The Mute Child
When Mukjeok finally opened her eyes fully, the two familiar faces and one unfamiliar one had already entered the ruins.
One was Baekhyeon, dressed in white robes, with a sleeping infant cradled in his arms. His expression was far from bright.
Standing behind him was Son Gyu of the Qingcheng Sect, broader of build than Baekhyeon and equally grim. He was breathing hard, as though struggling to rein in his fury.
Watching their reactions, Mukjeok slowly spoke.
"The baby? What happened to him?"
"There is good news and bad news. Which would you hear first?"
"The good news."
Baekhyeon took a breath and began. "The child has been fully healed. They say the finest of all internal arts in the world belongs to Qingcheng, and indeed, the saying is true. Brother Son's Clear Heart Art swept away the fire and smoke that had filled the child's organs and lungs, and even his dantian has been restored. If this child grows up and takes up cultivation later, he should be able to learn martial arts as well."
Mukjeok tilted her head slightly at that. "And yet you wear such a face. That means the bad news is serious?"
"It is."
Baekhyeon gave a heavy nod.
"The child's internal injuries have healed, but his external wounds have not."
"External wounds? You said there weren't any."
"At first, there weren't. But the real injury was inside his mouth."
With a careful touch, Baekhyeon brushed the infant's lips.
"His tongue was badly cut. I don't know how it happened. Perhaps he injured himself while crying, or perhaps his mother held him too tightly and his tongue was hurt in her embrace……"
After a brief silence, Baekhyeon continued.
"In any case, the wound on his tongue had festered and was rotting away. In the end, while Brother Son used his art to lull the child and ease his pain, I had no choice but to remove the tongue."
"Damn it, that rotten, cursed—!"
At those words, Son Gyu stamped hard against the ground like an enraged bull.
The thought that even with Qingcheng's supreme internal art, they had still failed to protect the tiny tongue of a newborn no bigger than three inches must have pained and angered him terribly.
But internal arts were, after all, techniques for governing qi, the dantian, and the blood vessels. How could this be Son Gyu's fault?
If the child was unfortunate, it was only that he had not been found by a physician in time.
But the child's suffering did not end there.
"What's more, the fire and smoke severely damaged the child's vocal cords. Where his throat should have been is now just hollow emptiness, so the child will likely……"
"You mean he'll have to live his whole life as a mute child?"
Baekhyeon nodded heavily. At once, Mukjeok's expression darkened visibly.
No matter how naturally cold a person might be, if they carried chivalry and compassion in their breast, how could they not feel for the misfortune that had befallen the child before their eyes?
Mukjeok's heart was cold, but it was made of blood, not stone, and it was only natural that she should feel deep pity for the infant. She carefully took the child from Baekhyeon's arms and asked, "Did you look for the child's father?"
"The people of Gansu said the child's mother was a widow and raised him alone, nursing him herself. So this child…… became an orphan overnight."
At that, Son Gyu kicked the ground once more.
"Damn it, those filthy devil bastards!"
Son Gyu had lost many disciples in the battle between the righteous sects and the Blood Cult, the so-called Great Righteous-Blood War.
He had already been angry at the Murim Alliance's decision to stop pursuing the Blood Cult, and now that he had witnessed the inhuman cruelty the Blood Cult had committed, it was only natural that his fiery temper should explode.
One of Son Gyu's younger disciples hurriedly seized his shoulder as he vented his rage. The young man, dressed in blue martial robes, pleaded with his master.
"Sect Leader, please calm yourself! I fear anger may cast heart demons over you! Let the Clear Heart Art soothe your fury."
Hearing his disciple's words, Son Gyu let out a long breath and closed his eyes. His breathing gradually slowed, and cool inner energy began to rise around him.
After several steady breaths, Son Gyu's anger finally subsided. He shook his head and said, "My apologies. I was so worked up I could hardly see straight."
"No matter, Brother Son."
Baekhyeon accepted the apology with a nod. In Mukjeok's arms, the baby still slept, his eyes not yet open.
Gently stroking the infant's palm with a finger, Mukjeok asked the two men, "So what do you intend to do with this child?"
"That is the problem. He's become an orphan overnight; someone ought to take him in. If it were up to me, I'd have Qingcheng take him, but……"
Son Gyu trailed off.
The sect that had suffered the greatest damage in the Great Righteous-Blood War was first the Kongtong Sect, based in Gansu's Kongtong Mountain; second were the Tang Clan and Qingcheng Sect of Sichuan, along with the Hua and Zhongnan Sects of Shaanxi, who had actively sent reinforcements to aid Kongtong.
Taking in one child was not a great burden, but Qingcheng had also suffered serious losses and had lost many of its people. They simply did not have enough hands to care for a newborn.
"Or what if you took him?" Son Gyu nodded toward Mukjeok.
Mukjeok's expression hardened into ice. "What nonsense is that? Raise a newborn in Zhangjiajie? It'd be easier to raise a tiger cub."
To the west of Hunan, in a place where the mundane world's red dust dared not intrude, lay the true face of the Peach Blossom Spring recorded by Tao Yuanming. People called that place Zhangjiajie.
Three thousand valleys rose so high they seemed to pierce the heavens, and strange rocks and veils of mist wound around their waists. Ordinary folk did not dare set foot there lightly.
One misstep and you could fall hundreds of fathoms into the abyss; take the wrong path, and you'd wander through the fog for ages.
Unless one was like Mukjeok, who had lived in Zhangjiajie for generations, it was no easy thing to survive there in the course of ordinary life.
Surely it was no coincidence that Zhang Liang, the Marquis of Liu, who had made great contributions to Liu Bang in unifying the realm, secluded himself there to cultivate the arts of the immortals and ascend beyond the mortal world. That was how the place had come to be called Zhangjiajie.
Raising a newborn in such splendor, or such a nightmare, was harder than raising a wolf cub, just as Mukjeok had said.
"In that case, there is no help for it. We at Wudang will take the child."
With a quiet sigh, Baekhyeon reached for the infant in Mukjeok's arms. Worried that the child might be hurt, Mukjeok carefully passed him over.
Once he had the baby, Baekhyeon began cooing and making ridiculous faces, utterly unlike a sect leader. "Gurrrr, peekaboo! Come along with this poor Taoist to Wudang, little one."
But no sooner had he said it than Baekhyeon was shocked stiff.
The child in his arms suddenly opened his eyes and began gasping as though he might choke to death.
Flustered, Baekhyeon hurriedly called for Son Gyu. "Brother Son! W-what is this? Has the child come down with some illness?"
Son Gyu rushed to the baby just as frantically and checked his pulse and inner energy.
After a moment, he let out a deep breath and spoke. "The child's body is fine. He's just a little tired."
"Then why……?"
To Mukjeok's suspicious gaze, Son Gyu answered, "Perhaps…… he's crying?"
"Crying?"
"Look. This infant has neither tongue nor vocal cords, doesn't he? So he can't cry at full volume. All he can manage is this wheezing, choking sound."
The people standing in the ruins cast pitiful looks at the child's miserable fate.
But that was a problem in its own right. They couldn't let the child keep crying silently forever. Baekhyeon, unlike his usual self, contorted his face and tried to soothe the baby. "Gurrrr! Little one, look over here!"
And when the baby still would not stop making that choking sound, even Son Gyu jumped in and twisted his face into a ridiculous expression.
"Look here, little one! I appear, I disappear! Oh-ho, I appear again!"
"……What are you two doing?"
"S-Sect Leader! Please have some dignity……"
Mukjeok and Son Gyu's disciple reacted differently to the two men's shameful display. The woman regarded them with a cold stare, while the man could only cling to his master's shoulder, at a loss before the absurd sight.
In the end, the two grown men's clowning was calmed only when Mukjeok snatched the baby from Baekhyeon's arms and took him in her own.
"Oh?"
Baekhyeon smiled as he watched the infant nestled in Mukjeok's embrace. When the child had been in his arms, he had gasped and choked; now, in Mukjeok's arms, he lay quiet and wide-eyed.
It was almost as though he were in his mother's embrace.
"Has he calmed down? Let me try."
Son Gyu carefully accepted the child from Mukjeok.
And the instant he did—
Gasp, gasp, gasp.
The baby convulsed again, his little body jerking as he made that choking sound all over again.
Shocked, Son Gyu quickly handed the infant back to Mukjeok, who, equally flustered, took the child in her arms once more.
At once, the baby settled again and merely stared at Mukjeok with his clear blue eyes.
Watching in silence, Baekhyeon slowly stroked his chin and said, "It seems the child is especially attached to you."
"What?"
"Don't people say a baby bird takes the first thing it sees after hatching for its mother and follows it about? For a newborn who hasn't even been weaned yet, it's all the more so."
Baekhyeon chuckled and went on. "It seems the child ought to go with you, Adorable Little Sister."
"Have you gone mad?"
Mukjeok's reply came sharp and flat. She had never raised a child, and the very idea of doing so in Zhangjiajie was little short of penance.
Even so, Baekhyeon did not lose his smile.
"Adorable Little Sister, hear me out. The moment this child leaves your arms, he starts convulsing and wheezing like a man with consumption. He must be terribly anxious, separated from his parents. On top of that, he cannot even make a sound, and his body and mind are exhausted; if you take your eyes off him for even a moment, he may suffocate and drift off to the netherworld. What can be done? We are warriors, not nurses. We cannot spend all our time and attention on this one child alone."
"So you're saying I can?"
"At least, that is what this poor Taoist sees."
When Mukjeok shot him a fierce look, Baekhyeon only laughed and answered, "No matter how harsh Zhangjiajie may be, isn't all you do there gathering herbs and chopping firewood? I know full well that at most you flip through ancient texts now and then or do some carpentry in the backyard, so how can you say you have no time?"
But Baekhyeon's words did not stop there.
"Did Master Mozi not take in war orphans and raise them as disciples of the Mo school? By doing a small kindness and saving a child, you build virtue; by doing so on a larger scale, you simply follow in the footsteps of the sages of old. In a way, couldn't this child be the chance that rolled right into your lap?"
Son Gyu, who had been listening in silence, cast her a worried look. "But will this truly be all right? Zhangjiajie is such a wild place……"
"What choice is there?"
As soon as Baekhyeon finished speaking, he reached for the baby again.
The infant reacted instantly, twitching in Mukjeok's arms and making that choking sound as if in reflex. At the sight, Baekhyeon gave a shrug, as though to say, See? He starts acting like this just from a hand reaching toward him.
Mukjeok stared at the baby with a face full of disgust and anguish.
Those clear blue eyes, shining like the Green Moon and the North Star in the night sky.
Not the metaphorical light of stars, but pure, genuine starlight.
It was as if the infant's moon-bright eyes filled Mukjeok's own black pupils entirely.
***
In truth, from the moment the three of them began speaking about a mute child, my mind had already awakened.
I tried moving my tongue to see if what they said was true, but the emptiness where something should have been only made me feel even more wrong and alien.
Damn it. Had I really been thrown into Daemyeong Pungwhajeon?
And of all things, into a fourth save where being mute was a handicap.
After coming to that conclusion through a hundred thoughts and half a dozen scenarios, I immediately began to cry.
Of course, with both tongue and vocal cords removed, crying was impossible. All I could do was wheeze, the sound more like air leaking from an underfilled rubber doll than anything else.
Apparently that sound came across as pitiful to the three of them.
In the end, after passing through the hands of the Wudang Sect leader who had removed my tongue, and the Qingcheng Sect leader who had somehow lulled me with his internal art,
I found myself placed into the arms of some woman I didn't know.
So…… who is she?
Judging by the fact that I couldn't remember her even though I'd played straight through to the ending, she must not be part of the main story.
As I stared at the woman's face and pondered it for a moment, I remembered the character setting.
"A mute master raised by a reclusive expert who retired from the jianghu."
Ah. Then that explained it.
Of course I wouldn't remember her.
Daemyeong Pungwhajeon begins with a minimum starting age of eighteen.
So the past events are given only in brief text, with whatever details are lacking filled in by the game's AI as it sees fit.
Which meant this unidentified reclusive master was just another NPC the AI had slotted into the game's background setting.
Then that meant the Wudang Sect leader and the Qingcheng Sect leader were both younger than the versions I knew from the game.
The two men I remembered were kindly old grandfathers with abundant white hair and beards.
That realization made me feel even more relieved.
After all, if I had to choose, I’d much rather train under a beautiful woman than some bent old geezer, right?
Didn’t they say the handsome and the beautiful always had the best martial skills, too?
According to the game setting, this woman, who was about to become my master, met my eyes squarely and let out a deep sigh.