Back to Mount Heng (2)
"Could I... learn martial arts too, maybe...?"
The question came out with some difficulty — after all, teaching someone martial arts was no small favor to ask.
And sure enough, Yeon Hwa and Zhuge Yang traded a look, hesitation written all over their faces.
Was it too much to hope...?
Murim folk were known to treasure their arts above their very lives, after all. No matter that I'd saved her life — I refused to hold that over them as leverage. Saving Zhuge Yang was something that had come straight from my heart.
I couldn't go expecting her heart to mirror my own. Of course, being only human, I couldn't help feeling a little stung all the same.
Don't ruin the mood, Ma Won!
"Haha! I-it was a joke, just a joke. I was bored, that's all. D-don't worry about it!"
My voice trembled despite myself.
So the dream of becoming the greatest under heaven would have to wait a little longer.
Thinking exactly that, I turned half away so the disappointment wouldn't show on my face — and then an angel's voice reached my ears.
"Wait, Won! We hesitated for a different reason!"
"Really...?"
I eased back around and met Zhuge Yang's gaze. A firm resolve had settled in her eyes.
"Like it or not, learning martial arts can drag you into the grudges of the murim world. You have to be truly ready for that. If you still want it after hearing that... I'll teach you!"
I'd seen that line countless times in wuxia games. The protagonist who hears it for real ends up tangled in murim grudges something fierce — and then becomes the greatest under heaven!
There was only one answer I could give.
"I'm ready! I've always wanted to learn martial arts!"
"Ahahahaha! Then it's settled! I can't pass down our clan's hereditary arts, but I'll start you off with the foundational techniques!"
And so I began learning martial arts.
"Let me examine your bones and muscles for a moment."
"Yes!"
Bones and muscles! Now there was a term I knew well. Wasn't this how you found out whether someone had been born with a body suited to martial arts?
I'd only ended up playing Three Kingdoms games because of their freedom and the drought of anything new on the market — my true taste had always been wuxia — so terminology like this was old hat to me.
Looked at that way, tumbling into a wuxia world instead of a Three Kingdoms one might have been the natural next step all along. My dream had always been to become the greatest under heaven — no, the strongest in the world.
"Don't be alarmed if you feel a chill. It is part of reading your constitution."
"Understood!"
Yeon Hwa studied my body with a grave, deliberate expression. First she took my pulse; then she pressed her palms firmly into one spot after another across my body.
Just as she'd promised, a cold sensation slipped in through her palms and burrowed deep inside me.
Whether on the forced marches back and forth between Longzhong and Mount Heng, or during my hermit days roughing it in the mountains, I had never once been seriously hurt. Even the time I'd wiped out so spectacularly that a nearby hermit came sprinting over in alarm had ended in nothing worse than a few scrapes.
So naturally, my expectations couldn't help but climb.
After a long while of holding her palms against my body, Yeon Hwa carefully drew them away.
"Whew..."
At the sound of that sigh, my heart dropped like a stone.
"Is... is it bad...?"
"...It is not that. Murim came very close to losing a great... talent."
"Sister Hwa! What is it?"
"I believe... it may be the Heavenly Martial Body."
"The Heavenly Martial Body!!"
A shocked cry burst out of me.
"For a body that has never once trained, the strength and suppleness in his muscles and bones are extraordinary, and his meridians are wide and sturdy. With characteristics like these..."
"That's it! I've read about this in books too — those are the textbook traits of the Heavenly Martial Body! Incredible, Won!"
On the heels of Yeon Hwa's diagnosis, Zhuge Yang vouched for it as well. Me — the Heavenly Martial Body!
"Th-that's a good thing, right...?"
"Of course it is! Hardly five people in an entire generation are ever born with one!"
I knew it! I was this world's protagonist!
For this one moment, at least, there was nothing on earth I envied. Who knew — someday I might even undergo a complete physical rebirth and heal these burn scars too!
I couldn't hide my excitement. If this incredible Heavenly Martial Body joined forces with my Treasure Locator, it felt like there was nothing I couldn't do.
My mind had already wandered off into a fantasy where I'd become the greatest under heaven, married a beautiful wife, and fathered five children.
The imaginary kids all had bright, sparkling eyes and dimples in their cheeks.
Whoa. Got a little carried away there.
I reclaimed my senses.
"I shall teach you the foundational arts once your dantian has been formed."
Determined not to miss a single word, I hung on Yeon Hwa's every syllable with my eyes wide open. There wasn't much to memorize yet, though. I sat obediently and folded myself into the lotus position.
I'd come across more than a few stories that made a first attempt at the lotus position look like torture, but my supple body managed it without a whisper of discomfort.
Yeon Hwa drew a slow breath, gazing at Ma Won's back where he sat cross-legged.
She reached out and laid her palms against it. She wanted to give this boy — the one who had saved Zhuge Yang's life — anything and everything. Fortunately, helping someone form a dantian was a task she had performed many times before.
"Ma Won. Steady your breathing now, and accept my qi."
"Yes!"
The cold qi that was the hallmark of the internal cultivation method she had mastered poured from her palms and flowed into his body.
Riding his wide, sturdy meridians, it soon reached the vicinity of his navel.
Now all that remained was to guide it with the finest control and shape the dantian.
That was when it happened. The qi began to scatter.
'That's strange?'
Yeon Hwa tried again. And again, the moment the qi drew near his navel, it fell apart.
She cast her perception inward and observed the interior of his body.
Before long, she uncovered a shocking truth. The qi core — the very foundation a dantian must be built upon — was damaged, and his energy was leaking out through the wound.
Since a dantian could only take shape around an intact core, any dantian forced into being on this broken foundation would scatter in moments.
It was hard to believe, but the damage was so precise it might as well have been deliberate — grave enough to devilishly block dantian formation, yet mild enough to leave ordinary life untouched.
Yeon Hwa withdrew her qi.
The instant her palms left his back, he asked eagerly:
"Is it done?! Can I learn martial arts now?!"
Yeon Hwa could not bring herself to answer.
When Yeon Hwa failed, Zhuge Yang stepped up.
"Let me try!"
She, too, had only just reached the First-Class realm, and insisted that while she lacked experience, she could still manage to help form a dantian.
...And she failed spectacularly.
"Ah, it's no useee!"
All I felt was a chill; I had no idea what was happening inside me. But from what they told me afterward, she had forced her internal energy into me to hammer a dantian into shape, only for it to drain away like water poured into a bottomless jar.
Her body still far from fully recovered, she kept trying until the sweat ran off her like rain, and at my pleading she finally gave up.
"I-I'm sorry, Won..."
"It's not even your fault."
"But still..."
It wasn't that I felt no disappointment. But watching Zhuge Yang wear herself down for my sake, something else rose up ahead of it.
To her, still apologizing over and over, I gave my honest heart.
"The Heavenly Martial Body... sure, it stings to be born with a constitution this blessed and still never get to learn martial arts. But right now? I'm genuinely okay. I cured your illness, remember? If I could have healed my dantian but couldn't have saved you... that would have been far more unbearable. I mean that."
"Uu... uuuu..."
Even after hearing me out, she still looked stricken, clutching her chest and letting out little pained sounds. Her big eyes brimmed, one blink away from spilling over.
If I didn't comfort her soon, the dam was going to break.
"And besides — somewhere out there in this world, there has to be a way to heal a damaged qi core. Don't you think?"
"...Right. There's definitely a way... This time it's my turn — I will fix it for you, Won! I swear!"
"I believe you, Yang!"
"Won...!"
Hand in hand, we renewed our resolve.
After that, we set out for Mount Heng once more.
The road there was a dull one. Dull, mind you, was a blessing.
The journey to find the Ten-Thousand-Year Snow Ginseng had been desperate and merciless — a memory of staking everything on pure uncertainty with nothing guaranteed, one I never wanted to relive as long as I lived.
"Ahahahaha! Right! So you did hear me! You didn't answer, so I figured you hadn't!"
"How could I not have heard it, Young Miss? It is only that... you were gravely ill at the time, and when you asked me such a question, I could not bring myself to answer."
"To think I was just rambling whatever came to mind, and it happened to be the meaning of the purple flower — I clearly wasn't in my right mind, huh? Ahaha!"
"Of all the meanings it could have had — parting, death, sorrow... it was a little difficult."
"No... even I can tell that one was on you, Yang. Thank goodness it all worked out — if it hadn't, imagine how heartbroken Yeon Hwa would've been?"
"The Young Miss has done nothing wrong! I merely said it was a little awkward, didn't I?"
Geesh. I'd stuck my nose in for nothing and hadn't even broken even. Yeon Hwa was a hopeless Zhuge Yang fangirl.
Her ties to the Zhuge Family had been severed long ago, yet she still unfailingly addressed Zhuge Yang as 'Young Miss' — even though Zhuge Yang affectionately called her 'Sister Hwa' in return.
We talked about the past, and we talked about the future.
It was Zhuge Yang who opened the door to a new topic.
"Sister Hwa, are you going to get married someday?"
"M-marriage? ...I don't suppose I will...?"
"And children? Will you have children too?"
"I... I suppose I would..."
To think Yeon Hwa — usually sharp as a freshly honed blade — could get this flustered. Was marriage really something to be so embarrassed about?
Then Zhuge Yang asked me too.
Her manner was offhand, as if she were only asking because she'd asked Yeon Hwa first.
"What about you, Won? Going to get married?"
I'll show her I've got one up on Yeon Hwa! With that thought, I answered with all the bravado I had.
"Of course I am!"
"Ahahahaha! Sounds like you really want to! And kids? Are you going to have kids too?"
"Obviously! Kids are non-negotiable! I'm having at least five! Children are the greatest blessing life has to offer! ...They're my dream, too."
The memory of my earlier daydream — of having children with Zhuge Yang — surfaced, and the words 'my dream, too' slipped out before I could stop them.
I was laying it on a bit thick, but I meant most of it. I did want at least two children. I still remembered how much I'd envied friends with brothers and sisters back in my old life.
"Ahaha... r-right, of course you'd have kids, I mean... th-that's only natural... A-anyway, the weather is gorgeous today! Don't you think?!"
What kind of abrupt subject change was that, right in the middle of a conversation about marriage?
Storm clouds were hanging low enough to touch, promising rain before long.
Sure enough, raindrops began to fall — one, then two — and we scrambled to find shelter.
As a fine drizzle set in, Zhuge Yang's shoulders sagged.
'Yang must really hate rain.'
Come to think of it, it had rained plenty of times while we lived together. Amending my intel.
'Yang must really hate getting caught in the rain!'