Return of the Mount Hua Sect [EN]: Chapter 181

Yoon Jong slowly opened his eyes. ‘Where am I?’ he wondered, his head still heavy with sleep. Then, memories came back. Ah, right! Chung Myung had beaten him badly yesterday. He had fallen asleep right here, feeling like he might faint. Or maybe he *had* fainted? ‘I really don’t want to get up,’ Yoon Jong thought. Just opening his eyes meant the hard training would start again. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to train, but this was just… so tiring. “Ugh…” he groaned.

Yoon Jong suddenly sat up, his head snapping up. He heard crying close by. ‘Someone’s crying?’ He looked around quickly. It was Jo Gul, slumped on the ground nearby. Yoon Jong hurried over to him.

“Gul! Gul! Are you okay?”

“S-Senior Brother…” Jo Gul sobbed, “Waaah! Senior Brother!”

“Are you hurt?” Yoon Jong asked, worried. Jo Gul looked up, his face red and tearful, like everything had gone wrong. Yoon Jong was very concerned. Jo Gul was usually strong and never gave up. Seeing him cry like this, with tears and mucus, something serious must have happened.

“Senior Brother…” Jo Gul choked out, “My inner strength… my inner strength…”

“Inner strength? Are you hurt inside?” Yoon Jong asked, confused.

“Waaah! My inner strength got stronger… my stupid inner strength got stronger!”

“…” Yoon Jong blinked. *What is he talking about?*

“…Then why are you crying?” Yoon Jong asked slowly.

“Senior Brother! I’m telling you, my inner strength is stronger!”

“But why are you crying?! You silly guy!” Jo Gul stomped his foot, looking like he was about to explode with frustration.

“If my stupid inner strength is stronger, doesn’t that mean I have to train even harder now?!” *Wait, he has a point,* Yoon Jong thought. “If I was weak, I wouldn’t have to get beaten up today! Why do I feel stronger after being beaten! Why! It doesn’t make sense!”

Without thinking, Yoon Jong focused on his inner energy, his *qi*. “…It’s true?” He could clearly feel that his inner strength was stronger. This was amazing. Inner strength was something that usually took years to build up. After a whole year of training his qi, you might think, ‘Oh, maybe it’s a little stronger than last year?’ That’s how slow it usually was. But to feel it increase in just one day? It was unbelievable.

“…It’s working. It’s being used up.” Yoon Jong touched his stomach without realizing it. The energy from the Honwon Pill, which had been filling his *dantian* (a place inside his body where energy is stored), was clearly being absorbed. So, in other words…

“That crazy thing… whether it’s called Pressure Point hitting… or just plain beating, it actually worked.”

Baek Cheon had come up quietly. His face looked very unhappy.

“…It seems so,” Baek Cheon said. Yoon Jong was a little confused by this strange situation. Should he be happy? Or angry?

“This…” Baek Cheon bit his lip, as if he didn’t know what to say. *This crazy, impossible thing is really working.* If you could get stronger just by beating people, all the martial arts groups would just become gangs… Wait, aren’t they already kind of like gangs?

Just then, Chung Myung, who caused all this, walked over casually. “What are you guys whispering about?”

“Ugh,” Baek Cheon groaned. “My inner strength got stronger.”

“Of course. That’s why you suffered so much yesterday!” Chung Myung said, sounding like it was obvious. *Oh, is that why?* Yoon Jong thought, but Chung Myung looked very energetic, not like someone who had suffered.

“It’s not just ‘of course’…” Baek Cheon sighed. “Now that it worked, I can’t argue, but I still don’t understand it. Pressure Point hitting is supposed to open up blocked energy paths, right?”

“Something like that. But what I did is a little different from Pressure Point hitting.”

“…Then?”

“I just beat you all really hard.”

“…” Baek Cheon’s hand almost reached for his sword. *Maybe if I cut this guy down right now, there would be peace in the world?* *If only I could.*

“How does that even work?” Baek Cheon asked, confused.

“Tsk.” Chung Myung clicked his tongue, like he was annoyed. Usually, he would just grab them and drag them away, telling them to just do it without explaining because explaining was too much trouble. But now he had to explain.

Chung Myung reached out and tapped Baek Cheon’s chest. “How did you build this?”

“Huh?” Baek Cheon was surprised.

“This muscle, I mean.” Chung Myung pointed. Baek Cheon looked down at his chest. He did have a strong muscle there. Before training with Chung Myung, his muscles weren’t this strong. It was from all the hard work with the Third-Class Disciples, lifting heavy weights.

“I trained,” Baek Cheon said.

“Then why do muscles grow when you train?” Chung Myung asked.

“Well…” Baek Cheon stopped talking. It was such a normal thing, he had never really thought about it. He could say many things, but none of them were very clear.

“It’s simple. You get injured,” Chung Myung said.

“…What do you mean?” Baek Cheon asked.

“Your muscles tear a little,” Chung Myung explained, twisting his hand slightly. Yoon Jong, who was listening, tilted his head.

“You’re saying muscles get bigger when they are injured?”

“Not just muscles. Everything gets stronger when it’s injured,” Chung Myung said. “Like when you get a cut, it swells up. And when you break a bone, it becomes thicker after it heals. It’s a little different each time, but that’s usually how it is.” Chung Myung grinned.

“So, the best way to train your body is…?”

“…To get injured,” Baek Cheon said slowly.

“It sounds rough, but it’s true. It’s a common training method for *external arts* (styles that focus on physical strength). You know stories about *Shaolin monks* (famous monks known for martial arts) whipping themselves or putting their hands in hot sand to train, right?” Baek Cheon nodded slowly. As a swordsman, it was hard to really understand that kind of training, but he had heard about it from Shaolin and other groups that focused on external arts.

“But that’s for external arts, isn’t it?” Baek Cheon asked.

“Hwasan does similar training too,” Chung Myung said.

“Huh? We do?” Yoon Jong asked, surprised.

“When you first used a wooden sword, didn’t your hands get ripped and bleed all the time?” Chung Myung asked.

Baek Cheon looked at his hands. He saw the tough *calluses* (thick skin) that all swordsmen had.

“…They did,” Baek Cheon admitted.

“But now? They don’t get ripped anymore, right?”

“No, they don’t,” Baek Cheon said.

“The human body gets stronger the more it’s injured,” Chung Myung said. “Too much injury is bad, but the right amount of injury actually makes you stronger.”

“Wow…” Baek Cheon looked at Chung Myung, impressed.

“Why?” Baek Cheon asked, with an unbelieving look. “No, uh…” He looked at Chung Myung strangely and said, “I never thought you could come up with such an idea.”

“…” The others who were listening added their thoughts. “It’s surprising.” Yoon Jong said. “I thought he just ate when he was hungry and fought when he was angry,” Jo Gul added. “He actually has a brain,” Yu Yiseol said quietly.

“…” *Are you serious?* Chung Myung’s cheeks tightened.

“Do you want me to show you what it’s like to really have no brain?” Chung Myung asked, sounding threatening.

“Ahem,” Baek Cheon cleared his throat loudly. “Is it going to rain? The weather is not good…” Everyone pretended not to hear Chung Myung’s threat. Chung Myung glared at them all, then continued.

“Basically, it’s the same idea.”

“…What is?” Baek Cheon asked, still confused.

“Inner strength is the same,” Chung Myung said.

“…” Confusion showed in Baek Cheon’s eyes. *So, what Chung Myung is saying is…?*

“If you get hurt inside, your inner strength gets stronger?” Baek Cheon asked.

“That’s right,” Chung Myung nodded.

“That’s crazy!” Baek Cheon said. “How can getting hurt inside be the same as getting hurt outside! If you get a bad internal injury, you can die!”

“You can die from a bad external injury too,” Chung Myung pointed out.

“W-Well, that’s true,” Baek Cheon admitted. Chung Myung sighed again.

“Inner strength is the same. An internal injury means in the end that your *qi* is damaged. When the damaged qi heals, it will always recover stronger than before.”

“But I’ve almost never seen that happen,” Baek Cheon said.

“Of course not. Because there’s a limit to how much qi you can get just from training normally. But right now, you have extra qi in your body from the pill that you can use, right?”

“Uh…” Baek Cheon nodded without thinking. He still had the Honwon Pill energy inside him. He couldn’t use all of it quickly with his own skills, but it was there.

“So, your body just uses it on its own?” Baek Cheon asked.

“Isn’t that what’s happening?” Chung Myung shrugged again.

“It’s not hard to understand. If I beat you in the right places where your qi flows, to give you the right amount of internal injury, your body will need qi to heal. Then it will find and use the extra qi in your body. And in that process, your qi becomes stronger.” Chung Myung wiggled his finger again.

“Qi. Body. It’s the same idea for both.”

“…” Chung Myung chuckled, seeing his fellow disciples staring at him blankly, like they still didn’t understand. *It would be hard for them to understand.* *This isn’t something they teach in our sect.* Chung Myung had learned this from fighting in many dangerous battles. He was making it easier and safer for them now, but really, this idea came from fighting for his life. It was natural that they wouldn’t understand it easily.

“Well, you don’t have to understand it,” Chung Myung said. *Crack!* The sound of knuckles cracking came from Chung Myung’s fist.

“If your brain doesn’t get it, your body will!”

“…” *Crack. Crack.* Chung Myung cracked his neck from side to side, waving his hands and walking towards them.

“Just think of it as a friendly *sparring session* (practice fight), Senior Brother. You’re going to get hit anyway, so just relax, okay?”

*No. That’s not friendly at all.* Yoon Jong thought to himself. *Chung Myung, you are very wrong. There’s no such thing as feeling relaxed while getting hit. Does he even understand us?*

“Where else can you find better training than this?” Chung Myung continued. “I’m giving you real combat experience. I’ll make you use every bit of your strength. And I’m even making your inner strength stronger! If I had a teacher like me, I would have become twice as strong!”

“You would have run away from someone like you!” Jo Gul shouted back.

“Hee hee hee!” Chung Myung grinned.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. You won’t die. Has anyone ever died from training?” *No, they haven’t, have they?* Yoon Jong thought sarcastically. *Of course not. If I die from this, I won’t be around to say anything.* *He won’t hear it anyway, the idiot!*

Baek Cheon took a deep breath. He was angry inside, but he held back his complaints. Then, suddenly serious, he grabbed his sword tightly and yelled at Chung Myung, who was talking loudly in front of him.

“Enough!”

“Huh?” Chung Myung stopped talking, surprised.

“So, if I survive this hard training, I can become much stronger quickly, right?” Baek Cheon asked, his voice firm.

“Of course!” Chung Myung nodded right away, without any hesitation.

“Good to hear,” Baek Cheon said. *Actually,* he thought, *this is a great chance.* Even without thinking about inner strength, fighting with that strong fighter twice a day? It was a dream chance for any martial artist.

“However,” Baek Cheon said, gritting his teeth. “You better be careful too. If your face gets any more scars, your already not good-looking face will get even worse.”

“Heh,” Chung Myung grinned. *That’s what I wanted to hear.* *That’s why I like Baek Cheon,* Chung Myung thought. No matter how much he teased him, beat him, or criticized him, Baek Cheon never gave up.

“Try if you can!” Chung Myung challenged.

“That’s what I wanted to hear! You idiot!” Baek Cheon pulled out his sword and ran at Chung Myung.

“Dieeeeeee!”

“Not good enough!” Chung Myung shouted back.

Jo Gul, watching them start to fight, sighed. “When did those two start working together so well?”

“…I don’t know,” Yoon Jong said, also sighing. “Will we even survive until we get to Yunnan?” Yoon Jong wondered sadly.

“…” The journey to Yunnan felt very, very long to both of them.