Side Story 24. The Three Newcomers (1)

Cheongho, Baek Sang-ye, and Tsering.
Even putting it kindly, the three weren’t close.
Cheongho and Tsering had briefly been together on the side of the Three Pleasures Butchering Guild, but from the start, neither had really cared about the other.
Cheongho and Baek Sang-ye had fought a martial match.
Neither had ever met a rival of their own age before. Each was the first true equal the other had encountered.
But the match had never reached its end.
Because of that, the two now stood in a relationship filled with a strange tension.

And Tsering and Baek Sang-ye?
Tsering paid no attention to Baek Sang-ye, while Baek Sang-ye felt repulsed by Tsering’s beggar-like appearance.
Such was the awkward relationship among the three.
At the time, they had not even properly said goodbye.
Cheongho had left without a word, and Baek Sang-ye and Tsering had not exchanged so much as a single conversation.
‘People who I would never meet again.’
It was clear they had each thought of the others in about those terms.

And yet here, at Mount Heng in Hunan.
When they met again at Azure Forest, they couldn’t help but be surprised.
What was more, the three shared the same goal.
It was ‘to gain instruction at Azure Forest.’
In other words, they intended to join Azure Forest.

So-ryu, who was part of Baek Sang-ye’s group, had judged them this way.
‘Children who know very little of the world.’ That was what she said.
Did Azure Forest accept just anyone?
Azure Forest was a Taoist sect with a history even older than Wudang.
Such great sects did not take disciples lightly.
Was not ‘do not pass it on to the unworthy’ the very value of great sects.
A girl who looked like a beggar and a boy who traveled with a bandit would surely be turned away at the gate.
So-ryu, seasoned by long years in Murim, was sure of it.
But the result was not like that at all.

“Uo, oooh, uooo!”

Whatever he had heard, the Taoist Flower Disciple who listened to Cheongho’s whisper let out a strange noise.
He looked like someone of fair rank and standing, yet his reaction was extreme.

“Y-you, y-you really. A-are you that, that?”
Nod nod.

Cheongho only nodded.
It even looked insolent, but the Taoist Flower Disciple didn’t mind.
He looked Cheongho over from every angle and even nearly reached out to pat his hair before stopping himself.

“What a truly wondrous and astonishing thing. Go in! Even the Azure Forest Lord will be pleased.”
“Okay.”
“Okay, he says? Hahaha! This brat is just like Senior Brother Dam Hyun.”

Both So-ryu and Baek Sang-ye wore blank expressions.
Cheongho was the first to go in.

Next was Tsering.
Tsering no longer looked like a beggar.
But her innocent, worldly-ignorant air still showed plainly.

“Ah, you wish to enter the sect? Hm……”

Even the Taoist Flower Disciple looked doubtful.
Tsering looked a little uncertain and handed over a letter.
The Taoist Flower Disciple read it with little expectation.
Soon his expression began changing by the second.

“D-Divine Monk, and even the Dalai Lama.”

He asked Tsering as if seeking confirmation.

“Then you, no, miss, are the shared successor of those two?”
“Shared successor? What’s that?”
“It means whether you are their disciple.”
“I’m not their disciple.”
“Right? Well, yes, ha ha ha.”
“I did learn some martial arts from them, though.”
“What!”

The Dalai Lama and Divine Monk?
And their joint successor?
Those were not words anyone could simply hear and dismiss.
He had thought he caught a whiff of Shaolin in her martial arts, but never imagined names like those would come up.
So-ryu and Baek Sang-ye were startled yet again.

“Please go in, miss. The Azure Forest Lord and Azure Forest welcome you.”
“Thank youuu.”

Tsering was also accepted at once.
For some reason, Baek Sang-ye felt herself shrinking a little.
Now it was her turn.

“So, you are people of the Baek Clan.”
“My name is Baek Sang-ye.”

But what was there for her to feel inferior about?
Even her current status alone made her a member of the greatest family under heaven, and her true identity was none other than a princess of Great Ming.
Baek Sang-ye stood with a courteous yet confident bearing.

“I have heard about you. Please go in.”
“……Yes.”

Of course, there was no way the Taoist Flower Disciple before her knew she was a princess.
The only one who knew her true identity was none other than the Azure Forest Lord.
Baek Sang-ye entered Azure Forest with a somehow unconvinced expression.
That had been what happened just a short while ago.

The place where the three had gathered was the Martial Ancestor Hall.
And specifically the place where the statue of the former Azure Forest Lord stood.
On the memorial tablet was written the name Green Mountain Sword Immortal Im Gi-hak.

In that solemn space, the silence dragged on for a long time.
It was not the grandeur of the place or the weight of its history that made the atmosphere heavy.
It was simply a little awkward.

After quite some time, someone appeared.
The one who arrived with the sound of steady footsteps was a Taoist whose hair had begun to turn gray.
He was not, as sect leaders of great sects were often imagined, an old master with a long white beard.
He was someone who could still be called middle-aged.
He looked more suited to the title of scholar than martial artist.
In a way, he even seemed somewhat mild.

Who was this Taoist?

“Ah, you must have waited a long time. My apologies. My name is Yu Jeong-shin……”

The Taoist introduced himself in an easygoing tone.

“I am the Azure Forest Lord. It is good to meet you.”

He was the current Azure Forest Lord, the Azure Forest Immortal, Yu Jeong-shin.
He, who had once been the Library Master of the Five Flower Grand Library, had become the Forest Lord.
He had been the youngest of the Do generation.
Though he was excellent in both martial arts and the use of mystic arts, he had originally been in no position to become sect leader.
He had been young, and there had been many more distinguished Taoists at the time.
But Do Kang Jinin and Do Seon Jinin, who had been the strongest candidates for the next Forest Lord, had ascended in battle against the Evil Cult Leader.
And so, through the refusal and recommendation of the other Taoists, Yu Jeong-shin had directly become the head of Azure Forest.

He met Cheongho’s eyes.
Cheongho stared blankly at Yu Jeong-shin, and Yu Jeong-shin smiled faintly back.

“The three of you arrived at Azure Forest on the very same day and hour. It feels like the guidance of Heaven.”

Yu Jeong-shin had already known of their visit.

“I hope each of you will gain the instruction you seek here at Azure Forest. Well then, have you spoken with one another and grown a little closer?”

Yu Jeong-shin spoke as though he were the teacher of a village school.
Even to him, the three looked awkward with one another.
Children of this age, all with such strong wills, would not become close so easily.

‘Once they struggle together a little, they will open their hearts soon enough.’

Cheongho still did not understand human relationships well, and Tsering simply had no particular thoughts about them.
Baek Sang-ye, likely because of her status as royalty, possessed a certain pride and did not seem the type to open her heart easily.

While Yu Jeong-shin was assessing the three of them, they too were evaluating him.

In Tsering’s case.

‘He’s just an ordinary middle-aged man.’

Compared to Divine Monk or the Dalai Lama, Yu Jeong-shin looked extremely ordinary.
Baek Sang-ye’s impression was similar.

‘This man is Master Yi-gang’s own master?’

Yi-gang had taught County Princess Sang-ye as her tutor.
It had not been for very long, but with time, her respect for Yi-gang had only deepened.
By now, she regarded him as her teacher from the bottom of her heart.
And she knew that Azure Forest Lord Yu Jeong-shin was that very Yi-gang’s master.
She had inwardly expected something more, but his impression was more ordinary than she had thought.

Even so, Yu Jeong-shin was the Azure Forest Lord.
Baek Sang-ye listened with a composed face.
Here in the Martial Ancestor Hall, Yu Jeong-shin spoke about Azure Forest.
Its layout, which palace stood where, and all sorts of other details.
It would be hard to understand just from words, and besides, was this not the sort of thing he could simply have one of his subordinates explain.

“Ah, well, this sort of explanation can wait until later. Come, get up and follow me.”

Then Yu Jeong-shin said, looking slightly embarrassed.

“I thought it would be best if I showed you this myself.”

Telling them to follow, Yu Jeong-shin walked off at an easy pace.
The three followed him without any particular expectations.
Azure Forest was more ordinary than they had expected, and its head seemed even more ordinary.

That was how it felt, until Yu Jeong-shin led them to a place where White Cloud Peak could be seen.

“Look. That White Cloud Peak is the residence of the Azure Forest Lord, and the halls below it are Snowflake Hermit Palace and Scripture Pavilion.”

White Cloud Peak, and the Forest Lord himself lived there?
For a moment, Baek Sang-ye could not believe it.
White Cloud Peak, which must once have stood upright in solemn grandeur, now looked as though some evil dragon had gnawed at it from all sides.
It looked ready to collapse at any moment.

The state of Snowflake Hermit Palace and Scripture Pavilion was even worse.

“The halls…… they’re all broken.”

Tsering murmured that from beside her.

“Ha ha, on the day the Evil Cult came flooding in, all the old halls were destroyed.”

Below White Cloud Peak was little different from a ruin.
A little over five years ago, the Evil Cult had laid Azure Forest to waste.
They had heard of it, but seeing it in person was something else entirely.
Below them, the horror of that day still remained.
And all throughout those ruins stood hundreds of memorial tablets.

“They are your senior brothers.”

Yu Jeong-shin said calmly.
Azure Forest had not hidden the traces of the invasion. It had not buried them away, but preserved them there.

“And they are also your Martial Uncles, your Martial Grand-Uncles, and your Martial Ancestors.”

They had only gathered the bodies and cremated them, then left memorial tablets in their place.
Baek Sang-ye was shocked.
She too had believed she had not turned her eyes away from the darkness of the world, but nothing was like this place.

“Do you know that Azure Forest’s original name was the Guardian Gate?”
“……I did not.”
“Haha, Azure Forest was originally a sect created to protect people, and this present world, from the Evil Cult.”

That was why it had stood against the Evil Cult Leader, and the Emperor.
But after such threats had been removed, what then was the meaning of Azure Forest’s existence.

“It is the same even now. We seek to protect people and uphold the Dao.”

At that moment, there was not the slightest trace of ordinariness or softness in Yu Jeong-shin’s appearance.
Instead, one could glimpse the dignity of a man bearing the responsibility of leading a sect with thousands of years of history.
Seeing Yu Jeong-shin’s profile like that, Baek Sang-ye thought of her own father, the Emperor.

“All of you are, in a sense, disciples of that child Yi-gang. So you will become outer disciples of Azure Forest.”

If one was a disciple of Azure Forest, there were rules of the sect one had to uphold.

“You must not be wicked, and you must not forget the Dao……”

Even now, in this age of chaos, those rules remained unchanged.

“You must cultivate the strength to stand against the great evil that may appear at any time.”

Then Yu Jeong-shin smiled faintly.
In an instant, he became once more the face of a gentle scholar.

“I have called your Great Senior Brother. He will guide you.”

Great Senior Brother.
Among the current second-generation disciples of Azure Forest, there was only one person who could be called that.

“Forest Lord, I came when summoned.”
“Yes, these are the children.”

A striking swordsman stood there.
It was Son Hee-il.

“Good to meet you.”

Son Hee-il grinned.

“Take these children and show them around the grove.”
“Yes, Forest Lord. Follow me.”

Son Hee-il led away the three new disciples.
He looked to be in an exceptionally good mood.

“Hahaha, disciples of Martial Uncle Yi-gang. Time really does fly.”

Baek Sang-ye asked with interest.

“Did you know Master Yi-gang well?”
“Know him? Of course I did!”

Son Hee-il answered Baek Sang-ye’s question boldly.

“We spent a long time together. We even took the entrance test together back then.”

Son Hee-il’s expression grew a little complicated.

“We had several duels too. I never beat him even once, though……”

At first, he had thought Yi-gang was a fellow third-generation disciple, and the shock he felt when he learned Yi-gang was actually second generation had been immense.
Son Hee-il suddenly turned his head and looked at the three of them.

“But there is something I need to confirm.”

It was only a natural question to have.

“If all three of you are disciples of Martial Uncle Yi-gang, then which one of you is the senior?”

Senior and junior disciple.
Naturally, there would be such a distinction.

“What?”
“Uh……”
“……”

At that moment, the three newcomers also realized that question.

“The one who became his disciple first would be the senior, wouldn’t they.”

At that moment, Son Hee-il may as well have thrown a huge stone into a still lake.

The answers came at the same time.

“That’s obviously me.”
“I think it’s me.”
“It’s me.”

All three of them had different opinions.