The Sin Of A Man Of Resolve (5)

Jin-hyeon’s eyes glinted.

“Ho.”

Mun Jung seemed startled by his own words. His eyes wavered, and the expression he had hidden so well turned a little awkward.

But only for a moment.

The awkwardness soon settled, and his wavering eyes steadied. In that brief span, he mastered his heart.

‘As expected, he’s no ordinary man.’

This time even Jin-hyeon couldn’t help admiring Mun Jung.

Everyone makes mistakes. What mattered was what came after.

Mun Jung faltered for an instant and let slip what he shouldn’t have. Yet immediately after, he reined himself in. That alone marked him as uncommon.

And.

‘Dangerous.’

This meeting had grown more perilous than expected.

‘If he risks his life to speak a secret, I must stake mine as well.’

Whatever the case, this was the flow Jin-hyeon wanted. So his face remained untroubled.

“What about you? Do you wish to change Sichuan, change the world?”

“My goal is not as grand as yours. I want peace for my household.”

“Speaking of cultivating the self and ordering the household?”

“Sichuan is my house.”

“?!”

“I won’t watch leeches bleed and hobble those living peacefully in my house.”

The calm in Mun Jung’s face twisted.

“Sichuan is your house?”

“Is your home not in Sichuan?”

“Uh… my home is in Sichuan, yes, but.”

“For those who live here, Sichuan is simply home. Views may differ, but if Sichuan is your base, you can’t let those bastards run rampant.”

“…”

“It isn’t mere fastidiousness. Such men always cause trouble, trouble that becomes mine.”

“Yours?”

“As my ties widen and my people grow, those problems harm them too. Naturally, what harms my people is my problem.”

“!”

“In the end, I begin with myself, I just need to do what I can within my lot. That’s my ‘cultivate-and-order.’”

Mun Jung’s eyes shook.

But his voice was firm.

“Do you want to rule Sichuan?”

“I see a problem in that very framing.”

“What?”

“Ruling isn’t my forte. If you ask if I’d be the best, I’d like to. But why does ‘doing my part for Sichuan’, refusing to sit on my hands while problems come for me and mine, equate to ruling Sichuan?”

“!!”

““I understand why you think like that. If you’ve spent years in factional strife among men like that, your thinking is bound to follow the same pattern. Many do warp from their original intent.”

Mun Jung’s fist tightened.

Warping from the original intent. The words sounded as if they were meant for him.

And it was true. His chest ached at Jin-hyeon’s words.

“I have no conceit to purify all of Sichuan. That is impossible. It is beyond my abilities. But I will do what I can.”

“…”

“It starts with the dismantling of the Eight Martial Houses.”

“Dismantling the Eight Martial Houses…”

“Of the Eight I’ve seen, only the White Sword Seol Clan is normal. At least so far. When crooked sects play gentry, poisons like Mighty Tiger sprout. The innocent suffer; trust sinks.”

“…”

“Tell me. Could you live at ease in a home where your children and kin betray and wreck one another?”

“…I could not.”

“Then change it. Clean it. If you can, choose, even if it hardens you. If you value life, do it cautiously, if not, do it fiercely. Fix this damned house.”

“…”

“Wearing the Sichuan Branch Leader’s mantle, you should have done so more than anyone.”

Quiet yet searing, Jin-hyeon’s words reached Mun Jung like a scolding, and like a poem.

In my house, I do what I can.

If I ignore what I can do, the debt returns to me and my people.

Jin-hyeon’s words were simple yet ideal, rational yet seemingly impossible.

Yet Jin-hyeon moved. For himself, for his ground, for his people. He toppled one top Sichuan sect after another.

‘Sichuan Branch Leader…’

His vague self-loathing took shape.

For the first time, his post felt ill-fitting. And he felt unspeakable disgust at only now feeling it so.

‘Have I grown that weary?’

No, not that.

‘I must not comfort myself with “weary.” I have simply…’

Watching him close his eyes, Jin-hyeon spoke again.

“You do not reek.”

“…”

“Your garments, your office, they stink. But your body does not. Not yet.”

“Is that so?”

“What have you done to change Sichuan, to change the world?”

“I hid.”

“?”

He opened his eyes; his face looked oddly tired.

“I hid from weariness. But that was a coward’s excuse. I was not weary. I was disappointed that this land would not change to my will.”

“…”

“That is my sin.”

“Do you know it is a sin?”

“I looked away. Now I know.”

Watching him, Jin-hyeon turned and drank his tea. It was cooled and flat, but the coolness wasn’t bad.

Mun Jung grimaced, then sighed deeply.

“When I first heard rumors of you, do you know what I thought?”

“I don’t.”

“That another young fool would swagger and vanish without a trace.”

“…”

“When I heard you led the murder case’s resolution, I still scoffed. A rootless man straining to raise his name, I thought.”

“Yeah?”

“Else, that the Seol Clan Patriarch somehow found you. His chivalry is known, but I did not believe even that.”

Rather than call him twisted beyond saving, Jin-hyeon offered comfort.

“Because that’s all you’d seen.”

“Perhaps. Perhaps mere inferiority.”

He tried to hold back, but couldn’t.

“Utterly twisted.”

“Properly twisted. Even now.”

“Must be nice, all knotted up.”

“Yet I grew interested in you. I investigated, and what did I find? Information suggesting you killed the Black Tiger’s Wi Chang-gun and sparked internal rupture.”

“Where did you get that?”

“Deductions from circumstances. I questioned everyone. Those who saw you, Wi Chang-gun, Wi Gyo-hwa, and more.”

Jin-hyeon’s eyes flashed.

‘Clever.’

Easier said than done; without deducing the chains and ordering inquiries, one wouldn’t know.

That alone showed Mun Jung’s caliber. A fangless tiger still kept claws.

“It was then when I realized. This guy was not ordinary. He was better and more dangerous than I’d vaguely thought.”

“…”

“And so we drifted here. I have been watching you since I heard rumor that you’d come to the Radiant Sword Festival. Though only lightly, lest I be noticed.”

“I see.”

No matter how powerful the Sichuan Branch Leader was, it was hard for him to see everything that happened in Sichuan clearly. But once he started digging into what he wanted to know, he could learn it as fast as the Black Society, perhaps even faster.

Therefore he could infer that Jin-hyeon was behind the disappearance of the Abundant Prosperity Guild, Divine Spear House, and Black Bamboo Fort forces.

“So, to you, what kind of man am I now?”

“I don’t know.”

Mun Jung answered honestly.

“I don’t know if you’re sly enough to fool me, or if you truly acted for Sichuan.”

“To be precise, it was for me, not Sichuan. Let’s keep that straight.”

This was it.

Such lines dispelled doubt. To Mun Jung, this wasn’t an act.

Gazing at him, Mun Jung turned to an old tree.

“Will you keep this up?”

“I don’t know what you’re imagining, but yes. I intend to keep doing this.”

“Do you plan to remove all of the Eight Martial Houses but the Seol Clan?”

“Those better gone should be gone.”

“The Black Tiger Fist Sect reeks no less than Red Sword or the Divine Spear House. Why leave it be?”

“My investment hasn’t been recouped.”

“…”

“It has uses. If it improves along the way, all the better.”

“You really do whatever you want.”

“I told you. I do what I can, within my capabilities. And in the process, I don’t care who curses me or whispers behind my back. I’ll move the way I move.”

Mun Jung sighed again.

“I don’t know if I can trust you.”

“Why would you trust me?”

“What?”

“If you trust me, then what? Do something?”

“That…”

“Don’t be absurd. Weary or disgusted, you failed to wield your mandate and made many miserable. Without even deciding how to pay that debt, you talk of whom to trust?”

“!!”

“It seems that you’ve still yet to have come to your senses. Put your own house in order before judging others. With dead eyes like that, even paradise is hell.”

Jin-hyeon rose.

“I know you despaired trying to act for Sichuan. But that doesn’t wash away your sins. If you want to be a man of resolve in this age, you should start by sorting out what responsibility you’ll take, and how you intend to live from here on.”

“…”

“Remember. You don’t choose me. For my house, I use you. As you are, you’re not worth a shared drink, let alone be used.”

Jin-hyeon turned.

“Bring those dead eyes back to life. Then I’ll use you.”

“…”

“Come empty-handed and I’ll throw you out. So bring me something worth carrying.”

And he left the pavilion.

Watching him with troubled eyes, Mun Jung spoke.

“There is one thing I didn’t tell you.”

“I know.”

“What?”

“I know. He can’t hide his expressions.”

“…You knew yet pretended not to?”

“I didn’t know it was you. Now I do.”

Mun Jung laughed hollowly.

“I thought it was I who was watching you, but it turns out that I was dancing in the palm of your hand.”

Jin-hyeon snorted and left the mountain without a word.

After a long gaze down the trail, Mun Jung smiled bitterly and murmured:

“I already know how to take responsibility.”

He drained the tea, stood, and looked at the sky through the branches.

“Service or death… I don’t know which path is better.”