TL/ED – Miso
Of a hundred children, five survived,
and Eun-yeong was the fifth.
"To walk in silence, you must not catch on the five senses or on Qi sense. Qi sense is divided by three standards. Is it wide, is it fast, is it keen. You will make your own Qi sense wide and fast and keen. Only then can you read another's Qi sense before they read yours."
The adults wore masks.
The masks had no names.
Instead, a child who failed to keep up was beaten, starved, killed.
The children obeyed the masks absolutely.
"Making it keen is hard. Making it wide and fast is easy. You refine the Floating Collaterals and the skin through Body Refinement. That will make it fairly keen as well."
When they first learned the method of Body Refinement, fifty of the children were still alive.Children who had strained through three years of training until they could breathe smoke from their mouths.
"As you were taught. Begin."
The Body Refinement meant to grow their Qi sense began.
Within a week, forty of them were dead.
Their skin scorched black and welded shut, weeping fluid, buried under blisters.
Eun-yeong survived.
At that time she was the first of ten.
"Born with a gift for Qi sense, are you?"
The world seen through Qi sense was something else entirely.
Eun-yeong could move now while slipping past people's eyes and ears, and past their intuition as well.
Conversely, she could also feel anything that came at her while evading eyes, ears, and intuition.
But Eun-yeong had one problem.
"It isn't acrid. The force isn't explosive."
Eun-yeong's Exhaled Smoke and Cloud was clearer than anyone else's, and it carried almost no smell of burning.
It was because of her prodigious Qi sense and her fierce instinct for survival. No one had taught her, yet by instinct she sought to preserve her essence blood, and her unconscious went on sustaining a delicate Fire stage of its own accord.
No matter how the masks browbeat and threatened her, that one thing could not be corrected.
A disposition in which instinct, the unconscious, and inborn talent were bound tightly together.
When only five were left alive,
she had become the fifth.
<No. 5>
Innate Qi sense.
However, her inner energy runs too pure in its circulation. Correction impossible.
Unsuitable for the implanting of a Gu.
Designated expendable.
Even a treasure of the world, worked by the hands of a lacking craftsman, will crack and chip and fall to ruin.
"You. You're really good."
Eun-yeong said.
"Is that so?"
"Mm. Better than me."
What Yeon So-wol learned from Eun-yeong was how to widen his Qi sense and use it well.
For that, he learned how to temper and refine the Floating Collaterals and the skin.
The Floating Collaterals are the outermost of the meridians.
From the Twelve Primary Meridians branch the Fifteen Collateral Branches,
from the Fifteen Collateral Branches branch the collateral vessels,
from the collateral vessels branch the Tertiary Collaterals,
and only then, from the Tertiary Collaterals, do the Floating Collaterals branch.
They lie nearest of all to the outer skin, so near that they are called Floating Collaterals for the way they float just beneath it, and their structure is thin and minute and dense, like a sponge.
'Roughly the same feel as capillaries, I guess.'
Yeon So-wol grasped the image in 21st century terms and worked from there.
'If they're like capillaries, then Qi gathering can't be forced into them.'
Do that and the Floating Collaterals would all rupture the way blood vessels burst, and the skin would cook.
'Temperature as low as it will go. Pressure as low as it will go. As gentle and as soft as possible.'
「For where there is emptiness, it fills of itself,」
'Don't push. Sweep softly across the whole of the Floating Collaterals, like easing the pressure down just a little.'
If he gently emptied the energy inside the Floating Collaterals, exactly that much flame would be drawn in, so the pressure would soften across the whole without any need to control each Floating Collateral in fine detail.
「so with that emptiness, keep the fire hidden.」
'Fire grows gentler the more it flows, so keep it flowing, never stopping.'
By sweeping lightly along the path ahead of the Floating Collaterals, one stretch after another, and never letting the flow stop, the temperature of the fire gentled on its own.
That was how Yeon So-wol mastered the way to temper and refine the Floating Collaterals.
Beyond that, he refined the skin.
'This is unbelievably strange.'
At first, told to refine his skin, Yeon So-wol had gone, 'Huh?'
Wouldn't tempering the skin make the skin disappear?
But once he heard the explanation, it made a curious sort of sense.
'So it isn't the whole skin, only the sweat pores and the hair follicles that get tempered?'
Almost graspable. Not quite.
'Sweat pores and follicles are holes to begin with, so even if what was matter turns into essence qi, nothing much changes?'
'And maybe the essence qi doesn't evaporate either, but condenses inside those holes......?'
Eun-yeong's explanation had left out every detail of the underlying principle, so nothing was certain.
Even so, Yeon So-wol accepted it that way for now.
Someday he would come to know it more exactly, he told himself, burying his regret.
And when he had refined skin and Floating Collaterals even a little and woken the sense, he began to see a world he had never seen before.
"Ah."
Amid the unfamiliar sensation, Eun-yeong's voice reached him.
"The world. Trembles. Read it. A place. No one. Has set their mind on. Find it."
The world was filled with energy.
When a person's mind groped over that world, the world's energy trembled ever so faintly.
Read that trembling, and one could tell where a person's mind was.
One could step abruptly into the place where people had set their minds and show oneself off.
One could slip quietly into a place where no one had set their mind at all and hide oneself.
One could even shake something on the far side so that no mind would settle on this side.
"Ah......."
It trembled.
Taut.
The weft and warp that tied the whole world together.
The sound of sand crumbling.
The sound of blood pumped out into every vessel of a body.
The sound of air pushed into lungs and pushed back out.
The warmth and the coolness brushing against cloth.
The crossing of light and dark that lit all things and cast them back into shadow.
The smell of sweat and oil evaporating, of something burning and drying.
Riding over all of it, flowing,
a trembling.
Something unseen, groping at everything.
The subtle working of the spirit.
"Ah."
The third gasp of wonder.
All at once Yeon So-wol felt that the world was flat.
As if looking down from above at a picture on a sheet of paper.
Everything came into view at a single glance.
And the threads drifting above it.
Only now did Yeon So-wol understand.
'So this was Qi sense too?'
At first he had simply thought he felt qi keenly because he had come from a world with no qi in it.
Of course, that much was probably not untrue.
But what mattered far more was the bare fact that Yeon So-wol had leapt across dimensions.
The experience of crossing the boundary where the principles of heaven and earth and all things flatten out into meaninglessness, and falling into another world where entirely new principles and entirely new creations existed.
It was no different from taking that overwhelming thing called the universe apart piece by piece, looking once at its blueprint, and then watching it be built anew.
Yeon So-wol's Qi sense could grope at the essence of the world more deeply and more keenly than anyone's.
Deeply enough that a thick, abundant world looked flat.
But until now he had handled it only in the realm of the unconscious.
Without even knowing what it was that he had.
Without a single thread of a clue as to how it worked.
'All this time I've been blind, walking around stark naked, swinging a stick at nothing.'
Only now had he thrown a scrap of cloth over himself; only now was he barely feeling his way around.
While Yeon So-wol was sunk in his realization, Cho-ran was scolding Eun-yeong.
She had tagged along to watch whether Eun-yeong was teaching Yeon So-wol properly, whether she was slipping up.
"Eun-yeong. You can't explain it like that. Give him some detail."
"Don't know. Me too. Made. This way."
"There you go again! I told you people aren't made. Honestly....... you'll break my heart."
"Nn......."
Eun-yeong thought it over, then decided to show him herself.
Whoosh-
She moved.
Slipping past Yeon So-wol's Qi sense.
However wide and keen a Qi sense might be, no one could set their mind on every place at once, so there was always a gap.
Eun-yeong darted in.
Into the spot Yeon So-wol's mind did not reach.
But,
Whish!
Yeon So-wol worked his feet quickly and evaded Eun-yeong's approach.
His Qi sense was no longer narrow and slow the way it had been.
It had grown far wider, leaving few gaps, and it moved nimbly enough to fill even those gaps fast. Like an eagle in the sky looking down at the earth.
Eun-yeong glanced at Cho-ran and said,
"See. He's learned it all. Not easy. Anymore."
Cho-ran sighed.
"Eun-yeong. You can't just spring at people like that. You'll startle the Young master."
"He's fine."
"Oh dear. Young master, she gave you a fright, didn't she? Our Eun-yeong does pop out at people, but she doesn't hurt anyone. So please don't worry."
Yeon So-wol tilted his head without meaning to.
'She doesn't hurt anyone?'
Having read the <Xinxing Peril-Avoidance Manual>, he could not accept that.
'Wasn't the rule that if someone mistreats a courtesan or a server, Young lady Eun-yeong comes for them?'
Just imagining it gave him chills.
Eun-yeong was scarier than the ghost stories.
"Right, Eun-yeong? You don't hurt people. Do you."
"......Mm."
Yeon So-wol saw it.
The way Eun-yeong's eyes slid smoothly aside, away from Cho-ran's.
Cho-ran beamed.
"See? Told you. Early on Eun-yeong was a bit sharp, and I think she did hurt people now and then, but ever since Great hero Yi Yu-baek scolded her, she doesn't."
"My father did?"
"Yes. He turned up out of nowhere one day and told her. Don't kill people. Ah. Well. Not that Eun-yeong was going around killing people....... anyway, since then she hasn't hurt anyone. Right? Eun-yeong?"
"......Mm. Big sister. I don't....... kill them."
"See? I'm right, aren't I?"
"......."
Yeon So-wol thought.
'She said she doesn't kill them. She never said she doesn't hurt them.'
But he did not bother saying that out loud.
He was still afraid of Eun-yeong.
Instead he finished settling the realization from earlier.
'Now I can trigger the power of the Star of Thousand Deaths faster, and by choice. And I can see more threads, more easily.'
The Qi sense he had handled unconsciously, he now handled consciously.
'The higher my martial arts climb, the more the power of the Star of Thousand Deaths.......'
Beneath his sleeve, Yeon So-wol clenched his fist tight.
"Today. Thank you. I don't know how to repay this. I haven't done a thing for you......."
In front of the Azure Cloud Pavilion, Yeon So-wol made a deep fist-palm salute.
Eun-yeong had no interest; Cho-ran broke into a wide smile.
"Oh, it's nothing. I truly believe it. That the Young master will make this Xinxing County a better place to live. Just as Great hero Yi Yu-baek did, only Young hero Yeon So-wol will do more. Much more."
She dipped her knees slightly in a bow.
"Get strong, Young hero. Not the bad ones. You. So that later, when Eun-yeong and I build a house and settle down, we can be happier in a better Xinxing County."
She flicked out the tip of her red tongue.
"So it's all an investment. An investment."
Yeon So-wol made the fist-palm salute and bent at the waist.
His heart was heavy, and yet somehow a sweet scent seemed to reach his nose.
He set off on foot toward the Hall of Refined Arts. Somehow he did not want to use a lightfoot technique.
Ambling along, gazing up at a moon like a clipped fingernail.
"......."
Then his steps stopped.
The energy around him was trembling. Sharply.
Something he would never have noticed before.
But Yeon So-wol knew instinctively what it was.
'Killing intent......?'
Men came pouring out of the alleys in a rush. They surrounded Yeon So-wol.
"Yo."
The one who came swaggering out was Mad Dog.
"......."
When Yeon So-wol only looked at him without a word, Mad Dog twisted his lips.
"There's something I've been wondering about, so give me an answer, would you?"
"......."
"Fuck. This prick, right to the very end. Hey. Did I ever do anything to you?"
"......."
"Did I ever cuss you out even once? So why'd you glare at me like that the second you laid eyes on me? Huh? Why only me! Picked out of the whole damn crowd!"
"......."
"Fucking hell. Who are you to look at me like I'm a joke?"
After a long silence, Yeon So-wol answered.
"Thanks."
"What?"
Mad Dog laughed.
"Yeah. Sure. I'm grateful too. Thanks to you I snapped wide awake. I'm leaving this shithole Xinxing County and heading for Duanzhou."
A flash.
Catching the faint moonlight.
A blade shone.
The energy on every side trembled.
Yeon So-wol read it down to the last detail. The world flattened of its own accord, and from the ground, from the sky, from the men and from all things, threads rose.
Even from things he had never been able to see threads on before.
Even from things he could see, but had not been able to see at once.
He drew them out in an instant.
He swept over everything with his Qi sense.
FWIIISH!
A throwing knife, flung without warning, announced the start of the fight.
Yeon So-wol did not dodge it.
Instead he charged straight at it.
Caught vividly in his Qi sense,
the thread rising vividly from it,
he stopped that throwing knife in midair with his palm.
Snap-
Along with the sensation of something severing,
CLANG-!
the blade, broken in midair, scattered to the ground in pieces.
"......What?"
They had expected him to dodge the throwing knife; not one of them had imagined he would simply shatter it and keep coming,
and for a moment they lost their breath.
Their Qi senses narrowed and went sluggish.
Yeon So-wol saw them. Countless gaps where their minds did not rest.
Tap.
With the lightness of Soaring Wind Drift he closed in on them in an instant.
He wrapped his hand around the hand of one still standing there stunned.
Snap-
As the thread severed and the man crumpled, he took the sword out of his grip.
VWOOOOOM-!
The Eight Extraordinary Meridians writhed.
The meridians resonated.
He raised True qi and swung roughly.
CRUNCH!
Before the dead body could even fall, he struck that neck once more and sent the head flying.
"Huh?"
"Hnh!"
The men flinched at the hot blood spraying up.
Thanks to that shock, their Qi senses stiffened and locked up all the more.
The gaps in their minds yawning wide open.
CRUNCH! RRRIP!
A second and a third head flew into the sky.
One of them tried to raise his sword to block,
KRANG!
but when Yeon So-wol reached out and touched the blade, the long sword broke helplessly in two.
"What the!"
Mad Dog's eyes flew wide in shock.
The energy around them shook harder still, and yet its range only narrowed further.
"Your mind's shaking, isn't it?"
Yeon So-wol whispered.
Perhaps his Qi sense had widened so far that he had grown unhurried and calm with it. As if contemplating the world from a distance. Cold enough to startle even himself.
"Not being able to kill you has been sitting wrong with me all this time."
A dark night with barely a crescent moon risen.
A night road in Xinxing County with not a soul watching.
"No audience, so no need for WWE."
Letting fall words Mad Dog could not understand, Yeon So-wol kicked off the ground and flew up. Over their heads, into the gaps their minds could not reach.
When Yeon So-wol, soaked in blood, arrived at the Hall of Refined Arts, Yi Yu-baek was standing alone before the gate.
As if he had been waiting for him.
"Who did you kill?"
"Mad Dog and some Black Path men. Not Laughing Dog or Resentful Dog."
"Witnesses?"
"None."
Yi Yu-baek laughed.
"See? Didn't I tell you the chance would come?"
He came over and clapped Yeon So-wol's bloodied shoulder.
"Add in that trick you've been hiding, and three or four of them would have been no trouble at all."
Patting him, he asked,
"So. How many did you kill?"
"Thirteen."
"......."
"......Father?"
"Ah. Well. Right. Well done. Right."
Yi Yu-baek stammered, unlike himself.
"That. Even so, thirteen is a bit much, isn't it?"
He narrowed his eyes.
"You. Now that I look at you, your temperament's changed too. You're keeping your mind in hand consciously. That isn't something that happens overnight......."
"Ah. About that."
Yeon So-wol laid out what he had learned from Eun-yeong that day.
When Yi Yu-baek heard the method of refining the follicles and sweat pores of the skin, he was full of admiration.
"It makes sense. It makes sense. With a method like that, one could wake the Qi sense by conscious will. So that's how the assassins did it. This....... is worth looking into. Only,"
He looked at Yeon So-wol steadily.
"As it stands there's only a knack to it, and no proper method."
"Is that so?"
"That's right. Do it the way you were taught and eight or nine out of ten would have their skin scorch off and die in agony. And that's going by children with decent talent who reached the Fire stage on schedule."
???
Yeon So-wol's shoulders gave a start.
Eun-yeong's indifferent face flashed through his mind.
"This. It's less a teaching than a way of sifting out the lucky and the talented. The assassins' way after all, I suppose. I'll have to look into it carefully, over a long stretch of time. Bring it down to one or two in ten at the very least......."
Yi Yu-baek was fascinated,
but Yeon So-wol's head was in a tangle.
What the hell.
She handed something like that over, just like that?
Without so much as a word of warning?
'What in the.......'
Yi Yu-baek suddenly turned to look at Yeon So-wol.
"So-wol. Your mind's shaking all of a sudden, isn't it?"
"......It's nothing."
Yeon So-wol thought.
That today, too, old Jo Man-seok had been right.