Universe
Ivan Novikov, third disciple of the North Sea Ice Palace and the man who had been “kidnapped”(?) in Guizhou Province, and Ahbayar, a Noyan-born cavalryman of the Chagatai Khanate.
The two men shared neither blood nor history, yet here in the distant foreign land of the Central Plains—both now retainers of the same Sichuan Dang Family—they found ample chance to grow close.
Ahbayar was the elder, but Ivan’s martial prowess stood far higher, and so they addressed each other with careful respect while slipping into easy familiarity.
It went something like this.
“Brother Novikov, I don’t know much about Central Plains martial arts, so tell me— is that some special training method unique to these lands?”
Ahbayar jerked his chin toward the place where Eun Seol-ran and Dang Un-sang paced back and forth in frantic agitation, their speed so great that residual afterimages seemed about to bloom in the air.
Ivan snorted a quiet laugh.
“That? Well, it’s the day they meet their first grandchild. Of course they’re wound tight enough to pace like that.”
“Is that so? Then what about that?”
Ahbayar’s gaze shifted.
There stood Hwi-yeom, legs trembling so violently that his body vibrated hard enough to look like three or four overlapping figures.
“…Maybe that’s a kind of martial training too?”
“Brother Novikov, what nonsense is that.”
Ahbayar clicked his tongue at Ivan’s half-sighing joke.
“Come now—it’s only a birth. Why are these people making such a spectacle?”
“Why? It means the mother is that deeply loved. Warm and good, if you ask me.”
“Ah, is that it?”
“Look at the ones praying over there. Every last one of them is begging for a safe delivery as though it were their own wife or daughter-in-law on the birthing bed.”
The various hall chiefs of the Innovation Hall—Dang Su-jeong, Dang Un-hwa, Niccolo, Michelangelo (construction having fallen a full year behind schedule, he had returned to the Dang estate)—and a host of other responsible officers had gathered together in prayer. Beside them stood the full strength of Cheol-u-jeon, the Poison Hall, the Inner Hall, the Outer Hall, and every elder of the Elder Council, all chanting please, please, O gods of heaven and earth, we beseech thee.
Seeing the raw sincerity carved into their faces, Ahbayar nodded as though finally convinced.
“When you put it that way, it is rather moving.”
“Isn’t it?”
From a distance, Dang Su-jeong—who had not meant to eavesdrop—screamed silently inside her own skull.
Moved? Did you take an Ice-White Divine Palm to the chest and freeze solid, you idiot!!
She swallowed hard while watching the haggard, trembling members of the Dang Family. Looking back over the past several months of Hwi-yeom and Eun Seol-ran’s rampaging anxiety, today’s birth could reasonably be called a matter of the family’s very future.
If anything happens to Yun… one great demon will rise in the murim—no, two…
Not that Hwi-yeom would ever hold the family responsible and slaughter them. But if the man, crushed by grief, tried to bury that grief in work? If the already work-obsessed Hwi-yeom threw himself into labor to forget the loss of a child?
And if—heaven forbid the thought—not only the child but the mother herself were lost?
The Dang Family would be finished. Every last one of them would work themselves into the grave.
Better to clash once more with the Demonic Cult and die in glorious flames; no one could endure a future so bleak. And in this world it was common enough for either the child or the mother—or both—to perish in childbirth. Thus the family’s executives had no choice but to pray with such feverish devotion.
Almighty Buddha, protect the Dang Family with eternal light, Almighty Buddha, protect the Dang Family with eternal light, Almighty Buddha, protect the Dang Family with eternal light, Almighty Buddha, protect the Dang Family with eternal light, Almighty Buddha, protect the Dang Family with eternal light…
If it is not a safe birth, then kill me instead! Better a clean death than to wither and die of worry here!
Namo Great Compassionate Savior of Suffering, Vast and Responsive White-Robed Avalokitesvara… Namo Buddha, Namo Dharma, Namo Sangha, Namo Savior of Suffering White-Robed Avalokitesvara…
At that moment a voice drifted in as though it had always been standing right beside them—utterly without presence.
“Why… is… the mood… like this?”
Dang Su-jeong startled and spun. There stood Yu-baek, who had vanished from sight for some time, head tilted in mild confusion.
Flustered, she nevertheless bowed her head.
“Ah—Elder…”
“Long… time. I received word… that Yeom’s child would be born. Is it… now?”
“Yes, it is.”
The family executives watched Dang Su-jeong speak upward to this man so casually, and watched him accept it with equal calm, question marks blooming over their heads—yet this was hardly the moment for introductions.
Yu-baek swept the surroundings with a lazy glance, then fixed on Hwi-yeom, who had progressed past mere trembling into something closer to a human pile-driver trying to drill himself into the earth. He cocked his head once.
“…Why’s… that one… like that again?”
“…He’s anxious. The lives of the wife and child he loves hang in the balance.”
“I see. Hmm. Un-sang never… got like that.”
“W-well, even Oppa is no better this time.”
Yu-baek followed the direction of Dang Su-jeong’s finger and floated a fresh set of question marks above his own head.
“Nine-Palace Footwork…?”
Dang Un-sang was streaking in every direction at a speed that suggested a life-and-death duel.
“He’s just pacing because he’s nervous.”
“At a speed… that leaves afterimages?”
…
Dang Su-jeong shut her mouth.
Yu-baek ambled over to Dang Un-sang and gave his shoulder a light tap.
“Sang… long time?”
“Huh? Ah—y-yes, long time, Elder. When did you return?”
Ordinarily Dang Un-sang would have shown far more surprise and delight; right now his mind was so full of his daughter-in-law that only this dazed reply emerged.
“Just… now. You look… out of sorts.”
“Ah… a little. Our grandchild is about to be born…”
“Not about to.”
“Pardon?”
“Your grandchild… is already born.”
“?”
In an instant every eye and ear on the grounds locked onto Yu-baek.
He performed his characteristic left-right neck crack and continued.
“Right now… the foreign physician inside just caught the child. But… the baby isn’t crying?”
“N-no—!”
Thud!
Eun Seol-ran fainted clean away. Yu-baek’s body stretched like taffy to catch her, yet Dang Un-sang had already dropped to his knees as well. Shock, despair, and disbelief flooded every face present.
Hwi-yeom stared at the firmly shut door of the delivery chamber with a look of pure desperation.
Yun-mae…!
Paracelsus had never been so tense in his entire life.
At first every stage of the delivery had looked smooth. The breech presentation Hwi-yeom had fretted over so endlessly was not the case; there had been no need even to consider a caesarean. Sama Yun, being a martial artist, possessed stamina and strength far beyond an ordinary mother, and despite it being her first birth she pushed the child out with vigorous force.
The trouble began after the child was free.
Even after the infant was delivered and the cord cut, no birth cry came. Watching the baby grow cold and still without drawing breath, Sama Yun lost consciousness at once, and everyone around her plunged into panic.
I have to save it!
With only that thought, Paracelsus pressed his index finger to the infant’s chest. It was the neonatal resuscitation technique Hwi-yeom—fussing beyond all reason—had hammered into his mind against every protest.
Careful not to crush the fragile ribs or injure lungs and heart, he began compressions.
Please… please!
It was not merely fear of future consequences. Paracelsus had been excommunicated by the Pope and driven from Europe. To the Dang Family who had given him a second chance, and to Hwi-yeom who had placed trust in him, he could not bear to deliver such crushing despair.
So he performed the resuscitation as though wringing the last drop of life from his own body.
And then, at last—
“C-cough!”
The infant spat out whatever had blocked its airway and began to wail with lusty force.
“Waaah—! Waaah!— Waaah—! Waaah—!!”
The instant he heard that cry, every ounce of strength drained from Paracelsus. His legs refused to hold him. He sank backward onto the floor and let out a hollow, broken laugh.
“Ha… haha… hahahaha!”
At that moment Sama Yun, hearing her child’s voice, recovered her senses.
“Th-the baby…?”
A midwife wrapped the infant carefully to preserve its warmth and placed the bundle in Sama Yun’s arms.
“Congratulations, my lady. A girl—the very image of you…!”
It was no empty compliment. Newborns usually emerge swollen from amniotic fluid, their skulls molded strangely by the birth canal, looking more like little monkeys than humans. Yet the child Sama Yun had borne possessed clear, distinct features even while crying. She would grow into a beauty who would not yield an inch to her mother.
Sama Yun could not hold back the sudden flood of tears. The child who had come from her own body was simply too precious.
“My baby… mine and my husband’s child…”
Then the midwife stepped outside to announce the birth. A thunderous clatter rose at once, and Hwi-yeom, Dang Un-sang, and Eun Seol-ran came tumbling in as though they had rolled the entire way.
“Yun-mae!!!!”
Hwi-yeom’s hands shook so hard he could barely control them, yet he still scrubbed them—and then his face—with the distilled rum spirit prepared for disinfection before rushing to Sama Yun’s side. He gathered her into a fierce embrace.
“You worked so hard—thank you, thank you so much. I’m so glad you’re safe…!”
“Husband, I’m sorry… it isn’t a son…”
“Sorry? You gave me a beautiful daughter who looks just like you—what’s there to be sorry about!”
Dang Un-sang muttered under his breath.
“Still, producing an heir is important…”
“You stay quiet!”
“Guek?!”
The moment the patriarch dared a timid remark, Eun Seol-ran drove a finger into his side and sank him. The tip of that finger carried a sting worthy of the family’s internal heavy-hand techniques.
Tears streaming, Eun Seol-ran ran forward and swept Sama Yun into her arms.
“My girl! Oh, my daughter-in-law! You worked so hard—you really worked so hard!”
“Mother… I’m sorry…”
“Nonsense! As long as you’re unharmed, that’s all that matters. We can have another child! No—even if you never have a son, it’s fine! Your body being whole is what matters most!”
“Hic… Mother…”
In an age of primogeniture, bearing a son was everything—yet the very woman who should have reproached her most was shielding Sama Yun as if she were her own flesh and blood. The last of the young mother’s anxiety crumbled, and tears she had not meant to shed poured free.
Dang Un-sang, still grumbling as he picked himself up from the side-blow, caught sight of the swaddled infant and broke into a broad grin.
“Well now, you’ve arrived and everyone’s only looking at your mother! Come here to this grandfather of yours!”
He gathered the child with infinite care and examined every feature with open wonder.
“Ho-oh! Not empty praise at all—she is truly beautiful! She took only the loveliest parts of both of you. In another ten years the young men of the Central Plains will shed rivers of tears!”
“Let me see, let me—no, wait, husband, give her to Yeom, give her to Yeom! Her father hasn’t even seen her face yet!”
“A heartless father who only has eyes for his wife deserves nothing! There, there—look at that smile. You like this grandfather too, don’t you? Right? Guek?! You hit the same spot again?!”
“Hand her over to Yeom this instant before I hit the other side!”
There was no end to the playful scolding. In a room overflowing with tears and radiant laughter, Dang Un-sang grumbled as he passed the swaddle to Hwi-yeom.
The moment Hwi-yeom received the bundle and their eyes met, his breath simply stopped.
Looking into the laughing eyes of his child, the entire world seemed to freeze.
He knew, with pure instinct, that he had become a father—and that the rest of his life would be spent for this one small being.
A child so tiny and fragile.
A child so utterly precious and beloved.
The crystallization of his love with Sama Yun, a treasure he would not trade for the whole world.
Hwi-yeom swallowed back something molten and volcanic rising in his throat and whispered:
“…I’ll call you Universe.”
Universe—the whole of existence.
My treasure, worth more than the entire world.
“…!…!”
Little Universe lifted a tiny hand and reached toward Hwi-yeom, wriggling. As if spellbound he leaned his head down; the baby’s palm rested against his forehead, and she smiled.
Perhaps, in that single moment, Hwi-yeom—who for twenty-two years after his reincarnation in the Central Plains had still felt like an outsider—finally became a man of the Central Plains.