The Last Ember
Gu-yang Baek spoke first.
"Gang, my son — do you truly not understand what this Nine Dragons Myriad Mountains Painting means, what possibilities lie sleeping inside it? This is no mere painting. It is the soul of our Ouyang Clan, the last ember left for our rebirth!"
Bitterness and hope were tangled together in his voice as he pressed on.
"If you could unravel even a single one of its secrets, you could raise our crumbling clan back onto its feet! And yet you stand before me and say you would give up the Young Clan Head's seat?"
His voice carried both an anguished refusal to accept it and the heavy burden of a clan's fate all at once.
Ouyang Qiangang met his father's eyes without so much as a tremor.
"Yes, Father. My mind is unchanged."
Gu-yang Baek sighed as though in lamentation.
"Hah… who in the world did you inherit that stubbornness from?"
"I believe I inherited it from you, Father."
At his son's reply, Gu-yang Baek burst into a hollow, helpless laugh.
"Heh, look at this boy. He takes after me in nothing but the worst ways!"
Then, with a deep sigh, his voice deflating, he asked, "If you will not become the Young Clan Head, what do you intend to do with yourself? There is not much that body of yours will allow."
"I thought I might study the art of medicine."
At this utterly unexpected answer, the eyes of Gu-yang Baek and Dong Yeon-hwa widened at the same instant.
"Medicine… did you say?"
"Yes. A short while ago, I discovered a very small clue — one that may lead to a cure for my chronic affliction, the Nine Yin Severed Meridians."
Gu-yang Baek and Dong Yeon-hwa could not contain their excitement. Dong Yeon-hwa most of all — before she knew it, she had leaned forward and taken Ouyang Qiangang's hands in hers.
"Is that… is that really true, Gang? You mean that wretched Nine Yin Severed Meridians of yours — that you could cure it with your own hands?"
At the raw anguish in her voice, guilt pricked at Ouyang Qiangang's conscience.
The truth was that his words wove a measure of truth through a measure of falsehood. Akasha's database preserved every scrap of medical knowledge on Earth — vast stores of information spanning Western medicine, Korean traditional medicine, and Chinese medicine, all archived not so much in his head as in Akasha's core.
But this world was not Earth. Its native herbs, its own methods of pulse diagnosis, and above all a medical system in the martial world that manipulated qi directly — these he would have no choice but to learn with his own two hands. Only then could he fuse that learning with Akasha's knowledge, refine the Transcendent Formless Divine Art to perfection, and find a true cure for the Nine Yin Severed Meridians.
Which meant that "studying medicine" would also serve as the most plausible disguise for his secret research and training.
Ouyang Qiangang pressed on without missing a beat.
"Yes. It is obscure and fragmentary for now, but I am certain the clue bears deeply on my condition. If I build a proper foundation of medical knowledge and unravel its principles, I believe I can overcome the Nine Yin Severed Meridians."
Gu-yang Baek's voice shook. "It is said only the Divine Physician Hua Tuo could ever cure the Nine Yin Severed Meridians. And you — you have found a clue to its cure… Haha, yes, that's my son! That extraordinary talent of yours must surely be a gift from Heaven!"
Like a single thread of light found at the far end of despair, gratitude and hope chased each other across the faces of the two.
"If I devote myself to medicine, no one will suspect me of coveting the Young Clan Head's seat. It will make me safer, as well."
Ouyang Qiangang shifted his gaze to the Nine Dragons Myriad Mountains Painting hanging on the wall and continued. "That said… that painting seems to hold a truly profound realm within it."
Flames kindled in Gu-yang Baek's eyes. "Have you discovered something?"
"Nothing of the sort. It is a secret manual from which the First Clan Head, having devoted his entire life to it, drew only two lost arts. In my present state, I would hardly presume even to guess at its depths."
Gu-yang Baek did not take his eyes off the painting as he sighed low and spoke.
"…So that is how it is. I, too, have passed countless nights before that scroll over the decades, yet I never once caught the thread of the two arts our ancestor uncovered. As for the ones still hidden… they might as well be at the far end of the sky."
His voice was heavy with the weight of a lifetime spent as head of a fallen clan — and thick with regret.
Ouyang Qiangang watched his father's back for a moment. Then, in a clear voice, he said, "Though my talent for the martial arts is meager, and this frail body may only burden the clan — for which I am sorry — I would like to study the Nine Dragons Myriad Mountains Painting."
Gu-yang Baek's shoulders flinched, ever so slightly. Slowly, he turned to face his son. In his eyes, astonishment, doubt, and a hope fine as gossamer had tangled themselves together.
"You… would study that painting?"
"Yes. Is the request too much?"
"Not at all. Study it as much as you please."
"Thank you. But do not expect great things of me. I fear I may disappoint you."
"No. A son who found the clue to curing the Nine Yin Severed Meridians… if it is you… if it is you……"
Gu-yang Baek's voice had thinned to a tremor.
Ouyang Qiangang exhaled inwardly. "I only wish to lend what little strength I have to our clan's revival."
The gaze fixed upon him rippled like the surface of water. "But never push yourself too hard. Your health comes before all else."
"Thank you for your concern, Father."
Ouyang Qiangang bowed his head — and then drove the nail once more into the decision he had already made. "And my resolve to relinquish my claim to the Young Clan Head's succession is unchanged. It is my true and settled heart."
Regret and loneliness swept across Gu-yang Baek's face one more time, but he no longer tried to bend his son's will. He simply nodded without a word.
Dong Yeon-hwa had watched the exchange between father and son with bated breath.
Ouyang Qiangang looked in turn at Gu-yang Baek and Dong Yeon-hwa, and went on in a calm tone. "Now that I have relinquished my claim, the duty of leading this family will pass onto young Cheon-gi's shoulders."
"So it will."
"I want to help Cheon-gi and the youngest grow up safe and sound, into worthy heirs who can rebuild the clan. I believe that is the best use I can make of my abilities for the family's sake."
There was no resentment in his words — no resignation either.
A faint sheen of moisture gathered at the corners of Gu-yang Baek's eyes as he looked at his son. In a low voice, warmer than it had ever been, he said, "You have truly grown into more of a man than this old father, Gang. Very well. This deep heart of yours — this love you bear for the clan and for us — I shall never forget it."
Dong Yeon-hwa could no longer hide her feelings, and quietly wiped away her tears. Every single word from Ouyang Qiangang was striking somewhere in the deepest chamber of her heart.
Gu-yang Baek gazed at his son for a long while before, quite suddenly, he asked a practical question. "You say you will study medicine — but in truth, our Ouyang Clan possesses hardly any medical texts or connections worth the name. It will be difficult to learn proper medicine within these walls. Have you some plan in mind?"
Where vehemence had burned before, only concern remained in his voice.
"I have heard that the world hides many reclusive eccentrics and famed physicians. I intend to seek out a doctor of great renown and ask to enter his gate as a disciple."
Gu-yang Baek's brow twitched. How perilous a road it would be for his son — in that sickly body — to wander strange lands in search of a master, he could scarcely bring himself to imagine.
Dong Yeon-hwa's eyes, listening nearby, wavered faintly as well. For an instant she had been relieved that he would not leave the manor at once — but the thought of him setting out on the treacherous road of medicine soon drowned that relief in worry.
"Then when do you mean to leave the manor?"
As though to set his father's heart at ease, Ouyang Qiangang answered with a gentle smile. "Father, did you not just entrust to me the secrets of the Nine Dragons Myriad Mountains Painting — perhaps the last hope of our clan? How could I turn my back on that and go off in search of my own survival?"
At his words, the faces of Gu-yang Baek and Dong Yeon-hwa brightened.
Ouyang Qiangang continued. "For the time being, I intend to remain in the manor and devote myself to the study of the painting. If I can unlock its secrets — only then will I be ready to set out and find a new road of my own."
Duty to the family and resolve for the challenge ahead both lived in his words.
"So you have no thought of leaving just yet."
"No, Father."
Gu-yang Baek regarded his son's face in silence for a long moment. A whole parade of emotions crossed his eyes, but at length he nodded with a composed expression.
"Very well. This is the path you have chosen, so this old father will simply trust, and wait. Whether it is the study of the painting, or entering a physician's gate someday — you will have your reasons, and your resolve."
Strength gathered in Gu-yang Baek's voice. "But should hardship ever find you, come to me without hesitation. Even if I cannot lend you strength, I can at least stand at your side."
"I understand, Father."
Ouyang Qiangang bowed his head quietly in gratitude.
Some time later, back in his own quarters, Ouyang Qiangang turned the conversation with his parents over and over in his mind. He had not told them the whole truth about the Transcendent Formless Divine Art, and he had claimed he wished to study medicine. It sat a little uneasily with him, that he had not been honest about what those words truly meant.
But if he was to keep from drawing Dong Hyeon-do's attention, the fewer people who knew his secrets, the better.
Even if those people were his own parents.
Akasha — the Nine Dragons Myriad Mountains Painting in the training chamber. You scanned it properly, didn't you?
"Of course, Doctor. I have completed a full precision scan of the Nine Dragons Myriad Mountains Painting — from its surface to its internal structure, down to the micro-composition of every pigment — and archived all of the data without flaw."
Ouyang Qiangang's eyes gleamed.
Good work. Now — is there anything special inside the painting?
"Yes. In the painting's composition and brushwork — and above all in the arrangement of the nine dragons across the mountains and rivers — I have detected numerous recurring symbolic patterns of extraordinary complexity."
Really?
"Just as Gu-yang Baek suspected, there is a very high probability that it is a form of iconographic encoding — the profound principles of martial arts encrypted into imagery. I am currently cross-analyzing it against the data we hold on the Transcendent Heart Sutra and the Holographic Pupil, working to decrypt its meaning."
Well, from now on I have permission to come and go in the training chamber freely, so the research should go much more smoothly.
"Then that suits me perfectly, Doctor!"
At Akasha's words, Ouyang Qiangang smiled.
The Nine Dragons Myriad Mountains Painting — and the Holographic Pupil hidden within the jade Dong Hyeon-do had sent him. Either of them could well prove the key that would let him overcome the Nine Yin Severed Meridians, and beyond that, survive in this world of Murim.
The road ahead promised to be treacherous still — but for the first time, a clear goal and a hope lay visible at its end.
The next day, in the main hall of the Ouyang Clan Manor, Gu-yang Cheon-gi's investiture as Young Clan Head was carried out amid solemn ceremony. Ouyang Qiangang watched it unfold with quiet calm. To think of the clan's weight settling onto young Cheon-gi's slight shoulders made something in his chest ache — but he had no regrets about the path he had chosen.
Once the modest but solemn ceremony had ended, Dong Ha-jin and Dong Seol-ah, as though there were no longer any reason to linger, returned to Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor.