Longevity - Chapter 5

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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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Episode 5: The Lightning That Chases
The fifth watch was drawing near.
Na Yangja and his companions had foregone finding shelter and pressed onward along the eastern path. The moon tilted behind the ridge of mountains, and the dirt beneath their feet had vanished into darkness, its boundaries obscured.
Jang Saeng fell back to the rear, shortening his stride. Each time his left foot lagged, his waist tilted to one side. The bruises the villagers had left on his ribs throbbed with each deep breath, sharp as a blade’s edge.
Yet the distance between him and those ahead did not widen.
The Horn of Yellow-eared Creature pressed against his chest from within his robes. With each touch of its solid surface, the promise he had made before the grave returned to him.
He had said he would not be alone.
He had spoken it himself—that he would follow.
He could not be carried from the very first day.
Each time Jeon Jin Gung glanced back, Jang Saeng quickened his pace.
Na Yangja stood at the front, Yi Jung Yong and Batu Ru dividing the baggage between them. Jin Ip Chu moved back and forth along the line, his mouth never still.

“Batu Ru is twenty-five.”

Jin Ip Chu walked backward, gesturing toward Batu Ru with his thumb.

“He’s been following our master for nine years. Look at him—you’d think he could carry a mountain on his shoulders.”

Batu Ru spoke without glancing ahead.

“It’s not just what he looks like.”
“Right. He drained an entire barrel of bean broth by himself.”
“There was barely any left.”

The two voices collided in the darkness.
Jin Ip Chu laughed and turned to point at Yi Jung Yong.

“Yi Jung Yong is nineteen. He’s been following our master for four years.”
“Talk about yourself instead.”
“I’m eighteen. Three years for me.”

Jin Ip Chu looked toward Jeon Jin Gung at the rear.

“The youngest is sixteen. He joined us last year.”

Jeon Jin Gung’s eyes narrowed slightly.

“Who’s the youngest?”
“You are, by age.”
“If everyone weaker than Batu Ru is the youngest, then what?”

Batu Ru answered with perfect seriousness.

“Then you’re all the youngest.”

Jin Ip Chu burst into laughter. Yi Jung Yong’s shoulders shook with it too.
Without thinking, Jang Saeng felt his lips curve slightly upward.
Jin Ip Chu did not miss it.

“Everyone except Batu Ru has a home. Parents, siblings. We each live in different places, but…”

Jang Saeng looked at Batu Ru’s broad back.

“Batu Ru, do you have no family?”
“No.”

Batu Ru’s answer was brief. There was no tone that said not to ask further, nor any hint of sorrow in it.

“Following our master, at least I don’t go hungry.”
“Only Batu Ru doesn’t go hungry.”

Jin Ip Chu’s jab made Batu Ru pretend he hadn’t heard.
Na Yangja, who had been leading the way, suddenly stopped in his tracks.
The others following behind fell silent all at once.
Na Yangja was staring northward along the path.
Some twenty paces away, down a slope, a single tree lay toppled. The surrounding hillside lay bathed in pale moonlight, but that tree alone was black as if drenched in ink.
Yi Jung Yong’s eyes changed.

“Master, is that

Lightning-Struck Wood?”
“It appears so.”

Na Yangja left the path.
The party descended toward the fallen tree. It was a jujube as thick as a bowl’s rim. Near the base, it had been split and toppled, its trunk charred black, yet the leaves at the branch tips still held a faint green.
Jang Saeng caught a sharp smell in his nostrils—the mingled scent of damp ash and freshly split green wood.
Yi Jung Yong pressed his fingertip against the blackened, cracked bark.

“It wasn’t struck long ago.”

Then Batu Ru lifted his head.

“Master, there’s another one over there.”

Across the northwestern direction he indicated, an elm tree stood at an angle. It lay scarcely twenty paces away. Its trunk had ruptured through the middle, exposing black heartwood.
Na Yangja examined both trees in turn.
He scraped the charred bark from the jujube, then checked the direction of the elm’s split. Standing again between the two trees, he looked about, measuring the distance as though taking the land’s account.
His brow furrowed slowly.

“Strange.”

Batu Ru asked.

“What troubles you?”
“Both were struck recently. If the Heavenly Thunder had fallen from an ordinary storm cloud, it wouldn’t strike twice in spots so close together like this.”

Yi Jung Yong withdrew his hand from the charred wood.

“Then someone must have called down the lightning?”

Na Yangja did not answer at once.

“Search this mountain. Find every cave, every water course, every trace of creatures having lingered. Leave nothing overlooked.”

His four disciples scattered.
Jeon Jin Gung headed up the eastern slope, while Jin Ip Chu climbed toward the ridge. Batu Ru and Yi Jung Yong examined the ground between the trees, then moved northward.
Only Jang Saeng remained where he stood.
He did not know what to search for. But there was a deeper reason than that.
This was the mountain he had climbed the night before to escape the lightning.
Even in the dark, he could see the path. He knew it all—the narrow slope that bent downward from the Communal Cemetery, the pine with exposed roots, the gully where soil would wash away in rain.
Halfway up the mountainside lay a small cave.
Hidden in a stone crevice to the right of its entrance was the Blue-Black Scale Armor.
Jang Saeng’s hand slipped into his garment. He grasped the Horn of Yellow-eared Creature, yet his gaze did not leave the mountain’s midslope.
Na Yangja asked.

“Do you know this place?”
“Yes.”

Jang Saeng answered, fighting down the dryness in his throat.

“When lightning struck the village, we’d come up to this mountain.”
“Last night too?”
“…Yes.”

Na Yangja studied him.
Jang Saeng tried not to avoid his gaze, but his fingers tightened around the horn.

“Where were you?”
“There’s a small cave partway up the mountain.”

It wasn’t the sort of place that could be hidden away. The others would find it soon enough.
Na Yangja asked nothing more.
A moment later, Jin Ip Chu’s voice rang out from higher up the slope.

“Master! There’s a cave here!”

Jang Saeng’s heart sank.
Na Yangja and Jang Saeng climbed toward the midslope. The four disciples were already gathered before the small cave.
The cave was barely large enough for two people to shelter from rain. Batu Ru bent low to peer inside, while Yi Jung Yong examined the rocks and soil around the entrance.
Jang Saeng looked to the right side of the cave.
The stone crevice where he’d wedged the Blue-Black Scale Armor was hidden beneath wet soil. On the surface, it looked no different from any other crack.

“There’s nothing inside.”

Batu Ru straightened up.

“No animal scent either.”

Na Yangja cast his gaze into the cave, then surveyed the surrounding terrain. The mountain was low, the forest sparse. There was no clear stream running through a valley, no deep place to hide.

“Split up and search more thoroughly.”

The search didn’t take long.
The mountain was small.
The disciples combed through every ravine, every rock crevice, beneath every fallen tree. Apart from the cave, there was nowhere substantial to linger.
Instead, they found more traces of lightning strikes.
A rotted pine sagging to the ground, a hollowed oak, an ancient tree uprooted entirely. All bore old damage, yet the charred marks and the torn bark were strikingly similar.
Na Yangja’s expression grew heavier.

“Batu Ru and Yi Jung Yong—fell that jujube tree. Ip Chu and Jin Gung, help them.”
“Where are you going, Master?”
“Up to get a better view of the mountain’s lay.”

Na Yangja climbed alone over the ridge and beyond sight.
Batu Ru drew out his axe. It wasn’t even dawn yet, and already there was more wood to fell—Jin Ip Chu sighed as if he’d half expected this.
Listening to their exchange, Jang Saeng gathered that the four disciples had followed Na Yangja for a long time without learning martial arts or magical arts from him.

“Come on, Batu Ru. You drank the bean broth earlier—put some strength into it.”
“You should’ve drunk some too.”

The axe buried itself in the blackened trunk.
Thunk.
The outside was charred, but the inside still fibrous. Batu Ru wrenched the axe free and brought it down again.
Jang Saeng gathered the severed branches beside him. Each time he bent at the waist, his ribs throbbed, but he didn’t stop.
Yi Jung Yong watched him.

“Don’t push yourself.”
“I can manage.”
“Being able to do something and needing to do it now are two different things.”

He took the thick branches from Jang Saeng’s hands and left only the smaller ones.

“And stop calling me that. Call me Yi Jung Yong.”

Jang Saeng closed his mouth for a moment, then nodded.

“Yes, Yi Jung Yong.”

Yi Jung Yong smiled, satisfied.
Jang Saeng pointed at the charred wood.

“What’s this wood used for?”
“Wood struck by lightning retains the essence of Heavenly Thunder. At the Tao Gate, we value it highly when crafting magical instruments.”

Yi Jung Yong scraped away the charred surface of the wood with his blade.

“Jujube wood in particular has strong yang energy to begin with. When struck by lightning, it becomes excellent for suppressing yin and cold.”
“Then is it fortunate that lightning struck this mountain so often?”
“For the wood alone, yes.”

Yi Jung Yong’s smile faded.

“But you can’t call it fortunate if you don’t know why the lightning fell.”

Jin Ip Chu, who had been helping with the axe work, interjected.

“Looking at the marks, it wasn’t ordinary thunderstorm. It’s likely

Tribulation Lightning.”

Jang Saeng set down the branch in his hand.

“What’s Tribulation Lightning?”

Yi Jung Yong handed the axe handle to Batu Ru.

“It’s the lightning that

Non-human Beings face when they cultivate.”

When Jang Saeng didn’t understand, Yi Jung Yong elaborated.

“Things that are not human don’t possess the natural meridians and channels that humans do—not fully, anyway. When such creatures accumulate spiritual energy for a long time and aspire to transcend human limitations, Heaven does not grant permission easily.”

Yi Jung Yong looked up at the dark edge of the sky.

“They say a minor tribulation comes every hundred years, a major one every thousand. If the creature survives the lightning, its Cultivation Progress deepens. If it doesn’t, nothing remains.”

Jang Saeng’s fingertips turned cold.

“Does that mean there’s a demon on this mountain?”
“That’s the strange part.”

Yi Jung Yong gestured around them.

“The mountain is low and the trees sparse. There’s no place where spiritual energy gathers, no clear water to drink. It’s too close to the Village to be a quiet place for cultivation.”

Jin Ip Chu tilted his chin toward the ancient trees nearby.

“What’s more strange is the spacing of the marks. A Non-human Being’s tribulation comes at most once every hundred years. But these trees weren’t struck centuries ago—most of them were hit within the last few years.”

Jang Saeng fell silent.
Every time lightning struck, the villagers drove him into the mountains.
They had when he was seven. A stone splinter from that strike had fractured his left leg.
Last night too, bolts had fallen repeatedly above the mountain cave.
It happened every time he came to this range.
Jin Ip Chu asked him.

“You lived around here, didn’t you? Ever seen any strange beasts or people? Nocturnal sounds, flowers blooming out of season—anything like that?”

Jang Saeng shook his head.

“No, I haven’t.”

It wasn’t a lie.
He had never seen a strange beast, never encountered a cultivating Non-human Being.
But the lightning—it had always followed him.
He said nothing of that fact.
Jin Ip Chu didn’t seem to notice Jang Saeng’s silence and shrugged.

“Which means the pieces don’t fit.”

Jang Saeng barely opened his mouth.

“Third brother.”
“Mm?”
“Does Tribulation Lightning strike only Non-human Beings?”

Jin Ip Chu tilted his head.

“It doesn’t strike ordinary people.”

Jang Saeng’s stiffened fingers pressed against the horn in his tunic.

“Never?”
“It’s not entirely impossible.”

Jin Ip Chu held up two fingers.

—”When a Non-human Being takes human form, or when someone who has cultivated their Qi reaches the Purple Air Realm, the Heavenly Thunder can descend. But how many people like that exist in this world?”

Jang Saeng could ask no further.
The question rose to his throat: was he human at all? But he swallowed it back.
Na Yangja and his four disciples had studied him from close distance. They had examined his wounds, held his hand, walked with him through the night.
If he were a Non-human Being, they could not have failed to know.
Perhaps something had clung to the Scale Armor. But Na Yangja had gone all the way to the cave entrance and departed without sensing anything amiss.
Jang Saeng wanted to trust that judgment.
As the axe-work continued, the eastern sky slowly paled.
Charred bark and ancient lightning scars grew sharper in the dawn light. When Batu Ru severed the final base, the jujube tree fell with a dull thud, brought completely to earth.
The men trimmed branches and bundled the usable lengths of wood.
As the sun began to illuminate the land below the ridge, Na Yangja descended from the heights. Dry leaves and dust clung to his sleeves.
Yi Jung Yong asked.

“Did you find anything?”

Na Yangja shook his head.

“No trace of a lair, and no Qi that would suggest a Non-human Being dwelling here.”

“Then what on earth are these lightning strikes…….”
“They might not live here—they could have come from somewhere else.”

Na Yangja studied the Lightning-Struck Wood he had cut down.

“It’s possible they deliberately sought out this mountain, either to evade the tribulation or to meet it head-on.”

Jang Saeng turned to look at the small peak behind him.
Until yesterday it had been a refuge, a place to hide from the lightning.
Now it had become somewhere that unknown things sought out to receive punishment from heaven.
Yet it was always Jang Saeng himself who had come to find that mountain.

“Let’s move.”

Na Yangja turned his body eastward again.
Batu Ru hoisted the Lightning-Struck Wood he had bound across his shoulder, and the others divided the rest of the burden among themselves. Jang Saeng picked up the lightest bundle of branches.
This time, no one told him to set it down.
Jang Saeng fell into line with the others.
On the path where dawn was breaking, his left foot still lagged, but the horn in his chest and the lightning scar on his back traveled with him at every step.

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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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