Chapter 1887 – Return of The Mount Hua Sect

Chapter 1887. You Can Do It. (7) ❀ ❀ ❀

“Ugh.…”

Baek Sang groaned as he collapsed on the ground.

“......Am I really still alive?”

“No, you’re dead.”

“Yeah, it feels that way.”

The blood soaking his back and cooling with a chill was deeply unpleasant, but at least he could be grateful that it wasn’t his own blood this time.

“Cough. Cough.”

Baek Sang spat out a dry cough. His mouth was parched, and every cough felt like his throat was tearing apart. It was almost as if every drop of moisture in his body had been wrung out and dried away.

“I barely managed to survive. Somehow….”

“I told you, you’re dead.”

“Just shut up, please…. I don’t even have the strength to be angry.”

How many times had he barely scraped past death? To say he was still breathing was nothing short of miraculous.

“....Nngh.”

Gwak Hoe, who had been bantering with Baek Sang, finally collapsed onto the ground as well. His hands were trembling uncontrollably. At this point, even if someone attacked, he had no strength left to counter. All he could do was stick his neck out and pray for a quick death.

Still sitting, Gwak Hoe scanned his surroundings.

The world that had once been earth-brown was now dyed a dark, bloody red. The ground itself bore witness to how brutal the fighting here had been.

Suddenly, Gwak Hoe shuddered. He realized anew that nothing was moving anymore.

“Really……”

The war had driven them mercilessly. Run until their breath was caught in their throats, until their hearts nearly burst, that was all there was.

That was why this silence felt all the more strange. To call it ‘peace’ was impossible, but one word surfaced clearly in his mind: the end.

“It’s over.”

Gwak Hoe flopped onto his back. Baek Sang, seeing that, clicked his tongue.

“You brat, no manners at all. Back in my day, if my sasuks was resting, I’d agonize thirty times over before daring to ask if I could even sit down. But those Cheong generation punks, I swear……”

“.....”

“Why aren’t you answering, you punk? Feeling a bit guilty, are you?”

“.....”

“Hey, you asleep?”

Baek Sang jerked his head over. Then he let out a hollow laugh.

Gwak Hoe had dozed off. No, more precisely, he had passed out in place.

“Really, no manners at all……”

Well, it wasn’t surprising. Their bodies had been pushed beyond their limits.

Even if those kids were now stronger than Baek Sang in martial skill, he had still rolled around Mount Hua longer, so of course his mental endurance was greater.

“Like I said… there’s no younger brother is ever as good as the elder b-…”

Before he could finish, drowsiness overtook him, and Baek Sang’s eyelids began to sink shut.

[tl note: the sentence literally tl-ed as “Overtaken by the sleep demon {suma, 수마 (睡魔)} that soon arrived, Baek Sang’s eyelids, too, began to droop.” ]

“...Ugh.”

It felt like his head was sinking deep into the earth.

Over the disciples of Mount Hua who had fallen into a slumber as deep as death, a heavy stillness, something like peace, settled for a brief moment.

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So heavy. His body weighed a thousand pounds.

But no matter how weary the flesh, it could not compare to the weight pressing on his heart.

Baek Cheon’s foot brushed against another corpse.

The corpse of a Red Dog.

And then… the corpse of one without even a name.

He still did not know what to call them. Even attaching the name ‘Diancang’ felt like a violation. Perhaps it was something the dead themselves would not have wanted.

Baek Cheon bent his knees slightly, closed the wide-open eyes of the fallen with his own hand, and let out a soft sigh.

At last, after walking across earth steeped in the stench of blood like lingering resentment, he arrived before a man barely clinging to life, his breath a hair away from stopping.

“....Sect Leader.”

At his call, the white-haired man slowly turned his head. But his eyes no longer held focus.

“Is that… you?”

“Yes, it’s me.”

“Ugh…. Cough.”

Each feeble cough spilled more blood.

Baek Cheon shut his eyes tight. Three blades pierced into the man’s body, his abdomen ripped open in a long horizontal gash. It was clear his allotted time left in this world was short.

The fury of Diancang could only be unleashed through the blood of the Red Dogs and the Evil Tyrant Alliance. So Baek Cheon did not want to call them reckless. In the end, it was because of them that this war had been won. That much was undeniable.

So he should be grateful. For their sacrifice, for their struggle.

But Baek Cheon could not bring himself to feel gratitude.

The price they had paid was too crushing, too bitter. What should one even call such sacrifice? Self-destruction? Self-mutilation?

Most of the corpses tangled among the Red Dog’s belonged to Diancang. Far too many. Suffocatingly many.

They had chosen to die nameless, not even wearing Diancang’s robes.

What words could one speak before such deaths? Was it fortunate, perhaps, that their faces in death did not seem so full of resentment?

“......Why did you do this?”

“.....”

“You didn’t have to do this.”

Jin Songwon looked at Baek Cheon with vacant eyes. Or perhaps, he wasn’t even looking at Baek Cheon, perhaps he was staring at something else entirely.

Maybe Diancang’s fate had been set in stone. Neither Jin Songwon nor Baek Cheon could have changed it.

But Jin Songwon’s own path could have been different. He didn’t have to fight the Red Dogs head-on. He could have swung his sword just enough, kept to the rear, played it safe.

But the wounds carved all over his body gave the answer. No, he could never have done that.

“Heh…..”

Jin Songwon bared his teeth in a twisted smile.

“Didn’t… need to do it....”

“Sect Leader.…”

“Then I suppose the only answer is…… that I wanted to.”

His face contorted. It looked as though he had tried to smile brightly, but his face could no longer form the shape of a smile.

“Listen.”

“....Yes, Sect Leader.”

“Sometimes…. living can be more frightening than dying.”

Baek Cheon’s eyes squeezed shut once more.

“When I heard that Jang Ilso was dead…. when I saw the Red Dogs falling one by one…. suddenly it struck me. What if I actually survived all this?”

Jin Songwon coughed up another mouthful of blood.

“....And then, all at once, I was terrified.”

“Sect Leader….”

“If I were to return alive to Diancang…. what was I supposed to do then?”

Baek Cheon answered without hesitation, as if it were obvious.

“You would raise the next generation, and restore Diancang’s name. You just need to rebuild what’s been torn down.”

Jin Songwon’s lips twisted faintly.

“....Like you all did?”

“Yes. Like Mount Hua. We also…… started again from nothing.”

Jin Songwon forced himself to nod ever so slightly.

Compared to Mount Hua, which had nearly been annihilated and lost its predecessors, perhaps Diancang’s situation was less dire.

“....Perhaps you could do that. But I…. I can’t. I’ve already committed too many sins.”

“....”

“No… maybe that’s just an excuse as well... The truth is, I was simply too weak a man to shoulder it all while living.”

Step.

Baek Cheon took a step toward Jin Songwon, knelt before him, and grasped his hand, already cold.

“You are not weak. At least as far as I have ever known, Sect Leader, you were the strongest man I’ve ever seen.”

Jin Songwon didn’t reply. He only gazed with hollow eyes at a sky he could no longer see. But through their clasped hands, he passed along a faint trace of strength.

“Deputy Sect Leader.”

“Yes, Sect Leader.”

“Help me up.”

Baek Cheon stiffened. Even that small act of raising his body upright could cost Jin Songwon what little time he had left. It might shorten his fleeting life even further.

But Baek Cheon obeyed, lifting his upper body. Because sometimes, there are things more important than simply continuing to live.

“Cough.”

Again, Jin Songwon spat out a flood of blood. And then, ever so slowly, he lowered himself onto his knees before Baek Cheon. His head began to bow.

Baek Cheon’s eyes widened like lanterns.

“S-Sect Leader! What are you….”

Thud.

Jin Songwon’s forehead touched the ground.

“I know full well that Diancang’s sins are grave. Deputy Sect Leader.”

Still pressing his forehead to the dirt, Jin Songwon continued.

There was no bitterness in his voice, no despair, only calm. And precisely because of that, it forced silence upon the listener.

“But… we who sinned have already paid with our lives. I know. I know that alone can’t atone for the sin, but...”

Jin Songwon pressed his head even lower to the ground.

“...the children who survived are not guilty, are they?”

“...Sect Leader.”

“Please, grant them forgiveness… so they may live a future without shame.”

Baek Cheon’s hand trembled faintly. He could not forgive Diancang. He had no authority to do so, nor any right. Not Baek Cheon, nor anyone else in the world, could presume to decide such a thing.

And yet Baek Cheon knew this too: Jin Songwon’s time was nearly gone. Which meant, at this moment, the only one who could grant Diancang forgiveness was Baek Cheon himself.

“Sect Leader…”

Baek Cheon opened his mouth, then bit his lips hard.

Was this the right thing?

As a disciple of Mount Hua, Baek Cheon carried deep resentment toward Diancang. But that was only as a disciple of Mount Hua.

From the perspective of the world, there would surely be those who could never forgive Diancang for what they had done. Could Baek Cheon forgive Diancang on their behalf? Did he have the right to judge whether the price Diancang had paid was enough to cleanse their sins?

Jin Songwon did not raise his head.

Perhaps this act was nothing more than a final plea for absolution. Perhaps it was only a small comfort against the harsh future that awaited Diancang without its Sect Leader.

Whether Baek Cheon forgave them or not, Diancang’s fate would not change much. Jin Songwon surely knew this as well.

Because he understood all this, Baek Cheon could not bring himself to turn away from the man bowing his head so helplessly before him.

“I am only the deputy sect leader of a single sect.”

Jin Songwon’s shoulders trembled faintly.

He was prepared to accept whatever answer Baek Cheon gave. And yet, he still shook, because Baek Cheon’s voice was so cold, so stripped of feeling, that it sent a chill through him.

“That is why I can’t forgive Diancang on behalf of the world.”

Jin Songwon still did not raise his head. He knew there was more to come.

“But as the deputy sect leader of Mount Hua... I will make you a promise.”

Baek Cheon looked straight at the bowed Jin Songwon.

He must not extend a hand. He must not smile warmly. These words could not be allowed to become tender consolation.

Stripping away all emotion, Baek Cheon spoke as both Mount Hua’s deputy sect leader and as a swordsman, as though making a vow.

“So long as the plum blossoms of Mount Hua do not wither within my chest, Mount Hua will not withhold its support from Diancang’s children.”

“.....”

“And I myself, in the name of Mount Hua, humbly and deeply apologize for the grave sin our sect once committed against your sect.”

With great effort, Jin Songwon slowly lifted his upper body.

There before him he saw Baek Cheon, bowing low with clasped fists.

Jin Songwon understood.

When circumstances are desperate, lowering one’s head is not so hard. As he himself had now, when he had nothing left to lose.

But to bow one’s head while holding power, knowing one is in the superior position, that is hard. All the harder if one still has excuses to hide behind.

Baek Cheon could have turned away. He could have ignored everything. He didn’t even need to do that much, he could have buried it all beneath silence. After all, Diancang’s name was bound to disappear now.

Yet Baek Cheon bowed his head toward Diancang and Jin Songwon, not when he was at his weakest, but only after regaining his strength and position.

“I give you my word, Sect Leader. At the very least…. Diancang’s children will never be ashamed to look up at the sky. I will make it so. Even if it costs me everything.”

Jin Songwon forced out a weary voice.

“Deputy Sect Leader.”

“Yes, Sect Leader.”

“A long time ago…. when the Demonic Cult marched on Mount Hua…. Diancang knew of it too.”

“....”

“But our predecessors turned away. They were too exhausted, too worn down. They no longer wanted to fight.”

Baek Cheon quietly nodded.

“You knew?”

“Yes.”

“And yet you still speak of forgiveness? When perhaps everything we face now is the price of that choice?”

Baek Cheon shook his head.

“If it were the past, I could not have forgiven.”

A short sigh escaped his lips.

“But now I can understand. Lacking strength is not a sin. There are things that cannot be accomplished by heart and conviction alone. That must be acknowledged. But it must never be regarded as honorable. That is what I have come to realize.”

Jin Songwon, eyes clouded and unfocused, gave a faint smile.

“Deputy Sect Leader.”

“Yes.”

“Please, take care of the children.”

“….Yes, Sect Leader.”

That was enough.

Over the sunlit earth, a gentle breeze blew. After the warmth of that wind brushed against his skin, Jin Songwon left behind a smile as soft as the breeze itself.

Baek Cheon gazed in silence at that smile, stilled forever, as though engraving it into his heart.

For a long time, he remained like that, staring at Jin Songwon’s lifeless body. Then, once again, he bowed deeply with clasped fists.

“May... may you rest in peace.”

His voice was calm and unwavering. But his shoulders, lifted toward the sky, trembled ever so slightly.

Next Chapter

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