Chapter 1733
What’s the right thing to do… (3)
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People sometimes drink alcohol.
Some drink because they are happy, some because they are sad, and others because they are in pain. The strong scent of liquor embraces all these emotions without questioning them.
But on a night like this, when the bright moonlight gently settles on the edge of one’s sleeve, it is the alcohol that drinks the person.
Trickle.
Chung Myung reached out and poured liquor into the cup in front of him.
On the old eaves. In a place where the scent of aged tiles wafted in. A place where many people were gathered, yet it felt as if only the two of them existed in the world.
Trickle.
The filled cup floated softly into the air. But at that moment, a withered hand reached out and lightly pressed down on the cup.
“Leave it be.”
“…”
The cup was slowly lowered back to the ground. Then, Baek Cheon extended both hands and grasped the cup.
It was not an easy task.
The way his hands trembled like aspen leaves showed just how difficult it was for Baek Cheon to lift even that small cup with both hands.
Yet Baek Cheon somehow managed to bring the cup to his lips. More than half of the liquor spilled onto the ground, and in that brief moment, cold sweat broke out on his forehead.
“Mmm…”
Baek Cheon downed the drink and silently put the cup down.
“Not bad.”
“…”
“There’s at least one good thing about losing my martial arts. I can’t remember the last time alcohol felt like fire.”
At those words, Chung Myung let out a faint chuckle.
“Then you should’ve been drinking more all along.”
“That wouldn’t have worked.”
Baek Cheon shrugged his now frail shoulders.
“I can lift a cup, but holding a whole bottle is another story. I need someone to pour the drink.”
“There are probably more than a hundred people out there who would do it at your command with just a flick of your finger.”
“That’s true. But.”
Baek Cheon spoke in a voice tinged with slight bitterness,
“Their eyes are scary.”
“…”
“The way they look at me, unsure of what to do.”
Baek Cheon let out a brief laugh.
The words that would follow were too heavy to utter, so Chung Myung simply refilled the empty cup.
The moon rose within the filled cup.
The same moon he had seen in the past. The same moon as now. But now, it could never be the same moon again.
The world does not change. Yet, the world seems different because the person looking at it has changed. What kind of world does Baek Cheon see now? Is it truly the same world he once knew?
“You found out.”
“Found what?”
“That I was here, even though you couldn’t sense my presence.”
At those words, Baek Cheon let out a small laugh and reached for his cup again, with that same withered hand.
“I didn’t find you.”
“…”
“I just figured you’d be there. That’s all.”
Baek Cheon emptied the cup into his mouth.
Watching him, Chung Myung picked up his own cup and drank the liquor in one gulp. A slight warmth lingered on the tip of his tongue. But that was just the taste of the alcohol Chung Myung was experiencing. It was different from what Baek Cheon was feeling. They were in the same place, drinking the same liquor, but they each had to drink their own separate drink.
Chung Myung’s gaze drifted slightly under the eaves. He could see it – no, he could sense it. The presence of those who, despite being ordered to leave, couldn’t bring themselves to stray far from Baek Cheon’s quarters, lingering nearby.
“Hopeless fools.”
“…”
“They make such a fuss, really.”
And it seemed that Baek Cheon was aware of this as well, even without needing to see it with his eyes or sense it with his intuition.
Yet Chung Myung silently observed Baek Cheon, his eyes devoid of emotion, making it impossible to discern what thoughts were hidden behind them.
“It’s empty.”
“Hmm.”
Chung Myung picked up the bottle and poured more liquor into Baek Cheon’s empty cup.
Trickle.
The cup filled once more, but this time Baek Cheon didn’t reach for it. Instead, he lifted his head and gazed at the moon hanging in the sky.
“What do you think?”
“…”
“Are you going to try to persuade me as well?”
At that, Chung Myung let out another light laugh.
“It was Sasuk who called for a drink, not me.”
“Right. That’s true.”
Baek Cheon smiled faintly.
“So? Just because the order of things changed doesn’t mean the heart changes, does it?”
“Who knows.”
Chung Myung didn’t bother to answer.
There was no need to search for any profound reasons or deep insights. It was simply known. Some choices are solely up to the person who makes that choice. No advice, no help would make any difference.
He has already seen it.
A time when the word ‘death’ had become desensitized. A time when the word ‘injury’ was considered a blessing. In that ruthless world, there were those who had to clutch their broken swords and shed bitter tears.
What did Chung Myung say to them back then?
“I am not qualified.”
“…”
At those words, Baek Cheon quietly lowered his gaze to the liquor that filled his cup.
“Qualified, huh…”
Baek Cheon’s fingers, dry and gnarled like the branches of an old tree, gently touched the cup.
“Since we started this war…”
Perhaps with resignation, perhaps with desolation, or maybe with bitterness,
Baek Cheon’s voice flowed out slowly.
“How many have died?”
“…”
“I’ve come to realize, at closer look, that each of them… they all must have had something.”
Something they should never have lost.
“But… I never really saw their deaths as significant.”
A few victories, a few defeats.
In war, the meaning of death fades away. Though he knew that each one of those deaths was far from insignificant, unlike the righteous words he might have spoken, he couldn’t grieve for each of them individually.
“So, it’s almost laughable.”
Baek Cheon grasped the cup with his trembling hand.
“What’s the big deal about losing an arm, or the big deal about losing martial arts?”
“…”
“To the point that…”
What were the words he intended to say next?
To the point that it’s such a fuss? Or to the point that it’s so painful?
Chung Myung didn’t know the answer. And he couldn’t bring himself to ask. He could only watch Baek Cheon, with darkened eyes, as he lifted the cup to his lips.
Baek Cheon caressed the empty cup, and Chung Myung continued to look at him. The silence between the two stretched on for quite some time.
“Chung Myung-ah.”
“Yes.”
“Do you know when I find it the hardest?”
“…”
A bitter smile formed on Baek Cheon’s lips.
“It’s not when those cursed bastards came and told me to go to Jongnam, not when I realized that Soso, who treated me, was silently weeping outside the door. It’s not when the disciples who once looked up to me with pride could no longer meet my eyes, or even when the Sect Leader held onto me, shedding tears with a face I’d never seen before. Not even when I couldn’t lift a spoon properly and had to bury my face in a bowl like a dog, struggling desperately just to survive.”
Chung Myung’s eyes closed.
It wasn’t because he couldn’t look. It was simply too heavy – the person he was seeing, the world he had to face.
“When I first wake up.”
“…”
“That’s when I forget everything. So, without thinking, I try to lift my hand to rub my face. But then…”
Baek Cheon let out a bitter, self-mocking chuckle.
“My arm doesn’t move.”
“…”
“And the hand I manage to lift is so withered, it feels like it doesn’t even belong to me. The moment I see it, I realize all over again, ‘Ah, this is who I am now.’”
A dry laugh escaped Baek Cheon’s lips.
Chung Myung couldn’t respond to that barren laugh. He simply refilled the empty cup in silence.
How many rounds of drinks had they gone through?
Chung Myung had been silently watching Baek Cheon’s increasingly trembling hands for a long time when he finally broke the silence.
“Sasuk.”
“……What.”
“Have you thought about going to Jongnam?”
“…”
Baek Cheon lifted his head to look at Chung Myung.
Even Chung Myung couldn’t decipher what was hidden in Baek Cheon’s gaze.
“Of course, you have deep affection for Hwasan, Sasuk…”
“Affection?”
“…”
“Is that what you think?”
“Sasuk, I just…”
“A hundred times.”
Chung Myung’s hesitant words were drowned out by Baek Cheon’s voice.
“No, maybe even more than a thousand times. That’s how many times I’ve resolved myself to go to Jongnam.”
“…”
“And yet, here I am. Do you know why?”
“Not really.”
Baek Cheon’s gaze dropped downward.
He could see the elegant pavilions of Wudang, but what he was truly looking at was something else entirely.
“I’m scared.”
“…”
That answer took Chung Myung by surprise.
“Of going to Jongnam?”
“No.”
Baek Cheon shook his head slightly.
“Facing it.”
“…”
“I chased after you.”
“Sasuk…”
“I don’t want to admit it, but I wanted to be like you – unyielding, never retreating, capable of accomplishing anything.”
“I’m not that kind of person.”
“I know. But the important thing is that I thought you were. And… I wanted to be like that.”
A laugh slipped through Baek Cheon’s lips again.
He knew as well. He knew that Chung Myung wasn’t as strong as he appeared. What he was looking at was the sharpness at the end of the thorns that a fragile person had desperately built up to avoid being hurt.
But even so, he wanted to emulate that.
“And at some point, I realized… someone else looks at me… yes, just like I looked at you.”
“…”
“And that’s why I’m scared.”
Baek Cheon grasped his cup, his touch so fragile it seemed precarious.
And Chung Myung saw it. The slight tilt of Baek Cheon’s head, revealing his eyes, now tinged red. And so, Chung Myung closed his eyes, because some things in this world are better left unseen.
“Go to Jongnam?”
Baek Cheon chuckled softly, with a face that held the saddest expression in the world.
“Then, those who look at me the way I looked at you will realize it too. That there’s nothing more important at Hwasan than martial arts. That the time we spent together, the words we shared, all of it doesn’t weigh as much as a single swing of a sword.”
“…”
“They’ll look at me – the one who used to preach that there’s more to life than martial prowess… And see what I’ve become.”
A low sigh escaped from Chung Myung’s lips.
“Sasuk.”
“I have to keep living.”
“…”
“Going to Jongnam to regain my martial arts is nothing. The real problem is what comes after. Just by living, I’ll become a wedge in Hwasan. I’ll be living proof that all the high-minded words I spoke were just the indulgence of the strong.”
Baek Cheon’s bloodshot eyes met Chung Myung’s somber gaze.
“I can’t… I can’t bear that, Chung Myung-ah. I can’t endure becoming a shackle for Hwasan, or having Hwasan become a shackle for me. I don’t have the courage to face those eyes.”
Chung Myung shifted his gaze to the distant sky.
A sky filled with darkness. And from that sky, it felt as if the gazes of countless people were looking down on him.
“I don’t know if you’ll understand.”
He knew. Too painfully well.
So he couldn’t help but ask,
“…So you plan to just rot away?”
Baek Cheon smiled faintly.
“There are things you only understand when you’ve lost them.”
“…”
“I think I understand now, the mindset of the ancestors of Hwasan when they faced death. They must have wanted to run away. They must have wanted to escape, to throw everything aside and breathe freely from the weight pressing down on them.”
Chung Myung closed his eyes.
The one he had lost was now standing before him again.
“But they couldn’t do that. Because their lives would become a guidepost for those who watched them. Because there was something more important than their own lives, more important than their own misery.”
“…”
He hadn’t known.
He hadn’t known the weight that crushed those who died beneath it.
He hadn’t known the fear that gripped those who, despite trembling, never stepped back until the very end.
That there would be someone who now understood their hearts, something that even Chung Myung had not fully grasped – perhaps still didn’t grasp.
And so, it was sorrowful. And so, it was pitiable.
For them, there was a release, an end to their suffering. But for Baek Cheon, his torment was only just beginning.
A man bound by shackles he cannot escape – or rather, a man who has chained himself and must endlessly suffer.
The world calls such a thing a ghost.
Chung Myung is a ghost bound by the eyes of the dead.
But Baek Cheon is about to become a ghost bound by the eyes of the living.
Which of the two is more painful?
“Are you going to try and stop me?”
Chung Myung opened his eyes and looked at Baek Cheon.
The one who became a ghost through death looked at the one who would die while still living.
Chung Myung quietly poured more liquor into Baek Cheon’s cup.
Just like the first time, the cup filled with liquor, as if it hadn’t already been filled and emptied several times.
And so, the two drank in silence.
But Baek Cheon didn’t know.
He might be able to endure the shackles he placed on himself, but there would be those who couldn’t bear the sight of the chains on his ankles.
The unbelievable news of Baek Cheon’s excommunication came just two days later.
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