The Sutra of Ash and Flame
Since returning from the Cult Leader's Palace, I spent seven days and nights devoted entirely to recovery, circulating my energy and resting as much as I could.
Wooooong.
The demonic energy that now drifted through my body had become almost familiar. The pain that had flared up now and then was gradually ebbing, and my body was healing at a brisk pace, but even so, it was slower than I had hoped. That left me irritated all the same.
Once I fix the problem with my dantian, it’ll go much faster.
And if that was true, then the time needed to leave the demonic cult territory would also shrink by a good margin. I’d need to find a clue, somehow.
After finishing my breathing exercises and eating a bowl of rice gruel, I asked Yeon Hong, “That place I used to shut myself away in before—where is it?”
“Pardon?”
“You know, the place where I supposedly went mad, holed myself up in the library, and stopped showing my face. Where is it?”
“Ah, the library is a room that was remodeled inside your quarters. It’s just a little further in. Since you didn’t want anyone going in, we left it as it was.”
“Hm? I didn’t want anyone going in?”
Did I have something in there I didn’t want seen? Thinking I might uncover a clue, I pressed further.
“So nobody’s ever gone inside?”
“That’s right. I’ve never even cleaned it, and when you were unconscious, no guests came either.”
“No wonder no one ever showed their face. Was I that gloomy and unsociable that no one could even bring themselves to talk to me…?”
“No, no!”
Yeon Hong waved her hands in a hurry.
“You simply didn’t let people close. It was never because you were unsociable or prone to keeping to yourself. It was a time when you needed to focus on recovery, so of course there were no guests!”
“Then I probably wasn’t the type to go around making your life miserable, either. I wouldn’t have even spoken to you.”
For a moment, Yeon Hong’s eyes seemed to waver, then a gentle smile touched her small face.
“Yes, you were far from cruel. In fact, whenever you suffered an injustice, you would often handle it yourself.”
“Really? So I wasn’t a complete wastrel after all.”
“Pardon? A, a wastrel? How could you say such a thing…? You seem a little different, Young Master.”
“If a man dies and comes back to life, he’s bound to change. I’ve been dying to say whatever was on my mind for ages. So just bear with it.”
“Ah… yes. I suppose that would be understandable.”
Cheon Sohyeon set down the bowl, which he had emptied to the last grain. “Anyway, I want to go right away. Show me the way.”
* * *
In front of the library, Yeon Hong lowered her head with a respectful bow.
“I’ll go organize the medicinal herbs and then come back. Please look around comfortably, Young Master.”
“All right.”
Creak.
“Why is there so much dust…?”
It was clear no one had entered for a long time; the library was hazy with dust from end to end.
Bookcases of brown wood lined the walls on both sides, packed tight with volumes. I grabbed one at random and opened it, but the pages were so badly damaged that I couldn’t make out any of the contents.
“Yin and yang?”
Most of the titles contained either yin, yang, or both characters together.
Looks like this was the field Cheon Sohyeon was obsessively digging into.
Was he trying to solve his constitution?
Going deeper inside, I found a desk turned into a mess and black sheets of paper scattered across it.
The papers I’d first mistaken for plain blackened scraps were in fact packed with writing.
I picked one up to inspect it. At first the handwriting had been neat and straight, but as the writing continued it had begun to tremble, and by the end it had turned into a complete mess.
“Was he losing his mind or something?”
When I picked up another sheet from the floor beside a broken chair, I saw that this one had been stained red. The writing began thick and firm, then gradually faded, then thickened again…
A blood letter.
Everything in the library bore traces of Cheon Sohyeon’s hand. Enough to guess at the inner demons he must have fought through—so brutally it was almost pitiful.
I gathered them together, sorted them roughly by handwriting, and began reading in order.
The confidence that he would bestride the Nine Provinces and Eight Wildernesses alone had vanished. At such a young age, not even fully grown, he had come face-to-face with his limits.
Still, that was fine. There had to be a solution. He decided to leave behind a record for any successors who might one day face the same problem.
As expected, these were all entries from Cheon Sohyeon’s journal.
Today I met with the Cult Leader. I asked about my constitution and sought his advice, but he only told me to devote myself to training.
The other heirs suspect that I’m favored by the Cult Leader and keep their distance because of it, but he is just as indifferent to me. I turned back in frustration, and for some reason Gwangmyeong Jwasa’s face had gone rigid.
Devote yourself to training…
Was that answer really suited to Cheon Sohyeon’s situation? And the man I saw in the Cult Leader's Palace—could that have been Gwangmyeong Jwasa?
I set the questions aside and kept reading.
A manual was delivered to my quarters. Muryeong Shingong? This is the most troublesome martial art I’ve ever seen. Even reading a few lines made my head spin. Still, if it was called a divine art, there had to be a reason, so I decided to investigate it properly.
Gradually, the handwriting began to change.
I met Cheon Sehui. The moment we crossed paths, I realized I had made a great breakthrough. The other heirs were the same… while I remained stagnant, all of them had surged far ahead, as if mocking me for standing still.
Feelings I had never known before suddenly surged up from nowhere.
The writing began to wobble and twist out of control.
I don’t even know how many days I’ve been shut away in the library. I’ve decided to give up on this absurdly difficult martial art. I’ve gotten through the door, but I can’t tell how long it will take before I see any results.
I searched the entire demonic library, but couldn’t find any method for resolving my constitution. Lately, all I’ve experienced is failure. I want to go back to the me from before. Back to the time when it felt like I could accomplish anything…
The page was covered in hard, heavy strokes. Judging by the ink splatter in several places, it seemed he had snapped several brushes while writing.
These days there isn’t a day I don’t think about death. Starting the day is painful, and closing my eyes is just as hard. My head is full of nothing but negativity, and life feels like hell.
Sometimes, when I drift into a hazy fantasy, I imagine the whole world drowned in blood.
I’m afraid. I’m so afraid that something other than me will suddenly come bursting out.
Then came the blood-writing.
Heavenly Bone Physique, Heavenly Bone Physique. Damn that Heavenly Bone Physique. What fool said there was no bone structure greater than it under heaven and earth? What use is learning ten thousand martial arts if my dantian is still crippled?
I can feel my limit approaching. Killing intent. A monstrous killing intent surges without end. I want to snap the necks not only of the fools chattering beside me, but of every so-called heir who keeps calling me a half-wit.
The fantasies grow longer. I want to split, slash, tear, and rip everything apart, then burn every last thing in this world to ash.
The final record continued.
I have decided to kill myself.
I rested my left hand against the area near my heart. I could still feel the sluggish, broken circulation of energy.
I had only suspected it until now, but at last I was sure.
“So this is what he chose, to avoid walking the path of a nonhuman?”
Cheon Sohyeon hadn’t fallen into qi deviation because he couldn’t bear the pressure.
He had reversed his own internal energy and severed the meridians around his heart himself. Before he could hurt someone else, before he could lose himself entirely.
I looked around and pictured him wandering alone through this dark, silent place.
Amitabha.
The words that had seemed so easy to read suddenly felt heavy. I set the paper down, and my whole body began to tremble as my vision blurred.
Thud, thud!
At the same time, I heard the pounding of a heart so loud it sounded as if it might split my eardrums. It felt like Cheon Sohyeon’s scream was about to burst out through it.
I pray your next life may be free of anguish.
I closed my eyes and offered a quiet prayer for his soul, overwhelmed by a tide of emotion. Something warm was running down my cheek, and the knot in my chest loosened as I kept murmuring Buddhist chants for a long while.
How much time passed like that, I couldn’t say. While staring at Cheon Sohyeon’s farewell writings, I found a single book tucked among the papers.
Muryeong Shingong
So it was here after all.
It looked too dense to read right away, so I slipped it into my robes.
Then I took one final look around the bleak library and stepped outside.
Creak.
As I opened the door and came out, I saw Yeon Hong waiting there. Maybe she had been waiting all this time, because she was stamping her feet anxiously.
“Are you all right? Nothing happened, did it? I’ve been waiting forever after finishing the herb sorting, and you still didn’t come out…”
Her eyes were checking over my body. A gaze mixed with concern and kindness.
Come to think of it, the only maid in this vast residence was Yeon Hong.
She had said otherwise, but it was highly likely that Cheon Sohyeon had caused all manner of trouble right up until the end of his life.
Wasn’t she the one who had been left behind as everyone else departed one by one?
I gave a faint snort of laughter and replied, “Don’t make such a fuss. Of course I’m fine. I’m covered in dust, and my throat’s all scratchy. I think I need some air.”
“Ah! Then I’ll take you to the back garden.”
* * *
“Young Master, this way.”
The back garden had been neatly landscaped. Beside a raised platform stood a large old tree casting a wide swath of shade, and far in the distance, a narrow path wound away into view.
“Thank you. You can go rest now.”
After Yeon Hong bowed and withdrew, I began examining the manual I’d brought from the library.
“Muryeong Shingong…”
Perhaps because Cheon Sohyeon had abandoned it early, unlike the other books it wasn’t torn or frayed. Still, the paper had yellowed with age, as if it had survived many long years.
Swish.
Turning the pages one by one, I read carefully.
The manual was densely packed with the intent required for circulation and with what had to be several thousand characters of verse.
Heaven’s mandate is disobeyed… burn the old to establish the new heaven… break the shackles and sever the flow to forge the boundless sea…
To defy heaven’s command, burn the old and raise a new heaven. To break the fetters and shatter the current, until they become a great sea.
So demonic arts were demonic arts, after all. The verses were generally outrageous. The emotion soaked into the lines and the spaces between them was intense enough to sting.
Flip.
As I kept reading and memorizing the acupoints in detail, I eventually realized that the breathing method I had been using during recovery without any verses at all was this very inner art.
Huh.
It was vast and complex to the point of making one dizzy, but it was certainly a fascinating martial art.
The core of Muryeong Shingong was fire energy. It turned external energy as hot as magma and burned away impurities and waste within the body.
It was truly a rare supreme art. Martial arts in Shaolin that could push the body’s completion to its limits were not exactly common.
What puzzled me most, though, was the explanation of Sammae Jinhwa.
It says it can stain heaven and earth with Sammae Jinhwa?
What sort of ridiculous nonsense was that?
Sammae Jinhwa referred to the technique of conjuring flames from the palm of one’s hand.
It was a respectable enough trick, but the internal energy consumed was extreme, making its efficiency pretty poor.
In other words, it was nothing more than a flashy bit of showmanship for those with deep reserves of energy. Yet the manual described it in grand, almost absurd terms.
After skimming over that section and memorizing the acupoints in painstaking detail, I reached the end of the book.
“What’s this?”
Something felt off.
At first glance the handwriting was identical and the ink color showed no difference, but the texture of the paper was subtly distinct.
Was this an afterword?
As I rubbed the page, my suspicion hardened into certainty. This was a section added after the manual was completed.
Scrape.
The newly added portion wasn’t fresh content so much as a summary.
It condensed the body of the text and pointed out the foundational meridians as well as the key points one might easily miss.
Extreme Fire Without End
A flame that burned everything away and never died down. It was a restatement of the essence of Muryeong Shingong, the part that symbolized limitless potential.
After reading it twenty times over, I became certain that the last page had not been written by the original author.
Who wrote this, then?
It wasn’t because the manual was friendly enough to bother summarizing itself like this.
Not only did it omit details as if the page space were precious, but every word was so condensed and metaphor-laden it felt almost like poetry.
Moreover, even the explanations of the realms—something any martial arts manual should clearly state—were bare to the bone.
With the irritatingly glib note that one would understand once one reached it, only the sequence of One White, Two Black, Three Green, Four Green, and Five Yellow was listed.
From all of this, it seemed likely that Muryeong Shingong had been created by some demon who was absurdly proud of his own genius.
Would such a person really bother adding an appendix for later generations who might fail to understand his intent?
Of course not.
Then who had written it?
Still pondering the question, I slowly lifted my head.
The moon was visible in the distance. Set against the night sky, darkly painted in ink, it hung high and aloof, casting its light over everything below.
It seemed indifferent. Lonely, too.
A cold breeze brushed my ear, and suddenly I thought the moon looked a little like Cheon Sohyeon—surrounded by stars that seemed about to spill down at any moment, yet still alone in its loneliness.
Shall we begin?
I quietly steadied my breathing and started reciting the verses of Muryeong Shingong.
Perhaps because I had glimpsed the shape of his life, the demonic energy flowing through the meridians no longer felt evil or twisted.
I simply accepted it as it was and murmured the verses on.
As my internal energy rose cleanly toward the region around my heart, I could feel the severed heart meridians thread through the slender channels of blood and energy.
Cheon Sohyeon’s trace.
And as I continued circulating the energy, I grew more certain than ever that this was an exceptionally complex demonic art. Even someone like me, who had learned numerous Shaolin martial arts, had to tread carefully with it.
What amazed me most was that Cheon Sohyeon had managed to enter it on his own at such a young age.
Not bad.
I kept refining the external energy I had taken in, stripping away impurities again and again as I cycled it through every corner of my meridians.
By the time I repeated the circulation enough to feel I had reached my limit, I heard birds chirping.
When I opened my eyes through the sliver of my eyelids, the world that had been dark as ink was already bright all around me.