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Cheong Jin hesitated for a long while before pushing one of the three books he had left on the table closer to the Sect Leader. Cheong Mun took the book, reading the title on the cover and flipping through the contents.
The writing was simple, purposely created to encourage reading among the masses, as well as having the protagonist as Hwasan's disciple to boost sales, and most importantly of all, it focused on battles instead of romance.
“I think this might work,” Cheong Mun decided, putting the book away in his desk drawer.
The things on the Sect Leader's desk had been arranged to give a semblance of normality when he gave the book to Cheong Myeong, pretending that he had causally brought a gift to the boy after his last diplomatic trip, so he would feel forced to try to read the first pages.
The plan depended entirely on the hook that the first chapters would have on Cheong Myeong, so the plot had to be attractive from the beginning. Cheong Jin had gathered a couple of disciples with a similar personality to Cheong Myeong, although they could never match him, to read the novels first and give their opinion. In the end, those three had won.
And for Cheong Jin, who had known his sahyeong for decades, he had a feeling that the book they had chosen would have a good enough chance of attracting his attention.
“That's not all, sahyeong. This is the first volume of twenty and they’re still publishing. If he really likes it, we'll be reading for a while.”
This series of volumes had introduced a new concept in literature, based on the eastern writers with whom trade had recently opened, concluding the volumes in the best part to force the reader to continue reading in the next volume.
Cheong Mun smiled, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. “Call Cheong Myeong-ah.”
The debt collectors crowded at the sect's door, pounding their fists against the cracked wood that gave way after a few seconds. The gates fell onto the dirt of the courtyard, raising a wave of dust that swirled at the feet of the crowd that marched towards the Sect Leader's residence.
The first-class head disciple, Un Am, tried to stop them, standing in front while raising his hands to appease them.
“Sect Leader, we know you are here!”
“Give us face for the money we loaned you!”
"Please, give us a moment. The Sect Leader…”
The first-class disciple's words were left unfinished when the Sect Leader himself came out to greet the debt collectors, looking fatigued and visibly pale.
“I'm so sorry,” he bowed. “This has not been a good time. However, if you could give us a little more time…”
The third-class disciples shrank their necks when they saw their Sect Leader lowering his head, deciding to look away and discreetly retreat. Even if it was a scene they wanted to stop, there was nothing they could do about it other than watch.
"A bit more time! Sect Leader, please be reasonable, how many more times will you ask for the payment deadline to be extended? We have business to attend to and that money is essential.”
The debt collectors were all merchants of Hwa'Um.
The disciples of the sect Hwasan had sold all the valuable items they owned to buy food for the children, however, having no source of income, money continued to become increasingly scarce even though they tried to sell as far as the stone plaques that covered the training field.
In the end, they had to resort to loans with the sect's property as collateral, hoping to give themselves a little more time to find a solution.
“No, what is this shit situation?” Cheong Myeong crumpled the pages between his fingers, feeling a throbbing pain in his head rise from the tight muscles in his neck. "Going to lend us money? Those Hwa’Um bastards, how dare they…!”
Cheong Myeong inhaled deeply, trying to remind himself that he was just reading a novel popular among civilians, nothing that had happened in reality. Of course, civilians wouldn't know if the businesses belonged to Hwasan or if some merchants had conveniently settled there. The premise of the novel was, in itself, absurd, with an enemy strong enough to put the great sects in check.
Could that be possible?
Not even Cheong Myeong, the strongest, could take on the entire world alone.
With a sharp exhale, Cheong Myeong forced himself to look at the book from another perspective, thinking about the main character and the villain.
It seemed that the villain would be Cheon Ma, who had devastated the world a hundred years ago, and curiously at the same time that Cheong Myeong was now living. It was interesting because it showed the passage of time and avoided showing open ignorance about the disciples who actually lived in Hwasan at the time as well as the sect's techniques. Obviously the villain would have to appear again in the future to be defeated by the protagonist, like in the classic works that everyone knows, however...
No, what is this? Even if he is a dear disciple of Hwasan, are they saying that a person living in a ruined sect with no techniques is going to defeat Cheon Ma?
It's not because of narcissism, but there was even a paragraph where it was talked about Cheong Myeong dying to cut off his head!
So that kid will be stronger than me, the great Cheong Myeong-nim!?
With clenched teeth, Cheong Myeong flipped through the pages, fast-forwarding a few chapters to find out what would happen.
“I don't care about damn debt collectors anymore, what the hell is this thing about, ahhhh !”
Baek Cheon left the basket he carried on his back on the ground, wiping the sweat from his forehead to smile at the farmer who greeted them with a bowl of fresh water, receiving it with both hands.
The bowl passed from his hands to Yu Iseol’s, who was the youngest disciple of his generation, and then to Baek Sang, before finally reaching Baek Cheon, with a respectable amount of water still inside. Just as Baek Cheon saw it in an effort to satisfy the younger disciples’ thirst and hunger, as well as they were careful not to take too much so everyone could have a little.
“Thank you for your help, my wife will return shortly with the money. It would have been difficult to finish everything in time for the festival on our own.”
Baek Cheon stepped forward to chat with the farmer, making full use of his charisma. Since the clothes they wore began to become increasingly darker and thinner due to the harshness of the elements, they were forced to compensate for their personal appearance with social skills and innate appearance. Baek Cheon was the one who stepped forward in this situation, followed by Yu Iseol, both with clean faces and neatly brushed hair.
Not many disciples had stayed since moving to the newer town, with a lot of the younger boys returning home having still had a chance as sons of merchants who had not yet received a monastic name, while the Sect Leader encouraged several of his older disciples to settle in places where they could find a good job and a family that would welcome them.
Hwasan would remain alive as long as they could pass on what they had learned to the students who they decided to take, or even their own children if they settled, he said. Then one day there might even be a descendant who returned to the mountaintop, remembering his roots, and pieced together the broken legacy.
It was a weak consolation, since they had no techniques to pass on, rather it was the Sect Leader's will with the intention of giving the children a place where they could fill their stomachs without feeling guilty.
Although it was thanks to the dwindling number of members that made up the group that it was easier to raise enough money to keep them all at least a little fed. They still skipped meals, foraged for roots and other herbs they could chew, and worked for downright slavish hours, but they had managed to support themselves somehow.
Perhaps because there were only three elders, including the Sect Leader, who had a good head on their shoulders to lead them and a lot of experience in bargaining. Or maybe it was that the remaining disciples were healthy and strong children who could do physical labor to earn some coins, but things worked for a while, at least until the Sect Leader fell ill.
Baek Cheon accepted the coins from the farmer's wife with gratitude, returning to his martial brothers to report the amount to Baek Sang and hand the money to Yu Iseol. It was a preventive measure. If they were attacked, Baek Cheon and Baek Sang would defend their junior martial sister so she would have enough time to escape in order to take their funds to the elders. They agreed to keep this solution a secret so as not to alarm the elders, although a knowing look between the three of them was enough to know that their priority was not their own well-being but that of the elders.
“If we use thirty percent to buy food and save the rest, it might be enough to buy medicine for the Sect Leader,” Baek Sang murmured.
Yu Iseol nodded, pressing a hand on his chest, where he had kept the money they secretly collected to buy medicine. If the Sect Leader found out about their plans, he would say it was a waste and ask them to use it to buy food. Therefore, no one dared to report what they had saved.
“What are the nearest villages? You have to look for one with a pharmacist available. Maybe I can even convince them to give a discount if we’re lucky,” Baek Cheon mused.
“Let's ask at the market when we buy food, and if possible look for women who are doctors,” Baek Sang hastily added. “You have to groom yourself a little before asking and then maybe it will work. I have never been so happy to have sahyeong's face by my side..."
“Let's put a clean robe on him.”
"You're right, samae, we should look for something cheap that looks presentable…”
Baek Cheon sighed at the ridiculousness of the situation.
It was strange because it seemed like a useless expense, but after a few purchases where the sellers insisted on adding extra things for Baek Cheon and giving exaggerated discounts, they decided it was worth it. Then he closed his mouth obediently, but was ashamed of the cynicism of the strategy and complained in his inner thoughts. At least it wasn't Yu Iseol who would have to do something like that.
“They are not bad children…”
Cheong Myeong rolled on the bed, holding the book closer to his face.
“They are not bad children, however, they are so…”
Youths.
Naive.
Stupidly nice.
It was frustrating to watch them follow righteousness even when the opportunity to steal was presented to them on a silver platter. He was proud, shouldn't Taoists be that way? There was just one small problem: think of yourselves first!
“Aaaaaah! Use your fists, your fists!”
Although they were more likely to lose than gain something.
Ahem .
Of course, there were many problems and they managed it somehow, still, that was just as civilians. Martial artists needed to train.
No, the problem was that they didn't even have anything to train!
At least the exercise in doing the jobs of common people was making them lay the foundation for wielding the sword. , he realized. Nevertheless, how long would it take that way? They didn't know how long it would take before Cheon Ma re-emerged nor did they know how he would do it, so…
Cheong Myeong had moved past the point where he looked at this book as fiction.
Yu Iseol swung her sword under the moonlight, forcing his numb limbs to continue straining despite the accumulated exhaustion of the day.
She had noticed some improvement in the stability of her legs when swinging the sword, although she still lacked the experience and understanding in the technique that he would like.
But it had improved.
Yoon Jong closed his eyes, sighing silently as he folded the fabric he had been sewing in his lap. He admired Yu Iseol, who still had the will to continue training even though circumstances had turned this way, without giving up her path. It was Yoon Jong, who had been a beggar taken in by the sect, who was more concerned with living day to day rather than martial achievements.
He knew hunger very well, as well as illness and cold. The elders couldn't bear it, even if they were martial artists, so they should hurry to get riding to endure the winter and find the right place to establish a home. He knew that the second-class disciples were struggling to buy medicine for the Sect Leader, just as the elders tried to search for edible herbs and hunt in the forest, not having the physique necessary for field work.
It was the older disciples who could not let go of their home in Hwasan and struggled to find a place to stay. Of course, the children were their priority, most decisions were geared towards keeping them safe, so they swallowed the bitter feelings and moved on. If they stayed contemplating the path they came on, they would miss their sect even more, so they unconsciously continued to wander around without settling and at the same time without getting too far away.
“Where are you going, Cheong Myeong-ah?”
The Sect Leader's hand holding Cheong Myeong's arm trembled from the effort.
"Where to?" The veins in his neck seemed about to burst from the high tension. “I'm going to find that bastard who dared to kill the Sect Leader! It’s Hwasan, Hwasan !”
Cheong Mun blinked in confusion, pointing at himself.
"But I `m here?"
“It's not sahyeong!” Cheong Myeong let out a frustrated cry, raising his hands to the head to rub his hair furiously. “Sect Leader Hyeon Jong! After he dragged things down to make him suffer like that and make the kids work so hard looking for a cure, are you saying he is going to kill him? Oh, I'm angry . I’m really angry.”
“Hyeon Jong? Cheong Myeong-ah, there has been no Sect Leader with that name,” Cheong Mun seemed to doubt his sanity for a moment, then Cheong Myeong waved the book he had kept inside his robe, the thirteenth volume of the novel he had brought Cheong Myeong to him. “Ahhh, about the novel… No, you bastard! Who are you planning to hit? I forbid you to search for the author of that novel!”
Cheong Myeong made a strangled sound.
“Anyway, it's only the third volume, isn't it more than two dozen? Please at least try to read it properly before you decide you don't like it.”
“Sahyeong doesn't know because he hasn't read it,” he complained.
Cheong Mun coughed in embarrassment. “I'm on the seventeenth volume…”
“¿Oh?”
“Yes… If you need the next part, come to my office.”
Cheong Myeong finally calmed down. “Then he dies or not?”
“You'll have to read it to find out,” Cheong Mun laughed.
“Ahhh, I’ll just fast forward the damn chapters!”
After visiting the Leader of thesubsection Hwayin, they were able to get enough money to buy an extra pair of robes and put together something resembling a house and a loft bed with the wood they chopped for weeks. It was more like a pallet covered with cloth, it definitely wouldn't do anyone's comfort any favors, although it would help keep the brunt of the cold away from the Sect Leader.
“It's only getting worse,” Un Am murmured. “He might not make it through the night.”
The disciples crowded into the room in turns, helping to keep the room warm with their combined body heat, just as it was their intention to keep company with the Sect Leader who welcomed them like a loving grandfather.
Baek Cheon had stepped outside for a moment to get some fresh air, letting out a shaky breath that bordered on crying. The Sect Leader had been the one to take him in when he was just a runaway child, gave him his monastic name, and pampered him as much as possible. He had taught him that the most important thing was not found in luxuries but in the people around him.
The Sect Leader had given him a family .
If only there was something he could do, anything...
Expecting a miracle like that was ridiculous, so he wiped away the traces of tears on his face and splashed his swollen eyelids so that the children wouldn't see him lose his composure like that. He was the daesahyeong, someone who would take command of his little group at some point, and he dreamed that maybe he could re-establish his sect at some point.
Wiping his face with his sleeve, Baek Cheon was able to stand, leaning on the rocks next to him, when it gave way under his weight into a pile of rubble and a small wooden box.
“Eh, why is there a little box here?”
It was the top of a mountain with nature surrounding it, far enough away that it didn’t belong to the city grounds and that they wouldn’t be thrown out again for establishing a home, no matter how temporary it was.
If someone had left a little wooden box hidden in a place like this, what could it be?
Carefully removing the lid, the inside emitted a mysterious light and a subtle fragrance overflowed. There was a book on the top, but Baek Cheon could barely recognize it, because the contents were pills.
Pills , which he had only heard about before arriving in Hwasan which were said to be able to restore the user's health.
When he leafed through the contents of the book, his surprise was greater.
— To the person who passed: If you understand the meaning behind my arrangements and have reached this point, then you have the right to follow my progress. My research and the pills developed should be used to save many people in the world.
The name signed at the end took away the strength in his legs.
“Yak Seon… Oh my god. Soul Pill…”
Then he shook his head.
“Sect leader! Sasuk!”
He had to report this immediately.
“I never thought I would say this,” Cheong Mun laughed heartily. “Cheong Myeong-ah, you should put aside reading to play a little.”
Tang Bo was pouting, fiddling with the bottles of liquor he had painstakingly smuggled into a Taoist mountain, only to be cruelly ignored in favor of a book of all things.
A book!
He wasn't even sure that Cheong Myeong could handle the complex art of reading and writing —considering that the chances that he had never sat down to study his characters were high —, but now Tang Bo was being treated this way, even though he brought alcohol!
Why was the emphasis so important? Of course, there was nothing that tempted Cheong Myeong more than alcohol in this life, only competing very closely with meat. Although Tang Bo pretended to sulk for a while, he finally craned his neck to read over Cheong Myeong's shoulder, capturing some of the paragraphs at the top of the pages.
“Yak Seon? Soul pill?” Tang Bo was surprised. “Dosahyeong-nim, have you found information about the soul pill?”
Hearing something related to the book he was reading, Cheong Myeong finally lifted his gaze from the pages, his vision swimming a little. It seemed that even martial artists could suffer from eye strain. It was okay, he just needed to train himself by reading more to overcome it.
“Soul pill… Of course I know! They already got the recipe and have some samples, if only there was money…”
Tang Bo opened his mouth, then closed it again, looking around the world's richest sect with uncertainty.
“Who got it?”
Cheong Myeong became irritated, pointing at the book.
“Baek Cheon! It was our little Baek Cheon! Tsk, aren't you paying attention? After they arrived at Hwayin and talked to the leader of the subsect, they looked for a place to…” Cheong Myeong stopped the hands that had been raised to serve as visual support, blinking at his audience. “Ah, do you know what novel i'm talking about?”
“¿Noup?”
“ Aigoo . Very well, let me tell you…”
Cheong Mun and Cheong Jin shared knowing smiles, gloating over their success.
Fortunately, Hwasan's former disciple, Jo Geol, was more than eager to give them a fair offer and provide them with anonymity to safeguard their welfare from those who covet the soul pill recipe. They had somehow managed to open an alliance with Yunnan, after deciding to invest in the creation of the pills to raise money to buy back the mountain where their sect resided.
It was thanks to the Jo family merchant guild that they managed to establish a tea trade route with a generous percentage of profit, as only Hwasan's name could have convinced the Nanman Yasugung Clan to close the deal.
So if everything was going so well, how did they come to this?
Baek Cheon trembled when he heard Cheon Ma's body beating, knowing that both he and the disciples who had accompanied him were finished. I couldn't even order them to flee with hands tied and core sealed.
It was a sacrifice for Cheon Ma, nothing more, nothing less.
The bishop prayed, repeating the same prayers over and over in a frenzy. The bishop continued with the ritual, panicking as the heartbeat slowed. Followers brought offerings to strengthen the charms engraved on the ground to no avail.
And soon, Baek Cheon heard a voice.
Something that no one else could hear.
—I'm back.
He didn’t respond to the voice, apathetically watching the people who ignored his situation, busy with the important task of resuming the heartbeat of Cheon Ma's body. From Baek Cheon's heart to the tips of his toes, the burning spread. It spread as if fire had been injected into his veins, flowing slowly with each palpitation in his chest. The demonic energy began to consume him, attracting the gaze of the followers, who knelt with looks of adoration as they realized.
— Who brought me back, is it you? For offering me a body to inhabit, I will grant you one last request, little kid. It is a show of goodwill from the Heavenly Demon that will conquer the central plains and the world beyond.
The Heavenly Demon…
Cheon Ma…
Was alive in his body.
The words sent a chill down Cheong Myeong's spine, and he shivered with beads of sweat running down his face. He couldn't help but tap his foot as he read along, rolling back and forth on his bed and rearranging the candle next to him to illuminate the characters. As the remaining pages of the book decreased, his anxiety rose, and upon reaching the last page, Cheong Myeong threw the book across his room, his eyes red and heavy under his eyes.
“AAAHHHHH, DAMN UNFINISHED ENDINGS!”
Cheong Mun woke up to Cheong Myeong jumping into his bed, shaking it to confess the location of the rest of the books after finally reaching the twenty-fourth volume. Cheong Myeong hasn't sneaked into his room in decades, since he was a little boy crying from the nightmares and other worries that plagued him at night, which might have been nice if he didn't look like he was about to draw his sword. and look for his neck.
“That's everyone, Cheong Myeong-ah. The next one hasn't come out yet..."
"That can't be! No, there must be some mistake. Sahyeong, are you sure you counted correctly?”
He even turned over the book in his hand, reviewing the book carefully under the scant moonlight.
24 .
Damn.
“I'm sorry, sahyeong. I have to hear the ending from the author," he quickly excused himself, jumping out the window and descending the mountain with a step imbued with qi .
“The sun hasn't risen yet—, Cheong Myeong-ah, wait…! Ah , you damned thug…”