Chapter 273: Chapter 273
It was a bright, clear day.
As usual, Cheol Sun-jik was killing time at a gambling den in town.
Those around him did not look kindly upon the second son of the Gang Chief of the Bamboo String Gang wandering the back alleys, but he did not care.
From the beginning, he had no intention of fighting his elder brother over the Bamboo String Gang. His goal was merely to enjoy the wealth and rights he had been given, gamble a little, and live comfortably.
Yet for some reason, that day was different.
His kind but simple elder brother came to the gambling den in person and brought Cheol Sun-jik home.
“What? Usually, no one says anything even if I do not attend.”
His gentle-natured brother also seemed frustrated, for he let out a sigh.
“Have you forgotten what day it is today?”
Cheol Sun-jik rolled his eyes.
What important matter could there possibly be…
“Ah! It was the day those Zhongnan bastards were coming, was it not?”
“You fool!”
His simple elder brother hurriedly looked around, worried that someone might have heard.
What did it matter if a few back-alley thugs heard?
Cheol Sun-jik sneered inwardly, though he did not let it show.
“You must never let such words slip out!”
“Good grief.”
Then he draped an arm over his brother’s shoulder.
Still, these timid and simple sides of him made it impossible to hate him.
“Fine! In exchange, once the event is over, you pay for the drinks, Brother.”
“Hah! You rascal! How long are you going to do nothing but eat, drink, and play?”
How long? Hm…
Cheol Sun-jik looked at his brother’s face, which showed not the slightest trace of competitiveness, and let out a soft laugh.
“I want to idle away my life in luxury for the rest of my life if possible. I will leave everything like the Bamboo String Gang to you, Brother.”
“Honestly…”
To Cheol Sun-jik, events like this and even Zhongnan itself were all equally dull.
It was an exchange event held once every five years because of the Founder’s connection as a former Lay Disciple of Zhongnan.
Considering that the Bamboo String Gang’s history was nearing three hundred years, he even wondered what meaning there was in being a Lay Disciple at this point.
Moreover, the Bamboo String Gang was one of the pillars of the Twelve Peak Citadels.
Considering that the goal of the Twelve Peak Citadels was to one day surpass the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Clans, he thought this reception disguised as an exchange gathering was nothing more than a ceremonial formality for appearances.
Even so, he endured the greetings, and he endured the event where they displayed one another’s martial arts and exchanged martial discourse.
He had no interest in it, but he thought he had still fulfilled the minimum responsibility required to enjoy the rights of the Bamboo String Gang’s second son.
And yet.
“They say you are the wastrel of the Bamboo String Gang.”
The martial duel, the final event of the exchange gathering.
The Zhongnan disciple who stood opposite him as his opponent.
At the sudden taunt he threw out, Cheol Sun-jik tilted his head.
“Hm… Was that the best insult you could manage?”
“What?”
“Words like imbecile or idiot would hurt more than wastrel.”
What an utterly What an attack with no bite.
“…Pretending to be relaxed, are you?”
“Still, they say you can know ten things from one. This is not pleasant.”
He was not wounded by the words of contempt themselves, but the other man’s attitude made Cheol Sun-jik frown.
He was, after all, a guest invited to the Bamboo String Gang.
For him to treat Cheol Sun-jik, who was practically one of the masters of the Bamboo String Gang, with such insolence meant that he was likely treating the other members of the household even worse.
It was fine for Cheol Sun-jik to be cursed by the people of the Bamboo String Gang because they were family.
But the thought that this man had behaved insolently toward that family made his chest turn cold.
“You are still a guest, so how about observing some manners?”
“Hmph. Let us see whether your skill is as good as your tongue.”
Perhaps that was why.
He had not intended to take it seriously, but suddenly, he did not want to lose.
Since he could not win through martial arts, he defeated the Zhongnan disciple using the ‘shifting of the center of gravity’ and ‘breaking of posture’ he had learned among back-alley thugs.
“Was that enough to prove my tongue?”
“…”
The Zhongnan disciple pressed his mouth shut.
And it was not only him. The surroundings were so quiet that not even breathing could be heard.
Cheol Sun-jik slowly looked around.
He had not expected cheers, but he thought there would at least be applause.
After all, thunderous applause had erupted every time a Zhongnan disciple defeated a Bamboo String Gang disciple.
But the lively atmosphere of the event had gone cold, as though rain had fallen.
“Gang Chief Cheol!”
With a stern roar like falling frost, the elders of Zhongnan stopped the event.
“How could one rooted in Zhongnan ambush his opponent with such base trickery?”
Cheol Sun-jik sneered.
At the boundary between life and death, what distinction was there between cowardice and the proper path?
He had never seen a man who closed his eyes because an enemy threw dust at him, then complained of injustice after he died.
In the back alleys, masters who strutted about with their necks stiff would often become Lonely Ghosts because of such tricks from thugs.
Just as he thought, Do people become that stupid when they live in an immortal realm divorced from reality?
“…!”
Cheol Sun-jik’s eyes widened at the scene unfolding before him.
“I-I apologize.”
“““We apologize.”””
Cheol Sun-jik’s father, his uncles, and all the adults of the Bamboo String Gang knelt at a single word from the elder.
“Hm.”
The Zhongnan elder accepted the sight as if it were only natural, and the people of the Bamboo String Gang, who had once carried themselves with lofty pride as a pillar of the Twelve Peak Citadels, acted as though fulfilling their duty.
As Cheol Sun-jik stared ahead in hollow disbelief, a dry voice fell over his head.
“Why are you not kneeling?”
The moment the elder’s words fell, Cheol Hyeon-jik rushed over and tried to force his younger brother’s body down.
“Hurry and bow… I apologize! I apologize…!”
But Cheol Sun-jik stood upright and endured the pressure as he murmured, “Do Zhongnan’s enemies always observe etiquette and rules when they attack?”
“What did you say?”
His lips twisted, and a sneer escaped him.
“I asked whether even the madmen of the Black Path come to their senses and show courtesy when they stand before Zhongnan.”
“Hah! Tsk, tsk. You still have not come to your senses!”
A gaze filled with contempt, as though looking down at a worthless insect.
The elder turned his eyes toward the Gang Chief of the Bamboo String Gang as though he could not even be bothered to deal with Cheol Sun-jik, then pressed him.
“Gang Chief Cheol, what will you do?”
Cheol Sun-jik also shifted his gaze to his father.
His father, who had always been the reliable pillar of the Bamboo String Gang.
But what entered his eyes was…
“I apologize.”
“…!”
A wooden pillar cut down helplessly by an axe.
The sight of his father bowing his head deeply to the ground in apology.
“F-Father…”
“I deeply apologize to the Elder.”
His father’s voice, always so dignified toward himself and others, was more subdued than Cheol Sun-jik had ever heard it.
“It is my fault for failing to teach my child properly.”
The Zhongnan Sect elder, looking down at the Gang Chief with his head pressed to the floor, leisurely stroked his long beard.
“Humans only reflect on their wrongdoing once they pay the price for it.”
“I will personally send him to the Prison…”
“How can one who cannot even properly teach his own child lead an entire sect?”
“…”
Words that Cheol Sun-jik could not possibly understand went back and forth.
“…”
His father, who had kept his head lowered in silence for a long while, eventually uttered something shocking.
“As of today, I will step down from the position of Gang Chief of the Bamboo String Gang.”
The members of the Bamboo String Gang barely managed to cover their mouths, but sighs leaked out here and there.
His father was volunteering to accept an absurd punishment for an absurd reason.
“I will tell the Main Mountain so.”
And the Zhongnan elder considered it only natural.
Only then did Cheol Sun-jik understand.
“Ha…!”
Even after three hundred years, Zhongnan’s shackles had not been broken.
Even the very existence of the Twelve Peak Citadels, which opposed the Nine Sects and One Gang and the Five Great Clans, had been possible only because Zhongnan had permitted it.
Until now, and from now on as well.
No matter how desperately the Bamboo String Gang struggles, it will never escape being Zhongnan’s maidservant.
The Zhongnan elder seemed to be saying exactly that with his contemptuous gaze.
As though showing mercy, the Zhongnan Sect elder helped the Gang Chief stand.
“For the next generation’s Gang Chief, choose someone who will not bring disgrace upon our Zhongnan’s name.”
“…Th-thank you.”
This was a situation where cursing and pointing fingers would still not have been enough, and yet he was thanking him instead.
Because he had no power, he could not even reveal his own feelings honestly.
At the same time, it showed just how much the Bamboo String Gang had been dragged around like a dog by Zhongnan all this time.
If another sect decided the major and minor affairs of an independent sect, then it meant that sect was not truly independent at all.
The fantasy of the strong and proud sect that had always existed deep in Cheol Sun-jik’s heart shattered into pieces.
“Father…”
“…Quiet. Be quiet.”
His father’s back, once as broad and reliable as Mount Tai, looked terribly small while he lay prostrate on the ground.
His thick, masculine voice sounded pitifully servile that day.
Without taking his eyes off his father’s lonely back, Cheol Sun-jik clenched both fists tightly.
It was a bright, clear day.
So clear that even Cheol Sun-jik, who did not like walks, had thought he wanted to go for one.
On that bright, clear day, Cheol Sun-jik swore that he would bring down the heavens without fail.
Why had the past suddenly come to mind?
No, from the beginning, it had not come to mind.
He had never forgotten it even once.
He had merely repeated it to himself.
So that he would not flee before the terrifying enemy in front of him.
“Jin So-un!!!”
He had resolved himself that day.
No matter how much blood he had to shed, no matter what became of the world, he would bring down the heavens without fail.
If he had to grind away the life he valued more than anything else, he would do it. If that was not enough, he would grind away his child’s life. If even that was not enough, he would grind away the lives of that child’s descendants as well.
No matter the price, he had sworn again and again to bring down the heavens that had ruled the world for five hundred years.
Because he could not live as a slave like this.
So he could not trip and fall over a mere pebble in the road.
Even if that pebble was threatening enough to tear open his heart and crush his head.
No, because it was threatening, he thought it had to be removed.
Because that pebble must not become the heavens.
Cheol Sun-jik clenched his teeth at the Red Army gradually drawing closer.
At this rate, his prediction would be wrong again.
Jin So-un would overcome yet another trial that Cheol Sun-jik had thought he would never be able to overcome.
“It is you again, Jin So-un! You again…!”
How could a human being’s growth be so fast?
It was not as though he had been born with outstanding aptitude like Yong So-ah.
‘And yet why…!’
Why was there such a vast gap between Jin So-un and himself, when they both possessed the same ordinary aptitude?
Was it truly the difference in effort?
He could not accept that.
That was why he moved personally.
To make certain that the predetermined events he had created would come to pass.
“You have come this far and no farther, Jin So-un!”
He leaped forward faster than anyone else in the White Army.
The Red Army members blocked him while prepared to be eliminated, but Cheol Sun-jik swung his sword even more violently instead.
SLASH—
THUD!
He pulled an opponent by the collar, broke their balance, and drove his sword hilt into their temple.
The Red Army members widened their eyes in surprise at that single move.
Having lost his usual cold composure, Cheol Sun-jik shouted, “Did you think only you had trained with your internal energy sealed?”
Even before he learned martial arts—no, even after he learned martial arts—he had never used internal energy while fighting back-alley thugs.
Because that would have been too boring.
There would be less intensity and no urgency.
The emotion called excitement burst out most strongly in the moment one felt that one’s life was in danger.
And the thrill of overcoming that threat gave an immense satisfaction that could not be compared to anything else.
That was why Cheol Sun-jik was more skilled in close-quarters combat and hand-to-hand fighting than anyone else in the White Army.
As though he knew perfectly what he had to do, he grabbed dirt and sand from the ground without the slightest hesitation and scattered it into his opponent’s eyes.
“Aagh!”
It was the technique back-alley thugs used most often.
While Jin So-un’s unit members rubbed their eyes from the unexpected surprise attack, he struck their solar plexuses and the backs of their necks, knocking them unconscious.
“Guek.”
He stepped on the fallen academy student and sprang forward. Then the others charged at him one after another like wild beasts.
The best way to subdue those who seemed to have lost their reason to excitement was to appear even more excited than they were.
An excitement so threatening that even reason devoured by rage would send a warning.
Cheol Sun-jik entrusted his entire body to that excitement.
The Red Army members also shouted in a fit of spite.
“Stop him!”
Those who had learned fist-and-kick arts rushed at Cheol Sun-jik at the same time.
Cheol Sun-jik’s gaze fixed on the largest among them.
“Nam Hwa-seong!”
The moment Nam Hwa-seong’s hand hesitated at the name chewed out through his teeth, the sword sheath flew from Cheol Sun-jik’s hand and blocked Nam Hwa-seong’s vision.
Then a cold voice flew at him.
“If you are going to betray someone, you should do it properly. If you consider someone your enemy, you must have no mercy.”
“…!”
THUD THUD THUD THUD!
Nam Hwa-seong could not easily respond to Cheol Sun-jik’s swordsmanship as it shot out toward his Vital Acupoints.
He had already exhausted his stamina in the previous battle and while climbing White Mountain, so he could not retreat and face Cheol Sun-jik properly.
Cheol Sun-jik knew Nam Hwa-seong better than anyone.
He drove another dagger into Nam Hwa-seong’s chest.
“With such shallow resolve, the future of the Three Origins Sect is obvious as well.”
“Damn it… Do not say that bullshit!”
The moment the provoked Nam Hwa-seong lowered his guard and tried to respond,
a lightning-fast kick shot out and struck his throat.
“Kuh, kuh, kuhk!”
It was the weakest of all weak points, one that could not be trained no matter how much one cultivated.
Every sensation in his body felt the danger, and Nam Hwa-seong instinctively gathered both hands to protect his throat.
Watching that, Cheol Sun-jik lightly kicked off the ground and rose.
“Behold. Even the fist-and-kick arts that are the Three Origins Sect’s main martial arts cannot match the Bamboo String Gang.”
Cheol Sun-jik spun his body once and struck Nam Hwa-seong’s temple with his elbow.
THWACK—
That massive body’s eyes rolled back from a single blow, and he fell backward.
As Nam Hwa-seong collapsed, the assault unit faltered for a moment.
In that gap, Cheol Sun-jik’s company surged in with renewed courage and began knocking down the Red Army.
“Push them! Push them back!”
“They are raising their sword edges on purpose! Respond in kind!”
“They are exhausted from climbing all the way up here anyway! Do not miss this chance!”
The momentum of the Red Army, which had been surging forward like a blazing war chariot, broke sharply.
The best strategy the Red Army could take now was likely to maintain a brief lull and wait for reinforcements to arrive.
But Cheol Sun-jik erased that thought.
Jin So-un would not wait quietly.
He would once again surpass common sense and make the impossible possible.
Sure enough.
“Let us go!”
“Let us go!”
During the brief lull, Jin So-un gathered his people again, arranged them once more in the shape of a spearhead, and began stabbing into the White Army formation.
“Jin So-un…”
A mere pebble?
No.
He was a Mount Tai larger than Yong So-ah.
Mount Tai blocking the space between them, preventing Cheol Sun-jik from daring to ascend to the heavens.
But if he could not cross Mount Tai, he could not bring down the heavens.
How could one who could not even bring down Mount Tai bring down the heavens?
The sight of his father’s small back, lying flat before the heavens that day, vividly rose before his eyes.
“Jin So-un… I hate you.”
It was a small voice that should have been buried beneath the shouts and screams from every direction, yet Jin So-un stared at him as though he had heard it.
He moved his lips as though answering.
Cheol Sun-jik could not hear the sound, but for some reason, he felt he knew what he was saying.
[The same goes for me.]
Cheol Sun-jik vomited out the emotions he had not once been honest about since the day of humiliation.
“Jin So-un, I resent you. Because I cannot take my eyes off you.”
The resentment and rage that had been piling up layer upon layer poured out all at once, as though a bar had been lifted.
[Cheol Sun-jik, I oppose you. Because I cannot take my eyes off you.]
He struggled endlessly so that his resolve would not break.
“I curse you. Because we cannot look toward the same place.”
He struggled desperately so that the mountain would not swallow him.
[I despise you. Because we desire the same thing.]
He charged forward, even knowing that a single sword could not stand against Mount Tai.
Because this sword would one day have to bring down the heavens.
“Jin So-un!!!”
“Cheol Sun-jik!!!”
Breaking through the countless crowd, Cheol Sun-jik ran straight toward Jin So-un.