Hope
Ever since I came back from Choe Manor, I had thrown myself into training day and night. I had already told Haomu Sect in advance that I wouldn’t be taking any commissions for the time being.
Over those two days, I escorted Ye-hyang and ended up with a precious spiritual herb. Geuk-hwan had clearly realized I was cultivating internal energy, but he never asked a single question.
The reason he had gone out of his way to pay in spiritual herb instead of silver was obvious enough.
It meant that if I maintained good relations with Haomu Sect, I could keep getting spiritual herbs from them.
That also meant it would be hard to refuse Haomu Sect’s requests in the future. Once I had set foot on the path of internal energy, there was nothing for it.
Still, it wasn’t a bad thing at all. It gave me one more way to obtain spiritual herbs besides black market dealings.
That wasn’t the issue now.
I had no idea when Do Goeng-il would return.
If I wanted to finish learning the latter eighteen forms of the Thousand Steel Saber Technique, I had to train diligently and force myself to make real progress.
Before sunrise, I got up at dawn and spent about half a shichen in seated meditation, going over the circulation routes of my internal energy cultivation art again and again.
Then I went out into the yard with my long saber in hand and, while drawing and guiding my internal energy, slowly unfolded the first eighteen forms of the Thousand Steel Saber Technique.
I pulled the energy from my dantian as thinly as possible, the way one draws silk thread from a silkworm cocoon.
That way, even if my blood and qi tangled together, the damage to my meridians would be less severe.
Do Goeng-il had warned me more than once, so even while I practiced seated meditation, I stayed focused on drawing out the energy as finely as I could.
Rushing ahead was a direct road to qi deviation.
Because this cultivation art was optimized for the Thousand Steel Saber Technique, the saber forms naturally carried internal energy as long as I followed the circulation route faithfully.
The forms empowered by internal energy were sharper, faster, and stronger.
They still didn’t yet possess anything beyond that, but in real combat, where life and death could turn on the slightest margin, that was enough to serve as a hidden trump card.
The problem was that even in the process of guiding energy into the forms, some of that internal energy was consumed.
Whenever I trained in focused bursts for an hour or two and then checked my dantian, I was left stunned.
I hadn’t fought a battle; I had only practiced, and yet a measurable amount of internal energy had still slipped away.
Still, if the density of internal energy increased, efficiency would improve too. In the end, the only answer was endless training.
By the time the sun climbed high overhead, its light had turned harsh enough to sting. I went into the back mountain and pulled my saber again in a small clearing deep in the woods, where no one ever came.
When the sun finally settled low toward the western ridge, I finished training and came down from the mountain.
The moment I got home, I took out the wooden box hidden in the cabinet: twenty pills refined by Doctor Sang from the essence of solar-ginseng moss.
They weren’t as good as Heavenly Mountain Snow Ginseng, but they were still enough to replenish the internal energy I had lost.
After I finished these, where would I find more spiritual herbs? I might have to search the nearby mountains.
For the first time, I began to understand why the great orthodox sects all hid themselves deep in famous mountains.
I cut one pill into five pieces, put one piece in my mouth, and wrapped the rest back up in oil paper.
After sitting cross-legged and waiting, a cool current spread through my stomach like mist. I stirred my internal energy and drew the herb’s natural qi toward the area around my dantian.
Even this time, the natural qi did not enter my dantian easily.
It seeped in slowly, little by little, the way moisture condenses into droplets when the air grows thick and heavy.
Fortunately, even one-fifth of a pill was enough to refill, and then some, the internal energy I had burned through while training for seven days.
Next time, I’d need to replenish my internal energy in ten days.
When I finished the breathing exercise and stood up, my body felt light. My internal energy had fully recovered too. But my stomach was now sending up a wave of hunger.
After washing myself with water drawn from the well, I left the house.
In the late afternoon, Poongcheon Inn had a fair number of customers scattered around the dining room. Of them, only Gu-sam, the cook, and the innkeeper bothered to greet me.
Then, not long ago, one more had been added.
One of the two farmers who came almost every afternoon to eat the cheapest bowl of wheat noodles and leave, Pung Chil, raised a hand at me.
“Hey, you’re here?”
“Having dinner?”
“I should eat dinner at home. I had an early meal here, then went back to work and stopped by for a moment. I’ve got something I wanted to say to you.”
“To me?”
Pung Chil was a middle-aged farmer, darkly sunburned and smelling of sweat.
At first, he couldn’t even meet my eyes and only came in with his co-worker to eat noodles before leaving. That was normal; anyone who looked a martial artist in the eye might get a sword drawn on them.
Once he saw Gu-sam joking around with me like old friends, we had gradually reached the point where we exchanged greetings.
I didn’t want to speak to a man old enough to be my father with disrespect, so I kept my tone polite.
If the other person had been a martial artist, that would have been impossible.
The kind of people who trample you without end once they think you’ve bowed your head are martial artists through and through.
I would rather be called rude than lower my guard and give them any reason to look down on me.
Although he spoke casually, Pung Chil always treated me carefully.
Whether I spoke politely or not didn’t change the fact that I wore a sword at my waist.
Pung Chil was an honest man who had lived his whole life without ever staining his hands with another person’s blood.
Whenever I talked with him, it felt as if I had truly returned to my hometown and met an old neighbor again.
For some reason, it made me feel glad. At ease. It even let me touch something like meaningless hope.
I was beyond redemption as a killer, but maybe it wasn’t completely too late yet. If I only put down my sword, maybe I could live like an ordinary man again.
Maybe I could end my days working hard under the sun, then sit down at an inn like this and share a drink with harmless neighbors like Pung Chil.
Pung Chil spoke with a familiar expression.
“My youngest learned some boxing and kicking from that Gu-sam fellow here, but...”
“Gu-sam?”
Who was he talking about? Following Pung Chil’s gaze, I turned and found Gu-sam polishing a table with a face full of pride.
“...You? What the hell have you been doing lately?”
Gu-sam squared his shoulders, positively beaming.
“You know how they say even if a tree wants to stay still, the wind won’t let it? I just started hanging around the neighborhood kids, and before I knew it, they were all calling me Gu-sahyeop and following me around. Well, my fists do have a bit of bite to them. I’ve never seen a brat who could take a round of no-credit prepayment, face-paralysis strikes and still not cry.”
“Tsk tsk. You’re getting a full head of hot air, aren’t you?”
With a wry smile, Pung Chil explained the matter.
“A relative who lives out of town stopped by our house for a little while and saw that. Then he suddenly said there’s a martial academy in his neighborhood recruiting young disciples. So I was wondering... would you take a look for us? I’m not asking you to teach him any martial arts. Just tell me whether he has any potential.”
I hesitated for a moment, then shook my head.
“You may want to think about it again. A martial artist... isn’t the sort of life a human being should live.”
“Neither is farming, if you ask me. Huuuu.”
Pung Chil let out a sigh so deep it seemed to sink into the ground.
It carried all the exhaustion and hardship of a life so poor that nothing beyond mere survival had ever been allowed.
“I’ve been playing in dirt since before I could walk. Now, with my fiftieth birthday just around the corner, I’m still living covered in mud. You farm all your life, and after rent, taxes, and paying back what you borrowed in bad harvest years, you always end up empty-handed...”
Pung Chil had been driven off his land in his old hometown, too, and had wandered until he drifted here to Seochon.
He had somehow managed to settle down, but the soil was poor and the harvest was nothing to brag about.
He worried so much about what would happen if they kept living off the land like this that he couldn’t sleep at night, terrified one bad harvest would send the whole family straight to the grave.
Even when the whole family pulled together, it was hard enough to make a living. On top of that, the youngest kept dropping his work and running off in the middle of things.
No matter how much he was beaten or scolded, he never listened when it came to farming. He said he was sick of it.
He had always been a sullen, unmotivated boy, as if he were only clinging to life by force, but ever since he met Gu-sam and the others, he had changed completely.
“He trains every single day without missing one. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen him work so hard at anything. I thought he was just a lazy boy by nature, but I was wrong...” Pung Chil’s face softened with pride for his son. “The other day, he even went to the martial academy and boldly declared he’d go in, succeed, and make his family live well in front of everyone. It’s just...”
He seemed genuinely proud of his son.
“I keep wondering whether it’s right to stop a child when he says he wants to try something. And I don’t think stopping him would do any good anyway. If I force him back down, I won’t have any clever solution, and I’ll just spend the rest of my life hearing him resent me. Still, if he gets into the martial academy, won’t he at least be able to make a living?”
Hearing it, I thought the request wasn’t all that unreasonable. Since he was asking so earnestly, it felt awkward to refuse outright.
“When is the entrance test?”
“Ten days from now. It’s called Cheongun Martial Academy. Seems to be pretty well known around that side of town. Have you heard of it?”
“No. I don’t know whether I’ll be any help, but taking a look shouldn’t be difficult.”
“You’ll do it? Thank you.”
Pung Chil’s sun-blackened face lit up.
The simplest of grappling and takedown techniques, used to seize an opponent’s limbs and throw him off balance.
Pung Chil had two sons and one daughter.
Originally there had been seven children, but illness took some, starvation took some, drowning took some, and wolves dragged one away, leaving only the three alive now.
The one who had resolved to enter Cheongun Martial Academy and walk the path of a martial artist was the youngest son.
His name was Pung O-bok. He was only twelve years old.
He was a little smaller in height and build than Gu-sam, who was the same age, but his body, hardened by fieldwork like plowing and hauling stones, was quite sturdy.
After I put him through some guided sparring, I could tell he had been born with real strength, as you’d expect from a farmer’s son. The power behind his fists and kicks was as weighty as that of most grown men.
Of course, martial arts aren’t done by strength alone.
You also need nerve and technique. Most important of all, you need vision.
You have to be able to see the whole battlefield and read your opponent’s intent if you want to lead a fight to victory.
Pung O-bok had narrow vision.
He didn’t properly watch his blind spots and reacted only to what was right in front of him, throwing himself in with desperate force.
That meant he fell for simple feints and panicked at techniques that were hardly anything at all, leaving his hands and feet flailing in confusion.
The same was true not only in fighting but in life.
If you couldn’t see broadly and only drifted along with the situation as it came, you would be swept away without any regard for your own will.
You would keep being cornered and tossed around according to someone else’s wishes until you reached a point of no return and finally ended up destroyed.
Pung O-bok did have some martial talent.
Coldly judged, he was inferior to Gu-sam, but slightly better than Bang Ho-jin, the eldest son from the fabric shop.
I had intended to leave it there after tossing him a few words of encouragement, but I couldn’t.
Whatever Gu-sam had said about me, Pung O-bok was staring up at me with eyes blazing so hot with awe and respect that it was almost embarrassing.
I simply couldn’t walk away.
I showed him a few simple grappling techniques for seizing an opponent’s hands and feet and knocking him over.
Pung O-bok went down beautifully, then sprang right back up and resumed his stance. Even while he was sweating bullets and covered head to toe in dust, he kept challenging me with bright, shining eyes.
“Aigoo, our O-bok is really getting a proper beating today.”
“Why can’t he endure even a little before collapsing?”
“Big brother, give it a try. See how long you last.”
“If you’d worked that hard at farming, you’d be a landlord by now.”
“As if you and I have ever played around. If farming were something you could do just by being diligent, who in the world would be poor?”
Before I knew it, Pung O-bok’s family had gathered together on the porch to watch the sparring, chatting cheerfully among themselves.
They had spent their whole lives with their heads bent toward the earth, generation after generation, and yet they had never once found hope. But now, for the first time in a long while, smiles bloomed on their faces.
Everyone looked strangely excited, as if they had already been promised a good harvest.
Gloom and despair spread easily to the people around you. Hope did too.
Pung O-bok, the twelve-year-old boy who had run off to the mountains and rivers because he hated the stifling life of farm work.
The youngest child who had worn out his parents by never growing up, no matter how often they beat him black and blue, had somehow become the Pung family’s only hope.
Maybe I had caught that hope too.
He was still young, after all. Once he entered the martial academy and gained some experience, his field of vision would widen.
Without even realizing it, I found myself revising my own thoughts that way.
Under the blazing midsummer sun, everything ripened day by day toward autumn. In the paddies and fields, grain; on the branches, all manner of fruit.
I was also growing more and more used to guiding internal energy through the forms.
Even after spending four shichen a day on saber practice, there still wasn’t any real problem.
My blood and qi remained calm, and when I looked inward through seated meditation, my meridians and internal energy pathways were stable.
My confidence rose, and I slightly increased the amount of internal energy I guided through the forms. From a single strand as fine as silk thread to three strands.
That did consume a bit more internal energy, but there was no major change in the force of the forms.
In the meantime, Pung O-bok passed the entrance test and became a disciple of the local martial academy.
Pung Chil was so happy that, for the first time at the inn, he ordered liquor instead of wheat noodles. I bought the snacks as a celebration. Gu-sam, the “Gu-sahyeop,” also got a drink beside us.
I had good news of my own.
As usual, I had finished training and was washing up when I sensed someone approaching from outside the wall.
When I went to the gate with my long saber at my side, it was a servant employed by Geuk-hwan.
“He’s looking for you upstairs.”
“What’s the matter? I said I wouldn’t take any commissions for a while.”
“I was told to tell you the result of the matter you commissioned before has come in.”
I snapped fully awake. There was only one thing I had asked Haomu Sect to investigate.
Someday, I knew this day would come. Someday, I would have to hear the answer...
I wanted to rush there at once and see the results for myself. But I couldn’t move a single step.
The fear I had hidden away deep in the corner of my heart, buried so tightly I had almost forgotten it, began to creep up and wrap around my ankles, squeezing the air from my chest.
If Soso noona and Uncle and Auntie were no longer in this world...
Nausea rolled through me with fear, and one side of my chest turned icy cold.
“Will you come tomorrow?”
“...Let’s go.”
At last regaining my composure, I followed the servant toward Simhyangru. Geuk-hwan was waiting for me in one of the other detached buildings.
He was not alone.