Return of the Mount Hua Sect [EN]: Chapter 778

A woman’s voice trembled, tears in her eyes. “Thank you… thank you from the bottom of my heart!”

An old man bowed deeply, his voice shaking. “Kind masters, I owe you my life!”

Another person clasped their hands together, pleading. “How can we ever be worthy of such kindness?”

Yoon Jong quickly shook his head. “Kindness? It was just the right thing to do.”

“Truly, thank you so much. I must find a way to repay you!”

“Really, it’s alright, we don’t need repay—”

Chung Myung suddenly stepped forward with a grin, pushing Yoon Jong to the side. He grabbed the old man’s hands. “Repay? Did someone say repay? Repay is good!”

“Yes? Ah… Yes…” The old man looked confused.

Yoon Jong’s face fell. “Chung Myung! You already took everything from the bandits! Why are you bothering these poor people now?!”

“Well,” Chung Myung said with a wide smile, “when you get back home, tell everyone that the Mount Hua Sect defeated the bandits and saved you all.”

“……Yes?” The old man blinked.

“Tell everyone! We saved you! We destroyed two bandit camps! Just spread the word! That’s a great reward for us, you see?”

“Would… would that be enough?” He looked unsure.

“Oh, it’s a very big reward,” Chung Myung said seriously now. “But you have to really tell people. Understand?”

“If that truly helps you, I will do my best to spread the word.” The old man nodded earnestly.

“Kheu. You are a smart man.” Chung Myung grinned again.

Yoon Jong was about to argue with Chung Myung, but he stopped himself, knowing it was pointless. *Spreading the word? That’s not a real reward at all,* Yoon Jong thought, shaking his head.

“What about us?” Yoon Jong asked Chung Myung.

“First, we need to see if anyone is badly hurt. Those who are okay will be sent to the mainland right away.”

“The mainland…?” The old man repeated, still a bit lost.

“Don’t worry,” Chung Myung said. “We’ll take you to a port nearby. Or, if you tell us, we can take you all the way to where you were going.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that much!”

“Hey, it’s nothing,” Chung Myung waved his hand. “It’s not like *I’m* rowing the boat.” He chuckled.

The old man just stared, still holding Chung Myung’s hand, looking very confused.

Yoon Jong walked over. “All the civilians are on the ship and heading to the mainland now.”

Jo Gul looked worried. “Are they going to be safe? Isn’t that ship… the bandits’ ship?”

Chung Myung grinned. “Don’t worry! I put the Green Forest bandits on board with them. They’ll make sure everyone gets there safely.” He winked.

“……So,” Jo Gul said slowly, “it’s safe because you put bandits in charge of other bandits?” He looked even more confused.

Something felt very wrong. Jo Gul couldn’t put his finger on it, but the idea of bandits guarding civilians on a bandit ship just didn’t sound right at all.

“We found two more members of the Illusory Spirit Sect among the bandits we caught,” Yoon Jong reported. “With the one we found earlier, that means we’ve found all but one.”

“What about the last one?” Baek Cheon asked.

Yoon Jong’s voice became quiet, and he looked down at the ground. He didn’t need to say more. They all understood. *Not everyone could be saved.*

Baek Cheon sighed, feeling a weight in his chest. Even though they had stopped a terrible thing from happening, the thought of the one person still missing was heavy.

“Baek Sang,” Baek Cheon called out.

“Yes, Sahyung?”

“What did you learn from talking to the prisoners?”

“……Not much,” Baek Sang admitted. “Most of them were just bandits who ran away from other groups, or silly people who didn’t know what they were doing. But some were mercenaries, hired to fight for money.”

“Mercenaries?” Baek Cheon frowned.

“Yes. Apparently, there are many mercenaries around the Yangtze River. They don’t belong to any big group, and people hire them through secret connections. It’s hard to know about them beforehand.”

“Hmm.” Baek Cheon’s frown deepened. He thought hard. *Mercenaries… Why would bandits hire mercenaries?* That didn’t make sense. *Mercenaries to start a bandit camp?* It felt wrong.

He turned to Jo Seung. “Is it normal to hire mercenaries when you’re starting a new bandit group?”

“……Never heard of it,” Jo Seung said, shaking his head. “If they had money to hire mercenaries, why would they become bandits in the first place?”

“You’re right.” Baek Cheon agreed. Something about this whole situation felt very strange.

*But,* he thought, *it doesn’t really matter now.* They had defeated the bandits. Whatever they were planning was over. The important thing was that they had protected the people of Mount Hua and sent a strong message to any other bandits on the Yangtze River.

“We can clean up and head back to Mount Hua now,” Baek Cheon announced, looking out at the wide Yangtze River. He felt a small sense of relief. It had been hard work, but they had done well.

“I don’t want to see water again for a long time, Sahyung,” grumbled Jo Gul.

“I’m not even going to wash my face when we get back,” added Yoon Jong. “Not with water, anyway.”

“Speaking of washing, Jo Gul Sahyung, you should try it sometime,” teased Chung Myung.

“Hey!” Jo Gul protested. “I wash! I wash all the time!”

“Really? Then why do you always smell like old socks?” Chung Myung grinned.

“That’s because I train hard right after washing! It’s not fair!” Jo Gul complained, making the others laugh.

The Mount Hua disciples were starting to feel like themselves again. They had faced danger and hardship, but they were still together, still joking.

*If you fall down, you just have to get back up,* Baek Cheon thought firmly. He took a deep breath. “Alright, let’s finish cleaning up here… Wait, where did Chung Myung go?”

“Huh? Wasn’t he just here?” Yoon Jong looked around.

“Where did that rascal wander off to now? I always get worried when I can’t see him,” Baek Cheon admitted, a little smile playing on his lips.

They looked around quickly. The field was open, with nowhere to hide. Then they saw him. Chung Myung was standing at the very edge of the island, looking across the water to the mainland. They hurried over to him.

“What are you doing?” Baek Cheon asked.

“Sasook,” Chung Myung said, still looking out at the river. “How far is it from here to the other side?”

“Huh?” Baek Cheon was surprised by the sudden question. He looked at the mainland across the water. “About… three hundred meters? No, maybe even nine hundred meters?” He realized just how incredibly wide the Yangtze River was. *Nine hundred meters! That’s almost a kilometer!*

“Isn’t it close?” Chung Myung asked.

“Huh?” Baek Cheon blinked. *Close?*

“Now I understand why the bandits stayed here all this time,” Chung Myung said, turning to face them. “It’s too close to the mainland. You can reach this island by crossing only three hundred meters of water, you know?”

“Wait a minute…” Baek Cheon frowned, looking around again. “You’re right! If we had just traveled along the riverbank on land and then found a boat, we could have attacked by crossing only three hundred meters! Why did we come all the way by ship and get seasick for days!?” He groaned, remembering the awful feeling.

“Ah, seasickness is not important now,” Chung Myung said, a sly smile on his face.

“What do you think?” He asked again.

“Huh? What do I think about what?” Baek Cheon was still thinking about seasickness.

“Isn’t this place perfect?” Chung Myung’s smile widened. “Close to the mainland, but hard to attack by ship.”

“Perfect for what?” Baek Cheon asked, completely confused.

“If we take over this place, those pirate bastards will have a much harder time approaching, don’t you think?”

“…Huh?”

Baek Cheon paused, trying to process what he’d just heard. What did this crazy guy just say?

Occupy?

“…Chung Myung-ah?”

“The more I look at it, the better it seems. These pirates were dumb enough to settle here, but it’s actually not a bad spot for us.”

“…What, what are you trying to do?”

“Let’s take this place!” Chung Myung declared, a wide, mischievous grin spreading across his face.

“…”

Baek Cheon blinked, his mouth slightly open. He stared blankly at Chung Myung, then slowly turned to look at his fellow disciples. Their faces were just as confused as he felt. They all wore the same stunned expression.

*Am I crazy, or is he?* Baek Cheon thought, his eyebrows furrowing. *This has to be madness.*

Feeling a little bit of strength from seeing his friends’ confusion, Baek Cheon exploded, pointing a finger at Chung Myung. “Hey, you crazy bastard! Why on earth would we take this place? This isn’t Mount Hua! This is the Yangtze River!”

“Is there a law that says we can’t take it just because it’s the Yangtze? Even pirates occupy it and set up their lairs!”

“…There isn’t such a law.”

“Don’t agree so easily, Martial Uncle!”

“Don’t get pulled into this, Martial Uncle!”

“Y-Yeah, that’s right!”

Baek Cheon, who had nodded without thinking, quickly snapped back to attention and asked again.

“What are we going to do after taking this place? Become pirates or something?”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk. How can you be so slow?” Chung Myung frowned, displeased.

“Huh?”

“Why did we come here in the first place?”

“Well… because the Silver Wave Escort Agency’s special cargo was attacked.”

“Is there a guarantee that such a thing won’t happen again?”

“…”

Chung Myung pointed at Jogeum.

“The first time is hard, but the second time is easy. Look. As soon as the rumor spread that the special cargo was attacked, all sorts of troublemakers flocked to it. Thanks to that, Martial Uncle had to do useless work.”

“…Great Forest was a bigger pirate lair than this. They are more than just troublemakers…”

“They’re still just pirates.”

“…”

Jogeum, who had protested with a slightly annoyed heart, was silenced in one blow and shut his mouth.

“If something like this happens again, are you going to run all the way to the Yangtze to fight pirates again? At this rate, you’ll have to keep running here without a moment’s rest until you wipe out all the Yangtze pirate lairs, you know?”

“…That’s true.”

As long as pirates exist and there’s a need to cross the Yangtze, there’s a danger we can’t avoid. Moreover, special cargo, by its nature, carries expensive goods, making it a tempting target at any time.

On flat ground, they can avoid danger with their quick feet, but aren’t the special cargo carriers helpless on a boat?

“So, you’re saying we should take this place?”

“If that’s going to happen anyway, it’s better for us to transport people directly. Look here. This side and that side are close. So, if we just bring two boats to go back and forth from the land to the island, it’ll be solved, you see?”

Baek Cheon looked at his fellow disciples as if asking them to do something.

Reading that look, Jo Gul opened his mouth with a resolute face.

“Jiujiang isn’t a bad location either!” Jo Gul’s eyes lit up at the mention of money, a small smile playing on his lips.

“Hey, you crazy bastard! What are you doing, agreeing with him!”

“Ah, no. Isn’t what he’s saying not entirely wrong?”

“You’re going to do all this just to transport one special cargo?”

“Then we can transport other merchants too. We can charge boat fares and tolls.”

Of course, this bastard is the youngest son of a merchant family. Why is he always good at math when it helps him?

“Absolutely not, absolutely! You said it yourself. This place is too easy to attack. What are we going to do if pirates swarm us?”

“What can they do on a boat? They have to come ashore.”

“Huh?”

“If pirates come ashore, they’re just third-rate. It’s okay if we don’t fight on the water.”

“…”

Baek Cheon was starting to be persuaded. Baek Cheon frowned, Chung Myung’s crazy idea was starting to make a strange kind of sense.

“And there’s something good too.”

“Something good?”

“White Thunder Cannons.”

“…”

“Those guys loaded them on the boat because they go around plundering, but we don’t have to go out on the boat. We can deploy those White Thunder Cannons on the edge of the island and shoot the pirates every time they come. They won’t even be able to approach, will they?”

“N-No…”

Baek Cheon squeezed his eyes shut.

‘I’m doomed.’

That unbelievable idea was starting to sound plausible.

“No, fundamentally! We can’t stay here just to do that.”

“Martial Uncle is an idiot?”

“Huh?”

“Why do we have to do it? There are plenty of people here. Let the Green Forest Alliance advance into the Yangtze on this opportunity. We can split the boat fare in half.”

“…”

Wow… At this point, it seemed like he had planned everything in advance and came here.

Just as Baek Cheon was biting his nails, frustrated because he couldn’t find a way to attack that crazy plan.

“I’m a bit worried,” Yoo Iseol spoke softly, her brow furrowed in concern. She was the most sensible one.

“Huh?”

“The range of the White Thunder Cannons. The width of the river. If a boat occupies the middle of the river, it’ll be isolated. It’s too far.”

“Y-Yeah! Even so, it’s three hundred yards! It’s impossible!”

“Then we can reduce it to two hundred yards.”

“Huh? How?”

“Build a bridge.”

“…On the water?”

“Yeah.”

“This distance?”

“Yeah.”

Chung Myung nodded, smiling brightly.

“Hey, you crazy bastard. Even the country can’t do that! You have to say something that makes sense! I’ve never heard of a bridge being built on the Yangtze River in my life.”

“Hey. We don’t have to build the whole thing. And we don’t have to fix it in place either. There are plenty of boats left over now. We don’t have to go out on the boat.”

“Huh?”

“Fix the boats on the water and build a bridge on top of them. Connect the boats to each other to make a bridge, deploy the White Thunder Cannons on top of it, and make it like a pier where boats can dock.”

“…”

“Then we can shoot arrows from the bridge, shoot cannons, and if there are guys landing, we can fight them on top of it! Kroooooh. This is amazing even if I say so myself! As far as I know, this is a strategy that a famous strategist came up with in the old days. So, it must be right.”

…The people on that connected boat were all burned to death by fire arrows! You crazy bastard! That place isn’t even that far from here! It was on this river!

“Hee hee hee hee. The more I think about it, the more amazing it is? These pirate bastards brought everything we need for us to use! Then we should gratefully use it well!”

“Ch-Chung Myung-ah?”

“Let’s connect the boats first! Hee hee hee! This is going to be fun! Right?” Chung Myung said excitedly.

“Chung Myung…”

“Hey! Lung disease! Where are you?” Chung Myung didn’t seem to want to hear any more and left them behind, running off.

As Baek Cheon reached out his hand towards him in a daze, someone placed a hand on his shoulder.

“…Monk?”

Hae Yeon patted Baek Cheon’s shoulder gently, his smile kind but knowing. “Amitabha. Baek Cheon, my friend. Did you know that?”

“…Know what?”

“Life is hard.”

“…”

Thank you very much…

Yes.