Sword Forms and Saber Forms
“The poisonous snakes from Sichuan, you mean?”
“Was there another Tang Family in Sichuan?”
Hong-hui was as composed as ever, but I couldn’t quite match her calm.
“You don’t sound eager.”
“I’ve heard enough. People say that whenever you get tangled up with the Tang Family, it never ends well.”
Won Seo-gang, who had been listening, let out a snort.
“Afraid they’ll wipe you out and leave no evidence?”
Hong-hui smiled and went on.
“Don’t worry. Even the Tang Family wouldn’t dare make an enemy of the Haomu Sect. Their prestige is immense, yes, but all their power is trapped in Sichuan. Like a snake trapped in a jar, really…”
It was all old news to me.
The Sichuan Tang Family had built their name on poison and hidden weapons, rising to infamy in Sichuan, a land dominated by the Mount Qingcheng and Mount Emei sects.
Because they were fiercely protective of their family secrets, they hadn’t established branch offices anywhere else—not even elsewhere within Sichuan.
Like a snake hiding in its hole, they built a huge clan settlement called Tang Family Compound and shut themselves away inside it. They were so reclusive they wouldn’t even marry their daughters off; they’d rather take in son-in-laws who lived in.
“For that reason, the Tang Family has long relied on the Haomu Sect to gather information from the Central Plains. If anything happens to sour relations with us, the Tang Family’s eyes and ears into the wider world go blind. If you don’t know what’s happening outside, you’ll be helpless until a blade is at your throat. They’ve made plenty of enemies, so they’d be fools to make such a self-destructive move.”
The Haomu Sect’s intelligence network was formidable, but that didn’t mean the Tang Family had no alternatives.
“What about the Beggars’ Gang? Aren’t they from the righteous path too? They could work together.”
“The Beggars’ Gang is very close with the orthodox sects. Their current chief is even an elder of the Martial Alliance, so anything the Tang Family asks for would go straight to the Alliance’s upper ranks. Do you know what the relationship between the Martial Alliance and the Tang Family is like?”
“I’ve heard it isn’t good.”
Won Seo-gang gave a quiet laugh.
“Not good? That’s putting it mildly. Is there any sect in this world that’s on friendly terms with the Tang Family? They may be one of the Five Great Clans and counted among the righteous, but if they were branded a demonic sect and declared public enemies tomorrow, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least.”
With Won Seo-gang backing her up, Hong-hui’s voice gained more weight.
“Which is precisely why the Tang Family needs the Haomu Sect’s eyes and ears so badly. For decades now, our branch has taken on countless Tang Family requests. We’ve bungled our share of jobs, but we’ve never been stabbed in the back.”
“How long is the escort job?”
“For now, five days. Whether it gets extended after that will be decided then.”
“And the pay?”
“Three taels of silver per day.”
“Who exactly are we escorting that they’re paying so much? Is the person being hunted some demon lord from Mount Celestial?”
“You’ll know when you meet them.”
“Does that mean the three of us here are being hired?”
“Yes. It seems Master Won has already agreed…”
As Luju turned his head and looked over, the monk rose from his seat.
“Call for me when it’s time to depart. I’ll wait at my lodgings.”
I watched the monk leave, then felt Luju’s gaze settle on me.
“What about you, Jeong Dae-cheon?”
“……I’ll think it over.”
“Please do. There’s still plenty of time.”
As she had promised before, Luju didn’t force the job on me. If I turned it down, she’d probably call in one of the other guests staying in the annex.
When we stepped outside, Won Seo-gang fell into step beside me and spoke.
“Why don’t you come along? It’s a good chance to get on speaking terms with the Tang Family.”
“And what am I supposed to do with that?”
“Don’t you know there’s nothing more frightening—or useful—than connections? If you’ve got the Haomu Sect behind you and know the people of the Tang Family, then even if you clash with them later, you’ll come out unscathed. And who knows? You might even get your hands on some useful hidden weapons.”
“Are you really just scared of going alone?”
“Scared? Hardly. It’s just that going with that bald monk leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”
“That monk’s a guest too?”
“So I’ve heard.”
“You don’t seem very close.”
“I don’t even know his name.”
Getting acquainted with the Tang Family…
When I’d gone to Chengdu in Sichuan before, I’d seen members of the Tang Family a few times.
They were perfectly ordinary humans with eyes, noses, and mouths like anyone else, but trouble between martial artists could break out in an instant, so I’d kept my distance.
If the Haomu Sect was vouching for them, then I was interested in seeing firsthand what those infamous human snakes were really like.
For all I knew, the rumors might be more dramatic than the reality.
Most martial artists were overrated, not underrated.
“I’ll come along.”
“Good choice.”
“But I have one condition.”
“What is it?”
“Let’s spar.”
“What, trying to kick me in the balls again because you missed last time?”
“You were going to dodge it anyway. Did you find the man you were after?”
Won Seo-gang’s expression hardened as he shook his head.
“He’s hiding deep in the Black Night Gang Headquarters and won’t even show his face. Tsk. I was too hasty. The moment I found him, I rushed in because I got impatient—that was my mistake. Have you thought about my offer from before?”
“Forget it. If you want to die together with the Black Night Gang, do it alone.”
The annex Won Seo-gang stayed in was attached to the far end of the right wall.
It was smaller than I’d expected.
A modest house with two tiled rooms. A training yard about five jang across, paved with flat stones.
That was all.
Compared to Luju’s residence, which had been arranged with a fair amount of taste, this place was so plain it was almost shabby.
It looked like the home of some martial recluse hidden deep in the mountains.
While Won Seo-gang rummaged through the clutter piled beside the house, I looked around the yard.
What caught my eye were the tiny wooden Buddhas, each about a handspan tall, lined up densely on the veranda and by the window.
The dozens of smiling Buddhas standing upright all had the exact same posture.
The right hand was raised to shoulder height, the left hand lowered with the palm also facing outward, each one smiling gently.
They looked almost like they were seeing someone off on a long journey. As if saying there was no weapon in their hand, so there was nothing to fear.
“Are these Maitreya Buddhas?”
Won Seo-gang turned and looked at me with a strange expression.
“You know them?”
“Who doesn’t know Maitreya Buddha?”
I’d wondered if some monk had made them, but then I noticed a half-finished Buddha statue sitting nearby.
Wood shavings were scattered around it, along with several daggers of varying sizes, neatly arranged.
“Did you make all these statues yourself?”
“I carved them.”
“All of them?”
Without stopping his search, Won Seo-gang answered in the same even tone.
“When the mind’s drowning in distractions and troubles, it helps to focus on something simple. You never know where a person’s talent lies. If you try a bit of everything, eventually you’ll find one thing you’re decent at. If I’d known I had some skill with carpentry before I picked up a sword, maybe I’d have gone that route instead. Here, take this.”
What he tossed me was a wooden sword made to resemble a real blade closely enough to be mistaken for one at a glance.
“I made it a while ago for teaching someone. If I were to use my real weapon and show my true ability, it would be more natural, but that’d definitely cause trouble, so use this instead.”
When we stood facing each other in the middle of the training yard, Won Seo-gang began speaking nonsense with a grave expression.
“You won’t try to kick me in the balls today either, will you? Be merciful. I’m a bit too old to be castrated and sent into the imperial palace.”
My earlier kick hadn’t even come close to his groin, but he’d been going on about it non-stop ever since.
As expected of a picky swordsman, this guy was the type to hold a grudge in the smallest way.
“Let’s not use fists or feet. We’ll fight only with wooden swords.”
“Just what I wanted.”
Holding the wooden sword above my head, I slowly took the opening stance of Nameless Saber Art.
Won Seo-gang adjusted his own wooden sword and raised it to eye level.
After tracing through the forms of Nameless Saber Art in my head, I kicked off the ground and charged.
In a real fight, I would have unleashed the sequence of slashes I was most confident in—the kind that suited saber techniques best.
But this was a place to learn, so I chose to thrust.
When I came at a swordsman with a thrust, Won Seo-gang’s eyes twitched.
Clack!
He lightly knocked my blade aside and countered with a twisting strike at a bizarre angle.
I’d felt it even during our brief clash in the alley, but Won Seo-gang’s swordsmanship was genuinely difficult to deal with.
When I sparred with Pung Gang-ik, there was a fierce exhilaration in the clash of saber against saber, the blood in my veins boiling hot.
Won Seo-gang’s style, fitting for a swordsman, was insidious to the core. He parried and bled off saber strikes, then stabbed back from blind angles with terrifying precision.
It felt like hacking through a dense thicket with a blade, only to have snakes spring out from all directions.
Even with wooden swords, every form was aimed at vital points and pressure points; if I showed the slightest opening, it would all be over in one stroke.
This was exactly why you could never let your guard down against a true swordsman.
My back prickled, and my breathing gradually turned rough.
I kept forcing down the instinct to throw in an odd fist strike or kick here and there, and fought him with the wooden sword alone.
One life-draining exchange after another piled up, until more than thirty moves had passed in hard-won labor.
When he decided that was enough, Won Seo-gang whipped his wooden sword out and widened the distance, bringing the spar to an end.
“That’ll do.”
Once the taut tension eased, the breath I’d been holding came spilling out.
“I didn’t get a good look at it last time because everything was too chaotic, but seeing it today, your saber art is truly unusual.”
Wiping sweat from my face, I nodded.
Anyone who fought me and lived long enough to count as a decent master usually said something like that.
Pung Gang-ik, who’d been pushed into a corner badly enough to reveal the spear techniques he’d hidden away, had also marveled that the bones of my saber art were sound.
But Won Seo-gang pointed out something completely different.
“You’ve grafted the essence of swordsmanship onto saber techniques. Doesn’t seem like your own idea. Your sect is a real headache.”
“Swordsmanship?”
I blinked in confusion at a term I was hearing for the first time, and Won Seo-gang clicked his tongue as if he’d expected that.
“Tsk tsk. You didn’t know? Well, I could tell from the way your thrusts only imitated sword paths without fully manifesting them.”
“What exactly is the essence of swordsmanship?”
Won Seo-gang lifted the wooden sword and stabbed lightly into the air.
It was a casual thrust, yet everything about it was different from the thrusts I used in saber art—from the movement of his elbow to the path traced by the tip.
“Most thrusting moves in saber arts rely on brute force or speed. It’s basically slash, block, slash, and then thrust when an opening shows itself. Swordsmanship, on the other hand, puts its entire essence into the thrust. It’s like piercing a pressure point no bigger than a fingernail with a judge’s brush—every bit of focus concentrated into a single point. That saber art you just faced felt like it had spent years colliding with swordsmanship and absorbed its sword path into the thrust.”
“Can you tell which sect’s saber art it was?”
Won Seo-gang let out a dry laugh.
“That’s what I should be asking you… But you don’t even know the sect? What, was it some lineage that got wiped out?”
“They never told me to the end.”
“Hmm.”
Won Seo-gang stroked his beard in thought before speaking again.
“I have no way of knowing the truth of it, but if I were to use my imagination… I don’t know what kind of saber sect it was, but it seems they had a deep grudge against a powerful sword sect. Perhaps they picked it up while working to break through swordsmanship.”
“Or maybe they developed it through exchanges with sword sects.”
It was unlikely, but not impossible.
“There are limits to that too. In most sects, the martial arts handed down are refined and improved by talented successors as the generations pass. Forms may be altered in the process, but the foundation never changes. That’s practically taboo. Saber art grows only within saber art, and swordsmanship only within swordsmanship.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to take only the strengths of both?”
Won Seo-gang shook his head.
“Which do you think gets stronger—someone who struggles to overcome their weaknesses, or someone who maximizes their strengths?”
“Probably the latter.”
I’d survived the same way. I found what I was good at and gave it everything I had.
“Exactly. The reason a weakness is a weakness is because you lack talent in that area. No matter how hard you try, you’ll only come close to other people’s average. And in the process, you may lose whatever strengths you had to begin with. You end up as something middling that’s neither one thing nor the other. Innate talent always lies in your strengths. Focus on that, and you can achieve anything. In martial arts, in life—doesn’t matter.”
Won Seo-gang gave his wooden sword a light swing, showing me the difference between a slash and a thrust.
“If saber art’s thrusts are weak, and you foolishly graft swordsmanship onto them just to focus on thrusting, then the saber art’s strength—its slashes—starts to weaken. The reverse is true as well. No sword sect worth mentioning takes the essence of saber art and mixes it into their slashes.”
I thought back over the countless deadly battles I’d fought against martial artists.
Saber users fought with saber art, swordsmen with swordsmanship. The lowlifes used whatever came to hand.
As Won Seo-gang said, I’d never seen a martial art that mixed saber forms and sword forms like this.
“You can forcibly combine two incompatible essences, sure, but becoming a master that way takes more talent than most people have. It’s no wonder you can’t fully bring out the sword path hidden in that saber art’s thrusts. How should I put it… At best, it’s a gamble. At worst, it feels like a desperate last stand. If it goes wrong, the saber art itself could collapse.”
Why had that unknown sect inserted sword paths into Nameless Saber Art, despite all these flaws?
If they had accepted swordsmanship’s essence in order to refine it and survive by any means necessary, then things must have been desperate indeed.
I thought of the one-armed saber user I’d met in Zhejiang.
We had never formally bound ourselves as master and disciple, and he had always called me only “great hero.” Still, he had been the only teacher who ever passed saber art on to me.
Had he been expelled from his sect? Or had he lost his left arm and become a one-armed man when it was wiped out?
Had he barely survived and, afraid I might suffer the same fate, chosen not to establish a master-disciple bond or tell me his sect’s name?
Was that it…?
That nagging dissatisfaction I always felt whenever I used Nameless Saber Art, that sense that there was something more lurking just out of reach. That uneasy emptiness, as though I’d been stopped by a wall.
I could perform the thrusting forms in Nameless Saber Art with my eyes closed.
I’d trained them hundreds, thousands of times, and yet I had never dreamed there was a sword path hidden inside them.
Even the masters I’d fought never mentioned it.
Then again, where in a real fight would anyone have the time to analyze and admire an opponent’s techniques? We were all too busy trying to kill each other.
Once again, I felt the depth of Won Seo-gang’s skill in my bones.
For some reason, I also felt strangely hollow.
You could swing a blade all day in actual combat and only end up sharpening your tricks and souring your temperament. If you wanted to raise your martial attainment for real, you still had to learn a thing or two from masters like this.
So that was why the young prodigies born into famous martial families could butcher knife-wielders who’d spent decades crawling through blood and mud.
I held the wooden sword low, cupped my fists respectfully, and bowed.
“Thank you for the lesson.”
Won Seo-gang nodded, looking oddly pleased.
“So, shall you join me in going to tear up the Black Night Gang Headquarters?”
“Save the nonsense. Let’s spar some more.”
“Rest a little first. The sun’s too harsh.”
Wiping sweat from his brow, Won Seo-gang flopped down onto the shaded veranda. With no real choice, I sat on the side as well.
After a brief rest with some chilled tea, I picked up the wooden sword again and returned to the training yard.
The afternoon sun blazed down mercilessly, but I had no idea when I’d get another chance to learn from Won Seo-gang.
I poured everything I had into my saber art. With his guidance, I could faintly begin to grasp the true shape of the sword path hidden inside the thrusts.
By the time the sun set, our spar was unfortunately interrupted by a knock at the gate.
When I opened it, a servant sent by Geuk-hwan bowed his head.
“Luju is asking for you. Our guests have arrived.”
My clothes were soaked through from sweat, clinging to my body like I’d been caught in the rain, but I had no spare set to change into.
I splashed my face with cold water, then left with Won Seo-gang.
The servant led us somewhere other than Luju’s residence. It was another annex, as broad and well-appointed as the place where Luju stayed.
There were three houses spaced apart to the left, right, and back, and in the center sat a small pond arranged so it could be admired from anywhere.
Several unfamiliar martial artists were wandering around the pond.
“There they are.”
At Won Seo-gang’s words, I gave a small nod in silence.
They wore plain martial garb and swords at their waists, but the atmosphere they carried was entirely different. That much became clear the closer I got.
The clients Luju had mentioned.
They were members of the Tang Family.
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