Pay‑to‑Win King of Martial Arts (Novel) - Chapter 83 - Intertwined Branches (3)

Chapter 83 – Intertwined Branches (3)

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Translated by Heavenly Cat

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Only after a long time did the heat of the great training ground subside. My suddenly increased martial power was one thing, but it seemed the understanding and compromise we had shown each other had made quite an impression.

“So then, Immortal Cheong-yu, what do you think about this food?”

“Naturally, I oppose it. What are you asking for.”

Of course, that did not mean Cheong-yu had switched over to my side. He merely understood me. Understood that thoughts like mine also existed.

That did not mean nothing had changed either. The Wudang I had shown had clearly thrown a question before the disciples that they had to think about seriously.

“A Wudang that stays with the secular world and pools in the lowest corner.”

“Since water always settles below, isn’t that not entirely wrong?”

“You only say that because you want to eat that food!”

“I do not!”

Though of course, it seemed there were still children entranced by the smell of food.

Naturally, this was a matter concerning the rules, so it was something for the Sect Leader and the council of elders to decide. But it was only natural that the disciples would affect the judgment of the council of elders. Compared to other sects, Wudang was weaker in strict top-down obedience, and the council of elders was not autocratic either.

Just looking at Cheong-yu, who had been the fussiest with me, didn’t he stop being unreasonable and understand me once I produced proof he could accept?

“Senior Brother Sect Leader, what are you planning to do.”

Cheong-hwa asked Cheong-ui.

Cheong-hwa’s face too was slightly flushed. Since I, his disciple, had shown outstanding attainment, he could not help but be pleased.

And right now, it felt as though he would take my side no matter what I did.

“Disciples of Wudang, listen.”

Cheong-ui, who had remained silent until now, opened his mouth.

The murmuring stopped, and the gaze of everyone there gathered on Cheong-ui’s lips.

“Originally, a Daoist is forbidden from eating meat. In truth, only raw food is permitted. However, because diets change with the flow of the times, and because there are difficulties in transporting and preserving food, there was no way to avoid cooked food, and so cooked food came to be permitted. Once cooked food was permitted, alcohol and meat eaten outside the Wudang Sect also gradually moved toward being permitted.”

Everyone focused on Cheong-ui’s words. Even the elders seemed tense. We might, after all, be witnessing a historic change in Wudang.

“There are two things we must learn from this. One is that even strict rules must inevitably change with the times, and that this is a natural process like flowing water. The other is that once rules collapse, they cannot be restored just as easily.”

There was gravity in Cheong-ui’s voice as well. I was prepared to understand whatever Cheong-ui said.

Just as Cheong-yu had understood me, I too had become able to understand a fragment of Cheong-yu. More precisely, my respect for Wudang had grown.

“Therefore, Wudang’s rules will be respected. Is there any disciple of Wudang who holds a thought contrary to this.”

At Cheong-ui’s words, everyone fell silent. Naturally, there was no one here who would rebut Cheong-ui’s words. Only people who had respected Wudang until now stood here.

Cheong-ui slowly looked over the crowd once, then spoke again.

“The time we spent teaching you was not wasted. What matters is the heart that wishes to keep Wudang’s rules. If that heart exists, then even temporary exceptions, altered by circumstance and unavoidable, will be accepted with pain in the heart.”

At those words, the expressions of the disciples began to bloom bright as flowers. Naturally, the corners of my own mouth split open without my realizing it.

“The rule forbidding meat within this sect shall remain alive. However, our forebears surely did not make this rule expecting us to starve to death. We have the duty to respect the will of our forebears and to protect the disciples who will become Wudang’s future. In that sense, by order of the Sect Leader, until this situation is lifted, meat shall be permitted temporarily. Is there any disciple of Wudang who opposes these words.”

“None!”

All the disciples of Wudang shouted together as if they had rehearsed it. Conservative elders including Cheong-yu wore bitter smiles, but they did not seem to intend to stop it. That was because they too were adults who loved and cherished Wudang’s disciples.

I had to expend a fair bit of strength holding back my laughter. As I had declared, I would change Wudang. This was only the tip of the iceberg.

“Hui-yeong.”

At that moment, Cheong-ui suddenly called me. I was startled, not having expected him to call me in this situation.

“Yes?”

“I did not know you held such affection for Wudang.”

For a moment I could not even parse the words, then my face reddened. Cheong-ui did not know it, but inside this body was the soul of a middle-aged man. The older one got, the more embarrassing it became to express sincerity.

“A fellow who normally acts as though he has an iron plate for a face gets embarrassed at a time like this.”

“…Ahem.”

“Did you say you wanted to change Wudang.”

“Yes.”

“It will not be easy.”

Cheong-ui smiled.

“Just as it was not easy for Wudang to change you.”

I felt as though I had been struck. That was right. In truth, of the two of us, Wudang and I, I had been the one to change first. When I thought of it that way, I felt a strange sense of defeat. Yet it did not feel bad, and there was even a refreshing quality to it. It was truly a strange sense of defeat.

“Understood.”

“Good.”

Cheong-ui withdrew his gaze from me and shouted to the disciples.

“Today, all of you may stop training, gather, and eat.”

At Cheong-ui’s declaration, the disciples let out cheers. Seeing those children, gaunt enough that their bones showed through their skin, rejoice made me feel good too.

Suddenly, I thought of the time when I had been a Company Lord in my previous life. Sometimes, if you lived long enough, a kind of weariness would visit you. A period when nothing was enjoyable no matter what you did. A period when your drive for life itself declined.

At such times, I had spent enormous sums of money to lift my mood. I had tried making lakes out of liquor, piling meat like mountains and eating it, collecting precious gems and paintings and the like.

Even so, my mood did not improve. In the end, I had no choice but to wait until enough time passed and that period went by on its own.

The money I had spent on Wudang’s children now would not amount to even one hundredth of what I had spent then. And yet my mood was more than twice as good as it had been back then.

This too was a joy Wudang had taught me. Cheong-ui’s words had indeed pierced me. Wudang had changed me. And now I was trying to change Wudang.

Intertwined Branches. It meant two trees growing together until their grain joined. Wudang and I had different roots, but in the end we had become entangled and were influencing one another.

I smiled as I watched Senior Brother Myeong-gyeong charging toward the food. At least in this moment, everyone seemed to have forgotten even the troublesome future called the formal match.

***

“Ah. That was good eating.”

“Whew. This food is delicious.”

“I’ve never eaten anything this tasty even when traveling the jianghu.”

“So there really are this many kinds of dishes in the world.”

The disciples each came to me and said a word or two. I simply gave an embarrassed smile and let it pass.

Some even approached me awkwardly and apologized to me. Whether first-generation, second-generation, or third-generation disciples, it made no difference.

“Um, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I didn’t look on you kindly either, just like Martial Uncle Cheong-yu. But after seeing your sword, I changed my mind. It definitely wasn’t because of the food. Truly.”

“I understand. You don’t need to emphasize it that much.”

“So you accept the apology?”

“People can dislike people. It’s not as if you openly bullied me. Is that really something to apologize for?”

“Even so, it pricked my conscience a lot to eat food you provided after insulting you behind your back.”

“That alone makes you pretty conscientious. I’ll accept the apology.”

“Thank you. From now on, call me Senior Brother. No matter that you’re a lay disciple, no one is going to treat you as an outsider to the sect.”

One of the first-generation disciples said that while patting my shoulder and then left. In truth, the second-generation disciples around my age and even the younger third-generation disciples came and said much the same thing to me.

What was especially worth noting was that my reconciliation with Cheong-yu had affected the disciples.

No matter how kind and gentle the disciples might be, there were naturally people who did not get along. Myeong-han, Cheong-yu’s disciple, and my senior brother Myeong-seong were like that.

“…Mm.”

“Uh…”

Myeong-han and Myeong-seong stood facing one another while looking elsewhere. It seemed they had met to apologize, but neither knew how to begin.

After staring uselessly at the sky for a quarter hour, Myeong-han spoke first.

“Hey!”

“Hm?”

“…I did.”

“What?”

“…Didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“I said I was sorry!”

Myeong-han suddenly shouted. Only then did Myeong-seong chuckle. It seemed he had heard him fine and was simply teasing him. Myeong-han’s face turned bright red and he spun and ran.

“Pretend you didn’t hear it, damn you!”

How was someone supposed to pretend not to have heard something he had heard.

I walked up and stood beside Myeong-seong.

“This turned out well.”

“It did. That fellow kept picking fights, and it was annoying.”

Though Myeong-seong grumbled like that, he looked pleased. As expected, it was not only Myeong-han who was clumsy at expressing his feelings.

“Then do you think Master and Immortal Cheong-yu have smoothed things over a little too?”

“Who knows. Master did say he was going to apologize first.”

Well, Cheong-hwa had been the more junior brother to Cheong-yu. If anyone was going to initiate a reconciliation, it was right that Cheong-hwa should do it first.

In any case, a sudden place of reconciliation and unity had come to Wudang. Surely the effect of filling themselves with good food was part of it as well. Once people ate something delicious, they naturally became more generous in mood.

After only a few days of eating good meals, the color had returned to the children’s faces. Myeong-seong would no longer collapse while training now. Wudang would not have to suffer headaches over food for a while either.

“Muk Hui-yeong!”

At that moment, a shout came from outside. It was a shout I had now grown used to.

I sighed and went outside. Once I stepped out, I saw the eight disciples participating in the formal match, with Myeong-yeop among them.

“Where did Master go?”

Cheong-hwa usually oversaw our training. Myeong-yeop tilted his head.

“I heard he had something to say to Martial Uncle Cheong-yu.”

“Ah.”

“He said he’d be here soon, so we can train in the meantime.”

“Ah, yes.”

“Hey, by the way, where did you buy that dongpo pork? It was seriously the best dongpo pork I’ve ever eaten.”

“I don’t feed people bad food. Especially if I’m buying it with my own money.”

“Wow. That’s cool.”

“This is why I earn money.”

The disciples all let out admiring oohs. Even I had to admit that what I had just said sounded a bit cool.

We trained in an open space halfway up Wudang Mountain. My Flowing Cloud Movement Art and Flowing Cloud Sword Art still were not joining together.

If I were told to unfold the Flowing Cloud Movement Art alone, I could do that. The same was true of the Flowing Cloud Sword Art. But they simply were not harmonizing with each other.

Still, I had obtained a clue while sparring with Cheong-yu. I had directly seen with my own eyes how a swordsman who had reached a high level used the Flowing Cloud Sword Art and Flowing Cloud Movement Art. We had only fought by chance, but that spar with Cheong-yu had been a small stroke of fortune for me.

“Still, it’s gotten a bit better than before.”

“Right?”

I had the feeling that if I pushed just a little more, I would gain some kind of realization.

Myeong-yeop worked all of us disciples, me included, to the bone. Since Myeong-yeop had overflowed with energy even when he wasn’t eating well, it was hard to endure. Even so, the disciples, myself included, grit our teeth and followed.

After the place of reconciliation had opened, even those who had once been awkward with each other seemed to have grown much closer, which made the sense of solidarity even stronger. That likely meant we had all become stronger by one more step.

…Ah. And Master came around when our day’s training was ending.

And he came pleasantly drunk at that. There had been alcohol among the food I had brought, after all.

“Oh, our martial nephews are doing wonderfully!”

“They’re old enough to do well on their own.”

He had not come alone either, but together with Cheong-yu. Cheong-yu did not seem all that drunk. It seemed Cheong-hwa had a weaker head for drink than Cheong-yu.

“Senior Brother. Our martial nephews are moving in unity like this, so we martial uncles should become one too.”

“Y-yes. That’s right. But speak from a little farther away. You stink too much of alcohol.”

“Ah, what are you saying. I said we should become one.”

Cheong-hwa slung an arm over Cheong-yu’s shoulder and babbled drunkenly.

We watched that and smiled wryly.

As we went on like that, before I knew it, the day when the Zhuge Clan would come to Wudang approached.

Starting tomorrow, the formal match would begin.