All of a sudden I come to the realization that I forgot about the drowsiness that often consumes me after combining someone’s internal Qi with mine. With White Face Young Lord in an unconscious state, I decide to close my eyes while sitting cross-legged.
It is a bit ridiculous that I would be put in a situation of feeling sleepy after fighting. But I can’t do anything as this was a reason why I wouldn’t also absorb the Qi of others.
I tilt my head to the left and come to a state of mind where I’m at the borderline of non-sleeping and having no dreams. The contents of my dream are that I slept very comfortably though.
A dream of me sleeping soundly elsewhere.
It seems like this is why it was difficult to know whether Zhuang Zhou1 really dreamed of the butterfly or if the butterfly dreamed of him.
I am afraid of falling into further sleep, so I tilt my head back and look at the sky with wide eyes.
“…”
After looking at the sky, which looked the same, my eyes begin to hurt with the dust in them, so I begin to chant Buddhist verses while looking up.
“Lee Zaha, who wouldn’t sleep on time, turns into a crazy man. Lee Zaha, who forgets to sleep, turns into a crazy man. It isn’t a crazy man if he can sleep comfortably.”
I yawn and touch my heart. Killing isn’t a good night.
I calm my mind which is very important to do in order to hold the information that will help to kill the big ones in the Demonic Sect.
But at some point, I can sense that the breathing of White Face Young Lord had changed so I tell him,
“Caught you, so open your eyes.”
As soon as I say those words, he opens his eyes and sighs.
For a moment, the guy who had been deprived of his Qi and the one deprived of his sleep glared at each other.
White Face Young Lord speaks in a calm tone.
“Low-Down Sect Leader.”
“What?”
“Am I a weakling just because my internal Qi is gone and I lost in a fight once? I really have no idea what being weak is like, so stop asking. I don’t know. I just do not know. Can you not ask another question?”
After thinking about it, I think it is worth it.
“Are you saying you don’t understand the feeling of weakness?”
“I don’t know. I have been taught that defeat is death. Then do I need to know what being weak is?”
“Did this bastard take some drugs? Or did you realize the way to Tao fainting? Why are you this calm?”
I look into his eyes to examine him as I open his eyes and check his chin and tongue.
I find no trace of addictive drugs, so I tell him.
“Fine. Weakling, I will not kill you now. You don’t know how it feels to be a weak one, so I have no choice but to let you know. What is so special about being a weakling? If you are cold and hungry then you are weak. If you die after being beaten, you are horribly weak.”
I grab the guy by his collar and lift him up as I hit him on the head.
“Let’s take a walk.”
This made him curse at me.
“Do you think that the Low-Down Sect will have a future?”
“We are not having a good time now either you idiot. Do I look fine?”
“….”
“Well, since your martial arts Qi is down, I can spare you if you answer my questions.”
To which he responds in a weak tone.
“What are you curious about?”
“For now, how to solve the withdrawal symptoms.”
So, he answers while walking.
“Where would that be? You just have to not eat it. The first 30 days will be like hell, the next 20 days will force one to feel the pain of having been bitten by insects, in the next ten days an itchy pain will take over the body with three days of fever, and then you will be back to normal. Of course, those who took huge quantities will suffer horribly. It is a poison which has no cure.”
Walking by his side, I ask,
“Why did you make this?”
“We have to survive too.”
“You survive by putting the others in pain.”
White Face Young Lord speaks in a calm tone.
“Sect Leader…. I have lived my entire life in fear of my father. Our head of house is someone afraid of the Cult Leader. Those who get dragged to the battlefield with no other option have to fight like this. I am just a soldier brought into the battlefield the moment I was born. I have to die and this service to them would be over, so what is this?”
“Even if you decide to use your head like this, the Cult Leader will have no chance of winning, so what is this now?”
He nods and says,
“It is predicted that one day the Cult Leader will take a path beyond humans. They said to be prepared to protect the family. When I asked what he was preparing, he said that it cannot be helped because he was touching this forbidden arts. This isn’t just a win or lose fight. It turned into one for survival.”
I did expect the forbidden martial arts to be used, so I ask,
“What is this forbidden martial arts?”
“I don’t have the full details. I heard that Kangho did not like it because of a certain thing. I heard that if it doesn’t work, there is a chance for the families with weak loyalty or dislike will be accused of being bad for the Cult. And that could be our family.”
The Cult Leader was someone who could just stay where he is without doing anything because he has no inspiration.
I was about to go up the mountain but changed my mind and went to an inn on a quiet road and took a seat.
With a pale expression, White Face Young Lord sits across from me and leans his head back against the wall.
I waved my hand to the server who was coming to take my order and then looked at White Face Young Lord.
He says, looking out of the inn,
“Can you take down the Cult Leader?”
“I cannot win over him right now, but I am preventing him from becoming stronger than he is now.
“How?”
“Getting rid of people like you.”
“That will take a long time. There will not be just one person like me.”
“At that time, I will be skipping meals, practicing, and sleeping less.”
“That would still take a long time. So, at what age?”
“If I cannot do it, I will hope that my disciples will do it in the future.”
“You are young, you already have disciples?”
“Not yet.”
“What is the reason you want to go this far to kill him? Is it revenge?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Stretching myself I tell him,
“Looking at things, this is something only I get to do. I have seen him before. And he treated me like a bug. It riled me up. The bastard there knows that I am a bug, I am a bug, right? Let’s see how far this takes me. Is what I thought.”
This made the guy say,
“Hero of the first generation. Do you know that the Cult Leader killed his half-brothers?”
“I don’t know the full details.”
“Real brothers, his cousins… around eight to nine of them. In the first place, those who were in the line for succession tried to kill each other so it would have been less unfair, but then when it was reaching the end, he went and searched for even those not interested in the succession and killed them. Who would try to get the position from such a Cult Leader?”
“The one who survives.”
“Right. Not a child. But a survivor. What would you do if you were born in our trio? The brothers trying to kill one another all the time and the man being called no face. It would be foolish to drop everything and escape. I mean, if you are going to be dragged away and killed, even if you try to compete with powers, martial arts, or skills, the first and second brothers are stronger. And the martial arts. Their families have a higher place in the Cult. The Cult Leader is watching this happen so what do I do?”
This made me think.
And the guy continues with his head leaning back against the wall.
“I do not know how the weak feel. But I always wondered, how can a person not become a demon when they are put in such a place? It always made me wonder. So let me give you the smart answer.”
“….”
“You aren’t dumb right? Still, I would like to have someone like you as my superior. I think I can figure something out then. What happened to me was the same. To deceive me from the start and to end with a surprise attack.”
The guy leans back and begins to slowly fall so I hit him on the head.
“Do not play dead. How dare you act like that in front of me?”
This made him raise his head.
“Can’t you just fall for the trick? People are being turned into retards, what more do you want? Tell the location of where my family is so you can kill them? I cannot do that, ask something else.”
“I am an idiot, but I left a little of internal Qi. It means that with cultivation you can recover. And try waiting. I will find the answer.”
“Is there an answer?”
I call the server and order drinks and food.
Arms crossed, I searched for the answer to the question he asked. I even wondered why I was looking for such an answer. Maybe to continue dealing with Demonic Cult….
It was because the thought crossed my mind that I should have known the answer. The basis was none.
‘What would I have done if I was one of the three?’
If I had to kill brothers to survive, I would be the same as them. It means that these guys and I were all humans with nothing special.
“Strangely, I have no answer.”
This made him smile.
“Uh? You don’t have an answer?”
“It is a bit different from what you think.”
“How so?”
“I don’t think I could have killed my brother.”
This made him chuckle.
“You sound insane. You will die then.”
“Look here, having siblings has been a dream of mine since I was a kid. I cannot kill what I dream of. Even if you can be beaten.”
“If there was a way, the smart Cult Leader wouldn’t have killed his own too. The orthodox side would be happy too. No hell would even start.”
“I am asking this because I don’t get it, what is orthodox now?”
“The ones who make a living by building their wealth through the usage of martial arts?”
“You insane bastard.”
I raise my hand, but I don’t hit because it looks like he will die. The server too brings out the food and alcohol.
After drinking, I get up and my head clears up a bit.
“I realize it.”
White Face Young Lord looks dumbfounded as he is pouring alcohol.
“What?”
“What I would do if… I was one of the three.”
To which he waited for the answer. Imagining myself to be in the Cult, I say,
“First of all, I’d train the light body technique and then run.”
To this, the guy looks at me like I am pathetic.
“Just run away? There will be people pursuing you.”
“They cannot.”
“Why?”
I speak with a serious expression.
“Cause I will run till the end of the world.”
“And what do you get?”
“What do I get? Just running away so my brothers cannot kill me. Run till the end. Think of it as a trip. Go to the coastal waters, cross the great sea on a ship. Go through western regions and go up to the North Sea too.”
I bring up the visit to the waters and all that I could think of. It just seems to come to mind without any thought.
White Face Young Lord looks at me.
“Next?”
I spread both hands open and say,
“That is it.”
“….”
“The condition to come back is just one. When you have an overwhelming power to beat down those who caused this problem. It doesn’t matter if it takes 10 to 20 years.”
“And those who are left behind?”
“What good will worrying do? Just practice.”
“And when we come back?”
“Give everything up.”
This makes him chuckle.
“What an idiotic answer.”
I look at the guy with a serious face.
“… whether you care for the position of the family. Use the cure for the poison. If you aren’t sure of either of them then look.”
“If I give the cure?”
“I will send you out for a trip.”
“To the other world?”
“No, till the end of the world. Well, your dantian and Qi are a mess now, and they will be restored after years of cultivation. So come back then and check this place out. I am going to say let it be until after everyone is either dying in the hands of the Cult Leader or the Cult Leader dying in my hands.”
He laughs and I look at him.
“And strategically speaking, if you want your family to have a better chance at survival, you need to give me a lot of information. For example, write about the first and second young lords and the families of their mothers. If I take them down, the chance of your family surviving will increase.”
This shocked him. I point my finger at him and say,
“You use me. I am the Cult Leader’s greatest enemy.”
“Cult Leader has many enemies so I cannot agree that you are the greatest enemy among them.”
I reply while drinking alcohol.
“It is me. The one who made the Low-Down Sect.”
“Drunk?”
“You are Heavenly Demon Cult, and I am Low-Down Sect. A fight between one which wants to be a Demon God and the guy who fell to the bottom. There is a leader in high place and mine is in the lowest place. Those who want to be the Gods should be beaten to death by the one who was a server.”
The server flinches and runs into the kitchen and the White Face Young lord asks,
“You were a server?”
I reply slapping him on the cheek,
“Why? Don’t like it?”
I hold my hand to his cheek and explain.
“… it is like this. How amazing would it be if the Cult Leader gets slapped on the cheek? Just imagine… euh.”
I rub my hands.
“Giving me goosebumps.”
Editor’s Notes
