Chapter 6

Jinmu frowned at the sun, already climbing toward its noon height, when—

“Martial Uncle! Martial Uncle!”

A familiar voice rang out in the distance, and Cheongu came waddling toward him at a run.

“The chicken?”

“Right here!”

Cheongu proudly thrust out what he was holding.

Squawk!

Two chickens, tangled together with their wings clamped in his hands, were squawking frantically.

“Very good.”

“Heh heh.”

Cheongu beamed.

So innocent. Just perfect for putting to work.

“Now kill them.”

“Yes, sir!”

The two unfortunate chickens met their end in Cheongu’s thick hands.

“Drain the blood.”

Trickle.

“Put them in.”

Cheongu lifted the lid and immediately tossed the chickens into the roiling water.

“Pluck them.”

“Yes!”

All Jinmu had to do was say the word.

To think he’d considered such a dependable fellow nothing but a nuisance.

And his loyalty seemed to have risen a little since watching Jinmu beat Jinheo yesterday morning.

Had he known this would happen, perhaps he should have hit him a few more times.

“Right. Shall we get them cooking properly now?”

“Yes!”

As the chickens boiled, Cheongu squatted in front of the pot and asked Jinmu a question.

“Um, Martial Uncle.”

“Hmm?”

“How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Yesterday. I was really amazed. Martial Uncle Jinheo is one of the best fighters among the martial uncles, and you did that to him…”

“Impressive, eh? Makes you admire me, doesn’t it?”

Nod, nod.

Cheongu nodded vigorously, his eyes full of admiration.

“Cheongu.”

“Yes, Martial Uncle.”

“The pot’s boiling over.”

“Yes, sir!”

Heh heh heh. Good boy. Very good.

Just keep this up.

Jinmu reached out and stroked his head. Delighted, Cheongu once again curved those eyes into happy slits, making Jinmu wonder whether he could actually see through them.

Now that he looked, the boy was almost starting to seem cute.

As he’d noticed before, Cheongu reminded him very much of someone.

Cheon U-myeong.

Hopelessly clueless and dim, but second to none in loyalty. The only fellow he now missed seeing.

Cheongu resembled him in his younger days.

Right down to… being shunned by his peers for being too kind.

Very well. Since it’s come to this, I’ll make you my first underling!

“But will this be all right?”

“What?”

“The chickens.”

At Cheongu’s words, Jinmu glanced at the pot, which was sending up clouds of white steam and delicious smells.

“Eating meat is strictly forbidden… If we get caught…”

“Cheongu.”

“Yes?”

“You trust me, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Then take them out now.”

“…”

“What are you staring at? They’re cooked.”

“Oh!”

Could practically hear the rocks knocking together in his head.

When he lifted the lid, the chickens lay revealed, glistening and cooked to perfection.

“Want some?”

Cheongu shook his head, yet swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed.

The Ten Precepts of Wudang.

The fundamental principles every Taoist of Wudang had to observe.

Among them, abstaining from meat was mandatory until one’s martial arts reached a certain level, to allow immortal qi to accumulate.

Eating meat before one’s immortal qi had sufficiently matured through Wudang’s internal cultivation methods would increase internal energy alone, without building immortal qi.

That was why Wudang strictly forbade its disciples from eating meat.

All they were allowed were grain abstinence pills made from a mixture of grains and medicinal herbs.

Tsk, tsk. Doing that to growing children. Rotten Taoist bastards.

“It’s fine. I eat it sometimes. Master’s been eating it for ages, too.”

“…”

Cheongu’s resolve began to waver. His gulp sounded as loud as thunder.

Jinmu gave him a light pat on the shoulder, placed a whole chicken in a large bowl, and entered the room where Myeongjin lay.

“Master.”

Seeing the bowl of chicken in Jinmu’s hands as he opened the door, Myeongjin sat up at the table with a pleased expression.

It had already been several months since he’d started eating meat.

Now that he’d acquired a taste for it, he had even begun offering opinions on which kinds were tastiest.

“Chicken today, is it? Ho ho. What a precious treat.”

“Eat plenty and build your strength back up, Master.”

“Ho ho. Yes, yes. Indeed, since taking your advice and eating meat, I can feel my strength returning. Haven’t I been going for walks these past two months?”

“Yes. I’m glad.”

You need to, so I can stop worrying and get the hell out of this wretched Wudang without looking back.

Jinmu smiled in satisfaction as his master tore into a drumstick.

“Here. Have some yourself.”

“No, thank you. There’s another chicken outside. Cheongu and I will eat that one.”

“Come now. Two boys still growing, sharing a single chicken? Tsk, tsk. You should have caught three.”

“…”

What a depraved Taoist bastard.

One taste of meat, and his depravity was growing more blatant by the day.

“I’ll be outside, then, Master. Please call when you’ve finished eating. I’ll clear the table.”

“Very well.”

Leaving his master happily gazing at the chicken, Jinmu went outside.

And—

“…”

The plump, glistening chicken that had sat before Cheongu only moments earlier was nowhere to be seen. So much for his refusing to eat the damned thing.

Only cleanly stripped bones remained to prove it had ever existed.

You pig of a bastard! Don’t you know the joy of sharing?

Just then—

“You wretch! Spit that out this instant!”

Myeonghyeon and the elders appeared with a thunderous shout.

What were they doing here?

Cheongu, who had been sucking the last juices from a drumstick bone, froze solid.

“How dare you! Breaking the precepts within the sect’s own grounds!”

The one raging was Myeonggong, elder of Yeongeun Palace, which oversaw Wudang’s precepts.

Cowed by the elder’s fearsome presence, Cheongu dropped flat on the ground and trembled in terror.

Then Sect Leader Myeonghyeon looked into the room at Myeongjin, who had just begun eating his chicken.

“H-how could you…?”

“…”

At the unmistakable grease around Myeongjin’s mouth, Myeonghyeon’s face hardened.

“Greetings, Sect Leader.”

Despite Jinmu’s respectful greeting, Myeonghyeon couldn’t take his eyes off Myeongjin.

“What is the meaning of…”

Myeongjin was quite taken aback by their sudden arrival, while Myeonghyeon seemed too furious to finish speaking, his beard trembling.

He was screwed.

Of all people, it had to be the sect leader.

He needed to become head disciple.

Whatever else happened, he couldn’t afford to get on the man’s bad side like this. What if this blemish on his record cost him the position?

For now, Jinmu decided to throw himself down and beg.

“I’m sorry. This is entirely my fault.”

“…”

Only when Jinmu prostrated himself and begged forgiveness did Myeonghyeon finally look away from Myeongjin.

“My master had grown so weak…”

“Silence, you wretch!”

The furious roar came from Myeonggong of Yeongeun Palace, keeper of the precepts, rather than Myeonghyeon.

“Your concern for your master is commendable. But even so, to violate our sect’s precepts? Have you taken leave of your senses?”

“…”

Precepts, my ass.

He was doing his utmost to care for his master, and they were making all this fuss over a little chicken. Tsk, tsk.

He’d love nothing better than to just—

Not yet.

Even in decline, they were no pushovers.

Tricks and clever use of techniques could only take him as far as defeating first-generation disciples barely into their thirties.

Wudang’s elders were no trifling opponents.

He still lacked the strength.

Patience. Until I get the Two Principles Mind Art. Once I’ve learned it… that bastard’s head will be the first one I crack open.

Still prostrate on the ground, Jinmu ground his teeth and vowed it over and over.

“Explain yourself. You, the most senior member of Wudang…”

“…”

“Myeongjiiin!”

At Myeonghyeon’s roar, Myeongjin let out a deep sigh, then raised his head and met his eyes.

“Senior Brother.”

“…”

“Is it truly so great a sin?”

“…!”

His eyes blazed fiercely.

That piercing gaze was nothing like that of a bedridden old man shut away in a back room.

“Jinmu, get up.”

“…”

“Now!”

At Myeongjin’s firm command, Jinmu rose hesitantly.

“Hold your head high. What wrong have you done that you should bow your head? You too, Cheongu. Get up.”

Myeongjin’s voice was gentle, but carried a weighty strength.

It was hard to believe he was a man left crippled by the loss of his martial powers.

“Senior Brother. Myeonggong. Myeongseon.”

Myeongjin addressed Myeonghyeon and his fellow martial brothers one by one.

“How do I look to you?”

“…”

“Do you know how I felt when that evil bastard, the Lord of Sapacheon, destroyed my martial powers and left me a cripple? Do you know the despair of watching my martial brothers and our elders die because we lacked strength?”

Look, you could leave out the ‘evil’… Still, Jinmu was rooting for his master.

Feeding him meat had certainly paid off. Since he’d eaten it too, of course he had to take Jinmu’s side.

Go on, convince them! Convince them and absolve me of my sins!

“Why do you think we fell? Because we lacked strength? No. Because we were trapped by empty precepts like these.”

“Myeongjin.”

“Hear me out.”

Myeongjin’s voice was confident, grave, and even stern.

“What did we gain by clinging to those empty precepts to our dying breath?”

Myeonghyeon’s face stiffened, as did those of the elders.

“What happened while we upheld those fine-sounding principles of the righteous path?”

“…”

“We fell. We suffered a crushing defeat. The Orthodox Martial Alliance agreed to a truce simply because Hyeokryeon Mugang, Lord of Sapacheon, had withdrawn. What did that leave us with? Did we even take revenge?”

He was right.

The Orthodox Martial Alliance had chosen practical interests over principle.

The martial world had been locked in a three-way struggle.

If the Great War of the Orthodox and Unorthodox continued, the Sun and Moon Demonic Cult, forever watching for a chance to extend its power into the Central Plains, would surely reap the rewards of the others’ fighting.

Fearing that outcome, the Orthodox Martial Alliance had turned a blind eye to Wudang’s plight and chosen a truce.

No one had helped Wudang afterward.

Forgotten, Wudang was slowly declining.

But that was the martial world.

When you had strength, everyone was eager to help. Once you lost it, they turned their backs on you completely.

However they dressed it up in justice and chivalry, that was the cold reality.

Quanzhen, once the principal lineage of Taoism, and countless other sects had vanished into history that way.

“Unless we change, do you think Wudang, which continues to decline even as we speak, can survive intact in the martial world? Who can guarantee that Wudang’s history will continue?”

“…”

“Yes. I was shocked, too, when Jinmu first offered me meat. But do you know what the boy said? That I should eat it, if nothing else, to regain my strength. That if I died, how was he supposed to go on living?”

“…”

At Myeongjin’s words, Myeonghyeon glanced at Jinmu, whose head was bowed.

“So I ate it. And I grew stronger. These days, I even take walks around Chungheo Hermitage.”

“…”

It was an astonishing revelation.

Myeongjin had spent ten years all but confined to his bed.

And now he had recovered enough to go walking?

“Yes. I broke the Ten Precepts. Yet breaking them has made me far better. What is wrong with that?”

Myeonghyeon’s face twisted in anguish at Myeongjin’s words, which verged on a rebuke.

“Do you not understand, Senior Brother? While we cling to these hopelessly antiquated precepts, the martial arts of the Central Plains continue to advance. How can you not know that, though we must avoid meat to accumulate immortal qi, we need it to build bodily strength? How can you not see that while we do nothing but impose restrictions, all of Wudang grows weaker?”

Myeonghyeon had no answer.

“Are the Ten Precepts we have upheld for so long truly that important? What use will any of it be once Wudang is gone?”

“…”

“The same goes for not coveting wealth. Has that saved Wudang as it stands today? No. We are this impoverished because we have kept our distance from wealth. We cannot even provide our disciples with new Taoist robes, can we?”

“…”

“And our refusal to take life lightly? What came of holding human life so dear? Yes. Sapacheon reduced us to this.”

He repeated a few points, but Myeongjin continued speaking without hesitation.