The Iceberg Beneath the Surface
About a month had passed, with only a few days remaining before the month turned.
Ouyang Qiangang halted his breathing exercise mid-circulation and quietly opened his eyes.
From outside his door came a special signal that only he and Hwang Nodae knew.
“Come in.”
Hwang Nodae opened the door and entered, speaking in a near whisper.
“Young Master, someone has come from Bamboo Forest Manor. They say they are waiting at the agreed location.”
“It was about time.”
Ouyang Qiangang went straight to his father, Gu-yang Baek.
“Father, someone has arrived from Bamboo Forest Manor carrying the proceeds from the Yang Dragon Elixir sales.”
Father and son slipped out of the clan manor in secret, avoiding the eyes of the household.
Their destination was a house a dozen or so li from the manor — the property from which Bamboo Forest Manor regularly sent its medicinal herb carts.
When they pushed open the old door and stepped inside, Han Seung, the Chief Steward of Bamboo Forest Manor, and his escorting warriors were waiting for them.
“Young Master, Elder Clan Head. We have been expecting you.”
Han Seung offered a respectful fist salute, then gave a slight nod. At his signal, the warriors behind him pushed forward two heavy chests.
“Young Master, Elder Clan Head. This is the past month's proceeds, sent by the Manor Lady.”
When the lids were lifted, Gu-yang Baek involuntarily swallowed.
Inside, instead of jangling loose coins, lay heavy horsehoof-shaped silver ingots and gold ingots, packed to the brim.
Han Seung continued.
“Total sales for the past month came to seventy thousand five hundred silver taels, with a net profit of roughly fifty-six thousand taels after costs. In accordance with the agreement between the Young Master and our Manor Lady, the net profit was divided seven to three, leaving the Ouyang Clan's share at thirty-nine thousand three hundred seventy-five silver taels.”
He paused briefly, then gestured toward the chests.
“For the sake of convenience in settling accounts, we have brought thirty-nine thousand taels in silver first — thirty-five gold ingots at one thousand taels each, and eighty silver ingots at fifty taels each.”
Gu-yang Baek could not believe his own ears.
With trembling hands, he picked up one of the heavy gold ingots.
Han Seung looked at Ouyang Qiangang with a puzzled expression and went on.
“Young Master, even though the Manor Lady has limited the daily sales volume of the Yang Dragon Elixir and restricted the sales region to Jiangxi Province, she still cannot keep up with demand.”
Ouyang Qiangang asked, “How short are we on supply?”
“The stock is already exhausted. We are selling the elixirs the moment they come out of the Heavenly Mechanism Refinement Furnace, but the reservations keep piling up and every batch sells out instantly. And it has barely been a month, yet major merchant houses from several provinces are already flooding us with requests for distribution rights.”
It was exactly what he had expected, so Ouyang Qiangang simply nodded with a calm expression.
Then he turned to Hwang Nodae. “Nodae, give what we brought to Chief Steward Han.”
Hwang Nodae set the large wooden chest he had been carrying down before Han Seung and opened the lid.
Han Seung's eyes went wide.
The chest was filled to the brim with Yang Dragon Elixirs and Yin Dragon Elixirs.
“Young Master, does the clan have its own Heavenly Mechanism Refinement Furnace now?”
“It does.”
“What a relief. With this, we should be able to meet demand to some degree.”
Finally, Han Seung relayed a message from Heo Il-bi.
“The Manor Lady asked me to inquire whether it would be acceptable to extend the operating hours of the Heavenly Mechanism Refinement Furnace beyond their current schedule.”
Ouyang Qiangang answered with a faint smile.
“Please tell her the operating hours may be extended up to nine sijin — eighteen hours. However, for three sijin — six hours — each day, the furnace must be shut down and allowed to cool. Otherwise, the overload could cause the furnace to break down.”
“I will convey that to the Manor Lady.”
Ouyang Qiangang drew a jade case from his robe and handed it to Han Seung.
“This is the item I promised to deliver to the Manor Lady. You may simply bring it to her.”
Inside the jade case were fifty of the hundred supreme-grade Yang Dragon Elixirs he had crafted using the Extreme Blood Transformation and Dragon Brain Jade Fungus.
Han Seung accepted the case.
“Understood, Young Master.”
After offering a formal bow to father and son, he left the house with the warriors carrying the wooden chest.
As the door closed, silence settled over the house.
Gu-yang Baek looked back and forth between his son and the mound of silver ingots.
“I… I don't know what to say.”
Ouyang Qiangang answered with a gentle smile.
“Father, this is only the beginning. We must go much further.”
Gu-yang Baek said nothing, only laid his hand on his son's shoulder and patted it a few times.
That was enough.
One night, after finishing dinner with his family, Ouyang Qiangang was crossing the quiet rear garden on his way back to his quarters in the detached hall.
The early-winter night wind blew cold, brushing past his collar and seeping through the fabric. Moonlight spilled down between the bare branches, casting a dizzying lattice of shadows on the ground, and dry fallen leaves rustled beneath his feet.
Then a woman strolling leisurely through the garden came into view.
It was Sangguan Wan'er.
As he approached, she sensed his presence and turned her head. Her face was pale in the moonlight, but her eyes shone as clear and bright as stars in the night sky.
“Young Master, do you have a moment to talk?”
Her voice was calm — somehow reminiscent of Akasha.
“Of course, my lady.”
The two walked slowly, shoulder to shoulder, wrapped in the cold silence of the night.
It was Sangguan Wan'er who broke it.
“People say the Ouyang Clan won't survive a single day without Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor's help — that it's bound to collapse.”
Her gaze turned toward a nearby building, where old roof tiles and faded paintwork stood forlornly exposed under the moonlight.
“Looking at this place, those words don't seem entirely absurd. And yet… it's strange. In your eyes, Young Master, I see no trace of despair or discouragement. If anything, you seem remarkably at ease.”
Ouyang Qiangang replied with a faint smile.
“It's true that the clan would struggle to hold on without my grandfather's support, so I can't call the rumors wrong.”
“You know perfectly well that isn't the point I was making.”
Sangguan Wan'er turned her head and looked him straight in the eye.
“You don't lie, Young Master. But you don't tell the whole truth either. You show me a single fragment of an enormous iceberg and keep the rest hidden beneath the surface.”
Ouyang Qiangang's gaze deepened.
This woman's insight is anything but ordinary.
He answered in an even tone.
“That's an interesting observation. On the day you make a full recovery, my lady, let's talk again about what exactly lies beneath the surface.”
At those words, a faint smile spread across Sangguan Wan'er's lips as well.
“I'll be waiting, Young Master.”
The two exchanged a light bow and went their separate ways to their quarters.
Apart from returning to the detached hall to sleep and checking on Sangguan Wan'er's condition, Ouyang Qiangang never left the Refinement Chamber.
In one of the chamber's two stone rooms, the Heavenly Mechanism Refinement Furnace he had built ran quietly, producing several hundred Yang and Yin Dragon Elixirs a day without rest.
In the other room, Ouyang Qiangang devoted himself entirely to martial training.
When he closed his eyes and sat cross-legged, his mind entered the virtual training space of the mental world Akasha had designed.
It was a boundless expanse of white.
At his command, hundreds of virtual enemies versed in Peak-realm martial arts would appear, or dozens of Ink-Horn Flood Dragons would swarm him in attack.
In that place, where a single day felt like decades or centuries in the real world, Ouyang Qiangang honed the Sacred Water Secret Art and the five ultimate techniques of the Nine Dragons Ten Thousand Mountains Art.
While his mind wandered the virtual space, Akasha, following the Skeletal Control System, etched every martial art flawlessly into his body.
Whoosh—!
His silhouette, unfolding the Heavenly Meteor Divine Art, whipped through the stone room like a bolt of lightning — then, in an instant, shifted into the Carbon Step and Nine Palaces Tail Step, sliding across the floor.
Sometimes his hand seized a virtual enemy like a dragon's claw, following the principles of the Coiling Dragon Golden Silk Hand; sometimes a storm erupted from his palm as the Gale Chain Palm battered them mercilessly.
BAMBAMBAMBAMBOOM!
A chill filled the space, and a blue aura swirled around his body.
It was a phenomenon born of the fact that his attainment in the Transcendent Formless Divine Art was deepening by the day.
Training that drove both mind and body to their absolute limits came with an enormous consumption of internal energy and vitality.
And right next door, jars were stacked full of Yang Dragon Elixirs — the finest vitality restoratives in existence.
But Ouyang Qiangang never touched them. No — he never even glanced in their direction.
Doctor, taking the Yang Dragon Elixir would speed up your recovery from exhaustion.
“Not taking it.”
“That is not a wise choice.”
“Nonsense. It's an extremely wise choice.”
“Why is that?”
“Because for a man without a lover, the Yang Dragon Elixir is basically poison.”
“I cannot understand what you mean.”
“Never mind. There are grown-up matters you wouldn't understand.”
…I cannot understand. That statement is a variable incompatible with my logic circuits. For now, I will file it under the category 'Incomprehensible Adult Matters.'
Idle banter like this passed between them from time to time, but as he grew stronger, Akasha grew alongside him.
Doctor, your internal energy volume and purity have increased by 0.5%. As a result, my computational efficiency has improved by 1.2%. I can now raise the simulation precision of your virtual training by one more level.
As Ouyang Qiangang's internal energy crossed into the realm of the first transformation, the number of nanobots Akasha could deploy and her range of external activity also expanded dramatically.
Her superintelligence was slowly but surely recovering the original capabilities she had lost in the dimensional transit.
The two of them(?) had entered a perfect virtuous cycle, each fueling the other's growth.
The month turned, and winter deepened.
Ouyang Qiangang, who had rarely shown himself as he moved between the detached hall and the Refinement Chamber, watched the western sky redden and made his way to Gu-yang Baek's study.
“Come in.”
Sitting across from his son in the study, Gu-yang Baek sensed a depth and gravity in him that could not be compared to before.
His appearance was still that of a slender, handsome youth, but the aura within him was like a deep sea — its limits impossible to fathom.
“It seems your achievements have been considerable.”
“Thanks to your consideration, Father.”
“You have the look of a man with something to say. Very well — speak.”
Ouyang Qiangang opened his mouth.
“With the Yang and Yin Dragon Elixirs selling so well, the funds needed to rebuild the clan will be secured before long. But that alone is not enough. To fully protect our family from the threat posed by Gold Pagoda Mountain Manor under my grandfather's leadership, we must secure power and renown commensurate with it.”
Gu-yang Baek nodded silently. A deep shadow fell across his face.
How could he not know?
For a martial clan, renown and strength were matters tied directly to its very survival.
“You are right. Without them, everything we have built is nothing but a castle on sand.”
He continued with a heavy expression.
“But Gang-ah, that matter is beyond what we can resolve right now. We have already lost too much, and too much time has passed.”
Deep regret weighed in his voice. For the first time, he was laying bare before his now fully grown son the wounds of the clan he had carried alone for decades.
Ouyang Qiangang looked at him with an intense gaze.
“There is something I would like to discuss with you — for the sake of solving that very problem.”