Murim Login - Chapter 486

“Can we talk for a moment?”

“No. Go away.”

“I see.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Jeok Cheon-Gang approached, and Moon Kyung’s eyebrow twitched.

“I said no.”

“I heard you. So?”

“You really don’t understand words, do you? Did you eat your years through the back of your head?”

“A young brat like you has no manners towards an elder. I’ve lived six, maybe seven times longer than you.”

“How old are you exactly to be saying something like that…”

“Old enough to call you a wet-behind-the-ears brat.”

“You really are a piece of… Forget it. Talking to you is pointless.”

Moon Kyung, who had momentarily felt a surge of anger, shook his head in frustration.

Though Jeok Cheon-Gang appeared youthful, even boyish, he was an elder who had lived for over a century. Yet, speaking with him often made Moon Kyung feel like an agitated child.

‘He’s a master at getting under people’s skin. Both the teacher and the student are cut from the same cloth—Jeok Cheon-Gang and Jin Taekyung. These two could probably talk someone into a rage-induced death with just their sharp tongues.’

By comparison, Moon Kyung’s disciple, who was likely tending to the sick back in Sichuan, was a saint reincarnated.

‘I miss you. I hope you’re doing well.’

Lost in thought about his good-natured disciple, Moon Kyung looked up to see Jeok Cheon-Gang strolling up with his characteristic swagger. The old man casually sat on a rock.

“What were you looking at?”

“I don’t see why I should answer.”

“A fine choice. Then let’s sit here until dawn, just the two of us old-timers.”

“You really only know one side of things. I can just leave.”

“You might know two sides, but not three. Do you think I’ll only do this today?”

“Today, tomorrow, the day after that… I’ve been having trouble sleeping as I age, so this might actually be a nice change.”

As Moon Kyung turned to leave, his steps halted abruptly. His eyelids twitched as he looked back at Jeok Cheon-Gang, muttering with a sigh.

“You’re a wicked old man.”

“Hmph. Finally ready to talk?”

“…Get to the point of why you came here.”

“This might take a while.”

“Make it short.”

“Short, huh.”

Jeok Cheon-Gang, gazing at the dark river, spoke quietly.

“Look after that boy.”

“What?”

Moon Kyung frowned momentarily before speaking.

“That boy… Jin Taekyung?”

“Yeah. Who else could I mean?”

“Why are you asking me to do that?”

“Not sure.”

Jeok Cheon-Gang suddenly tilted his head back to gaze at the bright full moon. Its light, pouring from an unreachable place, was exceptionally radiant.

“I just had the thought… How long will I be able to stay by his side?”

A hundred years was a long time.

Mountains changed, dynasties rose and fell… And the once-young boy had become an old man with white hair.

As Moon Kyung stared silently at Jeok Cheon-Gang, he murmured softly.

“You’ve grown old.”

“Yeah. I’ve grown old.”

Aging doesn’t only wear down the body. Emotions and the heart, though unseen, also erode over time.

When one suddenly thinks of death, when one wonders how much longer they can stay by someone’s side… That’s when they realize they’ve grown old.

Just like Jeok Cheon-Gang now.

And Moon Kyung, among all others, could understand Jeok Cheon-Gang’s feelings better than anyone else.

“Is this a case of ‘simma’? [1]”

“Simma, huh… It’s been a long time.”

Jeok Cheon-Gang let out a self-mocking laugh.

After his former disciple, whom he had raised like a child, turned into a murderous ghost and left, dark clouds had hovered over his heart.

The sadness and guilt he felt back then had shackled his mind and body for decades.

Until one day, Jin Taekyung appeared like a ray of light piercing through the darkness.

“Now, it’s just a painful past. A memory I carry, but no longer a torment.”

“Then why?”

“Because I’ve grown restless.”

‘Simma’ doesn’t have a fixed form. It’s an obstacle that clouds the mind and prevents enlightenment.

The ‘simma’ that gripped Jeok Cheon-Gang now was the emotion of restlessness.

“If only I had met that boy twenty years—no, even ten years earlier… It’s too late now.”

Jeok Cheon-Gang raised his hand to block the moonlight. Unlike him, the radiant moon, untouched by time, illuminated his wrinkled face, and he found it displeasing.

“My body, my mind… neither are the same anymore. The only reason I’ve managed to endure this long is because of that boy.”

In the year they spent at Mount Jiuhua, it wasn’t just Jin Taekyung who grew.

Through teaching him, Jeok Cheon-Gang gained small realizations that helped him hold back the rapid advance of his aging body.

But still…

“You already knew, didn’t you? That my innate vital energy (‘Seoncheon Jigi’) was damaged.”

‘Seoncheon Jigi’, also called ‘Jinwon Jingi’, is the essence of life itself—the source of everything that sustains the human body.

As Jeok Cheon-Gang recalled the events in Henan, a bitter smile appeared on his lips.

“I have no regrets. If it meant saving that child, I would’ve done anything.”

His words were sincere. Even if he could go back a hundred or a thousand times, he would make the same choice. The situation back then was that desperate.

To kill the Blood Lord and drag him to the brink of death, Jeok Cheon-Gang had burned his life force as fuel, channeling his ‘Seoncheon Jigi’ to compensate for his insufficient power in the fiery dance of the Fire God Ghost Dance (‘Hwasingwimu’).

“It was something I had prepared for. Even if I survived, I knew I wouldn’t be the same.”

Moon Kyung, who had been silently observing, finally spoke in a low voice.

“That’s probably true. If it weren’t for the Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng that boy brought back.”

“Yes, it was all a stroke of luck. Even him finding you was a blessing.”

But both men knew the truth.

Even the miraculous Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng and the godlike treatment from a peerless doctor couldn’t fully restore Jeok Cheon-Gang’s ‘Seoncheon Jigi’.

At best, it was a temporary measure.

Like plugging a broken dam with a large boulder, the water trapped inside still seeped out through small gaps—slowly but relentlessly.

“Is that why you came to me? To ask me to look after that boy?”

“Who knows? What do you think?”

Jeok Cheon-Gang’s rhetorical question prompted a soft click of Moon Kyung’s tongue as he continued.

“You’ve grown sentimental with age. Worrying about things you could address years from now.”

The amount of energy and capacity one holds varies from person to person.

If commoners or third-rate martial artists are small streams, then Jeok Cheon-Gang is an endless ocean.

Though his ‘Seoncheon Jigi’ was gradually dissipating, from Moon Kyung’s perspective—knowing Jeok Cheon-Gang’s condition—his concerns seemed premature.

“It’s my body; I know it well. I probably won’t die today.”

“Then stop these pointless thoughts and go back. Spend this time teaching that boy one more lesson instead.”

“But who knows what will happen tomorrow?”

“What?”

“Do you think I came to you because I’m afraid I’ll suddenly drop dead from the loss of my ‘Seoncheon Jigi’?”

Jeok Cheon-Gang, locking eyes with Moon Kyung, spoke slowly and deliberately.

“I can feel it—my body growing weaker. I’ve survived numerous near-death experiences, even ones I didn’t feel during the Great War against Dark Heaven. How much longer do you think an old man like me can endure the battles that lie ahead? Only that damned someone watching from above might know.”

“…”

“Even Monk Hwengdo said something similar. That the flow of the heavens was being disturbed, and an even greater calamity than the Great War was approaching.”

Monk Hwengdo’s prediction came true.

A year later, Mount Song, the revered epicenter of martial arts, was drenched in blood and strewn with corpses. The wise monk who had once delighted in wine and meat met his end.

Before long, the dark clouds of ‘Amcheon’ shrouded Henan, Sichuan, and Hubei.

Jeok Cheon-Gang knew—those clouds would soon engulf the entire world.

“Moon Kyung, my friend.”

Jeok Cheon-Gang’s eyes, filled with deep regret, fixed on Moon Kyung.

“Unfathomable things are happening. Everything we once knew is falling apart.”

It’s often said that Murim can be likened to the Yangtze River.

The phrase ‘”The waves that follow push out the waves ahead”‘ (‘Jangganghurangchujeonrang’) comes from this very idea.

But the strange phenomena and acts of defiance by Dark Heaven across the world were nothing like the Yangtze River. They were more akin to overturning heaven and earth—a complete reversal of the natural order.

For Jeok Cheon-Gang and Moon Kyung, two men who had lived for over a hundred years, the principles they had held dear were crumbling to dust.

‘If what Jin Taekyung said is true, then even more so… No, no, it can’t be. It mustn’t be.’

Jeok Cheon-Gang forcibly pushed away the thoughts that momentarily flashed through his mind.

It had to be one of Jin Taekyung’s usual ridiculous jokes, tossed out without thought.

Or at least, that’s what Jeok Cheon-Gang desperately wanted to believe.

Both his body and mind, weathered by age, were not prepared to accept such a shocking possibility.

“Regardless, I’m asking out of an abundance of caution. In this cursed Murim, nothing is too surprising. And if an old man like me, who grows weaker with each passing day, were to die, it wouldn’t be much of a shock either.”

Moon Kyung regarded Jeok Cheon-Gang with a peculiar expression.

The giant known as the Fire King appeared unusually small today, and his calm voice, speaking of inevitable death, lingered in Moon Kyung’s ears.

‘A request… A request, of all things.’

It was almost unbelievable to hear such a word from the mouth of the Fire King himself.

Moon Kyung silently watched as Jeok Cheon-Gang slowly rose to his feet, muttering inwardly.

‘Good grief, I’m getting old too.’

Though his body appeared youthful, his heart felt aged.

Perhaps that’s why a part of him, which had long been arid and untouched by emotion, was now dampened by the heavy rain of time.

“…Sigh.”

As Moon Kyung let out a small sigh, Jeok Cheon-Gang, already turning to leave, waved his hand dismissively.

“Well, I’ll be going now. Enjoy your moon-gazing.”

“What?”

The words caught Moon Kyung completely off guard, leaving him momentarily speechless.

“You’re leaving?”

“Of course. Aren’t you grateful that the nuisance is going away?”

“I haven’t even given you my answer yet.”

“What are you talking about? I feel like I already got one.”

“Wait, what do you mean…”

“Thanks for your answer, young friend.”

“What kind of crazy old man…”

Moon Kyung, known for his unshakable composure, felt it crack completely.

Staring in disbelief at Jeok Cheon-Gang’s retreating back, Moon Kyung finally shouted.

“What do you expect me to do?!”

“Teach him this and that. Help him gain the right mindset, and if you have any unique martial arts, maybe pass him a secret manual or two.”

“Secret martial arts? Manuals?”

Moon Kyung questioned his hearing for a moment.

Secret martial arts were the culmination of an individual’s or a sect’s wisdom—a treasure more precious than life itself. They weren’t something you handed out, not even for a fortune.

And now, Jeok Cheon-Gang was asking him to teach such techniques to someone else’s disciple?

“…Have you gone senile and forgotten what secret martial arts are?”

“I know. But if you’re not going to use them to wipe your ass, why not teach them?”

“This lunatic…”

“Besides, there’s no one else to pass them on to, is there? Let your old disciple in Sichuan keep saving lives. Instead, teach my boy how to take lives properly.”

Was he even serious?

Moon Kyung was left utterly speechless at Jeok Cheon-Gang’s brazen remarks, and by the time he gathered his thoughts, the Fire King had already retreated into the distance.

‘Sssshhhh!’

“Damn it… What a ridiculous day.”