Chapter 110
Chapter 110
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 110
Chapter Title: The Fourth Time
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“The fourth one.”
When consciousness returned, those were the first words out of Wi Seong-cheon’s mouth. It was because of what Bang Jun had said yesterday. It had now been the fourth time he’d ended up bedridden after a fight with Jin Bae.
‘My injuries...’
His body, wrapped tightly in bandages, felt stuffy yet throbbed with a dull pain. But the wounds weren’t as severe as he’d feared.
They weren’t deep cuts. One, two, three... Wi Seong-cheon felt the gashes across his body and gave up counting them. There were just too many, all tangled together.
He raised his left hand in an instant.
In the end, he couldn’t extend it fully. In the moment Wi Seong-cheon lifted his hand, thrust it forward, and failed to drive it home—
Woo Ha-yeon passed him by, leaving countless sword marks on his body.
‘Plum Blossom Uproar.’
He saw plum blossoms in the spray of blood and smelled their fragrance at the tip of his nose. That was Mount Hua’s—no, Woo Ha-yeon’s sword.
Even after leaving so many sword wounds in that brief instant, none were deep. They’d only sliced the skin, not even requiring stitches.
“Impressive.”
Wi Seong-cheon felt nothing but pure admiration. Woo Ha-yeon’s sword had been astonishing and beautiful. He turned his head to look beside him.
There sat Woo Ha-yeon, arms crossed. Her round eyes blinked as she stared at him intently. Wi Seong-cheon felt awkwardly embarrassed under her unblinking gaze and gave a sheepish smile.
“Why are you staring like that?”
“It’s complicated.”
Woo Ha-yeon replied.
“Whether I should be angry, apologize, praise you, or thank you. I’ve been thinking about it the whole time you were out, but yeah, still haven’t decided.”
“Then how about doing all of them?”
“I already scolded you.”
Her eyebrows furrowed.
“You’re not even fully recovered, yet you wouldn’t forfeit, wouldn’t listen—a stubborn junior. And making such unreasonable demands of your senior. That irked me.”
“It didn’t seem that unreasonable to me.”
“Anyway, it’s true you asked me to do something I didn’t want to. So I scolded you. Not full-on anger, though.”
Her voice grew a little quieter. She didn’t continue right away, instead pursing her lips for a moment.
“...I’m sorry for leaving all those wounds on your body. If possible, I wanted to end it without a single cut. But I couldn’t. Remember what I said before you lost consciousness?”
“You said I was ‘really’ dodging your sword.”
“Yeah. That’s true. I couldn’t knock you down without hurting you. Well, I probably could have. It just would’ve taken longer.”
Woo Ha-yeon let out a short sigh and shook her head.
“But I didn’t choose that. I got caught up in the heat of it too. So I went overboard compared to what I’d planned at first. ...Sorry.”
“No need to apologize. I was happy.”
Wi Seong-cheon chuckled as he answered. At his laugh, Woo Ha-yeon blinked at him, then burst out giggling.
“Yeah, so that made me want to praise you. You were amazing, junior. I never thought you could dodge my sword like that. Your movements got better and better, and when you thrust that punch at the end... It’d been so long since I last felt truly in ‘danger.’”
A sense of crisis.
That’s all it conveyed. He felt a bit disappointed.
“That’s why I’m grateful.”
“For making you feel in danger?”
“Yeah. I told you, it’d been ages. I don’t even know how long it’s been since I felt that in a fight... a spar. Thanks to you, I could shake off the complacency I’d grown used to.”
Her smile brightened.
“Thank you, junior. Now I’m certain I’ll win.”
Just like yesterday, her tone about winning the Uicheon Festival was as light as ever. But it carried an even stronger conviction than before.
Sword Sage Woo Ha-yeon. It was an undeniable fact that she possessed the greatest talent in Mount Hua’s history as a swordsman, yet she had never truly aimed for victory in the Uicheon Festival. During her three years at the Uicheon Academy, Woo Ha-yeon had grown accustomed to that leisure.
So she needed tuning.
“A promise.”
Wi Seong-cheon spoke up.
“Thanks for keeping it, senior.”
“No big deal.”
Woo Ha-yeon beamed.
“You kept yours too, junior.”
They’d promised, pinky-swearing. Thinking back on it now made his face burn.
“Bit late to ask, but how long was I out?”
“Not too long.”
“So today’s matches are over, I guess.”
“Yeah. Curious?”
“Of course.”
Even though Wi Seong-cheon had been eliminated in the first round of the preliminaries, the Uicheon Festival’s sparring tournament wasn’t over yet. As if she’d expected it, Woo Ha-yeon smiled and pulled a paper from her sleeve.
It listed tomorrow’s brackets. After handing it to Wi Seong-cheon, she slowly stood.
“I told your friends not to visit today. You need rest and recovery.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“Still, you need quiet contemplation right now.”
She said it stubbornly. Wi Seong-cheon knew why. He gave a wry smile and nodded.
“Thanks, senior.”
“Save the thanks, junior. Feelings are fleeting things that pass in an instant. Recalling them after they’re gone won’t let you grasp even a handful. If you want to say thanks, do it after you’ve seized that handful.”
“No, that’s not why I’m thankful. What I ‘felt’ was thanks to what you said to me.”
It depends on how you think about it.
A passing remark. But as he danced madly to match Woo Ha-yeon’s sword, Wi Seong-cheon had sunk deeply into those words.
“Oh, that.”
Woo Ha-yeon giggled.
“Anyone can say something plausible, junior. But to obsess over mere words and gain something from them—that’s incredibly hard.”
Her hand rose to Wi Seong-cheon’s head. Startled by the sudden gesture, he looked up at her. She smiled brightly and patted his head.
“You did well, junior.”
“Uh... y-yeah.”
“You’ll get even stronger.”
The unfamiliar stroking of her hand felt strange. By the time the belated embarrassment heated his face, Woo Ha-yeon had already left. Wi Seong-cheon slapped his burning cheeks for no reason.
“...I’m not a kid.”
Swallowing down the embarrassment, he unfolded the bracket she’d given him.
The students advancing to the second round after winning their first-round matches were just as he’d predicted.
Sword Dragon Tae Hui-myeong, Flame Flower Jeong Mi-ju, Sword Sage Woo Ha-yeon, Tiger Flower Paeng Yeon-hwa, Serpent Beauty Dang Seona, Fist Bone Hwangbo Seong-u, Sharpened Sword Yeong Jin, Heavenly Person Mu Yeon-jun, White Orchid Cheong Wu-bin.
“...Hah...”
Wi Seong-cheon let out an incredulous laugh.
Tomorrow, Woo Ha-yeon would have to fight not once, but twice. First against Yeong Jin, then Cheong Wu-bin—only then could she reach the semifinals.
Neither was an easy opponent, and their martial arts were worlds apart.
‘Senior Yeong Jin’s style is fast sword. Senior Cheong Wu-bin’s is rigid qi art.’
The second-round brackets were redrawn by lot among the first-round winners. Unlike the others, she’d have to fight twice in one day, so the stamina drain would be incomparable.
And yet, Woo Ha-yeon had declared she’d win.
‘...Amazing.’
He checked the bracket again.
Paeng Yeon-hwa vs. Dang Seona.
Tae Hui-myeong vs. Jeong Mi-ju.
Mu Yeon-jun vs. Hwangbo Seong-u.
Woo Ha-yeon vs. Yeong Jin.
Cheong Wu-bin.
Wi Seong-cheon could easily imagine Jeong Mi-ju’s crumpled expression. With the Namgoong Clan glaring for any openings and now the disciple of the Tai Chi Sword Lord, Tae Hui-myeong was far more determined than usual for this Uicheon Festival sparring tournament.
‘Given Senior Jeong Mi-ju’s personality, she’ll lose just enough.’
In the end, the semifinals would be another feast for the Dragon-Phoenixes.
Wi Seong-cheon set the bracket down.
Recalling something after it’s already passed won’t let you grasp even a handful.
Remembering those words, he replayed his spar with Woo Ha-yeon. The moment he resolved not to shake it off. He accepted the instinctive revulsion toward being cut.
Splitting instants into fragments, losing track of time’s flow as his awareness stretched endlessly... His ragged breathing calmed, the pain in his overworked body faded.
Unity as one.
In that moment, Wi Seong-cheon felt for the first time in his life that everything about him had become ‘one.’ It was a strange, mystical sensation.
‘Moving with internal energy was a strain.’
The internal injuries were severe. Using Reversal Flow and Opening Acupoints, he’d barely managed to move, but that was his limit.
Yet when he felt that unity, his body transcended limits into freedom. Was it just his imagination? No, it wasn’t. For that incredibly brief moment, Wi Seong-cheon had sensed Woo Ha-yeon’s sword and dodged it.
That movement hadn’t come purely from internal energy.
‘Innate Qi.’
His breathing settling, forgetting the body’s pain. Sensing and evading Woo Ha-yeon’s sword amid that unity—it was thanks to senses sharpened far beyond the norm.
‘...Was that Spirit Ignition?’
He didn’t know. The sensation was unfamiliar. Wi Seong-cheon slowly got down from the bed and stood. His body... felt heavy. The severity of his injuries hit him anew.
He raised his left fist. The extreme unity and freedom—he’d felt it ironically right before Plum Blossom Uproar struck.
The moment he raised and thrust his fist. Though he hadn’t driven it fully home, in that instant, Wi Seong-cheon had felt profound unity and freedom. In that moment, his body—
‘Was light?’
Or heavy. He hadn’t thrust it all the way. Would he have known if he had? A light punch is fast but weak; a heavy one slow but strong. What had he wanted in that instant?
‘Did I want to beat my senior?’
No.
In that moment, victory or defeat hadn’t mattered. He’d just wanted more.
To savor longer that strange, pleasurable unity and freedom. Whether it was his father’s ‘Spirit Ignition’ he didn’t know, but in that instant, Wi Seong-cheon’s will, body, and martial arts were one.
Light or heavy. Not limited to just those two—he could do anything.
He could do it.
‘But I couldn’t.’
His body gave out. In the end, Wi Seong-cheon hadn’t thrust his fist. He hadn’t pierced Woo Ha-yeon’s sword, nor pierced her Plum Blossom Uproar even with those sharpened senses.
“...Haha.”
Wi Seong-cheon let out a low chuckle. Everything was already over; his current reality was lying bandaged on a bed.
He hadn’t won. The unity and freedom he’d felt were ultimately granted by Woo Ha-yeon’s mercy.
She could have cut him down long before.
Even the fragments of enlightenment weren’t truly his own—they came from Woo Ha-yeon’s advice.
It depends on how you think about it.
“You’re right.”
Wi Seong-cheon slowly extended the fist he’d raised. His body was still heavy, aching. The fully extended punch held no miracle.
He stared at his fist, frozen in thrust position. Just holding it made his whole body scream, his arm trembling and shaking.
‘Lost.’
Defeat was expected. He’d steeled himself for it long ago, accepted it. He could never beat Senior Woo Ha-yeon.
Knowing defeat, he hadn’t forfeited. Standing in the arena with his battered body was Wi Seong-cheon’s will.
And yet.
Despite the resolve, the acceptance.
‘Frustrating.’
Wi Seong-cheon forced his trembling arm to stay extended.
‘Really, insanely frustrating.’
Just as Jin-u had said.
There are no light defeats in this world.
Even intentional ones.
His chest heaved. He’d known it would end like this. It wasn’t his first loss. And yet, he was furious beyond belief.
“Senior.”
Wi Seong-cheon murmured softly as he lowered his extended arm.
“I’ll get stronger.”
Recalling the words he’d heard while being patted on the head.
Wi Seong-cheon clamped his lips shut and bowed his head.
Damn tears splattered onto the floor.