I Will Go To Rescue Them (3)

Chung Myung, who opened his eyes, looks at his chest.

A stark white bandage was wrapped tight around his chest. Chung Myung, staring silently at the wound, slowly pushed himself up.

A sharp ache.

His face twisted at the intense chest pain. As if the barely healed wound had shifted and gaped again, red blood began to spread across the white bandage.

No sooner had he uttered a shallow breath than there was a loud bang and someone stormed into the room.

“Damn it! How many times is this now, you crazy man?”

“…”

“How many times do I have to tell you, if you wake up and something’s off, just lie still and rest! How many times! Are you a goldfish or what? Did you get hit so many times that your memory’s gone?”

Chung Myung turned his head to the person who had entered. The man’s handsome face was twisted with irritation. Watching that expression, Chung Myung spoke.

“…How long was I unconscious?”

“Three days, three days! This time I thought you were gone for good. Hell, that life of yours is stubborn as hell.”

“Three days…”

Chung Myung snorted a laugh in disbelief.

Usually he’d wake in a day at most, but three days, he must have had one foot in the afterlife.

Well, thinking about it, it made sense.

He hadn’t been fighting alone; facing the high priest while protecting the others was never easy. It was fortunate he had at least crawled back with his life.

“Alcohol.”

“…Has that man lost his mind? Do you even know what being a ‘patient’ means? Even three-year-olds in my village know; don’t they teach that in Shaanxi?”

“No more talk, bring the alcohol.”

“There’s nothing left to drink yourself to death with.”

“Bring it.”

“Ugh, damn!”

A man wearing the green robes that mark the Sichuan Tang Family stormed out. A moment later he returned with a white bottle and hurled it at Chung Myung, snapping angrily.

“Drink and die if you must!”

Thud.

Chung Myung snatched the bottle, opened it, and drank straight from it. The harsh spirit washed into his mouth and slightly quelled the metallic smell of blood rising from his gut.

Of course he knew, no amount of alcohol would make that smell vanish.

The blood smell wasn’t coming from the wound in the first place.

The drink only numbingly distracted him for a moment from the sickening, clinging smell that had soaked into him.

Removing the bottle from his lips, Chung Myung stared blankly at the ceiling. After a long silence he spoke.

“How many made it back?”

“…About forty.”

“How many died?”

“…”

“I asked how many died.”

“About twenty.”

Chung Myung nodded without a word.

It was absurd. Men who’d screamed and fought could reach safety and then drop dead. If you have the strength to swing a sword, you should have the strength to live.

Hearing that twenty of the forty he’d saved were dead left him hollow enough to laugh.

“What about the rest?”

“Now’s not the time to worry about them. You saved them, so they’ll manage. Whether arms are severed or tendons cut, at least they’re alive, what’s the problem?”

“…”

“Worry about yourself, worry about yourself. Or did some ghost from a past life who couldn’t fight latch on to you? How many times have I told you not to stake your life on those bastards?”

“…So much nagging.”

“At least fight while I’m there, didn’t I say that! How many times do you get stabbed in the back fighting those who can’t even guard one another? Taoist’s life is, it’s not dozens or hundreds…”

“Shut up. You’re loud.”

Tang Bo’s face contorted.

Chung Myung drank again. He winced at the burning down his throat, then gave a bitter smile.

“I’ve never gambled with my life.”

“…”

“It just happened while I was fighting.”

Tang Bo, staring at him with a fixed expression, sighed.

“You’ll actually die that way.”

“Is that such a big deal?”

Chung Myung’s gaze shifted to the window beside the bed. The world outside was impossibly blue, and impossibly desolate.

“Hundreds, thousands die each day, what difference would adding my life make?”

“So you’re trying to die sooner?”

Chung Myung looked at Tang Bo blankly. Tang Bo didn’t shrink back; instead he raised his voice angrily.

“Why risk your life for people you don’t even get along with! You always complain those damned bastards give you stomach-aches, what, are you two-faced?”

Chung Myung gave a small laugh at that; there was no real argument to give.

“Because blood rushes to my head.”

“…”

“That won’t happen anymore.”

“Yeah, right, sure.”

Tang Bo let out a long, sinking sigh.

Even after knowing him so long, he sometimes couldn’t understand this Taoist.

He wasn’t particularly virtuous, nor was he someone chasing lofty Taoist ideals.

Objectively, he was the kind of Taoist they wondered how on earth ever joined the sect.

So why did he always make those choices at crucial moments?

“Taoist.”

“What?”

“I’m not joking, you’ll actually die that way.”

“…”

“You know it, if even you go down, we can’t win this war. No matter how many others die, you have to stay alive somehow.”

“I know.”

“Hyung.”

“I said I know.”

Tang Bo, hesitating, looked steadily into Chung Myung’s eyes and said.

“Not all those in the Demonic Cult are the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not every Demonic Cult member you behead is the one who killed Mount Hua’s Taoists. And besides, killing them won’t bring the dead back…”

“Shut your mouth.”

In that moment Chung Myung’s gaze changed. In the chill of his eyes, Tang Bo could no longer press him.

Tang Bo sighed again, full of complaint.

“You should keep your mouth shut.”

He pulled a medicinal paste from his robe and tossed it at Chung Myung, who caught it reflexively.

“Apply it to the wound. I roughly stitched you up, so if you treat it with the paste it shouldn’t let it reopen. Don’t do anything foolish today, lie still.”

Tang Bo turned and started to leave, but abruptly stopped and, without looking back, said:

“Those, the men you rescued.”

“…What about them?”

“They wanted me to tell you they’re grateful.”

“…”

Thunk.

Tang Bo closed the door and left.

Lying back down, Chung Myung stared at the ceiling. As feeling slowly returned to his body, the nicks and bruises ached. But he was used to that pain now.

‘Has he lost his mind?’

Chung Myung laughed aloud.

Wasn’t that the most obvious thing to say?

In this crazy world, there’s no one left completely sane. Everyone is clutching at a half-lost mind.

• Killing them won’t bring the dead back…“

He knew. He knew, and that’s why he acted this way. The dead do not come back.

No matter the regret or struggle, those who die once never return.

He knew all too well how cruel that was.

❀ ❀ ❀

He felt as if he were sinking ever deeper. In that strange but familiar sensation, Chung Myung opened his eyes.

A dark ceiling, the smell of blood, the pain sweeping through his body, an intense déjà vu washed over him.

Pushing up his leaden eyelids, Chung Myung raised his head to look at his body.

A bandage was wrapped around his chest.

It was familiar yet unnerving, the body beneath the bandage looked smaller and frailer than the body he once knew.

Chung Myung’s gaze slowly turned to the side.

Someone slept propped against the unfamiliar cave wall.

The sleeper’s face shifted from one he recognized into a stranger’s.

Staring dazedly at Baek Cheon’s face, neatly resting even in sleep, Chung Myung lifted his gaze again.

‘…Right.’

He was no longer the Plum Blossom Sword Saint.

The Mount Hua he knew was gone.

He had won the war, but lost everything in return.

All he had tried to protect was gone, and all he hoped to leave behind had vanished.

What remained here was only…

Ssshk. Ssshk.

As he drifted back, a small breath reached his ear. Turning his head, he saw Yu Yiseol lying nearby and Tang Soso sleeping on the other side.

They looked as if they’d fallen asleep after exhausting themselves checking on him.

For a long time Chung Myung quietly stared at Tang Soso’s face, as if trying to find traces of the past there.

But it didn’t work.

Tang Bo’s face from his earlier dream felt distant. For some time now, the man’s features often failed to come clearly to his mind.

Sometimes brutally vivid, then fading in an instant, growing dull, bit by bit.

“You’re awake?”

No answer was really necessary; it wasn’t a question that required one.

What needed saying was no different than before.

“…How long has it been?”

“Not exactly sure, but probably about two days.”

“Two days…”

Better than three?

Chung Myung smiled and tried to sit up, but Baek Cheon pressed down hard on his forehead.

“Don’t let the barely-healed wound burst open, lie still and behave.”

“It’s healed.”

Clench.

Baek Cheon silently drew his sword. Chung Myung finally relaxed his neck. Baek Cheon might not be stronger than Tang Bo, but he had already proven himself to be even less sensible.

Keeping his head on the ground, Chung Myung rolled his eyes and spoke.

“What about the others?”

“Gul and Yiseol were badly hurt, but still they are better than you. Don’t worry about others, look after yourself.”

“Southern Island?”

“…You really don’t understand, do you?”

“I asked how the Southern Island is.”

At the persistent question, Baek Cheon sighed deeply.

“Half.”

“…The elders?”

“The same.”

That meant about half dead, counting those who never made it here and those who arrived only to die.

Judging by Baek Cheon’s expression, the real death toll was likely far above half, but either way it was grim.

If that was the cost of breaking through Guangdong, the Ten Thousand People Clan’s stronghold, then those losses weren’t a complete disaster. If anything, it could be called a success.

Of course, no one would put it that way.

Chung Myung pushed himself up again.

“I told you to lie down.”

“I’m really fine now.”

Chung Myung pushed Baek Cheon’s hand off his head and sat up. Baek Cheon tried to stop him but finally shook his head.

“I was the one who put the rear in your hands.”

At that unexpected remark, Chung Myung stared at Baek Cheon.

“So I know I don’t have the right to tell you this.”

“…What are you talking about all of a sudden?”

“But I have to ask, why push yourself that far?”

“…”

“You could have pulled back. Even if more people died because of that choice, no one would have blamed you. You know that, so why force it? Why?”

Baek Cheon’s lips trembled. He appeared calm, but clearly wasn’t.

Watching him, Chung Myung suddenly turned his head toward the still-unconscious Yu Yiseol.

“It wasn’t forcing things.”

“…What?”

“I just believed.”

• At least fight while I’m there, didn’t I say that!

“When I fall past my limits, I believed there would always be someone behind me, that’s all.”

Only now, finally, had there been people he could lean his back against.