Return of the Mount Hua Sect [EN]: Chapter 1371

The man walking in front looked very fierce. His eyes were sharp, and he walked like he owned the world.

The old man had lived a long time. He knew it was wrong to judge people just by how they looked.

But he also knew something else. One person might be different from how they seemed. But when a whole group felt dangerous, like this one did, it usually meant trouble. They feel like wolves, the old man thought, hungry wolves coming to our village.

A dangerous feeling came from the group entering the village. This feeling was not like ordinary people. It was a scent of danger, like people who had killed many.

It seemed the old man wasn’t the only one who felt it. The villagers all held their breath.

The old man’s eyes showed he had given up, but the villagers’ eyes were full of deep sadness. They knew that these men hadn’t just stopped by. They had come here for a reason. They had lived carefully, always thinking of others, so they could feel it just from the way the men walked.

In the end… it was going to end like this.

The old man chuckled sadly.

If agreeing hadn’t changed anything, and this was how it had to end, he should have at least shouted out in anger once.

That way, he wouldn’t be ashamed to face his son who had died.

The men, having entered the village and looked around, turned to those standing in front of the burial mound.

“There they are.”

The one in the lead walked towards them.

A rabbit facing a tiger could at least try to run, but compared to strong fighters, ordinary villagers could not even run away. The old man sadly accepted what was going to happen.

But others were not the same. Those who still had their children, those who wanted to live, couldn’t give up as easily as the old man.

“P, please spare us!”

The man who had tried so hard to justify selling out Hyeong-uk knelt down as soon as he saw the men coming.

“Didn’t I tell you everything! I, I have nothing more to give. If you spare me, I will be quiet for the rest of my life, warriors!”

The man probably knew it was useless. But even so, he couldn’t just give up and die. Wasn’t this the life he had tried to protect by selling out everything he could? How could he easily let go of such a life?

“N, now that I think about it, those guys definitely went north! Up there! I saw them going up! Since it’s north, if you search the north, you’ll be able to find those ‘righteous’ hypocrites!”

The men, having reached right in front of them, narrowed their eyes slightly and muttered.

“…The righteous are hypocrites?”

The man held his breath. He was scared that he might have said something wrong while talking in his confusion.

“That’s good to hear for once.”

But luckily, the answer he wanted came back. The man, feeling brave, shouted even louder with a look of happiness.

“Yes! Yes! Those… those ‘righteous’ people who only care about themselves! How could such guys be compared to the brave people of the evil Myriad Man House! If you spare me, we’ll help too. W, we can recognize their faces, warriors!”

“Their faces, huh…”

The man gave a strange smile and asked.

“Are you saying that if we take you, you can recognize those faces and tell us everything?”

“Yes! Yes! If not, we can even make a wanted poster! There’s someone among us who’s good at drawing, so it will definitely be helpful! So please, just spare me!”

“Before that, let me ask you one thing. Is this Hyeongga Village?”

“Y, yes, it is…”

The man stammered with a confused look at the sudden question. Why would those who had been here just yesterday ask such a question?

At that moment, someone who was looking at different parts of the village shouted.

“Chief! There are signs of someone having been here.”

“Many of them. It looks like at least several hundred.”

The man’s eyebrows went up at those words.

He looked at the man kneeling before him, the tomb, and all the signs left by the Myriad Man House members, then smiled and sneered.

“It’s true that the righteous are hypocrites.”

“Yes, yes! Of course!”

“But… our leader is also in that ‘righteous’ group. It looks like you sold our leader out to the evil Myriad Man House.”

“…Yes?”

The man’s face turned cold.

“To think I risked my life crossing the Yangtze River to save these trash, it makes me sick.”

The man didn’t understand what the man was saying and just stared at his face.

Soon, the man spat out as if chewing something.

“We came here under the order of the Green Forest King to take you to Gangbuk. But… you couldn’t even wait and betrayed those who were kind to you? You beasts!”

Not only the man who was speaking, but the entire group became angry.

These were the Green Forest King’s direct men, the Green Forest Encampment. Their loyalty to the Green Forest King was very strong. It was natural for them to hear someone say they would sell out the Green Forest King right in front of their eyes.

The man tried to quickly get up from the anger coming from the men, but he slipped and fell on his back.

“I, I…”

Why were these people here?

The villagers had refused the Cheonwu Alliance’s request for help. They believed that the promise, which they thought was impossible from the start, had completely ended with that refusal.

Who would try to be kind to those who had been helped and then coldly refused? But strangely, those who had come to help the villagers had arrived at this moment, and the man had babbled on and on in front of them, saying things he shouldn’t have said.

The man, realizing what he had done, opened his mouth, like someone who had fallen into a valley of sadness.

“You worm-like people…”

Heuk Yaho, Gwak Min, one of the Green Forest Ten Shadows and a friend of the Green Forest King who was at the front, twisted his face. Those who were watching the situation from behind spoke one by one.

“It seems the Green Forest King has judged people wrong this time.”

“There’s no way the Green Forest King would do that! Those Hwasan people must have insisted.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to just get rid of them all? Why bother taking these guys to Gangbuk?”

“But the Green Forest King has ordered it.”

“Who would know if we said the evil Myriad Man House came and killed them all?”

To be honest, betrayal wasn’t that strange to the Green Forest bandits. Betraying kindness wasn’t that rare either.

But that was why the punishment for such people was even stronger. They knew better than anyone else that if they showed mercy, their group would be in danger.

Heuk Yaho listened to his men and narrowed his eyes. His thoughts were similar to theirs.

The Green Forest King’s order was very important. But recently, the Green Forest King had been too influenced by the Hwasan people. This order to save them wouldn’t have been given by the Green Forest King in the past, would it?

“…Answer me.”

“Yes?”

“Where did the evil Myriad Man House go?”

“W, we don’t know that…”

Heuk Yaho chuckled.

“You sold out your helpers so well, but you can’t sell out the evil Myriad Man House?”

“T, that’s not it…”

The man’s face turned blue. Now, Heuk Yaho was showing his anger.

“Tch.”

“Is there any need to say more?”

Clang!

The Green Forest bandits took out the large swords from their waists. There was no need to pretend to be kind anymore, so the Green Forest’s strong energy came out.

The man closed his eyes tightly, thinking that it was all over.

But then, one of the Green Forest bandits in the back spoke.

“Wait a minute. But what’s that burial mound?”

“…Yes?”

“Who died?”

It looked like someone who hadn’t been dead for long had been buried. The villagers looked at the burial mound. The looks they exchanged were complicated.

Heuk Yaho made a sound and stared at the burial mound with a serious face.

“Did you check?”

He asked, and the person who went closer nodded.

“Yes. There were signs of torture in the center of the village. It seems he was tortured very badly.”

“…”

“If the person who was tortured was alone, wouldn’t he have lost all his blood…?”

Heuk Yaho was also a member of the evil group. He had heard that the torture done by the Myriad Man House was very cruel. Especially if it was Ho Gamyeong who had come himself, the torture would have been even worse.

‘He endured that…?’

It was hard to believe that an ordinary person, not even a fighter, had endured that torture and hadn’t said anything until the end. But the signs here and the expressions of the villagers showed that it was true.

Even without digging up the burial mound to check the body.

“Huh…”

Heuk Yaho shook his head with a shocked face and looked at the villagers who were looking at him with scared eyes.

Heuk Yaho, who had been quiet for a while, nodded slowly.

“Put away your weapons.”

“…Yes.”

The men put away their weapons without complaining. It wasn’t that their anger towards the villagers had disappeared, but they couldn’t hurt them now. Even if they were ordered to, the unease that had started wouldn’t go away.

The Green Forest bandits were originally evil people who betrayed easily and didn’t know what was right, but they knew what honesty was.

“Old man.”

“Yes…?”

“Get ready. We will take you to Gangbuk.”

“Y, you mean us?”

“That’s right.”

Hyeong the old man blinked with a confused look.

“H, but we…”

He should have nodded, but a strange unease made him hesitate. It was an unease he wouldn’t have felt if it hadn’t been for what he had experienced today.

But Heuk Yaho just shook his head and said strongly.

“We are just following orders. Choose. Stay here, or follow us to Gangbuk. If you choose the second, we will make sure you step on Gangbuk land alive.”

Hyeong the old man looked back.

The villagers were giving the old man sad looks, but his eyes were on the burial mound where his son was buried.

The old man stared at that spot for a long time without a word, and his eyes filled with tears.

‘You rascal…’

In the end, it was Hyeong-uk who saved this village.

If even Hyeong-uk had sold them out, everyone might have saved their lives for a moment, but they might have suffered a terrible disaster. Even if they were lucky enough to avoid that, they wouldn’t have been able to stop them from leaving without helping the villagers.

It was because his son kept his faith in the Cheonwu Alliance that a way out was opened for the people of this village.

“The sooner you choose, the better. You never know when the Myriad Man House will come back.”

“…I will go.”

The old man nodded heavily.

“I must live… I must live somehow.”

“Then get ready. The lighter your bags, the better. There’s no need to bring extra food. There’s plenty of rice in Gangbuk.”

Those words hurt Hyeong the old man’s heart even more. If he had known he would hear these words a little earlier…

“I… I will do that.”

Heuk Yaho nodded. The villagers, who had been watching carefully, quickly ran to their homes.

Heuk Yaho watched the figures and smiled sadly.

‘The world is…’

The one who kept his loyalty until the end was buried, and those who betrayed survived at the cost of his life.

This is probably why it’s so hard for goodness to spread in the world.

But…

Heuk Yaho muttered, looking at the red burial mound where grass hadn’t grown yet.

“…At least you won’t have any regrets.”

He felt as if someone he had never met was smiling at him.