Return of the Mount Hua Sect

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 didn’t 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 father’s 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 wasn’t 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 didn’t 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 father’s 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 couldn’t 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 couldn’t he just leave it? And if he missed it so much, why couldn’t he just go back?

It was difficult for her to understand it.

“… sago.”

Tang Soso, who had opened her mouth, didn’t continue.

What could she say here?

At least for this moment, she couldn’t 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 didn’t 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 that’s 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 wouldn’t work here.

And Chung Myung suddenly spoke,

“Enough, let’s sleep.”

The eyes of the disciples turned.

“I think what should be told was said, and it isn’t a huge story. In conclusion, she just stopped at her father’s grave. Isn’t 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 wasn’t right for her to keep talking about this, either.

“… thanks for telling us.”

“No.”

She turned to the night sky,

“You aren’t 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 didn’t 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 wasn’t 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 couldn’t understand this man.

If it were Chung Myung, he wouldn’t 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 weren’t 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 didn’t 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 didn’t 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 Yiseol’s father would reappear.

So I cannot go.

Therefore…

He couldn’t 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 wouldn’t be able to close his eyes even in death.

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

Chung Myung’s 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 couldn’t push out and reality that didn’t 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 Yiseol’s 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 couldn’t 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.