Sun Wukong's Way
Every gaze in the chamber snapped toward him at once. Shock was written plain across their faces. Not one of them had imagined Sun Wukong would show himself here. While they sat working their jaws in stunned silence, he gave them a casual little wave.
Set against the clasped-fist salute that custom demanded, it was a greeting so stripped of ceremony it looked less like informality than a simple absence of manners.
"Hey there. Familiar faces all around — no point introducing ourselves."
There were seven men in the hall, all told. The Samcheong, and four elders besides.
Sun Wukong's eyes flicked rapidly across their faces. These were the same worthies who had stood with the Samcheong at the last council and spoken with one voice — the ones who had foamed at the mouth demanding he be punished for desecrating the sacred grounds, insisting the Sect Leader's treatment could never be entrusted to him.
"What is the meaning of this insolence?!"
One of them shot to his feet and jabbed a finger at him. A familiar face, of course. The same man who had raised his voice against Sun Wukong at the council — the elder who had clammed up the instant Sun Wukong unveiled the Taiji Sword of Wisdom.
The Wudang Sect was a power of such magnitude that its Daoist ranks ran deep. Beyond the Samcheong and the senior patriarchs, there were dozens of elders, and representing them, eight Great Elders. The Eight Elders of Wudang. The man jabbing his finger at Sun Wukong was one of them — a man named Gowol.
"We are in the midst of discussing Wudang's internal affairs. How can an outsider possibly be permitted in this hall?"
"Don't see why not."
"This chamber is reserved for the patriarchs and Great Elders alone. I am well aware you are the sort of ruffian who thinks nothing of using violence on Wudang grounds — but how can a man be so utterly devoid of courtesy?"
Gowol was no pushover, even after taking a hit from Sun Wukong at the last council. He hadn't become one of Wudang's Eight Elders for nothing. His voice boomed through the hall as he went from admonishing Sun Wukong to outright condemning him, pressing hard. A weaker man would have gone white in the face from the force of that voice alone.
The other elders in the hall piled on behind him.
"More to the point, Teacher Sun, this is hardly the time for you to be making an appearance. Word has it you used violence within Wudang's grounds — against the heir of the Unhyeon Sword Gate, no less, the foremost of our affiliated secular sects?"
That was Gopung, another of the Eight Elders. His slightly arched brows gave him less the look of a Daoist than of a canny old merchant.
"Of course, a man who has already committed violence on Wudang soil and desecrated our sacred grounds can hardly claim much dignity to stand on — but to behave with such insolence before the Samcheong, the very patriarchs of Wudang?"
Sun Wukong listened to all of it in silence, then said abruptly,
"Hey. Gopung."
Gopung's face stiffened. He clearly hadn't expected this man to know his Daoist title.
"Do not take a humble priest's Daoist title so lightly—"
"A Daoist who goes around knocking up women? What face do I owe a guy like that?"
Gopung's face went hard as stone. Sun Wukong smiled pleasantly.
"Well, they do say a parent raising a child is a brave soul. I'll forgive your recklessness this once — the kind that likes to dress itself up as courage."
Gopung's mouth stayed shut. He could only stare at Sun Wukong with trembling eyes. He couldn't even manage a retort. No — he wouldn't. The look on his face said he was terrified of whatever Sun Wukong would say next if he did.
The elders in the hall frowned. Every gaze swung toward Gopung. A look of dawning suspicion — surely not — spread across their faces.
Gopung barely collected himself under that barrage of suspicious stares and composed his expression. The effort it took him to feign composure was almost pitiful, even to Sun Wukong's eye.
"I haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about..."
"Then I'll spell it out for you."
Sun Wukong cut him off at once.
"Taking the kid you sired on the outside, bringing him in as a third-generation disciple, and teaching him martial arts yourself? That's some tear-jerking fatherly love right there. Am I wrong?"
Gopung's mouth snapped shut again. How the hell does he know that? His pupils shook without mercy. Even the other Eight Elders didn't know this. How could this man? Even Wudang's own disciplinary elders had never uncovered it.
This... this cannot get out.
Gopung's face went deathly white.
Being accepted as a Wudang disciple was, in the Hubei martial world, like plucking a star from the heavens. How hard did people strive to get their children through those gates? Even the privilege of having a secular sect's heir study at Wudang was treated as an extraordinary favor — such was the prestige of simply setting foot inside. Only those with exceptional physique and talent had even the slimmest chance of being admitted.
For Gopung to slip his own illegitimate son in as a disciple was both a father's burning love — and a flagrant abuse of power.
The elders caught the shift in the air. If this had been some absurd smear, Gopung would have raised his voice — hell, he would have drawn his sword. Instead he stood there white-faced and speechless. That was all it took. They understood it was true.
Good heavens... surely not?
We knew Gopung had a taste for women, but this...
This was no ordinary scandal.
A man registered with Wudang — an elder, no, a Great Elder — sired a child out of wedlock?
If he had the child, he should have raised it quietly. He brought it to Wudang and enrolled it as a disciple?
If this gets out...
It wasn't just Gopung's face and standing that would be driven into the dirt. Mockery of the entire Wudang Sect would follow as surely as night followed day. And that wouldn't be the end of it.
"That's a pretty spectacular violation of those oh-so-sacred Wudang precepts, isn't it?"
Sun Wukong murmured it in a lazy, drawling tone. A murmur, yes — but every man in the room heard it perfectly. He'd said it that way on purpose, loud enough for all of them.
The room went still.
This bastard...
The corners of the elders' eyes twitched. Gowol, who had charged in so boldly to dress Sun Wukong down, found his mouth sealed shut. This has gone ridiculous in every possible way.
The situation was awkward in the extreme. He hurriedly scanned the faces of the three patriarchs sitting in silence — the Samcheong. Their expressions were blank, revealing nothing. But Gowol had served them long enough to know.
They're irritated.
Of course they were. Sun Wukong was now presumed to be the inheritor of another of Wudang's Daoist lineages and martial traditions. And he had demonstrated it openly, in a council chamber packed with every Wudang elder. How could they not be?
The only way to bind a man like that was the precepts.
A man who might well be a branch of Wudang itself. The inheritor of another of Jang Sambong's true transmissions. You couldn't simply persecute someone like that.
We could have used a breach of the precepts as a pretext to drive him out.
But the situation had twisted too strangely to lean on the precepts now. How did an outsider even know that? Even his own colleagues hadn't known.
The men gathered in this hall had seen every ugly side of one another there was to see. They weren't bound by mere faction. These were the inner circle — men who knew even the Samcheong's private thoughts. And even among them, this had been a secret. That was how thoroughly it had been buried.
The moment that thought landed, a chill of fear crept up Gowol's spine.
Don't tell me. This man... does he know even more?
And it wouldn't be just Gopung. Every elder in this room was, to put it kindly, a fair distance from the word "incorruptible." They might not have scandals as jaw-dropping as Gopung's, but a little embezzlement here, a little graft there — didn't they all have one or two of those?
There's a reason Wudang's Disciplinary Hall is so feared.
Before they were a martial sect of the jianghu, they were a Daoist order inheriting a sacred lineage. Break the rules and you weren't just answering to sect law — you answered to the severe precepts of the Dao itself. The standard was far stricter than in any ordinary sect.
And then there was the outside world's gaze. If an ordinary martial artist committed some impropriety, it rarely blew up into a true scandal. But a Daoist — a man who cultivated the Way — caught in corruption and hoarding wealth? Not just the martial artists of the jianghu would point their fingers. Even common folk who lived a world apart from the martial realm would sneer. They already cursed Daoists as hypocrites on an ordinary day. For a prestigious orthodox sect that lived and died by face and reputation, it was a nightmare.
The hall had gone quiet.
Sun Wukong's uncanny intelligence. That unbothered face. Those unreadable eyes, and the mischievous smile hanging at the corner of his mouth. No one dared treat him carelessly now.
He had laid out Gopung's buried sin as if he knew every last detail. And every elder in the room had something that stung if you pressed on it. They sat there in a cold sweat, terrified that Sun Wukong might know their secrets too.
In a single stroke, the entire situation had flipped. Every man in the room was watching Sun Wukong's face now.
Sun Wukong's gaze turned to the Samcheong. Their expressions remained inscrutable. They appeared to show nothing at all — but to Sun Wukong's eyes, the turbulence of emotion was plain as day.
Well? What are you going to do about it?
Sun Wukong looked straight at them and grinned, wide and open. Perhaps it looked like a sneer. Hocheong, the most hot-tempered of the Samcheong, had his face twist for an instant.
I know Gopung's corruption and his sins. You think I don't know yours?
Had that intent carried across? A strange light flickered in the Samcheong's eyes. For a moment, one of their throats bobbed — a sound transmission, sent to someone. At the same time, Gowol, who had taken a step back, came forward again.
"I haven't the slightest idea what nonsense you're spouting. You are an outsider, and yet you dare persecute a Great Elder of Wudang with baseless, paltry rumors? To behave with such insolence in a hall that houses our patriarchs—"
Gowol, his voice rising in fury, stopped dead.
"Kh—!"
Sun Wukong had unleashed his aura, openly and without restraint. A blade-sharp wave of presence. For an instant Gowol could have sworn a knife was slicing across his skin. He stumbled back before he even knew he'd moved.
Gowol's face flushed crimson. He, a Great Elder of the Wudang Sect — a man whose name carried weight across the realm — had tucked his tail and retreated from nothing but raw presence.
They still won't step forward themselves, even now.
Sun Wukong smiled as if he found it genuinely entertaining. Putting forward a greenhorn like So Jihyeok of the Unhyeon Sword Gate to do their dirty work. The Samcheong never, ever put themselves on the line.
Well, nothing for it, then.
I'll just have to make them.
But the Samcheong moved first. Nokcheong, the second among them, spoke in a low voice.
"It would seem today's agenda should end here. Should we have cause to convene again, we can discuss the matter further at that time."
He spoke as if eager to sweep the whole affair off the table. Sun Wukong smiled faintly.
The ones who make other people do their work are always the ones who know how to use their heads.
And what was the hallmark of men who used their heads well? They could not tolerate a conversation that failed to proceed as they had planned — a variable they hadn't accounted for. The Samcheong intended to wipe this situation off the board, for now.
Of course, Sun Wukong had not come here with any such mindset.
I've gone soft.
He clicked his tongue.
And I'm not even human.
Was it because he had come down to the mortal world and gotten tangled up with humans? He had been uncharacteristically concerned with justification — thinking he needed not just circumstances but hard evidence, something airtight, before he struck the Samcheong and dug into what lay behind them.
Because that's how humans do things.
The Samcheong's prestige and reputation within the Wudang Sect were an impregnable fortress. Even Wudang's own people couldn't touch them. Outside the sect, it was worse. One wrong move and the whole thing could explode. After all, he was firmly perceived as a man of the Namgung Clan. It could escalate into a clash of sect against sect. Those considerations had settled into his mind without him quite noticing.
What a joke.
Sun Wukong let out a short, dry laugh. He had formed a bond with the Namgung Clan, yes — but that was a useful tool, something he could wield. Was Sun Wukong supposed to get swept up in the Namgung Clan's shadow?
I'm not human, after all.
If that was the human way of doing things...
A demon has a demon's own way, doesn't he?
And so Sun Wukong did it Sun Wukong's way.
BOOM.
His iron staff slammed down among the elders as they started to their feet. The stone floor, hard as it was, caved in like tofu. He leaned his weight casually against the staff where it stood upright as a pillar, and he smiled.