Episode 1278 I’m not wrong. (3)
Sigh.
The waves were quite rough and hit the boat, creating white foam. Cheongmyeong watched the scene in silence with sunken eyes.
‘It’s frustrating.’
If you are running on your own feet, you can spur your legs, and if you are riding a horse, you can urge the horse, but when moving in a boat driven by the wind, there is a limit to how much speed can be increased by human power.
Therefore, from now until the moment you arrive in Gangnam, you should just pass the time like this.
‘Anyway, this kind of thing doesn’t suit my spiritual aptitude.’
In a way, this is truly natural. However, feeling frustrated in the face of such naturalness, it may be that Cheongmyeong is a person who should not have become a Taoist in the first place.
“You look like you have a lot on your mind?”
Cheongmyeong turned his head at the voice he heard. Green Forest King Lim So-byeong approached with a grin.
“Or you have no thoughts.”
“⋯⋯.”
“Which one are you?”
“Looks like this way?”
When Cheongmyeong pointed his fist with his chin, the Green Forest King slowly retreated.
Cheongmyeong laughed and went back to the sea… No, more precisely, I looked at Gangnam land beyond the sea.
“How long will it take?”
“well. “At the current rate, we won’t arrive until midnight.”
“It’s taking longer than I thought.”
“what. “It would be quick if I just went swimming like the instructor is good at…”
Lim So-byeong glanced toward the deck. Haenam’s disciples were sitting here and there resting. Like exhausted horses.
“If that happens, those guys will completely explode.”
“hmm.”
Cheongmyeong sighed softly. Lim So-byeong looked at him with a strange smile.
“Are you sure it’s okay?”
Cheongmyeong remained silent. However, Lim So-byeong continued calmly, as if he had not asked the question with the intention of hearing the answer in the first place.
“Of course, I’m the type of person who just does what I’m told, but isn’t that the person who has to take responsibility?”
“If anyone hears it, they’ll think it doesn’t matter what happens to them.”
“Meeting the wrong person and falling down is a natural death for a strategist. “That’s how the group called treacherous people behave.”
“⋯⋯Is that what the Green Forest King would say?”
“What about the Green Forest King and Nabal? “That’s exactly what I thought my role in Cheonwoomaeng would be.”
Cheongmyeong laughed slightly. Anyway, he is a truly unique person.
However, from Lim So-byeong’s perspective, Cheongmyeong seemed to be a unique person.
“Of course, I know that there is a reason for everything the dojo does, but…”
Lim So-byeong glanced at Haenam’s disciples with slightly cold eyes.
“I do not know. “Do you think it would be of any help to drag such a load of luggage around?”
“⋯⋯.”
“If we can bring Haenam, one of the old factions, into the Cheonwoo Alliance, it will be a great symbol externally… well. “It’s a cause because it gives you strength later.”
Lim So-byeong continued speaking with a strange expression.
“I don’t think that people who prioritize immediate practical interests over distant causes are necessarily wrong, do you?”
“What do you want to say?”
“Nothing in particular.”
Lim So-byeong shrugged his shoulders.
“I just wanted to ask. “I was wondering if it would really be helpful to save those clumsy creatures who fell from exhaustion as if they had fought all the battles of the world on their own, even though they had never even wielded a sword properly.”
At those words, Cheongmyeong also caught a glimpse of Haenam’s disciples. He looked exhausted.
Well, it’s not that I don’t understand. It would be even stranger if people who had lived their entire lives without having to see blood were shocked when they faced the sight of a person’s head being cut off and limbs flying in the air before their eyes. Especially in a world like today.
But… Cheongmyeong also knows. Lim So-byeong’s point is not entirely wrong.
Having an excuse doesn’t change the situation. Cheongmyeong must break through Gangnam with children who have no idea what that battle is. This is Gangnam, where the Sapaeryun is holding out.
“If you’re going to oppose it, do so in advance.”
“Have you ever listened to me when I said no?”
Lim So-byeong scratched the area around his chin with the end of his fan.
“A manager is basically a person who hates inefficiency. Even if you know that nothing will change if you oppose, going against it is just a waste of time. “It just hurts my mouth for no reason.”
Then, Cheongmyeong looked at Lim So-byeong without saying a word.
“⋯⋯Why are you doing that?”
“No…”
Cheongmyeong shook his head.
“I think I’ve heard that before.”
“Could it have been just one or two?”
“That’s right.”
– What should I say? I’m going to do whatever I want with the death penalty anyway! I would rather pay homage to small ears!
Cheongmyeong laughed without realizing it. The image of Cheongjin, screaming loudly while reaching up to the blood vessels in his neck, flashed through my mind.
It seems that Cheongmyeong hasn’t changed much since then. I thought to myself that a lot had changed.
“But if I tell you, something might change.”
“well.”
Lim So-byeong looked at Cheongmyeong with strange eyes and said.
“If you’re just being stubborn, maybe that’s the case.”
“⋯⋯.”
“But I think this isn’t just stubbornness.”
Cheongmyeong smiled and shook his head.
“I think you overestimate me.”
“Of course it might. No, honestly, I know that the probability of that happening is much higher.”
⋯⋯But what about this guy? When Cheongmyeong quietly glared at Lim So-byeong, Lim So-byeong quickly looked at the distant sea and joked.
Then he spoke quietly again.
“Even so, I can’t stop it.”
“why?”
Lim So-byeong, who was silent for a moment when asked why, suddenly started saying something else.
“Ever since I was young, when I listened to old stories or studied history, there were parts that I really didn’t understand.”
“What?”
“The smartest people worked hard under stupid people and eventually lost.”
“⋯⋯.”
“In essence, the position of manager is held by the smartest people of their time. “Then wouldn’t the conclusion they reached be closest to the correct answer?”
“yes.”
“But those higher-ups always listened to what they said and didn’t do anything about it, but they ended up ruining it and only regretting it later. ‘iced coffee. “I should have listened to that at the time.’”
“Are you criticizing me now?”
“Tsk. Please listen until the end.”
Cheongmyeong gave him a disapproving look, but Lim So-byeong didn’t care and continued talking.
“Do you know what the biggest question I felt when looking at that situation was?”
“⋯⋯Why don’t the superiors listen to me?”
“That’s not it. The superiors are basically idiots who don’t listen to what they say. In the first place, those kinds of people become the heads. What’s the point in criticizing stupid people for being stupid in the first place? I was just born stupid… Oh no! I’m not insulting you! “Put down your fists!”
“…Be careful, you.”
When Cheongmyeong said that he did not like it at all, Lim So-byeong grinned.
“Anyway, that’s not what was frustrating. What I couldn’t understand was why the smartest people worked so hard for people like that, doing things that didn’t make sense. All you have to do is create your own power.”
Cheongmyeong smiled and asked back.
“so?”
“That’s what I thought. I shouldn’t do something like that. “I need to create my own force that only listens to me and destroy all the forces led by those idiots!”
“That’s why you became the Green Forest King?”
“What… “I only took on half of it.”
He actually took it upon himself, but if he really didn’t want to become the Green Forest King, there would have been many ways. But he didn’t. Because he had something he wanted to try himself.
“so? “Then you just have to do what you thought.”
“yes. Of course I did as I thought. But I soon found out. “That was the delusion of a child who doesn’t know reality.”
Lim So-byeong clicked his tongue hard as if he was annoyed.
“What if I say the right thing? I can’t even hear it with my ears. Even if you talk about the right way, they ignore it as desk-biting nonsense.”
“⋯⋯.”
“Persuasion? Oh, you can do it. Of course I tried it. But people never think that they might be wrong in the first place. Even if I say nine things correctly, if one is slightly off, he bites the bullet and says that everything I said was wrong, but his temperament is so real…!”
“You can’t win, right?”
“⋯⋯So I endured it.”
Cheongmyeong patted Lim So-byeong’s limp shoulder.
“You worked hard.”
“Don’t even talk.”
Looking at Lim So-byeong’s tired face, Cheongmyeong chuckled.
In fact, looking at it objectively, Lim So-byeong’s military power is not lacking. However, the problem was that it did not live up to the name Green Forest King. Moreover, he was a sick person who could not use even half of his abilities until recently.
How much of Lim So-byeong’s words would have worked in a place called Nokrim, where the principle of the fittest is more faithful than anywhere else?
It was obvious even without looking what kind of hardship he must have gone through. At first, everyone except Nokchae, who was loyal to his predecessor, would not have treated Lim So-byeong properly as King Nokrim.
“But as you get older and your power level increases, your voice probably gets louder?”
“If my goal was to eat and drink a moderate amount of greenery, it could have been possible. But what difference does it make? “You become a foolish King of Green Forest, worse than your predecessors.”
“Hagiya.”
Lim So-byeong looked at Cheongmyeong.
“That’s when I saw it. He spouts nonsense, draws extremely stupid conclusions, repeats absurd gambles, and is just an idiot… Oh, no. It’s just like that before! Before! Cough! Cough! Oh my, I’m getting sick…”
“⋯⋯.”
“And yet!”
Lim So-byeong grinned.
“There is a person who makes foolish decisions and even though he is willing to risk his life, the people around him are willing to follow that path.”
“⋯⋯.”
“That’s when I found out. ah. “There are people like that in the first place.”
Cheongmyeong smiled bitterly this time and shook his head.
“That’s also an overestimation.”
“Of course it is.”
⋯⋯But what about this guy?
“By the way.”
“huh?”
“I guess I’m not the only one with that overestimation?”
Lim So-byeong made a small gesture toward Haenam’s disciples. Cheongmyeong also turned his gaze towards them.
“People who lived quietly and well in Haenam are now leaving Haenam, where they have lived their whole lives, and walking into limbo because a nobleman they don’t even know where he came from showed them a way. “Even if I die, I will die there.”
“⋯⋯.”
“Do you think this is logically possible?”
“Because that is the most right way.”
“That’s what’s important.”
Lim So-byeong chuckled.
“If people only choose the right path and live, there will be no such thing as war in the world. If you knew the right path and could do it, the world would be full of good intentions. But what is the world really like?”
“⋯⋯.”
“A dojo is not a person who suggests a correct path that others do not know.”
Lim So-byeong grinned.
“Everyone knows this, but he is the person who makes me walk on my own feet on a path that I would not dare to walk on.”
Lim So-byeong’s gaze went beyond Cheongmyeong and headed toward Gangnam.
“Even if the end of the road is death.”
Cheongmyeong’s face, which had remained silent, hardened slightly.
