Heuk-aksa
A flute remembers the breath before it ever touches the lips.
I draw in air so I can make a sound. But what truly drives the breath outward isn’t the lungs — it’s the heart. That’s because sound-based martial arts aren’t a trick of the fingertips. They’re forged through the heartbeat.
I think back to the first day I stopped by Mugung Hyeoptak. It was an oddly unfamiliar place.
Bloodstained wandering swordsmen sat across from one another, yet in the kitchen, the rich scent of butter mingled with the sweet aroma of geonrak, or cheese.
I set my flute aside and drank the hot nam-man-si, tomato soup, that the server named Yeonhwa brought out for me.
The warmth that touched my tongue lingered far longer than I’d expected. Long afterward, whenever I held my flute, I would unconsciously let a little of that tavern’s atmosphere seep into the sound. It had been noisy there, but the grain of that noise was somehow warm.
But what surrounds me now is not the warmth of broth, but the wind of a parched forest.
I walk along the ridge, making no sound. Before my footsteps can even land, faint waves of vibration are already flowing ahead of me. Forcing their way through the woods, sounds imperceptible to human ears spread outward in ripples.
That is my sight. Through the trembling leaves and the friction of insects crawling across bark, I sketch the shape of the world in my mind.
The murim is vast. If hyeol-mun and yeon-ok are the deep scars that have raked across this world, then murim is the skin stretched over them.
At a glance, that skin looks intact, but beneath it, a fever is boiling. A taut tension, like flesh swollen and ready to burst, presses down on the earth.
Mu-hyeon-gok. The group that has been trailing after Cheol-ya still moves in secret.
They never announce their own name, but the underworld information brokers have given them one: the Invisible Valley. Those who vanish from sight, those who tread in their target’s shadow while leaving no trace behind.
They are after Cheol-ya. I don’t know why.
Ever since before Manhon Yeon-ok closed, those bastards had been on his tail, and after the purgatory vanished, they only grew more relentless in their search for his traces.
Was it because he was the only survivor to come back from the end of the purgatory? Because they wanted to seize whatever he had seen in the void? Or maybe they simply wanted the sword hilt named Cheol-ya in their own hands.
I’d run into them a few times already.
Silent footsteps, dark red clothes, a procession moving with such perfect coordination they didn’t even spare one another a glance.
It wasn’t that they lacked presence. They simply swallowed the surrounding noise whole, like a swamp. They walked as if they had carved their own existence out of the world.
The day I saw them pursuing Cheol-ya, I played my flute.
A single note, short and very low.
Pi-
As I twisted the forest air ever so slightly, their flawless stride slipped out of sync for a fleeting instant.
Such a tiny error it barely left time for one breath. And yet sound-based martial arts can turn a person’s direction without ever cutting their skin. They disturb the heartbeat, then unbalance the body itself.
Cheol-ya used that opening to disappear into the darkness.
In the end, I’d helped him. But the reason was simple enough — the sounds those Mu-hyeon-gok bastards made were irritating.
There was no living pulse in their movements. Only blind killing intent. And in the jianghu, those who live with nothing left but blind impulse are the most dangerous of all.
The current jianghu is overflowing with desire.
The orthodox sects speak of balance. The unorthodox sects speak of profit. The demonic sects speak of expansion. Again and again, the Blood Cult speaks of worship, the righteous path of the Dao, the unorthodox path of freedom, and the demonic path of desire as its source.
Everyone shouts at the top of their lungs, but no one sees the movement of another’s lips. The noise is so thick it blots out even one another’s line of sight — a pandemonium where only shattered scraps of empty words collide in midair.
But I open my ears.
The sound of the wind scraping across dry branches. The snap of grass under an unfamiliar footstep. And the racing thud of fear and greed beneath the rib cage.
Jingle-jingle~
From far below the mountain, an unfamiliar pulse of spiritual energy struck the air.
It was the sound of Mugung Hyeoptak’s jade token ringing. It shouldn’t have reached all the way up into these deep mountains, and yet my finely honed eardrums caught the vibration.
Or maybe I was imagining things because of that cheeky young waitress. No doubt she was ordering another hearty slab of meat before someone else went off to a life-or-death situation.
I turned back and stopped by an old tavern at the foot of the mountain.
With my seven-string zither beside me, I sat in a corner and slowly wiped down my flute. The tavern mistress came over, rubbing her rough hands on her apron.
“Where have you come from, guest? You look like you’re carrying quite a lot.”
“I came from wherever the wind blows.”
I did not smile. A smile from someone who practices sound-based martial arts often mixes in unnecessary overtones and throws people off.
In the middle of the tavern, a few martial artists were pounding the table and making a racket.
“I hear the Zhengxi Headquarters is rounding up mercenaries again. This time it’s the northwest, isn’t it?”
“Seeing those demonic sect bastards expanding their reach from the south, I’d say we’ll be in for a proper showdown before long.”
“Another hyeol-mun opened, they say. Luckily it was right in the middle of Shaanxi, so the Nine Great Sects all rushed in, each trying to claim credit.”
“I heard the Blood Cult has moved its altar recently. To the place where the purgatory’s energy is strongest.”
“How do you know that?”
“This bastard’s Blood Cult! Get him!”
The tavern turned into chaos in no time.
Words are lighter than the wind, and rumors spread like wildfire. I quietly opened my ears. Even without playing my flute, all the noise gathered itself around me.
But the name Mu-hyeon-gok has not yet reached their tongues. A shadow only grows darker when there is a strong light to cast it.
So then, was Cheol-ya a light? Or a blackness that swallowed even light itself? Was what Mu-hyeon-gok coveted a bright flame that would lengthen their shadows, or an abyss deep enough to hide their bodies entirely?
I hadn’t judged him yet. What was certain, however, was that the murim did not move according to the wishes of the Zhengxi Headquarters. Separate from the disaster of hyeol-mun and yeon-ok opening and closing, people’s warped desires moved in their own melody.
Even amid the calamity of gates opening and purgatories closing, human desire plays its own tune.
Some seek to grow stronger. Some merely seek to protect what they already have. Some pursue vengeance for fallen comrades. Some chase the honor of their clan. I walk through the gaps between that chaotic, discordant music.
Sound-based martial arts are not for killing. They are for interference.
They blur bloodshot resolve and pour cold water on blazing rage. And sometimes, on the contrary, they can rouse courage that had been sleeping in despair with a single high note.
A few days ago, I met a young martial artist. He was from the unorthodox path, and claimed he’d been humiliated by an orthodox master. His eyes were red with fury as he grit his teeth. He gripped his sword hilt as though he couldn’t breathe unless he shed blood right then and there.
I lifted the flute to my lips.
Then I sent a thin note drifting into the air.
His pulse slowed just a little, and the murderous waves stabbing through his mind began to soften. I couldn’t erase his anger completely, but the fire that would have made him blindly draw his sword and charge had already died down.
He flinched and glared at me.
“What did you do to me? My body suddenly feels heavy, like soaked cotton.”
“I did nothing. I only wished for your heart to keep beating properly for one more day.”
The heart of the jianghu is beating far too fast right now. It pants like a hunted beast.
No wonder the officials at the Zhengxi Headquarters have such splitting headaches. They’re terrified the next hyeol-mun will burst open, terrified yeon-ok will swallow them whole, terrified the demonic sect will stab them in the back. But that very impatience always creates a crack beneath their feet.
Mu-hyeon-gok are vipers who wedge themselves into that crack.
After stepping back outside the tavern, I looked again toward the forest. An empty space where all presence had been erased completely.
They had noticed me now. I had introduced the impurity of a flute’s sound into their perfect, silent procession.
I gathered the seven-string zither close to my chest and plucked a string.
This time the note was sharper, higher. The whole forest shivered; leaves clashed together with a metallic rattle. The wind jerked violently, then spiraled through the air.
Deep in the woods, the footsteps of Mu-hyeon-gok came to an abrupt halt.
The gazes fixed on me immediately turned and scattered. They were retreating — not because they could not kill me, but because it was not yet the right moment. They were chasing Cheol-ya’s back while also trying to seize control of the great chessboard called the jianghu.
What is more vicious than the slaughter of hyeol-mun and yeon-ok is the greed that pools inside a person’s belly. A purgatory that never closes is an unavoidable disaster, but human stubbornness, like a jar with the bottom knocked out, is a trap that strangles its owner on its own.
I began walking again.
This was a dirt road untouched by the sweet aroma of Mugung Hyeoptak’s food, the noisy piles of documents at the Zhengxi Headquarters, or the ominous tremors of yeon-ok. And yet even on that quiet path, I could still read the vibration of the jianghu’s unrest.
Somewhere in the dark, someone is sharpening a blade. Someone else is setting a trap.
If necessary, with nothing but a single phrase of melody.
I would twist the gears of this madly spinning world just enough to throw them off.
Adjusting the zither strap, I brought the flute back to my lips.
Pi-ii-
The thin flute call stretched long into the darkness and seeped between the leaves. Toward a forest path untouched even by moonlight, I stepped forward without a sound.