Warm Ice
Tring-tring~
Baedal-ui Hojok order~
The jade plaque hanging beneath the lamplight on the kitchen wall of Mugung Hyeoptak chimed softly.
Baedal-ui Hojok. The era of sealed phoenix-letter dispatches, when martial artists once risked their lives just to exchange messages, was long gone; now this strange order plaque ruled the food culture of Murim.
You wrote your name, chose your meal, paid with silver through the jade plaque, and the delivery envoys riding iron steeds would slice through the wind and race a thousand li without hesitation.
"Yeonhwa! Order! Don't just stand there spacing out!"
Jangro Suksu’s voice thundered through the kitchen as he turned a massive wok over the stove. Yeonhwa hurriedly wiped her hands and ran to the jade plaque.
"Where is it, Master?"
"The north gate market in Chang'an, where the General Headquarters branch is. A huge order. Looks like they've finally succeeded in conquering Binghyeol and want to throw a feast to celebrate."
Yeonhwa read the details that appeared on the jade plaque.
Order received: Chang'an north gate market — six Pepper Steaks (medium rare, heavy on the pepper), six bowls of old-fashioned onion soup (extra Gruyère cheese), additional baguettes (freshly baked), two bottles of ice wine. Note: the ice must be chilled with that ice.
That ice. It had to be the ice left behind by Binghyeol, the ice brought back by Cheongryumun. Several customers had already asked about it as they passed through, so it made sense the rumor had spread.
"Yeonhwa, want to give it a try?"
Jangro Suksu was offering her the chance to use the ice herself.
Yeonhwa swallowed and nodded.
"Yes, Master. And perhaps using it this way is what Master Lee Do-cheong would have wanted. Just as his qi protected the disciples of the East Gate, now it can be used to fill the hunger of Murim."
"Good. Then let’s begin. Raise your fire power to the maximum!"
At Jangro Suksu’s command, the kitchen instantly turned into a battlefield.
Jangro Suksu picked up his knife. Six slabs of beef fell apart in thick, heavy cuts. Each time his palm pressed down on the meat, coarsely crushed peppercorns drove deep into it.
Sizzle—
As the meat hit the hot pan, the scent of pepper flooded the kitchen. The rich aroma of beef browning to perfection made her nose twitch on its own.
On the other side, the assistant cooks tended the onion soup.
The onions had already been simmering for a long time at the bottom of the pot, darkening to a deep brown. When the broth the assistants had prepared was poured in, a savory sweetness rose into the air.
Inside the oven, the baguettes began to swell. Crust hard as the mystery of duh, soft within like the mystery of softness—crisp on the outside, tender on the inside.
Yeonhwa carefully approached the ice from Binghyeol.
A pale blue chill drifted across the surface, drawing in the surrounding heat.
She placed a bottle of ice wine on top of it. The bottle turned cold in an instant, and beads of water formed across the glass. She laid the glasses there for a moment as well.
"Today... you're going to headquarters, aren't you, sir?"
Lee Do-cheong’s lingering heart. The will he had proven. Warmth gathered into the shape of blue ice.
Yeonhwa tapped the end of the ice with one finger. For some reason, it felt like the only proper way to say goodbye.
Tring-tring~
Another order sounded. This time it was from the south gate: Margherita pizza, carbonara, and salmon carpaccio. Orders came pouring in.
"Yeonhwa! Stretch the dough! I'll spread the sauce!"
At Jangro Suksu’s command, Yeonhwa tossed the flour dough into the air and caught it again.
She spun her wrists, thinning it into a delicate sheet, and when she passed it to her master, he spread the red tomato sauce across it in an instant.
Snowflake-like geon-rak and basil were scattered over the top, and then it went straight into the oven.
The carbonara that followed was also Jangro Suksu’s domain.
He fried the bacon to render out the fat, tossed in the noodles, and at the exact breathless instant before turning off the heat, mixed in the egg yolks to finish a sauce so smooth it was like cream.
Last came the salmon carpaccio, briefly chilled atop Binghyeol’s ice.
A rough engine sound came from outside. It was a delivery envoy of Baedal-ui Hojok, riding a steel steed—Suguta. He took off his helmet and laughed heartily.
"Chef! Business is booming today! The headquarters people are spending money like water!"
"Mind your tongue. That money is someone’s blood price too. Ride carefully."
As he secured the heavy delivery case to the back of the steed, Jangro Suksu spoke sternly. The delivery envoy scratched his head.
"Well, yes. But the dead are dead, and as long as the living are happy, even the dead can rest easy, right? Anyway, who do you think I am? I’m the fastest man in Murim. I’ll get there before the soup so much as sloshes, let alone cools!"
The steel steed roared and vanished into the darkness. The wind swept through the inn once before passing on. The kitchen fell quiet for a moment, but even that silence was soon broken.
Clunk.
The door opened, and customers came in.
They were middle-aged martial officers from the Xining branch of the General Headquarters. Their clothes still carried the smell of blood and soot they hadn’t yet washed out. They set their heavy swords on the tables and took their seats.
"The investigation confirmed it: Binghyeol has been fully conquered and is now gone. But the price was high."
One of them added quietly, "Cheongdo Great Hero Lee Do-cheong... he was a transcendent-level hero, and yet a star who should have shone over Murim has fallen. A terrible loss. His name will be written into the records of righteousness—as the unbreakable shield that stopped Gucheon Binghyeol."
Records. Someone had died, and yet the living reduced it to a few sheets of paper and a feast.
"One ice wine for each of us."
Yeonhwa brought the ice wine from the back of the kitchen. The glass chilled by Binghyeol’s ice carried a cold breath around it.
The martial officer took a sip of the wine and narrowed his eyes.
"...This ice is no ordinary thing."
"It’s the remains of Binghyeol. The qi of the one who guarded it still lingers there."
At Jangro Suksu’s words, the martial officer fell silent. He held the glass and stared at the ice for a long time. Perhaps he, too, saw Lee Do-cheong’s back in that cup.
As the night deepened, the steel steed that had gone to the south gate returned. This time, the delivery hero’s face had lost every trace of laughter.
"Chef, it’s chaos out there."
He drank some cold water to wet his throat before continuing.
"The headquarters people are in festival mode, but those seated in the corners had their food in front of them and were crying halfway through the meal. They kept calling out names while they ate... honestly, in ten years as a delivery man, I’ve never seen anything like it."
Jangro Suksu said nothing and shut his eyes tightly. Yeonhwa did the same. For some reason, the scene seemed vivid before her too, because she had already seen a grief that wasn’t far away.
Tring-tring~
Yet another order rang out.
Order received: guard post near the cemetery on Xining’s northern outskirts — two servings of pot-au-feu, four ice cream cones.
Yeonhwa stared at the order for a moment, thinking. A cemetery? Who would be ordering food there in the dead of night? At a graveyard, of all places.
The delivery envoy shrugged.
"Probably the mourners keeping vigil beside the one who was buried today. Or maybe the disciples who can’t bear to forget him."
Jangro Suksu began stirring vanilla milk over Binghyeol’s ice, starting to solidify the ice cream. His hands were more meticulous than usual.
He wrapped the pot-au-feu twice over to make sure not a drop of broth would leak, and packed the ice cream into a chilled container with shards of ice.
"Ride carefully. The wind out there will be cold."
With Jangro Suksu’s sendoff, the steel steed once again cut through the darkness and disappeared.
Now only the server girls, the assistant cooks, and their master remained in the inn.
Binghyeol’s ice still sat there in its place. No matter how much was chipped away or how much fire touched it, it kept its original size—a treasured object, no, a sacred relic. It held the entirety of one person.
Yeonhwa stared at the ice and murmured softly,
"Can you hear me? Your qi traveled through all of Murim today."
Today, your courage cooled the headquarters’ cups, made the salmon at the feast turn firm and glossy, and kept the cemetery’s ice cream cold.
A man who was cold, yet warmer than anyone else. Now his qi was being delivered across Murim—into someone’s cup, onto someone’s plate, and into the mouth of someone sunk in grief.
"Yeonhwa."
"Yes, Master."
"Whether it’s Baedal-ui Hojok or a steel steed, it doesn’t matter. Technology may change, and the world may change, but there is one thing that never does."
Jangro Suksu added,
"What matters is that there must be a warm place for the one who comes home to eat. And a kitchen that lets us remember the one who’s gone as we swallow a meal. That’s why we protect this place."
Outside, the faint ring of tring-tring announcing yet another order seemed to drift in again and again.
Martial artists kept challenging calamities, headquarters kept issuing commands, and heroes kept dying or returning alive. And Mugung Hyeoptak stood right where those paths overlapped, remaining the pillar that held them all up.
Yeonhwa touched the Binghyeol ice one last time with her fingertip.
It was cold.
But that cold had already become warmth, melting the knot in someone’s heart.
"Yes, Master."
Yeonhwa prepared to stoke the fire again. The nights of Murim were long, and delivery never stopped.
And the bonds of the past, too, would flow once more to the same place.
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