Chapter 343 : Fools Can Not Be Taught (下愚不移) (1)
Chapter 343: Fools Can Not Be Taught (下愚不移) (1)
The matter of Taoist Master Cheongmok and the Qingcheng Sect was something that needed to be watched carefully, so Il-mok set it aside for now.
After calming down the shaken residents of Wangchang County and sending them on their way, Il-mok returned to the branch office and called someone into the main hall.
"That was pretty dangerous back there, Fist Phoenix."
Hwangbo Yeon had answered his summons, and when he brought up her involvement in the fight against the Emei Sect, she replied without missing a beat.
"I know. But I couldn't just stand there and let them all get slaughtered."
"Hmm. It sounds like you think I made the wrong call."
"That's not what I mean. What happened was clearly Emei's fault."
"Even knowing that, what made you step in?”
"...It didn't seem like the kind of mistake that warranted wiping out dozens of people."
"Not that grave a mistake, huh."
Il-mok repeated her words quietly before turning his gaze on her and speaking again. This time, his tone was tinged with a bit of sternness.
"Terrorizing innocent civilians, trying to forcibly evict a guiltless sect, and happily resorting to cowardly sneak attacks and outright murder just because they didn't get their way. Tell me, do you honestly not consider those to be major crimes?"
Hwangbo Yeon faltered at that and lowered her head.
"Aren't you more than capable of subduing them without killing them? You clearly had the skill for it. I only stepped in because it looked like you were going to execute every last one of them. I thought that if you just spared their lives and sent them home, they would be able to deeply reflect on their sins and repent."
But as she spoke, Hwangbo Yeon felt a strange sense of discomfort welling up inside her.
Not because she was being scolded, that was nothing new.
She'd been on the receiving end of her father's lectures more times than she could count since she was a child.
What bothered her was something else entirely.
‘Why can't I stand behind what I did with a clear conscience?’
Even when her father had dressed her down, she had never felt this way. She had always been able to face whatever came with her head held high.
But right now, she couldn't.
While she kept her head lowered, the cold voice of the Incarnation of Maitreya pierced her ears.
"That's strange. Tell me, Fist Phoenix, what if a group of weak thugs kidnapped Lady Hwangbo Se-hui and violated her… Tell me, would you really just gently subdue them and let them walk away with a warning to 'reflect on their sins?"
"That's going too far!"
The image was so vile that Hwangbo Yeon snapped her head up and glared at Il-mok.
Reflected in her gaze were the Incarnation's eyes, staring back at her from behind his mask.
And within those eyes, a bottomless abyss dwelled.
"What line did I cross? Are common people fair game for all manner of abuse, while your little sister must be protected at all costs? Is what was done to them forgivable, but any threat to your family a sin punishable by death?"
No.
It’s not a bottomless abyss.
Dwelled within his eyes were pools of undying black flames.
While Hwangbo Yeon was completely crushed by the sheer weight contained within his gaze, she felt a lump of heaviness in her chest.
The Incarnation of Maitreya continued speaking in a chilling tone.
"As far as I'm concerned, innocent civilians are helpless sheep that need to be protected, and the bastards who terrorize them are pure evil that deserve to be ripped to shreds. So I'll ask you one more time. Why did you save them? Do you still honestly believe their crimes were that light?”
He let that question settle, then added one devastating question.
"Or is it because they happen to wear the label of a 'prestigious Orthodox Faction’s sect’ like you and your family do?”
"..."
Hwangbo Yeon finally realized why she felt so ashamed of herself.
Without even realizing it, she had subconsciously categorized them as her 'allies.'
Deep down, she firmly believed that they shouldn't be punished and that sweeping things under the rug and resolving issues 'peacefully' was always the best option when interacting with them, even when they were the ones committing wrongs.
Why had she shown that kind of favoritism toward Emei even when she'd had her own grievances against them?
She turned the question to herself and the answer came easily.
'It's because I've just gotten way too used to how things work around here.'
The Nine Great Sects and One Gang
The Seven Great Families.
And the Martial Alliance that was built around them.
The Central Plains had been living under a false peace for a long time that she had grown so accustomed to that order that it had seeped into her bones.
They were allies, partners, and, to some extent, families. So even when they did something wrong, everyone looked the other way, and she had written it off as just the way things were.
She had been doing all of that without ever noticing it herself.
But the man standing before her was different.
‘He is a man akin to a raging flame.'’
A raging flame meant to burn away all the evil in the world and purify it.
If she had to name one concern, it was the worry that his ruthlessness toward evildoers would earn him too many enemies. But she caught herself almost immediately.
'I'm being an idiot. How could I even think that after seeing how he treated Taoist Master Cheongmok?’
Even though the Qingcheng Sect had marched in right alongside the Emei Sect, the Incarnation of Maitreya had still shown them mercy.
Going way beyond just forgiving them, he even helped Taoist Master Cheongmok break free from the shackles of his Heart Demons.
With that in mind, Hwangbo Yeon found herself arriving at a quiet certainty about the man before her.
"I apologize, Incarnation of Maitreya. Without even realizing it, my personal biases made me take their side.” She clasped her fists together and bowed in apology, then lifted her head again and added, "If Emei refuses to reflect and comes back to threaten the Maitreya Luminous Cult and the common people again, I swear on the very name of the Hwangbo Family that I will stand by your side and go to war against them."
Gone was the hesitation from before; what appeared before him was a martial artist shining with a brilliant resolve.
***
After her conversation with the Incarnation of Maitreya came to an end, Hwangbo Yeon made her way to the room she'd been assigned.
"What did you two talk about?"
Waiting for her inside the room was her little sister, Hwangbo Se-hui.
"Haha. I got a good scolding, that's what."
Hearing Hwangbo Yeon laugh it off, Hwangbo Se-hui's eyes went wide.
"That man actually scolded you, sister?"
"He did. I must admit, it was far more terrifying than when Father does it. Hahaha.”
"...Even so, he's not your family or anything. Isn't that a bit much?"
Hwangbo Se-hui looked genuinely flustered on her sister’s behalf, but Hwangbo Yeon shook her head.
"Leave it. After actually listening to what he had to say, I realized I was the one in the wrong."
And so, she told her sister what had happened.
Hwangbo Se-hui had been startled at first, but somewhere along the way, she found herself leaning in, genuinely hooked.
"He really is something else. Forgive those who reflect and repent, cut down those who don't. He sounds like Confucius."
"Confucius?"
Hwangbo Yeon repeated it with a puzzled look, and Hwangbo Se-hui answered,
"Ever heard the old proverb that fools can not be taught? There's no way you haven't heard of it, Sister."
Hwangbo Yeon let out a soft sound of recognition.
That proverb came from the Yang Huo Chapter of the Analects of Confucius.
Confucius was once walking with his disciples when they came across a man relieving himself in some corner off to the side of the road.
It was said that Confucius called out to him and gave him a stern reprimand, causing the man to flee in shame.
Later, as they traveled again, they came across another man relieving himself right in the middle of the road with no shame about it.
His disciples expected Confucius to say something even harsher this time, but Confucius simply stepped around the man and kept walking.
Confused, the disciples voiced their confusion to their master.
They wanted to know why he let the second guy off the hook when openly peeing in the street was obviously way worse.
Confucius simply answered their question like this:
‘The first man had at least a basic decency to step to the side to hide his business, meaning he still has shame and can be taught better. But the second has no shame at all, so there is nothing to teach him and nothing to correct.
And from that came the saying that fools can not be taught, basically saying 'idiots who have no shame can't be fixed.'
Hwangbo Yeon caught her sister's meaning and let out an awkward chuckle.
"By that analogy, Emei would be the man relieving himself in the middle of the road."
"Given the scene they made today, it's not that far off, is it? And that's exactly why you made that pledge to the Incarnation with the family's name behind it, am I wrong?"
"Haha. Honestly, you're not wrong."
"Huhu."
The two sisters looked at each other and cracked up laughing. Once they finally managed to calm down a bit, Hwangbo Se-hui murmured, “But it’s still a fascinating story. How did he know that Qingcheng would reflect and repent?"
She couldn't shake the thought that perhaps this man had an eye for knowing who was capable of remorse and who was beyond it entirely.
Which was really ironic considering that Il-mok had actually intended to push Taoist Master Cheongmok to the edge of the abyss so he could dispose of the man cleanly.
But thanks to that completely accidental screw-up, both Hwangbo Yeon and Hwangbo Se-hui were now convinced that the Maitreya Luminous Cult were righteous heroes whom they could proudly stand alongside as official allies.
Thinking about her sister's question, Hwangbo Yeon pictured the Incarnation of Maitreya in her mind and gave her honest answer.
"Maybe he can just see it. The trash that needs to be burned away."
"...Burned away?"
Hwangbo Se-hui asked, wondering if the Incarnation of Maitreya had been cultivating some kind of Extreme Yang Art.
“To me, he is a man akin to a raging flame. A purifying flame that will destroy evil and cleanse this world."
Hwangbo Yeon had no idea, but what she was saying was practically a word-for-word recital of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult's core religious doctrine.
Specifically, the most important doctrine of the Heavenly Demon Divine Cult:
To destroy evils with a greater evil.
Even though Il-mok spent half his time insulting his own cult and calling them a bunch of lunatics, here he was, the living and perfect embodiment of the cult's beliefs.
***
Early the next morning, Hwangbo Yeon sent off a letter she had written the night before to the Hwangbo Family.
It contained an account of everything that had happened here, along with her wish for the Hwangbo Family and the Maitreya Luminous Cult to form an alliance.
While going back home to report in person would have been the smartest move, her gut was screaming at her that a massive war was going to break out here very soon, so she sent a letter instead.
After sending it off, both sisters and Il-mok returned to Guangyuan County.
Il-mok had no illusions that Emei would sit quietly after all this, so he decided to stay on high alert in Guangyuan County instead of leaving Sichuan altogether.
While the three of them passed the time in leisure, the Emei nuns who had retrieved Abbess Miejue's body had arrived at Mount Emei after several days of travel.
The news of her death stirred the hornet nest that is Emei.
Wailing echoed through the mountain without rest.
To console the spirit of Abbess Miejue, who they firmly believed had been unjustly murdered, a magnificent and grand funeral was held within the Emei Sect.
For a sect that styled itself as a Buddhist order, it was a remarkably extravagant affair.
While Emei's nuns grieved for their fallen sister, two old nuns were having a quiet conversation in the chamber where the Sect Leader resided.
"What do you plan to do, Sect Leader?"
"Why are you even asking me something so obvious, Junior Sister? We make sure they understand. Make them understand just how grave and fearsome a crime it is to kill a nun of the great Emei Sect."
The Sect Leader of the Emei Sect, Abbess Jinqing (禁情神尼), answered the Elder's question with bloodshot eyes.
It was impossible to tell if it was because she had been crying too much or if she was just blind with rage, but her vicious glare made her look way more like a bloodthirsty demon than a peaceful Buddhist nun.
Cowed by her aura, the Elder spoke cautiously.
"Sect Leader, from what the girls have said, those people had the Hwangbo Family backing them. Since Fist Phoenix was fighting alongside them, the girls had no choice but to take back our sister's body and come home."
She was gently reminding her that if they declared war on that group, there was a high chance the Hwangbo Family would jump into the fight.
Even worse, she was pointing out that if they recklessly started a war and accidentally killed Hwangbo Yeon in the crossfire, the fallout could be disastrous.
Abbess Jinqing is well aware of that problem, because she answered with a cold expression.
"Don't worry. I've already drafted a letter to the Martial Alliance."