He Really Has No Shame, Damn It. (4)
Beop Jeong of all people lowered his head. The sight left even Mount Hua’s disciples watching in silence.
Shaolin’s abbot…
To our sect leader.
Perhaps it was a scene they should have taken pride in. Not long ago, Mount Hua had fallen so low that they had nearly lost even the buildings themselves. For Hyun Jong, who had once been nothing more than the leader of a third-rate sect driven to the brink of ruin, to rise in just a few years to the point where Shaolin’s abbot was bowing to him was an astonishing thing.
But no one here felt proud. They were only stunned, speechless before the sheer impossibility of it all.
“Please don’t do this, Abbot. I don’t know where to put myself.”
“Alliance Leader.”
Beop Jeong gripped Hyun Jong’s hand tightly as the other man tried to help him up.
“I will not deny that Shaolin has sinned against Mount Hua. However lacking our strength may have been, if Mount Hua shut its gates, we should have dealt with the Sapa who were flooding into Shaanxi.”
“……”
“Please forgive us for failing to do so.”
“……How could that be considered your fault?”
A faint groan slipped from Hyun Young’s lips.
Shaolin and Mount Hua had long accumulated resentment between them. The incident Beop Jeong mentioned had been the final blow, the one that had truly hardened that ill feeling into something undeniable. Before that, one might have excused their behavior as merely a clash of positions. But that matter had clearly contained malice.
If Shaolin had truly regarded Mount Hua as an ally, it would never have happened.
And yet Beop Jeong had brought it up first and bowed his head. Once the abbot of Shaolin—of all people—lowered himself like that, Hyun Jong had no easy way to respond.
If Hyun Jong now chose to act high and mighty, anyone who heard of this without knowing the full circumstances would surely condemn him.
How terrifying.
It was easy to say. The logic was simple.
But how easy was it for the abbot of Shaolin, the North Star of the martial world, to lower his head before someone else? It would not even be easy to merely bow; could anyone truly imagine prostrating themselves like that on the floor?
It was an unimaginable strike. Even if the one hit had not been the gentle Hyun Jong, it would have been hard to find a way to answer it.
“Mount Hua doesn’t resent Shaolin. We know Shaolin has been working day and night to preserve the peace of Henan, so how could we possibly blame you?”
“……Alliance Leader.”
“Still… it is only sorrowful and regrettable that there were those who perished at the hands of those vile Sapa.”
Hyun Jong let out a deep sigh.
“So please, Abbot, don’t do this. I can’t bear it.”
Beop Jeong nodded and straightened back into his seated meditation posture. Only then did Hyun Jong let go of his hand and return to his own place.
At that moment, Unam entered carrying the tea service.
“Sect Leader.”
“Yes.”
Hyun Jong accepted the tray from Unam, feeling that things had at least turned out for the better.
“The order may be a little out of sequence, but allow me to serve tea.”
“To think I would be offered tea brewed by the Alliance Leader of all people—what greater luxury could there be?”
“……Thank you for thinking so.”
Hyun Jong’s complexion had gone faintly pale, but he began brewing the tea all the same. Holding the familiar teaware helped settle the shock in his chest a little.
“Here you are.”
“Thank you, Alliance Leader.”
Beop Jeong took a sip of the tea Hyun Jong offered, then smiled faintly.
“Mount Hua’s plum blossom tea is truly exceptional. I think it surpasses any tea I have ever had.”
“It is only that we cannot obtain quality tea leaves as readily as other places, so we simply dried the plum blossoms that grow all over our mountain. How could it compare to the famous teas of the world?”
“If it has its own character, how could it be considered inferior to more precious teas?”
The atmosphere loosened a little.
But the sharper minds in the room still knew that Beop Jeong was the one steering the situation.
As expected of Shaolin’s abbot…
He had not used pressure, nor had he leaned on status. He had not even shouted at anyone. And yet everyone in the room found their eyes drawn to every one of Beop Jeong’s movements.
Tap.
Beop Jeong gently set down the teacup in his hand.
“Alliance Leader.”
“Please speak, Abbot.”
“As I said, the situation on the Yangtze is far from good.”
“……Yes.”
“The Namgung Family has independently occupied Maehwado. There is no way the Four Hegemons Alliance will tolerate the Namgung Family, with a knife pointed at them right in front of their own territory.”
Hyun Jong frowned.
“Would the situation really become that urgent? After all, that island called Maehwado….”
“Yes. It was indeed an island occupied by Mount Hua.”
Hyun Jong quietly nodded. Even so, no problems had arisen for three years.
“But Mount Hua and the Namgung Family are different. Mount Hua had no intention of striking the south, but the Namgung Family is clearly provoking them, are they not?”
What should have been said was that the Four Hegemons Alliance treated the Nine Sects and One Gang differently from the Heavenly Alliance.
But Beop Jeong chose not to say that aloud. It would do neither him nor Mount Hua any good.
“There is no way the Black Dragon King, who has been attacked, will sit still. And… Po Army, that one will surely move as well. If the two major pillars of the Four Hegemons Alliance move, then in the end the whole alliance will move with them.”
Beop Jeong pressed his lips shut for a moment and looked around at the people present. His gaze, resting on each person in turn, was firm and full of strength.
“And when that happens, the ones who suffer will be the common people.”
“……”
“It is shameful to admit, but the Nine Sects and One Gang are not enough to restrain the Four Hegemons Alliance right now. So, Alliance Leader, please lend us your strength. If the Heavenly Alliance stands with us, even that Four Hegemons Alliance will not dare invade the north lightly.”
“Hmm.”
Hyun Jong knit his brows and let out a low hum. The words “common people” troubled him.
He already knew Shaolin was not telling him everything. And Hyun Jong, in any case, could not tell them everything either.
But whatever hidden motives might exist, Shaolin could not currently restrain the Four Hegemons Alliance. The damage would unquestionably fall not on Shaolin, but on the common people. That much was an undeniable fact.
Hyun Jong opened his mouth, which had been closed beneath the weight of his thoughts.
“What I cannot easily understand is…”
“Yes.”
“Is it truly difficult to face the Four Hegemons Alliance with the power of the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Families?”
Beop Jeong closed his eyes briefly this time.
It was not something he wanted to say himself, but hiding it now would solve nothing.
“It is because I am lacking.”
“……”
Hyun Jong asked no further. He had already heard as much from Chung Myung.
Then what are we supposed to do?
The situation was simple. The sects currently following Shaolin alone could not stop the Four Hegemons Alliance if it marched north along the Yangtze.
And the sects in Sichuan and in the north of the Central Plains did not particularly want to spill their blood fighting in lands outside their own territory.
If the Four Hegemons Alliance were truly so powerful that no one could lay a hand on them, then perhaps the righteous factions could have united, at least in appearance. But the problem was that the Four Hegemons Alliance was not yet strong enough to force everyone to gamble their lives against them.
Hyun Jong himself had no special desire to fight alongside Shaolin either. Besides, opposing the Four Hegemons Alliance was the right thing to do.
But every choice demanded sacrifice. If no one else stepped forward, why should Mount Hua do so?
Yes. Unless those common people were involved.
“Hmm.”
As Hyun Jong’s hesitation dragged on, Beop Jeong spoke again.
“I am not asking this for the Nine Sects and One Gang or for the Five Great Families. Please, think of the countless people who will suffer if war breaks out, Alliance Leader…”
“The countless people?”
At that moment, a crooked voice cut in.
Beop Jeong opened the eyes he had been holding shut. He knew well enough that now the real exchange was beginning.
“Yes, the countless people.”
“Ah. Shaolin really is different, isn’t it? You can even lower your head for the sake of the many people under heaven. Honestly, I’m a little surprised.”
Chung Myung smiled broadly at Beop Jeong. But everyone there, including Beop Jeong himself, knew that smile was nothing but a lie.
“But…”
Sure enough, Chung Myung’s smile gradually twisted into something openly mocking.
“Don’t you think it’s a little ridiculous to take those words at face value?”
“……What do you mean?”
“From where I’m standing, it looks more like you, Abbot, are the one who wants war.”
“Chung Myung!”
Baek Cheon shouted in alarm at Chung Myung’s words. Even he could tell that Chung Myung had gone far, far over the line.
As expected, Beop Jeong’s gently composed face stiffened by a fraction.
“May I ask why you think that?”
“It’s simple. If you don’t want the common people to suffer, what should you do?”
“……Stop the Four Hegemons Alliance.”
“Wrong.”
Chung Myung shook his head.
“What you need to stop isn’t the Four Hegemons Alliance. It’s the war. It’s not as if the common people are already suffering just because the Four Hegemons Alliance exists. At least not in the north.”
“……”
“If you’re not planning to push south, then the best way to protect the common people is not to start a war at all. But you’re only thinking about fighting and winning, aren’t you? Isn’t that right?”
“If they want war, what am I supposed to do to stop them?”
“You’re really asking that as if the abbot of Shaolin doesn’t know the answer?”
Chung Myung’s sneer deepened.
“If you truly wanted to stop the war, you shouldn’t have run here—you should’ve gone to the Yangtze. And you should’ve beaten Namgung Hwang hard enough to drag the Namgung Family back off Maehwado.”
“……”
“If the Namgung Family were satisfied with reclaiming the north and didn’t push into Maehwado, then it wouldn’t be the kind of situation where a knife is already at your throat, would it? Sure, the Water Bandit Sect would be humiliated, but if you gave Maehwado back, they couldn’t start a war on their own.”
Beop Jeong stared at Chung Myung with a blank face.
“I know, I know. If that happened, Shaolin would get cursed out from every direction. You’d be accused of handing land the Namgung Family had barely reclaimed back to the enemy, of being too scared of the Four Hegemons Alliance to fight, of the abbot of Shaolin being a coward…”
“……”
“But.”
Chung Myung paused and shrugged.
“At least more people would stay alive, and Shaolin would take the blame instead.”
Beop Jeong’s body trembled slightly. Chung Myung’s final words had pierced straight through his chest.
“Why? Seems like you never even considered that.”
Beop Jeong could not answer. He clearly had not considered that method. No—this had never even existed in his mind to begin with.
The reason came spilling out of Chung Myung’s mouth.
“Of course you didn’t. In your head, Shaolin comes before anything else in the world. You probably never even imagined a situation where Shaolin would have to take the blame for cleaning up after the Namgung Family. And I’m sure you couldn’t stand the idea of people thinking Shaolin was afraid of the Four Hegemons Alliance either.”
“I only…”
“No, well… I’m not trying to condemn you or anything. Of course you’d think that way. Honestly, it’s a pretty disgusting situation. From your point of view, you’d feel wronged. It isn’t your fault. I get it. I really do. But…”
An icy gaze slammed down on Beop Jeong.
Then Chung Myung’s mouth twisted, revealing his white teeth.
“Then you should at least have the decency not to talk about common people and the countless under heaven as if you were thinking about them, you hypocrite.”
In the end, Beop Jeong squeezed his eyes shut.
But there was no way to shut out the voice pouring through his ears.