Return of the Mount Hua

You can do it. (10)

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He had never really thought the earth was cold. If anything, the feel of soil against his fingertips had seemed faintly warm. It had always been that way.

Which is to say, what he felt now was wrong.

But now, Chung Myung thought the ground before his eyes looked unbearably rigid and cold.

“I’m a little late.”

Chung Myung walked slowly towards Tang Gunak – more precisely, to the side of Tang Gunak’s lifeless body that had already grown cold.

Whatever he truly felt inside, not the slightest trace of hesitation showed in his steps towards Tang Gunak. As if calm, as if composed, his feet carried him on until they stopped right before Tang Gunak.

Chung Myung looked down at his friend lying on the cold ground. The blood had drained from the man’s face, leaving him pale, but strangely, he looked at peace. 

Wasn’t it strange? Peace, on the face of one who fell to the enemy’s claws. It hardly seemed fitting. And yet the faint smile caught at Tang Gunak’s lips seemed to say that Chung Myung’s impression was not so wrong.

Yes. Perhaps what Chung Myung felt was right.

Tang Gunak had done all he could, and left the rest to his comrades. As a warrior, what more could one ask?

And yet, Chung Myung’s gaze lingered not on the smile but on the bloodstains. He stared silently at the dried, dark patches spattered across the pale face, and then suddenly sank down where he stood.

Sitting down cross-legged beside Tang Gunak, Chung Myung reached out his hand. It was to wipe away the bloodstains on Tang Gunak’s face. But the dried blood would not come off easily no matter how many times he rubbed.

“…Father.”

From behind came Tang Soso’s trembling voice.

At that call – which seemed to have slipped out only after she tried to hold it back to the very end – Chung Myung squeezed his eyes shut.

Sacrifice is inevitable.

To hope that none be lost in such a brutal war was nothing but greed. If one chose to fight, one had to accept loss as well.

Chung Myung knew this better than anyone: a sacrifice of this degree could never be called excessive.

Even if the one lost were someone other than Tang Gunak, one ought to be grateful that more were not lost.

“If only I…”

Yet the words that escaped carried with them a deep bitterness and self-reproach.

“If only I were someone who could truly think that way.”

Chung Myung drew a bottle of liquor from within his robes.

“I think you said we’d definitely share a good drink next time…”

Glancing at the bottle in his hand, Chung Myung smiled faintly.

“Given the situation, this was about all I could prepare. You were a man who lived on only the finest things, so perhaps this cheap liquor won’t suit your palate? Even so, on the battlefield, even this is a luxury.”

Chung Myung’s voice, which had been echoing hollowly, sank deeper.

“Try it. It’s the one I like.”

Uncorking the bottle, Chung Myung took a sip himself, then slowly poured the rest along Tang Gunak’s lips.

Perhaps such an act strayed from the propriety owed to the deceased. Yet none who witnessed the scene thought so. They only bowed their heads, as if to escape the heavy, stinging scent of liquor filling the air.

Drip.

Having let the liquor trickle, Chung Myung set the bottle aside. Then, with his hand, he wiped Tang Gunak’s face again and again until the liquor washed away the last of the bloodstains. At last, his face was clean. Chung Myung gazed at it in silence, and then, lifting his eyes slowly, murmured as if to himself.

“There are so many words I once thought of but never managed to say. If you were alive, I wanted to make sure to tell you those things.”

His low voice drifted far into the distance.

“But… As one goes on living, you come to learn. It isn’t the unsaid words that weigh heaviest, but the words you never got to hear. And that is what makes it all the more regrettable.”

The sky was so clear. It almost stung his eyes.

A sob that had slipped out from behind lingered in his ears. Chung Myung looked down at Tang Gunak’s face once more.

“I don’t know if I did as well as you had in mind… But… At least, I gave it my all. So…”

His voice faded.

“So…….”

Unable to go on, Chung Myung raised the flask and drained what remained.

The liquor left in the bottle sloshed, and he kept silent until the ripples stilled again. He opened his mouth as if to speak, only to shake his head.

It wasn’t that he had nothing to say. There was far too much.

Even a whole night would not be enough to lay out all the words tangled in his heart. Yet Chung Myung knew it was better left unsaid.

This place is not for comforting those who remain. It is for comforting the one who is leaving. The burden of those left behind is to live their entire lives, carrying an emptiness in their hearts that can never be filled.

Chung Myung gently touched Tang Gunak’s shoulder.

“The Tang Clan… Don’t worry.”

Would it be too much to think that the peaceful look on Tang Gunak’s face was an answer to those words? Perhaps it was nothing more than his own desire to draw comfort from that expression.

Chung Myung, who had been sitting cross-legged and staring at Tang Gunak for a long while, finally rose to his feet. He turned to look at the two standing behind him.

His lips moved as if to speak, but he only shook his head. His part was simply to give the slightest push to the backs of those who could not bring themselves to see Tang Gunak’s lifeless face.

After lightly resting his hands on the shoulders of Tang Soso and Tang Pae, Chung Myung quietly stepped away.

“Father!”

Leaving behind the voices of the two who broke into sobs, Chung Myung put some distance between them, where Baek Cheon was waiting for him.

Chung Myung stared blankly at him for a moment, then handed over the flask he still held. Baek Cheon took it without a word and downed it roughly. 

Feeling a burning sensation in his throat, Baek Cheon set the bottle down and, in silence, fixed his gaze on Tang Soso, who clung to Tang Gunak’s body and sobbed.

‘Soso……‘

Tang Soso had held out to the end. She put her duty before her own grief. Only when there was no longer any need to do so was she finally pouring out that vast sorrow.

Should one call it commendable? Or else…

“Chung Myung-ah.”

Baek Cheon asked, almost under his breath.

“We won, didn’t we?”

“…Yes.”

“Right. That’s right.”

A deep sorrow clouded Baek Cheon’s face.

“And yet why… Does it not feel like joy.”

Watching Tang Soso and Tang Pae weeping bitterly, Baek Cheon quietly closed his eyes.

“Let’s escort them to Sichuan. Lord Tang… And the Tang Clan as well must return to Sichuan. That is surely what he would have wanted.“

Chung Myung quietly nodded. Before his eyes, memories of the past rose vivid and clear.

A warm evening in Sichuan. A shabby wooden bench. Tang Bo sharing a drink upon it, Tang Jopyeong chattering beside him. Now, in Sichuan, none of them remained.

And now, even Tang Gunak – who had once filled that emptiness again – had departed from this world. What meaning could the land of Sichuan possibly hold for Chung Myung any longer?

He turned once more to look at Tang Gunak. It felt as though he were gazing upon him for the very last time. As he gazed at the small smile at those lips, a similar smile wavered faintly across Chung Myung’s own.

‘…I know, Lord Tang.’

People disappear. But memories do not.

If there are still memories of those who can no longer be seen in that land, then within Chung Myung, its meaning will never disappear.

Chung Myung slowly nodded.

“Yeah. Let’s do that.”

The sharp scent of liquor, mingled with incense smoke, overpowered the stench of blood heavy in the air.

Some with tears, some with hardened faces, and some with vows made to the dead – they each soothed their overflowing grief in their own way.

Those who had come to see him off for the last time all at once offered Tang Gunak a deep palm-fist salute. There were no loud voices, no wails of sorrow. Yet never had there been a farewell more solemn, more reverent than this. 

❀ ❀ ❀

Darkness enveloped the world.

Unlike yesterday, the quiet darkness generously embraced even the earth stained red, the ghastly weapons planted grotesquely in the ground, and the mangled corpses not yet gathered.

The members of Cheonumaeng, who had hastily thrown up makeshift tents with whatever cloth they could find to keep off the night dew, lay their weary bodies beneath the clumsy roofs, with not even a proper floor beneath them.

Some could not yet shake off the fevered excitement of having survived a battle where their lives had hung by a thread. Others wept in the grip of loss. Others trembled, seized by sudden waves of dread.

But all these feelings were in the end swept away by the onrushing tide of sleep. The alliance members, exhausted beyond words, fell into a slumber the instant their heads touched the ground.

Inside the rows of tents where the alliance members huddled, silence quickly settled. A silence so thick it was hard to believe so many were lying there asleep.

Some distance away, Chung Myung sat alone in the field, silently tilting a flask to his lips even at this late hour.

Gulp.

The harsh liquor slid down his throat.

He drank again, and again, but no matter how much he poured into himself, the stench of blood clinging to his body did not fade. A hollow laugh slipped from his lips.

‘As if it could ever be erased.’

How much blood had these hands been soaked in? How many lives had he severed with them?

To want to look away from all that death, to want to wash clean the smell of blood that clung to his flesh – that was nothing but selfish greed. This stench of blood was the memory of his sins clinging to his body. No matter how he tried to forget, it would not be forgotten. No matter how he tried to erase it, it would not be erased.

And yet, now, to wish for it to be erased, to want to forget – it almost felt laughable. Was it not far too late for such thoughts?

Even so, just for today – truly, only for today – he wanted to be free. If only for a moment, he wanted to slip away.

Perhaps the reason was… That this cursed stench of blood that clung to him was not only that of his enemies.

“…”

Chung Myung gripped the bottle tighter. If he drowned himself in liquor until he lost consciousness, would he be able to forget, even briefly?

‘Far too little for that.’

Staring at the one remaining bottle of liquor, Chung Myung let out a faint laugh.

Yes. It wasn’t enough. In truth, even if he were to bring forth all the liquor in the world and drink it down, the stench would never disappear. Because this smell of blood was not something that came from his body.

It was then.

“Soso says….”

A low voice came from behind. When Chung Myung glanced back, Baek Cheon was staring at him with a stern expression.

“…That your condition is at its worst, that you shouldn’t touch a drop of alcohol, and that you’re to take absolute rest.”

Chung Myung’s reply came flat and hollow, as though something vital within him had already slipped away.

“…So? Are you going to drag me off and make me lie down, invoking your authority as my Sasuk?”

Baek Cheon shrugged.

“Normally, that’s exactly what I should do… But as you know, I’m one of Hwasan’s troublemakers too.”

Baek Cheon released the hands he’d had clasped behind his back and waved something beside his face. Three flasks hung from his grip.

Slosh.

The brimming flasks swayed with a heavy sound. That sound seemed to flow across the quiet ground.

“Wasn’t easy to get. Thought three might not even be enough for the two of us.”

Chung Myung’s face went slightly blank. As if to say what of it, Baek Cheon held a bottle out. Chung Myung couldn’t help but let out a small snort.

“Really, it’s been a long time…“

His voice, which had been rigid until now, softened.

“You’re doing something I rather like, Sasuk.”

The moon above looked down quietly on the two of them.

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