The Eighty-Fourth Storage Box
“Next, strike upward as if drawing three strokes.”
As midsummer set in, the blazing sun grew fiercer by the day. The sky was a cloudless, brilliant blue. A single willow cast a trembling shadow across the training ground.
“Then the three on the right advance left, and the three on the left advance south, all at once. After that, same as before.”
At the order of Lee Jasuo—the executioner of Cheonsubaekryeonsa, a fierce-faced man with a shaved head in blue robes embroidered with dragons—the eighty-three disciples of Ha-mu-gwan moved as one, settling into the forms of the sword inspection.
“We will now begin the thirty-second inspection. I sincerely hope you all pass on the first attempt this time and earn even a modest bonus toward promotion to Chu-mu-gwan.”
“Yes, sir!”
Each hall of Cheonsubaekryeonsa was more than a mere martial academy within the orthodox path—it carried weight across the entire orthodox world. Of course, the systematic foundation the high echelons of the Nine Sects and One Gang had carefully built over long years, and the blessed environment that allowed one to pile up early momentum in a short span, were valuable enough purely as places of training. But beyond that—beyond the way the rising talents of sects scattered across the Jianghu, who would otherwise rarely cross paths, could meet and drive one another to grow through intense competition—Cheonsubaekryeonsa was also a salon of connections, the first step by which a young martial artist might begin to make a name. That was why those who climbed higher and higher, dwindling into an ever smaller number, were often looked upon even in the wider Jianghu as sleeping dragons, objects of envy. And the first true threshold of that envy was Chu-mu-gwan among the four seasonal halls. The disciples of Ha-mu-gwan, with that next hall right before them, drilled themselves half-blind, determined somehow to climb that last step within six years.
“Enough. That concludes today’s group sword dance for fostering cooperative spirit.”
“Instructor, then…?”
Lee Jasuo drew a document from his robes, scribbled the relevant notes with quick strokes, and nodded.
“A bonus will be added for every disciple of this Ha-mu-gwan cohort. Keep that in mind. Of course, if an individual’s achievement falls short in the end, that bonus will be about as useful as pissing on a frozen foot.”
“Waaah!!”
The young men and women, tension finally breaking, collapsed onto the dirt all at once in a cloud of dust. Lee Jasuo looked down at them and spoke with cold precision.
“Don’t let your guard down. Group drills for cooperative spirit can come again at any time. Personal training is fine, but at the very least maintain contact between your Hoe units, or with one another. And wipe the iron swords you used and put them neatly into the storage boxes under your numbers. Right now.”
The disciples staggered to their feet. At the far end of the training ground, just as Lee Jasuo indicated, bamboo single-person storage boxes lined the wall in a row equal to the number of people. Numbers were written on the fronts. After the brutal midsummer drills, beads of sweat stood out along the napes of the young men and women, matching the heat of the day. While they stowed their swords, the heat rising off those standing close was almost tangible.
“Thank you for your hard work today.”
In front of the finished trainees, servants stood politely, holding trays with cold jars of water in which ice floated and pomegranate juice had been mixed.
“Ah! So this is that ice fruit water you only hear about at Cheonsubaekryeonsa!”
Everyone’s eyes went round as they rushed in.
“Please take it slowly.”
“There’s plenty.”
“Towels as well.”
“Young lady, your skin looks burned. Shall I bring ointment?”
The servants handled the swarming disciples with calm, practiced ease, as if this happened often. Ice was rare under a heat wave. Even more so in the Central Plains, where heating water to drink was common and drinking it cold was not. But Cheonsubaekryeonsa, whose very purpose was martial training, had the habit of drinking all water cold—and in summer especially, mixing pomegranate juice into ice water after fierce drills had become something close to tradition. Revived by the cold ice fruit water, the disciples began to chatter among themselves.
“I thought my stamina had gotten better, but around the twenty-second consecutive strike my legs just gave out.”
“Haha, still—we’re going to Chu-mu-gwan!”
At first they had been a mix of every sect, sharp-edged toward one another, but through the process of training together in one hall toward the next, eating and living side by side, they had grown tight-knit. Among them, a tall, heavily built man with short hair in green martial robes shouted out.
“Who in the whole Jianghu suffers more than we do, huh? I guarantee it—we’re the ones who suffer the most! If we don’t go to Chu-mu-gwan, who will? Haha!”
“Keh, that’s Hoseoa for you! True to Zhongnan of the Nine Sects and One Gang! Straight talk!”
Hoseoa stripped off his sweat-soaked robe and flung it aside. His developed body rolled with massive muscle under a layer of flesh.
“Ugh, you’re in the way. Hoseoa. Stop showing off that stupid bulk and move over a little?”
The female disciple beside him, in pale pink robes, frowned. Hoseoa snorted.
“Not stupid—it’s a man’s glory.”
“Oh, is that so. Then please step aside. You’re blocking my storage box so I can’t even open the door, and more than that the sweat stink is killing me. Sir Man’s Glory of Zhongnan.”
Hoseoa’s face flushed red.
—Grit.
His molars locked. The thin disciple next to him jabbed him in the ribs and whispered.
“Lee Jasuo’s watching.”
In the willow’s shade behind them, Lee Jasuo had his mouth to a bowl of ice fruit water and was staring straight at them.
“….”
Hoseoa clenched his fists and crab-walked backward. With explosive force he wrenched open his storage box.
“Damn it. How much money do the sects and families pay in every year, and where the hell do they sink it all that the storage boxes are crammed in this tight? Tch. Would it kill them to make them a little roomier….”
His eye caught the storage box at the farthest corner. The ink-black box marked Eighty-Four sat alone at the very end.
“What’s that doing sitting empty?”
Another disciple beside him answered.
“That one’s been empty from the day this whole Ha-mu-gwan cohort first gathered. Look at the dust on it.”
“The boxes are put in to match the initial headcount of disciples, so someone was assigned to it….”
Bare-chested Hoseoa draped his green robe over his shoulder and strode forward.
“I’m already pissed off, so perfect. Dust that thick means they quit halfway or washed out. No owner, so I’m using it from now on. Anyone got a problem, speak—”
“Don’t touch that.”
A voice like frost rang from behind. Everyone flinched.
“It has an owner.”
Lee Jasuo set down his empty bowl and wiped his mouth.
“And word is, he’s on his way back.”
With only that, Lee Jasuo vanished as if he had never been there.
“…What was the instructor talking about?”
The remaining disciples murmured.
“Is that true?”
“What is?”
The disciple beside Hoseoa spoke.
“There’s a rumor—well, not quite a rumor—that some disciple of Ha-mu-gwan got hammered by the disciplinary board and is running a punitive trial of the worst difficulty.”
“…And?”
“That kind of punitive trial is basically a polite way of saying expulsion. There’s a famous story about a Shaolin troublemaker who got paraded through it for six years until he finally broke and lost his mind. Only the person himself knows what’s even in it, and there’s no upper limit to the difficulty. I honestly thought it was just talk—but if the owner of the eighty-fourth box really is on a punitive trial….”
Hoseoa cut him off.
“Hey. Didn’t you just hear what Instructor Lee Jasuo said?”
“Huh?”
Hoseoa gave the disciple beside him a look that said, Does that even make sense?
“He said the bastard’s coming back now. If all that were true, would he be returning? If he’s coming back now, it wasn’t a punitive trial—more like some washed-up punk who got locked up over a mess and is finally out. Can’t you even do that much math?”
The disciple who had been talking looked embarrassed.
“And another thing. I guarantee you that idiot—”
Hoseoa looked down at his own palm, rubbed raw and red from the iron sword.
“—the second he gets back to Ha-mu-gwan, he’s going to despair at the cold reality waiting for him. While he was rotting away locked up, the rest of us pushed this far ahead toward the next hall.”
“Whoa! Would you look at this! Holy hell!”
“…Huh?”
I stopped walking. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
“…No way.”
I blinked. Someone was in my field of vision, and I told myself it couldn’t be him.
On the hilltop, three attendants stood waiting while a man waved his arms with wild energy. He looked for all the world like a shaggy dog thrashing its tail.
I barely steadied my shaking pupils and opened my mouth.
“…Moyong Ryu hyung-nim?”
“Whoa!! Who is that!! I’m gonna lose it! Shit!! How long has it been!!”
From the top of the hill, Moyong Ryu came charging down at me like a madman.
“Bi-ya! This hyung came all the way out here to meet you!”
I stood there with my mouth open, sputtering.
“Wait—aren’t you supposed to be at Chu-mu-gwan of Cheonsubaekryeonsa right now? This is still half a day from the main gate. How did you even get out here?”
“You’re my little brother—of course I come this far. But why are your soles completely covered in sand? You been running laps around some lakeshore?”
“Ah, well, I don’t know. How’d all this sand get on me. Honestly.”
I casually changed the subject and brushed the sand off. While I stood there dumbfounded, Moyong Ryu looked me up and down.
“And what the hell happened to you in the meantime? What kind of trial have you been dragging yourself through?”
“…Why?”
I asked, a little guilty for no good reason.
“Why’s your whole vibe different?”
“What…. Is it that different?”
“Yeah. We’re in trouble. What do we do.”
“About what.”
Moyong Ryu whispered with a deadly serious face.
“Your face got even more punchable. What do we do about that, huh?”
“…Get lost. Seriously. Get lost. I should never talk to hyung-nim.”
I shoved Moyong Ryu aside and walked on. He watched the back of my head for a moment, then came after me with a snicker.
“Aigoo. You little brat. I tease you a little after so long and you flare up that hard. But then again, seeing you flare up like that—yeah, that’s you. Is character cultivation a completely independent variable from martial progress, like yin and yang? Huh?”
“Hyung-nim, you’re the second in the power line of a great family. Can you really talk that rough? You should settle down a little. You’re not even of the unorthodox path.”
Moyong Ryu answered blankly.
“I am half unorthodox, though? Not as much as you, but Father cast me out when I was a kid too. Didn’t I tell you? He only ever favored the first and second brothers.”
“What kind of half-baked joke is that—”
I looked at Moyong Ryu. Our eyes met. I clicked my tongue.
“…So you did. Still, at least you’re a legitimate blood relative, not a bastard like me.”
“You little shit. I only talk like this in front of you. You think I’d use this mouth in front of the elders or in public? You crazy? Hey, our attendant boys.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Moyong Ryu looked back at the martial artists following him.
“Right? Huh? I’m going to die of frustration getting framed by my own little brother. I didn’t even want to bring you, but you begged and begged to tag along—so you lot speak up for me to my brother a little!”
The martial artists in black robes embroidered with red orchids, standing in a line behind him, went abruptly flustered.
“Ah, w-well, yes. Our lord, n-n-normally, speaks v-v-very k-kind…ly.”
Moyong Ryu beamed.
“Hiyah. What a terrifyingly eloquent bunch—I’m tearing up. Huh?”
“We are not!”
Moyong Ryu sighed and rummaged in his robes, then pulled something out.
“Little brother.”
—Whoosh.
What I caught from Moyong Ryu was heavy.
“I only heard you were coming at the last minute, so. Next time I’ll prepare something with more care. So next time you come, at least tip me off. Okay? My one wish is to get a single letter from my brother, and I’ve never gotten one.”
“…Hyung-nim, this is?”
It looked like a square medicine case.
—Slide.
Inside the package was an inner core.