Return of the Mount Hua Sect [EN]: Chapter 1444

There *had* to be a better way,

Tang Gunak said, his voice heavy. Silence answered him.

“Even if we didn’t have to sacrifice our own people… there must have been a path where everyone could be happy.”

Tang Gunak’s eyes were pleading as he looked at Chung Myung, searching for some kind of answer. They stood under the vast night sky, the silence broken only by the whisper of the wind.

Perhaps he might have even welcomed a harsh scolding. But Chung Myung offered him neither comfort nor rebuke. He simply acknowledged it.

“So, it must be hard.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because there is such a thing as the best choice. Because whatever choice you make, there will be something you did wrong. Perhaps… there must have been a chance to make a choice you wouldn’t regret.”

Chung Myung didn’t say that no one can ever make a perfect choice. He knew Tang Gunak wasn’t ready to hear that.

“It’s done now, isn’t it? Holding onto it won’t change anything. We just have to carry the weight of what we’ve done and keep moving forward.”

“Like you?”

Chung Myung didn’t answer. Tang Gunak closed his eyes for a moment. He had always seen Chung Myung as extraordinary. His skill in martial arts was unmatched, but it was more than that. It was Chung Myung’s unwavering spirit, his ability to face impossible odds, that truly impressed Tang Gunak.

But at this moment, Tang Gunak realized that even such high praise was not enough to describe the path Chung Myung had walked.

How could Chung Myung have rebuilt Hwasan from nothing? Hwasan had been utterly destroyed, a sect on the verge of disappearing. Even the Dang Family, now struggling like a dying flame, had been in better shape than Hwasan had been back then. It was almost impossible to imagine such a revival.

If it were you…

Tang Gunak, who had opened his eyes, looked at Chung Myung and opened his mouth.

“If you were the head of the Dang Family now, you would have been better than me.”

“…”

“If it were you, you would be able to put the Dang Family back on solid ground without an inch of wavering. You are that kind of person.”

Chung Myung chuckled softly at those words.

“Do you think so?”

“To be honest, yes.”

“Do you really see me as someone who has come this far without wavering?”

Chung Myung looked up, his gaze lost in the vastness of the night sky. It was as if the weight of the stars themselves was pressing down on him. Were they judging him too? Or were they simply indifferent witnesses to his struggles?

“If I were really the kind of person who doesn’t waver, as the Clan Lord says… If I were someone who doesn’t look back on the past, doesn’t doubt the choices I’ve made, and can steadfastly believe that what I’ve already done was the best…”

Chung Myung’s lips formed a bitter smile after a moment of silence.

“It would have been nice for me too. Yes, then I would have no regrets.”

Chung Myung knew. Even if everyone in the world believed it, that wasn’t his true self.

“You…”

“But unfortunately, I’m not that kind of person. Rather, I’m someone who can’t let go of the past, who always questions my decisions, and who loses sleep worrying about things already done.”

Unable to believe those words, Tang Gunak stared intently at Chung Myung.

“Even now?”

“Yes. Even now.”

Suddenly, a question flashed through Tang Gunak’s mind. A question that shouldn’t be brought up unless it was this situation. No, perhaps a question that shouldn’t be asked even in this situation.

But Tang Gunak ended up blurting it out.

“Do you… regret heading to Hainan?”

Chung Myung didn’t answer immediately. He just stared up at the sky, his silence heavy with unspoken thoughts. The silence wasn’t empty; it felt full of meaning.

“Well.”

After a bit of time passed, Chung Myung shrugged.

“I should answer so there won’t be any misunderstandings… Yes, I regret it.”

“…”

“But if I could go back to the past, I would still go to Hainan in the end.”

Tang Gunak’s eyes shook slightly.

“So, I’d do the same thing and regret it again. Like an idiot.”

“Why?”

“Are you any different, Clan Lord?”

Tang Gunak closed his mouth as the question turned to him.

“You’ve all been through this, haven’t you? And now you’re suffering because of the choices you made. If you could go back to yesterday, what would you order? Would you tell them to protect the base, the Poison and Crafting Guilds, even if it meant everyone would die?”

Tang Gunak couldn’t answer. He was now realizing what he had lost. What the Dang Family had lost. And how difficult the path ahead would be for the Sichuan Dang Family as a result. But even so, he couldn’t answer that he would make a different decision. He could only remain silent.

“You wouldn’t, would you.”

“…”

“You’re the same, Clan Lord. You regret it, you despair, and you curse that the choice you made was terrible, but you’d make the same choice again. And then you’d regret it and despair again like an idiot.”

Tang Gunak’s hand trembled slightly. He couldn’t say for sure that it wasn’t true. He couldn’t lose anything. But there was no way to protect everyone. He had to lose something. Where was the way to make a choice that wouldn’t leave regrets?

“It feels truly cruel. If I had known being the Clan Lord was like this…”

“It’s the same for everyone.”

Chung Myung cut off Tang Gunak’s words.

“It’s not just because you’re the Clan Lord that you face these choices. It’s just on a bigger scale. Everyone makes choices in life where they have to give up something they value. Constantly deciding what to lose, what to sacrifice – that’s what wears people down.”

That’s how they become dull. At first, it’s as painful as tearing off flesh, but later, it becomes as indifferent as peeling off calluses. Those who are still suffering haven’t become numb yet. They haven’t had enough time to bury their grief.

“How do you move forward?”

Desperation overflowed in Tang Gunak’s eyes.

“How can someone who regrets everything, despairs at everything, and is worn down by each and every one of them move forward again? How… how can they not be afraid of the choices they will make again?”

Chung Myung smiled bitterly.

“The opposite, perhaps.”

“The opposite?”

“Not because they are fearless, bold, and resolute…”

Chung Myung’s eyelashes fluttered.

“It’s because they are so afraid of losing that they move forward to lose even a little less. Because if they sit down in that spot, all that’s left is to lose endlessly.”

The voice muttering bitterly spread across the quiet field. Maybe everyone is like this. People who achieve great things are often the ones who are afraid of things others don’t even consider. They see the dangers coming before anyone else does.

“…”

Someone… Those who achieve something great are all the same.

Tang Gunak, who had been listening blankly, chuckled for a moment.

“So, the people the world calls heroes… might actually have been terrible cowards.”

“Is it strange?”

“It’s not strange. If someone other than you had said that, I would have thought it was strange… but it’s not strange when you say it.”

Isn’t that terrible coward who achieves impossible things the young man right in front of him? A pathetic idiot who fears in advance what no one else worries about and tries to step forward somehow.

“Then, Hwasan Sword Saint.”

“Yes, Clan Lord.”

“Then, what should I be afraid of?”

Tang Gunak’s gaze turns to the sky again. The stars are still heavy, as if pressing down on his shoulders.

“I’m not as wise as you, worrying about the future. I’m not a hero who sees dangers others miss. Right now, I’m just afraid of everything.”

It was a faint, trembling, and shaking voice, unlike the Tang Gunak everyone knew.

“Your words are right but wrong. At least you’re a coward who knows what you should be most afraid of. But I can’t even be a coward like you. I’m just a coward who’s afraid of everything.”

“…”

“So, Hwasan Sword Saint. Please answer me. What should I be afraid of?”

Then Chung Myung looked at Tang Gunak and asked.

“Is that a question as Tang Gunak? Or is it a question as the Clan Lord of the Dang Family?”

Tang Gunak couldn’t answer easily. Then Chung Myung said.

“If you’re asking as just Tang Gunak, I’d say stop worrying about things that aren’t your problem and go to sleep.”

“That’s harsh in a different way.”

“And if you’re asking as the Clan Lord of the Dang Family, you shouldn’t be asking me.”

Tang Gunak smiled bitterly. It sounded like he meant it was a problem he had to ponder alone. Just as he was about to nod and acknowledge it, Chung Myung raised his hand and pointed to the sky.

“Ask them directly.”

“…”

“To the people who are watching over the Clan Lord.”

Countless stars, countless eyes. The ancestors who have protected the Sichuan Dang Family are now looking down at him. But no matter how much he looks and seeks answers, they remain silent and only watch.

The answer Tang Gunak desired came not from the sky but from beside him. A small voice filled with pity was clearly etched in his ear.

“Why was the Dang Family created?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why did the ancestors who made the Sichuan Dang Family a martial family and taught their descendants how to live do such a thing?”

Sichuan wasn’t a respected place in the Central Plains back then. Before Chengdu was even a proper city, the Dang ancestors built a home for everyone with the Dang name. They taught them martial arts, how to use poison for protection, and told them to keep these traditions alive. But why?

Tang Gunak’s eyes widened slightly. The stars seemed as if they would pour down on him at any moment.

“There won’t be an answer. The dead can’t answer. But… if they could answer now, they would surely say this.”

Chung Myung opened his mouth, with his voice, carrying the will of someone other than himself.

“Those bastards don’t even know what’s important.”

“What’s important isn’t poison.”

“They’re so focused on the *methods* – the poison, the weapons – that they’ve forgotten the *reason* for them. The methods are now destroying what they were meant to protect! Idiots.”

“Poison and hidden weapons are just means.”

“Brother, I’m frustrated. Everything I created for the sake of the family is now strangling the family’s neck. Was that the intention of the people who first established the Dang Family?”

“If those means hinder the Dang Family, it’s better not to have them.”

“What’s important.”

“Isn’t it how the descendants of the Dang Family can live more happily? If anything hinders that, then poison, hidden weapons, and even the family’s laws are just pathetic obstacles.”

“It’s the meaning the ancestors tried to convey to you. Just…”

Chung Myung closed his eyes. It was the word he had to convey. The word he had to deliver. But those words were also being conveyed to Chung Myung. The words that flowed from his mouth became Dang Bo’s voice, became the voice of the ancestors, and became the voice of those who were lost…

“Be happy…”

Tears welled up in Chung Myung’s eyes. It felt as if someone was placing their hand on his shoulder. So, he couldn’t even turn his head. The words that had not been conveyed for a long time, the words that had been conveyed but had not reached, finally landed on Chung Myung’s shoulders after a hundred years.