Longevity - Chapter 34

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 34: Encirclement and Pursuit
“Move out!”

At Yi Jung-yong’s command, Jin Ip-chu and Jeon Jin-gung swung into their saddles in unison. Ba Tur-u hoisted Jang Saeng onto the right seat of the cart and gripped the reins.

“Jin, you ride point with me. Jeon, take the rear.”

Yi Jung-yong drove his horse forward. Jin Ip-chu stayed tight to his right flank, while Jeon Jin-gung wheeled his mount behind the cart, eyes fixed on the Bamboo Grove.
Ba Tur-u cracked the whip, and four horses threw themselves into the traces at once. The wheels sent gravel spinning as they thundered down the Valley road.
Before those hiding could bar the way, the party burst free of the Valley and veered onto a broad country road heading east.
On the western side of the road, more than twenty horses stood tethered beneath the trees. The man guarding them hurled down his feed bucket and bolted into the forest.
Yi Jung-yong hauled back on the reins, twisting his horse’s head around.

“Jin, Jeon. Bring them all.”

Jin Ip-chu wheeled his horse sideways toward the cart and shouted.

“Ba, take the boy and go ahead!”

Ba Tur-u answered not with words but with a shake of the reins. The cart surged south in a plume of dust.
Jang Saeng sat on the right side, twisting backward. Dark figures were pouring out from three directions around the Bamboo Grove.
The numbers of those racing in from the southwest, west, and northwest were beyond counting. The subordinates of the four who had faced Na Yang-ja were now chasing them all at once.
At the trees, Yi Jung-yong, Jin Ip-chu, and Jeon Jin-gung were working at knots. The pursuers closed the gap rapidly.

“Yi, hurry! They’re almost here!”

Hearing Jang Saeng’s cry, Yi Jung-yong drew the blade from his belt. There was no time to untie them one by one.

“Jin, cut the left lines! Jeon, the right!”
“On it!”

Steel flashed. The reins wound around the stake parted. Jin Ip-chu severed the left lines in quick succession, while Jeon Jin-gung hunched low and slashed the knots on the far side.

“Three loose.”
“Good. Drive the rest!”

Yi Jung-yong scraped the rump of the freed horses lightly with his blade’s tip.
Neigh!
The startled horse reared, lashing out with its hind legs. Jin Ip-chu ducked, and the hooves whistled past his head.

“Yi, you’ll catch people too at this rate!”
“That’s the point. Let them go!”

Jin Ip-chu swung his scabbard hard against the horse’s flank. Spooked, the animals shoved at each other and scattered—some toward the forest, others toward the pursuers.

“Horses! Get clear!”

One man in the front rank tried to grab at reins and was dragged down instead. The mob behind fractured left and right.
Jeon Jin-gung sliced through the last line and glanced back.

“The pursuers are splitting up.”
“Now we ride!”

The three men gathered the reins of the remaining twelve horses and mounted. Yi Jung-yong and Jin Ip-chu flanked the cart on either side, while Jeon Jin-gung came up last.
Empty saddles jostled against one another beside the cart, and the dust raised by the herd obscured the party’s numbers and position.

“Father!”

Jang Saeng leaned out and called.

“Look ahead. We’re closing in.”

Jeon Jin-gung drove through the dust in pursuit. Yi Jung-yong pulled alongside the carriage.

“Senior, slow down just a bit! I’ll take the reins!”

Ba Tur-u eased his pace, and Jang Saeng grabbed the carriage rail, leaning out with his upper body.

“I’ve got it!”

Yi Jung-yong threw the bundle of reins. Jang Saeng caught it with both arms, but the tension yanked his torso forward. Ba Tur-u seized his belt with one hand and hauled him back.
The two of them divided the reins between the carriage rails on either side and tied them fast. Ba Tur-u cracked the whip, and the carriage lurched forward again alongside the herd of more than ten horses.

“What about the rear?”
“Rounding up the scattered horses. They can’t catch us yet.”

Yi Jung-yong kept his eyes on the road ahead, and Jeon Jin-gung never looked away from their backs.
Ba Tur-u wielded the whip, then wiped his eyes with his sleeve. When Jang Saeng noticed, he turned his face away at once.

“The wind is fierce.”

But there was no hiding the hoarse edge in his voice, nor the cheeks wet with moonlight.
Jang Saeng wanted to turn and look westward. Yet behind the winding mountain pass, he saw neither smoke nor firelight.

“Keep your eyes ahead.”

Jang Saeng could not answer. He gripped the reins tighter in his hands.
The carriage and horses raced into the darkness. No one spoke Na Yang-ja’s name aloud, and nothing but the clatter of hooves and wheels pressed them forward relentlessly.
By the time they climbed onto the Official Road—after enough time for an incense stick to burn halfway down—no pursuing lights appeared behind them.
When a fork in the path came into view, Yi Jung-yong raised his hand to signal a slowdown, then rode alongside the carriage.

“Senior, we can’t take the way we came. We need a different road.”
“Understood.”

Ba Tur-u pulled on the left reins. The carriage followed Yi Jung-yong and Jin Ip-chu into the eastern fork, while Jeon Jin-gung checked behind one last time and closed the rear.
As the path narrowed, their pace slowed. Yi Jung-yong, Jin Ip-chu, and Jeon Jin-gung dismounted to conserve their strength and climbed into the carriage.
Jang Saeng turned to yield his seat, then stopped.
The inside of the carriage felt unnaturally spacious. The place where Na Yang-ja had sat moments before held nothing.
No blanket, no walking stick, no dry cough lingered. With each sway of the wheels, only moonlight slid across the empty space. Jang Saeng’s breath caught in his throat, and he could not look away.
Jin Ip-chu sat across from him and shut the door. Jeon Jin-gung followed Jang Saeng’s gaze to the empty seat, but without a word he withdrew a half-volume of ancient text from his robe.
The work Na Yang-ja had left unfinished remained. They had to memorize as much as possible before the brittle medical manuscript crumbled to dust.
Each man opened a volume. But the moment they saw the first page, the silence in the carriage hardened into a different weight.
The characters were no larger than a fly’s head. Hundreds of them crowded densely onto each side, and the names of medicines and illnesses Jang Saeng had never seen before appeared in every line.
The carriage kept swaying. Moonlight seeped through the window gaps only thinly, and each time the wheels struck a stone, the lines of text danced before their eyes.
Jin Ip-chu flipped through several pages quickly, then closed the book.

“Youngest disciple, this holds no interest for me. You take it.”

He laid one half-volume on Jang Saeng’s knees. From the driver’s seat, Ba Tur-u’s thick arm reached in, and the other half-volume fell onto his lap with a thud.

“I can’t make sense of it either. You keep this one too.”

Faced suddenly with three volumes, Jang Saeng lifted his head in bewilderment.

“Even though they say I don’t forget what I’ve seen once, I can’t memorize this now. The characters are far too small, and there are too many names I don’t know.”

Yi Jung-yong picked up the two remaining volumes. Jang Saeng thought he might take them back, and he exhaled in relief—but Yi Jung-yong merely aligned the spines and first pages carefully.

“It hasn’t dried out so much that it will crumble immediately. It will hold for several more days.”

He sorted through the volumes and handed two of them back to Jang Saeng.

​”These two are the upper and lower volumes of the Essential Methods for the Emergencies.
​
Keep them together.”
“Both of them, with me?”
“If they’re separated, the books become incomplete the moment one person falls. You have the best memory among us, and in the end you may have to move alone. Since you’re keeping both volumes, you must not lose them—and you must not show them carelessly to anyone.”
​
Jang Saeng received the two volumes without answering. The books were light in his hands, but when he held them against his chest, they touched the black wooden box and made a heavy sound. He understood then that in exchange for keeping one complete set intact, all the risk of losing it had fallen to him alone.
Yi Jung-yong offered his half-volume to Jeon Jin-gung.
​
“This is the lower volume of the Essential Methods for the Emergencies.
​
It completes the upper volume you already have.”
​
Jeon Jin-gung did not reach for it immediately.
​
“Elder brother, that was what our teacher left for you.”
“That’s exactly why I’m entrusting it to you.”
​
Yi Jung-yong placed the book into Jeon Jin-gung’s hands.
​
“Whether you were born in the Central Plains or not doesn’t matter. We learned from the same teacher and walked the same path—we are brothers under one roof. Your taking this does not make it belong to someone else.”
​
Jeon Jin-gung bowed his head, still holding the book. He did not speak thanks, but moments later he aligned the edges of both half-volumes and wrapped them together in the same cloth. Only after he had placed the complete medical text deep inside his robe did his hands release it.
Na Yang-ja could not take the place of what had been left behind, but the remaining books and the burden they carried were finding new custodians among the five of them.
The carriage lurched heavily, and Yi Jung-yong steadied himself against the wall. Once he had caught his breath, he looked around at the four men.
​
“We don’t know when work will come again. We could scatter at any time, which is why I’m speaking of this now.”
​
He did not turn to look at the west where the two wooden boxes remained.
​
“Our teacher used the Five Thunder Great Method to buy time. Even if the wooden boxes had survived the lightning, they would have struggled against the wildfire. People in the world may believe the Secret Manual was burned.”
​
​
“Elder brother, it won’t end so easily.”
​
Jin Ip-chu shook his head.
​
“Elder brother Ba spoke of the Vajra Indestructible Divine Technique.
​
Even if only one of those four survives, word will spread that we’ve mastered an obsolete martial art.”
​
From the coachman’s bench, Ba Tur-u let out a small groan. He had no excuse to offer.
Jin Ip-chu pointed to the sword at Jang Saeng’s waist.
​
“Song Bo recognized the blade that our youngest brother carries. If that man lives, he won’t believe the Secret Manual burned and simply retreat.”
​
Jang Saeng’s hand descended to his scabbard.
​
“Third brother, what sort of place is the Taeping Inn?”
“A place where anything rare is bought and sold. If a price can be set on it, they trade in treasure, forbidden techniques, ancient Secret Manuals—anything.”
“They hold major auctions twice a year. They have so much money that neither the Dark Path nor the Bright Path dares touch them carelessly. There are rumors that the court stands behind them, but nothing confirmed.”
​
Yi Jung-yong continued.
​
“So protecting the texts isn’t where it ends. Our teacher didn’t retrieve the Secret Manual from the tomb to hoard it for himself. He meant to prevent the ancient martial knowledge left by those who came before from being lost entirely.”
​
He looked at each of the four men in turn.
​
“Of the eighteen sections, Jin Ip-chu and I each memorized four, while Jeon Jin-gung and Jang Saeng each learned five. There are martial arts we cannot master. If the original martial school still exists and walks the righteous path, it’s only proper to return the texts to them.”
“But there are plenty of secret manuals from a thousand years ago. How many martial schools do you think have survived until now?”

At Jin Ip-chu’s counter-question, Jang Saeng asked hesitantly.

“If a martial school still existed, wouldn’t its techniques have been passed down?”
“Not necessarily.”

Yi Jung-yong shook his head.

“People often don’t pass on everything they know. If someone learns ten methods but teaches disciples only nine, then within just a few generations, only half remains. There are likely martial schools that exist in name alone, their transmission broken.”

Jang Saeng pressed the medical text in his breast once with his palm.

“If the original martial school has vanished, would it be permissible to pass the knowledge to someone of upright character?”
“It could be. But that’s harder to judge.”

Yi Jung-yong’s voice grew quiet.

“We have no guarantee that we see people rightly. If martial arts we hand over believing someone virtuous fall into the hands of the wicked, we’re not honoring the wishes of the dead—we’re bringing calamity into the world.”

Jeon Jin-gung gently pressed the two volumes in his breast.

“We must judge together on whom to return these texts to.”
“That’s right.”

Yi Jung-yong answered curtly.

“We don’t decide by one person’s preference. We look at the actual conduct someone has maintained, not their origins or reputation. We cross-check what we know of them separately. If there’s no certainty, we choose not to pass it on. Once given wrongly, harm done cannot be undone even if we recover it later.”

Jang Saeng nodded.

“I will not speak carelessly or pass on anything without thought.”
“Secrets slip from the mouth most easily. Remember this, all of you.”

From the coachman’s seat, Ba Tur-u spoke in an aggrieved tone.

“Master Yi, you’re directing that at me, aren’t you? I didn’t mean to. That nun kept calling what I learned the Wild Ox Technique and—wait.”

His words cut off abruptly.
Jin Ip-chu leaned forward.

“What’s wrong, Ba Tur-u?”
“There are beggars packed at the fork ahead.”

The four inside the carriage turned toward the window at once. Darkness still obscured their forms.

“Are they starving refugees, or bandits?”
“There are armed men mixed in. They’re bandits.”

Yi Jung-yong’s face hardened.

“They’ve blocked the road already?”

Ba Tur-u answered without slackening the reins.

“Did you forget bandits use messenger pigeons?”

A messenger pigeon
had delivered the news before the racing carriage could reach them along the mountain path.

Yi Jung-yong thrust the door open at once. He gestured to Jin Ip-chu and Jeon Jin-gung, and the two men secured the medical texts firmly within their robes before rising to their feet.
The three of them leaped from the moving carriage in succession. Jin Ip-chu seized the left horse, Jeon Jin-gung the right, while Yi Jung-yong selected the lead horse that would carry them forward.
As they mounted their saddles, dark shadows emerged from the forests on both sides of the fork ahead. Steel blades and clubs caught the moonlight, glinting as they barred the road.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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