Dual chapters 336 &337

Chapter 336: I Am Not Qualified To Argue For Forgiveness For You, But (1)

Wei Lishan continued to glance back. After a little hesitation, he cautiously spoke to the sect leader who was next to him,

That Sect Leader.

Um? asked Hyun Jong, making eye contact with Wei Lishan.

Yes?

to get to Huayoung Gate, we will have to take a different path from here.

Huhu. Right, right.

At that, Hyun Jong quietly nodded his head.

But, leader Wei.

Yes! Sect Leader!

On this occasion, it isnt too bad to show the disciples Mount Hua, right?

Of course. That will be something my disciple looks forward to. But, if we follow you from here, for no reason the sect will have to waste money

Do not worry about that.

Hyun Jong smiled and was about to continue when someone interrupted from behind,

Leader Wei speaks as if what he earned in Shaolin was less? Do not worry about that.

It was Hyun Young.

Hyun Jongs face became twisted.

He could have said something nice. Why did he have to open his mouth and only speak about money?

No, actually, even in the past, money was the only thing he spoke of. In the past, he would complain about not having money, and these days, the only difference was he applauded people for making money.

But

Um?

Where did the other disciples go? It seems like I couldnt catch them since morning.

Hyun Jong smiled and said,

They went to do what they had to do.

The expression on his face looked heavy, so Wei Lishan didnt ask more.

More than that

Hyun Jong glanced behind them,

The road from here is a little rough, so we will have to take care of the carts. If he comes back and notices that there is a problem with the cart or the money has changed, he will make a mess of everyone.

Wei Lishan, who paused for a second, trembled as he said,

Dont worry, Sect Leader. I will make sure not a single coin is missing.

Thank you.

After that conversation, Hyun Jong looked up at the sky.

At that time, Hyun Sang, who was listening to them, said,

Sect Leader.

what is it?

It is fine to send Yu Yiseol, but why did we have to send the other kids?

To his question, Hyun Jong responded,

Because they need to see it.

In order to be truly supportive of one another, we need to understand each other. One day the children will lead Mount Hua, so I hope they understand the pain she is in.

Hyun Sang nodded quietly.

Yu Yiseol

Hyun Jong quietly closed his eyes and thought.

Where are we going?

Baek Cheon frowned slightly and looked at Yu Yiseol, who was running ahead. They started early, but the sun was now setting over Mount Seo.

Still, Yu Yiseols feet seemed unwilling to stop.

Mountain.

All she could see was the mountain in front of her and the others that were with her.

Baek Cheon once again felt that he knew nothing about Yu Yiseol.

Tang Soso was the daughter of the Tang Family, Jo Gul was the son of a merchant in Sichuan, Yoon Jong was an orphan that an elder of Mount Hua picked up, and Chung Myung

A beggar. That bastard.

However, he knew very little about Yu Yiseol.

Yu Yiseol was a person who never talked about herself. It wasnt until Chung Myung came that her words increased, and normally in the past, she wouldnt speak more than three words a month.

They all thought she was being too honest about the path of Tao and didnt care, but as he followed her now, he was curious again.

And the past of Chung Myung

why is it so far!

Calm down! Chung Myung!

Dont say that.

Sasuk! This bastard wont get off my back! What do I do with him?

No.

Actually, I am not curious about his past cause I am sure to explode in anger if I know.

It was only when the sun went down that Yu Yiseol stopped running.

She stood at the beginning of another large mountain that looked steep and looked back.

Here.

do we need to go up?

Instead of answering, she just nodded, and Baek Cheon said,

Then we go up.

At that moment, Chung Myung asked,

What is this running all day and now climbing up? The day has ended.

You didnt even run, you idiot!

When Jo Gul yelled, Chung Myung lowered his gaze,

Sahyung, sahyung.

Uh?

I am doing this to give you some training as I think your lower body is weak, but if you keep speaking like this, I will bring up a huge rock.

I will take you to the top of this mountain in a very cozy manner.

Tch.

Yu Yiseol glanced at Chung Myung and began to climb.

All the rest followed her. Tang Soso, who followed, approached her and asked,

Sago, did you climb it a lot?

Not so much.

At the small answer, Tang Soso nodded and looked into the eyes of Yu Yiseol.

Others may not notice the difference, but Tang Soso was clear that her face was turning stiff.

She doesnt exactly seem to be in a bad mood.

It was like too many emotions at the same time.

Happiness. Longing. Pain. Sadness.

It was the first time she saw so many emotions on Yu Yiseols face.

What is up there which is shaking her so much?

This was Yu Yiseol, who always had a calm heart, and she wouldnt budge at the most disgusting things Chung Myung would ever do.

Her curiosity only kept growing.

As if to solve her question, Yu Yiseol gradually slowed down.

She slowed down and began to move briskly but then slowed to a walk. And those who followed her mimicked her pace.

Step step.

The trees were decreasing, and soon the forest disappeared.

Eventually, the sight which greeted the disciples was a wide space with nothing special.

samae?

Despite Baek Cheon calling for her, she didnt answer. Instead, her eyes were fixed on a spot as she walked over.

Baek Cheon was calling for her, wondering, but she didnt listen.

Samae, this place

Sasuk, wait.

But a low voice came from behind him.

That

Um?

Yoon Jongs voice made Baek Cheon narrow his eyes.

And

Ah

He went silent.

Where Yu Yiseol was heading was something that was raised like a mound. It was of low height, so one wouldnt immediately notice

That was a grave.

A small tomb was built in the middle.

The moment they saw it, they knew why she was there.

Sr.

This time the steps of Yu Yiseol touching the grass were clearly heard by all. The sound of the grasshopper shouting.

The wind moved past them.

No one opened their mouths.

After arriving near the tomb, Yu Yiseol looked down at it and said,

I am back.

Her eyes closed,

father.

A bonfire was burning in front of a falling hut.

Those who maintained the hut quite far from the tombs unpacked their things.

Ugh, so cold.

Chung Myung said as he sat close to the fire and glanced at the hut, which looked like it would fall.

How long had this place been neglected?

Five years? No, not that young

I think its been at least ten years.

There were traces of some small repairs, but it was clear no person had lived here sooner than ten years ago.

In other words, people lived here ten years back.

Quite strange.

Living in the middle of this mountain wasnt as easy as one thinks. In particular, this place was not suitable for human habitation. It was a place to hide for sinners who pushed themselves for something or those who did not want to run into people.

Chung Myung looked at Yu Yiseol. She must have lived here.

Perhaps the owner of that tomb.

The sound of the fire was the only thing that continued as no one dared speak.

When the atmosphere turned like this, all the disciples except Yu Yiseol looked at Baek Cheon.

what?

Ask her fast!

As their eyes talked, Baek Cheon took a deep breath and asked,

Samae.

Yes.

That grave there?

my father.

Ah, right. Um.

Baek Cheon

Enough!

When he glanced back at the disciples, they only shook their heads.

You damned things!

What good would asking such things do, you!?

Baek Cheon once again hesitated and asked,

Then samae and your father lived here before?

Yes.

Short answer as always, and he closed his eyes tightly. He couldnt stand this anymore as he was curious too.

This place doesnt seem like only one group lived here. How did you happen to come here?

Yu Yiseol shook her head and stared at Baek Cheon, who felt a bit perplexed.

Ah, no. If you dont want to answer, you dont have it. It doesnt matter now anyway.

As soon as his words were finished, Yu Yiseol got up, making him flinch.

No, samae, I didnt mean

But when she entered the hut, she began to dig in one corner.

Uh?

She quickly dug something with her hands and pulled it out.

A half-rotten chest of wood.

She took it out very carefully and put it in front of the disciple of Mount Hua,

This

When everyone looked at it, she opened it.

A chest filled with books.

Books?

Martial arts?

But none of the books seemed to have a title.

Soon, Yu Yiseol started to take out all the books.

And her hands put down a dozen of them and stopped. And she reached into the chest again

Two papers came up.

One of them was almost shredded.

Chung Myung narrowed his eyes.

There was a black smudge in the middle of it, and he knew that was the trace of dried blood.

And another

Samae that?

A half-burnt book.

No, it was more of a piece of paper than a book; It didnt look like a proper book at all.

Only the front side was a few letters, and the title of it was blurred.

Twenty-Four and Plum and Technique.

Maybe not in the past, but now they could guess what this was

Twenty-Four Movement Plum Blossom Sword technique.

Everyone was shocked

The technique which their sect was searching for so desperately was here. Of course, it was more burnt than usable and could no longer be called a martial arts book

She looked at the book and put it on the ground

Then she sat down and looked at the fire and opened her mouth

My father

Her voice, which flowed slowly, was quieter than usual.

My father was a disciple of Mount Hua.

Yoon Jong gulped

It felt like Yu Yiseols voice felt sad.

The disciple of Mount Hua who ran away. A person who didnt want to live as the disciple of Mount Hua so he left the sect behind.

And still

She closed her eyes.

was a person who couldnt live without Mount Hua. A person who couldnt abandon Mount Hua until the end, even after leaving it behind. So

He was a stupid person.

.........

Chapter 337: I Am Not Qualified To Argue For Forgiveness For You, But (2

I still remember when I close my eyes.

That dark night.

The image of my father, who wielded his sword again and again, with a face that looked pained.

He always wielded his sword both in rain and snow. Even when his hands burst and bled and even when his lips cracked.

Always. Always.

In her memory, her father was always wielding a sword.

Young Yu Yiseol didnt know what was driving her father so much.

From as early as she can remember, he just continued to wield his sword. When she opened her eyes in the morning, it was the same. When the sun went down, and even when he was so exhausted that he would hold onto the hilt of his sword and sob.

Sometimes it was anguish, anger, and maybe the howl of a beast.

-I am back

He would say, grabbing young Yu Yiseol.

If at any time he could make a perfect plum blossom, he would have taken her to Mount Hua and asked for the forgiveness of his elders.

-I will make plum blossoms.

Yu Yiseol opened her eyes,

Father wanted to come back to Mount Hua.

I think he thought he needed a justification for it. My father turned his back on them and left. Because such a person cannot go back empty-handed and ask for forgiveness.

then the book

Yu Yiseol nodded her head.

My father was planning on restoring it. If he restored it and brought it back to Mount Hua, he knew they would forgive him.

At those words, Baek Cheon sighed.

Restore?

From that condition?

That is absurd

Restoring something was only possible when you could guess what the original looked like. Pursuing the original was right, but when more than half of it had been burnt, then restoring it was like finding grain in the desert.

Umm.

Chung Myung sighed and looked at Yu Yiseol,

So?

She looked down at the books.

Those dozens of books resulted from her fathers research on the technique. And all those were gathered in the last one, which had to be refined.

He was getting weaker and weaker with each day. Clinging to impossible things which were eating him.

Besides, it wasnt just the body that weakened.

Before he died, her father was almost like a madman. He would swing the sword with his arms already as lean as branches and read the books like a corpse with dead eyes. He would write down new things countless times

But

Her father never reached Mount Hua.

The day it snowed showed him that.

Her father, who was swinging his sword even in a blizzard, coughed blood again and again. And he tore apart the books he had written,

-I cannot do it. I! I can never reach it

The image of her father weeping bitterly was engraved in her memory.

-Yiseol

As he was dying, he held her hand and said,

-You need to make plum blossoms. No, you should never be obsessed with them! No You! You should never be like me.

Words that young Yu Yiseol didnt understand.

-Will the sect forgive me will they understand why I left them I want to see the plum blossoms of Mount Hua plum blossom

That was her fathers will.

Yu Yiseol spent days together with the corpse in the hut. Not eating or drinking, just standing by her father, who had gone cold, and placing the torn books back together.

Meanwhile, someone found the hut. It was Hyun Jong who ran after receiving the last letter from her father.

He discovered Yu Yiseol, who was starved, and he wept loudly,

-You idiot! What did you do!

Hyun Jong grabbed the child and sobbed. The warmth she felt in his hands still remained in her head.

Still.

Father was stupid, answered Yu Yiseol.

He abandoned Mount Hua, but he couldnt fully throw it away. It seems that he wanted a different life when he came out, but then he became more obsessed with Mount Hua than anyone else. So he regretted and suffered for the rest of his life.

Her gaze fixed on the fire.

It was hard to understand her father.

If he valued it so much, why abandon Mount Hua? If he had thrown it away, he should have forgotten it. Why couldnt he just leave it? And if he missed it so much, why couldnt he just go back?

It was difficult for her to understand it.

sago.

Tang Soso, who had opened her mouth, didnt continue.

What could she say here?

At least for this moment, she couldnt find what to say. It was because she understood how much calmness Yu Yiseol held.

At that moment, Jo Gul was quietly listening to their conversation and said,

If only

His gaze was directed to the books.

Why didnt Sect Leader bring the books back? Even if they are less, they are still half right

They cannot be used.

Chung Myung continued,

If they are taken back to Mount Hua for no reason, then more people would say they would try to restore it, and Mount Hua would be ruined for real. Everyone would have suffered for the impossible.

A flimsy hope was crueler than despair.

At that time, no one could restore the Twenty-Four Movement Plum Blossom Sword technique. No, this would be impossible for anyone in the world.

Even if it were Chung Myung if the technique was restored without knowing about the original than it would become a unique technique that was different from the original.

Did something stupid.

Chung Myung bit his lip.

An infinitely stupid and foolish man.

But

He must have been so desperate.

He had no intention of going back empty-handed and stuck to dying here. He must have wanted to find the key to resurrect Mount Hua.

Even that obsession was in vain.

Sago is

No.

Yu Yiseol shook her head.

I will not defend my father. He did abandon Mount Hua. As a disciple of Mount Hua, that is unforgivable.

sago.

Sect Leader says he is forgiven, but thats not something that can be forgiven. How can someone who has abandoned their sect be forgiven? So

She closed her eyes without talking for a long time.

It sounds

Silence fell.

They all just stared at her, knowing that their sympathy wouldnt work here.

And Chung Myung suddenly spoke,

Enough, lets sleep.

The eyes of the disciples turned.

I think what should be told was said, and it isnt a huge story. In conclusion, she just stopped at her fathers grave. Isnt that the story?

Chung Myung!

Baek Cheon jumped up with an angry face.

However, Yu Yiseol nodded her head with a calm face.

Right.

As she said it, Baek Cheon was at a loss for words, and Yu Yiseol clarified,

I just wanted to stop by. Anyway, I thought he would be happy that Mount Hua is regaining its former name.

However, Chung Myung stood up with a sullen face,

A dead man is a deadman.

I know.

I wanted to hear something great. I am going to sleep. If you are leaving tomorrow morning, you should all head to bed too. We can run faster than wasting the day.

And he went inside without even looking back, and the disciples all looked at him.

Sahyung, said Yu Yiseol.

Uh?

We should sleep too.

right. That is right.

Baek Cheon nodded his head.

It was unlikely that she could fall asleep, but it wasnt right for her to keep talking about this, either.

thanks for telling us.

No.

She turned to the night sky,

You arent strangers.

Now

Yu Yiseol opened her eyes.

Then she looked around with a bit of shock. Inside the hut, she could see the disciples of Mount Hua asleep.

when?

She didnt remember them going.

She could remember when they all went into the hut and laid down

Were they tired?

It looked like it. In fact, everyone seemed to be asleep.

Then she heard the voice next to her.

sago.

When she turned, she saw Tang Soso mumbling in her sleep.

sago

Yu Yiseol looked to the side and then closed her eyes as she lay. But soon, feeling a bit unusual, she got up.

Not here.

Among those who were asleep. Chung Myung was missing.

Where?

Yu Yiseol got up and cautiously exited the hut, and Chung Myung wasnt even there near the fire.

Yu Yiseol, who was looking around, went stiff as if possessed and began to move.

Drop.

An alcoholic liquid was being sprinkled on a grave.

The sparsely overgrown grass on it was turning wet.

As soon as the bottle was emptied, another bottle was opened by Chung Myung, and it received the same treatment.

Chung Myung continued to pour it and then drank from it.

Chung Myung, who drank it, mumbled bitterly,

You were an idiot.

He couldnt understand this man.

If it were Chung Myung, he wouldnt have abandoned Mount Hua, but if he did leave the ruined sect, he should have had a good life. Moreover, the fact that a man with a young child threw his life away for this made him more shocked.

Stupid, pathetic, a fucking idiot.

But

I usually like such stupid ones.

Chung Myung smiled bitterly.

The smiling face changed. He sat down in front of the tomb, took a drink, and sighed. At the end of it, the truth came out.

I am sorry.

I know.

This was a sin of Chung Myung.

What could be the sin of those who left a crumbling sect? Who in the world would grab something falling and demand to die together?

Those who remain are amazing, but those who left werent wrong either.

Why did you do that, you idiot

You should have forgotten it. Why did you not forget and regret it?

You idiot.

I

Chung Myung leaned against the tomb and looked at the stars in the sky.

Actually, I wanted to go to the North Sea.

From the moment he heard Demonic Sect, he wanted to go there.

Without Hyun Jong by his side, he decided to catch them by the collar and clear them of the demons within them. He didnt want to leave anything of the Demonic Sect alive.

If he closed his eyes, he could still remember his sahyungs and sajae dying out there on the summit of the Hundred Thousand Mountains.

Still.

I cannot go. Still

If something happens to Chung Myung, then Mount Hua now could collapse. If it lost its central force, Chung Myung, the current Mount Hua didnt have the strength to keep up with the clashes between the Nine Great Sects and the Five Great Families.

Mount Hua would fall, and people like Yu Yiseols father would reappear.

So I cannot go.

Therefore

He couldnt repeat the same mistake.

Even if his insides were bruised and torn to death, he could not do it. If the moment comes when Mount Hua falls, he wouldnt be able to close his eyes even in death.

I am not the right person to speak about forgiveness for you, but

Chung Myungs fingertips touched the mound.

rest now. Mount Hua will have the plum blossoms bloom again.

And he shook his head as he sipped the bottle, and the burning feeling tingled around his neck.

Right.

He put the bottle down and got up.

Did you say you wanted to see plum blossoms?

Srrng.

The sound of the sword being drawn echoed.

If you want to see it, see. It has been waiting to see you for so long, but I need to show you only now.

Chung Myung staggered as he was drunk and lowered the sword.

And he closed his eyes.

The figure of the person wielding his sword again and again in this deserted mountain.

The image of someone obsessed with just one sword, suffering from regrets that he couldnt push out and reality that didnt help him.

It was like

Shhh.

The sword of Chung Myung moved and form one of the Twenty-Four Movement Plum Blossom Sword

A perfect, proper movement.

The plum blossoms which Yu Yiseols father wanted to see was now showing up from the tip of the sword of Chung Myung.

Look!

You idiot!

This was the plum blossoms of Mount Hua you were longing to see.

What you lost once

It took so many years to bloom.

The Plum blossoms of Mount Hua, drawn perfectly now, began to turn the barren forest into red plum blossoms.

If the plum blossoms of Mount Hua had to bloom on Mount Hua, then this place was Mount Hua.

A sword danced in the forest of plum blossoms.

As if cutting away the regret that couldnt be let go. The beautiful sword tip looked sad.

And

Yu Yiseol, who watched this from afar, closed her hands.

Father

She lowered her eyes as a single tear fell.

-Did you find your plum blossom?

No

Not yet.

But

Yu Yiseol opened her eyes at the sight of a fantasy.

One day

The day will come when the perfect plum blossoms will bloom from her sword.

And then her dead father could rest peacefully.

Someday

Right. Some day.