Within Each Other's Pasts
Two days earlier, in Yichang.
Jin Seongun had just arrived at the inn and blinked a few times, momentarily at a loss for words.
"What on earth is this."
Given Old Man Shinmok's grand boasting, he had expected the inn to grow considerably in scale—but nothing like this.
With bewildered eyes, Jin Seongun walked around surveying his own establishment. It was so vast that it took him quite a while just to reach the main gate.
When he lifted the reed blinds and stepped inside, a familiar face was waiting for him.
"Ah, Seongun, you're here!"
Shinmok, who had been drinking alone in the dining hall, broke into a wide grin and waved when he spotted him. His face was positively brimming with confidence.
So, this is roughly what I managed. What do you think?
It was exactly that kind of face, so Jin Seongun gave him a thumbs-up.
Shinmok chuckled heartily.
"You must be tired, but let's go over things before you rest. I'm afraid I built it a 'little' too big, so there's a fair bit to explain."
It was not a little.
It was larger and more splendid than any inn Jin Seongun had ever laid eyes on.
Shinmok led him from place to place, continuing his explanation as they went.
"The dining hall is untouched. It's already borne my hand, so there wasn't much worth changing. However……"
He pointed toward one side. It was a staircase. The inn, which had been a single-story building, had become two.
"Your quarters and Cook Seo's are untouched as well. Martial artists are a sensitive lot, you know."
This, too, was Shinmok's consideration. The layouts of the dining hall and the original living quarters had been left almost entirely alone; the rooms where Jin Seongun and Seo Yugyeom stayed had not been so much as breathed upon.
"Now, the guest rooms start from here and run all the way down."
He had bought up several neighboring shops, cleared them to the ground, and raised Seongun Inn's guest quarters on the spot.
As Jin Seongun walked alongside him listening, he found it difficult to keep his mouth closed the entire time.
"How—how many rooms are there exactly?"
"Thirty. That's the usual threshold for what's called a large inn, no? Truth be told, I meant to build fifty, but……"
Jin Seongun clicked his tongue. Word had it that fewer than ten inns in all the land could boast fifty guest rooms.
In fact, even an inn with thirty rooms or more was hard to find outside of a truly enormous commercial district.
The rooms came in three tiers.
First, five of the largest and most lavishly appointed rooms—spacious enough for five or six guests to stay in perfect comfort.
Then ten rooms of moderate size, elegant and antique in style. Even these would put the priciest room of any ordinary inn to shame.
And finally, fifteen rooms of clean, simple design, just right for one or two guests.
"Haha, I suppose it'll be quite a bit of work."
Shinmok said it with an embarrassed laugh. In truth, once the thing was built, it had occurred to him that Jin Seongun and Seomun Ak might find managing all these rooms rather overwhelming.
Of course, he had promptly forgotten the thought with a mental they'll figure it out.
"Actually, this is better."
Jin Seongun nodded with a rare, thoroughly satisfied smile.
It surpassed even the image of the inns he had once dreamed of running back when owning one had been nothing more than an aspiration.
Inns had their own ranking, after all.
Small establishments without guest rooms—what Seongun Inn had originally been, a half-baked inn selling nothing but wine and food.
Then the most common sort, inns with a handful of rooms—the kind of place Deokyang Inn, where he had briefly stayed, had been.
And finally, what Seongun Inn was now: the sort people called a large inn, a first-rate inn.
Ordinary folk, martial artists, merchants, the wealthy, entertainers, scholars, even officials—before long, people of every stripe would come knocking at its doors.
Tidying, cleaning, and maintaining finely kept rooms on quiet mornings. Meeting all manner of people. Becoming the very first thing that came to mind when someone thought of the region.
It was, in a word, the life every innkeeper dreamed of.
"Thank you truly, Elder."
Jin Seongun bowed from the waist with all his sincerity, and Shinmok chuckled at the sight.
"For what? If anything, I'm the grateful one."
"Pardon?"
"The Cheonghae Iron Pavilion business. That was your doing, wasn't it, Seongun?"
The Cheonghae Iron Pavilion had colluded with the Demonic Cult, been exposed, and been hauled before the Martial Alliance in chains. It was finished.
Only, the name of the Guest Dragon had not yet surfaced alongside the scandal. Whether the Martial Alliance had deliberately spared Jin Seongun out of consideration, or the rumor simply hadn't spread that far, he couldn't say.
But Shinmok was certain Jin Seongun had done it. The timing was too convenient, and besides, whenever something earth-shaking stirred up the martial world these days, Jin Seongun was invariably at the center of it.
Jin Seongun admitted it readily enough.
"Yes, that's true."
"Thanks to you, I am no longer one of the Three Great Master Craftsmen of the World. Just the Two Great ones now."
"……"
"There's an old saying in the martial world that comes to mind. To survive is to be strong. I've been sitting here quietly minding my own business, and my rival up and vanished on his own. Ahahaha!"
After laughing for a good long while, Shinmok went on.
"Keep up the good work and take care of that drunkard quack too. With your help, I might just become the greatest craftsman under heaven."
With the Qinghai Iron Workshop Lord, one of the three, gone, only Old Man Shinmok and the physician remained.
"……Is that physician of yours a strange man as well?"
Old Man Shinmok had earlier dismissed the blacksmith among the Three Great Masters as a fraud. Perhaps he had likewise noticed—without knowing the whole story—that the Iron Workshop Lord was off. After all, he was a man who had staked his entire life on the craft of making things.
Shinmok burst out laughing.
"A strange one, all right. You know what physicians are always droning on about. Get your sleep, don't drink to excess, and so on—yet the man himself never sleeps a wink and is never once sober. Utterly self-contradictory, through and through."
"……"
"That's not the half of it. His tongue is a menace too. A physician, of all people, driving daggers into his patients' hearts with every other word. If he hadn't saved over a thousand lives by now, he'd have been cut down in some alley long ago."
Jin Seongun was genuinely dumbfounded.
In short: a man who never slept, had saved a thousand lives, and never spared the uncomfortable truths his patients needed to hear—the Divine Physician, in the flesh.
And Shinmok wanted him dealt with.
"……Are you trying to turn me into a Public Enemy of the Martial World?"
Shinmok laughed as though that were terribly amusing.
"Hah, I didn't know you had it in you to joke like that. That wastrel of the Seomun Clan, and Cook Seo too—everyone's turning out well these days."
With that, Shinmok nodded in evident satisfaction, then pleaded a pressing engagement and vanished.
Off to have a drink with Elder Hyeon Un, I expect.
Jin Seongun decided he would tidy up for a bit, then bring the old men some Yanghe Daqu and a few simple snacks.
Jin Seongun headed straight for the Realm of Martial Gods.
Thanks to Old Man Shinmok's consideration, his room hadn't changed in the slightest, which came as a relief.
Something was off.
The Realm of Martial Gods looked no different from any other day. The Sword Immortal and Daji were playing baduk, Sangwang sat lost in some reverie, and the Blood Demon lay sprawled on his back, gazing up at the endless sky.
All except one thing.
"Where has Master Shintu gone?"
At those words, every one of them stopped what they were doing.
Before long, the Sword Immortal and Daji wore bitter expressions. Sangwang let out a soft sigh and drew a smile that looked strangely conflicted. The Blood Demon simply turned his whole body away and lay still.
"……"
Jin Seongun understood instinctively.
Master Shintu was gone.
Should he call it ascension? Or transcendence? He couldn't say for certain—but either way, the old man had resolved his lingering regret and gone off to somewhere utterly beyond reach.
A bitter taste settled in his heart.
He had wanted, right away, to tell Master Shintu about Nakhwajeong, about the Cheonghae Iron Pavilion, about Chae Okhyeon. Even knowing that the man had let go of his regret and departed without attachment, it didn't feel simply good.
Shintu had been the first master he had ever served—someone he had grown fond of long past the point of fondness.
"If I'd known this was coming, I would have said a longer farewell back then."
The moment the bitter words left Jin Seongun's lips—
Wheeek—!
A man came charging in from far off like a gust of wind and barreled straight toward him.
Jin Seongun instinctively retreated ten paces. The man planted his feet precisely in the footprints Jin Seongun had left behind and closed the distance again at terrifying speed.
Sensing genuine danger, Jin Seongun unleashed Body-Shifting Transposition and moved himself entirely out of position—but the man chased him down with relentless persistence.
Jin Seongun thrust out his hand.
Taang—!
Force erupted into the empty air. The man ducked his head low, slipped past it lightly, and pressed in even deeper.
A moment later, a palm knife rested against Jin Seongun's neck.
"……"
Jin Seongun clicked his tongue with an utterly absurd look on his face.
Shintu broke into a very pleased smile.
"My disciple. You've leapt forward yet again. Of course, you're still miles behind this master."
"……Welcome back."
It was ridiculous. Why had everyone been making those faces, then?
When Jin Seongun looked from the Sword Immortal to Daji to Sangwang with accusing eyes, they all burst out snickering.
That was simply how the Realm of Martial Gods was. When there was this little to do, even the martial gods themselves got bored.
"Hahaha! Good, good."
Shintu let loose his trademark booming laugh. His mood looked better than it had in ages.
"So then—did you settle the matter I asked of you?"
It was not a simple question. It was the tone of someone who already knew the outcome, asking only out of curiosity about the journey.
Jin Seongun recounted everything, one event at a time. It had been no short journey, so his telling ran long, but Shintu—and all the other martial gods besides—listened intently throughout.
At the part about the horrific atrocities the Cheonghae Iron Pavilion had committed against children, the Sword Immortal knit his brows and roared in fury.
"These cursed, curses-beyond-cursing wretches!"
For a while, the very air of the Realm of Martial Gods trembled. Only when Jin Seongun told them he had cut the men down with the Fire Dragon Escaping Sword did the Sword Immortal finally, beard still bristling, slowly let his rage subside.
Jin Seongun spoke of his final meeting with Chae Okhyeon as well—her decades of regret, her lingering attachments, her atonement.
Shintu's eyes deepened for an instant. But then, in a voice as casual as if he had known it all along, he said:
"Do you know what that death, eighty years ago, gave to me?"
"……"
"Meeting you."
Jin Seongun's eyes widened slightly. He had never expected words like these.
"Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would take on a disciple in my lifetime. And then I met a good one—a boy who's no different from my own flesh and blood. So tell me, how could I say that death took everything from me?"
With that, Shintu flashed a grin—the grin of a man utterly convinced that what he had just said was tremendously cool.
Something stirred faintly in Jin Seongun's chest. Though it was a feeling he had never known before, he thought: if he had ever had a family, this must be what it would have felt like.
"If you have any words you'd like passed on, I can visit Nakhwajeong regularly."
After all, Chae Okhyeon was still alive. Jin Seongun assumed Shintu would have a great deal to say to her.
But contrary to his expectations, Shintu shook his head.
"Haha, no."
"……Are you certain? If you sent word through me, she'd be glad of it."
"Seongun, my boy. Sometimes there are words that can only be spoken in the moment. Chae Okhyeon and I are people of the past. She is no longer the woman I knew, nor I the man she knew. Better that we each remain within the other's past."
With that, Shintu stared into the empty void with deepened eyes, then murmured as though to himself, smiling.
"And still—it's good. Thank you."
Jin Seongun understood Shintu's heart at once.
Because it was the most contented smile he had ever seen from the old man.