Cheongsan Gate
“Slowly. Breathe deep and focus on sensing the shape of your internal energy. Don’t force yourself to move.”
I did as Do Goeng-il told me, closed my eyes, and turned inward.
It was only the size of a grain of millet, yet it was the first time in my life I’d ever felt anything like it, and the strange, mysterious sensation set my heart pounding.
I trembled with a kind of exhilaration, as if the road to becoming one of those absolute masters you only ever heard about had opened right in front of me.
Whatever happened five years from now, I knew this was the sort of chance that would never come again.
With every breath in and out, a cool current of inner qi spread through my blood vessels into my limbs, regardless of my will. I concentrated with everything I had, feeling the route of that energy and committing it to memory.
How much time had passed? The qi was drawn away to one side, and Do Goeng-il finally lifted his hand from my back.
Once the energy vanished, the tiny, faint trace of internal energy that had settled in my dantian dissolved like a grain of sand melting away.
With nothing left at all, I stared blankly, empty and disheartened.
Do Goeng-il stood up.
“That’s enough for today.”
I thought he would leave right away, but he sat down on the wooden floor, took a bamboo flask from his bundle, and drank from it.
Judging by the way he sipped, it was liquor.
I quickly went into the room and brought out dried meat, pancakes for snacks, and a pair of cups. Do Goeng-il said nothing as he poured wine into both cups.
We sat at a slight distance from each other and drank quietly under the moonlight.
“Haa... this is Zhuyeqing?”
“You know the taste of liquor?”
“I don’t know the taste, but I know it’s expensive.”
The moonlight was soft, and the sound of the bamboo grove swaying in the night breeze gave the summer evening a fair bit of charm.
With good Zhuyeqing to go with it, it felt like the perfect time to bring up all sorts of casual matters.
“Where exactly is Cheongsan Gate?”
“It began with a band of refugees who fled deep into the mountains of Gansu to escape the calamity when the Tartars invaded Zhongyuan.”
Nothing particularly special there. Most of the major orthodox sects were tucked away in deep mountain ranges, too.
“They cleared fields on the slash-and-burn hillsides and survived by hunting. To protect themselves from bandits and beasts, they learned self-defense techniques. Some among them were fallen children of martial families, and little by little those methods developed into martial arts.”
“I’ve never even heard the name of this sect before.”
I thought he might bristle, but Do Goeng-il accepted it without emotion.
“Of course you haven’t. Even after the Tartars were driven back north, we remained in the mountains. The name of the kingdom may have changed, but the exploitation of the common folk never did, so there was no reason to come down.”
“Are the Sword Lineage and the Saber Lineage really the same sect?”
“Brothers who split from the same root.”
“Then why do brothers of the same school fight to the death?”
“Tradition.”
It was common enough for martial families and sects to hold sparring matches among themselves.
After all, trading blows even once was more useful for improving skill than swinging a sword at empty air a hundred times over.
They usually used wooden blades, though sometimes they sparred with real steel. But they never killed each other. The purpose of sparring was training, not murder.
If you used killing techniques to kill or cripple a fellow disciple, you’d be thrown in prison or expelled with your tendons cut. That was how a normal sect worked.
In the abnormal places, exceptions did exist.
Ghoulish, inhuman organizations that packed orphans into one place and made them slaughter each other until only one remained, like a jar crammed full of poisonous insects and left to devour itself.
“Is Cheongsan Gate maybe... something like the Assassin Society?”
Do Goeng-il glared at me, his eyes full of fury.
“Cheongsan Gate is an orthodox and prestigious sect with over a hundred years of history. How dare you compare it to some gutter trash like assassins?”
“Besides you, are there any other successors of the Sword Lineage?”
“None.”
“What about your fellow disciples?”
“Dead.”
“Not because of the life-and-death sparring?”
“...The Sword Lineage and Saber Lineage only hold life-and-death bouts once every five years. In the fifty years since then, there have been ten. Quite a few died, and those who survived gained insight and became stronger.”
“Then why are you the only one left?”
There seemed to be some private story behind it, but maybe he didn’t want to talk about it. He brushed the question aside in broad strokes.
“Everyone dies. Martial artists die even faster. Even in its prime, this sect never had more than a hundred members. Deep mountains and hidden valleys are barren places. If you’ve got too many mouths eating while swinging swords all day, it’s hard to survive. There’s no reason to have more. Martial skill is eighty percent talent. You choose the gifted ones from among the gifted and focus on them.”
“With skill like that, you could have founded a proper sect, couldn’t you?”
Do Goeng-il looked at me with cold eyes.
“From street scum to the younger elites of the great sects, everyone says they want to become masters. But there isn’t a single real one willing to throw away his entire life for it. They all just want to stand over the masses and strut. Martial skill is only a means. What they really want is to rise in the world and enjoy wealth and glory.”
That was how life was, wasn’t it? Wealth and glory were sweet and comfortable, and if you obsessed over martial arts, weren’t you just turning yourself into a butcher?
“The martial men of Cheongsan Gate are different. They are born with bones made for martial arts, men with an endless drive to rise higher, who swing blade and sword all their lives in order to see the end of martial truth. That is why, when we select disciples, we value not only martial talent but the fighting spirit that ignores life and death.”
To see the end of martial truth...
It sounded like a story from another world, so I drank in silence. Then, suddenly, Won Seo-gang came to mind.
The things he had said when he saw the artificial sword path hidden inside my saber art.
The reason he had forced sword intent into a saber technique even at the risk of collapsing its structure.
I had guessed that rather than developing through exchange between the Saber Lineage and the Sword Lineage, it was more likely a resentment-born makeshift measure, wrung out of desperation in an attempt to win somehow.
“Are the Sword Lineage and Saber Lineage enemies?”
Do Goeng-il flinched, as if I had caught him off guard. He gave me a sour look, like the question had soured the taste of the liquor, then drained his cup.
“It’s not a story I can tell just any half-made one. If you want to know the secrets of the sect, learn internal energy and saber technique, then become an official disciple of the Saber Lineage.”
He changed the subject, but I figured that was that.
If they’d spent generations killing each other in life-and-death sparring, there was no way resentment hadn’t grown, even if they came from the same root.
Compared to lofty talk about seeing the end of martial truth and all that, this was much easier to believe.
Life-and-death bouts between opposing sides, deep in the mountains, cut off from the outside world, and lasting for decades. What made that any different from the Assassin Society, where orphans were gathered together and made to kill each other until only one survived?
“What happens to the Sword Lineage if you die, old man?”
“It’ll be extinguished, I suppose.”
Even though his sect would end with him, Do Goeng-il remained utterly calm.
“Do you have disciples?”
“Never took one.”
“Is there a reason you never accepted any?”
At that, a sharp light flashed in Do Goeng-il’s eyes.
A clear, unhinged brilliance surged there, like a blade of the heart that had been tempered and sharpened over many years within his chest.
“Revenge.”
I didn’t understand what he meant, but the atmosphere had turned so severe that I didn’t ask further.
“If I die in the life-and-death duel five years from now?”
“Then the Saber Lineage will be extinguished, I suppose.”
“There was a man named Mun Hwi in Hangzhou, wasn’t there? A one-armed saber user.”
“He’s dead.”
“...You killed him, old man?”
Do Goeng-il emptied his cup and spoke.
“Mun Hwi was a gifted man who had reached the ultimate level of the Thousand Steel Saber Technique and took the head of my senior brother. Ten years later, he fled from me after losing one arm. I thought he would hide away and grit his teeth in bitterness, but instead he became a wreck who couldn’t live without alcohol. It would have been better if he had created some one-armed saber art, but losing one arm broke his will completely.”
I thought of the one-armed saber master I had met in Hangzhou.
He was always drunk. When he got irritated, he threw fists first, and wherever he passed, whether an inn or an alley, there was usually blood spilled in his wake.
I’d been drawn in by his skill and gathered the courage to ask him to teach me, and he’d actually gone ahead and passed on his saber art.
I’d learned the forms and sparred with him many times, but I had never once beaten him. I hadn’t even been able to brush the hem of his clothes.
Even now, I doubted I could beat him. Even with one arm gone, he had still been that formidable.
And when that incredible master had been whole, the old man had cut off one of his arms.
“I suppose that’s because he was the sort of man who lived only for the chance to grow stronger. Liquor wasn’t enough, so he rotted away like a dead body strung up on opium. I eased his pain. In any case, that makes him your teacher, doesn’t it? If you want revenge, I won’t stop you.”
“Forget it.”
The grudges I had already carried were hard enough to bear. There was no reason to take on someone else’s, too.
“When will you teach me the latter eighteen forms?”
“You haven’t even washed the rice, and you’re already reaching for the spoon.”
Do Goeng-il tucked the bamboo flask back into his bundle and stood.
“I’ll come again when dawn breaks tomorrow.”
I saw him off to the gate, then came back, watched the moon for a while, and sat down cross-legged with my eyes closed.
I focused on looking inward, but I felt nothing at all in my dantian.
*
The next morning, I received another session of true qi guidance.
“Are we only doing true qi guidance? What about the internal energy mental method?”
Do Goeng-il drank some cooled tea, took a breath, and answered.
“The route by which qi spreads from the dantian into the four limbs is the internal energy mental method. If I explain it in words, it only becomes complicated and obscure. The verses are nothing but a chant to clear away stray thoughts. If you remember the route, you can regulate your breathing and circulation on your own.”
“I tried doing it alone, but it didn’t work.”
“That’s because your dantian is empty.”
“I definitely felt internal energy, even if it was only the size of a grain of millet.”
“And it vanished the moment I drew the qi back, didn’t it?”
“...Yes.”
I nodded begrudgingly, and Do Goeng-il looked down at my lower abdomen.
“Strictly speaking, that wasn’t your internal energy. Your talent for cultivating internal energy simply responded to my qi. Any sect, before teaching an internal arts manual, first sorts out the jade from the stone that way. Those without the proper endowment can try forever and still never learn internal energy.”
“Then what about regulating breathing and circulation?”
“Once your internal energy has accumulated to a certain degree, you can do that by yourself. It can’t be done through true qi guidance. The surest method, with the least side effects, is to consume condensed natural essence.”
I thought I knew what he meant.
“You mean spiritual herbs?”
“If you want to keep your body intact, stay away from medicinal pills. Most of the so-called spiritual pills sold on the market are fake. Even the people who make them don’t know what they mixed into them.”
“There are proper ones too, though. Shaolin’s Great Replenishing Pill, or Mount Wudang’s Clear Heaven Pill, for example...”
Those were all legendary spiritual pills famed across the martial world, and yet Do Goeng-il merely sneered.
“Do you know the story of the Daoists who offered Qin Shi Huang an elixir for immortality?”
“Is there anyone who doesn’t know that story?”
“Did Qin Shi Huang, who swallowed elixirs packed with Daoist longevity arts and pill-refining methods, become immortal? Is he still alive? He died before even reaching fifty.”
I had never taken an elixir, so I had no argument to offer.
“Mercury was the problem. Even now, Daoists still treat that poison as the foundation of their spirit pills. Buddhism isn’t any different. I’d rather chew on cold food poison than swallow the pills those quacks make.”
“Then where do I get internal energy from?”
“The best way is to obtain proper spiritual herbs, refine them, and take them.”
“Refine them? You can do that too?”
“You’d have to leave that to a physician. Refining medicinal materials is the foundation of medical arts, so unless he’s an utter fraud, it shouldn’t be difficult.”
Do Goeng-il brushed himself off and rose.
“True qi guidance ends today. Now that I’ve confirmed your talent for internal energy, it’s time to fill your dantian. Only after that comes breathing and circulation. If you get your hands on spiritual herbs, come to Poongcheon Inn.”
“Do you happen to have any spiritual herbs on you?”
“None.”
After Do Goeng-il left, I sprawled on the wooden floor and fell into thought.
I didn’t know the first thing about what spiritual herbs actually contained, which ones were genuine, and which were fake. Being ripped off was one thing, but I had no idea where I should even go.
Where could I get spiritual herbs?
After thinking hard for a while, I sprang to my feet. There was one place I could ask.
*
“...Spiritual herbs, you say?”
Geuk-hwan tilted his head and stared at me closely.
“It seems you’ve made some progress.”
“I happened onto a connection, and it turned out that way.”
He didn’t seem to have noticed anything specific. With Do Goeng-il’s help, I had been able to sense internal energy, but it was still far too faint for me to use breathing and circulation on my own.
He was probably just assuming.
A martial artist who swung a blade for a living had no reason to go looking for spiritual herbs in hopes of long life, so the only thing left to think of was internal energy training.
“Is it difficult?”
“There’s no place that openly sells spiritual herbs or spiritual pills. Every kind of martial artist would swarm it the moment it appeared. Even our branch doesn’t deal in physical stock. But we do know where such things can be obtained.”
As expected of the Haomu Sect. I’d done well to keep the connection.
“Where should I go?”
“You should try the Black Market.”
“The Black Market? There’s one in Seochon?”
“There is a Black Market about a day’s journey away by cart. It’s small, but they do handle spiritual herbs. I’ll report it to the building mistress and write you a letter of introduction.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
Geuk-hwan went inside and came back with the letter of introduction before even a quarter of an hour had passed.
After hearing where the Black Market was and how to use the letter, I tucked it inside my robes and went back home.