Return of the Mount Hua Sect [EN]: Chapter 1372

Lim Sobyeong groaned loudly. “Ugh.”

Silence.

“Uuuugh,” he groaned again, even louder.

Still silence.

“Uuuuuugh!” This time it was almost a yell.

Baek Cheon, who had been trying to ignore him, finally lost his patience. He spun around, his face annoyed. “Oh, for goodness’ sake!” he shouted at Lim Sobyeong. “If you have something to say, just say it!”

Lim Sobyeong looked surprised. “Can I really?”

Baek Cheon sighed. “No, forget it.” He turned away again.

“No, but seriously!” Lim Sobyeong cried out. “I’m about to burst with frustration!”

“I said, forget it!” Baek Cheon repeated, trying to ignore him again.

Baek Cheon tried again to stop him, but it was no use. Lim Sobyeong ignored him and kept talking.

“We can still contact them, you know? Let’s just send the people going to the village back!”

“No…” Baek Cheon replied.

“Doesn’t Jangmun even have any sense? After being chased out like that, you still want to help those people get to Gangbuk?”

“…”

“Grain? Grain? Let’s be honest, when they go to Gangbuk, are they going to carry that grain on their backs? They’ll have to leave it all behind anyway. What’s so important about those people that you have to take them all the way to Gangbuk when they can’t even give up that little bit?”

“…”

“Just say the word! I can turn those heading to Hyeongga Village around right now!”

Baek Cheon had been quiet. He sighed deeply.

“Still, there’s such a thing as human decency…”

“Decencyyyyy?” Lim Sobyeong asked, drawing out the word.

Finally, Lim Sobyeong was completely annoyed. He rolled his eyes back. Baek Cheon suddenly thought that Lim Sobyeong was starting to look like Chung Myung quite a lot. And only in the worst ways, at that.

“Decency? Decency! Well said! Have we broken that so-called decency? Aren’t those guys the ones who abandoned their duty as human beings, not us?”

Baek Cheon didn’t know how to respond. He still thought they should be saved, but he couldn’t argue with Lim Sobyeong’s logic.

Were Taoists the kind of people who avoided logic? Did they hide behind big ideas and good intentions when things got difficult?

“Seal!” Lim Sobyeong urged.

“Ahem.” Baek Cheon coughed.

“Seaaaaal!” Lim Sobyeong’s eyes blazed as Baek Cheon didn’t move.

“Seriously, in all my life, I’ve never seen such pushovers…”

Plop!

“Kyaaaah!”

Lim Sobyeong stumbled forward as if he’d been shot, falling on his face. Namgung Dowi, who was running behind him, casually picked him up and dusted him off.

“Seriously, that guy never shuts up,” Namgung Dowi said.

Chung Myung, having kicked Lim Sobyeong, dusted off his innocent-looking hand.

“Ugh…” Lim Sobyeong groaned.

Lim Sobyeong held the back of his head where he’d been kicked, groaning for a while before glaring.

“Why did you hit me! What I said wasn’t wrong…”

Pop!

“Aaaaargh!”

“Is this crazy person crazy? Why are you glaring like that? Should I stab you?!” Chung Myung shouted.

“Chung Myung-ah. You should say that before you stab him,” Baek Cheon said.

“Ah. Right, I forgot.” Chung Myung replied.

Baek Cheon sighed deeply. That’s not the point, you idiot…

Chung Myung glared at Lim Sobyeong, who was holding his eye and groaning.

“As expected of a bandit!” Chung Myung said.

“Are you saying that because I’m a bandit?” Lim Sobyeong asked.

Lim Sobyeong looked around, tears in his eyes. His stabbed eye was bloodshot.

“Isn’t that what everyone’s thinking! Why are we saving people who don’t even appreciate it? What if we run into them again in Gangbuk? All we’ll do is awkwardly laugh at each other! Do you really want to see that happen!”

“Shut up!” Chung Myung shouted.

Chung Myung smacked Lim Sobyeong on the back of the head again, making a loud noise.

“It’s because you act on your whims like that that you’re a bandit!”

“…”

“What?” Chung Myung asked.

“Well… it’s not wrong, but shouldn’t the Taoist be the last person to say that?” Lim Sobyeong mumbled.

“What, you punk?” Chung Myung asked, annoyed.

The people around them nodded in agreement.

“True,” one said.

“That’s definitely true,” another added.

“Sometimes a bandit makes more sense than a Taoist,” someone else chimed in.

“What did you say, you brats?” Chung Myung glared, and everyone flinched, quickly turning their heads and pretending not to notice. But they grumbled inwardly.

‘Is he acting like that because he rested for a few days…?’ one thought.

‘He was easier to deal with when he was injured, even if I felt bad for him,’ another mused.

‘He’s nicest when he’s asleep,’ a third grumbled.

Lim Sobyeong pressed the end of his fan against his hollow eyes and asked.

“So, Taoist, are you saying you’re not frustrated?”

“Frustrated?” Chung Myung repeated.

“Yes! Are you really okay with this?” Lim Sobyeong asked.

“Do you really want me to tell you how I feel?” Chung Myung asked.

“Yes? Ah, yes,” Lim Sobyeong replied.

“If I had my way, I’d rip the skin off these peasants, screw them all…” Chung Myung began.

“Eheyyy! Chung Myung-ah!” Baek Cheon cried out.

“Your mouth! Your mouth! Uh-oh! That mouth!” Yoon Jong exclaimed.

“Someone shut him up!” another voice yelled.

As words that a Taoist should never say came out of his mouth, Baek Cheon and Yoon Jong desperately rushed to cover it.

Nevertheless, Hae Yeon, who was standing close enough to hear even the muffled sounds, turned pale and repeatedly chanted Buddhist prayers. He thought evil spirits had crawled into Chung Myung’s head, and he had to drive them out somehow.

“Want me to say more? I can say a lot more,” Chung Myung said.

“Taoist, you’re quite fiery…” Lim Sobyeong said.

Even a bandit wouldn’t go that far… Lim Sobyeong shook his head with a look of disgust.

Chung Myung snorted and said.

“But what can we do? After all, there were people among them who helped us.”

“Couldn’t we have just saved that person?” Lim Sobyeong asked.

“This bandit… did you crawl out of hell instead of the mountains? If we told that good man to leave his fellow villagers behind and go to Gangbuk alone, would he happily go?” Chung Myung countered.

Lim Sobyeong pursed his lips. He knew Chung Myung was right.

The one who offered the grain sack to the Heavenly Union showed at least a little bit of true kindness. Therefore, that person should definitely be saved. And if saving that person meant saving others as well… wouldn’t that be unavoidable?

“And… no matter what, you shouldn’t be saying such things! If we were going by that logic, I would have cut off your bandit neck first,” Chung Myung said.

Lim Sobyeong, feeling a chill down his spine, awkwardly smiled and unconsciously rubbed his pale neck.

“Heh, hehe… Haven’t I turned over a new leaf?” Lim Sobyeong asked nervously.

Chung Myung looked at him with a pitiful gaze.

“That’s what I’m saying,” Chung Myung said.

“Yes?” Lim Sobyeong asked, confused.

“Even a bandit who used to kill people can be beaten into turning over a new leaf and becoming a decent human being. What did those people do so wrong that we should just leave them to die?” Chung Myung asked.

“No, they didn’t do anything wrong…” Lim Sobyeong admitted.

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Chung Myung said.

Chung Myung’s gaze briefly turned to the distant sky. Then, he muttered to himself.

“Yeah. Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes, mistakes that are hard to forgive.”

Lim Sobyeong said nothing. He felt like he shouldn’t say anything.

“But people can change if there’s someone who understands them,” Chung Myung added.

Just as a few people were about to nod in agreement, it happened.

“Right, Dongryong-ah?” Chung Myung said with a smirk.

“I knew you were going to say that, you bastard!” Baek Cheon, enraged, swung his fist. Chung Myung dodged it with a sly grin and chuckled.

“What, is that only true for you, Uncle-Master? It’s the same for Namgung, too,” Chung Myung teased.

“Let’s bury the past. Honestly, how many people here can confidently talk about their past?” Namgung Dowi said.

“Ahem.”

“Ehehehem!”

Several people coughed awkwardly, as if they had been stabbed.

Hwasan was one thing, but Dang Pae was the one who stabbed Chung Myung in the stomach with a knife, and Namgung Dowi was the one who showed off in front of him only to get kicked in the groin. And weren’t the words that Hae Yeon spat out at Chung Myung in the final match of the martial arts tournament still frequently talked about?

So, they had no choice but to cough and remain silent at Namgung Dowi’s words.

“That’s why I don’t really believe in the saying ‘deal with it before it gets worse.’ Of course, I was a promising start from the beginning!” Chung Myung declared.

“You’re full of it,” Baek Cheon said.

“You weren’t a promising start at all!” Yoon Jong added.

Chung Myung shrugged.

“Even if they end up resenting us, we should save them first and let them resent us later,” Chung Myung stated.

“…”

“If Supreme Head (Hyun Jong) was here, he would definitely say that,” Chung Myung said.

At those words, the Hwasan disciples nodded. Hyun Jong would definitely have done that. When they were confused, they just needed to think about what Hyun Jong would have done. That path would never be wrong for the disciples of Hwasan.

Lim Sobyeong, who had been listening silently, said with dissatisfaction.

“Well… it sounds good, but it’s our people who are taking the risk because of that?”

“What do I care if a few bandits die? There are too many of them anyway, aren’t there?” Chung Myung said casually.

“Is he even human?” Lim Sobyeong muttered.

“Anyway, let’s stop talking about the past here,” Chung Myung said, cutting off Lim Sobyeong, who was about to continue grumbling.

“We don’t have time to worry about that now. The enemies will be chasing us soon.”

Baek Cheon nodded in agreement and said.

“It’s faster than we thought to get to Nanjing. Once we descend the mountain, we’ll pick up speed, and then it’ll be a day or two at most.”

A sense of tension swept across everyone’s faces.

The fact that they were descending the mountain and that they would arrive in Nanjing in two days made them nervous.

It meant that they would have to overcome an even bigger challenge and face an even greater danger.

“We chose Nanjing as our destination because we thought it would be the least dangerous place, but in reality…” Lim Sobyeong said.

“It’s uncertain,” Baek Cheon finished.

“Yes,” Lim Sobyeong agreed.

Baek Cheon calmly agreed with Lim Sobyeong’s words. The word “uncertain” was accurate. Because of their actions, Gangnam was being shaken up. So, there was no guarantee that the Nanjing they would soon arrive at would be the Nanjing they knew.

“Steel yourselves. We must cross the Yangtze River,” Baek Cheon said firmly.

“Yes!” Everyone answered Baek Cheon’s words with a loud voice. It was both an answer and a vow to themselves.

How long had they been running? Lim Sobyeong approached Chung Myung, who was slightly behind the others, matching his pace. Unlike when he had been complaining, his face was serious, without any laughter.

“Taoist,” Lim Sobyeong said.

“Speak,” Chung Myung replied.

“The pursuit is slower than expected. And… we don’t see anyone blocking our path. You know what this means, don’t you?” Lim Sobyeong asked.

Chung Myung nodded silently.

The absence of small attacks during a war only means one thing: the enemy is planning a powerful attack to completely crush them.

“By now… Yes, he would have realized where we’re heading,” Lim Sobyeong said.

“It’s not like we thought he wouldn’t know anyway,” Chung Myung replied.

“Yes, that’s true. But…” Lim Sobyeong trailed off.

The Heavenly Union and the Hainan group are heading to Nanjing not to trick the enemies. Considering the time, distance, and the location of each force, Nanjing is the battlefield where they have the best chance of winning.

“Will he move?” Lim Sobyeong asked.

“It doesn’t matter whether he moves or not,” Chung Myung said.

“Yes?” Lim Sobyeong asked, confused.

“What’s important is that even if he doesn’t move himself, someone will move to Nanjing. That’s enough,” Chung Myung explained.

Chung Myung’s eyes darkened.

‘Then Beop Jeong will surely have to follow,’ he thought.

Beop Jeong is someone who hates unexpected problems. That has been proven by his actions so far.

Then Beop Jeong will have no choice but to follow to Nanjing. He’ll want to keep everything under his control. He’ll want to stop any unexpected things that Chung Myung and Jang Ilso might create.

Without realizing that that might be Chung Myung’s plan.

“Someone told me,” Chung Myung began.

“Yes?” Lim Sobyeong asked.

“That the world eventually returns to its natural order,” Chung Myung finished.

“…”

“But I think a little differently,” Chung Myung said.

The corners of Chung Myung’s lips turned up. It was a strangely cold smile.

Originally, the Nine Great Sects should have saved Hainan. So, the hardships that the group is experiencing should have been the Nine Great Sects’ responsibility.

“If it doesn’t return to its natural order, then we have to force it to. So that no one is treated unfairly,” Chung Myung declared.

His chilling gaze turned to the distant north.

To Nanjing, the land of chaos where all the forces of the world are gathering.