This isn’t how this is supposed to go. (2)
Words are vessels that hold thoughts.
Only, those vessels are always bound to be somewhat lacking. In other words, it means that words cannot contain each every thought inside one’s head.
As Chung Myung listened to Hyun Yeong for a long while, even he had fallen into doubt. ‘Huh? Was I supposed to just say it and go? Was it enough to simply bring up that I was going somewhere? Had Sahyeong’s cane, which used to come flying at my calves the moment I opened my mouth about going anywhere, somehow trained me without my knowing?’
But after a little time had passed, Chung Myung realized.
There had not been a single flaw in his judgment. It was only that the thought had failed to come out as proper words.
“…I said it was a private matter.”
Chung Myung ground his teeth as he looked ahead.
Saying they were seeing him off on his long journey, the Sect Leader and the elders had come out. But the reason Chung Myung was grinding his teeth was certainly not because their hospitality was excessive.
The reason lay not in the direction he was looking, but on the opposite side. Behind Chung Myung stood a whole row of people, each carrying a bundle no smaller than his own.
“By the way… why… are they tagging along?”
“You’ll grind your teeth down to nothing. If you use your teeth so recklessly when you’re young, you’ll suffer for it when you’re old.”
“…”
“Hoho. Is it not a good thing? There is a saying, is there not? If you go alone, you go quickly; if you go together, you go far.”
“…I told you, I need to go quickly.”
“Shandong is a distant place, so choosing a way to go far may not be a bad thing.”
Grrrrrrrk.
Chung Myung ground his teeth hard.
Ah, right. This was it.
This was exactly why he had tried to go quietly, no matter what!
“Then it seems like having just one or two come with me would be enough…”
Hearing those words, Hyun Jong glanced at Baek Cheon and asked.
“What do you think?”
Baek Cheon answered at once, as if there was nothing to think about.
“No.”
“Impossible.”
“We won’t be able to handle it if even one person is missing.”
“Monk Hye Yeon absolutely has to come with us too!”
Hearing the answers that followed immediately, Hyun Jong shrugged as if to say, ‘See?’
“That is what they say.”
“…”
Seeing that sight, Hyun Yeong smiled brightly.
“Would it not be lively and nice if you went together? In truth, when you think about it, the other disciples besides you have not exactly had any rest either, so take this chance to think of it as going on a trip and take your time on the way there and back.”
“Ugggh.”
Chung Myung let out a deep sigh.
What could he do? Considering he had been caught like that and was still being allowed to go, he ought to count himself fortunate. Hoping to go comfortably on top of that would be far too shameless.
“At any rate, I understand.”
“Chung Myung, I do not wish to say such a thing, but…”
“I told you, I’m not going there to cause trouble!”
“Yes… I truly hope that is the case. If you happen to stop by the direction of Mount Song on your way, give my regards to the Abbot as well.”
“I’d sooner spit on him.”
Gnashing his teeth, Chung Myung bowed with his hands in front of him.
“Then I will be off.”
“Yes. Buy us gifts when you come back.”
“They say dried fish from Shandong Province is quite famous. We do not need much.”
“……Yes.”
Better to die than suffer through this.
“Let’s go.”
The disciples of Hwasan paid their respects to the Sect Leader and turned around.
Watching them bicker and squabble as they moved farther away, unable to hold back even for that short while, Hyun Yeong quietly opened his mouth.
“Will it be all right?”
“Well…”
Hyun Jong’s eyes sank heavily.
“It certainly seems that something is different from before.”
When one lives long enough, there are things one can feel without needing to hear them. That was why he was sending the other children along with him, but…
“A private matter, is it?”
Hyun Jong knew.
That sometimes, matters that were extremely private to one, could become far more difficult and dangerous than even the most public of affairs.
“May nothing happen, please…”
His gaze lingered for a long time on the backs of his disciples as they grew distant.
❀ ❀ ❀
“But what exactly are we going to do?”
At Jo Geol’s words, Baek Cheon’s face twisted into a frown.
“You followed along without even knowing that?”
“No, well, the Sect Leader told us to go… So do you know, Sasuk?”
“I don’t.”
“…If only you really weren’t my Sasuk.”
“Geol. Think carefully. Even if I weren’t your Sasuk, you would lose.”
“Do you have eyes on the back of your head, Sasuk? One blow to the back of the head in the dead of night and…!”
“What a splendid attitude, truly befitting a disciple of a prestigious Just Sect. Before you sleep tonight, copy the Tao Te Ching twice.”
“Please just kill me… I’d rather you did.”
“If someone says dying is easier, is there any reason to kill them? Really?”
“…What a vicious man.”
Whether Jo Geol shed tears or not, the fundamental question had not been resolved.
“But seriously, what are we going to do, Sahyeong?”
At Soso’s question, everyone’s eyes turned to Chung Myung. Because the only person here who could answer that question was Chung Myung.
But today, he was a little strange somehow. Normally, he would have snapped in anger, barked at them, or let out an unpleasant chuckle. But today, he responded in a completely different way.
“Sasuk.”
“Hm?”
“What is a family clan like?”
Baek Cheon smiled broadly.
“You’re trying to pick a fight right now, aren’t you?”
“This one is Chung Myung’s fault.”
“Honestly, asking a runaway youth what a home is like is crossing the line.”
“And he has not even gone back. He is still in the middle of running away.”
“Then what should we call him? A runaway young man?”
“It’s leaving the secular world! Leaving the secular world to join a sect, you bastards!”
When Baek Cheon burst out shouting, Yoon Jong clicked his tongue and scolded Chung Myung.
“How could you ask Sasuk something like that? You know his circumstances perfectly well.”
“It’s not like I can ask Sahyeong instead. Sahyeong is an orphan, so he wouldn’t know.”
“…Huh?”
Hearing those words, Jo Geol began to think with a grave expression.
“A hopeless bastard who fought with his family and left home for a rival sect… or someone who was an orphan from birth. Which of the two is it ruder to ask?”
“…At least now I know you’re the biggest bastard here.”
“I agree.”
Having left wounds in both Baek Cheon’s and Yoon Jong’s hearts at the same time, Jo Geol went, ‘Ah,’ and looked at Tang Soso.
“Then perhaps it would be better to ask Soso…”
“The Tang Clan is so unique that it would not serve as a reference.”
“Urgh. Is that so?”
Tang Soso tilted her head, as if she did not understand.
“But why are you agonizing over this? The person among us who grew up the most normally is Jo Geol Sahyeong, isn’t he? Then you can just ask him. It’s not as if he has a bad relationship with his family, and they’re respectable enough to be called a clan, in their own way.”
“That’s true.”
“Yes. It’s certainly not wrong.”
“Right. That is the case, but.”
“…What are those looks for?”
Baek Cheon and Yoon Jong both sent Jo Geol a look that said, ‘What good is it if his family is perfectly fine? The person himself is the problem.’
Just as Jo Geol was about to retort, Chung Myung shrugged and opened his mouth.
“It’s nothing. I just suddenly wondered what it feels like to have a family clan.”
Chung Myung’s gaze sank slightly.
He was curious. What kind of place had Chung Mun’s home been in the past?
Only now did Chung Myung think, all over again, that there was not all that much he knew about Chung Mun.
‘Well, of course. Sahyeong’s home was Hwasan.’
But aside from that, a place called a family home felt only distant to Chung Myung. He had never experienced it even once.
A family home…
So there was nothing particularly strange about his thoughts continuing in that direction.
‘Perhaps.’
Chung Myung looked up at the distant sky.
For me, too…
“Hey!”
“…”
“So I’m asking, what are we going there for?”
Chung Myung briefly considered whether he should first drive his fist into Jo Geol’s jaw and then continue his thoughts.
But soon he gave up on that thought. By now, he knew it too. Most things in the world could be solved with violence. But the word most meant that, though extremely rare, there were exceptions.
And Jo Geol belonged to that exceedingly rare category of exceptions.
“You’ll know once we get there. To be honest, I’m still wondering what I should do when we arrive.”
“…You really have no plan at all.”
“Why? Still, isn’t that fortunate?”
“Yes? Why, Sahyeong?”
Yoon Jong shrugged.
“If we were going because there was something we absolutely had to do, a problem might arise by mistake. But if we are on the road without any particular purpose, then no great problem should occur. It will become a private journey, just as he said.”
“Oh.”
Jo Geol nodded as if that made sense.
“I’m getting kind of excited.”
Up until now, whenever they had been together, their journeys had mostly had clear goals and destinations. Which meant they had to move as quickly as possible, and there had always been something they absolutely had to do.
In other words, this was the first time they were moving with some measure of leisure, as they were now.
“It feels like wandering through Gangho.”
“Couldn’t we just call it a trip?”
“No way, that’s going too far.
“Still, it’s similar, isn’t it?”
Among the disciples of Hwasan, a warm atmosphere passed between them, one that did not suit them very well.
However, they did not know.
That it is not the people directly involved who define what a private matter is.
But at least until then, the disciples of Hwasan had no way of knowing that fact.
❀ ❀ ❀
Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
The carving knife held in a wrinkled hand slowly scraped away at the red sandalwood.
Without ever rushing, quite leisurely. No, rather than leisurely, it was a movement better described as careful.
Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
The sight of the old monk wholly absorbed in the carving was, in itself, nothing short of solemn. The faint light that entered through the closed door cast a long shadow beside the old man.
Scrape.
How much time had passed?
The red sandalwood, which had slowly been taking shape, at last formed a complete figure. The figure of a Buddha looking down upon the world with eyes of great mercy and compassion. Though the body was emaciated as if to symbolize ascetic suffering, the expression carved upon the face was boundlessly benevolent.
A Buddha statue that seemed to embody the infinite compassion and mercy of Buddha [불심(佛心)].
That profound statue, after a long time, was on the verge of completion. Perhaps because of that, even the hand that had been carving the statue without wavering was slowing little by little.
Carefully… with the utmost care.
As if refusing to allow even the slightest deviation, at the very moment the carving knife etched the Buddha’s final eye…
“Abboooooot!”
Crunch.
“…”
The wrinkled hand trembled and shook.
“Ugh…..”
Beop Jong clutched the back of his neck as he looked at the Buddha statue in his hand.
Blasphemously, the carving knife had lodged itself in the face of the statue. What kind of sin worthy of the eighteen levels of hell was this?
“Abboooooot!”
“Did I not tell you not to behave rashly! You….!”
Beop Jong barely managed to swallow the word ‘damned’ that had almost slipped from his mouth without his knowing.
The ruined Buddha statue. No, hiding inside his sleeve the red sandalwood that had now become such an ominous monstrosity that even attaching that name to it felt blasphemous, Beop Jong nervously gulped down the cold tea.
Lately, nothing had been going his way, and his mind kept growing unsettled, so for the sake of calming his body and mind, he had taken out an old hobby for the first time in a long while. And yet even this…
But Beop Gye, who had burst into the room, seemed to have no intention whatsoever of considering Beop Jong’s circumstances.
“Abbot, something has happened.”
“…As if such things happen only once or twice. How can one who cultivates himself be so frivolous?”
“This is not that sort of matter, Abbot.”
“…Very well. What is it?”
“Hwasan.”
“Hm?”
“The disciples of Hwasan, Hwasan Shinryong, have left the sect gate. Their destination appears to be Henan.”
“What?”
Beop Jong sprang up from his seat.
Thud!
At the same time, something that had been inside Beop Jong’s sleeve fell to the floor.
“…”
“…”
Beop Jong’s and Beop Gye’s gazes turned at the same time towards the thing that had fallen to the floor. That is to say, toward the Buddha statue with the carving knife stuck in its face.
After silently staring for a long while at that dreadful thing, Beop Gye straightened his posture and brought his palms together in a respectful gesture.
“I failed to understand that the Abbot’s mind was unsettled. I will come to see you again after your heart has calmed.”
“It is not that! This is a misunderstanding! No matter how out of my senses I may be, would I drive a knife into a Buddha statue!”
“Then, at a later time.”
“I said it is not so! Will you not stop there! I said it was not me! Beop Gye! Beop Gye!”
Within the quiet temple grounds, a loud voice rang out again and again.
________
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Return of the Mount Hua 
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