago!”
“He’s just some country bumpkin from Henan, so he doesn’t know what Shaanxi means!”
“You—damn it!”
Hong Dae-gwang ground his teeth, unable to vent his rage.
“Listen, you bastard! If one thing goes wrong in Shaanxi, we’re all dead. What, the Sapa? The Four Hegemons Alliance? Anyone who’s afraid of that bunch just hasn’t tasted how bitter the world can get yet! Have you ever had your skull cracked, you punk?!”
The beggar named Bong-o, who had been hit out of nowhere, stared blankly around him, not understanding a thing.
Even though Hong Dae-gwang was spouting complete nonsense, the other beggars strangely weren’t arguing. They only held him back so he wouldn’t keep beating Bong-o senseless.
What the hell is going on?
Why was the Beggars’ Sect called the Beggars’ Sect?
Wasn’t it because they were a bunch of penniless beggars who would pick a fight even if it meant having their bowl smashed and getting thrashed for it, as long as it meant speaking the truth?
The Beggars’ Sect were the sort of people who would point out a wrong thing as wrong, dead and buried, no matter who was above them and what nonsense was being spouted. And yet no one was pushing back now, which could only mean the other beggars agreed with Hong Dae-gwang too.
Shaanxi? What’s so special about Shaanxi?
What in the world could be happening there?
“Mobilize every beggar you’ve got!”
“The recent mobilization order in Hubei dragged off every beggar who could throw a decent punch! There’s no fighting force left!”
“Then what the hell are you, you beggar bastards?”
Hong Dae-gwang glared at them.
“W-well, we’re…”
“Without us, who’s going to gather intelligence? It’s not like we’re sitting around because we don’t want to go!”
Hong Dae-gwang let out a long sigh.
“Listen, you beggars.”
“Yes?”
“Think about it. How long has that bastard had the sect gates shut?”
“A… thousand days or so?”
“Then do you really think those gates will stay shut much longer, or not?”
“……They’ll open, I guess.”
“Exactly.”
Hong Dae-gwang’s eyes flashed.
“When that bastard opens the gates and comes out to find Shaanxi in a total mess, where do you think he’ll head first?”
“……Zhongnan? Aaaah!”
Hong Dae-gwang kicked the answering beggar without mercy and roared.
“What the hell would he go to Zhongnan for, you idiot! What would he do by going to check on a bunch of bastards who’ve been in seclusion for almost five years! Here! He’ll definitely come straight here, you fool!”
“Hiiik!”
“N-no way…”
“Amitabha! Amitabha! Amitabha!”
In an instant, the beggars’ faces all turned pale.
Only Bong-o remained, clueless as ever, unable to understand what was going on. He looked around and asked in bafflement,
“Um… I don’t understand a word of what you’re all talking about. Who exactly is coming?”
“A demon.”
“A devil.”
“A beast.”
“……Pardon?”
The beggar standing beside him draped an arm over Bong-o’s shoulder and whispered in a chilling voice.
“Hey. You beggar bastard.”
“Yes?”
“You’ve only just come to Shaanxi, so you probably don’t get it yet. But if you want to survive here and so much as beg your way to a meal, there’s one thing you need to burn into your skull. Got it?”
“……What?”
“A demon lives on Mount Hua.”
“…….”
“If you cross paths with him, he’ll beat the hell out of you, then beat you again, then beat you a third time, and if that still isn’t enough, he’ll strip every last hidden coin from your underwear and make you beg again until you can pay tribute.”
“That’s when he’s in a good mood! If he’s in a bad mood, then really…”
“Wait! Someone splash cold water on him! Who mentioned Reverend Cheongmyeong in front of Jong-pal?”
The beggar’s face went blue, then he foamed at the mouth and collapsed. The others dragged him away by the ankles.
“Anyway, hearing about it ten thousand times won’t help, and you don’t need to understand it. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Hong Dae-gwang, now panicked, scratched his head hard.
Right up to Shaanxi, too.
All of this was already happening as a matter of course in Hubei, Anhui, and Henan. But now it was starting in Shaanxi as well? That could only mean the entire northern Central Plains were about to be swallowed by this whirlpool of chaos.
“Those damned Gupailbang bastards!”
“Branch Leader. If this keeps up, all the beggars are going to die. Shouldn’t we say something to the orthodox sects?”
“And then what?”
“Pardon?”
“You idiot, do you think all the Nine Sects and One Gang are the same? How many of the sects in the Gupailbang are actually in the northern plains? The Southern Sea Sect is stuck on an island way beyond the southern sea! Mount Wudang is in Yunnan! Kunlun is in Qinghai! Qingcheng and Mount Emei are both in Sichuan, damn it, Sichuan!”
“…….”
“Mount Kongtong is parked by the route that leads over to the Northern Sea, too! You think those guys are going to come all the way here because something happened in Hubei?”
“……That’d be difficult.”
“The cream of the northern plains has all been eaten up by Shaolin, Wudang, and Zhongnan! What’s left has been sucked dry by the Namgung Family. And of those, three are closed up in seclusion right now! What good would it do to tell them? Should we ask the Hebei Peng Family in Beijing to come out for sightseeing?”
“P-please, calm down, Branch Leader.”
“This is why I said we should’ve ripped into the Gupailbang and joined the Heavenly Alliance ages ago!”
“The Heavenly Alliance isn’t exactly in a good state either, is it?”
“Agh.”
Hong Dae-gwang clawed at his hair.
If this had been the old days, they could at least have asked the orthodox sects on the fringes of the Central Plains for help. In fact, they had tried.
But the answer they got back was brutally simple.
— Tell the sect that caused the problem to solve it themselves.
Of course, the response had been dressed up in much more formal wording, but if you stripped away all the decorative branches, that was what it came down to. The ones who had invaded the Yangtze, gotten embarrassed, and come crawling back had to deal with it themselves.
…To be fair, that wasn’t exactly wrong.
From the perspective of the other orthodox sects, they’d simply been sitting at home when disaster fell out of the sky. Why the hell would they come running down to Hubei and Anhui to help Wudang or the Namgung Family by fighting a proxy war for them? What was in it for them?
The Yangtze River tragedy had opened a huge crack in the unity of the Nine Sects and One Gang. How many years it would take to seal that crack again was anyone’s guess.
How could things possibly get this bad?
Watching it all unfold was enough to make him feel something beyond disbelief—something close to fear.
The Gupailbang’s bonds had cracked, and the Five Great Families were no longer what they had once been either.
The unrest and turmoil spreading across the Central Plains were being forcefully held down, but if things worsened just a little more, the dam would burst and chaos would flood the land in a single instant.
“Branch Leader.”
“What?”
“Will it really be all right?”
“What will?”
“The Central Plains.”
At the abrupt question, Hong Dae-gwang narrowed his eyes.
“What kind of nonsense are you spouting after stuffing your face with expensive food?”
“N-no, I mean it. Isn’t that the truth? Honestly, I never thought much of the Four Hegemons Alliance. Sure, those bastards are formidable, but no matter how you look at it, if the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Families all stood together, would the Four Hegemons Alliance even be a match?”
“…….”
“But that’s not what’s happening, is it? The Four Hegemons Alliance bastards are staying put in the south, growing stronger day by day, while the Nine Sects and One Gang…”
The rest didn’t need to be said. Rather than uniting when it mattered, they were splitting apart in ugly little pieces.
Resentment between people had a far greater impact than one might expect. Even in Hong Dae-gwang’s mind, he could no longer picture the Nine Sects and One Gang moving in disciplined lockstep under anyone’s command.
“If the Four Hegemons Alliance suddenly pushes north…”
“…….”
Something terrible would happen.
“I really don’t get it. The Four Hegemons Alliance hasn’t budged from the south, so how did things become this strange?”
“……It didn’t turn out like this because they didn’t move. It turned out like this because they didn’t move.”
“Pardon?”
Hong Dae-gwang smiled bitterly.
If the Four Hegemons Alliance had immediately pushed into the north after the nonaggression pact with the south, then the orthodox sects would have had no choice but to band together. They would’ve had to put out the fire first, after all.
But because Jang Il-so had stayed still and holed up in the south, time had been allowed to pass. And that time only deepened the cracks in the orthodox sects’ emotions.
“……Don’t tell me he planned all of this.”
“Pardon?”
“No, forget it.”
Hong Dae-gwang shook his head as if he didn’t even want to think about it.
If Jang Il-so had anticipated all of this and moved accordingly, then it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the entire Central Plains had been dancing in the palm of his hand.
And if that absurd hypothesis were true…
Then it would mean Jang Il-so has to have another scheme ready—one perfectly designed to exploit this situation.
As if trying to shake the thought loose, Hong Dae-gwang rattled his head and dug at his ear.
That was going too far.
“So what do we do, Branch Leader?”
“Ugh.”
Hong Dae-gwang scrubbed his face hard.
“If it’s already broken once, it means it’ll keep breaking. There’s a limit to how long you can keep patching it up with emergency fixes.”
“I think so too.”
“Someone who can help us… Ah! Hwayeong Gate! Right, contact Hwayeong Gate! If it’s not Hubei, but protecting the common people in Shaanxi, they’ll absolutely help!”
“Yes! I’ll send a message right away!”
“Hurry up! You damn beggars!”
“Yes!”
The beggars took off as if their tails were on fire, and Hong Dae-gwang staggered to the half-broken door and looked up at the sky.
“Damn it.”
Far above, beyond the clouds, the peak of Mount Hua came into view.
“You only miss what’s gone, they say. Damned Mount Hua Divine Dragon.”
Dealing with the mess that human caused had been a hundred times easier than this. At least back then, he always knew exactly what needed to be done.
Even if he didn’t know, that damn bastard would grab him by the collar and drag him along anyway.
If that bastard were here now, he wouldn’t be this frustrated…
“You’re taking too long. You damned bastard!”
The two years they had expected had already long since passed. And yet the closed gates of Mount Hua still showed no sign of opening.
Hong Dae-gwang let out a deep breath and turned his gaze toward the far south.
Please…
Before the tightly shut mountain gates opened, he prayed again and again that nothing catastrophic would happen first.