Return of the Mount Hua Sect [EN]: Chapter 1740

Silence filled the room. Neither Seon-i nor Baek Cheon, who was sitting down, said anything.

Even though they both knew the other was there, they stayed silent.

The moonlight, which was only half visible, slowly moved, gently touching Baek Cheon’s face. Time passed as the moonlight faded, and a deep darkness settled over everything.

For a long time, Chung Myung stood there without saying a word.

After a very long silence, Chung Myung finally spoke, his lips stiff.

“Do you resent me?”

Baek Cheon slowly turned his eyes towards Chung Myung. It was like old, rusty hinges creaking open. He stopped moving slowly, his empty eyes staring at Chung Myung.

Looking into his eyes, Chung Myung felt like he was looking at a stranger.

What did Baek Cheon’s eyes look like when I first met him? I can’t really remember. It’s a distant memory now.

But I know they didn’t look like this. They were probably full of hope and confidence. The kind of reckless, bright confidence that only young people have.

“Resentment…”

A broken voice whispered softly. It sounded empty, just like his eyes looked.

Baek Cheon looked past Chung Myung, as if he was staring at something far away. Chung Myung saw his younger self in Baek Cheon’s eyes. What is Baek Cheon seeing right now? Chung Myung clenched and unclenched his fist.

Baek Cheon spoke slowly.

“…If I have to resent someone, where do I even start?”

“…”

“Should I blame the Supreme Elder who made this decision? Or the Four Evil Sects who did this to me? Or maybe it’s my fault for living without thinking about the consequences? Which one…?”

Baek Cheon mumbled to himself and then snorted. It was like he was trying to laugh, but it failed and just faded away like dust. The empty sound filled the heavy night.

“Who should I be angry at? No… Who should I be angry at first?”

Baek Cheon looked down at his own hands.

What was I supposed to hold onto?

Well, there’s nothing left for me to hold now.

Maybe these hands can’t hold anything anymore. Maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t realize what everyone else already knows.

Even so…

“…I could handle it.”

Baek Cheon looked up at Chung Myung again.

“I could take it. The mocking, the pity, the pain that feels like my insides are being ripped apart… And the sadness too.”

A small sneer appeared on Baek Cheon’s face.

“Even if it meant living in hell, I just wanted to choose. To choose for myself, not because someone else told me to. With my own hands.”

His eyes drifted blankly into the empty air again. It still looked empty, but a small light flickered in his eyes, as if he was searching for something.

But only for a moment. Then, Baek Cheon’s eyes went blank again because there was nowhere to look.

“But… even that’s not allowed. Even that…”

The words faded away emptily.

He knew that Hyun Jong’s decisions were all for his benefit. Hyun Jong had given up so much for him.

The others felt the same way. Everyone was worried about him. Maybe he was lucky. But…

“It’s strange. I tried so hard, I struggled so much… but in the end, I’m back where I started.”

Chung Myung’s eyes darkened slightly.

“In the end, I’m living a life that someone else chose for me again. A life for me, even though I didn’t choose it.”

Baek Cheon looked at Chung Myung.

“Where did I go wrong? Or was it wrong from the beginning? Was I asking for too much? Was it too difficult? Was I being too arrogant? Was it something someone like me shouldn’t even dream of?”

“…”

“Answer me.”

Baek Cheon’s voice cracked.

“Answer me.”

Huddled in the darkness, Baek Cheon looked like he was about to fall apart at any moment.

“You always gave me answers. You always showed me the way.”

Chung Myung squeezed his eyes shut. His eyelashes trembled.

“So tell me. Tell me what I should do, where I should go. What… what can I even do?”

Chung Myung didn’t say anything. He couldn’t. Because no words would matter.

Anything he said now would just be empty.

“Do something. Even if you don’t have an answer… comfort me, scold me, curse at me… anything. Don’t just stand there.”

“…”

“Anything… Just say something, please…”

Baek Cheon, who had been begging, finally broke down. He was helpless, like he was fading away.

“Please…”

His thin, withered hands scratched weakly at the old wooden floor. His shoulders were shaking slightly.

Chung Myung watched silently for a long time before speaking.

“Nothing is wrong.”

“…”

“Loss is something you can’t control. It’s about losing something even when you don’t want to. That’s what loss is.”

You gain some, you lose some. That’s life.

Chung Myung knew this all too well, to the point where it disgusted him.

The pain of losing what you shouldn’t lose. He also knew that the deep, dark feeling of loss could make even death seem peaceful.

But even so, Chung Myung couldn’t really know how Baek Cheon was feeling. Everyone experiences loss differently, and they all have their own ways of dealing with it.

That’s why Chung Myung didn’t offer any empty words of comfort. It wouldn’t be right to do that to someone who was in so much pain and struggling so hard.

Chung Myung was reflected in Baek Cheon’s empty eyes.

“Nothing is wrong.”

“Is that so.”

Baek Cheon laughed softly.

“Then what should I do now?”

The empty laughter cut deeply into Chung Myung’s heart. But Chung Myung had to stay silent.

“Answer me.”

He just stared back at Baek Cheon. Then, suddenly, many feelings mixed together in Baek Cheon’s eyes, which had been empty until now.

Chung Myung spoke with difficulty.

“I’ve never given you an answer, Martial Uncle. If you thought I did, you were wrong.”

Chung Myung had never thought of himself as someone who ‘showed’ others the right path. He didn’t even know the right path himself.

Instead… Chung Myung had been relying on them.

He hadn’t found the ‘right path,’ but he believed that they would be able to find it.

But the person he trusted the most had lost his way. The person he believed would lead the way was here, broken down, stuck on a cliff where he couldn’t move forward.

What could he say to someone like that? Chung Myung didn’t know either.

What can you do when you can’t go back or move forward?

Then Baek Cheon asked again.

“Is that so?”

At that moment, Chung Myung saw it. In Baek Cheon’s eyes, where all the mixed feelings had settled, one feeling was very clear.

“Then why did you come?”

It wasn’t resentment.

“Did you come to comfort me?”

It was… jealousy.

“Did you come to laugh at me? Or to give me a self-righteous lecture? What other words are you going to say with that big mouth of yours?”

He seemed to understand.

It must be dazzling. So dazzling that he couldn’t stand to look at it. Because Chung Myung now had everything that Baek Cheon had desperately wanted. At least, that’s how it must look to Baek Cheon.

When they thought they were walking together, when they thought they were on the same path, it must have looked amazing. But now that they couldn’t do that anymore, that light was too bright.

It was enough to blind them. Enough to burn their heart. Chung Myung was used to that kind of look. But what made this moment so painful was that the person in front of him was the one he thought would never look at him that way.

“I…”

Chung Myung hesitated for a moment. He was afraid he would start making fun of himself.

Baek Cheon probably wouldn’t understand.

“You don’t understand… I’m not as great or as special as you think I am.”

He had said it many times. It wasn’t just him being humble. He meant it with all his heart.

“Someone like me has nothing to say to you.”

Some people might see something amazing in Chung Myung, but it was just fake. Chung Myung was just like Baek Cheon had said, a ship lost in a huge ocean, with a lot of power but no direction.

He wouldn’t know where to go unless someone told him.

“Then why…”

“I didn’t come here to tell you anything.”

Chung Myung cut Baek Cheon off.

“I came to tell you my story.”

Baek Cheon was surprised, even in his despair. He couldn’t believe Chung Myung would tell his story to someone like him.

“No one asked.”

“What…”

“How I escaped from the Four Evil Sects. Why that jerk let me go so easily.”

Baek Cheon’s eyes shook slightly. He hadn’t thought about it. He was just glad that Chung Myung had arrived in time.

But now that he heard these words, a question came to his mind. Why did Jang Il-so let Chung Myung go so easily?

If he had wanted to, he could have stopped him from helping in the fight, even if he couldn’t kill him. Why did he let Chung Myung go so easily?

“Do you know how I got out?”

“You don’t mean…”

Chung Myung chuckled, as if he knew what Baek Cheon was thinking.

“Don’t get the wrong idea. There was no deal or anything like that.”

“…”

“He just let me go.”

“What?”

“He just let me go willingly, without asking for anything.”

Baek Cheon looked doubtful.

At the same time, Chung Myung’s lips twisted into a strange smile. It was different from anything Baek Cheon had seen before.

Chung Myung suddenly looked up at the night sky. It was like he could hear Jang Il-so’s mocking voice in his ear.

“- Why do you think I’m worried about you? Huh?”

“That jerk said,”

“- You’re just a fat, happy pig anyway.”

Chung Myung slowly blinked.

“- Isn’t that right?”

“The moment I chose the Tang family and ignored the destruction of Mount Jeom, I became a fake who just talks big.”

Jang Il-so’s bright smile flashed in his mind. It was as painful as if his whole body was being squeezed.

“- Tell the dead that you’re protecting your precious honor. Wouldn’t that be funny?”

Jang Il-so said those words and left.

But he didn’t really leave. At least, his words were still stuck in Chung Myung’s head.

No, the words were already burned into him. Jang Il-so had just dug up old wounds and poured salt on them.

“I was ready for it.”

From that moment on. No, maybe even before that.

If he had to make a choice, he wouldn’t hesitate, no matter how hard it was. If there was a price to pay, he would pay it himself.

But…

“You said you wanted to put your will into that hand, right? That’s good. But, Martial Uncle…”

Chung Myung chuckled.

“I can’t do that.”

“…Chung Myung-ah.”

“I mean, I…”

He wanted to be proud of himself. He wanted to do his best this time. But he realized that trying his best without knowing what he was doing was like swinging a sword without aiming.

One person had lost the ability to act, and the other had the power but didn’t know how to use it.

The two people who should have been perfect for each other couldn’t turn away from each other.

Then…

“You told me to answer you. But before that, answer me first, Martial Uncle.”

“…”

“What should I do now…? What should I do?”

Baek Cheon’s hand twitched.

The moon peeked out from behind the clouds again. Pale moonlight shone on Chung Myung, who was looking up at the sky.

“I don’t know.”

“…”

“Now I… I don’t know either.”

Only then did Baek Cheon realize that Chung Myung’s small shoulders were drooping.

Baek Cheon couldn’t bear to watch and closed his eyes.

‘I was relying on him.’

Chung Myung’s strong back looked weak.

But even if he wanted to help, Baek Cheon didn’t have the strength anymore.

The one who had stopped, not knowing where to go because he had lost what he shouldn’t have lost… wasn’t just Baek Cheon.

The one who had stopped, not knowing where to go because he had lost what he shouldn’t have lost… wasn’t just Baek Cheon.