The Third Survivor
The two survivors left on Guigokdo threw themselves into breaking the formation.
There was no way off the island unless they calmed the raging sea, so they joined forces. But the formation Moyong Cheon, the Earth Dragon of the Demonic Cult, had left behind like a final will felt like an impassable wall. Neither of them was well-versed in formations, and every attempt ended only in blank frustration and despair.
The smothering helplessness began to eat away at their minds. A year passed like that. Half out of their senses, they threw themselves into the sea more than once. Then they began to turn their rage on each other.
There was no clear target for it. It was fury at their situation, a rebellion against a despair they could not escape. And there was only one person left to receive it. The accusations they hurled were not logical, and their voices rose into something like screams, but if they did not even have that, they would go mad. The more they saw each other's ugliest depths, the more those depths looked like mirrors, and the more desperately they fought. That time, too, lasted a full year.
Just as cooperation had exhausted them, so did fighting. On the day that marked their third year—
"Let's stop fighting."
It was Ja Unhak who spoke the words, but So Cheongbi felt the same. So instead of fighting, they loved each other. They had finally understood that what they needed was comfort.
The waves were still savage, and they still had found no way out—but for the first time, they were warm. Had another person's body heat always been this warm? The last two years almost seemed a waste.
"A confirmed bachelor and an old maid meet—surely this, too, is fate?"
"Shut your mouth. Old maid? Rising Stars in their twenties used to call me 'big sister' and beg for my hand."
"Hmph! You think I had no one? There must have been at least ten marriage proposals flying around."
"What kind of women were they?"
Two middle-aged masters who stood for the orthodox and the unorthodox had finally found a match. Before they were stranded on this island, they had crossed blades. A bond no one could have predicted added a special destiny one year later.
"Waaah!"
The island's two survivors became three.
After holding their son's first-birthday feast on the deserted island, the couple returned to the formation research that had worn them down so badly.
"We have to get off this island."
"Of course. I won't let my son grow old and die here."
It was a choice they had no option but to make, for their son's escape. Was there a more desperate study anywhere in the world? Reality, however, was cold. They tried to fill the gaps in their understanding of formations, but they had nothing to study from. If only someone had left a text behind, or if they had even a teacher who could teach them the basics—
They wanted to take a single step forward, but there was no path to begin with. Still they struggled to carve a new one.
Ja Gangcheon grew sturdy and strong, and turned five.
"Hah!"
A short, plump little hand struck a great tree in the northern forest. Thud! Red summer fruit tumbled down in a shower under the impact.
"Hehe. Mom's. Dad's. This one's mine."
The fruit in the child's arms was divided fairly among the family. But his parents' faces were not bright.
"Mom and Dad are sad again."
Ja Gangcheon finally spoke the words he had held back for so long.
"Mom and Dad always smile like this."
He pulled the corners of his eyes down with both hands and stretched his mouth until his upper teeth showed. Having spilled the complaint he had bottled up, Ja Gangcheon set down even the fruit he loved and ran out of the log cabin. There was nowhere else to go on the island, but the shock that hit the couple was heavy.
"My wife. Let's stop the formation research."
"You're right. It isn't something we can do."
Years of work had brought no progress. Even if there had been progress, the formation laid over this island was of a level called the highest in the murim. There was no guarantee they could dismantle it before they died of old age.
"I think our dark hearts have infected Gangcheon as well."
"How hard must it have been for a little thing like him to act like that?"
They left the cabin and went to the far end of the northern forest their son loved. It was the highest place on the island; no matter how high the waves rose, they never reached it. The wind climbing the cliff was sharp, but from here one could see the farthest. A trapped child had instinctively sought such a place.
"Gangcheon. We've decided to stop studying the formation."
"Really?"
"Yes, son. Mom's sorry."
She did not bother to say it was for his sake.
"Hehe! I feel great!"
Their son was smiling. That was enough.
That night, after putting their son to bed, the couple stepped out onto the moonlit meadow.
"We can't just sit still like this."
At So Cheongbi's words, Ja Unhak nodded in agreement.
"Then there's only one way."
They both already knew, so their gazes gathered on the same place. Eight years earlier, the ship they had come on had been half wrecked by several escape attempts. Even so, they had hauled it up onto land for a possible emergency.
"If there's no path, we leave the way we came in."
Husband and wife turned their eyes to the sea.
"My boy. Eat this and go to sleep."
"Mom. I'm not a baby."
"Seven years old is still a baby."
Their son wanted to become a man like his father. And he clumsily wanted to be treated the same way. The competition between father and son over the mother was instinct, but the love that came with being human was just as sincere. A beloved rival. When the son saw his father, he forgot the competition and beamed—because of the enormous fish in his father's hands.
"Honey. Not today."
"Why not? I went out of my way to catch a big one for Gangcheon. A birthday table needs at least this much."
Today was Ja Gangcheon's seventh birthday. That was why he had risked the dangerous sea to bring back a fish as large as his son.
"I was going to give him the Great Returning Pill today. I checked Gangcheon's body, and today looks perfect."
"Hm. Is that so?"
Even Ja Unhak, who always took his son's side, changed expression at those words.
"Gangcheon. Give me your hand a moment."
Feeling his son's pulse, Ja Unhak nodded.
"His meridians are sound and his energy is firm. Today will do well."
With his agreement, So Cheongbi took out a rough little wooden case. Inside the case, no larger than two finger joints, lay a single pill white as first snow.
"Give it to me for a moment. I should at least greet the Shaolin seniors."
"Finders keepers. We collected their bodies, so we've already paid for the medicine."
"My wife. This is medicine for our son. Shouldn't we put our whole heart into it?"
So Cheongbi had no choice but to hand the case to her husband.
"I report to Master Hyeonjeong and all the seniors of Shaolin. Unhak, a junior of the Wudang Sect, seeks to take Shaolin's legacy without leave. It is an unavoidable decision made for the sake of survival—please forgive me. And if there is any sin or karma that does not perish, I will bear it all myself."
Ja Unhak put weight on his own name, lest any burden of the heart pass to his son.
"Dad. What is that medicine? You take medicine when you're sick."
Ja Gangcheon had taken medicine or had salves applied before—all of it scavenged from the bodies of dead murim folk. Besides one hundred and eight divine weapons and rare instruments, there had been many things the dead had cherished like their own lives: secret manuals carried on the person because no place felt safe; spirit medicines brought to save themselves or someone precious; maps or letters whose meaning could not be known; banknotes enough to found an entire sect without strain; common hidden weapons and small instruments like flutes; medicine and fire-starters; dried meat and gourds filled with wine. There had even been a man so anxious he had written the formulas of a secret art on his own body instead of in a book.
"This is a medicine that will cleanse your body pure and greatly advance your internal energy. It was made at Shaolin Temple, and it can be called one of the spirit medicines that represent the murim."
"Those bald monks…"
"Tsk!"
"That place where the monks gather?"
Ja Gangcheon glanced sidelong at his mother and looked sheepish. He had only repeated what his mother called them, but his father hated that kind of talk.
"From now on, you'll train internal energy and lightfoot arts according to the plan."
"Lightfoot arts?"
Ja Gangcheon's confusion was natural. On this island, lightfoot arts meant little. Even on his short legs, if he ran at full tilt he reached the end.
"Running through the sky does sound fun, though."
His father had once spoken of a realm where one sprang up by stepping on leaves.
"Yes. You must pass the stage of vaulting over rooftops and reach the realm of walking upon water."
"And then what happens?"
"Our whole family will leave this island."
To raise their odds of surviving the sea even a little, the family had chosen lightfoot arts. But Ja Gangcheon, who could not know that, tilted his head.
"Is leaving this island that important?"
"Don't you want to see a wider world?"
"The world you and Mom talked about?"
He had thought about it a few times, but one look at the raging sea and he lost his nerve. That sea won't allow it. Knowing it was impossible, he had still dreamed of it once or twice.
"I want to see it too."
"Then let's all work hard together. When every preparation is complete, we will challenge that sea."
"Son. Just trust Mom and follow. I'll show you the real world."
"Yes!"
Ja Gangcheon smiled without a single worry. Mom and Dad always kept their promises. He believed they would this time, too.
Because they would have only one chance, they were careful. Time flowed like running water. Short, plump legs grew as long as his mother's, and the weight of a son running into their arms became a burden. A face that took after his mother turned handsome, yet the thick brows and stubborn set of the mouth he got from his father gave him a manly air. Only in his unusually black pupils and the shape of his eyes did the playful spark of childhood still linger with his smiling gaze.
They wanted to show the ever-growing boy a wider world as soon as possible, but the couple forced that longing down again and again. In that time, after Shaolin's Great Returning Pill, Wudang's Taiqing Pill and Huashan's Zixia Divine Pill were absorbed into Ja Gangcheon's body according to plan. The Demonic Cult's Blood Fate Pill and the Iron Blood League's Thunder Returning Pill also existed, but their effects were unclear, so they were left out of the plan.
And so, when the energy of the Zixia Divine Pill was racing cool and clear through Ja Gangcheon's dantian and meridians—
"Hah!"
Ja Gangcheon stepped on a wave that towered well over his own height, kicked off the next, and landed on the beach.
"Mom!"
"A grown boy still saying 'Mom.'"
"This isn't for Father. This humble son must see Mother—would you step aside? It won't taste good if it gets cold."
"It's still flopping, though. And I like that thing too."
The answer came from behind Ja Unhak's back.
"Move. Why are you blocking my son's way? And son—don't call me Mother. It's creepy."
"Yes. Mom."
"That's right. My baby."
So Cheongbi patted the hip of a son a full head taller than herself and pulled him into a tight hug.
"People would cluck their tongues if they heard. A boy of fourteen still saying 'Mom.'"
"Father. I've never once seen these 'people' you keep talking about."
"Ahem."
In his way of speaking, Ja Gangcheon definitely took after his mother.
"Anyway, you've improved a great deal. At that level, one can say you've reached the eighth star of the Bicheon Divine Footwork."
"Does that mean I've beaten you, Father?"
"Not a chance."
At the firm answer, Ja Gangcheon stuck out his lower lip.
Bicheon Divine Footwork. It had been the exclusive lightfoot art of an unorthodox master once called the Divine Thief. He had never ranked among the Ten Great Masters of the murim, but in lightfoot arts he had always stood among the top three. A man who spent his life stealing from others had carved the formulas of his most precious treasure, the Bicheon Divine Footwork, into his own body. The family on the island had studied and mastered that art.
"Father. Mom. When do we leave this island?"
The couple had already decided.
"A year from now—on your fifteenth birthday—let's go."
"Wow!"
Ja Gangcheon rejoiced as if he had received his birthday present early.