Return of The Mount Hua – Chapter 1651. It's a Good Day (1)
Editor: Hoamz
Co-Translator: Xoxo
"Step on him!"
"You damn bastard!"
Children crowded around and kicked someone they had surrounded. Those children themselves were emaciated, looking twice as young as their actual age.
"Huff! Huff!"
The children, who already looked to be in poor condition, seemed to tire quickly after just a few kicks and panted heavily.
"This... vicious bastard."
"How can someone be like this..."
They looked down with disgust and exchanged glances.
"...Let's go."
“Just like this?”
“What, you wanna kill him?”
Silence fell. Conflict flickered across every face. But soon, each child nodded irritably.
“Let’s go.”
"Ptui! What rotten luck."
The children spat in frustration and emptiness and turned away. Even then, their eyes held an indescribable emotion.
Someone muttered in a weary voice.
"...Do we have to starve today too?"
"If those damn bastards hadn't been at war, we could have at least begged for food."
"You speak like a beggar. I heard more than ten people starved to death in the lower town. When not just beggar bastards, but even yangban who were living fine are starving to death, who would give us anything?”
“Damn it....”
A similar light rose on the faces of the children walking away.
It was perhaps despair, or fear. Or maybe helplessness about hardships they absolutely couldn't handle with their own strength.
Those with power shake up the world, but those without power bear all the repercussions. The despair of those whose lives were shaken and crumbled regardless of their own will was indescribably thick and heavy.
“Why do you keep looking back?”
"...Won't he die like that?"
"Damn it, if he dies, he dies. When I'm about to die myself, what does it matter! Don't waste energy with bullshit and let's go!"
The child finally nodded and hurried on. But even then, he kept looking back as if something weighed on his mind.
What he kept looking back at was perhaps the humanity they had no choice but to abandon, the guilt they had to discard—could only discard—to survive in a world like this.
Long after everyone had left.
Rustle.
The person who had been lying as if dead after being stomped by the children groans and gets up.
A shriveled, tiny body. A young child who looked like they would collapse immediately even without being trampled by many.
The child who had endured harsh violence that even an adult would struggle with placed trembling hands on the ground.
With clothes so tattered that even the word 'rags' would be a luxury, and hair growing wildly in a mess, their appearance suited the word 'beast' more than 'beggar.'
“Ptui.”
The child spat bloody water. But the fishy smell filling their mouth didn't go away.
The child, looking around like a weak beast, rummaged inside their clothes only after confirming no one was nearby.
What was eventually grasped in their filthy hands was a single blackened dumpling, flattened from being trampled, that they had never given up despite the brutal violence.
The child tore a small piece of the dirt-covered dumpling with small hands. Then slowly pushed it into their mouth.
It tasted nauseating with too much blood and dirt. But the child showed no particular reaction, simply chewing and swallowing it steadily. They even looked like they were savoring a rare delicacy.
Gaunt fingers tore at the dumpling again.
Though they had been beaten until there was no uninjured spot on their body to obtain this, the child didn't resent that fact. Being beaten was better than starving to death.
The child clearly recognized this.
Someone dies every day. Among the ones who had stomped them and left, some would die within a few days.
People die if they don't eat. The same goes for children. Then if this level of beating was the price for obtaining this one dumpling, it was a bargain.
Survive. There is nothing more important than that. At least in this place.
It was just as the child wiped the blood from his mouth with a dirty sleeve.
“Are you alright?”
As soon as someone spoke to them, the child shoved the remaining dumpling inside their clothes and bared their teeth. Their crouched posture was as fierce as a wild animal guarding against its surroundings.
At that sight, the beggar who had spoken from a distance made an awkward expression.
"No, I was just worried... wondering if you're okay."
“....”
It was certainly a voice full of concern. A warmth that was hard to dare hope for in such a cold world.
But the child sent only cold and chilly eyes to that warmth.
Even knowing this, the beggar didn't easily withdraw his benevolent concern.
"Don't be so wary."
The beggar cautiously approached the child, as if truly worried.
"With your body that injured, you'll freeze to death if you sleep in the cold. I'll..."
But as he took a few steps forward, the beggar froze. Because he saw the child pulling out a sharp blade from his clothes instead of the dumpling.
A look of perplexity washed over the hesitating beggar's face for a moment.
The beggar's face, alternating between looking at the child and the blade, suddenly twisted viciously as if it were all a lie. It was hard to believe he was the same person who had spoken so kindly just moments ago.
“This fucking kid....”
The beggar, staring intently at the child as if weighing something in his head, ground his teeth and then took a couple of steps backward. It seemed he had judged that risking facing a blade for a piece of leftover dumpling was a losing bargain.
"Do you think a runt like you can last a few more days like that?"
“....”
"A brat who's about to die anyway... When you die, I'll make sure to boil and eat you. I'll be watching, you dog-like bastard."
After pouring out curses and malice one wouldn't think were directed at a child, the beggar turned away irritably and quickly disappeared.
The child, who remained on guard for a long time even after the beggar had disappeared, stood up as if they had made a decision. Their limping steps continued slowly and steadily toward a deserted place.
Night when darkness fell.
The child, having climbed to the middle of a deep mountain that would be dangerous even in broad daylight, dug through a pile of fallen leaves with a practiced hand.
After moving their hands a few times, a space appeared that looked like it could barely fit one crouched person.
The child squeezed their body inside and collapsed as if exhausted.
Their consciousness wavered, but instead of surrendering to the sleep crashing over them, they pulled out the dumpling and again tore off tiny pieces, chewing slowly and firmly.
His expression didn’t resemble that of a child at all. While chewing the dumpling like that, the child looked down the mountain.
A hellish world.
The value of a life is not always the same. In a peaceful world, a human life holds incomparable value, but in a world like this, a human life is worth less than half a piece of this stale dumpling.
The value the child's life held would be even less than that.
The lowliest person in the most miserable place is ultimately forced to be pushed out to a place where no one lives.
Countless lights entered the eyes of the child looking down from high above.
It was a village. A place still too distant and frightening for him.
The boundary dividing the village where people lived and the mountain where they were was precisely those lights. Precarious as if about to go out at any moment, yet beautiful enough that one couldn't look away.
The child tore the dumpling with such careless hands and stuffed it into their mouth, staring at the river of light unfolding below as if in a trance.
The strong taste of earth, the scent of rotten leaves rushing into his nose.
The child's gaze shifted to a place a little farther away.
The lights in that distant place were several times brighter and more splendid than the lights seen up close.
It was a place the child couldn't even set foot in now. Those who enjoyed such dazzling lights were far stronger than those who lived clinging to dying ones.
The child slowly stretched out their thin hand.
The lights felt close enough to grasp. If they could catch them, they seemed as though they would be warm.
But, of course, they didn't reach the child's hand. Not even a single speck of the warmth those lights must be filled with.
What they could enjoy was only the cold that seeped into their very bones.
But the child was neither discouraged nor regretful.
Because they realized.
Those lights weren't always there from the beginning either. Those who took and plundered someone else's lights to possess more lights are the ones who occupied that place.
If they could steal them, then the child too could steal and seize them. Just like the stale dumpling the child had stolen and shoved into their clothes today. Those lights too, someday...
The lights in the child's pupils grew larger and larger.
The light spreading incomparably warmly soon engulfed the world as if blazing fiercely. The divided boundaries collapsed, and every place in the world filled with bright light.
It was ecstatic. Even knowing they couldn't grasp that warmth, the child reached out their hand once more.
But then.
Crackle!
The world the child gazed upon cracked. In the world dyed red and looking warm, spider web-like fissures appeared, and soon dark red blood gushed through those gaps.
The child's pupils trembled.
The dark red blood quickly covered the world. There was no warmth left. A cold, disgusting void swallowed everything.
"Ah..."
A voice escaped the child's lips for the first time.
But that was all. The voice that couldn't become proper words only poured out like the groan of an injured beast.
"Ah... Aah..."
The world was being dyed entirely black. Without leaving a single thing behind. Cruel despair filled the child's two eyes.
“AAAAAAAAAAAH!”
* * *
“Ryeonju-nim.”
“....”
“Ryeonju-nim?”
The long eyelashes densely lining his closed eyes trembled faintly. His eyelids rose slowly, revealing pale-colored pupils.
Two eyes that blankly scanned the desolate-feeling room eventually turned toward the one standing before him.
"Preparations are complete."
Instead of answering, he looked down.
Blazingly red robes, splendid dragon patterns embroidered with gold thread, long fingers revealed beneath wide sleeves, and colorful ornate rings positioned above them.
This was reality. He was not wearing torn and dirty rags.
He turned over the hand he had placed on the armrest. Cold sweat had pooled profusely in the revealed palm. He stared at it blankly for a while before finally opening his mouth. His face was unreadable, devoid of any particular expression.
"...Mirror."
"Yes."
At his command, the servant quickly held up a bronze mirror before him.
He looked at his own face reflected in the mirror as if it were unfamiliar.
A face adorned with magnificent makeup. Through the strings of the ceremonial crown draping over his face, the figure of a fully grown adult could be seen. Different from that beast-like child. Pure white face and red lips, and even gloomily sunken pupils.
Had he changed?
Had this man in the bronze mirror now changed from that past him? Just because his face changed and what he wore on his body was different?
He dismissed the mirror and slowly rose to his feet.
Servants rushed over to make final adjustments to his attire, but paying no mind to such hands, he walked towards the door visible ahead.
Step. Step.
Grasping the door handle, he hesitated for a moment.
- Are you convinced?
He still hadn’t answered that question. No, perhaps he never would.
But...
He opened his closed eyes and finally threw the door roughly open.
Kwang.
The scene spread out beyond the door, which had been flung open as if to break it, entered his view at a glance.
Countless people stood in formation.
Suppressing seething excitement and desire that seemed ready to burst at any moment.
Those armed with blade-like gazes were waiting only for him, him alone.
The corners of Jang Ilso's red lips gradually twisted upwards into a deep smile.
His gaze turned to the side.
His eyes met with Ho Gamyeong, who was standing to one side of the lined-up ranks. After holding his stare briefly, Ho Gamyeong bowed his head heavily.
"Preparations are... complete, Ryeonju-nim."
“....”
"Your command."
Jang Ilso's eyes slowly turned to the sky. It was blue without a single cloud. The sun risen in the east was shining brilliantly as if welcoming him.
“It’s a good day.”
His gaze begins to resemble that of the child who, one day in the past, stared at the unreachable lights.
He still had not reached what he desired. So...
"Let us go."
Now he must go obtain them. The things he had only gazed at forever.
Step.
He took one step forward. A thick smile appeared at the corners of Jang Ilso's mouth.
The most splendid place in the world. The place where those with the most powerful strength in the world lived. The path to that place was already wide open.
"First... Shall we start with Henan?"
His slender eyes curved like crescent moons.
“Let us go. To take the world in hand."
"Yes!"
The lined-up ranks followed him.
The blades that had held their breath now began to swing toward the world. It was a momentum that would not stop until it ended everything.
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