Heavenly Silkworm 1
Kish! Kishishi!
I had never once been nagged by Hwa-eun, yet the moment we arrived, the scolding started all over again. The culprit, as usual, was Yo-hwa.
Somehow she had known the instant I reached the Gu Jin Gate, and she came flying in from Tang Family Mountain. Just like last time, she took on Hwa-eun's form, crossed her arms, and tore into me in a sulky voice.
The way she pointed at the red thread around her ankle and the matching one on mine made her meaning perfectly clear: Why didn't you keep your promise?
The red thread was the token of that promise. Or rather, the shackle that had been locked onto me.
"Yo-hwa, come on. Oppa told you through Grandpa Shintu that I'd be a little late, remember? You've got to forgive me for this kind of thing. When a man is out working, stuff like this happens, you know?"
Wait… saying that out loud feels weird. Why am I even making excuses to her?
Kishit!
Even that earned me nothing but a frosty reaction. At first I thought she was just saying something like, So you think a one-sided notice is enough? — but then I caught the strange look on Shintu's face.
I turned to him. He was suddenly very interested in a distant mountain.
Don't tell me… he never said anything?
Judging by the way he was acting, he almost certainly had not delivered the message I asked him to pass along to Yo-hwa. When I asked her whether she had heard anything, Shintu's face went pale with shock.
"You mean you never heard?"
"Ahem… ahem…"
I shot him a look that said spit it out, and he turned his head away, refusing to meet my eyes. He must have gotten so busy fighting with Grandfather Man Dok Shin Gun over who would carry whom on their back that he completely forgot to tell Yo-hwa.
Haa…
So she was thoroughly sulking because I had broken my promise without so much as a word. In situations like this, a quick apology was the golden rule.
"Something urgent came up. Oppa's completely in the wrong."
Kishit! Kishishishi!
I gave Shintu one more icy glare and apologized to Yo-hwa again and again, but she still would not relent. I was starting to wonder why she was this angry when Gu Pae, the unit commander, came out to greet us — and that was when I finally learned the real reason.
"Young Master So-ryong!"
"Ah, Commander Gu Pae. You've been well?"
"Please, feed Lady Yo-hwa at once! She has not touched a single drop of yang energy this entire time!"
"What!?"
Because she wore Hwa-eun's form, the warriors had apparently decided they could not treat her casually, and somewhere along the way her title had become "Lady Yo-hwa." But what truly stunned me was the news that she had been starving herself.
Thinking back on Gu Pae's words, the round trip from the Sacheon Tang Family and back had taken a full half-month — and Yo-hwa was still in Hwa-eun's form. The Poisonous Creature Squad warriors who had been tasked with feeding her in my place all considered Hwa-eun the most beautiful woman alive, so it was not entirely strange. Still, not everyone thought the same way. A man with a woman he loved would always insist his own was the prettiest in the world, no matter how actress-beautiful Hwa-eun was. So it would not have been odd for Yo-hwa to take on some other appearance… yet she was still Hwa-eun.
Just as Gu Pae said, she had not taken so much as a grain of yang energy.
I grabbed her in a panic.
"Yo-hwa, you have to eat! Why haven't you been eating!?"
Kishishi!
This was the same Yo-hwa who, if she went two or three days without yang energy, would get so hungry she would sneak off and charm people. And now it had been half a month?
Alarmed, I held out a finger toward the mouth of the pedipalps that had taken Hwa-eun's shape — and Yo-hwa whipped her head away. She would rather wait than take anyone's yang energy but Oppa's, it seemed. Coming home late without a word had left her both starving and thoroughly irritated. But of course she did not want to admit she was sulking over an empty stomach, so she refused the energy.
"Don't be like that. Eat first, then we can talk, Yo-hwa. You'll get sick at this rate."
Kish!
As if the qi-war between Cho, Hyang, and Bin-i, plus the runaway drama, had not been enough — now Yo-hwa was on a hunger strike. No amount of begging softened her.
"Yo-hwa, So-ryong is right. He was late because he was helping someone who was hurt. He really did ask Elder Shintu. I saw it myself, so please stop being angry. Elder Shintu must simply have forgotten to tell you."
Kishit?
"I—I saw it clearly. So-ryong wasn't lying."
Only when Hwa-eun stepped in to back me up did Yo-hwa finally, with a great show of reluctance, take my finger into her mouth.
Kishi…
Whew. Looks like we got through that somehow.
Yo-hwa's temper was settled for the moment. Time to check on the next problem child. While she drank my yang energy, I asked after Bin-i, who had run away from home. I wanted to know whether she had come back while we were gone, or whether any of the warriors had found her.
"By the way — Bin-i hasn't returned, has she?"
"No, Young Master. We have been searching every inch of Tang Family Mountain, but…"
Gu Pae said he had taken warriors out whenever he had a free moment and combed through every crevice and rock gap, yet they had found nothing. That only made Sister Seol's theory sound more and more correct. If she was right, Bin-i had tucked herself away somewhere and was deep in a long sleep. Running away from home only to sleep like a baby, without a thought for how worried her mother and father must be…
I was just resolving to give her a good smack on the back when she finally came home when Gu Pae stared at me in shock.
"Y-Young Master, your n-nose—"
"My nose?"
I brought a hand up above my philtrum and felt the blood streaming down. Right after that came the sensation of every last scrap of strength draining out of me. Yo-hwa really had been starving for half a month — she must have been ravenous.
I didn't even do anything, and I feel like this…?
My legs started to buckle.
I kept feeding Yo-hwa yang energy until her empty stomach was full, and by the end I was so drained I had to rest for an entire day.
Pushing my yang energy to the absolute limit taught me two things. First: my stamina vanished. Second: sage mode kicked in.
Sage mode without having done anything. That was a truly mystical feeling. A sudden, hollow emptiness settled over me — and then my mind snapped into focus as if I had downed ten cups of coffee all at once. Which was why I had no choice but to rest for a full day.
The morning after that thorough rest, my day began a little noisily.
"Right then. You've had a whole day of rest, so that should be enough, yes?"
Shintu showed up at the crack of dawn and started hounding me to hatch the Heavenly Silkworms already. He had done everything I asked, so now it was time for me to keep my end of the bargain.
Looking at it one way, Shintu was not exactly free of blame for all my recent suffering. Lying on the bed, I decided to milk it a little. I was going to keep the promise, of course — but after everything Yo-hwa had put me through yesterday, I was owed a tiny bit of revenge.
"Aigoo… I had so much yang energy sucked out of me yesterday, I might need another day of rest. Elder, I'd love to help you, but with my body like this…"
"What!? Why is your body so weak? What kind of training do they put children through in the Tang Family…? Something like that should be fine after a good day's rest. Tch. This is what comes of relying on poisons and the like…"
Shintu was still grumbling about Tang Family training when Grandfather Man Dok Shin Gun suddenly stormed into my quarters, shouting.
"What was that? This old man!? Who dares drag the name of our Sacheon Tang Family through the mud? You couldn't even deliver a simple message for the boy, and now look at the mess you've made!"
He must have overheard the Tang Family being mentioned from outside.
"No, that isn't what I—"
"What do you mean it isn't!? I heard you perfectly clearly!"
As I understood it, no matter how close you were, you never criticized another man's family or martial arts. I half expected Shintu to apologize — but I had momentarily forgotten that the two of them were bitter rivals. Shintu's response was not an apology. It was pure reverse-thief logic: the thief scolding the victim for carrying a stick.
"Says the man who eavesdrops like a thief…"
What!? Thief? You're the thief here!
"What did you say, you poison-monger!?"
They looked ready to grab each other by the collar. I had to jump in and pull them apart.
"Both of you, please calm yourselves. If two great elders of the murim quarrel like this, what will people say?"
"Hmph!"
"Khrrrm!"
The fight stopped, but leaving the two of them together seemed like a guarantee of a repeat performance. So I decided to go with Shintu to inspect the hatching facility he had built on the outskirts of Chengdu in Sichuan.
"That's enough from both of you. My body has recovered a little in the meantime. Elder Shintu, why don't you come with me to that place you prepared for raising the Heavenly Silkworms?"
"W-well… all right."
Of course, before we left I did not forget to promise Yo-hwa I would be back that same day.
"Yo-hwa, I'm just going a little ways with Grandpa Shintu. I'll be back today. Okay?"
Kishi.
It sounded like agreement — but as if to make absolutely sure I would not forget this time, Yo-hwa added one more strand of red thread around my ankle.
The place Shintu took me to was a half-collapsed, abandoned Taoist temple. It reminded me of the ruined temple in Hainan — the one I had lived in when I first reincarnated into this world. Buildings leaning half into ruin, weeds growing wild everywhere. Further inside, though, stood one structure that was relatively intact, much like the building I had used back in Hainan. People were gathered there.
"Elder Shintu, you've arrived?"
As we stepped into the abandoned temple, people who had been sprawled about scrambled to their feet.
"Yes. Have you all been well?"
"Yes, Elder. Is this the young master you spoke of?"
"It is. So-ryong, introduce yourself. This is the Baek family."
Shintu must have given them some advance notice about me, because they crowded in and looked me up and down. The oldest man among them stepped forward and bowed his head.
"I have heard you are a young master of the Sacheon Tang Family. It is an honor to meet you. I am of the Baek family."
"Ah, Elder — I am So-ryong. A pleasure to meet you."
This old man seemed to be their leader. He guided us deeper inside as he spoke.
"Shall we explain the things we tried that failed? It might be of some help to you."
"Ah — would you? Please."
I had heard the rough version from Shintu, but hearing the details from the people who had actually done the work was always better. I decided to listen to why they had failed. It was unlikely to help me the way he thought it would — but I was curious how much people of this era actually knew about moths and silkworms.
When I nodded, the old man pointed to the already withered plants inside and began to explain.
"First, because they were called silkworms, we tried feeding them mulberry leaves. There was no reaction at all. After that we tried every part of the mulberry tree — leaves, stems, even the roots — but they would not eat any of it."
Silkworms, so of course they had started with mulberry leaves. Ordinary silkworms were raised on mulberry, after all. These were master silk craftsmen, and they had clearly assumed the Heavenly Silkworms would be no different from ordinary ones.
"Next, following Elder Shintu's instructions, we gathered every kind of leaf that would have been available in the season when one of the previous Shintu obtained the eggs, and tried feeding those to the silkworms. When we thought about it, a silkworm is the larva of a moth. Not every moth eats mulberry leaves, after all."
After failing with mulberry, they had remembered that some moths ate other leaves and tried those instead. For master silk craftsmen of this era, they had approached the problem in a surprisingly systematic way.
"But every attempt failed. The regrettable part is that only after the final failure, once Elder Shintu had already left, did it occur to us that moths do not eat only plant leaves. When you think about it — there are moths that eat grain, moths that eat clothes… moths are extraordinarily diverse, are they not? We should have realized that sooner…"
What the old man was describing sounded like clothes moths and pests like the Indian meal moth that fed on rice and grain. Still, the failures had not been entirely meaningless. For people of this era, they had made quite a bit of progress — enough to recognize that three completely different-looking creatures all belonged to the same moth family.
But their limits were also clear. Even if they had eventually glimpsed the reason for their failure, left to themselves they would have kept failing forever. Listening to them, I could tell they were only expanding their thinking based on moths they had personally seen.
You'll never succeed that way.
I looked at the old man and at Shintu, and decided to share a little of what I had figured out. Call it an educational service.
"There are a few things I learned from examining the Heavenly Silk and the dried-out larvae that Elder Shintu showed me. Would you care to hear them?"
"Things you learned, you say?"
"What? You figured something out? When?"
Shintu's eyes went round with surprise at the idea that I had discovered anything. He looked as if he could hardly believe it. Did he think I was the kind of person who forgot the jobs he was given, the way he did? Even while I was being carried on his back all the way to Wuhan and back, one corner of my mind had kept turning the problem over.
"Well, I had some time to think on the way to Wuhan and back."
"Is that so?"
"Yes. Please listen first."
"Very well. Tell us what you found."
Word that I had figured something out drew the crowd in closer. I looked around at them and began.
"First, a question. Do you know why a fully grown larva spins silk?"
"To build a house, of course."
"That's right. Even we know that much."
If they said it was to build a house, they knew one thing and not the second. I smiled and continued.
"No. I didn't ask what they make. I asked why they make it."
"Why?"
"Yes. A fully grown larva spins silk and builds a house in order to protect its body until it becomes an adult. Didn't you say that Heavenly Silk, when infused with inner energy, is hard to cut even with sword qi — that it is extremely sharp and tough?"
"That's right. Infuse it with inner energy and swing it, and you can sever arms and legs like a blade. But… wait—!?"
Infused with inner energy, Heavenly Silk became sharp enough to cut off limbs; even without that, it was harder than steel. Other people might not have thought of it, but looking at Heavenly Silk, one question had stuck with me.
What on earth were they protecting themselves from, that they needed silk this hard? The food source has to be near where they pupate — and that is a very important clue.
Whether they grasped my meaning or not, the eyes of the people around me — Shintu's especially — went wide.