The Frigid Trial of Pure Yang
Cheong rubbed her head with vigorous desperation. Rubbing a wound wouldn’t make it heal any faster, of course. But it hurt so damn much—what else was she supposed to do? Aish, it keeps throbbing… Has my scalp actually split open? She kept rubbing and periodically checked her palm to see if any blood had come away. Surprisingly, her hand remained clean. The pain felt exactly like torn flesh, though. Strange.
She had always been the type to exaggerate her suffering, but this time it seemed genuinely excruciating. Watching her, even Seomun Su-rin felt a pang of pity rise in her chest. Just as no parent can overcome their child, no proper master could truly overcome their disciple.
“Sigh. Very well. You have learned a demonic art, yet I see no malice in your eyes at all. I can tell my disciple has been exercising sufficient caution.”
It was a wildly mistaken assumption, but at least it meant she was willing to let the matter drop. Cheong’s face brightened as she answered.
“Right? If you don’t get caught, it’s all good—”
Thwack!
“Ow! It hurts—again! Ugh…”
For adding unnecessary commentary, she had earned herself another nuclear noogie. A fresh tear rolled down her cheek with a watery plop.
Seomun Su-rin shook her head. “Yes, as long as you remain cautious. If you are careful…”
Her words trailed off. No matter how careful one was, that wicked demonic art…? No wonder her hands had always looked exceptionally beautiful.
“The Sosu Magong builds its evil by slicing directly through flesh and bone. The practitioner gradually turns malevolent, and in the end becomes a monster that takes pleasure in the act of murder itself. You must keep this firmly in mind and only use it in moments of true crisis.”
In truth, if one looked at it that way, Cheong was already far too late. The monster wearing human skin, a specialist in slaughtering villains, answered with perfect obedience.
“Yes, Master!”
“Good. Since you have already learned it, there is nothing more to be done.”
She could hardly destroy her disciple’s dantian and sever the meridians in her four limbs to cut the demonic art off at the root. If the so-called righteous factions ever learned of this, they would certainly demand exactly that.
After thinking this, Seomun Su-rin suddenly felt a quiet flare of irritation. The poor girl had simply learned a demonic art—what of it? Despite suffering the heavenly punishment of a thousand deaths, she had grown into such a good child. This was the thought of a woman who had once slain countless demons.
“Now then. If you should ever be discovered using that demonic art, there is one thing you must remember.”
“What is it?”
“Deny it.”
“Huh?”
Seomun Su-rin repeated gravely, “Simply insist that it is not a demonic art. Hmm. Roughly speaking… yes, you may claim it is something like the Divine Maiden’s Divine Hand.”
In other words, stubbornly lie through her teeth. Cheong thought, So in the gangho, the one with the louder voice really does win?
“Um… is that actually allowed?”
“It is not. If they press the matter persistently, tell them it is a martial art created by this master. What could they possibly do then? How dare they.”
Cheong did not realize it, but this was no different from a renowned martial artist staking her entire honor to shoulder the burden alongside her.
“Will I really not get caught?”
Seomun Su-rin smiled faintly. “That is why you must begin training from now on.”
“Training?”
“Indeed, my disciple. The nature of your inner energy is true yang. It is therefore incompatible with the extremely yin and evil Sosu Magong.”
The division of yin and yang is fundamentally into four. The energy of the sun is yang—hot, therefore pure yang; bright and upright, therefore true yang. The energy of the moon is yin—dark and sinister, therefore evil yin; cold, therefore pure yin.
These four properties, combined with the Mean, become eight. Because the Mean is not considered a distinct property, there are eight in total:
Merely hot. Hot and bright. Clear and upright. Hot yet sinister. The Mean. Bright yet cold. Dark and sinister. Cold and dark. Merely cold.
Pure Yang, Extreme Yang, True Yang. Evil Yang, The Mean, True Yin. Evil Yin, Extreme Yin, Pure Yin.
In this arrangement, yang energy is colored red and yin energy blue to form the Yin-Yang Taiji. This is why the Eight Trigrams originated from yin and yang. Adding the five elements—fire, wood, water, metal, earth—becomes the principle governing the universe and all things.
From the pulse diagnosis Seomun Su-rin had performed earlier, the Wolnyeo Mind Method Cheong practiced embraced the path of the Mean. The Main Yang World Heart Sutra, created with the imagery of the Flame Emperor Shennong, contained the upright aspect among yang energies—a circulation method of true yang. The lower-tier Fairy Art, the Seohu Cheonae Mind Method, was the same. In short, the inner energy currently flowing through Cheong was heavily biased toward true yang. Her sunset-colored sword energy was clear proof.
“The Sosu Magong is a martial art founded on evil yin. Therefore, if my disciple can wield the demonic art using true yang energy, its traces will differ from the original technique.”
By separating the nature of one’s circulating inner energy and learning to handle only the true yang portion, even the use of Sosu Magong would leave different remnants. Then she could legitimately insist it was something else. Strictly speaking, it would not even be a lie.
“Then how exactly do I train for that?”
“Is it not the dead of winter? My disciple has been blessed with perfect timing. When yin and yang clash fiercely, yang energy actually surges higher when the external qi is yin and cold.”
“So you’re saying winter makes it easier to train?”
“Precisely. It is not a difficult training at all. In fact, it is rather simple.”
Simple training! Cheong’s face lit up with hope.
“Then what should your disciple do?”
Seomun Su-rin answered, “Take off your clothes.”
“…Huh?”
Wait, did I mishear that? Cheong wondered if her ears were playing tricks on her.
Seomun Su-rin repeated calmly, “Only when it is cold does warmth truly reach you, does it not?”
“Uh, so what you mean is…”
Seomun Su-rin smiled with benevolent grace. “Exactly. You need only feel the yin-cold energy of the world with your bare body. Is there any training in the world easier than this?”
----
To a person, a house is not merely a place to stay. A house possesses value beyond that. If one were to express that value in a single phrase, it would be this: a comfortable and warm sanctuary.
Therefore, a house that is neither warm nor comfortable is not a house at all. It is merely a space that keeps a person restless and uncomfortably confined.
In that sense, Cheong had lost her house.
“It’s coooold…” Cheong thought, shivering violently.
She had finally acquired her own place! Yet she couldn’t light a fire in her own home! All the blankets had been taken! Even the windows and doors had been removed!
And the only “clothing” they had given her was a single scrap of fabric so thin it might as well have been tissue, with barely-there shoulder straps. Considering clothing originally existed to protect the body, this rag could not possibly be called clothes. They had even taken her underwear.
On top of that, the winter wind at the peak of Divine Maiden Peak was vicious. It didn’t merely sting the flesh—it practically gouged it out. The fierce wind drove in from above and below, and even without that, the thin cloth was so porous that the freezing air moved through it as if the doors were still wide open.
I’ll tell you everything—base location, code decryption, whatever you want. Just please give me one blanket…
No, actually, now she was getting angry. This was supposed to be training? Wouldn’t it be smarter to just run away right now?
Contrary to Cheong’s seething resentment, the results were outstanding. After all, she was still alive and breathing.
No matter how strong a master might be against the cold, there were limits. Surviving the middle of winter wearing nothing but a single see-through scrap of cloth was impossible. At first, the moment she thought Ah, I’m really going to die this time, a scorching heat would surge up and wrap around her entire body. It was a spiteful kind of warmth that only heated her just enough to keep her from dying before subsiding again.
One and a half months passed that way. She had now reached a level where she could handle true yang energy with considerable skill.
That did not mean she was no longer cold. She had simply become capable of maintaining the minimum body temperature. As a result, Cheong had essentially become the living embodiment of shivering. If someone asked what an earthquake was, one could simply point at Seomun Cheong.
Jin Jangmyeong, who had come to deliver food, stared at the spectacle.
“Cold?”
“I f-feel like I’m r-really gonna d-die…”
“Then, Unni, should I hug you?”
“Uh…”
Cheong hesitated. But the laws of the land were strict, and heaven and earth were watching with clear eyes. This was not an emergency evacuation situation like before. How could she possibly dare to embrace a minor?
Of course, this was the Central Plains, where children’s rights had not yet been established. The Act on the Protection of Children and Adolescents existed only inside Cheong’s own mind.
“N-no waaaay…”
“Tsk.”
“B-but is t-today’s lunch also…”
Jin Jangmyeong opened the lunchbox she had brought.
“Naengmyeon. Cold vegetables.”
“Ah. P-please…”
Cheong eventually shed another tear that rolled down her cheek.
In the primitive ancient China of old, naengmyeon was simply a general term for noodles floating in cold broth. Accompanying it were cold vegetables and various meats that had been boiled then chilled, all packed into a massive three-tiered lunchbox.
Please, something warm. I want to eat something warm.
Yet even with a freezing body, her stomach was still hungry. As Cheong scooped up the cold vegetables, she thought, Ah. But it’s actually delicious…
Grumbling the whole time yet leaving the lunchbox spotlessly clean, Cheong curled up in the corner of the room, hugging her knees. With neither windows nor doors, a storm raged inside what was supposed to be a house. At least this spot had relatively less wind. But pressing against the wall would bring up even more cold air, so she kept a subtle distance from it.
“Play the flute for me.”
“I-I-I c-can’t, it’s s-so c-cold…”
Cheong’s trembling had spread throughout her entire body until she was shaking as if having convulsions. Still, after one big violent shiver like this, she would feel slightly better for a little while.
“Play the flute.”
“Aish. That thing is freezing. It’s not a flute, it’s basically a block of ice. My fingers hurt.”
“Unni, hurry.”
“You know, for someone so small you’re really persistent…”
Sigh. Cheong let out a long breath, reached for the Boksinjeok (valued at roughly ten thousand gold) that had been tossed into the corner, and picked it up. It was a flute carved from solid ten-thousand-year cold iron. Simply blowing would never produce sound; one had to infuse the breath with inner energy using the mysteries of sound transmission.
Seomun Su-rin had tried to explain. Once it produced a proper note even once, the owner’s inner energy of several decades would remain within it, preventing anyone else from playing it. But Cheong had been so cold that she only half-heard the explanation, and the other half had been too difficult to understand. She had simply assumed it was like blowing to unlock something.