Let’s Spar Again Tomorrow
“Jung Nam-jung wins! Next up is Seo Jin-ah—”
Even while the duels were underway, half the third-generation disciples kept glancing my way.
It was because Ha Seo-hwa had pulled up a seat right beside me and was openly goading me into another spar.
“Let’s do it tomorrow too.”
“I’m sorry. The place where that wooden sword hit me earlier still aches.”
“You blocked all the attacks.”
That was true, but that still didn’t make it something the defeated party should be saying so proudly.
What, did she get possessed by the ghost of someone who died after failing to spar?
As a child, Ha Seo-hwa hadn’t liked dueling very much. She didn’t enjoy testing herself against others, and the gap between her skill and everyone else’s was obvious.
There was little to gain from sparring, so she had devoted herself to solitary training instead.
I heard she used to lose, though.
Whenever she lost, she’d train like a woman possessed and then, within three days, ask for another duel.
Apparently, after enough of those revenge matches, the disciples had started avoiding sparring with her, though that was separate from the interest they already had in her.
I hadn’t seen that vindictive side of her myself, since it had all happened before I entered the sect.
Everything I knew had been passed down by senior brothers, but maybe that old temperament was waking up again.
“Why won’t you do it?”
“Senior Sister Seo-hwa, I only entered the sect not long ago.”
“I know.”
“For now, I think it’s better to focus on the basics rather than sparring too much.”
“I was on par with you.”
“You didn’t even use your internal energy properly.”
“You’ve only been training for two years less than I have, and I still lost to you.”
“……Yes. That is true, isn’t it?”
“Is that any way to put it?”
Of course it wasn’t.
I was tempted to say so, but too many eyes were watching.
Her pride was on the line, so I couldn’t be the one to say it out loud.
A child’s year carried different weight from an adult’s.
No matter how brilliant someone might be, in childhood the one who entered the path of martial arts earlier was usually stronger.
The problem was that I had won.
And because she looked as though she had no intention of backing down, I raised the right hand that had unleashed the Plum Blossom Fist to shoulder height.
Maybe it was because she remembered the one move that had decided the match, but Ha Seo-hwa flinched a little.
“To be honest, when I used the Plum Blossom Fist earlier, I was injured too, Senior Sister. So for now, I’d like to avoid sparring.”
At the word injured, Ha Seo-hwa’s usually rigid expression softened a little.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m not seriously hurt. Just a little numbness in the wrist.”
Of course that was a lie.
I wasn’t such a fool as to get hurt by my own technique.
Honestly, in the middle of speaking, I thought I should have just claimed I was hurt when I took her final attack.
Either way.
It seemed my words had finally gotten through, because Ha Seo-hwa’s face darkened.
“I’ll go to the Medicine Hall and bring back some medicine. If it’s just a light bruise, you’ll be as good as new by tomorrow.”
So all I’d done was make her worry, and it looked like that was the extent of the damage.
“It’s really all right. The Hall Lord of the Medicine Hall must be busy, and for something this minor—”
“I’ll go get medicine.”
“…….”
“So let’s spar again tomorrow.”
“……Yes. In that case, I’ll leave it to you.”
“Good.”
Only after hearing my answer did Ha Seo-hwa turn her head back toward the training ground.
But why was she still wearing that awkward, unresolved expression?
I couldn’t tell, but it wasn’t something I needed to worry about.
If I just lose casually tomorrow, she’ll back off on her own.
The only reason I had beaten Ha Seo-hwa in that spar was to prove my own talent.
There was nothing else to it.
Besides, Ha Seo-hwa was the type of genius who would become one of the Five Dragons and Three Phoenixes if left to herself and allowed to train diligently.
I had no intention of meddling in her future and twisting it into something worse.
By the time the sparring ended, Jung Nam-jung and Seo Jin-ah walked over to us without hesitation.
Seo Jin-ah sat down right beside Ha Seo-hwa and asked curiously, “What were you two talking about?”
Ha Seo-hwa answered shortly, “We talked about sparring again tomorrow.”
“Really? That’s too bad. Honestly, these days, aside from you, Seo-hwa, nobody else is much of a match for me, so I was planning to ask you—”
“I think Senior Brother and Senior Sister could just spar directly.”
“We’re already doing that in afternoon practice. Do you know how boring it gets fighting the same person every day?”
The reason Jung Nam-jung and Seo Jin-ah were so close was partly because they had entered the sect at the same time and were the same age, but also because their masters were close.
Thanks to their teachers’ encouragement, they often trained together, and whenever they did, the two of them would end up sparring.
It made sense they’d be sick of it.
They were supposed to be two people growing by competing with each other, but if you collided too often, exhaustion tended to win out over fighting spirit.
“Hmm, Seo-hwa. Your hands are really rough.”
“I’m aware.”
“They’re that rough already—why not at least put on some camellia oil?”
“If I train, they split again. It’s fine.”
“Still…”
After a few more idle exchanges, the conversation was mostly led by Jung Nam-jung and Seo Jin-ah until noon.
Ha Seo-hwa and I mostly watched the sparring in silence, answering briefly whenever the two of them addressed us.
When practice at Hwa-yeon Hall ended, the third-generation disciples dragged their tired bodies toward the dining hall.
On the way, Jung Nam-jung said, “Junior Brother. You didn’t forget the promise you made yesterday, did you?”
“No. Today I said I’d show you the places around Mount Hua you haven’t seen yet.”
I followed obediently behind Jung Nam-jung and Seo Jin-ah, who were walking in front.
As we left Hwa-yeon Hall, I noticed the second-generation disciples were also watching me.
In any case, the net had been cast.
Not only over the third-generation disciples, but over the sect’s elders as well, with the second-generation disciples as well.
I didn’t know who would get caught in it first, but it was clear that time was not on their side.
* * *
Ha Seo-hwa took medicine from the Medicine Hall and handed it to Yoo Sung-woon, who was eating lunch in the dining hall.
She did not eat with him.
She had taken breakfast and lunch with bigu dan, fasting pills, and had done the same throughout the year she spent training at Hwa-yeon Hall.
“Make sure you put it on. We have to spar tomorrow.”
“Understood. Please go carefully, Senior Sister.”
“……Mm.”
Ha Seo-hwa returned to her quarters without looking back.
Her quarters were also the residence of her grand-sister apprentice, Jin Young-mae.
Jin Young-mae, Master Hyeon So-eun, and Ha Seo-hwa were living together as three generations under one roof.
Because of that, Ha Seo-hwa’s training grounds naturally became the front courtyard of the residence.
Standing in the yard with a wooden sword in hand, Ha Seo-hwa closed her eyes.
Then, in her mind, she fashioned a single enemy and placed him before her.
It was Yoo Sung-woon, the one who had made her remember the sting of defeat after so long.
She began retracing the reasons for her loss.
From the moment she had given him those first three moves, surprise had followed surprise.
The basic techniques Yoo Sung-woon had used surpassed everything she had expected.
The shock didn’t end there. Even after pouring out a relentless assault, she had still been unable to break through his defense.
That’s where it started.
The illusion of Yoo Sung-woon halted his defense and took the opening stance of the Falling Blossom Sword Art.
Ha Seo-hwa thrust her wooden sword straight ahead.
Yet for some reason, the tip of her blade failed to reach Yoo Sung-woon and instead stabbed into the ground.
Just like now.
No matter how many times she replayed it, she still couldn’t find a way to break through Yoo Sung-woon’s Falling Blossom Sword Art.
She was pushed back, and back again, until at some point the opponent let go of the wooden sword into empty air.
The next instant, he slipped deep into her guard and drove the Plum Blossom Fist into the lower abdomen, where the dantian was located.
When the illusion attacked, Ha Seo-hwa lost her balance without realizing it and fell flat on her backside.
Only then did she open her eyes.
This time, she had meant to block it.
And yet she had still been swept aside by the attack, even though it was only an illusion.
Her hand was already clutching her lower abdomen instead of the wooden sword.
If that had been a life-and-death fight...
A dreadful thought flickered through her mind and vanished.
Of course, the dantian did not break so easily.
According to Master Hyeon So-eun, the only way to shatter it was to drive true qi deep inside and burst it open as if crushing it in one’s grasp.
But a vital point was still a vital point.
The pain on impact had been less shocking than the chill that ran through her.
Her life as a martial artist had been threatened, and for a brief moment she had lost her reason and overused her internal energy.
How can he do that?
Yoo Sung-woon had only been learning the basics, including Plum Blossom Qi Gong, for half a year.
And yet, judging by what he had achieved, he had probably shown tremendous accomplishment long before that.
She was no different.
It had been around six months after her own entry that she first managed to use the Plum Blossom Sword, Plum Blossom Fist, and Plum Blossom Steps without any wasted motion.
Back then, her master and grand-sister apprentice had been shocked by her progress and praised her highly.
But compared with herself, Yoo Sung-woon was on an entirely different level.
And that wasn’t all. He had even displayed the Falling Blossom Sword Art, which lay far beyond the level of the basics.
One couldn’t perfectly mimic the Falling Blossom Sword Art just by watching the master demonstrate it. Even if one had the manual, it would be the same.
Only with proper instruction and steady training could one achieve results like that.
And yet there was some lunatic who could watch it once and imitate it.
Ha Seo-hwa stood up again and swung her wooden sword.
It was one of the forms Yoo Sung-woon had used in the Falling Blossom Sword Art.
“I gave you all three moves, Senior Sister.”
Her brows knit slightly.
His voice still lingered in her ears.
His Falling Blossom Sword Art was still vivid before her eyes.
I thought I’d at least understood some of the subtleties of the Falling Blossom Sword Art myself.
The more she swung, the more it was compared to Yoo Sung-woon’s version, until in the end her own sword began to look crude and ugly.
The Falling Blossom Sword Art in her mind was free of all excess, and the tip of the blade followed the falling plum blossoms with graceful ease.
To think he started training long after I did, and yet I’m still not as good as my junior brother.
In her mind, she crossed blades with the Falling Blossom Sword Art Yoo Sung-woon had used, but she couldn’t get ahead even by a single form. The more she tried, the stronger the force behind the wooden sword became.
I hate this.
Herself, for resenting her junior brother.
The effort she had built up, all of it, crumbling in an instant.
I hate geniuses.
People who caught up to everything she had built with desperate effort in the blink of an eye.
Talent that made effort feel meaningless.
She wasn’t good with words, but she had excellent ears for listening.
The expectations the sect’s elders placed on her.
And the things the third-generation disciples said about her—she knew them all.
Everyone called her a genius.
No.
But Ha Seo-hwa wanted to shout it out then and there.
There was no other disciple in Mount Hua who trained as desperately as she did.
Not among the third-generation disciples, and not even if you counted the second-generation disciples as well—there was no one who poured more time into training than she did.
Her strength was not the result of talent, but of effort that had carved away at her very bones.
And above all—
I hate myself...!
At the center of it all was herself: someone who trained martial arts with relentless intensity, yet somehow hated martial arts.
Had the inner demon she had only ever heard about finally come for her?
But this was a feeling she had carried since before she ever entered the Mount Hua Sect.
Many third-generation disciples had been abandoned by their parents because of cold and hunger.
Ha Seo-hwa was different.
Before she was taken in by Jin Young-mae, she had lived as an ordinary girl in an ordinary village, and the thing that had twisted her life out of shape was none other than martial arts and martial artists.
Her father and mother had deliberately buried her in the snow in the yard to hide her, then pretended to be furious in order to draw the attention of wandering martial artists.
The two of them had been cruelly killed by those very martial artists.
Though it had been black-path martial arts, to her the righteous sects’ techniques and the black-path’s techniques were all just cruel instruments.
So perhaps it was only natural that she hated martial arts even while training in them.
The more she trained, the more she became like the murderers who had killed her parents.
And yet, if she had possessed strength at that time—
She would not have had to lose them.
So she hated martial arts.
Because her parents had died before her eyes, coughing blood onto the ground.
And because of that, she trained all the more fiercely.
Martial arts were the only thing that allowed a girl who had lost her home to continue living in the Mount Hua Sect.
Besides, if she ever wanted revenge on the martial artists who had killed her parents, she needed to sharpen her power.
Even though it was night, and dark.
She had burned the faces of the men she had seen in the snowfield into the depths of her mind.
Even now, they were the sort of faces that appeared in her dreams.
But if, after working so hard, she still couldn’t beat a genius like Yoo Sung-woon—
What was the point of putting herself through such painful training?
She ate those tasteless fasting pills every day and drove herself mercilessly because she did not want to lose anything else.
I’ll get my revenge.
Whenever she pushed herself harshly, one question would suddenly rise up in her mind.
Can I really beat those men?
She had already been utterly defeated by a junior brother who had entered the sect only half a year ago. Even if she found her parents’ enemies, revenge would be impossible.
At this rate, she’d be lucky if she wasn’t killed the same way her parents had been and left as feed for wild beasts.
As her mind grew rough, so did her sword path.
The blade, once devoted to swift and illusionary sword techniques, soon grew tyrannical.
Even the muscles in the arm wielding the sword cried out in protest.
And then, all at once—
“Enough.”
At the low voice, Ha Seo-hwa froze.
She had stopped in an awkward stance and turned her head. Not far away, Jin Young-mae wore an expression that was difficult to read.
“You’ve been soothing your hunger with fasting pills again, haven’t you, child.”
“Grandmaster...”
Ha Seo-hwa bowed her head.
The gentle voice only made her more afraid.
It looked as though Jin Young-mae had stopped by the residence briefly after working somewhere else, but had she heard about what happened at Hwa-yeon Hall on the way back?
As an elder of the Mount Hua Sect, she would eventually hear about it anyway, but Ha Seo-hwa wanted her to hear it as late as possible.
Jin Young-mae sighed at the way Ha Seo-hwa behaved, like a child trying not to be caught in a wrongdoing.
Then she dusted off the dirt on her martial robes.
“Haven’t I told you enough times that meals matter when you’re young? If you want to achieve greatness, you have to eat properly. If you don’t, your sword path will waver.”
It was only concern, but to Ha Seo-hwa it still sounded like a stern scolding.
More importantly, the reason her sword path had wavered wasn’t because she hadn’t eaten properly.
“I heard about what happened at Hwa-yeon Hall on the way here.”
At Jin Young-mae’s words, Ha Seo-hwa’s heart dropped.
“Yes...”
“I’m not reproaching you. That child has already drawn the attention of the other elders and the sect leader.”
Ha Seo-hwa couldn’t help frowning a little.
Jin Young-mae’s words sounded as though she had expected Ha Seo-hwa to lose to Yoo Sung-woon.
What’s more, the elders and the sect leader were watching Yoo Sung-woon too.
Because I lost?
Was that why they were keeping an eye on him?
Ha Seo-hwa lightly grabbed the sleeve of Jin Young-mae’s robe.
“G-grandmaster, do you also have an interest in Yoo Sung-woon?”
“Naturally. Others are interested in him as well, and he’s a disciple who has been standing out recently.”
Ha Seo-hwa’s chest sank.
At the same time, she was relieved that she had been keeping her head bowed.
She hadn’t looked in a mirror, but she was certain she wasn’t wearing a face worthy of showing her respected grandmaster.
“That child used the Falling Blossom Sword Art, didn’t he? Do you know how that happened?”
“……He said he copied the Falling Blossom Sword Art that you showed as a demonstration when he first entered the sect, Senior Uncle Yoo.”
Hearing that, Jin Young-mae recalled something she had once heard in a meeting.
Even though it had been the Falling Blossom Sword Art performed slowly enough for a child to see, they said he had identified the exact flaw in an expert at the Peak realm.
It had been hard to believe, but Jeok Mu-ha never lied about martial arts.
And now that she had heard her own grand-disciple had been driven back by the Falling Blossom Sword Art, she could feel it in her bones.
Jin Young-mae realized only belatedly that her fingertips were trembling.
A dragon has entered Mount Hua.
According to the second-generation disciple who had reported to her, the sword forms of the Falling Blossom Sword Art had been clean, with nothing wasted in them.
The instructors at Hwa-yeon Hall had already long since mastered the Falling Blossom Sword Art.
As for whether it was a peerless sword art or not, she did not think their assessment of the Falling Blossom Sword Art would differ from her own.
“For you, that must have been your first loss in a long time. Did you feel anything after losing?”
“I’ll definitely win tomorrow.”
“That wasn’t what I was asking.”
Ever since she had taken in the orphaned girl who had lost her parents, Jin Young-mae had treated Ha Seo-hwa not just as a disciple, but almost as a granddaughter.
With both her talent in martial arts and her striking appearance, it was impossible not to cherish her.
What is this child so anxious about?
She was a girl who had lost her parents.
Not as much as her parents could have, perhaps, but Jin Young-mae had showered Seo-hwa with affection all this time so she could be a comfort to her.
So much so that even her own disciple, and Ha Seo-hwa’s master, Hyeon So-eun, had grown jealous.
Of course, Hyeon So-eun cherished Ha Seo-hwa too, treating her like her own daughter.
And yet it still wasn’t enough?
Even though the Mount Hua Sect didn’t cast its disciples aside, she still didn’t believe it.
Ha Seo-hwa awkwardly avoided Jin Young-mae’s gaze.
Orphaned disciples often chose training as harsh as Ha Seo-hwa’s.
It came from a vague fear that if they neglected their training, even their own sect might abandon them.
Because this anxiety came from the imagination of children, no amount of reassurance could truly shake it off.
Children who had been abandoned by their parents or lost them in accidents carried wounds too deep for words to describe.
That was why there were disciples who saw the sect’s acceptance not as mere praise, but as permission to exist here, as their only identity.
At this very moment, Ha Seo-hwa’s goal was to train hard and win the Plum Blossom Orchid Assembly, so she could become the pride of Jin Young-mae, the one who had taken her in.
That she did not slack off despite her obvious talent was a good thing.
That’s why I’ve let her be, but lately she’s been going too far.
Her grand-disciple was blaming herself for the loss and driving herself even harder.
Jin Young-mae did not like that.
On the other hand, it was also an opportunity.
Ha Seo-hwa had scarcely ever shown interest in anyone other than herself and her master, Hyeon So-eun.
She might not have realized it herself, but she was showing an unusually rare willingness to involve herself with others.
“……I’m sorry I fell short of your expectations.”
“What are you apologizing for? I was happy, actually.”
She had lost to a junior brother who had entered the sect yesterday, and she was happy?
Ha Seo-hwa looked at Jin Young-mae with eyes full of disbelief.
“Child. Training is good, but why not try spending time with the other disciples once in a while?”
Ha Seo-hwa stiffened as though she had heard something she wasn’t meant to hear.
“Spend time with them?”
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