Return of the Mount Hua Sect [EN]: Chapter 1226

“Is the rice ready yet?”

“Almost. It just needs to cook a little longer.”

“Hmm.”

Tang Soso smiled, understanding, and turned to Yoo Iseol. Yoo Iseol rarely rushed anyone. It was strange for Yoo Iseol to ask so many times.

‘She seems anxious.’

Tang Soso noticed Yoo Iseol kept looking at the village children. The children, looking utterly terrified, were hiding behind their mothers’ skirts, watching them.

“Are you worried the children might be hungry?”

Tang Soso asked, and Yoo Iseol replied in a slightly gruff voice.

“…It’s hard.”

“Pardon?”

“Being hungry, I mean.”

“…”

“Especially when you’re young.”

Tang Soso was momentarily speechless. When she thought about it, Yoo Iseol must have spent her childhood clutching her empty stomach, struggling to survive each day. Tang Soso had memories she couldn’t possibly share.

“It’s ready! I’ll dish it out quickly.”

“Okay.”

“And while you’re watching, why don’t you bring some bowls?”

“Alright.”

Tang Soso smiled faintly as she watched Yoo Iseol scurry off to fetch the dishes.

Originally, they didn’t have to do this kind of thing. They had saved their lives, so they could just go on their way.

The problem was dealing with the grain in the cart. To disguise it as if the villains had escaped with the grain, they had to get rid of it. But even when told to eat it, none of the villagers dared to touch it.

They knew the Four Evil Gates were busy and might not check, but they were still too scared to touch the grain.

So Tang Soso had taken it upon herself to roll up her sleeves and get to work. Usually Jo Gul cooked, but Tang Soso, being a doctor, was doing it today because Jo Gul was busy.

Tang Soso glanced at the sun and then checked the pot. It was something that had to be done, but she couldn’t drag it out. If the others who hid the cart came back before she finished, it would be for nothing.

“It’s ready! Everyone, come and eat!”

“…”

“Come on!”

When the villagers still hesitated, Tang Soso opened the pot and scooped a large portion of rice with the ladle. Then, she generously filled the bowls that Yoo Iseol had brought.

“Here you go! Quickly!”

“…”

Yoo Iseol, staring at those who still couldn’t bring themselves to approach, reached out and grabbed a handful of the rice Tang Soso had dished out. She shoved it into her mouth.

“S-Sa-go.”

Yoo Iseol, her cheeks bulging with rice, chewed and swallowed. She glanced at the villagers and grabbed another large handful of rice.

“We, we too…”

Only then, feeling rushed, did they cautiously begin to approach. Tang Soso greeted those who were slightly intimidated by Yoo Iseol’s expressionless face with a bright smile.

“Come on, come on! Hurry! Our Sa-go eats a lot, you know. If you don’t take it quickly, Sa-go will eat it all.”

“Th, thank you…”

The first step is always the hardest. The villagers rushed forward, taking the rice that Tang Soso was dishing out. It was just plain rice without any proper side dishes, but they were so desperately hungry that their movements were hurried.

Skeletal ribs were visible through the tattered clothes. Seeing this, Tang Soso’s face hardened slightly, but she quickly smiled brightly again.

“There’s plenty of grain, so have more! It’s not my grain, though.”

“Th, thank you!”

Tang Soso began to quickly dish out the rice with a cheerful face.

Baek Cheon, who was in the village chief’s house, opened his mouth as he watched the situation outside the door.

“…The situation looks very bad.”

Then, a middle-aged man who introduced himself as Hyeong Uk sighed deeply.

“It might sound absurd for me to say this, but… I’m almost grateful that we can receive grain like this.”

“…”

Considering that these words came from someone who had almost lost his life at the hands of the Four Evil Gates just a little while ago, it was easy to guess how difficult the situation was.

“If we had gone another month… no, even just half a month longer, we would have died of starvation instead of being killed by a sword.”

“Was slash-and-burn farming not successful?”

Hyeong Uk shook his head.

“You may or may not know this, but making a living by slash-and-burn farming isn’t easy. Usually, we cultivate the fields and gather various things from the mountains to sell in the towns below, and then buy grain with that money.”

“Yes, that’s right.”

“But… for the past few years, it has become too difficult to obtain grain. Naturally, the price of grain went very high… and then, there was almost no grain to buy. No matter how many medicinal herbs we gathered, there was no one to buy them, and even if there was, we couldn’t buy grain with that money.”

“Ah…”

If it was a few years ago, it was obvious. The Invincible Jiangnan. Ever since the Four Evil Gates began to dominate Jiangnan.

“Still, we somehow managed to endure until now… but we were thinking that there was really no other way….”

Baek Cheon, his face hardening, asked again.

“Is it worse because this place is in the mountains?”

At those words, Hyeong Uk shook his head.

“No, Warrior. We are actually in a better situation.”

“…Pardon?”

“Since we live in a remote mountain village, there are hardly any people who come all the way here to cause trouble, right? People in bigger towns are having an even harder time. They are just trying to survive each day, and life is so bad, it’s like they can’t even escape it by dying.”

Baek Cheon looked very confused.

He saw the villagers eating the rice as if they were possessed by gluttony. Looking at their emaciated figures, he felt not only pity but also a sense of misery. And their situation was supposedly better?

Then what on earth was happening in other places?

“That… that trouble… are you perhaps talking about the Four Evil Gates’ trouble?”

The man couldn’t bring himself to answer. He seemed afraid even to utter those words.

“Once in a while…”

The man hesitated for a long time before finally continuing with difficulty.

“When we go down the mountain to the market… there are corpses just lying on the road. Dead bodies, starting to rot.”

“…”

“People have starved to death, but they can’t even bring themselves to clean it up.”

“How could such a thing…”

“Because they themselves don’t have the strength. And… even if they clean it up, someone else will die anyway.”

Baek Cheon turned to Im So-byeong with a blank expression. Im So-byeong shrugged.

“What’s so new about it? Didn’t you already guess that?”

“Jang Il-so wants to control Gangbuk, right? Why would someone like him… this situation doesn’t help him at all…”

“Yes, that’s right. Jang Il-so is like that.”

At those words, Baek Cheon closed his mouth. He understood what Im So-byeong meant.

“But the other vice-leaders of the Four Evil Gates are not like that. They weren’t really interested in Gangbuk in the first place. Rather, what’s more important to them is that the places they had been exploiting moderately while being mindful of the orthodox sects have now completely fallen into their hands.”

“I don’t… understand.”

Baek Cheon bit his lip until it bled.

“Even though they’re evil… even though they’re evil who don’t know morality and don’t know what to protect, no matter what, if they’ve become the head of a force, they wouldn’t be stupid, would they? Don’t they know what will happen if they exploit the place they belong to?”

Martial artists need ordinary people to survive. How can those who only swing swords and learn martial arts make a living?

The good martial arts groups get money for their schools from people in their area and from local businesses. But if the people in that region are wiped out, where will they earn money to maintain their headquarters?

“They’re not so stupid that they don’t know that. Even bandits don’t treat people this badly.”

If the number of people traveling through the mountains decreases, the bandits will ultimately suffer. That’s why bandits usually don’t harm people traveling through the mountains.

Bandits punished each other for breaking this rule, not the government. If bandits just killed everyone and stole too much, they would fight each other over territory. They would destroy themselves, not from outside attacks, but from fighting amongst themselves.

“Clearly, under normal circumstances, it wouldn’t come to this. But… this time was different. Have you forgotten? What happened in the Four Evil Gates?”

“…”

“Certainly, if their base disappears, both the orthodox and evil sects cannot survive. But they can’t think about that now. They think they will lose everything if they are defeated anyway.”

Only then did he understand.

He knew that the Black Ghost Fortress, Hao Mun, and even the Waterwheel Camp would eventually have to compete among themselves to determine the leader of the massive group called the Four Evil Gates.

So, without looking back, they were attracting as much funds as possible and stockpiling military supplies.

“What about tormenting people and causing trouble? Doesn’t that matter at all?”

“Baek Cheon, you seem to forget, evil groups are like this. Would people who live properly and protect what they need to protect join the evil groups?”

“…”

“Normally, the leaders would have controlled them better. But now there’s a war coming. Why should they control their people and make them unhappy? If people thought another group was better and left, it would be bad for them.”

“No…”

“If it were the Myriad Formation Palace (another powerful evil group), they might be able to control it even in such a situation, but it’s impossible for the other Five Supreme Leaders (the top bosses of the evil groups).”

Baek Cheon looked puzzled. It was like he understood, but didn’t want to believe it.

Im So-byeong smiled strangely as he looked at him.

“Weren’t you already aware?”

“…”

“If there was that much chaos in Gangbuk, you wouldn’t have been unable to guess what was happening in Gangnam, would you? Even those who couldn’t endure here and were pushed into Gangbuk made people’s lives miserable, so how much more would those who had to endure against even more vicious guys here have suffered?”

His stomach felt as if he had swallowed ashes.

They had simply not thought about it. After the Jiangnan Non-Aggression Pact, they had seen how turbulent public sentiment had become because of those who had been driven to Gangbuk, so it was something they could have easily guessed…

When he was going to Gangnam, he was only thinking about Hainan. He didn’t think about the people here at all. That fact made Baek Cheon feel all the more ashamed.

Im So-byeong shrugged and said.

“Well… you don’t have to make such a serious face. The situation will improve. As the Disciple said, Jang Il-so is not an idiot, and the power struggle within the Four Evil Gates has already ended. They will probably start managing things appropriately now. Just like they scattered grain this time.”

“…”

“But.”

Im So-byeong’s calm voice pierced Baek Cheon’s ears all the more sharply.

“The fear that someone can take your life for no reason, the fear of having to obey anyone because you are weak, and feeling helpless and hopeless – that will never go away. As long as the Four Evil Gates’ reign continues.”