He Really Has No Shame, Damn It. (3)
A strange air hung in the room.
No, the mood was not merely strange. It was closer to frigid.
That crazy bastard…
Of course, even in the past, Chung Myung had never exactly been courteous to Beop Jeong. But back then, the relationship between Shaolin and Mount Hua had not yet grown this bad.
Baek Cheon bit his lip hard.
And the gap between them was even wider then.
A tiger did not get angry just because a puppy barked at it. It ignored the nuisance until it became enough of an eyesore to bite it to death. In other words, that also meant the puppy had a certain amount of freedom to yap at the tiger.
But now?
Would Beop Jeong really see Chung Myung as a puppy now?
Baek Cheon absolutely did not think so. No matter how much Beop Jeong was the Abbot of Shaolin, no matter how exalted he stood in the martial world, it would be impossible to treat the Plum Blossom Sword Hero Chung Myung like a mere puppy.
Chung Myung's current standing was more than enough to irritate even the abbot of Shaolin.
So there was no choice but for the atmosphere to feel like a sheet of thin ice.
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, the one who reacted to those words was not Beop Jeong but Beop Gye, who had followed him into the room.
"Excuse me, benefactor."
Beop Gye glared at Chung Myung with cold eyes as he spoke.
"There is a minimum of courtesy required when facing one's elders. Does Mount Hua not teach even that much?"
If this had been the usual Beop Gye, he would never have stopped at this. He was, after all, the head of Shaolin's Discipline Hall, the man in charge of its laws and regulations.
But he knew why the abbot had come here, so he tempered his words and left it at a sharp rebuke.
Yet Chung Myung's response made all that effort meaningless.
"Courtesy?"
Chung Myung snorted.
"Ah. Courtesy, sure. I like that stuff too."
Then he looked at Beop Gye and said,
"But since you monks live up on your mountain all the time, looks like you know one thing and not the other."
"…And what, exactly, do I not know?"
"Being courteous to your elders is naturally basic etiquette. But there’s another basic principle in the martial world."
"…And what is that?"
Chung Myung stared straight at the two uninvited guests and curled one corner of his mouth.
"The one who’s at a disadvantage is the one who needs to show courtesy."
"…"
Beop Gye's mouth snapped shut of its own accord.
"Am I wrong?"
Chung Myung's crooked smile bored into Beop Gye's eyes. For an instant, anger flared up in him, but even he could not afford to explode here.
Not only was Beop Jeong standing right in front of him…
Mount Hua…
That name alone kept Beop Gye from acting rashly. Without realizing it, the weight of Mount Hua had become that heavy inside him.
Just as he was trapped between rising anger and that weight, a calm voice reached his ears.
"Indeed, that is not wrong. Little Daoist, no, Plum Blossom Sword Hero. As you said, the thirsty are the ones who dig the well."
"A-abbot."
Beop Jeong smiled faintly. That smile eased the stiff atmosphere by just a little.
"I had worried that your personality might have changed after all these years, but it seems you have not changed at all."
"They say when a person changes too much, it's time for them to die. Come to think of it, Abbot, you seem a little different yourself?"
"…"
At the offhand remark, Beop Jeong's mouth fell slightly open.
How exactly was he supposed to respond to that?
"And you, you little punk!"
But fortunately for Beop Jeong, he did have an ally of sorts. Well, if one could call the leader of that reckless young Taoist an ally.
Hyun Jong's face twisted as he shouted sharply,
"He is the Abbot of Shaolin! Why can you not show proper respect!"
"No, how much more respectful am I supposed to get, Sect Leader?"
But Chung Myung shot back as if genuinely baffled. Hyun Jong flinched.
"…You think that's respectful?"
"Yes!"
"That?"
"Of course!"
Chung Myung thumped his own chest and said,
"I’m even talking to him and greeting him because he’s the Abbot of Shaolin. If it were anyone else, whew, this place would be a bloodbath by now. Somebody would’ve died, for sure! Come to think of it, didn’t someone just say it was time for someone to die?"
"No one said any such thing! Get out of here!"
"Huh, weird. I thought I heard it."
"Get lost, you brat!"
"Tch."
With a disappointed click of his tongue, Chung Myung got to his feet and shuffled toward the back of the room. Even then, he kept sneaking glances at Beop Jeong, as though to say: get angry already and come at me.
"…Amitabha."
Beop Jeong let out a short chant to steady thoughts that were difficult to put into words.
Even with him, the Abbot of Shaolin, that brat had no hesitation about picking a fight, yet he listened so well to Hyun Jong?
Hyun Jong wore a sheepish expression as he said,
"I apologize, Abbot. I took him in as my disciple, but I failed to teach him properly…"
"No, why are you apologizing for that!"
"Can you not keep quiet!"
Hyun Jong glared, gripping the table as though he might throw it at any second. Chung Myung shrank back and edged into a corner. He slumped there with his head against the wall, muttering under his breath, but Hyun Jong desperately pretended not to hear him.
If I send him out, Beop Jeong will be offended. If I leave him here, I’m the one who’ll explode from the inside.
He was trapped no matter what he did, and it was driving him mad.
"Sect Leader."
Then Beop Jeong spoke with a faint smile.
"I am simply envious. With such splendid juniors in Mount Hua, how reassuring must this be for you?"
"They're just troublesome brats. Before I die, I have to turn those fools into proper Taoists somehow."
He said that, but there was no hiding the pride on Hyun Jong's face. At least at this moment, even Beop Jeong had no choice but to envy him.
"Please, sit."
"Yes."
Once Beop Jeong took the seat in the center, those who had come inside sat around him in turn.
Hyun Jong quietly looked at the two men. It was only Beop Jeong and Beop Gye sitting there before him, yet an invisible weight pressed down on his shoulders. It almost felt as though the room itself were filled with the sheer presence of those two.
The Abbot of Shaolin…
Did one need enough standing of one's own in order to judge the size of another?
When he had been scrambling to save Mount Hua, he had not truly grasped how large a figure Beop Jeong was. Only now, after going through so many things, could he begin to understand just how remarkable it was that Beop Jeong had managed to run such a massive sect as Shaolin without letting it collapse.
And how much weight he must have been carrying all along.
"Ahem."
As though trying to shake off Beop Jeong's presence, Hyun Jong cleared his throat and spoke.
"Thank you for making such a long journey."
"Not at all."
Beop Jeong smiled faintly.
"I had thought Shaanxi to be very far away, yet in my haste to come this time, it was not as long a journey as I expected. Had I known sooner, I would have visited more often."
"That sounds as if you are reproaching me for not visiting more often, and I feel terribly embarrassed. I should have come to see you sooner, yet you arrived first and have made me ashamed."
"You, Sect Leader, are one of the busiest men in all the world right now. I… Ah, that was a misstep."
"Pardon?"
Beop Jeong lightly rubbed the back of his head as though he had committed a breach of etiquette. The instant Chung Myung saw that hand touch the bald scalp, he looked ready to shout in triumph, but Baek Cheon's hand, already waiting, clamped over his mouth in one swift motion.
Thanks to that, Beop Jeong was able to continue smoothly.
"Not Sect Leader. I should call you Alliance Leader. I was rude just now. Please forgive me."
"F-forgive you? Sect Leader is enough."
"That would not be proper. Everyone deserves to be addressed according to their station."
At that, Hyun Young, seated nearby, narrowed his eyes slightly.
That monk…
His insistence on ascending Mount Hua just to call Hyun Jong "Alliance Leader" meant this visit was not merely about Mount Hua alone.
In other words, he intended to deal not with Hyun Jong the Sect Leader of Mount Hua, but with Hyun Jong the Alliance Leader of the Heavenly Alliance.
"Ahem."
Hyun Jong also seemed to understand the intent and coughed again.
"With the Abbot before me, a man swamped with affairs, I find myself speaking very carefully. If I ask what troubles you, it feels as though I am rushing you; if I attempt pleasant conversation, it feels as though I am stealing your time."
"Hahaha. I am the one who came here, so how could I complain of my time being stolen?"
"Abbot."
Hyun Jong sighed and looked at Beop Jeong.
"If it is not too rude, may I ask why you have come to Mount Hua?"
Beop Jeong made a subtle expression.
"To put it plainly…"
He paused briefly, then spoke.
"I had thought that the relationship between Shaolin and Mount Hua was not what it once was. Many things have happened, and much time has passed since we were last in contact."
Hyun Jong waited tensely for what came next.
"But… even so, I did not think I would come here and not even be offered a cup of tea. The plum blossom tea you once served me was exquisite, after all."
"Ah…"
Hyun Jong's face flushed red. Come to think of it, the Abbot of Shaolin had come as a guest, and yet they had jumped straight into the topic at hand without offering him tea.
Under normal circumstances, he would never have made such a mistake, but Beop Jeong's sudden appearance at Mount Hua had clearly shaken him.
"That was my oversight. Unam! Go and bring the tea set, quickly!"
"Yes!"
Unam, realizing the mistake as well, sprang to his feet and hurried out.
"I apologize, Abbot. I was flustered."
"No, no. It is no real mistake. I was simply wondering whether Alliance Leader no longer regards me as he once did."
"How could that be? That is not the case at all."
"Then that is a relief. Hahaha."
Watching the situation unfold, Chung Myung's face twisted slightly.
That snake of a bald head!
With just a few light words, Beop Jeong had instantly seized the mood of the room and completely taken control of the conversation.
What was more, when speaking of the past, he used the title "Sect Leader" again, and when speaking of the present, he used "Alliance Leader," making it sound as though the treatment a man received changed with his status.
Whatever one thought of the man himself, there was no denying Beop Jeong's ability to accomplish what he wanted with just a few words. That much was probably why he had risen to the position of Shaolin's Abbot in the first place.
"The tea will be ready soon…"
"Alliance Leader."
Beop Jeong spoke in a gentle voice.
"Tea is fine, but there is something far more important."
"What…?"
"You have heard the news, I imagine. The matter on the Yangtze River."
Beop Jeong seemed to assume Hyun Jong already knew. After all, it had only been yesterday that Namgung had seized Maehwado on the Yangtze River.
"…Yes, I have heard."
"I see."
Beop Jeong briefly glanced toward the back of the room. The beggar he had seen when coming here was nowhere in sight now.
"The situation is turning out far worse than expected, Alliance Leader."
"Yes. So I have heard."
"I came here for only one reason, Alliance Leader. Please lend us your strength."
At that moment, Beop Jeong rose and deeply bowed to Hyun Jong from where he sat, almost as though he were kneeling and begging.
"W-what, what is this!"
Hyun Jong turned pale and shot to his feet in alarm. So flustered was he that he practically vaulted over the tea table in front of him to grab Beop Jeong and haul him up.
"W-why are you doing this, Abbot!"
The Abbot of Shaolin bowing like this!
Even Hyun Jong could not help but be stunned.
But after watching the entire exchange, Chung Myung finally let out a dry laugh.
"Heh…"
The old snake was now winding that long tail around Hyun Jong's throat.
So that's how you want to play it, huh?
A cold, blue light gleamed in Chung Myung's eyes.