Return of the Mount Hua Sect Chapter 1442: What Should I Do? (2)
Previously on Return of the Mount Hua Sect...
The night was very dark and heavy.
At first, even with places to rest prepared, many trembled with the anxiety that the Ten Thousand People Clan might attack again at any moment. But that only lasted so long; in the end, most succumbed to the exhaustion that ate at their bodies and fell asleep as if collapsing.
Those who had made a desperate flight from the family home to here, and those who had run with all the strength they were born with from Nanjing to here, all fell into a deep sleep.
But Tang Sobo could not fall asleep easily.
The chirping of insects and the breaths of those who had collapsed tickled her ears. Startled by an unnecessary unease, she glanced around and saw the backs of the sentries. She repeated to herself as if soothing herself.
It will be fine now.
Even if that Ten Thousand People Clan attacks again, there are Tang Family warriors and Mount Hua here together. So they should no longer have to endure such a terrible thing again.
But the deep anxiety already settled in her heart did not vanish easily.
What now… what will become of us?
It was a question that felt utterly bleak.
She had never left the Tang Family Kitchen in her entire life. She was not alone in that. Most daughters born into the Tang Family were in the same position as her.
Until she could leave the Tang Family and become part of another household, the only ground she could step on was the Tang Family Kitchen, at most the common grounds. But now the Tang Family they would return to no longer exists.
She had spoken bravely, but the mere thought that the Tang Family no longer existed made her chest sink and feel stifled.
‘Elder.’
Suddenly Tang Wei’s figure, shouting for them to hurry, came to her mind faintly.
Then, someone was seen getting up.
‘Huh? Who…’
The person who rose moved silently and slowly, stepping out of the group of people. Those who stood guard around like an iron wall reflexively blocked him, then, after checking his face, stepped back.
The faint light of the bonfire touched his face and it became visible. A sobriquet surfaced in Tang Sobo’s mind.
’ Mount Hua’s Sword Saint.’
After glancing at the people, he was soon swallowed by the darkness settling over the field and faded away. Tang Sobo silently stared at the back of that Mount Hua’s Sword Saint.
The sound of insects echoed quietly across the wide field.
Sitting in the reed field surrounded by high mountains, Tang Gunak suddenly grabbed a reed growing beside him.
Snap.
He picked up the simply broken reed, flicked his wrist lightly, and sent it flying. With a sharp cracking sound it flew through and embedded itself deep in a rock ahead.
Then a voice of admiration came from somewhere.
“Wow.”
When Tang Gunak turned, Chung Myung approached with a grin.
“That’s a splendid trick.”
Chung Myung pushed aside the reeds as he came and gestured toward Tang Gunak’s side.
“May I sit?”
Tang Gunak looked at Chung Myung with a complex, peculiar expression.
“Well, if you really want to be alone, then go back.”
“…No.”
Tang Gunak shook his head and pointed to the space beside him. Chung Myung plopped down into that spot. Then, without saying a word, he tilted his head up and only looked at the sky.
Neither Chung Myung nor Tang Gunak spoke. They simply stared at whatever each of them saw. They might be sitting in the same place, but what they were looking at could be different.
After a fairly long silence, Tang Gunak slowly spoke.
“Why aren’t you speaking?”
“It’s not like I came with something to say. I just came, that’s all.”
Tang Gunak gave a small, hollow laugh.
“One day you’ll die because of that meddlesome nature of yours.”
“Isn’t it strange?”
“What do you mean?”
“Back in the day people used to tell me to please care about others. But now people keep telling me to cut out my meddling.”
“…”
“I don’t feel like I’ve changed much, so why is that?”
“Well… I don’t know. It’s probably one of two things.”
Chung Myung looked at Tang Gunak—him leaning back on the ground with his head tilted back.
“Either you’ve changed, or the world has changed.”
“Which do you think it is?”
“You’ve likely changed. No, it’s certain you’ve changed. The you I first saw and the you now are different people.”
Chung Myung made a strained sound.
“I’ve heard that when a person changes, they die.”
“You’re already half-dead, so it’s fine. The fact you’re still alive is what matters.”
This was no joke.
They had poured everything they could into him, yet still Tang Gunak thought Chung Myung’s chance of survival wasn’t even fifty percent. Even if he survived, regaining his former martial prowess seemed impossible.
But now Chung Myung was calmly tossing jokes beside him. It was something Tang Gunak’s common sense couldn’t understand.
“Are you feeling well?”
“I feel like I’m going to die.”
“…I like your honesty.”
“It’s one of my many virtues!”
“Not your only virtue?”
“Well, harsh remarks among friends, huh.”
Tang Gunak chuckled.
That’s right. It’s one of many virtues. Being with Chung Myung made him involuntarily cheerful. Perhaps that, too, was one of Chung Myung’s indispensable strengths.
Tang Gunak looked up at the sky again. Countless stars, as if ready to spill down, looked back at him.
“Mount Hua’s Sword Saint. When you look at those stars, what comes to mind?”
“Um…”
Chung Myung seemed to ponder briefly, then smiled.
“I don’t think of anything.”
It would normally have earned a scolding, but Tang Gunak only wore a slightly bitter expression. Then he spoke slowly.
“From long ago I’ve looked at those stars and thought this: if I could banish all poisons like the stars fill that sky, I would become the best in the world. And thus the Tang Family would become the best in the world.”
“…You were born to be a Family Head, weren’t you?”
No, but I feel like I’ve heard something like that before… Are all Tang Family folk like this?
“But do you know what those stars look like to me now?”
“…I wonder?”
“They look like eyes.”
“Eyes?”
Tang Gunak nodded.
“I mean the eyes of the ancestors looking down on me.”
For a moment Chung Myung shut his mouth tight. Tang Gunak’s words carried an oppressive weight that was hard to put into words.
Tang Gunak slowly lowered his head. The moment the stars embroidered across the sky vanished from his sight, what filled his eyes was darkness laid over the whole world.
“The Tang Family will decline.”
“…”
“No matter how much we try to stop it, we won’t be able to. What’s lost cannot be restored.”
“Family Lord.”
“No matter how I think about it, I don’t know.”
“…”
“What should I do now?”
Chung Myung could not easily offer words of comfort.
The despair Tang Gunak felt now must be beyond his imagination. It was not merely that the Tang Family Furnace had burned and they could not return to Sichuan.
They had lost their poison arts and their assassination techniques.
This could not be recovered in the short term. Perhaps they might never reach the heights the Tang Family once did.
The Tang Family losing its poisons and techniques was not much different from Mount Hua losing its sword. Can you call Mount Hua a sword sect without its sword? Could Chung Myung positively say that a Mount Hua unable to use the sword was still Mount Hua?
Therefore, no one could answer Tang Gunak’s question for him.
“I’ve heard about what happened in Poison Vault. The Divine Hand elder set fire to the Tang Family and drove the elders out, did he not?”
‘Tang Jo-Pyeong…’
Chung Myung silently repeated that name and closed his eyes.
The wrinkled face of Tang Jo-Pyeong and the face of him as a child both rose in his mind.How would Chung Myung remember Tang Jo-Pyeong?
“He’s not like himself, and yet at the same time he is exactly himself.”
“…That’s true.”
“Thanks to the elder, the Tang Family’s lineage was kept alive. A thousand thanks would not be enough to tell him. But tell me, Mount Hua’s Sword Saint.”
Tang Gunak suddenly turned his head to gaze at Chung Myung. A redness lingered at the corners of Tang Gunak’s eyes.
“Do I resent such an elder because I’m weak? Or because I’m wicked?”
“Family Lord.”
Tang Gunak’s eyes reddened a little more.
Chung Myung felt even more devastated. He had never seen Tang Gunak like this.
Even if the moment came when his neck was to be cut, Tang Gunak would be dignified.
But now his appearance was far from dignified. He was not the Poison King Tang Gunak, Family Lord of the Sichuan Tang Family, but merely a man crushed by weight and burden.
A deep sigh escaped Chung Myung’s mouth.
It’s not strange. No one is strong all the time. There are only those who grit their teeth and pretend to be strong. As Chung Myung himself once did.
“I know. People are more precious than anything. One cannot dare to compare poison or secret techniques to people. The elder was not wrong. Even if I had been the one there, the choice would not have been different in the end.”
Tang Gunak’s voice sank deep, as if submerged in water. No, as if submerged in something heavier than that.
“But… I don’t know. Even knowing it’s right, such thoughts keep coming to me.”
Chung Myung felt he knew what Tang Gunak wanted to say.
“…If only we had preserved the clan—if, no matter the sacrifice, we had preserved the Tang Family’s roots…”
Surely if that had been the case, things might have been a little easier.
Even if their numbers had dwindled, the Tang Family would still be the Tang Family. If everything the Tang Family had built over generations remained, then someday the Sichuan Tang Family, the dominant house of Sichuan, could reclaim its original form.
“Isn’t it laughable?”
Tang Gunak’s face contorted.
“…Family Lord.”
“I find myself detestable.”
Tang Gunak’s hand trembled slightly.
“That… that cold lump of iron I compare to a human life on a scale. I keep thinking that a few of them might have been worth dying to protect those things.”
As his hand trembled, his voice shook terribly too, as if someone were squeezing and twisting his throat.
“I keep thinking that if so, though the suffering would have been more severe, in the future we might have been in a slightly better situation!”
Tang Gunak covered his face with his hand. A voice trembling between his fingers leaked out.
“I despise myself so… so much.”
Chung Myung turned his head away. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to look; he too found it difficult to steady his heart.
The future he had firmly believed in collapsing, losing what he had thought was everything, being crushed by an unbearable, enormous weight.
‘You must have felt the same.’
Probably so.
The young sword disciples of Mount Hua who learned that none of the ancestors they had waited and waited for could return, and the disciples who watched Mount Hua burn with tears of blood while trying to protect it somehow—both would have felt like Tang Gunak does now.
Who could possibly comfort them? Who could fully understand that heart?
“Listen, Mount Hua’s Sword Saint.”
“…Yes.”
“What should I do?”
Tang Gunak looked at Chung Myung. Chung Myung met his wet eyes and then lifted his gaze to the sky. The star-filled sky overlapped with one he had once seen.
That sky might well have been no different from the sky that looked down on Shaanxi the day Mount Hua burned.
Therefore Chung Myung had to speak.
The words someone had intended to convey. The words he had to deliver. The words of the one who left without being able to say them.
