Terrifying Concentration
"What the hell are you doing?!"
My panicked shout echoed loudly through the room.
Even if the "no sitting together after age seven" rule for boys and girls hadn't been unlocked yet, was it okay to just yank on someone's clothes like that?
"Yohwan! I was just trying to grab this."
Sohee finally returned to her usual gaze, looking sheepish as she held out her hand. At the tip of her finger was something tiny.
"That grain from earlier...?"
It was the exact grain kernel Sohee had been supposed to pick out. The mystery of how a single grain from the table had ended up inside my clothes was solved by the wicked smile on the Bi Yeon Pavilion Master's face.
This wasn't some shell game—it was a vicious trick, tossing it my way and slipping it into my clothes. It was pure Tang Clan style, striking at the opponent's blind spot. The test had suddenly gone 3D! Of course, Sohee noticing the missing grain in the first place was impressive.
"Well done. You truly have talent."
The Bi Yeon Pavilion Master gave Sohee a kindly look she'd never once directed at me.
"Pardon? It was just picking out a single grain..."
The Pavilion Master cut off Sohee's modesty decisively and turned to me.
"Yohwan. You give it a try."
"Piece of cake. Leave it to me!"
I did exactly what Sohee had done. I nailed the first few steps easily enough. Compared to Sohee's clean movements, mine looked a bit precarious even to me.
"Ah!"
The grain slipped from my fingers. The instant-fail stage was using only one finger—specifically, the middle finger.
As I gathered up the grains, I asked the Bi Yeon Pavilion Master,
"...Can I take these and practice?"
"Do as you like."
Failure was the mother of success. Get better tomorrow than today, and that was that! I hurriedly scooped up the grains.
Truth be told, these could be a nice distraction from the boring days of just practicing the Tang Family Fist. With the clan's trend of blocking excessive preview study, they wouldn't ban playing around with grains, right?
Truth be told, precise hand control was essential for advancing the Tang Clan's tech tree. It felt like playing house in the kitchen, so I'd have to practice in my room.
Forget becoming the world's greatest—even surpassing my older brothers to become the Tang Family Head seemed like a pipe dream. Still, born into the Tang Clan, I wanted to at least try Full Sky Flower Rain.
While I daydreamed about my future self, the Bi Yeon Pavilion Master kept persuading Sohee.
"As you just saw, Sohee, your aptitude far surpasses that troublemaker's."
Hearing that didn't hurt Yohwan's feelings at all.
Sohee's S-rank talent succeeding didn't mean the talent I originally had vanished.
Self-conscious kids might get jealous and fume, but I was a mature future veteran (social service corps). I'd long since learned the rule: no time to envy or curse talent when you should be putting in the effort.
If anything, having Sohee as a goal to chase would make me work harder from now on. Sorry, but Fourth Brother was too boring a rival for me.
"Y-Yeah..."
Sohee didn't seem purely happy about it. Fair enough—even I, who practiced only the Tang Family Fist every day, wouldn't feel it deeply if some passing kitchen uncle suddenly hyped me up as having chef-king potential. Sohee, who never aspired to martial arts before, must have felt something similar.
"Wait, you're the same age as Yohwan and have never trained until now?"
"No, I haven't."
Unlike Sohee, who looked a bit burdened, the Bi Yeon Pavilion Master didn't hide her sticky interest. She perfectly demonstrated what Tang Clan obsession was all about.
"I see. If that's true, your talent has been wasted until now. Five years old—yes, five. That's not too late to start training."
I could clearly picture her telling me to take some snacks and scram. It was enough to make me grumpy even if I hadn't been before. Hey, discriminating against newbies as an old-timer?
"What do you say? If you're willing, how about learning martial arts from me?"
"Me, becoming a disciple of the Poison Insect? No way. I haven't even learned the Tang Family Fist."
The Tang Family Fist practitioner listening in quietly gasped. 'Tang Family Fist? That's no big deal!'
In my mind, the Tang Family Fist was the max grind you could do with a kid's body. Unlike fiction where even mouse clicks or smartphone touches trigger all sorts of heavenly opportunities from the system, this was reality.
It might seem like a useless, rigid tradition, but it was proven effective. Even the Five Great Families made their disciples from the medal-fist Tang Clan do it long-term because it helped.
"Fine, then become my foster daughter."
"Pardon?"
Sohee's pupils shook, but the Bi Yeon Pavilion Master left no room for refusal.
"No time like the present—I'll go see the Family Head and explain. No need to worry. The Tang Family Head is my nephew. You won't lose out anywhere in terms of status. The Murim Alliance Leader is practically my little brother, too."
Sohee, who had scolded me earlier about manners, was completely dumbfounded. She hesitantly asked, "C-Can I... just go back home now?"
"Huh? That's not your home anymore. Once you learn martial arts from me, you won't need to stay the daughter of the Gold Merchant Group, right?"
The Bi Yeon Pavilion Master was now spouting lines like a child abductor. "But my things..."
"No. No need for you to bother with that yourself. Just order it done. Hey! Three Guards!"
She summoned the patrolling Heartguard Unit to fetch her luggage. I clicked my tongue at the Pavilion Master casually committing such injustice as if it were routine.
'That one, that one, that one—treat other people's kids with a little more respect.'
There were plenty of paid servants around, so why boss around the Heartguard Unit? What kind of mindset was that?
"So, what do you usually play with? Oh, what should we have for dinner tonight? We'll eat whatever you like. Training isn't that hard."
Our eyes met then. Sohee's gaze was begging me to get her out of this awkward spot.
I ignored the SOS and slipped away quickly. The Bi Yeon Pavilion Master kept Sohee pinned down, regardless of whether I left or not.
No matter how violent her father was, getting torn away from home overnight like this... It might not be the best resolution, but it was the optimal one.
The Bi Yeon Pavilion Master—harsh personality, discriminates by skill, nasty old lady upon closer inspection. Still, for Sohee, living with her was better than a domestic abuser.
It forced her into training against her will, but self-actualization wasn't even a dream in this era, and wasting her clear talent would have been a shame in my eyes.
How the Bi Yeon Pavilion Master treated Sohee? I'd check in often from now on. Bi Yeon Pavilion was right next to my training ground, after all.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The tumultuous holiday passed, and the next day...
"Hiyah!"
Starting with forward rolls and falling techniques, my brother and I hammered out the Tang Family Fist until we were dead on our feet. After training, we lay sprawled out, chatting as usual.
"Yohwan, you were close with the Gold Merchant Group leader's daughter, right?"
"Sohee? Yeah, something like that."
Fourth Brother Dang Jihwan had wide connections—not kid-level big feet, but he was quick on the gossip.
His mother, Third Wife from merchant stock, was cheerfully mild despite getting pushed around by the entrenched First and Second Wives, boasting incredible likability. Like a kind fuku-lady taking care of even me, without a mom. Jihwan didn't inherit that charm and might be a wild-card merchant type, but unlike me, he had broader social circles.
Born with beggar or information broker vibes closer to the Beggars' Sect or Haomun than the Tang Clan, but he couldn't know Sohee as well as I did. I'd witnessed the Bi Yeon Pavilion Master snatching her up live on site.
"Why? It's good for her."
Well, I'd checked if Sohee's father approved, but the outcome was obvious. A mere Gold Merchant Group leader wouldn't defy an elder. Namu Amida Butsu.
Dang Jihwan yelled at my well-wishing hope that she'd get along with the Pavilion Master.
"Hey, what bullshit is that?!"
"Huh?"
I thought he'd be jealous hearing Sohee became the Bi Yeon Pavilion Master's foster daughter, but his serious, straight face showed it wasn't that.
"You didn't know, did you?"
"What happened?"
"The Gold Merchant Group leader was a Blood Cult lackey. Got arrested yesterday. You didn't hear?"
"What?"
"Heartguard Unit nabbed him right there in the street at dinner time. Where were you?"
I'd gone home early and holed up in my room practicing with the grains until my eyes hurt, so I hadn't come out. Now I could piece together what happened.
Impatient as ever, the Bi Yeon Pavilion Master had the Heartguard Unit pack the girl's stuff. Obeying the elder's orders silently, they found evidence linking the house to the Blood Cult while packing.
"What'd they find?"
"Dunno. I saw him getting dragged away on my way home from work."
Dang Jihwan had eyewitnessed the arrest but didn't know the evidence.
"Anyway, solid proof if they nabbed him, right?"
I agreed. The already overworked Heartguard Unit wouldn't fabricate trouble. No matter how bad the Pavilion Master wanted to raise Sohee, framing someone was too reckless.
"Hey, your little girlfriend's dad might be Blood Cult—what, you okay with that?"
Normally a punch-worthy line, but Dang Jihwan's words didn't even register. I was deep in thought about Sohee's father.
Unless falsely accused out of nowhere, that guy wasn't just a domestic abuser—he was a cultist domestic abuser. If he was Blood Cult, the abuse Sohee suffered might not have been ordinary. As a father, he couldn't be worse.
I kicked off the floor, standing with a clenched fist. "That bastard's completely insane!"