Return of the Mount Hua Sect [EN]: Chapter 2

He was dreaming.

Or rather, Chung Myung couldn’t tell if it was a dream, a memory, or just a series of fleeting images. He wasn’t even sure if he was dead, dying, or still alive.

All he saw was the past.

Memories from his early childhood.

His first days entering Mount Hua.

Scenes of training with his fellow disciples.

And his struggles to follow the strict rules, which led him to sneak outside.

“Remember, you are a Taoist first, then a fighter,” a voice nagged. “Power without Tao is just violence. Do you understand?”

It was tiresome.

He was a disciple of Mount Hua, but he couldn’t fully accept its teachings. He was born with amazing talent. People called him the Plum Blossom Sword Saint, a very grand title, but he was always the odd one out in Mount Hua.

Why hadn’t he realized it before?

The teachings might not have been perfect for him. They might have seemed old-fashioned. But everything he was came from Mount Hua. He respected Mount Hua very much.

It was a realization too late, a regret too late.

If he had valued the teachings a little more, if he could have grown a little stronger, maybe he could have changed this terrible outcome. If only…

“Do you regret it?”

Chung Myung quietly accepted the faint, echoing voice.

It was the voice of his Senior Brother, the Head Disciple. His father, his brother, his family, and the one he had always wanted to surpass.

The one he had tried to follow but failed and could only turn away from.

“Yes. I regret it. I regret it, Senior Brother.”

“There is no need for regret.”

There was a faint warmth in his Senior Brother’s voice.

“It’s still Mount Hua, no matter what.”

“…Senior Brother.”

“Still.”

He could almost hear his Senior Brother smiling.

Infinitely warm, infinitely kind.

“It is still Mount Hua.”

Thwack!

Still Mount Hua…

Thwack?

Huh? Thwack?

“Kraaah!”

Pain exploded in Chung Myung’s head, like a thousand hammers crashing down at once. It wasn’t just a normal headache. This was agony. Tears stung his eyes. He had faced the Heavenly Demon, limbs ripped from his body, bones broken. But even *that* pain felt dull compared to this. “What in the world…?” he groaned, his voice weak and shaky.

“T-The Heavenly Demon?”

Wasn’t that bastard dead?

Chung Myung instinctively raised both hands to cover his head. If that bastard wasn’t dead, he had to find a way to finish him off again…

“The Heaveeeenly Demoooon?”

But instead of the Heavenly Demon’s booming voice, he heard a voice that was undeniably snide and twisted.

“Huh?”

He opened his eyes and saw an unfamiliar face.

‘A beggar?’

A beggar. And from the Beggars’ Sect, no less. Judging by the knot on his belt, he was barely an Initiate. In other words, a low-ranking beggar who had just joined the sect; or, to put it bluntly, the lowest of the low.

The beggar, with a face full of spite, was glaring at Chung Myung.

‘What’s with this beggar?’

He couldn’t understand the situation.

Chung Myung tilted his head and stared at the beggar. The beggar’s face began to twist with annoyance at the reaction. He really did look spiteful.

“Heavenly Demon, my foot! This bastard is talking in his sleep. You lazy beggar! Everyone else has gone out begging, but what’s so special about you that you’re lying here asleep? I told you I’d teach you a lesson if I ever saw you slacking off again, didn’t I? Do you think the words of this Hua Zi are a joke?”

The beggar twirled the cudgel in his hand.

Wait a minute.

‘So, this is… a threat?’

“Huh?”

A hollow laugh escaped him.

He didn’t understand the situation, but this was something that didn’t need to be interpreted in context.

Who was Chung Myung?

Among all the swordsmen in the world, he was one of the top three. People praised his sword as the essence of Mount Hua’s martial arts, and they lauded him with the lofty title of Plum Blossom Sword Saint.

Moreover, though they called them the Three Great Swordsmen, the other two were no match for him. Even the Heavenly Demon had acknowledged his sword as the best in the world at the very end, hadn’t he?

Even if the Beggars’ Sect Leader were here, he wouldn’t dare to hold his head high in front of him.

And yet, a threat?

A threaaaat?

“Huh? Huuuh? Are you laughing at me right now?”

The beggar stared at him with a dumbfounded expression.

“Listen here, Hua Zi.”

“Listen here?”

“You don’t seem to understand the situation. Put that thing down first.”

“Huh. Heh heh heh. Heh heh heh heh heh.”

The beggar started laughing as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Chung Myung frowned at the sight.

How dare a mere Initiate show such a reaction in front of him?

At that moment, the beggar suddenly swung his cudgel at Chung Myung’s head.

‘Huh.’

How absurd.

How dare he do such a thing, knowing who I am? It seemed he would have to teach this beggar a lesson today.

First, block that slow-as-molasses club!

Chung Myung leisurely raised his right arm. First, he would grab that club and show him the difference in skill…

…Huh?

Huh?

‘Slow?’

Why was his arm so slow?

The club was flying towards him, but Chung Myung’s hand hadn’t even reached it yet.

No, he should have already grabbed that club the moment he decided to? Ah, perhaps his injuries hadn’t fully healed yet?

In that case, he would do his best…

Huh? What?

Chung Myung’s eyes widened.

He saw the club flying towards his head in the center of his vision. And at the edge of that vision, a small hand appeared. A small hand moving towards the club at a snail’s pace.

So small, and also…

Short?

Huh?

It couldn’t be short, could it? If it was short, he wouldn’t be able to block it…

The club swung by the beggar grazed Chung Myung’s arm before landing squarely on the top of his head.

Boom!

Thunder roared in his head.

Plop.

Chung Myung’s body, struck by the world-shattering impact, fell neatly backward.

Twitch. Twitch.

Chung Myung’s body, sprawled on the ground, twitched.

All thoughts of how the situation was unfolding or how to deal with it vanished from his mind. All that remained was the pain, as if the heavens and earth were collapsing.

“Kraaaah!”

Chung Myung clutched his head and rolled around.

It hadn’t hurt this much even when the Heavenly Demon tore off his arm!

“You bastard!”

The beggar who had struck Chung Myung’s head spat on his hands and began to beat him in earnest.

“Understand the situation? Understand the situatioooon? Alright! I’ll make sure you understand the situation today! If you’re going to go crazy, do it nicely! Did you get heatstroke or something! A beating is the cure for heatstroke, you punk!”

The cudgel flashed as it struck Chung Myung’s body.

“Ack! Aack! Aack! Is this beggar crazy! Stop it right now… Aack!”

“Die! Die!”

“A, it hurts! Ack!”

Chung Myung’s cries began to change little by little under the relentless beating.

Thwack! Whack! Thwack!

“You beggar! I won’t let this go! Today, I will break my vow against killing…”

“Break it! Please, just break it, you moron!”

“Ack! Aaaack! Why can’t I block this! Aack!”

Whack! Whack! Whack!

“E-Enough… No, Aack! Ack!”

The beating was relentless.

“…Help…”

Thwack! Whack! Thwack!

“H, Help meeeeeeeee!”

From the very beginning, Chung Myung was being beaten like a dog on a hot summer day, foreshadowing that his new life would be anything but smooth.

“…Ah. This is humiliating.”

Chung Myung pulled the cloth out of his nose.

“Ah, ouch, ouch.”

He felt a stinging pain in his nose. The sight of the dirty cloth stained red filled Chung Myung’s face with utter dismay.

A nosebleed, of all things!

And not even a nosebleed caused by internal injuries, but one from being beaten!

Was this even possible?

It wasn’t just a nosebleed. There wasn’t a single part of his body that wasn’t hurting.

Not to mention his eyes, which were bruised a deep purple, he felt as if every bone in his body was broken. Had he ever been beaten so thoroughly in his life?

He had caused a lot of trouble at Mount Hua, which had very strict rules. But even then, he had never been beaten like this. And now, his first time being beaten like this was by a beggar in the street!

“Damn beggar…”

The beggar’s cudgel-wielding skills reeked of expertise. The way he beat every corner of his body without missing a single spot was almost an art.

He would have applauded if he hadn’t been the target of that beating…

“Those Beggars’ Sect bastards. I’ll wipe them out.”

For now, he could only rage.

Unable to overcome the rising heat and frustration, Chung Myung lay down and thrashed about. But thrashing about only made his body hurt more.

“No, more than that…”

Chung Myung quickly jumped up and approached the stream. He leaned forward and peeked at his reflection.

A young face he had never seen before was reflected in the water. When Chung Myung distorted his face, the young boy also distorted his face; when Chung Myung sighed, the young boy also sighed.

“…What in the world is going on?”

Why was a young boy’s face reflected in the water?

Well, a face was good. He could accept that his face had changed. After all, the younger the face, the better, right? It was excessively youthful, but younger was better than older.

Besides, no matter how he looked at it, this face was better-looking than Chung Myung’s old one. So, he didn’t have any particular complaints about that.

The problem was that his body had also become younger.

‘Short.’

His limbs were shorter than his original ones. Not because his physique was naturally short, but because it was the body of a child who hadn’t fully grown yet.

Moreover, this body hadn’t been fed properly while growing up, leaving only skin and bones. He was still weak and hungry, making it difficult to even lift a finger.

Ah. That was because he had been beaten.

Anyway!

“So…”

To summarize.

“I’m alive.”

The word ‘I’ might not be appropriate. No matter how he looked at it, his current appearance was not that of the Plum Blossom Sword Saint Chung Myung. An old man nearing eighty had become a young child.

It wasn’t just that Plum Blossom Sword Saint Chung Myung was alive again. It was that he was now inside the body of a beggar child. He still had all his memories.

“This is something even ghosts would cry about.”

Was this what Buddhism called reincarnation?

If he had known this would happen, he wouldn’t have joined Mount Hua; he would have joined Shaolin.

Pushing aside his suddenly deepening faith (?), Chung Myung, who had been trying to ignore it, raised his hand and scratched his head vigorously.

“Ouch!”

His whole body throbbed when he moved his hand too much. The more he thought about it, the more frustrated he became.

“There’s no point in making a fuss about how ridiculous it is.”

It wasn’t a dream, nor was it an illusion.

He had suspected that the Heavenly Demon had cast some kind of illusion, but if the Heavenly Demon could cast such a vivid illusion, he would have already conquered the world.

He didn’t know how it had happened, but he had to accept that all of this was reality.

If that was the case, then what Chung Myung had to do from now on was crystal clear.

“…First, I need to figure out what’s going on.”

Chung Myung jumped up from his spot and started running back towards the beggar’s den he had come from earlier. Or rather, he tried to run.

“Ugh.”

He couldn’t even take a few steps before collapsing back to the ground.

“That beggar beat me to a pulp.”

Chung Myung’s eyes began to burn.

“No matter what the situation is, I will definitely destroy the Beggars’ Sect.”

Just because he had died and come back to life didn’t mean his nasty personality had gone anywhere.

He soon stood up again and waddled towards the beggar’s den.