Entrance Examination
I crawled up the stairs with painstaking effort.
I wasn’t walking. The moment I tried to push myself upright, my balance would collapse again and again. My neck had long since gone stiff from the cold, so I couldn’t even turn my head as I pleased.
In this state, there was no way to climb Mount Hua except by crawling.
“Ah, now I suddenly find myself resenting my grandmaster...”
Mount Hua was notorious, even among the Five Great Mountains, for its brutal terrain. Every year, there were people who slipped and died in droves.
Though the Mount Hua Sect had spent a fortune paving the stairs leading to the mountain gate, on a snowy day those stairs were nothing more than a slippery cliff.
If you tried to walk in weather like this and slipped, you’d fall to your death on the spot.
Really, calling it a fall was generous. On a harsh day like this, climbing Mount Hua Sect was no different from dying in the natural course of things.
What happened when a man who had died in this world died again in the immortal realm?
While I was entertaining that useless thought and parting the snow, rough wind howled past—and then I heard footsteps cutting through it.
I rolled my eyes and looked toward the person who had approached my side.
Because my neck was stiff and I couldn’t lift my head, I could barely make out the plum blossoms embroidered on the sleeve, let alone the face itself.
“How did a child come all this way in the dead of winter?”
The immortal examined me with a voice full of concern.
But he hesitated to offer a helping hand.
Because I was in the middle of the entrance examination.
If he touched me, all the effort I’d spent climbing this far would be for nothing, so he seemed torn between the two choices.
I parted my stiff lips and forced out a faint voice.
“This is the only place I can go...”
“Then I’ll carry you up the mountain on my back. Why not take the entrance examination again once the weather improves?”
“No. If it isn’t now, I won’t be able to climb again. It has to be this way.”
At Mount Hua Sect, the disciples were always taught the importance of righteous conduct and told time and again that they must protect the common people.
And yet, in the end, I had still harmed them.
Since I had chosen suicide, not only the common folk who had come to capture me, but surely their families as well, must have been slaughtered by the Blood Sky Demon Sect.
My insides were an utter wreck. The murderous intent directed toward those who had tried to drag me away did not cool at all, not even in this wretched cold.
So I had no face to show the immortal.
Even as I was openly denying the teachings of Mount Hua Sect, my body was still moving toward Mount Hua.
I even found myself thinking that it was fortunate my throat had gone stiff from the cold.
The immortal climbed the stairs at the same pace as my sluggish movements, as if making sure he could react the instant I faltered.
The more he did, the slower my own movements became. Crawling along meant the snow piled up all over my back. I really did feel like a turtle.
The immortal seemed frustrated by the sight of me making no progress, only struggling helplessly in place.
Unable to wait any longer, he urged me again and again.
“We’re nearly at Mount Hua Sect. At this point, the sect leader will surely allow it, so why don’t you let me carry you now?”
I couldn’t answer his worried words.
My whole body had been swallowed by the cold, and no matter how hard I tried, my mouth wouldn’t open.
I slowly blinked.
The moment my heavy eyelids closed, the strength left my body and the world went dark.
At the same time, my consciousness vanished into some faraway place.
* * *
Yoo Yeon-woo, the second-generation disciple of Mount Hua Sect, immediately caught Yoo Sung-woon the instant his movements stopped.
The child had refused to stop moving on his own even after being warned more than once.
His pulse was beating, and his chest was still rising and falling with breath, but it was shallow.
Yoo Yeon-woo hurriedly hoisted Yoo Sung-woon onto his back and unleashed lightness skill.
In five steps, he crossed the remaining distance and met the eyes of the two junior brothers guarding the sect gate.
“Brother Yoo. Welcome.”
“You’ve all worked hard in this cold.”
One of the disciples who had greeted him looked at the child on Yoo Yeon-woo’s back and asked, “Who’s the kid you’re carrying?”
“A child I met on the way up Mount Hua. He was in the middle of the entrance examination. He lost consciousness with only about ninety feet left.”
“In this weather?”
The disciples stared in astonishment, then looked down the staircase.
The snow was coming down so hard they could barely see a step ahead.
When they turned back to Yoo Sung-woon, their eyes were as if they were looking at some rare spirit beast.
“What a stubborn one.”
“No kidding. What sort of circumstances made a child climb Mount Hua on a day like this?”
Yoo Yeon-woo shook his head.
“Circumstances don’t care about age. The boy isn’t well, so I should take him to the medicine hall master first.”
At that, the disciples hurriedly opened the gate. Even to their eyes, Yoo Sung-woon was in no condition to linger here.
As Yoo Yeon-woo entered the sect grounds, he muttered to the seven-year-old boy on his back, Yoo Sung-woon, “Congratulations on entering the sect, young disciple.”
* * *
When I came to, I was sitting beneath a plum tree by a lakeside.
So even a Taoist who drives out ghosts becomes a wandering spirit when he dies, do they say. In the end, it seemed I had failed the entrance examination and been sent away.
Facing death head-on brought regret flooding in. I regretted the time I’d wasted so meaninglessly, and the moments when I had made the wrong choices.
My life had been full of things to regret.
I had done many things by my own will, but the path I walked had been chosen by others.
I had lived such an empty life.
Because the road I walked had been futile, my very existence was just as futile.
In truth, there had been only one path I had ever chosen for myself.
A righteous hero.
I had entered Mount Hua because I wanted to become one.
Had I become the righteous hero I dreamed of? I wasn’t sure. Perhaps because I had lacked the proper training, even in death I couldn’t find release from my resentment.
The memory of being met with the blade’s point after trying to save others had become a demon of the heart, whispering at me.
It said that before I chose suicide, I should have killed them all on the spot.
What, exactly, had I thrown my life away fighting for?
If saving people only earned me their murderous intent in the end, who would ever reach out to someone in need?
At this rate, there was no sense of reward in saving those who had fallen into danger.
There was truly no reward in it at all.
“The reward of saving people...”
“There is one.”
“...”
“Why should saving people require a reason?”
Whose voice was it? Who had answered me? I had definitely heard it before, yet the memory was so faint I couldn’t bring it into focus.
By the sound of it, probably a man in his forties.
It was the kind of voice that made you feel strangely at ease just hearing it.
My vision was black. Moving my body felt difficult.
Strangely enough, only after the voice reached me did pain begin to register.
And yet that pain assured me I was alive.
I wondered what condition I was in now. Since I had leaped from Lakan Peak, I couldn’t exactly assume all my limbs were intact.
And yet why could I still feel my arms and legs so clearly?
Suddenly, a cold wet cloth was laid across my forehead.
“Ah...”
I let out a shallow sigh.
It was cold. As though it were calming the anger within me. As though it were soothing the fire that had been burning through my soul, I simply liked the damp cloth resting on my forehead, as if it were offering comfort.
“Rest.”
The owner of that gentle voice stood up, opened the door, and went out. I couldn’t see it, but I heard the sound clearly enough.
My eyelids were heavy, so I focused my attention on my ears.
What I could hear was the wind. Fierce, frigid wind rattling the window frame and beating against the door.
And within it, faintly, there was another sound—an artificial wind.
I had heard it enough to be sick of it while living at Mount Hua Sect. It was the sound made when a sword sliced through empty air.
“Ah, no.”
If a martial artist helped me, then the Blood Sky Demon Sect would surely come after us.
Without even bothering to open my eyes properly and look around, I dragged my heavy body across the floor and crawled to the door.
When I opened it, an entirely different world spread before me.
Everything was white.
Even though it was summer, snow was falling.
As if winter had returned in place of summer, cold flakes rode the wind and drifted onto my forehead, where they melted away.
And within the snow, plum blossoms bloomed.
A stranger, sword in hand, was making a single plum blossom bloom amid the whirling snowfall.
The plum blossoms of Mount Hua, which had seemed destined to be swallowed by the flames and never seen again.
Petals gradually filled the air that had been nothing but snow, and before long, they were in full bloom.
As if under a spell, I forced my hand to the ground and moved my body with great effort. My progress was agonizingly slow.
The swordsman who spotted me flinched in surprise, tossed aside the sword he had been swinging as though throwing it into the snow, and hurried over.
I couldn’t follow his flustered movements with my eyes.
“Child, don’t strain yourself just because you’re frustrated. You’ve been asleep for a full day.”
...Child?
“If you move around and waste your strength, the fever will only get worse.”
The man before me lifted me up as easily as if I were a little child.
Then he held me in his arms and personally carried me back into the bedding I had struggled to crawl out from.
Only then, when I saw his face, could I remember who he was.
“M-Master?”
“What did you just say? The wind is so loud...”
“No. It’s nothing.”
I quickly turned my head and avoided my master’s gaze.
Yoo Yeon-woo, the second-generation disciple of Mount Hua who had given me the name Yoo Sung-woon.
He had been my first master—the one who found me while I was climbing Mount Hua, nearly frozen to death after collapsing from exhaustion, and took me in, teaching me for a brief time.
If I remembered correctly, after I became the direct disciple of the sect leader, my master had died on a mission half a year later.
The man who had died was standing perfectly alive before my eyes.
Only then did I realize that something was terribly wrong.
Did I not get punished in the immortal realm, but return to the past?
Central Plains was vast, and there were countless lucky encounters in it, but I had never once heard of a stroke of fortune like this in either life.
Though, since I’d already died once, I couldn’t exactly complain about “in either life.”
Unaware of my complicated feelings, my master lifted the blanket up to my chin and said, “I don’t know why a child like you was taking the entrance examination in thin clothing in the dead of winter, but for now, your recovery comes first. Put aside your worries and rest well. No one here will harm you. I’ll bring you some rice porridge by evening, so sleep until then.”
“Yes... Thank you.”
“Think nothing of it. Mount Hua never abandons someone in trouble, no matter the circumstances.”
After placing the wet cloth back on my forehead, my master left the room to continue his training.
I stared blankly at the doorway where he had disappeared, and only after his presence had faded completely did I begin to assess my own condition.
The pain that used to sear through my body every day is gone.
Since I had returned to the past, that was only natural, but the lingering aftereffects that had plagued me after my dantian was shattered had vanished as if they had never existed.
I had no idea what sort of twist of fate had returned me to the past.
It didn’t feel like a dream, nor like the flash of a life passing before my eyes.
The throbbing headache still bothering me was proof enough.
Perhaps because I had been exposed to the cold for so long, my whole body stung like it had been burned.
The event was impossible, like a lie—but pain never lied.
So I’m seven years old now.
When the snow melts and new buds sprout, I’ll be eight. The perfect age to begin martial training.
The things I needed to do from here naturally unfolded in my mind.
Which martial arts to learn, what I had to do to prevent the coming wars in the future.
In truth, these were thoughts I had always been having.
Everyone regretted the things they could have done, the things they should have prepared for, and the ways things might never have reached this point.
This life... just a little freer than the last. According to my own will...
My eyelids are heavy.
Never before had I wanted to wake from sleep as badly as I did today.
If I closed my eyes, I was afraid the fortunate encounter that had come to me like a life-flashing-before-the-eyes moment before death would disappear.
When I woke again, I could only pray that I would not find myself in the underworld.
At last, my eyes closed.
And just before I sank into drowsiness, I recalled the Plum Blossom Sword Art my master had been practicing amid the falling snow.
My master... you really weren’t very good at martial arts.
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