Oh God, Mount Hua Has Fallen (4)
"Where have you been?"
"Just out for a little look around."
"...A look around?"
Unam eyed Chung Myung with suspicion.
But Chung Myung seemed utterly unconcerned with what sort of look Unam gave him; he stood on one leg, turned his head away, and gazed up at the sky.
Was he always this kind of child?
Until he’d first entered the mountain gate, he had seemed like a fairly polite and respectful boy. Now, though, the whole atmosphere around him had changed.
How should he put it?
He seemed full of a delinquent air.
Well, then again.
Judging by his clothes and appearance, he must have lived as a beggar for quite a long time. In this harsh world, expecting a beggar child to remain pure and innocent was asking for too much.
"Have you eaten?"
"I’m not hungry."
That was the truth.
Just looking at Mount Hua made him feel as though hunger, thirst, and all the other seven emotions and six desires had vanished from the world. Even back when he was a Daoist, he had never managed to overcome that hollow emptiness, and yet now, in this life, without even receiving a Daoist name, he’d somehow transcended it. Damn it all.
"Then come with me for a moment."
"Huh?"
"The Sect Leader wishes to see you."
"Ah. Yes."
Chung Myung nodded.
If he had to go through it anyway, better to get it over with a day sooner.
The moment the door opened, Chung Myung’s eyes fell on an old man seated in quiet meditation. He looked at him with a slightly sour expression.
He certainly looks like someone worthy of being called a Sect Leader.
That pure, clear Daoist energy.
Just from that alone, it was easy to believe this man had spent his entire life on the Dao.
But...
There’s no trace of force in him at all.
He was more than adequate as the leader of some Daoist temple, but he did not look like the Sect Leader of a martial sect called Mount Hua. He was simply serene.
"Greet him," Unam said.
"..."
Chung Myung let out a silent sigh.
Is there anything in the world more unfair than this?
If he judged by age, then back when Chung Myung was lurking in a corner of Mount Hua and sneaking liquor behind the Sect Senior Brother’s back, this Sect Leader fellow had probably still been a toddler learning to walk. By the time Chung Myung died, the man had likely only just learned how to hold a sword.
And now it was Chung Myung who had to pay respects first.
If it bothered me so much, I shouldn’t have reincarnated.
What else could he do? Better to live with it than die from frustration.
Chung Myung bowed politely. Watching that scene, Mount Hua’s Sect Leader, Hyun Jong, smiled gently.
"My name is Chung Myung."
"This poor Daoist is called Hyun Jong."
It was a simple exchange of courtesies.
After Chung Myung sat down, Hyun Jong spoke.
"We have a guest, yet there is nothing fit to offer. Please understand, given the present state of affairs."
"Ah, yes."
"..."
Hyun Jong’s brows twitched faintly.
Normally, when one heard words like that, the answer should be something like, "Please don’t mind it," or "How could an uninvited guest expect such things?"
But this brat was basically saying with his eyes and body, "I never expected anything like that, so don’t worry about it."
"I heard you said something interesting in Okcheon-won."
"Pardon?"
"Something about being sold off?"
Chung Myung tilted his head.
"What are you talking about?"
He really did look as though he had no idea what was being referred to. Hyun Jong narrowed his eyes and studied Chung Myung’s face, but there was no trace of falsehood to be found in it.
Does he really not know?
The child was unlikely to be so skilled at lying.
While Hyun Jong was pondering that, Chung Myung was smiling to himself.
Staring at me won’t help, you idiot.
Who did Chung Myung think he was?
He was the kind of bastard who had even managed to swindle Chung Jin—the very man rumored to have reached Cheonantong—without blinking an eye. The Sect Senior Brother had always suspected him, and yet in the end, even until the very last, he never managed to find the liquor Chung Myung had hidden in the men’s quarters or the secret hiding places he used.
Chung Mun could interrogate him all he wanted and still never see through his lies, and in the end it always came down to, He’s clearly guilty but there’s no proof, so let’s beat him first... No, wait, that wasn’t it. Anyway!
If even Chung Mun couldn’t expose Chung Myung’s lies, there was no way Hyun Jong could do it just by looking at his expression and body language.
"Didn’t you say something like that?"
"I don’t remember clearly. I was so exhausted that I only recall losing consciousness..."
"Hmm."
The logic was perfect. He had dragged a child’s body all the way up this brutal mountain, so of course his limits would have been reached. It wasn’t strange at all if he’d fainted from exhaustion.
However...
"If you were that tired, you should have said so."
"I was told that once one enters the mountain gate, paying respects to the ancestors comes first..."
Hyun Jong glanced at Unam with an odd look.
Unam flinched.
Hyun Jong’s eyes seemed to say, The child climbed all the way here alone, and you still dragged him off to pay respects when he was half-dead with fatigue? You idiot?
Of course, from Unam’s perspective, this was enough to make him want to scream and leap in circles.
No, he was perfectly fine!
Until the moment he entered the mountain gate, that brat had been fresh and lively as a fish just out of water. And now he was saying he’d collapsed from exhaustion? Was there any more absurd nonsense than this?
Unam stared at Chung Myung in bewilderment, but Chung Myung simply looked away with an innocent face, as if he knew nothing at all.
"Ahem."
Hyun Jong nodded.
"That can happen. I’m sorry we failed to consider your condition."
"Not at all."
"Good. Then another question arises."
"Yes?"
"Why did you climb this dangerous mountain and come all the way here?"
"..."
"Don’t tell me you just came for a casual visit. Mount Hua is not a mountain one climbs for experience. Especially with a body as young as yours, this would not have been a trivial feat."
Chung Myung lifted his head and looked at Hyun Jong. It was a sharp question. But he had already prepared his answer.
"Sect Leader."
"I’m listening."
"I wish to enter Mount Hua."
Hyun Jong’s eyes narrowed slightly.
"Enter?"
"Yes."
Hyun Jong held Chung Myung’s gaze in silence. In those clear, upright eyes, he could not read any other intent.
"So you’re admitting that you climbed Mount Hua on purpose?"
"I am."
"Hmm."
Hyun Jong nodded.
If Chung Myung had stubbornly insisted until the end that he had only stopped by by chance, Hyun Jong would not have believed him. Mount Hua was not the sort of place one merely passed through.
"You wish to enter Mount Hua. Then that means you know what kind of place Mount Hua is?"
"Yes."
Hyun Jong’s eyes narrowed once more.
"To enter, you say."
Chung Myung slightly moistened his lips.
The logic is flawless.
He could make use of Cheong Jin.
Cheong Jin, his martial brother, had gone missing while being chased by the Demonic Sect before the final battle. "Missing" was one way to put it, but in a war, being missing was just another way of saying dead.
Cheong Jin falls off a cliff, then a woodcutter finds Chung Gong and treats his injuries... but the wounds are too deep for him to recover completely, so out of gratitude to the woodcutter, he passes on Mount Hua’s martial arts and takes him as a disciple.
And Chung Myung would be that woodcutter’s descendant!
Hah.
It was a brilliant script.
The best part was that this script let Chung Myung control his own generation rank.
If the woodcutter who saved Cheong Jin was his father, then Chung Myung would become of the Myung generation. But calling someone who had been a young man a hundred years ago his father would be embarrassing, so even if he lowered the rank by one generation and cast him as his grandfather, that would still place him in the Hyun generation.
In other words, he’d be on the same level as the Sect Leader.
If that happened, even if they pushed the rank around as much as they wanted, he’d still enter at a higher status than some fresh-faced recruit.
No matter what, I can’t possibly have the same rank as a bunch of greenhorns.
He couldn’t reclaim his original generation rank, but at the very least, he deserved some preferential treatment. Just the thought of bowing to those bright-eyed brats and treating them as his seniors made his blood boil.
Now then, ask me why.
I’ll tell you all about the script I’ve written. And while I’m at it, I’ll throw in a little of Cheong Jin’s signature martial art and smooth things right over...
"I’ll permit it."
"Yes. Of course you’d permit—huh?"
Chung Myung’s eyes flew wide as he stared at Hyun Jong.
Contrary to his expectations, Hyun Jong was nodding calmly.
"If you wish to enter, then that is how it should be done."
"...What?"
No, wait a second.
This wasn’t some neighborhood martial hall where kids came and went as they pleased. Why was entry so easy?
Wasn’t it normal to at least be suspicious when some kid you’d never seen before showed up and said he wanted to join?
"S-Sect Leader!" Unam exclaimed in alarm, seemingly having the same thought. "You said you would not accept any new disciples!"
That’s right! It wasn’t supposed to be this easy!
"I changed my mind."
Hyun Jong replied with a light laugh.
"On reflection, we are in no position to be picky about who enters. More than that, we cannot simply turn away a child who came looking for Mount Hua because he knew of our name."
"B-But..."
"Unam."
"Yes, Sect Leader."
"Fate turns in circles and binds people together. Whatever this child’s intentions may be, he is a child who knew Mount Hua’s name and came seeking entrance to Mount Hua. A bird that enters the eaves to escape the rain is not chased away, and a beast that comes to a cave in winter is given food to share. What is there for us to hoard so tightly that we would drive away even one who has come into our arms?"
It was a statement so full of immortal-seeming grace that anyone else might have been moved by it. But Chung Myung was a man who stood thirty thousand li away from the world of refined grace and Daoist virtue. The instant he heard those words, gooseflesh rose all over him.
What the hell do you mean, fate? If some stranger shows up, at least be suspicious first!
How had a man like this become Sect Leader? No—of course he became Sect Leader because he was exactly that kind of man. That was what a Sect Leader was.
"A-ah, I, um..." Chung Myung hurried to salvage things. "Before that, the life I’ve lived..."
"It doesn’t matter," Hyun Jong said, shaking his head.
"No, I mean..."
"What kind of life you lived before climbing the mountain is unimportant. Whether you lived as a sinner or as a saint, those are matters of the mortal world. The moment you come up Mount Hua and devote yourself to Mount Hua, your past self ceases to exist."
Of course that sounded nice. But this was not how things were supposed to go...
"N-no..."
"Even after I tell you not to worry, you still insist on worrying."
Hey! I’m the one who isn’t okay here! Listen to me! Listen to what I’m saying!
Hyun Jong smiled faintly.
"Unam."
"Yes, Sect Leader."
"Provide this child with lodging and prepare for his initiation ceremony."
"Yes. I will make the arrangements."
"You said your name was Chung Myung, did you not?"
Without meaning to, Chung Myung nodded.
"A good name. A very good name. To think a child who will become part of the Cheong generation bears the name Chung Myung. Heh heh. This, too, must be fate. There is no need to give you a separate Daoist name. You may not know this, but your name carries great significance here in Mount Hua."
Hyun Jong’s gaze grew distant.
"Become a man worthy of that name."
With matters having come this far, Chung Myung had nothing left to say.
"...Yes."
"Go on now."
Chung Myung rose from his seat, dazed. Unam likewise led him outside with a somewhat bewildered expression.
"This way."
"..."
With heavy, dragging steps, Chung Myung emerged outside, and the vast expanse of Mount Hua spread out before him.
I got in.
He’d gotten in.
At that moment, Unam spoke in a more solemn voice than before.
"We have not yet held the initiation ceremony, but from this moment on, you are a disciple of Mount Hua. You will belong to the Cheong generation, and you will be the youngest among Mount Hua’s third-generation disciples."
"...The youngest."
Chung Myung’s face trembled violently.
The youngest?
Me?
That Plum Blossom Sword Immortal Chung Myung was Mount Hua’s youngest?
"Hahahahahahaha."
Seeing Chung Myung burst into laughter, Unam smiled with satisfaction.
"You seem pleased."
"Yes. Very pleased. Hahahahahahaha."
Then why the hell are tears starting to come out?
...Damn it.