Return Of The Mount Hua Sect [EN]: Chapter 1733

People drink for many reasons. Some drink when they are happy, others when they are sad, and some when they feel angry inside. The strong smell of alcohol fills the air around them.

But tonight, with the bright moonlight shining down, it feels like the alcohol is taking control of the person drinking.

Glug.

Chung Myung reached out and poured alcohol into the glass in front of him.

They were sitting under the old roof. The smell of old wood and tiles was in the air. Although many people were nearby, it felt like they were the only two people in the world.

Glug.

The glass, full of alcohol, was lifted into the air. But just then, a thin and bony hand reached out and gently lowered the glass back down.

“Leave it.”

The glass was slowly placed back on the floor. Then, Baek Cheon reached out with both hands and grabbed the glass.

It was hard for him.

His hand shook like a leaf in the wind, showing how difficult it was for Baek Cheon to lift even the small glass with both hands.

But Baek Cheon still managed to bring the glass to his lips. As he did, more than half the alcohol spilled, and sweat appeared on his forehead.

“Hmm,”

Baek Cheon said, after drinking the alcohol. He carefully put the glass down.

“Good,”

he murmured.

He paused, then said, “Losing my fighting skills has some good points, you know. I haven’t felt alcohol burn like fire in my throat for so long.”

At those words, Chung Myung chuckled.

“Then you should have been guzzling it down sooner.”

“Impossible.”

Baek Cheon shrugged his thin shoulders.

“I can hold the glass, but it’s hard to hold the bottle. I need someone to pour the alcohol for me.”

“There are over a hundred guys over there who you can boss around with a single finger.”

“That’s right. But,”

Baek Cheon said in a slightly bitter voice.

“Their eyes are scary.”

“The eyes that look at me, not knowing what to do.”

Baek Cheon smiled weakly.

Chung Myung just poured more alcohol into the empty glass, understanding that any words he might say right now would be too difficult for Baek Cheon to hear.

The moonlight was reflected in the glass as Chung Myung filled it again. It was the same moon Baek Cheon had seen many times before. But tonight, it felt different.

The world around them hadn’t changed. But Chung Myung knew that for Baek Cheon, everything must look different now. How did Baek Cheon see the world now? Was it still the same world he remembered?

“You found me here,” Baek Cheon said.

Chung Myung looked up, surprised.

“I mean,” Baek Cheon continued, “for someone who can’t even sense where I am.”

Baek Cheon chuckled softly and picked up his glass again with his thin hand.

“I didn’t find you,” he said.

“I just knew you would be here. I just knew it.”

Baek Cheon drank the alcohol in one gulp.

Chung Myung watched him, then picked up his own glass and quickly drank it all.

He felt a slight warmth on his tongue.

But he knew the alcohol tasted different for him than it did for Baek Cheon. They were drinking the same alcohol, in the same place, but their drinks were worlds apart.

Chung Myung glanced towards the edge of the roof. He could see them, or maybe he just sensed them there. Even though they had been told to leave, the others were still nearby, unable to go far from where Baek Cheon was staying.

“They are really worried,” Chung Myung said quietly.

“I don’t understand why they are making such a big deal about it,” Baek Cheon replied.

Chung Myung just looked at Baek Cheon in silence. His eyes showed no emotion, hiding what he was really thinking.

“It’s empty.”

“Yeah.”

Chung Myung picked up the bottle and poured more alcohol into Baek Cheon’s empty glass.

Glug.

The glass was full again, but Baek Cheon didn’t pick it up. He just looked up at the moon.

“What do you think?” he asked.

“Are you going to try and convince me too?”

Chung Myung laughed softly.

“You’re the one who asked me to drink with you, remember?”

“Yes, that’s right,” Baek Cheon agreed, smiling a little.

“So? Just because you didn’t ask me to drink first, doesn’t mean you won’t try to change my mind, right?”

“Well,”

Chung Myung said, not really answering.

He didn’t need a big reason or deep thought to know. He simply understood that every choice is personal. Advice and help often don’t matter.

He knew this because he had seen it before. He remembered a time when death was so common it didn’t shock people anymore. A time when being injured was seen as lucky compared to being killed. He remembered people crying in a cruel world, holding their broken swords, having lost everything.

Chung Myung thought about what he had said to people in the past. Then he spoke, “I’m not the right person to tell you what to do.”

Baek Cheon listened to these words, then quietly looked down at the alcohol in his glass.

“Qualified…” he repeated softly.

“Qualified…” Baek Cheon’s fingers, dry like old wood, gently touched the glass.

“Since this war began…” he said, his voice slow and sad.

“How many people have died?”

“I’ve realized again. Every single one of them… they all had something important. Something they shouldn’t have lost.”

“But… I couldn’t see their deaths as something truly important, not anymore. In war, with victories and losses happening all the time, death starts to lose its meaning. He knew that every life was precious, but even though he spoke of justice and honor, he couldn’t truly mourn every single person who died.”

“It’s almost ridiculous,” Baek Cheon said, gripping the glass tightly with his shaking hand.

“What’s so important about losing an arm or my fighting skills?”

“To this extent……”

What would the following words have been?

To this extent, are they making a fuss? Or to this extent, do I have to be in pain?

Chung Myung did not know the answer. And he couldn’t bring himself to ask. He just watched Baek Cheon bring the glass to his lips with darkly sunken eyes.

Baek Cheon gently rubbed the empty glass, and Chung Myung kept watching him. This silent moment between them went on for a while.

“Chung Myung,” Baek Cheon finally said, “Do you know when things are hardest for me?”

A bitter smile formed on Baek Cheon’s lips.

It wasn’t when the terrible Sa-jil people came and told me I had to go to Jongnam. It wasn’t even when I knew So-so was crying quietly outside my room after helping me. It wasn’t when my friends, who used to look at me with respect, couldn’t even look at me anymore. And not when the Sect Leader hugged me and cried, showing a face I had never seen. Not even when I was so weak I couldn’t lift a spoon and had to eat like an animal, just to survive.

Chung Myung closed his eyes.

Not because he couldn’t look at Baek Cheon. It was because what he saw was too much to take in. The person in front of him. The difficult world they both faced.

“It was when I first woke up.”

“……”

“When I woke up then, I had forgotten everything. Without thinking, I tried to rub my face. But…”

Baek Cheon chuckled sadly.

“My arm wouldn’t move.”

“……”

“The hand I could barely lift was thin and weak, like it wasn’t even part of me. That’s when I understood again. Ah, this is who I am now.”

Baek Cheon laughed, a sad, empty sound.

Chung Myung didn’t say anything to that sad laugh. He just poured more drink into the empty glass.

They had been drinking for a long time.

Chung Myung watched Baek Cheon’s hand shake harder and harder as he drank. He broke the silence and spoke.

“Sa-suk.”

“……What?”

“You don’t want to go to Jongnam, do you?”

“……”

Baek Cheon raised his head and looked at Chung Myung.

Even Chung Myung couldn’t tell what Baek Cheon was thinking.

“Of course, Sa-suk, you care deeply about Hwasan…”

“Care?”

“……”

“Is that what you think it is?”

“Sa-suk. I…”

“A hundred times.”

Baek Cheon spoke louder, cutting off Chung Myung’s words.

“No, maybe a thousand times. I *should* go to Jongnam. I’ve decided that.”

“……”

“But I’m still here. Do you know why?”

“I don’t know.”

Baek Cheon looked down.

He seemed to see the old buildings of Wudang, but he wasn’t really looking at them.

“Because I’m afraid.”

“……”

The answer surprised even Chung Myung.

“Afraid of going to Jongnam?”

“No.”

Baek Cheon shook his head a little.

“Afraid of facing what will happen.”

“……”

“I tried to follow you.”

“Sa-suk.”

“I don’t want to say it, but I wanted to be like you. Strong, never giving up, able to do anything.”

“I’m not like that.”

“I know. But I thought you were. And that’s what mattered. I wanted to be like that.”

Baek Cheon laughed again, a weak sound.

He knew Chung Myung wasn’t as strong as he looked. He saw that Chung Myung’s strength was like sharp thorns around a small person who didn’t want to be hurt, who had built those thorns to protect himself.

But even that, Baek Cheon wanted to be like.

“And then, I realized something. Someone was looking at me… yes, someone was looking at me the way I look at you.”

“……”

“So, I’m afraid.”

Baek Cheon picked up his drink. His hand touched the glass like it might break.

Chung Myung saw it. Baek Cheon’s eyes were red and wet. Chung Myung closed his own eyes. He didn’t want to see Baek Cheon’s pain.

“Go to Jongnam?”

Baek Cheon laughed sadly. His face was full of sorrow.

“Then the people who looked up to me will see. They’ll see that in Hwasan, nothing matters except fighting skills. All the time we spent together, everything we said, will mean nothing compared to one sword fight.”

“……”

“I used to say there were things more important than just fighting… but when they see me, that’s what they’ll think.”

Chung Myung sighed quietly.

“Sa-suk.”

“I have to keep living.”

“……”

“Going to Jongnam and getting my skills back is not the real problem. The problem is what happens after. Just by being alive, I’ll become a burden to Hwasan. I’ll be living proof that all the grand things I said were just empty words from someone who was strong at the time.”

Baek Cheon’s bloodshot eyes met Chung Myung’s sunken eyes.

“I… I can’t take that, Chung Myung-ah. I can’t stand Hwasan becoming like chains holding me down. I don’t have the strength to look people in the eye anymore.”

Chung Myung looked up at the sky.

It was completely dark. He imagined people were looking down at him from that dark sky.

“I don’t know if you understand.”

But Chung Myung understood very well.

So, he had to ask.

“……So, you’re just going to give up?”

Baek Cheon smiled weakly.

“You only understand some things when you lose them.”

“……”

“I think I understand how the old masters of Hwasan felt when they died. They must have wanted to run. To escape. To leave everything behind, get away from the pressure, and just breathe.”

Chung Myung closed his eyes.

The one he had lost was once again before him.

“But they couldn’t. Because their lives would be an example for everyone watching. Because something was more important than their own lives, more important than their own pain.”

“……”

He didn’t know.

The people who died because of the heavy burden on them.

The people who were afraid but never gave up until the very end.

He didn’t know that someone would finally understand how they felt. Their feelings, which even Chung Myung didn’t fully understand, maybe still doesn’t.

That’s why it’s sad. That’s why it’s heartbreaking.

For them, death was a release. But for Baek Cheon, the pain is just starting.

He is trapped by chains he can’t escape. No, he has chained himself. And he will suffer forever.

People call such beings ghosts.

Chung Myung is like a ghost, trapped by the memory of the dead.

But Baek Cheon is trying to become a ghost, trapped by the eyes of the living.

Which pain is worse?

“Are you going to stop me?”

Chung Myung opened his eyes and looked at Baek Cheon.

One was like a ghost who had died, and the other was going to live like a ghost.

Chung Myung quietly poured more drink into Baek Cheon’s glass.

The glass filled up as if it was the very first drink. It was like all the drinks before were just a dream.