TL/ED – Miso
Yeon So-wol's name had reached the ears of the other experts of Xinxing County as well.
"Brother Yu-baek. Wasting your time on something pointless again? I hear you've been teaching some kid named Yeon these days."
Hang In-u, Gang Leader of the White Dragon Gang of Xinxing County, was Yi Yu-baek's sworn younger brother.
He clicked his tongue.
Yi Yu-baek, who had been drinking since morning, grinned.
"A perpetual Second-rate martial artist, half dead in a ditch. When I picked you up and healed you and started giving you pointers on your martial arts, everyone said the same thing. Pointless."
Hang In-u, Gang Leader of the White Dragon Gang, hardened his expression.
"There you go with that talk again, Elder brother."
"What I'm saying is. Nobody knows. No one can say what will become of a man who holds a purpose in his heart. Just like how you became a First-rate martial artist in name and in fact and raised up the White Dragon Gang the way you have."Hang In-u drained his cup without a word.
"But this is a different case, isn't it? I hear that Yeon brat took a thrashing from you yesterday and held out."
"Ha. Impressive of him."
"Sure. Surviving that thrashing. His will is clearly no ordinary thing, I'll grant you that."
Hang In-u had been through it himself, and his shoulders shuddered. Then he said.
"Which is exactly why I'm telling you not to go filling a desperate kid like that with useless hopes."
"Have I filled him with anything?"
"Haven't you? They say that Yeon boy is eighteen. At that age there's only one way for him to train inner energy, isn't there? No matter how good his aptitude, he'd have to do nothing but the Free Wandering Art for at least two years. Slow and floppy, waving his arms around like some old man. And even if he gets through that ridiculous process and reaches the Fire stage, the step after that will be impossibly far off. That boy will never be repaid for his effort. It'll be all the more tragic because he has the will."
The Free Wandering Art had an impressive name, but in practice it was no different from health calisthenics.
It did have some effect, gathering qi through the breath and performing Qi gathering, but it was so slight that martial artists wouldn't even spare it a glance.
It was only old men on the streets who came outside and flapped their way through it.
"We'll see."
"Hm?"
Hang In-u's eyebrow twitched.
"Don't tell me. Are you planning to skip the Free Wandering Art?"
"I might."
"The Warm Breeze Formula, then? Brother. That'll kill him."
"......."
"Come on. Moments like this are when you're the cruelest man alive, Brother Yu-baek. People ought to see your true colors....... You know it too, don't you? How dangerous an Internal cultivation method is. And you'd hand that to an eighteen-year-old whose body has already gone stiff? He'll end up a cripple. At minimum he needs two years of the Free Wandering Art to loosen up. That's the only thing that makes sense."
"......It isn't impossible. If he devotes himself to Qi circulation day and night, and presses on without letting his guard down for an instant, he can make progress without going through anything like the Free Wandering Art. If he can manage that, he might even overcome most of the handicap of starting at eighteen."
"......That's just something people say. Who in this world could actually do it? Two hours of Qi circulation practice leaves a man unable to think straight, and you want him doing it all day? With a body that stiff he'd have to wake up in the middle of the night to keep at it, wouldn't he? Otherwise something's bound to go wrong. Could you do it, Brother Yu-baek? I know I couldn't."
"True. It would be hard. No. Near enough to impossible."
Yi Yu-baek conceded the point, lifted the bottle itself, and swallowed three mouthfuls.
"But In-u. As I said before, I believe there's nothing a man with a purpose can't do. Yeon So-wol. That boy is one who'll actually try. That's how he looked to me, at least. And he's got a card he's keeping hidden....... That boy. If the inner energy problem gets solved, he might just carve out a name of his own in this Jianghu. On will alone. Straight through the impossible. Me. When I think about that, my chest trembles."
A smile bloomed at the corner of his mouth.
Then, as though the thought had just struck him, he said.
"On that note, why don't we take on a challenge of our own? Wiping out the Cheonro mountain stronghold."
"Ah, Elder brother. That again. Please....... If we tangle with the bandits of Cheonro Mountain, at least half of us die. And there's no guarantee we'd win in the first place."
"Where there's a will, there's a way. I'll take the lead. If we gather friends and make good use of a surprise attack, couldn't we sweep them clean? Let's try it. Pulling off just this one thing would make Xinxing County twice the place it is now."
"Don't tell me. Have you talked to the Sect Master of the Severing Sword Sect about this too?"
"Him and everyone else. I've been stirring up every martial artist in Xinxing. And I've been sending letters to Duanzhou, Enping, and Yangjiang, and to people I'm friendly with in Foshan and Xiqiao besides. What do you say?"
"......Hah. Let me think about it."
"Good. Good. I should be going. I promised to look in on So-wol's training this afternoon."
Yi Yu-baek rose lightly to his feet. Rather than take the stairs, he threw open the window and leapt out.
Hang In-u watched him go and clicked his tongue once.
Tap!
With a single tap of his toes against the ground, Mo Cheong swayed as lightly as a willow leaf.
The sight filled Yeon So-wol with dread.
'Hold on. That's a physics engine bug.'
Mo Cheong came at him, weaving in that uncanny way.
Just when he seemed to be on the right he was on the left, and just when he seemed to be on the left he was on the right, his center of gravity shifting several times within a single step.
Mo Cheong had agreed to go at it 'seriously', and Yeon So-wol could not read his movements at all.
Whack!
Crack!
THUMP!
Smack!
Attacks he had once dodged one time in two he now barely dodged one time in five.
Yeon So-wol wanted to cry.
He had been hit so much that he just wanted to give up. Fine. Kill me or don't, do what you like, he wanted to say, and lie flat on the ground.
But he forced himself upright again.
'I can't let them see any weakness.'
In Yeon So-wol's head, Mo Cheong was a devious man who had dug a trap and lured him toward it.
And a hot-tempered one who, once that trap had been dodged, held a grudge and hit him all the harder.
"Ugh."
As he settled back into his stance, a strange pain made his head swim.
It felt as though hot little worms were dancing beneath his skin.
'Is this really okay......?'
His thoughts kept sinking into the negative.
To keep his mind off the pain, Yeon So-wol deliberately threw out a question.
"Sir Mo Cheong. What on earth is that strange movement? I can't cope with it at all."
"Oh, this? It's the Willow Leaf Step. One of Master's exclusive movement arts."
Thwack!
Mo Cheong did not stop attacking even while he answered.
'Vicious man.'
In truth, Mo Cheong was only doing his utmost as a mark of respect for Yeon So-wol. He was emptying out everything he had to show him.
But Yeon So-wol took it as the difficulty being raised in retaliation for daring to dodge the trap.
'Do your worst. Like I'd ever give up....... When it's hard is exactly when I never give up.......'
Rolling across the ground and pushing back to his feet, Yeon So-wol thought.
'The Willow Leaf Step? Ah. If only I could learn that!'
He asked.
"That. Is it something I could learn too?"
His voice shook a little.
'If I could just do that, the number of times I get hit would drop to a quarter!'
For Yeon So-wol, who over yesterday and today had been struck a thousand times more than in his entire life before, it was a martial art coveted enough to set his hands trembling and make him swallow hard without meaning to.
CRUNCH!
The 'serious' Mo Cheong blew out Yeon So-wol's shin with a kicking technique as he answered.
"Hm. Exclusive martial arts normally aren't passed to just anyone. But he might pass it to you? You came here to learn a movement art in the first place. Not right away, though. You have to learn an Internal cultivation method first."
"Gah. Nngh."
Sprawled on the ground, Yeon So-wol clawed along in a daze, and the moment his head cleared he pushed himself up again.
"Then how long would it take to get that far?"
"Who knows? Your Qi sense seems really good....... Three years?"
"My Qi sense is good?"
"Yeah. Even now you dodge one out of every five of my attacks. Sure, I'm only using Third-rate levels of strength. But that's not something you can explain with good eyes alone."
Whoosh!
Mo Cheong's fist tore through empty air.
Yeon So-wol dodged the strike by all but dropping to the ground, crawled backward, then stood up straight again.
'Just as I thought.'
Mo Cheong looked down at his own fist and nodded.
It was no accident, missing this often.
'That's an incredible Qi sense. Everything else about him is sloppy, so he must be reading my fighting spirit exactly and dodging off that. But how is that even possible? Qi is like air, so ordinary and so abundant that it's hard to notice at all.'
Mo Cheong had no way of knowing.
That Yeon So-wol had come from a world where qi did not exist at all.
Qi was not something visible to the eye, but Yeon So-wol's body reacted quickly to this unfamiliar energy he was feeling for the first time in his life.
Sometimes as a chill, sometimes as unease.
That was the reason Yeon So-wol, who had never once been in a proper fight, could dodge attacks fairly well.
Thanks to that, Mo Cheong found himself liking this fellow of his own age from Annam(?) more and more.
He had talent.
And he had grace.
'I've been going at him pretty seriously. And he still gets up without falling apart, right to the end.'
Enough to earn respect from one man to another. Enough to stir a surge of competitive spirit too.
And at the same time, it was a pity.
'If only he'd started three years earlier.'
Then Xinxing County would have produced one more outstanding expert.
'But if anyone's going to regret it, he'll regret it more than I do. I'll just give him whatever advice he needs.'
Careful not to look as though he were pitying him, Mo Cheong answered flatly.
"Normally, for someone who started as late as you, even ten years might not be enough. But you might be able to reach the Fire stage within three. A year and a half on the Free Wandering Art. Another year and a half on the Warm Breeze Formula. If you work yourself half to death. Then, Third-rate or not, people would call you a martial artist. The stage after that....... would take a lot longer, though."
Three years.
Yeon So-wol was suddenly seized with impatience. Fine, he'd hold out three years. Hold out, and then take the Great Restoration Pill. That was what he had resolved.......
CRUNCH!
Thud!
But taking a beating like this and rolling across the dirt made him want to cut that time down somehow.
'I'm....... way too weak.......'
What good was the power of the Star of Thousand Deaths?
What if the Mo Cheong standing right in front of him became an enemy? Give the man a single blade and Yeon So-wol's head would come off before he could do a thing about it.
But the Willow Leaf Step. If he only had that Willow Leaf Step, that uncanny movement that seemed to bend the laws of physics.......
His heart was so desperate that three years felt impossibly far away.
"Excellent!"
Just then a voice rang out, brimming with delight.
It was Yi Yu-baek, who had hopped up onto the wall at some point.
Though the wall stood taller than a man, Yi Yu-baek dropped down as lightly as a blade of grass and came over beaming.
"From the look of So-wol's face, you did this properly. No slacking off the way you usually do, either."
"Huh."
Mo Cheong flinched.
'He knew about the usual slacking?'
And Yeon So-wol nodded to himself.
'So it was a trap after all.'
They'd meant to lure him into slacking off and use that as an excuse to throw him out.
'Terrifying people....... I can't show them a single opening.'
Yeon So-wol looked back and forth between Mo Cheong and Yi Yu-baek, his eyes taut with tension.
The Jianghu was cold.
And martial artists were merciless.
And yet that look in Yeon So-wol's eyes struck a chord in Yi Yu-baek.
'Wonderful. There's still life in his eyes.'
Any other lad would not have lasted through half of a half of a half of what Yeon So-wol had taken yesterday and today.
He'd have run, or else he'd be crawling along the ground by now with his wits knocked out of him.
But Yeon So-wol was different. His face and his whole body were covered in bruises, yet he drew himself upright and straightened his clothes. He bowed properly to Yi Yu-baek.
"You've come, Hall Master."
Once again, Yi Yu-baek was moved.
'A gentleman does not let his cap fall, even in death.'
Zilu, Confucius's beloved disciple, was struck by a spear while fighting an enemy, and when his cap came off, he left those words behind, set it straight upon his head, and died.
That was how Yeon So-wol appeared in Yi Yu-baek's eyes now.
'What in the world is this boy carrying inside him, that he can be like this?'
In truth, Yeon So-wol had been nothing more than a student in 21st-century South Korea aiming for Seoul National University, diligent, level-headed, and socially skilled besides.
He stood out even in South Korea, but not so much that his like was never seen. The sort of impressive kid that every school had one of.
He had simply been dropped into the strange place called Murim and was struggling all the more fiercely and desperately for it.
But to Yi Yu-baek, who knew nothing of those circumstances, the sight looked like something else entirely.
'A will that won't break no matter how much he's beaten. Focus and mental fortitude that never dim.'
The truth was that in countries where public education was not properly established, discipline and mental fortitude ran so low that even the men who called themselves soldiers couldn't manage a single proper jumping jack. In ancient China, in the Murim, it could only be worse.
Doing what they had always done was one thing, but the moment something got even slightly new or hard or frightening, they all ran or lay down.
In a world like that, Yeon So-wol's mental fortitude shone brilliantly.
'Even so, that much is possible. It isn't unheard of.'
Yi Yu-baek thought it over. A man with the will to come all the way from Annam to Guangdong could manage that much. Rarely, people were born with a spirit that tough.
But the grace to straighten his clothes and bow properly in the middle of all that suffering, that could never come from nothing.
Yi Yu-baek guessed at what lay behind it.
'He must have some deep story he can't speak of.'
Out loud he had kept it short, saying only that he had seen a Jianghu practitioner and wanted to learn martial arts. But behind that there surely lay an entire epic, a tangle of grudges and hatred and duty and love and secrets that no words could contain.
Otherwise no one so young could show such ferocious mental fortitude and hold himself together right to the end.
When his thoughts reached that point,
Yi Yu-baek settled the question that had been troubling him all along.
'Yu-baek. What have you been agonizing over? With a man of such worth having come to you with a heart this desperate.'
Trust him. Trust in his desperate purpose, and lay before him the one road that was impossible and yet possible.
Yi Yu-baek felt everything come clear at last.
"So-wol."
"Yes, Hall Master."
"I'll teach you the Willow Haze Art. With that, you'll be able to reach the Fire stage in less than a year."
Yeon So-wol was astounded.
'One year......!'
Three years at the very fastest, he'd been told.
And now one year.
"Thank you!"
Yeon So-wol bowed his head deeply.
And then,
"Whaaat? Master! The Willow Haze Art? Not the Free Wandering Art? Not even the Warm Breeze Formula, but the Willow Haze Art? Are you trying to kill Yeon So-wol??"
Mo Cheong, the disciple who knew what the Willow Haze Art was, was astounded as well.