Chapter 284: Great Desert (2)

Read more at Nineheavens.org

What I felt riding along behind them was that they were more courteous than expected.

They had abducted us, but they did not seal acupoints, ate meals at the same time in the same space, and made no distinction in sleeping arrangements. They did not take the food or weapons we carried either.

Besides, there seemed to be no night watch, so we could probably slip away while they slept without them knowing.

—Is this right, I wondered.

Clearly Myeong-gyeong had relaxed as well. He sent a voice transmission from beside me, and the force in his voice seemed languidly slack.

I had relaxed too, and I nearly laughed at that old-man tone.

“Since you have come this far, there is somewhere you must come with me.”

Their provincial capital, one might call it. As we entered Hohhot, the Great Desert rider who could speak Central Plains tongue spoke.

There was no reason to refuse after coming this far. I kept a frightened expression and nodded.

—Stop acting now. They do not seem like dangerous people.

—We do not know yet.

Myeong-gyeong protested, but I reminded him to stay wary once more.

I followed the Great Desert rider while glancing around.

The Great Desert dwellings I knew were all frame-and-wool tents, but as a settled place, stone and wood buildings existed here as well.

What surprised me further was that Central Plains speech was heard more than expected. Of course they wore the barbarian dress of the Great Desert, but the language they used was clearly the Central Plains tongue.

“Enter here.”

We were led before a white tent. It was a large tent that could hold at least a hundred people inside.

“Are we the only ones going in?”

“Indeed. My duty ends with guiding you here.”

“I see. Thank you.”

“Not at all.”

I bowed to the Great Desert rider who had kindly guided us this far, then lifted the tent flap.

“This is strange.”

After the Great Desert rider left, Myeong-gyeong spoke.

“That is why experience and breadth of knowledge matter.”

“I thought all Great Desert people were monsters with three heads and six arms. That is not so either.”

“People live much the same everywhere. Our Central Plains also has regional feeling between South China and North China, but when you actually meet, you blend well enough.”

“I feel as though I have understood something about the Way a little more.”

“Really? In what way?”

“What blinds my eyes is not another person’s hand, but my own prejudice.”

“Ooh. That is impressive.”

“Do not mock me.”

“Do not be prejudiced against me. I was genuinely impressed.”

I spoke, slightly stung. Myeong-gyeong glanced at me but cleared his throat and looked away.

Though it was a tent, the interior was divided by cloth partitions. We lifted another cloth inside the tent.

The tent interior was quiet. Neither hoofbeats nor any sign of people could be heard. The sound of us drawing back the cloth seemed loud.

After drawing back about three cloths, one person came into view. He sat in meditation with his back to us. The one in meditation had long hair covering his entire back.

“You must be visitors from the Central Plains.”

The seated man’s voice reached us. This was unmistakably Central Plains speech.

The Central Plains of the rider who had guided us had awkward points in tone and accent, but the seated man used Central Plains speech with real fluency.

“That is correct.”

“Nothing special. Think of this place as simply living a second life and you will be at ease. They only abduct Central Plains people because they need labor.”

He called the Great Desert “they.” This man was clearly a Central Plains person.

But that was secondary. I felt a strange familiarity from the seated man. Build, voice, feeling—all were familiar.

“If you were crossing the Great Desert anyway, you probably were not doing anything very upright in the Central Plains either.”

“That is not the case.”

“Is that so? Then that is regrettable.”

His tone was somewhat prickly. That too was quite familiar.

Where had I heard it before. I retraced my thoughts. A memory from my past life, or from this one?

“You can simply pitch a tent wherever empty land is. There are many Central Plains people here, so if you ask for help, they will help.”

“Then are most of the Central Plains people here those who fled the Central Plains?”

“You could see it that way.”

“Then the situation cannot be very good.”

“That is why I am here.”

“What?”

“I can filter out those with killing intent. Because I can tell those who killed people in the Central Plains and fled, and the like.”

That was unexpected words again. I listened quietly to the man in meditation.

“But you two have clear souls. Clear enough to miss. I can feel it.”

Then Myeong-gyeong suddenly strode forward. I was surprised by Myeong-gyeong’s sudden action but did not stop him. Myeong-gyeong was not someone who would act like this without reason.

Myeong-gyeong approached the man in meditation. The man in meditation did not waver.

“……Ah.”

Then a sigh escaped the lips of the man in meditation.

“No wonder I felt such longing.”

As Myeong-gyeong went behind the man in meditation, the seated man shot to his feet.

“Truly, human bonds are unknowable.”

Long hair flew as the man turned around. His face bore scars in a lattice like a beehive. Though his face was full of beard, I recognized him at once.

“……Hall Master?”

I was surprised, but Myeong-gyeong was not. As though he had known the man’s identity all along.

“You have grown much.”

“I greet Martial Uncle.”

Myeong-gyeong made a deep bow to the man.

The identity of the man in meditation was, astonishingly, the former Hall Master of the Hall of Preserved Wholeness, Cheong-su.

* * *

For a Daoist who had cast aside his title, was there any place to return?

Cheong-su—no, Jang Hae-won—spent several days in turmoil. No matter that Mok Hui-yeong had sent him travel funds, Jang Hae-won was one who had committed a great crime against his sect. Would it not be better even now to confess his crime and accept punishment?

But Jang Hae-won knew that too would be hypocrisy. If the sect had thought that way, they should not have sold the Taiji Wisdom Sword.

In the end Jang Hae-won returned to his home in Zhejiang. The house was in ruins. With a sick person entering a household that had never been comfortable, it was only natural that the pillars were torn up at the roots.

The door creaked, the window paper was torn away, and the house looked as though the outside wind would cut through it.

Jang Hae-won entered the house with eyes mixed of pain and emptiness. Even walking into the courtyard, only sand dust greeted him. His family had moved their base to Henan, and because of that his younger sister had come to die.

Yet there was a sign of life inside the room. An old man came out, wrinkled with age, hair turned white.

“Hae-won?”

“Yes.”

As Jang Hae-won did, the old man recognized Jang Hae-won at once. Formally it was a reunion after nearly thirty years, but they recognized each other at a glance. Even though Jang Hae-won’s face was covered in sword scars, even though he had returned home emptily without a word—that was what family was.

“Welcome back.”

Jang Hae-won embraced his father. His father had grown so frail with age that he seemed as though he would break if given the slightest force.

“You are not going to ask what happened?”

“Let us not speak words painful to us both. I do not want to share such talk with a son I have not seen in so long. We must treasure the little time left……”

His father opened the door with his back bent. Inside lay someone who looked like a mummy, skin dark and withered, on the floor. If not for the faint rise and fall of the chest, one would unquestionably have taken him for a corpse.

“Dear, Hae-won has come.”

His father recognized her, but his mother did not at once. His mother’s condition was more serious than expected. Jang Hae-won entered the room and looked at his mother.

Soon his mother’s eyes, full of sleep crust, opened with difficulty.

“……Ah. My son has come. He truly came.”

Fortunately his mother could still converse. His father smiled beside her.

“He really came. What shall we do. It seems our prayers were answered.”

“Indeed.”

The aged father and sick mother clasped each other’s hands. It was as though dry branches overlapped.

“I know. Hae-won kept sending money, did he not?”

His mother spoke. Jang Hae-won had thought that while cultivating the Way he had stripped away some measure of emotion.

He thought he did not laugh at amusing things, did not shed tears at sad things. But now tears seemed to burst forth after decades of holding them back, streaming down.

“Yes. I sent it.”

“This poor life, I lived because of you. You kept sending money—how could I die?”

His mother waved her hand. Jang Hae-won took that hand. It was terribly thin and rough, a hand where no vitality could be felt.

“Did you leave Wudang entirely?”

“That is how it turned out.”

“Was that not something you should not have done?”

“It was something I should not have done.”

“I see.”

His mother closed her eyes. She seemed to find it harder to keep them open.

“After Hae-rin died, you cannot know how much we regretted sending you away. But how could we take back a child we had cast aside. We too have the dignity of parents.”

“I was not cast aside. I left.”

“No. We cast you aside.”

His mother let out a weak laugh. His father shook his head.

“Do not say such things. In any case, Hae-won has returned to us now.”

“That is so. That is what matters.”

His mother opened her eyes again with difficulty. A rough hand like spider silk traced across Jang Hae-won’s face.

“You have grown so much. Just like when you were little.”

“That cannot be. I am past forty myself.”

“You are already at that age? Time is truly fast. We too are past sixty.”

“Indeed. Time is terribly fast.”

Jang Hae-won bowed his head deeply. When he thought of lives stained by pain for sixty years, it was too sad.

They carried guilt, but Jang Hae-won had only good memories of the Wudang Sect.

He had met good Senior Brothers, Junior Brothers, Martial Uncles, and Junior Disciples, and had studied well. When he traveled on occasion, he received lavish treatment as a Wudang Daoist.

What clung to the floor like sediment was Jang Hae-won’s parents.

“Let us eat. Stop crying.”

His father patted Jang Hae-won’s back. His father went to set the table. Jang Hae-won tried to help, but was refused and told to hold his mother’s hand once more.

His mother barely raised herself and ate congee. The narrow room filled with human warmth at a table where three sat together for the first time in a long while.

“I am truly fortunate to have seen Hae-won before I die. Truly fortunate.”

His mother said so after the meal ended. Jang Hae-won knew as well. That little life remained to his mother.

“Hae-won.”

“Yes.”

“In our next life, if we are family again, let us never be parted. Absolutely.”

“Of course we must.”

And that night his mother departed first for the next life she herself had promised.

She cast off the painful shell of flesh and flew lightly up to heaven.

Not long after, his father also began to waste away.

His mother had held on to life because she wanted to see Jang Hae-won one last time before death, and his father had held on because of the resolve to care for his mother to the end.

So his father also passed within half a year.

Jang Hae-won burned the thatched house in Zhejiang where his parents were no more for the last time.

Before the thatched house with sparks flying, Jang Hae-won resolved to leave the Central Plains.