Just Leave It Be (2)
In a temporary lodging hastily secured by Shaolin and Kongtong along the banks of the Yangtze River, a cold voice leaked from the deepest room.
“Explain yourself.”
At the rebuke from Paeng Yeop, the head of the Paeng Clan and the Flashbolt Swift Blade, Beop Jeong let out a sigh inwardly.
“Abbot.”
“I’m listening, Lord Paeng.”
“Is it really so difficult to answer why this happened?”
“Clan Lord.”
“I heard many things on the way here. But above all of them, one voice was the loudest.”
Paeng Yeop fixed Beop Jeong with a straight, unflinching stare.
“They say Shaolin abandoned its righteousness and principles and left the Namgung Clan to rot on Plum Blossom Island.”
Beop Jeong closed his eyes.
“And while Shaolin and Kongtong did nothing, that Heavenly Friends Alliance stepped in and rescued the Namgung Clan without suffering a single loss.”
“……”
“Abbot.”
Paeng Yeop clenched his jaw and went on.
“Answer me. What in the world happened? Are everything I heard really true?”
“Amitabha.”
Beop Jeong quietly recited the Buddha’s name, as if to soothe his troubled heart. But to Paeng Yeop, it sounded only like an evasion of responsibility.
“Say something!”
“Enough!”
This time, the one who raised his voice was not Beop Jeong, but Jong Ri-hyeong, the leader of Kongtong, known as the Subduing Demons Mountain Man.
Jong Ri-hyeong glared at Paeng Yeop with fierce eyes.
“Does Lord Paeng have the right to say such things?”
“And why the hell wouldn’t I?”
“While Shaolin and Kongtong were doing everything we could to make something happen here on the Yangtze, where exactly was the Paeng Clan?”
“……”
“I don’t care how far it is from Hebei to here, but you only arrived now! This is not the time to come after the fact and start preaching! Anybody can criticize once the work is already done!”
“It took time to get permission from the clan.”
“And you think that’s an excuse?”
Paeng Yeop shot him a terrifying look.
But the truth was, he had no answer. By the time they arrived, everything was already over.
“If the Hebei Paeng Clan had arrived on time, we could have made other arrangements! How were we supposed to do anything when the reinforcements we were promised never showed up?”
“So you just stood there and watched while the Namgung Clan died?”
“Watched? That’s a bit much!”
“Then am I wrong?”
Their voices rose higher and higher.
Beop Jeong merely watched the two of them argue in silence.
Paeng Yeop looked ready to leap to his feet and brawl with Jong Ri-hyeong at any moment, but then, all at once, he let out a long breath.
“……I’m sorry.”
“……”
Paeng Yeop’s sudden apology left Jong Ri-hyeong speechless for a moment. Then he glanced at Paeng Yeop, flushed red, and coughed awkwardly.
“No. I was the one who spoke too harshly, Lord Paeng.”
“……I didn’t expect to arrive this late either. The Supreme Elders opposed the move so strongly that it delayed everything.”
“Hmm.”
A clan was not a sect. Unlike a sect, which could accept disciples whenever the time was right, a clan was carried on bloodlines, and succession only happened once the next head was old enough to take over.
The problem came when that succession happened too early.
Though they had stepped down from the front lines, the Supreme Elders and the former clan lord still had plenty of strength left, and they tended to interfere in everything the new head did, like a retired king controlling the throne from behind the curtain.
The Namgung Clan had avoided such problems because Namgung Hwang had been born late in life, but in truth, this was a common issue. The Sichuan Tang Clan had faced similar difficulties, hadn’t it? When he thought about it, it was practically a chronic disease of the great clans.
Especially in a clan, where the meddlesome Supreme Elders were all senior relatives, it must have been incredibly difficult to cut them off harshly.
“I understand.”
Jong Ri-hyeong nodded. But inwardly, he was thinking something else.
At least it’s a relief the Paeng Clan didn’t arrive on time.
Would things really have been different if the Paeng Clan had been there?
Probably not.
Even if they had joined earlier, Beop Jeong would not have changed his mind. If anything, the criticism would have been even worse. People would have said that with three of the most powerful righteous forces gathered, they still just stood on the riverbank watching the fire burn on the other side.
It was better, in a way, that the Paeng Clan had arrived too late to do anything. At least now they had an excuse.
“So what do you plan to do now?”
“……What do you mean?”
“What’s done is done. Shouldn’t we be discussing what comes next?”
At Paeng Yeop’s words, Jong Ri-hyeong nodded as well. He had been feeling stifled too. Beop Jeong had stayed in that same seat the whole time without saying a single clear word either way.
“Abbot.”
When Paeng Yeop called to him, Beop Jeong finally opened his mouth.
“First……”
“Yes.”
“I should begin by apologizing. Because of this old monk’s foolishness, two sects are suffering humiliation they should never have had to bear. I have no face to show you.”
Beop Jeong lowered his head deeply.
“No, Abbot.”
“How can you say that?”
Though Jong Ri-hyeong tried to stop him, he smiled bitterly inside.
He had been sick of watching Cheong Myeong and Beop Jeong clash.
But that didn’t mean he could turn his back on Shaolin. If Kongtong had another pillar to lean on besides Shaolin, they wouldn’t have come all the way to the Yangtze in the first place.
In the end, they were on the same boat as Shaolin. Like it or not, they had to trust Shaolin and keep going. And the same was probably true for the Paeng Clan.
The Namgung Clan and the Sichuan Tang Clan, the pillars of the Five Great Families, had pulled out of the Five Great Families entirely. That meant the remaining three would inevitably begin struggling to seize the upper hand over one another.
It might no longer make sense to call them the Five Great Families, but even the tiny prestige of being “the best among three” mattered enormously in the Jianghu.
And in that struggle, the Paeng Clan would absolutely need Shaolin’s strength. However far Shaolin may have fallen from its former absolute position, Shaolin was still Shaolin.
Two sects that were neither Namgung nor Sichuan Tang could be suppressed however they wished with the authority and power Shaolin still possessed.
This expedition had been launched in defiance of the Supreme Elders and the former clan lord. To avoid returning empty-handed and being condemned for wearing nothing but shame, Paeng Yeop had no choice but to go back with Shaolin’s absolute support behind him.
If anything, it meant Paeng Yeop needed Beop Jeong even more desperately than Jong Ri-hyeong did.
“But…… in the end, you can never know the result until everything is over.”
“……Are you saying the matter on the Yangtze is not finished yet?”
“That’s right.”
Beop Jeong spoke with a grave expression.
“Everyone is clinging to the small details right now. But that wasn’t the reason we summoned the righteous sects to begin with, was it?”
“Ah……”
Jong Ri-hyeong looked at him again, almost startled. Even he had forgotten that.
“The reason we gathered in the first place was because the despicable Evil Tyrant Alliance showed signs of invading Jiangbei. Not to rescue Namgung.”
“That’s right, Leader.”
Sensing a glimmer of light, Jong Ri-hyeong nodded quickly.
It might have been nothing more than self-deception, but Jong Ri-hyeong knew one thing for certain: there were people in this world who would gladly believe that sort of self-deception.
“If we let the world’s criticism make us forget our duty, greater disaster will follow.”
“……Abbot, do you really believe the Evil Tyrant Alliance can attack Jiangbei as things stand?”
“Yes. I think the possibility is high.”
“But surely……”
“If not, there would be no reason for the Water Bandits’ fleet to remain here on the Yangtze. As it is, we cannot attack Jiangnan because of the Yangtze River Non-Aggression Treaty, can we?”
“Now that you mention it……”
Jong Ri-hyeong’s expression turned uncertain.
Thinking about it logically, there was no reason for those people to remain camped out here.
However accustomed to life aboard ships the river bandits might be, was it really easy to wait indefinitely on vessels that weren’t even well supplied?
“A-Abbot. If they do attack, the three of our sects won’t be able to withstand it.”
To be honest, Jong Ri-hyeong couldn’t get a clear read on the situation.
He had never truly felt how immense the Evil Tyrant Alliance’s strength was. But one thing was certain: if war broke out now, the damage would fall squarely on the three sects gathered here.
That cannot happen.
And Beop Jeong scratched exactly where Jong Ri-hyeong itched.
“Let us send a call to the other sects.”
“A call, you say?”
“Yes.”
Beop Jeong nodded.
“The request for support we sent last time went out in Shaolin’s name alone. But this time, the call will bear both the name of the Hebei Paeng Clan, leader of the Five Great Families, and the name of Kongtong, one of the pillars of the Ten Great Sects. That will change the weight of it.”
“Hmm.”
“I don’t know whether they’ll answer, but at the very least, it will properly spread word of the situation here.”
“Indeed.”
Paeng Yeop nodded.
Even if they did not come to the Yangtze, it would still serve as proof that these three sects were standing in the way of the Evil Tyrant Alliance’s invasion. That was not a bad thing at all.
“But…… isn’t the Heavenly Friends Alliance here too?”
At Jong Ri-hyeong’s question, Beop Jeong shook his head.
“Precisely because of that, we must send the call.”
“What do you mean?”
“I do not trust the Heavenly Friends Alliance.”
“……Abbot.”
“I am not denying their heroic achievements. But however I think about it, the fact that they entered Plum Blossom Island and came back without suffering a single injury is far too unnatural.”
“……”
“If only twenty had died, I would not say such a thing. But did ten die? Did five? The dead were only the Namgung Clan. In such a situation, can anyone truly trust the Heavenly Friends Alliance?”
“That is certainly unnatural.”
Paeng Yeop nodded.
Having seen the whole situation for himself, Jong Ri-hyeong still wore a dubious expression, but Beop Jeong’s words sounded far more convincing to Paeng Yeop.
In other words, to those who had not seen the situation with their own eyes, Beop Jeong’s claim sounded closer to the truth.
No—perhaps that didn’t matter at all.
People preferred comfortable lies over uncomfortable truth. They wanted to believe them. And that meant Paeng Yeop had to believe it too.
His conscience churned, but he forced it down, thinking of the clan elders who had watched him as he left the clan home.
“So please, the two of you lend your help. If we do that, everything will return to its proper place.”
“Understood.”
“We shall do so.”
When the conversation ended, a strange air hung in the room. Unable to bear it, the two men bowed slightly and rose to leave at once. Beop Jeong did not stop them.
Left alone in the room, Beop Jeong slowly picked up his prayer beads and rolled them through his fingers.
Yes. It might be forced. But……
If the Evil Tyrant Alliance really does attack Jiangbei, will this still sound forced then?
If that happened, everything would change.
Those who had criticized them would turn at once and begin denouncing the Heavenly Friends Alliance. They would say that when they had the chance to kill Jang Il-so, they had backed away to avoid sacrifice, because they valued their own lives too much. That they had caused all of this.
Sometimes, rather than waiting for the current to change, you had to change the current yourself.
If not me, then who will go to hell?
He slowly closed his eyes.
In the stillness of the room, only the faint sound of prayer beads sliding against one another spread softly through the air.