That night, my mind was so full of worries and thoughts that I ended up staying awake until dawn.
My body isn’t tired, but my mind is.
Looking back, I had been through every kind of upheaval over the past few months.
If I hadn’t steadily cleared my body and mind by circulating my qi, I might have developed stress-induced hair loss.
I had even considered crossing over to reality for a while to rest, but a crazy skeleton mage was running wild over there.
Come to think of it, that place is in Sichuan too.
Was some kind of curse following me?
No wonder Shu was the first to fall in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
Feeling vaguely uneasy, I left the pavilion with the pack frame on my back. The Bermuda Triangle was already outside waiting for me.
“Oh? The booger’s gone. Did you really eat it as a late-night snack?”
“Stop! I said stop!”
“Benefactor! Benefactor! They say Young Hero Gung ate that booger yesterday!”
“I didn’t!”
“……”
Ugh. I wanted to beat every last one of them to death.
If this were a novel and I were the author, I would find some way to kill those bastards.
But when did anything in this world ever go the way I wanted? It was just as I was slowly shaking my head—
“Huff, huff. I’m sorry I’m late!”
Right. There was that guy, too.
Mungyeong came running up, panting heavily.
“Huff… I, uh, stayed up late going over medicinal prescriptions and…”
I didn’t even have to look. I could see the whole thing in virtual reality: he had clearly pushed himself too hard in his burning enthusiasm for learning, then overslept.
I waved off Mungyeong, who was watching my expression.
“It’s fine. I just came out too. By the way, your luggage got a lot bigger overnight.”
“Oh, this?”
Mungyeong smiled brightly and patted his stuffed travel bag.
“They gave me copies of some precious medicinal prescriptions and plenty of medicinal herbs, and, and… Anyway, they gave me a lot!”
“Good. Congratulations.”
“Hehe.”
That kid was absolutely thrilled.
Then again, to a novice medical apprentice like Mungyeong, all of this was practically a fortuitous encounter.
The Sichuan Tang Clan wasn’t the kind of place that opened its doors just because someone knocked and readily handed over medicinal prescriptions.
It was a great Murim family as well as a renowned medical family, so everything Mungyeong had gained here would become a tremendous asset for his future.
“Good. You should be able to take something away from this, at least.”
“Huh?”
“It’s just something like that.”
“Did things not go well for you?”
“Yeah. There’s someone who absolutely has to be treated, but… circumstances are making it difficult.”
We were in the middle of talking when the middle-aged man we had met the day before approached with several subordinates.
“Everyone’s here. Follow me.”
We followed him. The atmosphere and behavior of the people we passed seemed even more tense than yesterday, but there were far fewer martial artists around.
It’s begun.
Large numbers of martial artists must have left to hunt down the culprit.
No, it had probably begun before we even arrived. Tang Sadok had lost his father. There was no way he would have remained dazed for several days.
After walking while lost in thought, we soon reached the iron gate.
As the gate slowly opened, the middle-aged man suddenly spoke.
“Uncle—no, the Family Head asked me to deliver a message.”
“What kind of message?”
“Once his revenge is over, our family will help you with all its strength.”
Mungyeong looked confused, but everyone else, myself included, clasped our hands in a martial salute.
“May you achieve what you seek.”
“And you as well.”
A faint smile crossed the middle-aged man’s cold face.
We hadn’t received any practical assistance, but this was a decent enough farewell.
Now it was time to say goodbye to one more person.
“It’s been fun.”
Mungyeong nodded as though he understood.
“You’re leaving again.”
“Yeah. We have a lot of places to stop by.”
“If I may ask, where are you going…?”
“Qingcheng. And then Emei.”
Mungyeong’s eyes went wide.
“Oh! Mount Qingcheng and Mount Emei, two of the most famous mountains in the world! You mean the places sacred to Daoism and Buddhism, where all kinds of exotic flowers and mystical herbs are said to be hidden?”
“……Uh, I think so.”
“This is unbelievable! You’re going to such wonderful places!”
What was this? Déjà vu?
I had been seeing scenes like this a lot lately. Just as a strange sense of foreboding sent a chill down my spine, Mungyeong let out a soft sigh.
“It’s unfortunate, but I can’t go with you this time. I have to return to my master.”
“Nice one, Master!”
“……?”
“I mean, that’s too bad.”
“Riiight.”
“I mean it, you punk.”
Mungyeong looked at me suspiciously before bowing deeply at the waist.
“Thank you for everything. Thanks to you Young Masters, I was able to survive and have many wonderful experiences.”
“There’s no need to thank me. Stay healthy, study hard, and focus on becoming a great physician.”
Mungyeong’s eyes sparkled.
“Like the Divine Physician?”
“Exactly. Like the Divine Physician.”
“Yes, Young Master! I’ll engrave your words on my heart and never forget them!”
A quiet laugh escaped me at Mungyeong’s spirited answer.
“Then take care.”
“Goodbye! We have to meet again someday!”
If our paths crossed, we would see each other somehow.
After waving to Mungyeong, I turned decisively toward the west.
“Come on. Let’s go to Qingcheng.”
I was just about to take my first determined step when—
“Young Hero Jin Taekyung?”
“Hm?”
I turned around and saw the Bermuda Triangle standing there blankly, along with two unfamiliar men.
They were the people the Sichuan Tang Clan had assigned to guide us.
“What is it?”
“Um. It’s just that…”
“……?”
“That’s not the right direction. The road is blocked if you go that way.”
“……!”
The guides Tang Sadok had assigned us were like a stroke of genius.
Unusually for members of the Tang Clan, they specialized in gathering and cultivating medicinal and poisonous herbs rather than martial arts. Perhaps because of that, they knew the land of Sichuan as well as the backs of their own hands.
“We go this way from here, right?”
“No. That way is faster.”
“But according to the map, this seems to be the right way.”
“What’s written on a map isn’t always the answer. That’s especially true of old maps.”
“The Sichuan Tang Clan gave me this one.”
“I made that map twenty years ago.”
“……”
“Let’s go.”
Well, if the mapmaker said it wasn’t the right way, then it wasn’t.
After that, I simply went wherever they told me to go and stopped wherever they told me to stop. Of course, I wasn’t just sitting around doing nothing.
“Wait. Can’t we just jump across here?”
“Huh? This is a cliff.”
“If I jump straight across to the cliff on the other side, we’ll get there quickly.”
“You’ll die quickly, too. The gap is nearly twenty zhang wide. How could you possibly—”
“Come on, let’s give it a try.”
Boom! Whoooosh! Tat-tat!
“See? It works.”
“……It actually works.”
“Come on, everyone. Cross one at a time!”
“……Are you talking to us?”
“Oh.”
“Could you jump back over and carry us across?”
“Possible. Totally possible.”
I was willing to do anything if it would save time.
With the Made-in-Sichuan navigation and my monstrous physical abilities, which far exceeded the limits of the human body, wherever I went became a road.
“My goodness… This is impossible. It took only half a day to get from Chengdu to Mount Qingcheng. That distance normally takes three days.”
“Impossible is nothing.”
I threw out a famous line I had picked up from television and entered Mount Qingcheng.
After revealing our identities to the disciples of the Qingcheng Sect, we were escorted to Shangqing Palace, where the sect made decisions on all matters great and small. There, we met another Supreme Peak master and the Sect Leader of the Qingcheng Sect, Cheongpung the Ancient Sword.
“I’m Jin Taekyung of the Jin Family of Taiyuan.”
“Wow, hello! I’m Cheongpung! It’s so nice to meet someone with a name so similar to mine!”
“Please shut up… And Cheongpung the Ancient Sword isn’t his name. It’s his alias.”
The Elders of the Qingcheng Sect looked at us as if wondering what kind of lunatics had just walked in, but their Sect Leader, Cheongpung the Ancient Sword, was even more straightforward than I had expected.
After reading the letter I handed him, he laughed heartily like an old man from the neighborhood and spoke.
“We should help one another. Great Hero Mae Jonghak specifically asked me to do this.”
That evening, the residents living at the foot of Mount Qingcheng were thrown into an uproar.
Daoists from the Qingcheng Sect, whom they rarely saw even a few times a year, came streaming down the mountain in a line.
There were hundreds of them. Among them were the Qingcheng Seventy-Two Swordsmen, all First Rate masters, as well as two Elders.
“Our Sect Leader Senior Brother has ordered us to do our utmost to help Young Hero Jin find the Divine Physician.”
“Junior Brother and I have been put out to pasture for years, but for something like this, we’ll gladly step forward. Ho ho.”
Thank you. Overwhelming thanks…
Honestly, I couldn’t help getting a little choked up.
No matter how we were all members of the orthodox faction, an entire sect had rolled up its sleeves to save Jeok Cheongang.
“I will repay the Qingcheng Sect for the help you’ve given us.”
“I’ll hear you say that again after we find the Divine Physician.”
“This isn’t all. We’ve also sent messenger pigeons to our lay disciples, so we should be receiving good news soon.”
Although the Qingcheng Sect did not possess the same standing as Huashan or Shaolin, it was still a massive, prestigious sect—large enough to be called one of the Nine Sects and One Gang.
The web of connections they had formed through their lay disciples would be an enormous help.
“Thank you. Truly, thank you.”
“A man’s back shouldn’t bend so easily. We’re merely doing what we ought to do, so don’t let it trouble you.”
“Yes. Excessive gratitude is unbecoming. Enough with the formalities. Tell us where we should begin looking.”
I rubbed my reddened eyes and answered.
“All of it.”
“Huh?”
“What?”
“All of Sichuan…”
“……!”
“……!”
After a brief silence, a quiet mutter slipped between the lips of the two old Daoists who looked like immortals.
“Goddamn it…”
“How are we supposed to find him…?”
I left the two Daoists behind as they began to grow jaded with the secular world less than fifteen minutes after descending the mountain, and set off toward our next destination.
“Benefactor! Are we going to Mount Emei now?”
“No. Gung and Mujin will handle the Emei Sect.”
We had two guides, and there were already plenty of people in our group. There was no need for everyone to move around in a huge crowd.
There was no telling where Cheongpung might run off to, so I would keep him with me. By now, Gung Gibang and Hyuk Mujin were probably running as hard as they could toward the Emei Sect.
Just then, one of the guides asked curiously,
“Then where are you going?”
“To the authorities.”
“The authorities? You mean you’re going to a government office?”
“Yes.”
“Young Hero Jin, I don’t know what ties you have to the authorities, but this isn’t something that can be handled by mobilizing a few constables.”
“Right.”
“Then why…?”
I spoke to the guide, who shook his head as though he could not understand me at all.
“But wouldn’t it be a different story with hundreds or thousands of people?”
“H-Hundreds or thousands? Are you perhaps acquainted with the Sichuan City Lord?”
“No.”
I grinned and continued.
“I’m friends with a king.”
“Pardon?”
Prince Shangshan, Zhu Bao.
He was the one and only younger brother of the emperor of the Great Nation that ruled the world, a noble imperial Prince—and a huge fan of mine.
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