Chapter 101
Chapter 101
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 101
Chapter Title: People on the Cliff
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The most experienced men in the village gathered atop the cliff. Even the youngest among them was over forty.
Younger men had stepped forward, offering to help with the work, but the elders turned them down. Guys who had never even built a hanging path, let alone a cloud bridge, would just get in the way and offer no real assistance—that was the excuse.
Of course, their real reason was different. They simply didn’t want to burden the young ones with such dangerous and grueling labor.
Bang Elder was the oldest man among those on the cliff.
Staring at the opposite cliff face, he muttered to himself.
“I never thought I’d come back to this place.”
Bang Elder hadn’t climbed up to this cliff in ages. Every time he did, it only brought back depressing memories.
He had taken part in building the cloud bridge twice. And both times, they had failed.
But Bang Elder still remembered the distance between the cliffs.
Fifty zhang. It would take several shichen to detour around via other paths, but on flat ground, even a child could cross it in no time.
Crossing those fifty zhang wouldn’t just take you to the opposite cliff.
Beyond it lay the outside world he had only heard about in stories, and the ancestral homeland where his forebears had lived.
That was why the villagers staked their lives on the cloud bridge. All they had were thick ropes twisted from straw, a few stacks of the finest wooden planks, and a handful of iron stakes.
They possessed nothing more, but needed nothing more. Had saboteurs not interfered, they surely would have succeeded.
Yet both attempts ended in bloodshed, and the village gave up on their dream.
Bang Elder had been not yet forty at the time.
Some people’s hair turns white without them ever becoming old, while others become elders at a young age without a single gray hair.
On the day he abandoned the dream, Bang Elder decided he had become an old man.
He overheard murmurs from the others.
“I still don’t get it. Is this really the right thing to do?”
“Why not?”
“We’ve been getting by just fine lately. Bellies full, kids with grease shining on their mouths. What if we stir things up and ruin these good times?”
Bang Elder stroked his thinning beard as he listened. Were these really the good times?
“Besides, those two young fellows have nothing to gain from this. I can’t figure out why they’re leading the charge. They must have some ulterior motive.”
“Like you said, we’ve got nothing to offer them. Ulterior motives are for swindlers preying on folks with something to lose.”
“True, but it still feels off...”
Just then, the three old swordsmen appeared with the two young men. The Dang physician and Myeong the young hero.
Surprisingly, among the five, the young Dang physician seemed to have become the unspoken leader. He took the initiative and approached Bang Elder.
“I heard you know this work better than anyone, sir.”
“I don’t have any grand secrets. Building a cloud bridge isn’t complicated—it’s just dangerous. You erect sturdy pillars at both ends of the cliffs, string up thick ropes, and lay down planks one by one as you go. That’s all there is to it. Not complicated. Just dangerous.”
“Drilling holes into the rock for the pillars doesn’t sound ordinary.”
“No need to worry about that. The old holes from before are still there.”
Bang Elder pointed to a spot nearly five zhang from the cliff edge.
It was the firmest ground on the cliff top, with solid rock, and a fairly large tree growing a short distance away. Binding the tree securely to the iron pillars would provide major support for anchoring the cloud bridge.
Dang Mujin checked the hole the elder had indicated. He had no idea how they had drilled it, but it was impressively deep. Dust had accumulated over the years, but that could be cleared out slowly.
Bang Elder spoke up.
“Anyway, the first step is the pillars.”
A rattling sound came from the path leading up the cliff. The men who had visited the village had gathered every usable piece of iron they could find for the pillars.
However, their shapes and sizes varied wildly. There were no iron mines in No Gun Mountain, and naturally no forges. They had to make do with whatever iron bars had trickled in from outside through various means.
Many were rusted on the outside, and others too long or too short. Bang Elder selected two that looked the thickest and sturdiest, then directed the village men.
“Plant these in the ground. Wedge oak between the hole and pillar to fill any gaps, then pack it tight with soil and sand on top.”
“Got it, sir.”
As the man reached for the iron bars, Dang Mujin spoke up.
“Is there a special reason you chose those two bars?”
“They’re the thickest and look to be in the best shape. Need more reason than that?”
Dang Mujin tilted his head at the explanation.
“Hold on. Let me have those bars.”
The man glanced at Bang Elder before handing the bars to Dang Mujin.
Dang Mujin felt them over, then closed his eyes and lightly tapped the two bars. They made a dull ticking sound, faint but resonant.
It felt as though he were hearing the sound—or sensing the vibrations.
Dang Mujin shook his head slightly and placed the two bars Bang Elder had picked back on the cart.
“Don’t use these.”
He then proceeded to tap through the pile of iron bars on the cart one by one. To the onlookers, it looked like pointless fiddling.
Once he had checked them all, Dang Mujin selected a few.
“These would make the best pillars.”
The man took the bars Dang Mujin handed him but hesitated.
The ones Dang Mujin chose looked unimpressive. Not particularly long, about two inches thick.
They were decently sturdy, sure, but thicker bars were available. No matter how you looked at it, Bang Elder’s picks seemed tougher.
The villagers respected Dang Mujin. But his skill in medicine or woodworking didn’t extend to judging iron.
Bang Elder interjected reluctantly.
“If the pillars are weak, nothing else matters how sturdy it is. No matter what, the pillars mustn’t fail—we need the strongest iron bars for that.”
“I know. That’s why I picked the strongest ones.”
The crowd’s reaction wasn’t enthusiastic. Dang Mujin decided to build their trust.
“These thicker ones would be hard to break for a demonstration. I’ll use some thinner bars to show you.”
“Show us what?”
“The nature of iron—and how to tell good from bad.”
Dang Mujin picked up two bars about an inch thick and lightly clashed them together. He could roughly gauge their quality from the feel in his fingertips alone.
“What do you think happens if you clash two bars hard?”
“The thinner one bends.”
“Right. But the thicker one will crack. It’d be more convincing if someone else does it, though.”
Dang Mujin handed the two bars to a nearby man.
The man wedged one bar into a rock crevice and swung the other.
The moment they collided, the thinner bar bent slightly. But as Dang Mujin predicted, a clear crack appeared in the thicker one.
It was a bizarre sight all around. Iron bent before it cracked—that was rare.
Dang Mujin pulled out another bar, tapped it a few times, and showed it to the group.
“This looks no different from ordinary iron at a glance, but it’s deeply rusted inside. Can’t use it either.”
Every bar here was rusted to some degree. In fact, the one in Dang Mujin’s hand looked less rusted than most.
Yet Dang Mujin gripped it and slammed it down hard on the rock. If it didn’t snap, his hand might tear open. But there was no hesitation or worry in his eyes.
As expected, the bar snapped cleanly, revealing bright red rust within.
Dang Mujin brushed off his hands with a calm expression.
“Not all iron is the same. They may look similar, but some is crudely made and brittle, some too soft and bends easily, and others are deeply corroded like this.”
“Hmm.”
“If you use the ones you first picked, the pillars will bend before long. You could reinforce them various ways, of course, but it’s better to start with solid ones.”
Bang Elder nodded, and the onlookers murmured in agreement.
“Physicians must learn to peer inside without looking, huh? That physician who came before, and now this Dang physician.”
“People, maybe, but how does a physician judge hunks of metal?”
“They can. Judging metal might even be harder than peering into a person...”
“Fair point.”
Awe filled their faces.
Bang Elder mulled over Dang Mujin’s words with satisfaction, then felt oddly embarrassed and snapped irritably.
“We haven’t even started and you’re all slacking already? Get moving!”
The men glanced at Bang Elder and scattered to their tasks.
*
The work of driving in the pillars to support the cloud bridge took just three days.
Dang Mujin crossed between both cliff sides, shaking the iron stakes with all his might. If they were going to come loose, better now than later—that was his thinking. But the stakes didn’t budge an inch.
Bang Elder watched with a satisfied smile.
“If these wobble, our necks are the first to go. Think we’d do it half-assed?”
“True enough.”
While the work progressed on the cliff, the younger men and women huddled together twisting ropes.
They soaked thinly split straw in water, then twisted it into ropes half a finger thick.
These alone were strong enough to hold a person all day, but the villagers didn’t stop there.
They gathered several strands, twisted them into thicker ropes, then bundled those and twisted again.
They knew a single flaw in these ropes would doom everything, so no one slacked off. A mistake here meant death for their own families and neighbors.
Many hands were at work, but progress was slow. The ropes were as thick as a man’s wrist and seemed endlessly long.
One day, as these massive ropes took shape, Dang Mujin and Pyo Choong climbed up to survey the bridge site—and spotted a familiar face.
“Isn’t that guy a bandit?”
“Yep.”
His outfit aside, the face was unmistakable.
The bandit who had clashed with the three old swordsmen when they first encountered them.
Now on the opposite cliff sat the bandit leader, the one wielding the longsword. His underlings were nowhere in sight.
The longsword wielder rose and shouted hoarsely across to Pyo Choong.
“Elder! You must know why I’ve come.”
“I do.”
He was a watcher. Planted in No Gun Mountain by the Supreme Physician Sword Sect Leader, the villagers, and the site overseer.
They should be enemies by all rights, yet no hostility laced Pyo Choong’s voice or that of the longsword man.
If anything, the bandit’s tone carried a hint of respect—hoarse though it was.
“Judging by these iron stakes, the villagers are up to something big. You wouldn’t be unaware, elder.”
Pyo Choong didn’t reply, merely nodding slightly with arms crossed. Affirmation.
“Then you know what happens next.”
“The same thing that happened twice before, one more time.”
“Elder, whatever wind’s blowing this, can’t we just pretend it never happened? The Supreme Physician Sword Sect Leader will comb No Gun Mountain to kill you. We didn’t meet on good terms, but some grudging affection’s formed—hear me out.”
Genuine worry colored the bandit’s voice. But Pyo Choong replied calmly.
“It’s grudging affection now, but if you look the other way, it might turn fond.”
“Then I’d gain fondness, but lose my head to the Supreme Physician Sword Sect Leader. I’ve got no wife or kids, but my neck’s still precious. Besides, my men will see this soon enough, and they won’t keep quiet.”
Pyo Choong chuckled darkly at that.
“You’ve got a fierce face and a fierce blade, but can’t control your own men? Wasted potential.”
“If they were truly my men, I’d tie ’em up with rope and beat their mouths shut. But are they really mine? They’re the Supreme Physician Sword Sect Leader’s lackeys.”
The man planted his longsword like a staff, tip to the ground.
“I’m here just this once because you’ve saved my hide dozens, hundreds of times, and it weighs on me. But I’m no hero. I can’t keep turning a blind eye forever.”
He steadied his breath and continued.
“No plans to block my men from coming or stop them tattling to the Supreme Physician Sword Sect Leader. Got it?”
Pyo Choong laughed.
“You seemed worthless when we met, but age has made a man of you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If you don’t get it, live in ignorance.”
With that, Pyo Choong turned and walked away. The longsword man called after him repeatedly.
“Pyo Elder! Elder Pyo Choong!”
The voice caught in Dang Mujin’s ears, making him glance back several times.
But Pyo Choong never looked behind.