News at the End of Spring - 1
A week had already passed since Tang Do-gyeong left.
"So what I'm saying is, the Gyeongsu Market incident last time was a special case."
"I see."
"Usually, when an unorthodox-suppression request comes in, the orthodox sects get two major benefits out of it. First, even though they call themselves orthodox, they can't go too hard on the unorthodox factions either. But among those unorthodox types, there are always the truly vicious ones and the hardcore scum who bounce right back even after you rough them up."
"Is that so? From just watching the Gyeongsu Market incident, I thought it was a PR strategy — the kindhearted orthodox martial artists who even help out the unorthodox."
"...You think that's how it works? Nangin are more like the unorthodox themselves, the kind who shake down other unorthodox types. We thoroughly crush the vicious ones into the dirt. From the orthodox perspective, the vicious unorthodox disappear — good. And taking down Sichuan Nangin, who look far more threatening than regular unorthodox, makes for an even better picture — also good."
"If the Gyeongsu Market thing had gone normally, I would have roughed them up a bit, then shaken them down for the money they'd already extorted, then used those same unorthodox thugs to cause trouble in the market until Taegyeong Gate showed up to deal with me. That would have been the normal sequence of events."
Ho Cheon-an had returned to the daily life of a Sichuan Nangin. Of course, not everyone had.
"Do-gyeong..."
"Ugh... Hero Tang..."
When evening came and the Nangin started digging holes in the ground, apparently missing Tang Do-gyeong, Ho Cheon-an clicked his tongue at the sight.
"Extra! Extra!"
A Nangin burst into the inn with high spirits, shouting.
"News of Hero Tang Do-gyeong has arrived! They say he unveiled a new martial art at an official Tang Family gathering! I haven't heard the full details, but they're saying he opened a new horizon in martial arts by combining throwing techniques with fist arts!"
"Ohhh...! Hero Tang!"
"So what became of Hero Tang's standing?"
"That's internal Tang Family business, so I don't know that far..."
"Hmm. What a shame!"
The Wanderer Inn erupted into noise in an instant.
Hmm.
Ho Cheon-an thought about Tang Do-gyeong for a moment.
The Family Affection trait seemed to have blossomed.
Since he'd gained enlightenment, his realm would eventually rise to the Transformation Realm, but it would still take a long time of further training to actually reach it. After all, refining something like the Fierce Tiger Fist Art all the way to the Transformation Realm wouldn't be easy.
It would take a very long time for Tang Do-gyeong, who was only at the early Super-Peak Realm now, to reach the threshold of the Transformation Realm.
I need to be more careful when granting enlightenment from now on.
Through Yeo Il-ye and then Tang Do-gyeong, Ho Cheon-an had come to understand what enlightenment truly was. It wasn't some convenient tool that simply raised your ceiling. It was a koan that pierced straight through a person's life and remade them entirely.
Anyway, since Tang Do-gyeong gained enlightenment, does that mean I can scrap the theory that he couldn't absorb information under stress?
Ho Cheon-an himself had no way of knowing under what circumstances Tang Do-gyeong had gained his enlightenment, but the fact that he had gained it meant that, as long as the method was correct, enlightenment could be granted.
In the end, was voice the only way to transmit enlightenment? Ho Cheon-an tentatively settled on that conclusion.
Why did I do that?
The memory of that day, associated with the thought of enlightenment, surfaced. Spreading gambling techniques while Tang Do-gyeong was in the middle of gaining enlightenment had simply been an "impulse" of the moment.
It wasn't the behavior of a ten-year veteran player — it was the intuition of Ho Cheon-an, eight years into his life in Murim Cheonha. The way Tang Do-gyeong had looked during gambling. Stories of his childhood. His confession that he had quit throwing techniques on his own. The things he'd heard from Tang Dok-gi...
All the miscellaneous fragments floating through his throbbing head had shoved him in the back, insisting that this was how it should be.
As a result, Tang Do-gyeong had created a new martial art.
Something completely outside Ho Cheon-an's expectations.
Well, if this counts as growth, then I guess it is.
He'd known Tang Do-gyeong's throwing techniques were weak, but the judgment that gambling skills could fill that gap had been, quite literally, a gamble. Had that gamble paid off in its own way?
He'd been living as Ho Cheon-an for eight years now. He'd accumulated experience nearly equal to his ten years as a veteran player. The experience built up from clashing with Tang Do-gyeong as a Sichuan Nangin might have drawn some conclusion in his subconscious.
"Oh, the dumplings are good today."
Watching Black Cat shove a dumpling into her mouth through the Shadow Image Qi Gong, Ho Cheon-an was swept up in complicated feelings.
I was definitely cooling my head in my room.
After that, his consciousness had cut out. Considering how he'd been running wild trying to lure Tang Do-gyeong right before, it wouldn't have been strange if he'd just collapsed and slept it off...
But the throbbing in his head and the state of his body, as if he'd drunk hard liquor, were strange no matter how he looked at it.
And the fact that Tang Do-gyeong had conveniently entered an enlightened state while he was unconscious was also strange.
I just can't figure it out...
Circumstantially, the most suspicious person was Black Cat. She was the one who hovered around him the most, and she'd also deliberately approached him after the Yeo Il-ye incident.
Given the throbbing left in his body, the strongest suspicion was that she'd injected him with some kind of drug.
But that doesn't make sense either.
Suppose she really had used a drug to wring enlightenment out of him for Tang Do-gyeong. Then Ho Cheon-an shouldn't be sitting here right now. If Black Cat had truly become a Nangin to target him over the Yeo Il-ye matter, and confirmed it through the Tang Do-gyeong incident, the best move from her perspective would be to kidnap Ho Cheon-an and disappear.
And the idea that disappearing would draw attention doesn't hold water either.
Over the two years of trying this and that, Ho Cheon-an had also dug into his own past. He'd spent no small amount of money through information networks, but nothing had come of it.
If Black Cat had come after him after hearing the rumors about Yeo Il-ye, there was a very high chance she had connections to information organizations. Black Cat's identity had never been revealed in the first place, and if Ho Cheon-an disappeared, there would be no way to track him.
Even if it drew attention, this was an environment where she could cleanly evaporate — there was no reason not to.
More than anything, just leaving me alone like this is the worst possible move.
First, Ho Cheon-an himself could develop strong suspicions about his own physical condition. Second, the fact that Tang Do-gyeong gained enlightenment at the Wanderer Inn would soon be known to everyone in the Tang Family, and of course Ho Cheon-an would draw attention. More precisely, the Wanderer Inn itself would be affected, and Ho Cheon-an would be included in that.
Nah, it just doesn't add up.
Black Cat injected a drug, extracted enlightenment, and passed it to Tang Do-gyeong? If that were true, what would Black Cat even gain? From her perspective, it would be nothing but a loss. She'd only raise her target's profile and leave behind suspicions like this.
More than anything, the Black Cat Ho Cheon-an had observed was, aside from having zero social awareness and constantly chewing on puffed snacks, a pretty decent junior.
Still, Ho Cheon-an left a corner of wariness in his heart. The lingering throb in his body, the Shadow Image Qi Gong — there were still uncomfortable points. Unless he learned Black Cat's true identity, this level of caution was appropriate for now.
"Hah."
Ho Cheon-an sipped the broth of his noodles and thought.
I really need to get my head on straight now.
From nearly losing his life to Yeo Il-ye all the way until Tang Do-gyeong left, the chaos erupting from every direction had drained his soul dry.
After the storm passed and daily life returned, he realized no small number of things.
That he'd grown far too comfortable in this Wanderer Inn where he'd stayed for seven years. Buried in the daily life of a Sichuan Nangin, from the middle onward he'd failed to adapt and just been dragged along, only to suddenly look up and find his whole body aching and every incident already over.
The conclusion of the Tang Do-gyeong affair had been a stinging whip for Ho Cheon-an as well.
"Ten-year veteran" was an old story now — all that remained was Ho Cheon-an, a second-rate warrior with seven years of zero growth.
He'd thought he needed to make plans before his renown snowballed, but in the end his rear end had been too heavy to move.
There was a saying about chewing with your gums if you had no teeth, and Ho Cheon-an was exactly that type.
If you have no teeth, you should get dentures — why are you chewing with your gums?
Playing around every day with third-rate thugs and his idiot first-rate peers had turned both his body and mind to stone.
If he was going to break out of his shell, he should have charged forward at a speed that would leave others unable to keep up just from watching — yet he hadn't even started.
It was time to shed second-rate Ho Cheon-an and Sichuan Nangin Ho Cheon-an, and draw up the parts of himself that were a ten-year veteran and an eight-year martial artist.
"Ahh, this cool sensation. Time to return as a Veteran."
"...Senior, did you eat something weird?"
"No. I simply just got reborn."
Watching Ho Cheon-an suddenly start spouting nonsense, Black Cat snorted a laugh. That face full of worry for the past week finally seemed to have shaken it off.
The vacant, dried-fish eyes of someone beaten down by the world's storms finally had their spark back. Black Cat hoped that look would last as long as possible. What she wanted to see was a free-roaming, chaotic tangle of thread — not a thread that simply got dragged wherever she pulled it.
Still, good that he's perked up.
It was June now.
The month when summer would arrive.