TL/ED – Miso
February.
A winter of knife-edged wind.
In the drill yard of the Hall of Refined Arts, some fifty trainees stood packed close together in neat ranks and files.
They drilled the Warm Breeze Formula in time with the count.
The Warm Breeze Formula was an Internal cultivation method Yi Yu-baek had devised himself.
It was easier and steadier than the Willow Haze Art.
In exchange its progress was slow and its depth shallow, but it was still more than enough to lay the foundation of a martial artist.
Most of the disciples of the Hall of Refined Arts learned this Warm Breeze Formula.
To be exact, every one of them but three.In the eight years since Yi Yu-baek founded the Hall of Refined Arts, the number who had completed the teaching and been acknowledged as disciples came to some three hundred all told. These were called registered disciples.
Of them, about two hundred and seventy were outer disciples, who lived in their own homes and came to the hall for a few hours a day to train.
The remaining thirty or so were inner disciples, who ate and slept at the Hall of Refined Arts, took charge of the hall's chores, and trained day and night.
All of them learned the Warm Breeze Formula.
Only three did not.
Kang Mu-hyeok. Seon Je-hun. Mo Cheong.
These three, the ones known as the Three Young masters of Refined Arts, were the only ones who lodged in the quarters nearest Yi Yu-baek, received his teaching one on one, and had been passed exclusive arts such as the Willow Haze Art and the Willow Leaf Step.
One day, one of them would inherit the Hall of Refined Arts.
They were called direct disciples, meaning disciples who inherit the true line.
By Yi Yu-baek's standard, the Three Young masters were still no more than Second-rate as martial artists.
But just as not all second-string players in Earth's pro leagues were alike, among the Second-rate martial artists of the Jianghu there were "experts" as well. A martial artist who would stay Second-rate his whole life and one who was merely passing through Second-rate were plainly different to anyone with eyes.
That was how it was with Yi Yu-baek's direct disciples, the Three Young masters of Refined Arts.
They had already proven themselves many times over, and were now acknowledged as the young experts who represented Xinxing County.
And so they were treated in an entirely different way.
The outer disciples and the inner disciples called Yi Yu-baek "Hall Master".
The Three Young masters, on the other hand, called him "Master~" with easy affection.
The outer disciples usually called the direct disciples and the inner disciples "Instructor".
The direct disciples and the inner disciples called one another senior and junior, and shared a sense of comradeship.
But among themselves the direct disciples used "Senior brother" and "Junior brother", and lived like family.
And today, every kind of disciple currently training at the Hall of Refined Arts had gathered in the drill yard.
Some forty outer disciples were drilling the Warm Breeze Formula in ranks and files, while some ten inner disciples moved among them, correcting whatever they got wrong.
The three direct disciples stood behind Yi Yu-baek like figures carved out of wood.
Yi Yu-baek spoke in a voice like frost.
"You must complete your martial learning before you come of age at twenty. If you mean to live in this world as martial artists, it has to be that way."
At a flick of his eyes, his third disciple Mo Cheong stepped forward.
"Huuuuu......."
As he drew a deep breath and set the Willow Haze Art turning, pure white smoke soon billowed from his mouth like cloud.
"This is called Exhaled Smoke and Cloud."
The stage where the outgoing breath becomes smoke and cloud.
"You make the fire inside you very hot and burn away the impurities piled up in the Eight Extraordinary Meridians. If you fail to clean yourself out like this before twenty, turbid qi builds faster the older you get, until you can't handle it."
Yi Yu-baek said.
"A martial artist who has entered the fire stage I call Third-rate, and one who has achieved Exhaled Smoke and Cloud I call Second-rate. But they aren't all the same. Belching out nothing but acrid smoke makes you an idiot. Burning turbid qi and essence blood without telling them apart is nothing but suicide."
Yi Yu-baek pointed at his third disciple, Mo Cheong, who was breathing out white smoke.
"Proper Exhaled Smoke and Cloud carries no reek of scorching. Done right it smells of charcoal, and done better still it smells like firing clay, the way Cheong's does here."
Yi Yu-baek stressed the point.
"What matters is the fire stage. If you simply burn away blindly, how could you call that a fire stage at all? Like firing pottery, like forging a blade, the heart of it is patient, stubborn control of the flame. Save the essence you received from heaven and burn only the turbid qi. All of you must reach that stage. If you want to live as martial artists."
He looked down at the outer disciples straining and grunting through the Warm Breeze Formula.
They were all young. The youngest was twelve. The oldest was eighteen at most.
Nine out of ten of them would never become martial artists. They would only become sturdy-bodied farmers, porters, odd-job men.
Such was the life of a Third-rate who failed to rise to Second-rate in time.
Unable to cross one small limit, they would live out their days in submission to a fate already decided.
Bowing their heads before the unfairness and injustice that ran rampant through this world.
And so Yi Yu-baek said.
"Want it more badly. Excellence doesn't come out of ease and leisure; it comes out of sharpness and desperation. Youth ages fast and learning comes hard, so put your whole heart into it."
Yi Yu-baek knew it too.
That however much he nagged like this, there weren't many who really listened.
Young trainees believed their youth would last forever.
And then they would come to their senses to find they had grown old, and realize far too late that they could not remain martial artists.
The despairing faces of those rejected by the world they had thought was theirs.
Because that grieved him, Yi Yu-baek always said the same thing.
"Become strong. Good people have to be strong. People with conviction have to be strong. People who can let go of a grudge have to be strong, and strong people have to be strong. Otherwise it's the bastards who get strong. Not the bastards; you. In this lonely Jianghu, be a firm support for one another. Do that, and the wine will taste pretty good your whole life through."
I hope every one of you gets to live in your own way.
Yi Yu-baek murmured that inwardly as he looked at his young disciples.
And then,
all at once,
he caught a rich, nutty scent.
A scent as toasty as barley and Job's tears roasting in a pan. [TL: Job's tears, also called adlay, is a grain roasted alongside barley to brew a warm, nutty tea.]
When he turned reflexively toward it, he saw a young man in clothes far too thin for the knife-edged winter wind.
Tall and well-built.
A clean, fair face.
Neat, composed bearing.
Confident but not arrogant, courteous but not servile, he came walking.
Following the unbroken breathing of the Willow Haze Art, white smoke billowed from his mouth like cloud.
Yi Yu-baek suddenly thought.
'How much time has passed?'
Counting it up, five months.
Before even half a year of Closed-door seclusion had gone by, Yeon So-wol had broken out of it on his own.
And not merely having stepped into the fire stage, but having risen to Exhaled Smoke and Cloud.
"And he wasn't even a boy anymore. He did it alone, then."
Yi Yu-baek let out a hollow laugh.
The reason Yeon So-wol decided to break out of seclusion was simple.
'I want to learn more.'
It came at the end of studying the Internal cultivation method alone until he was sick of it.
"How to make the fire hotter. How to use this power better. That's what I want to learn."
Read a book a hundred times and its meaning reveals itself.
The meaning had already come to him on its own, and he had repeated and probed until there was nothing left in the book to draw out.
Now Yeon So-wol got to his feet.
He went to the spring and washed himself clean one last time. He washed his hair with sweet flag, rinsed his mouth out with salt, and chewed clove to clear away any last trace of bad breath. Essential resources for civilization, which Yi Yu-baek had never once failed to supply.
Yeon So-wol felt deeply grateful for that.
'It was a brutal ordeal, but in the end, to live like a human being in this barbaric land, all of it must have been necessary.'
He looked around the seclusion chamber with a hundred feelings crossing his eyes, then stood before the door.
Bang bang bang!
He pounded on the door several times, but nobody came.
"Hm."
But Yeon So-wol wasn't flustered.
"If Hall Master Yi Yu-baek really did keep everyone away like he said, then knocking is pointless. So this means he wants me to break it down."
Yeon So-wol looked at the wooden door.
Wooden it might be, but it was a good half a hand-span thick and the hinges were sturdy.
However,
"Hoooooo......."
Yeon So-wol deepened the fire stage.
The Willow Haze Art was a moving art.
It started on the outside and made the inside hot.
Through qi gathering it first warmed the Twelve Primary Meridians, then collected that heat to warm the Innate true qi inside the Eight Extraordinary Meridians.
Innate true qi was something received directly from heaven and earth, essence and qi purer and hotter than anything else.
But for a person to live was a process in which even that Innate true qi cooled little by little, grew turbid, and hardened.
The aim of an Internal cultivation method lay precisely in bringing that Innate true qi back to a burning heat.
When heat was added to Innate true qi that had been thickening and stiffening, the stalled mass began to writhe and move.
The impurities burned away in the process came out through his mouth and became a dense cloud.
"Hoooooo!"
Yeon So-wol breathed out smoke.
Inside his Eight Extraordinary Meridians, the Innate true qi churned hot.
He suddenly recalled a scrap of Earth's common scientific knowledge.
「The reason life can exist on Earth is that Earth's inner core has never cooled and is still churning even now.」
'It's the same thing.'
When the hot, pure essence that made up Innate true qi pulsed, the acquired essence forming his bones and flesh resonated with it and took on a spiritual nature.
Just as a current arose when a magnetic field fluctuated around iron or copper.
Bone and muscle warmed by the Willow Haze Art responded even more strongly, brimming with a certain power.
Essence was, by nature, the root of force and matter.
Originally it was,
not muscular strength,
not firepower,
not nuclear power, not magnetism, not gravity.
Just force.
The purest and simplest.
The force of the beginning.
Degraded though it had been over ages, a formless power still originating from that primal force filled Yeon So-wol's muscles.
This was the true identity of the monstrous strength martial artists wielded.
True qi.
Yeon So-wol stretched out a hand brimming with power and shoved the door of the seclusion chamber.
Crrrack!
He couldn't snap the bar or the chain, but the hinge side couldn't withstand the force; it split along the grain with a series of cracks and tore away.
Thud!
Yeon So-wol stepped past the half-collapsed door dangling from its bar and went outside.
In the quiet, only the drill yard was noisy.
He went straight toward the drill yard without hesitating.
He could see dozens of hall members gathered together and training.
But he didn't stop.
His heart was pounding.
'I did it. I got through that brutal Closed-door training. No. I overshot it.'
He had been calm enough when he stepped out the door, but as he walked the reality of it kept sinking in. His chest trembled.
'I can become a martial artist. I can live my own life instead of being tossed around by this barbaric world.'
The joy of having endured a hard austerity. The hunger to move on to the next stage. The belief that no matter how hard things got in the future, he would pull it off again.
Yeon So-wol walked with all of that inside him.
To face the result of the past five grueling months.
He didn't want to put it off, not even for a moment.
"Hm?"
"What's that? Something smells good."
The hall members of the Hall of Refined Arts broke off their training and turned around, one after another.
And froze.
"Huh."
"Don't tell me......?"
"He's not dead?"
They recognized Yeon So-wol.
Some had seen his face before he went into seclusion and some had only heard the rumors after he went in, but either way they all recognized him.
A man that tall with a face that clear wasn't a common sight.
And that fact startled them all over again.
'What? Why is he so clean?'
'Wasn't he supposed to be in seclusion?'
'And what even is this delicious smell?'
The members of the Hall of Refined Arts followed Yi Yu-baek's teaching, keeping themselves clean and their bearing correct.
But people did not change easily.
When Yi Yu-baek wasn't watching, at home, say, or during a few days' rest, they naturally went grubby and stale. That was the average in this world, after all!
And when it came to Closed-door training?
Doing training that hard, how could anyone wash every day? Coming out looking like a beggar was only natural.
Even if a man came out reeking, the polite thing was to say, "Well now, you're very clean for someone who's been shut away!"
But Yeon So-wol was far too clean.
As if he had washed every day and rinsed his clothes in the spring every day.
He had even trimmed his beard neatly, and his grown-out hair was tied back tidily with a cord.
And along with the white smoke pouring from his mouth, that rich, nutty scent.
The members of the Hall of Refined Arts soon realized it.
"Wait, is that Exhaled Smoke and Cloud?"
"But it isn't the smell of firing clay either. What on earth is this toasty smell?"
This was a stage even Yi Yu-baek had never spoken of.
The members of the Hall of Refined Arts were overwhelmed.
By how immaculate Yeon So-wol looked.
And by an Exhaled Smoke and Cloud beyond any measure they had.
The eighteen-year-old late starter they had all assumed would die had achieved the stage they dreamed of, and had shown up with his head held high.
Shuffle-
Though nobody said a word, they all drew back to the left and right.
They opened a path for Yeon So-wol.
Yi Yu-baek stood clearly revealed on the platform.
Yeon So-wol walked down the middle of it and stopped before Yi Yu-baek.
"Hall Master. There's something I'd like to ask you."
"Before that, let me go first."
Yi Yu-baek asked.
"What was inside the Eight Extraordinary Meridians?"
Yeon So-wol answered.
"They were full of hot essence and qi received from heaven and earth."
"That's right. That is called Innate true qi. What form did it take?"
"It was like a sticky liquid."
"Correct. Hot, pure qi and essence mixed together and flowing thick. That's why it's also called qi and blood, and essence blood. You must protect your qi and blood and your essence blood your whole life long. Gather the Innate true qi in the Eight Extraordinary Meridians, and spend the lukewarm, turbid acquired qi that congeals in your flesh. That's the heart of the practice."
"Qi and blood....... Essence blood....... Innate true qi. Acquired qi......."
Yi Yu-baek looked down from the platform at the muttering Yeon So-wol, then asked again.
"Then what are the Twelve Primary Meridians?"
"If the Eight Extraordinary Meridians are the great sea that stores Innate true qi, the Twelve Primary Meridians are the passages leading out into the actual bone, flesh, and organs. Bone and flesh are hardened acquired qi, and I can blow qi gathering into those passages to bring them back to heat. The hotter the acquired qi is, the better it resonates with the Innate true qi."
"Exactly right."
Yi Yu-baek was satisfied.
But Yeon So-wol's words didn't stop there.
"The thing is, the Twelve Primary Meridians don't end at the Twelve Primary Meridians."
"Hm?"
"There are twelve side paths branching off from them."
Wonder spread across Yi Yu-baek's face.
"The Twelve Divergent Meridians....... You found those? By yourself?"
"There were even smaller ones too, like dog holes and mouse holes."
"The Fifteen Collateral Branches on top of that!"
Yi Yu-baek let out a startled laugh.
Shaking his head from side to side, he said.
"Your capacity has run far past anything I expected. All right. What is it you want to know?"
"I want to know how to stoke the fire hotter."
Yi Yu-baek answered at once.
"Make the acquired essence that congeals inside your body extremely hot. Then it turns into burning sparks and rises up. Control them well and use them to heat your meridians. Keep holding that qi gathering and compress it. Then True Fire blooms. A man who has kindled True Fire, I call First-rate."
Yeon So-wol chewed over what he had been taught.
The very picture of a man immersed in learning.
Yi Yu-baek hesitated a little, then asked carefully.
"It must have been hard. Didn't you resent me?"
"I did. But I'm fine now."
"Why is that?"
"Because I won."
Yeon So-wol smiled.
Yi Yu-baek smiled too.
The Three Young masters smiled, and so did the inner disciples and the outer disciples.
Every one of them was thinking the same thing.
'So there'll be Four Young masters of Refined Arts soon.'
'A new direct disciple.'
'At that level he's more than qualified.'
'Starts at eighteen, achieves Exhaled Smoke and Cloud in half a year, and becomes a direct disciple. Am I watching a legend being born?'
At last Yi Yu-baek spoke.
"But I'm sorry. I can't keep my promise. There's no way I can take you as my disciple."
Yeon So-wol's eyes went wide.
A stir ran through the yard.
"Your capacity surpasses mine. I can't make a genius like you my direct disciple. Youth ages fast and learning comes hard. Don't waste your days under me; when the time comes, you should meet a far better teacher."
Yeon So-wol had nothing he could say to that.
'Hold on. What the hell. This isn't some breaking-up-because-I-love-you line.......'
Just then, Yi Yu-baek's eyes blazed.
"However!"
Power settled into his voice as he went on.
"If you're willing, I'd like to become your adoptive father."
'Adoptive father?'
Adoptive father and adopted son.
A parent-and-child bond tied by loyalty, like sworn brothers.
At a proposal he had never once considered, Yeon So-wol froze.
"So-wol. The Central Plains isn't your home, is it. So what if we became family? I'd become your adoptive father and pass every one of my martial arts to you. But I wouldn't be your teacher, so you could still take anyone at all as a master. No, better yet, I'll help you with that myself. With finding a teacher."
'Become family?'
To Yeon So-wol, those words struck a deep chord.
Setting aside whether he liked Yi Yu-baek or not,
in this strange land where he had not one thing to lean on.
Family.
And on top of that,
'Room and board all taken care of. I get to learn everything like a disciple without being one. I get a solid backer. And he'll find me a new master too?'
The more he counted it up, the more one-sidedly this offer favored Yeon So-wol.
An enormous kindness from Yi Yu-baek.
'But still. Taking someone as my father.......'
A possibility a man from twenty-first-century South Korea had never once so much as imagined.
The words wouldn't come out easily.
At a loss, Yeon So-wol just stared blankly at Yi Yu-baek.
At that, Yi Yu-baek smiled awkwardly and rummaged through his robes.
"If I'm going to be your father, I ought to give this back."
A small box came out from inside his robes.
Inside the box, two gold ingots showed their creamy golden faces.
There had been three to begin with, but one had gone to the County Magistrate, leaving two. It was the gold Yeon So-wol had offered up when he begged to be taken as a disciple.
"And I'll throw this on top as pocket money."
Yi Yu-baek took out another box. A single dried mushroom lay inside it.
"This is an elixir. It can greatly improve your constitution. It's worth at least three one-tael gold ingots. Well? Not bad for pocket money?"
To refuse it.......
Yeon So-wol reflexively drove his head down.
"Father. I don't know if I should be accepting something like this."
"Watching how you handle yourself, I don't think my son will ever starve to death out there. That's a relief."
Yi Yu-baek laughed with a wheezing hiss.